I was in my third year of teaching creative writing at a high school in New York, when one of my students, 15-year-old Mikey, gave me a note from his mother. It explained his absence from class the day before. I had seen Mikey himself writing the note at his desk. Most parental-excuse notes I received were penned by my students. If I were to deal with them, I'd be busy 24 hours a day. The _ excuse notes made a large pile , with writing that ranged from imaginative to crazy. The writers of those notes didn't realize that honest excuse notes were usually dull: "Peter was late because the alarm clock didn't go off." Isn't it remarkable, I thought, how the students complained and said it was hard to put 200 words together on any subject? But when they produced excuse notes, they were brilliant. So one day I typed out a dozen excuse notes and gave them to my classes. I said, "They're supposed to be written by parents, but actually they are not. True, Mikey?" The students looked at me nervously. "Now, this will be the first class to study the art of the excuse note--the first class, ever, to practice writing them. You're so lucky to have a teacher like me who has taken your best writing and turned it into a subject worth studying." Everyone smiled as I went on, "You used your imaginations. So try more now. Today I'd like you to write 'An Excuse Note from Adam to God' or 'An Excuse Note from Eve to God'. " Heads went down. Pens raced across paper. For the first time ever I saw students so careful in their writing that they had to be asked to go to lunch by their friends. The next day everyone had excuse notes. Heated discussions followed. The headmaster entered the classroom and walked up and down, looking at papers, and then said, "I'd like you to see me in my office." When I stepped into his office, he came to shake my hand and said, "I just want to tell you that that lesson, that task, whatever the hell you were doing, was great. Those kids were writing on the college level. Thank you." What did the headmaster think of the author's way of teaching? A) Excellent. B) Difficult. C) Incorrect. D) Reasonable.
A
(Question)
The idea of sailing west to reach the riches of the East Indies and the Asian mainland was much in fashion with cultured Europeans during the late fifteenth century. Learned people agreed that the earth was round: their only questions were how long and how dangerous would be a trip to reach the Orient. Christopher Columbus, the son of an unknown weaver, and himself a weaver of ambitious dreams, made his historic voyage to the New World in 1492. He didn't go to school very much, but be learned to read and write Spanish during his travels. He also taught himself Latin because all the geography books were written in Latin. Sailing with a tiny fleet of three ships, the Santa Maria and two smaller ships, the Pinta and the Nina and a crew of ninety sailors, be found the thirty-three-day crossing easier than his nearly-decade-long effort to find royal sponsors willing to support it. The trip drew not only on his own skills as an expert ship's captain, but also on his ability to plan such an expedition, obtain governmental approval and financing, and finally, demonstrate its success so that such explorations could continue. He tried for years to get King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to supply him with ships and money. Finally they agreed, but he made more demands. He wanted to be made a knight, admiral of the Ocean Sea. He wanted to be the viceroy and governor general of all lands he would discover. Also he wanted one-tenth of everything he found of value in the new lands. The explorations that followed Columbus-those of Cabot, Verrazano, Cartier, and many others-benefited from a new maritime technology borrowed from Arab sailors and from a variety of new vessels (,) such as the light-weight caravels employed by Columbus. Sailors also perfected sails and various types of riggings that gave ships added stability and greater maneuverability on the open seas. And when leaving sight of the coast, new navigational aids-charts, compasses, and astrolabes-permitted them to determine their position with some, though not... We can learn from the passage that _ . A) Christopher Columbus was an ambitious explorer B) he was a geologist with ambitious dreams C) Columbus became extremely wealthy after making a total of four voyages D) he was an unsuccessful canvasser
(Answer)
A
Ques: Lifeguard, sportscaster, movie star, governor, president----there wasn't much Ronald Reagan didn't do in life. "The world was a vast opportunity for him," Lou Cannon wrote in his biography of the former US president, who died on June 5,2004, aged 93. Reagan's final years saw him fight a losing battle against Alzheimer's disease . But his positive attitude toward life has given hope to many people. Born in 1911 to a poor family in a small town in Illinois, his father was a failed salesman who drank too much. It was in these difficult times, though, that Reagan developed the powerful optimism that would serve him so well. He always believed better times lying ahead, and this was reflected in his high school yearbook entry. "Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music," he wrote. As a teenager, Reagan spent summers working as a lifeguard at a local beach, saving 77 lives in seven years. He graduated from college in 1932 with a degree in economics and sociology. But America was still in the middle of the Great Depression, and jobs were hard to find. Reagan finally found work as a radio sports announcer and this road led him to Hollywood in 1937. During the 20---year film career, he never became a leading star. As in his lifeguard days, Reagan loved to play the hero and only took the role of a bad guy once in more than 50 films. A talented speaker who was always able to connect with his audience, Reagan became involved in politics in the 1950s. This popular touch led to him being elected the governor of California in 1967. All the while Reagan was in California, he had his eye on the White House. In 1980, aged 69, he became the oldest man ever elected president. He held office from 1981 to 1989, the first president to serve two complete terms after World War II. When he left, aged 77, he held the highest popularity rate of any retiring president in US history. He remained positive even when he discovered he had an illness that would destroy him. "I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours... When the writer of Reagan's biography says "The world was a vast opportunity for him," he really means that _ . A) Reagan achieved much in his whole life B) Reagan could have done much better C) Reagan did much for America and the world D) Reagan was a very lucky man
Ans:
A