*Question*
I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: Down on the beach of Dover,56-year-old Channel swimmer Jackie Cobell bravely set off for Calais.The time was 6:40 am.28 hours and 44 minutes later the exhausted,successful mother from Kent crawled to the shore and walked proudly into the record books.After five years in training,Mrs.Cobell became the slowest person to cross the Channel under her own steam.The previous record for the slowest crossing,set by Henry Sullivan at 26 hours and 50 minutes,has stood for 87 years before Mrs.Cobell started at Dover Saturday morning. She had struggled through changing tides that swept her first one way,then the other.It turned the 21-mile crossing into a 65-mile one.She declared,"Time and tide wait for no man--and they certainly didn't wait for me.I was fully expecting it to get dark before I got to Calais but I never imagined I'd also see the dawn again.But I wasn't going to give up." Her feat raised more than $2,000 in charity sponsorship for research into Huntingdon's disease,a sum that was continuing to grow as news of her achievement spread.That was why she did it."I don't really know myself," she said."I just kept thinking of all the people I'd be letting down if I stopped." Mrs.Cobell took to the water so well at school.But after bringing up two daughters,she started to gain weight.Five years ago she took up swimming again and decided to prepare for the Channel challenge to lose weight.She became much fitter.Then came the big swim."I practiced on Windermere Lake," she said."it's about half the distance of the Channel so I just doubled it,added some extra time,and worked out I could probably get to Calais in about 16 hours." Her husband David,trainer,official observer and friend sailed alongside her on a boat.She said,"I sang to keep myself going.When they told me I was a record breaker I thought they were just having a joke--until I realized it was the record for the slowest crossing.But maybe next time I might be a bit quicker." Question: Why did Mrs.Cobell spend so much time crossing the Channel? Options: A: Because the tides changed her direction. B: Because she was not in good condition. C: Because she wasn't good at swimming. D: Because the winds kept her from swimming fast.
**Answer**
A

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I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: Our first winter in Canada was the happiest we have experienced. We were living in the countryside then and had just arrived from Hong Kong that autumn. One evening in mid December snow began to fall. When we looked out of the window and saw that it was snowing, we all cheered. It was the first snow we had ever seen and we were excited. We could hardly wait for the snow to stop so that we could go out to play. Next morning when we woke up, it was still snowing. We switched on the radio and learned that more than ten inches of snow had falled during the night and that since the roads were blocked there would be no school that day. We jumped up and down for joy and begged mother to let us go outside to play in the snow. She said we could go out after breakfast if we dressed ourselves warmly and promised to come back as soon as we felt cold. When we went out, the snow had almost stopped. The roads , paths, gardens, and playing grounds were all hidden under a white blanket of soft snow. It was the most beautiful sight we had ever seen. Just then, we saw some neighbour's children coming out to play. We ran over to join them. Together we built a snowman and a snow house. After that, we took turns sliding down a hill on a large piece of cardboard. We were having so much fun when supper time came. Mother almost had to force us to go in and eat. Question: The children didn't have to go to school because _ . Options: A: their teachers were sure that children liked snow B: they wanted to play on the snow field C: heavy snow blocked the roads D: their mother allowed them to play truant
**Answer**
C

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I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: German academics believe they have solved the centuries-old mystery of the "Mona Lisa" in Leonardo ad Vinci's famous portrait . Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Francesco del Giocondo, has long been seen as the most likely model for the sixteenth-century painting. Art historians have wondered whether the smiling woman may actually have been da Vinci's lover or mother, or the artist himself. Now experts at the prefix = st1 /HeidelbergUniversitylibrary say old notes made in a book by its owner in October, 1503, confirm that Lisa del Giocondo was indeed the model for the famous portrait in the world. "All doubts about the identity of the Mona Lisa have been removed by a discovery by Dr. Armin Schlechter," the library said in a statement on Monday. "Until then, only 'scant evidence' from sixteenth-century documents had been available. These had left lots of room for doubt, and many different identities were put forward." The comments compare Leonardo to the ancient Greek artist Apelles, and say he was working on three paintings at that time, one of which was a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. Art experts say the Heidelbergdiscovery is a break-through, and the earliest mention linking the merchant's wife to the portrait. Before this discovery the earliest link dated from around 1550, and was made by Italian official Giorgio Vasari, the library said, adding that there had been doubts about Vasari's reliability. The Heidelbergnotes were actually discovered over two year's ago in the library by Schlechter, a spokeswoman said. Although the findings were published in the library's catalogue, they were not widely publicized, and received little attention until a German broadcaster decided to do some recording there, she said. Question: It was diffcult to identify the model for the "Mona Lisa" before, because_. Options: A: the smile in the picture was too mysterious B: the picture was not clear enough C: many people in that time looked like her. D: there was not enough evidence.
**Answer**
D