Question:
Read the text and answer the questions.
The United States Census of 1850 was the seventh census of the United States. Conducted by the Census Office on June 1, 1850, it determined the resident population of the United States to be 23,191,876an increase of 35.9 percent over the 17,069,453 persons enumerated during the 1840 Census. The total population included 3,204,313 slaves.

This was the first census where there was an attempt to collect information about every member of every household, including women, children, and slaves. Prior to 1850, census records had recorded only the name of the head of the household and broad statistical accounting of other household members (three children under age five, one woman between the age of 35 and 40, etc.). It was also the first census to ask about place of birth.

Hinton Rowan Helper made extensive use of the 1850 census results in his politically notorious book "The Impending Crisis of the South" (1857).

The 1850 census, Schedule 1, Free Inhabitants, collected the following information:

Full documentation for the 1850 population census, including census forms and enumerator instructions, is available from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series.

The 1850 United States Census collected a great amount of data that gave insight into the state of the U.S. economy in 1850. Some of the data revealed the growth of the economy with regards to agricultural and manufactured production, international trade, federal debt, taxation, transportation, education, and land expansion.
1. Who wrote a book about the 1850 census?
2. What was the title?
3. When was it published?
4. Was it controversial?
5. If I were looking today for the 1850 census forms, could I find them?
6. What about enumerator instructions?
7. Where would I find these things?
8. Did the census that year show anything in regards to the economy?
9. Was the economy in a recession then?
10. How many censuses were there before this one?
11. Who organizes these?
12. And what date did they perform this one?
13. Did the population increase in the ten years prior?
14. By what percentage?
15. And by approximately how many millions of people?
16. True or false: Slaves were counted in the population figures.
17. Besides population growth, what is another reason this census showed an increase in people?
18. In 1840, would they collect the names of wives?
19. What about the head of household?
20. What else was this census the first to collect information on?

Numbered answers:
1. Hinton Rowan Helper
2. "The Impending Crisis of the South"
3. 1857
4. unknown
5. yes
6. yes
7. the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series.
8. yes
9. no
10. Six
11. the Census Office
12. June 1, 1850
13. yes
14. 35.9 percent
15. 6 million
16. true
17. unknown
18. no
19. yes
20. place of birth

Question:
Read the text and answer the questions.
Presents For Children's Day Charles M. Schulz was born in 1922 in Minneapolis, the only child of a housewife and a barber. His interest in comics was encouraged by his father, who loved the funny pages. Charles M. Schulz sold seventeen cartoons to the Saturday Evening Post from 1948 to 1950 and Li'l Folks to the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Peanuts debuted on October 2, 1950, and ran without interruption for the next fifty years. Charles M. Schulz died in 2000. *IT'S A DOG'S LIFE SNOOPY It's a Dog's Life, Snoopy brings all your familiar friends together for great times and fun. *IT'S A BIG WORLD CHARLIE BROWN Charlie Brown faces some of life's little challenges with the help of Snoopy, Lucy, Peppermint Patty, Linus, and the rest of the gang in It's a Big World, Charlie Brown. *PEANUTS 2000 The last one is the special edition Peanuts 2000, which includes all the last year's Peanuts comic strip and Charles M. Schulz's famous farewell strip. Come and visit our website at www.ballantinebooks.com or come to Ballantine Bookshop, you'll have a big surprise.
1. Who was the comic artist?
2. Where was he born?
3. When?
4. What did his dad do?
5. Did he like his art?
6. Who did he sell his art to?
7. How many?
8. During which time period>
9. Did he sell to anyone else?
10. What did they buy?
11. When did his main comic start?

Numbered answers:
1. Charles M. Schulz
2. In Minneapolis.
3. In 1922.
4. He was a barber.
5. He encouraged him.
6. The Saturday Evening Post
7. Seventeen.
8. From 1948 to 1950
9. The St. Paul Pioneer Press.
10. Li'l Folks
11. On October 2, 1950

Question:
Read the text and answer the questions.
Yu Pengnian is an 88-year-old real estate Chinese businessman. He amassed a fortune of $1.3 billion dollars during his career but instead of keeping the money and living like an emperor, he decided to give it all away. All of his fortune will be spent on helping poor Chinese students get a better education.

And Yu isn't the only super-rich person in China who has this spirit of giving. Chen Guangbiao, a Jiangsu recycling tycoon, has given millions of dollars to charity and promises to give all of his money to charity when he dies.

Yu and Chen are among the many businessmen who have become prosperous during China's economic rise. An American business magazine, Forbes, estimates that there are 117 billionaires in China and hundreds of thousands of millionaires. What sets Yu and Chen apart from the rest, though, is their tremendous generosity(,) when it comes to donating money to charity.

Last week Bill Gates and Warren Buffett came to Beijing. Gates and Buffett, two of the world's richest men, are also the world's biggest philanthropists. They invited fifty of China's richest people to have dinner with them and talk about the spirit of giving. At first, only a few people accepted their invitation. It seemed some of the invited guests were afraid that Buffett and Gates were going to pressure them into giving their wealth to charity.

A lot of people are angry at the billionaires who are not willing to give away their fortunes. They _ hem for being miserly and not caring about the poor and the less fortunate. But I think this criticism is wrong. A gift, any gift, should come from the heart. Instead of criticism, these reluctant billionaires should be encouraged to follow the examples of Yu Pengnian and Chen Guangbiao. Encouragement is always a better strategy than criticism. As we say in English, "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."
1. Who came to Beijing last week?
2. How many billionaires are there in China?
3. Gates and Buffett invited fifty to do what?
Numbered answers:
1. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett
2. 117
3. to have dinner with them and talk about the spirit of giving.