Memory, they say, is a matter of practice and exercise. If you have the wish and really made a conscious effort, then you can quite easily improve your ability to remember things. But even if you are successful, there are times when your memory seems to play tricks on you. Sometimes you remember things that really did not happen. One morning last week, for example, I got up and found that I had left the front door unlocked all night, yet I clearly remember locking it carefully the night before. Memory "trick" work the other way as well. Once in a while you remember not doing something, and then find out that you did. One day last month, for example, I was sitting in a barber shop waiting for my turn to get a haircut, and suddenly I realized that I had got a haircut two days before at the barber shop across the street from my office. We always seem to find something funny and amusing in incidents caused by people's forgetfulness or absent-mindedness. Stories about absent-minded professors have been told for years, and we never got tired of hearing new ones. Unfortunately, however, absent-mindedness is not always funny. There are times when "trick" of our memory can cause us great trouble. In the passage, the writer seems to tell you . A) forgetting things is serious and dangerous B) always forgetting things is understandable C) forgetting things at times is natural D) the way to protect yourself from memory "tricks"
C
(Question)
People aren't walking any more---if they can figure out a way to avoid it.. I felt superior about this matter until the other day I took my car to mail a small parcel. The journey is a matter of 281 steps. But I used the car. And I wasn't in any hurry, either. I had merely become one more victim of a national sickness: motorosis. It is an illness to which I had thought myself immune, for I was bred in the tradition of going to places on my own two legs. At that time, we regarded 25 miles as good day's walk and the ability to cover such a distance in ten hours as sign of strength and skill. It did not occur to us that walking was a hardship. And the effect was lasting. When I was 45 years old I raced -and beat--a teenage football player the 168 steps up the Stature of Liberty. Such enterprises today are regarded by many middle-aged persons as bad for the heart. But a well-known British physician, Sir Adolphe Abrahams, pointed out recently that hearts and bodies need proper exercise. A person who avoids exercise is more likely to have illnesses than one who exercises regularly. And walking is an ideal form of exercise--- the most familiar and natural of all. It was Henry Thoreau who showed mankind the richness of going on foot. The man walking can learn the trees, flower, insects, birds and animals, the significance of seasons, the very feel of himself as a living creature in a living world. He cannot learn in a car. The car is a convenient means of transport, but we have made it our way of life. Many people don't dare to approach Nature any more; to them the world they were born to enjoy is all threat. To them security is _ r thundering on a concrete road. And much of their thinking takes place while waiting for the traffic light to turn green. I say that the green of forests is the mind's best light. And none but the man on foot can evaluate what is basic and everlasting. What was life like when the author was young? A) People usually went around on foot. B) people often walked 25 miles a day C) People used to climb the Statue of Liberty. D) people considered a ten-hour walk as a hardship.
(Answer)
A
Ques: Seventeen-year-old Randy Waldron, Jr., was shocked when he applied for his first credit card and was denied. He was even more shocked by the reason: He failed to repay thousands of dollars in debt. Waldron's identity had been stolen by his father, who left when Randy was learning to walk. From 1982 to 1999, Randy Waldron, Sr., used his son's Social Security number to obtain credit from various merchants and lenders, then racked up tens of thousands of dollars in debts. He declared bankruptcy in his son's name, which resulted in default judgments against the younger Waldron. It has taken Randy Jr., now a 24-year-old flight attendant, years to untangle the mess. Waldron isn't alone. Identity theft is this country's fastest-growing crime -- and, increasingly, ID thieves are targeting children. Their clean credit and absence of criminal histories make them ideal victims. Linda Foley, co-executive director of the Identity Theft Resource Center inprefix = st1 /San Diego, estimates that at least 400,000 children had their identities stolen in 2005, more than double the number in 2003. Waldron's case is typical: The resource center estimates that two-thirds of child ID thefts are committed by family members. Some dishonest persons use children's names and Social Security numbers to ring up massive debts; others use children's identities in place of their own when caught committing other crimes; still others sell identification information on the black market to illegal immigrants, fellow criminals or even terrorists. The theft brings its victims enormous financial and emotional trauma, in part because the identity abuse often goes undetected for years. Dealing with child identity theft after it happens is extremely difficult. Laws in many states are insufficient to handle the crime's complexity, and financial institutions are often less than helpful. Randy Waldron, Jr., has worked tirelessly for eight years to straighten out his credit record, and he continues to deal with the fallout. "It's been a very... Which of the following is the best title of the passage? A) Child Identity Theft B) How to Avoid Identity Theft C) Recover My Identity D) Look out for Family Members
Ans: A
Ques: I have this old clock that belonged to my mom. My dad gave it to me years ago after mom passed away. I have mixed feelings about having the clock. I love it because it was my mom's, but it also holds some bad memories. You see, it chimes. It counts out the hour and rings once on the half hour. Or at least it used to. Now you never know what number it will ring. When my mother was at home dying from cancer, she asked for the clock to be unplugged. Hearing the hours count down really angered and frightened her. Mom passed away. I decided I wanted to get the clock fixed so I could remember the good hours we had with her. I took it to a local clock shop the other day. "I know this has no particular value as a clock, but it was my mom's and I need to get it fixed," I said to the shop owner. I went on to describe the problem. "We get a lot of these in," he told me. "Here's what I do. We remove the clock works and replace it with a battery-operated movement that chimes electronically," he told me. "You can't fix this?" "No, we don't have the time nor the parts." I thanked him and went home. I called a few other places and was told the same thing. "How incredibly sad," I told the last one disappointedly. How incredibly sad that we have become a society that replaces craftsmanship with convenience and easy fixes. We copy the original instead of creating something new. We duplicate ; we don't originate . Sadly, the same goes for our attitude to life itself. Each of us is an original, one of a kind. But we find it so much easier to copy another style than to develop our own. We are wannabes rather than hey-world-look-at-mes. We fail to see the real value in who we are, so we spend our lives trying to be someone else. What did the clock shop owners tell the author? A) The parts that the clock needed were electronic. B) It would cost a lot to repair the clock. C) They had never repaired a clock like this before. D) They could only make the clock electronic.
Ans:
D