*Question*
The United States is faced with serious traffic problems. Too many cars travel on the freeways to and from the city. This heavy traffic causes delays and lots of pollution from cars that are using their engines but not moving anywhere. Many cars going nowhere is called a "traffic jam." While many cities in the United States have traffic problems, some of the worst are in Los Angeles, California. Los Angeles is a big city with a large downtown area. One of the reasons why there is so much traffic is that few people use public transportation to get around Experts say one possible solution to the traffic problem in Los Angeles would be to make people want to use the public transportation system of buses instead of their own cars. People say the buses should be made easier, faster, less costly and more dependable than driving a car. One suggestion is to reduce the cost of riding the bus. People who usually drive their cars could save a lot of money on gas and parking costs. Also, Los Angeles could make the buses easier for people to use. The buses could travel to more places in the city. And there could be more special lanes on the freeways that only buses could drive in. These changes would make taking the bus faster and easier than driving a car. Other experts have said that the best way to ease traffic problems is to charge people money to drive on the freeways. These charges, or tolls, would be for the most crowded roads. The tolls would be in effect during the times of day when most people drive to work and home again. These times in the morning and late afternoon are called "rush hour". People would try to avoid driving on these roads, which would decrease the amount of traffic. Also ,the money collected from these tolls could be used to improve the roads and public transportation system. The passage mainly discusses _ . A) different means of transportation of the United States B) possible solutions to solving American traffic problems C) causes of the serious traffic problems in America D) some new laws about American public transportation
**Answer**
B

*Question*
Albert Einstein (1879--1955) was one of the greatest and most original scientific thinkers of all time. Born of Jewish parents at Ulm in Germany,he completed his education in Switzerland and got his Ph. D at the University of Zurich. He went to live in the United States in 1933 because of the rise of Nazism in Germany and Hitler's persecution of the Jews. In 1905, while still at Zurich, he published his Special Theory of Relativity, which was based on things everyone may have noticed. If two trains are standing alongside each other and one train starts to move, a person sitting in the train may wonder whether his own train is moving or the other is moving, and before he finds out what is happening, he can see that one train is moving ly to the other. From this and also from other more complicated facts, Einstein came to the conclusion that all motion is and that there are really no such things as motion. Some of the other conclusions he drew are that nothing can go faster than light, and that if something such as a ruler was moving faster and faster it would seem to get shorter and shorter as its speed was near the speed of light. By 1915, Einstein had made his General Theory of Relativity known. He also improved on Newton's theory of gravity. Most of his theories have been tested and found to be true though some may sound strange. For his important work he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics. Einstein added that if something such as a ruler was moving, it would seem to get shorter and shorter _ . A) when it was moving faster and faster B) because the ruler itself was short C) because we can't see it clearly D) because the ruler was broken into pieces
**Answer**
A

*Question*
Gwendolyn Brooks wrote hundreds of poems during her lifetime. She was known around the world for using poetry to increase understanding of black culture in America. During the 1940's and the 1950's, Gwendolyn Brooks used her poems to describe conditions among the poor,racial inequality and drug use in the black community. She also wrote poems about the struggles of black women. But her skill was more than her ability to write about struggling black people. She combined traditional European poetry styles with the African American experience. Gwendolyn Brooks once said that she wrote about what she saw and heard in the street. She said she found most of her materials through looking out of the window of her second-floor apartment in Chicago, Illinois. In her early poetry, Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about the South Side of Chicago, where many black people live. In her poems, the South Side is called Bronzeville. It was "A Street in Bronzeville" that gained the attention of literary experts in 1945. Critics praised her poetic skills and her powerful descriptions about the black experience during the time. The Bronzeville poems were her first published collection. In 1950, Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. She won the prize for her second book of poems called "Annie Allen". "Annie Allen" is a collection of poetry about a Bronzeville girl as a daughter, a wife and a mother. She experiences loneliness, loss, death andpoverty . Gwendolyn Brooks said that winning the prize changed her life. Her next work was a novel written in 1953 called "Maud Martha". "Maud Martha" attracted little attention when it was first published. But now it is considered an important work by some critics. Its main ideas about the difficult lives of many women are popular among female writers today. How did Gwendolyn Brooks get ideas for most of her poems? A) By observing life. B) By having talks. C) By reading widely. D) By traveling.
**Answer**
A

*Question*
The American local food movement has been all about buying seasonal food from nearby farmers. Now, thanks to the Web, it is expanding to include far-away farmers too. A new start-up, Foodzie, is an online farmers market where small food producers and growers can sell their products. Foodzie was started by Mr LaFave and two of his friends, who met during college at Virginia Tech, where they would pay frequent visits to farmers markets. Last year, while living in North Carolina, one of them, Emily Olson, now 24, came up with one idea. She was working as a brand manager for a _ grocery chain and realized that people who enjoyed fine food but didn't work in the business had no way to discover handmade foods outside their local farmers markets. Small farmers had no way of finding or selling to faraway customers, either. Mr LaFAve and the third co-founder, Nik Bauman, both 25, worked in corporate sales and software development. "With business, food and computer science backgrounds, we figured we had everything we needed." Mr LaFAve said. The three quit their jobs, and opened this site to the public in December and the site has had 43,000 visitors in the past month. So far, 29 sellers have opened shops and 41 are in the process of opening them. The founders recently hired a fourth employee to help Ms Olson recruit new food producers at farmers markets and food shows. Mr LaFAve is convinced that the recession will not reduce people's interest in buying locally grown and handmade food. "There is misunderstanding that all these foods are more expensive than mass-produced alternatives," he said. "People are pouring their heart and soul into these products, and they are of the highest quality." The passage is mainly about _ . A) how an online farmers' market works B) the American local food movement C) three youths starting an online farmers' market D) the reasons why people are interested in local food
**Answer**
C