Q: Article: The 2012 London Olympics had enough problems to worry about. But one more has just been added - a communications blackout caused by solar storms. After a period of calm within the Sun, scientists have detected the signs of a flesh cycle of sunspots that could peak in 2012, just in time for the arrival of the Olympic torch in London. Now scientists believe that this peak could result in vast solar explosions that could throw billions of tons of charged matter towards the Earth, causing strong solar storms that could jam the telecommunications satellites and interact links sending five Olympic broadcast from London. "The Sun's activity has a strong influence on the Earth. The Olympics could be in the middle of the next solar maximum which could affect the functions of communications satellites," said Professor Richard Harrison, head of space physics at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire. At the peak of the cycle, violent outbursts called coronalmass ejections occur in the Sun's atmosphere, throwing out great quantities of electrically-charged matter. " A coronal mass ejection can carry a billion tons of solar material into space at over a million kilometres per hour. Such events can expose astronauts to a deadly amount, can disable satellites, cause power failures on Earth and disturb communications," Professor Harrison added. The risk is greatest during a solar maximum when there is the greatest number of sunspots. Next week in America, NASA is scheduled to launch a satellite for monitoring solar activity called the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which will take images of the Sun that are 10 times clearer than the most advanced televisions available. The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory helped to make the high-tech cameras that will capture images of the solar flares and explosions as they occur. Professor Richard Hold away, the lab's director, said that the SDO should be able to provide early warning of a solar flare or explosion big enough to affect satellite communications on Earth "If... Question: What can be inferred about the solar activity described in the passage? Yes or no, is the answer "The number of sunspots declines after coronal mass ejections."?
A: No

Q: Article: Walt Disney As one of the most famous film production companies in the history of the business,Walt Disney now holds 15.3 percent of the US and Canadian market share. With highly successful movies like Pirates of the Caribbean,National Treasure,Meet the Robinsons and Enchanted,there's no doubt that Disney will continue to play a key role in the industry for years to come. Paramount Pictures With 15.5 percent of the US and Canadian market share,Paramount Pictures continues to be one of the most successful film production companies in the world. Star Trek,War of the Worlds,Mission:Impossible,Transformers and Tropic Thunder are just a few of the popular films produced by Paramount Pictures. 20th Century Fox Also known as "Twentieth Century Fox",this highly successful movie production company makes up 11.9 percent of the US and Canadian market share. Some of the biggest and most successful movies from this empire include the X-Men series,Mr and Mrs Smith and Fantastic Four. Warner Bros. Pictures Including about 19.7 percent of the US and Canadian market share,Warner Bros. Pictures is the biggest player in the film industry. Owning the rights to major films like Harry Potter,Superman,Batman,The Matrix and Star Wars has made Warner Bros. Pictures the No.1 name in the business. Universal Studios 12.2 percent of the US and Canadian market share belongs to Universal Studios,which continues to make millions for the film industry. With major _ like the Bourne series,the American Pie series,Knocked Up,American Gangster and The Incredible Hulk,it's very clear that Universal Studios knows what it takes to make money in this industry. Columbia Pictures Making up 12.9 percent of the US and Canadian market share,Columbia Pictures remains a big player in the business. Some of this company's recent successes include Casino Royale,The Da Vinci Code,the Spider Man series and Step Brothers. Question: Which of the following movie production companies is the most successful in the US and Canadian markets? Yes or no, is the answer "Paramount Pictures."?
A: Yes

Q: Article: Chilean miner Edison Pena plans to run the New York City Marathon on Sunday, less than a month after he was rescued from a collapsed mine that trapped him for 69 days. Pena ran 10 km daily through the mine's tunnels to beat the anxiety, wearing cut-down boots until rescuers sent him a pair of sports shoes through a narrow hole that served as the miners' "lifeline" to the surface. "When I ran in the darkness, I was running for life," Pena told a news conference in New York. "I was running to show that I wasn't just waiting around. I also wanted God to see that I really wanted to live." The New York Road Runners, which organizes the marathon, had invited Pena to be a guest at Sunday's race, but he said last week he did not want to watch, he wanted to run. "I was very eager to take on this big challenge," he said. "I wanted to show the world I could run." He hoped to run the 26.2-mile race in about six hours. "I have a knee injury, but I am eager to cross the finish line," he said. Last year, Meb Keflezighi won the men's marathon in two hours, nine minutes and 15 seconds. An Elvis Presley fan who asked rescuers to send the singer's music down into the mine, Pena broke into song at the news conference with the Presley hit Return to Sender. The miners werediscovered alive on August 22--17 days after the mine collapsed, but it took two months for rescuers to dig a hole big enough to bring them out. Question: Pena can be best described as _ . Yes or no, is the answer "strong-willed"?
A: No

Q: Article: In her new book, "The Smartest Kids in the World," Amanda Ripley, an investigative journalist, tells the story of Tom, a high-school student from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, who decides to spend his senior year in Warsaw, Poland. Poland is a surprising educational success story: in the past decade, the country raised students' test scores from significantly below average to well above it. Polish kids have now outscored(......) American kids in math and science, even though Poland spends, on average, less than half as much per student as the United States does. One of the most striking differences between the high school Tom attended in Gettysburg and the one he ends up at in Warsaw is that the latter has no football team, or, for that matter, teams of any kind. That American high schools lavish more time and money on sports than on math is an old complaint. This is not a matter of how any given student who plays sports does in school, but of the culture and its priorities. This December, when the latest Program for International Student Assessment(PISA) results are announced, it's safe to predict that American high-school students will once again display their limited skills in math and reading, outscored not just by students in Poland but also by students in places like South Korea, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Singapore, and Japan. Meanwhile, they will have played some very exciting football games, which will have been breathlessly written up in their hometown papers. Why does this situation continue? Well, for one thing, kids like it. And for another, according to Ripley, parents seem to like the arrangement, too. She describes a tour she took of a school in Washington D.C., which costs thirty thousand dollars a year. The tour leader--a mother with three children in the school--was asked about the school's flaws . When she said that the math program was weak, none of the parents taking the tour reacted. When she said that the football program was weak, the parents suddenly became concerned. "Really?"... Question: The purpose of this article is to _ . Yes or no, is the answer "draw public attention to a weakness in American school tradition"?
A: Yes