Article: TV is an excellent resource for hearing and listening to English. The pictures help you understand what is being said and TV news is an ideal way to help improve your listening ability because within a short period of time the same news is often repeated. This means that you can watch basically the same news program several times within a day and that every _ program will help you to understand what is being said. These preparatory steps are very important before your listening: * Find out which news report you want to listen to, when and on what channel. CCTV 9 is a good choice because this is China's English channel and has regular news reports. * Just watch the news reports for a few days first, before requiring yourself to understand the stories. Give yourself time to get familiar with the newsreaders and their accents. You should also get an idea of the structure of the entire report as well as the structure of a typical news story. * Watch the news in Chinese first. This will tell you what the main news items are and help prepare you for understanding news reports in English. While listening, you should pay attention to a few things that you may try to do: * You can aim at just getting what a story is about. Give a one-to -tow-sentence description after each story. * Put forward a few questions to yourself about a story, and then seek to answer them from your listening. You can do this by stopping the tape as soon as the headline is read to you. * Your may write a full transcript of a story to practice intensive listening. This may bring to notice listening problems that have skipped your attention when you only concentrate on the content. Even though the listening part is over, some follow-up activities will help you reinforce your learning. You may talk about the news with one or more friends. This provides an opportunity to produce a summary or express your thoughts in a brief article. Question: Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage? Yes or no, is the answer "Listening practice after the proposal."?
No

Article: An "apple polisher" is one who gives gifts to win friendship or special treatment. It is not exactly a bribe ,but is close to it. All sorts of people are apple polishers, including politicians and people in high offices -- just about everybody. Oliver Cromwell, the great English leader, offered many gifts to win the support of George Fox and his party, but failed. There are other phrases meaning the same thing as "apple-polishing" -- "soft-soaping" or "butter-up". A gift is just one way to "soft-soap" somebody, or to "butter him up". Another that is just as effective is flattery, giving someone high praise -- telling him how good he looks, or how well he speaks, or how talented and wise he is. Endless are the ways of flattery. Who does not love or hear it ? Only an unusual man can resist the thrill of being told how wonderful he is. In truth, flattery is good medicine for most of us, who gets so little of it. We need it to be more sure of ourselves. It cannot hurt unless we get carried away by it. But we just lap it up for its food value and nourishment, as a cat laps up milk, then we can still remain true to ourselves. Sometimes, however, flattery will get you nothing from one who has had too much of it. A good example is the famous 12th century legend of King Canute of Denmark and England. The king got tired of listening to the endless sickening flattery of his courtiers .They overpraised him to the skies, as a man of limitless power. He decided to teach them a lesson. He took them to the seashore and sat down. Then he ordered the waves to stop coming in. The tide was too busy to listen to him. The king was satisfied. This might show his followers how weak his power was and how empty their flattery. Question: King Canute of Denmark and England took his followers to the seashore because _ . Yes or no, is the answer "he disliked being overpraised any more"?
Yes

Q: Article: Several years ago, the mayor of Chicago, Illinois, visited Germany, a leader in green roof design. Later he decided to have vegetation planted on Chicago City Hall. Today, the tops of many other buildings also look like parks. In Canada, the Coast Plaza Hotel in Vancouver has a forest on its roof. New York City has an unusual example farm for hydroponics. The farm is on a boat called the Science Barge. Rainwater and river water are used to grow lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. The farm shows the possibilities for designing rooftop systems. Green roofs are designed to save energy and capture rainwater. Rooftops covered with plants help keep buildings cool. They can extend the life of a roof. And they can reduce water running off into streets and storming water systems. Experts say green roofs usually do not get much above 27degC. So temperatures might not be a problem for growing. But rooftop gardeners have to be careful not to put too much weight on the roof. This is true whether plants are grown in soil or water. Earlier in 2008, researchers in Texas reported that green roofs can reduce a building's air conditioning costs by about onefifth compared to blacktop roofs. But they also reported that not all green roofs perform equally well. They found that designs differ in their ability to keep buildings cool and to capture rainwater. The researchers put experimental roofs on top of metal insulated boxes, to recreate green roof conditions. The study compared products from six companies to help businesses understand how to improve their designs. Each rooftop had sixteen different kinds of plants native to Texas. The researchers say the presence of native plants likely helped all the green roofs capture water better compared to sedums. Sedums are plants that need little water and often are used on green roofs. The native plants could take in more water and release more of it to the atmosphere. Question: According to the passage, which conclusion is WRONG? Yes or no, is the answer "Sedums are a kind of plants native to Texas."?
A: Yes

Article: One sixth of undergraduates in Beijing this year have registered at a driving school . The students , mostly from majors such as business management or international trade , will finish there driving courses within 20 days or so .Training costs have dropped to ,2,600yuan for students , according to the Haidian Driving School in Beijing . The price is not really low , but students will accept it , seeing it as an investment in their future . Familiarity with the operation of computers and fluent English are the basic skills graduating students need to find a job . But a driver's permit has become another factor. "In the job market , owning a driver's permit sometimes strengthens a graduating student's competitiveness for a good position ," says Zhou Yang , an undergraduate at the China University of Political Science and Law . Cars will become a necessary part of many people's lives in the coming years , and it's difficult to get a permit out of campus because of the pressures on working people's time . "Having a full-time job after graduation offers limited time to learn to drive . We senior students have plenty of spare time , plenty of opportunities to learn." Xu Jian , an official at the driving school, said undergraduates were very able and serious , and could grasp in an hour what it took ordinary people four hours to learn . In this driving school, middle-aged people , young women and college students are the main customers . To get a driver's permit , a beginner is now required to have at least 86 hours' practice before the final road test . Question: The undergraduates are learning to drive because_. Yes or no, is the answer "they need this skill to find a good job ."?
Yes