Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: In Europe, many people make friends between their countries through town twinning. Town or city twinning means two towns in different countries agree and decide to become "twins" with a sister-city relationship. The people find pen friends in the twin town. They exchange newspapers and stamps. The school teachers discuss teaching methods with the teachers in the twin town. Officials visit the twin town for celebrations. Ordinary people travel to the twin town, too, but not very often if it is far away. Sometimes, schools even exchange their classes for two or three weeks! For example, German middle school students study for a while at the school in their twin town in Britain, staying with British families. A few months later, their British friends come to study in Germany. Many British towns are so pleased with the results of the twinning that they set out to find more than one twin town! Tonbridge, a small town in Kent, for example, has twin towns in both Germany and France. Richmond near London has relationships with Germany, France and even a town in a Balkan country! Town twinning can help make friends. It helps students improve their language skill, and also helps people to understand the differences between nations. Question: One of the advantages of town twinning is to _ . - earn more money - set up schools - improve students' language skills - develop industry and agriculture
improve students' language skills

Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: The common cold is the world's most widespread illness, which is a serious infection that man receives. The most widespread mistake of all is that colds are caused by cold. They are not. They are caused by viruses passing on from person to person. You catch a cold by touching directly or indirectly, with someone who already has one. If cold causes colds, it would be reasonable to expect the Eskimos to suffer from them forever. But they do not. And in separate Arctic areas, explorers have reported being free from colds until touching again with infected people from the outside world by way of packages and mail dropped from airplanes. During the First World War, soldiers who spent long periods in the trenches, cold and wet, seldom caught colds. In the Second World War, prisoners at Auschwitz concentration camp, bare and starved, were astonished to find that they seldom had colds. At the Common Cold Research Unit in England, volunteers took part in experiments in which they gave themselves to the discomforts of being cold and wet for a long time. After taking hot baths, they put on bathing suits, allowed themselves to be with cold water, and then stood about dripping wet in a room. Some wore wet socks all day while others exercised in the rain until close to exhaustion. Not one of the volunteers came down with a cold unless a cold virus was actually dropped in his nose. If then, cold and wet have nothing to do with catching colds, why are they more frequent in winter? Despite the most hard research, no one has yet found out the answer. One explanation offered by scientists is that people tend to stay together indoors more in cold weather than at other times, and that makes it easier for cold viruses to be passed on. No one has yet found a cure for the cold. There are drugs and pain-killers such as aspirin, but all that they do is to reduce the symptoms. Question: The writer thinks the cause of catching cold is due to _ . - touching anyone directly - touching anyone indirectly - cold weather - getting viruses from person to person
getting viruses from person to person

Q: Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: I was fortunate enough to discover my love for flying when I was very young. Lucky that some things went my way: my eyesight, for example, was good enough to allow me to become a fighter pilot. And lucky that when I left the army, I found work as an airline pilot, when such jobs weren't plentiful. I still feel lucky, after all these years, to be able to follow my passion. The airline industry has its problems, and a lot of them can be troubling, but I still find purpose and satisfaction in flying. There's some freedom you feel when you're flying above the surface of the earth, no longer limited by gravity. Even at a thousand feet, you get a wider perspective. Problems that seem large down below feel smaller from that height, and smaller still by the time you reach thirty-five thousand feet. I love that flying is an intellectual challenge. If you change the angle of the nose by even one degree while traveling at a typical commercial airliner speed of seven miles a minute, it's enough to increase or decrease your rate of climb or descent by seven hundred feet per minute. I enjoy keeping track of all the calculations, staying aware of the weather conditions, working with a team while knowing closely what the plane can and cannot do. I like the challenge of that. I also like sharing my passion for flying. It's a disappointment to me that a lot of kids today aren't fascinated by flight. I've watched countless children walk past the plane without paying much attention; they're too focused on their video games or their iPods. When there are children who eagerly want a look inside "my office" at the front of the plane, it's so rewarding to see their excitement about something I care deeply about. If we aren't busy during boarding, the first officer and I enjoy inviting curious children to sit in our seats in the cockpit , ask questions, and let their parents take photos of them wearing a captain's hat. Being a pilot has a tangible end result that is beneficial to society. It feels good to take a planeload of 183... Question: What makes the author feel lucky is that _ . - he was able to find a job as a pilot - his job is satisfying and totally free of trouble - he began flying even when he was very young - his physical condition enables him to be a spaceman
A: he was able to find a job as a pilot

*Question*
Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Charles Dickens (1812-1870), the great nineteenth century English novelist, was born near Portsmouth. His father ran heavily into debt and when he was twelve, he had to go and work in a factory for making boot polish. The only formal education he received was a two-year schooling at a school for poor children. In fact, he had to teach himself all he knew. He worked for a time as junior clerk in a lawyer's office. After that, he worked as a reporter in the law courts, and later in parliament, for London newspapers. His career as a writer of fiction began in 1833 with short stories and essays in periodicals, and in 1837 his comic novel The Pickwick Papers made him the most popular author at his time in England. He was a great observer of people and their places because he was attracted by life and conditions in mid-nineteenth century London. He wrote 19 novels all his life and in many of them, Dickens gave a realistic picture of all classes of England society, showing deep sympathy for the poor and unfortunate, exposing the injustice and inhumanity of the bourgeoisie . Many of his novels like Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and so on drew attention to the unsatisfactory social conditions that existed in England over a hundred years ago. Dickens criticized capitalist society from the point of view of bourgeois humanism. He wished to see improvement in the living conditions of the poor, but failed to find any effective means to achieve that end. Question: According to the passage, which of the following about Dickens is true? - He didn't go to school at all. - He only wrote about poor people and showed deep sympathy for them. - He began to write fictions when he was 21 years old. - He found some effective ways to improve the living conditions of the poor.
**Answer**
He began to write fictions when he was 21 years old.