Ques: I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: In promising to fuse media as diverse as television, telephone communication, video games, music and data transmission, the era of digital convergence goes better than yesterday's celebrated "information superhighway." Yet achieving this single technology is far from straightforward. There are currently three major television broadcast standards, and they are all incompatible with each other. But this is nothing compared to the many technologies supporting the Internet, each with a different bandwidth and physical media. The problems faced in designing platforms and communication systems that will be accepted across the world can appear insuperable. Even once global standards are assured, however, a further obstacle lies in wait. The Internet is plagued by long, erratic (,) response times because it is a pull-technology, driven by patterns of user demands. Push-technology, on the other hand, reverses the relationship: servers simply send information to passive users, as in television and radio. But if some form of combination between one-way television flow and interactive Internet is to be the basis of our future media, it is hard to see how it could be operated. Moreover, the problem of fusing Internet with television is also one of defining the services offered. Information, entertainment and relaxation appear at first to be quite different needs. Serious doubts remain over whether consumers will be interested in having to make the sort of mental effort associated with computing while also settling down in front of a sitcom . Besides the issue of consumer habits, infrastructurecosts are set to be immense, and will have to be met by national states or the private sector before being passed on to users. Platforms do not necessarily have to be expensive. The mobile phone is a good example of how something that is technologically sophisticated can almost be given away, with its cost recovered through service charges. Users are then coercedthrough clever marketing to upgrade to newer phones with more... Question: Why is it difficult to combine television and the Internet? Options: A: Because there are no global standards for the combination. B: Because the two are operated on different principles of services. C: Because television is uninteractive, while the Internet is interactive. D: Because the combination overlooks the consumers' different needs.
Ans: B

Ques: I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: The film Avatar has been a hit at the box office in the UK and around the world, becoming the fastest film ever to earn $1bn (7bn yuan) in ticket sales. But the world of the sci-fi epic Avatar is so perfect that people have admitted being troubled by depression and suicidal thoughts at not being able to visit the planet. Set in the future when Earth's resources have run out, director James Cameron's film tells the story of a corporation trying to mine a rare mineral. The humans conflict with the natives-- a peace-loving race of 7ft tall, blue-skinned creatures called the Na'vi, who exist in perfect harmony with nature. Fans have flooded the internet with their confused feelings. On the site Avatar Forums , the topic "Ways to cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible " has more than 1,000 posts. In a similar forum, one user wrote, "When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed grey. It just seems so meaningless." "I still don't really see any reason to keep doing things at all. I live in a dying world." On another site, one fan was even more affected, admitting, "I even consider suicide, thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora." On the Avatar site Naviblue, a fan calling himself Jorba has even asked others to join him in starting a real Na'vi tribe . Dr Stephan Quentzel, psychiatrist and Medical Director in New York told CNN, "Virtual life is not real life and it never will be, but this is the pinnacle of what we can build in a virtual presentation so far." "It has taken the best of our technology to create this virtual world and real life will never be as utopian as it seems on screen. It makes real life seem more imperfect." But not everyone viewing the film has been hit by the "Avatar Blues", as a small but vocal group have claimed it contains racist themes-- the white hero once again saving the primitive natives. Since the film opened three weeks ago, hundreds of blog posts, newspaper articles... Question: The best title of the passage is _ . Options: A: Avatar-- A Perfect Film B: Avatar-- A Reflection of Real Life C: Avatar's Setting Causing Real Life Imperfect D: Avatar's Perfection Causing Depression
Ans: D

Ques: I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: One day a few years ago a very funny thing happened to a neighbor of mine. He is a teacher at one of London's big medical schools, He had finished his teaching for the summer term and was at the airport on his way to Russia to give a lecture. He had put a few clothes and his lecture notes in his shoulder bag, but he had put Rupert, the skeleton to be used in his lecture, in a large brown suitcase . At the airport desk, he suddenly thought that he had forgotten to buy a newspaper. He left his suitcase near the desk and went over to the shop. When he got back he discovered that someone had taken his suitcase by mistake. He often wonders what they said when they got home and found Rupert. Question: What happened at the airport? Options: A: The skeleton went missing . B: The skeleton was stolen . C: The teacher forgot his suitcase. D: The teacher took the wrong suitcase .
Ans: A

Ques: I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: US universities are among the best in the world. Since World War II, American scientists --- mostly working in universties or colleges --- have won more than half of all Nobel Prizes in physics and medicine. Foreign students rush to the United States by the tens of thousands. Last year they earned more than one quarter of the doctoral degrees awarded in the country. Yet while American universities produce the great research and great graduate program, they sometimes pay little attention to the task that lies at their very core: the teaching of undergraduate students. With the increase in fees, educators feel obliged to improve undergraduate teaching. In speeches and interviews the nation's higher educators have rediscovered teaching. Robert Rosenzweig, president of the Association of American Universities, said, "Our organization was never very concerned about teaching. In the last 18 months, we have spent more time on undergraduate education than on any other subject." Despite such promising efforts, no one doubts that research still outranks teaching at some of the leading universities, not least because it is a surer and faster way to earn status. Some people don't think it has to be that way. They argue that the reward system for college faculty can be changed, so that professors will be encouraged to devote more time and effort to teaching. They say that they are beginning to believe that the first ten years of the 21st century may come to be remembered as the decade of the undergraduate. That would bring it full circle. For more than two centuries after the founding of Harvard College in 1636, the instruction of undergraduate students was an essential condition of American higher education. Question: It is implied in the passage that about 200 years ago undergraduate instruction _ . Options: A: began to change all of a sudden B: was already threatened by research work C: was the central part of higher education D: began to be neglected in most universities
Ans:
C