Ques: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: The discovery that language can be a barrier to communication is quickly made by all who travel, study, govern or sell. Whether the activity is tourism, research, government, policing or business, the lack of a common language can severely delay progress or can stop it altogether. Although communication problems of this kind must happen thousands of times each day, very few become public knowledge. Publicity comes only when a failure to communicate has major results, such as strikes, lost orders, legal problems or deadly accidents--even, at times, war. One reported example of communication failure took place in 1970, when several Americans ate a species of poisonous mushroom. No remedy was known, and two of the people died within days. A radio report of the case was heard by a chemist who knew of a treatment that had been successfully used in 1959 and published in 1963. Why had the American doctors not heard of it seven years later? Possibly because the report of the treatment had been published only in journals written in European languages other than English. Several comparable cases have been reported. But isolated examples do not give an impression of the size of the problem--something that can come only from studies of the use or avoidance of foreign-language materials and contacts in different communicative situations. In the English-speaking scientific world, for example, surveys of books and documents consulted in libraries and other information agencies have shown that very little foreign-language material is ever consulted. Library requests in the field of science and technology showed that only 13 percent were for foreign language journals. The language barrier presents itself entirely to firms who wish to market their products in other countries. British industry, in particular, has in recent decades often been criticized for its assumption that foreign buyers will be happy to communicate in English, and that awareness of other languages is not therefore a matter to be considered first. In... Question: Which of the following ways has been used by the British companies to solve the problem of language barrier since the 1960s? Options: A: Employing foreign workers. B: Setting up their own translation services. C: Providing English training for foreign customers. D: Stopping exporting goods to foreign countries.
Ans: B

Ques: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: It's hard to find Alice Munro in the media. Even after she won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Canadian writer just appeared for a quick interview and then dropped out of sight. On Dec 29, she still didn't seek the spotlight when she was named one of the five Women of the Year by the Financial Times. In Munro's eyes, ordinary lives always hide larger dramas. So she records what we casually think of as the everyday actions of normal people. She often focuses on life in her hometown, a small village in Ontario which she is most familiar with. She writes about the ordinary things in the village-fox forming, trees filled in the Ontario wilderness, poor country alcohol and long last illnesses. Above all, she talks about girls and women who have seemingly ordinary lives but struggle against daily misfortune. She has a special talent for uncovering the extraordinary in the ordinary. These are ordinary people, ordinary stories, but she has the magic. Her precise language, depth of detail and the logic of her storytelling have made her stories inviting. Runaway, one of Munro's representative works, is a good example of her writing style. One of the stories centers on the life of an ordinary woman Carla, who lives in a small Canadian town with her husband Clark. The story slowly forms a picture of Carla, trapped in a bad marriage, her unhappiness building into desperation until she decided to flee. The story of Carla is a story of the power and betrayals of love. It is about lost children and lots of chances that we can all find in life, There is pain beneath the surface, like a needle in the heart. Since she published her first collection of short stories in 1968, Munro has won many awards, with the Nobel Prize being her biggest honor. On Oct 10, 2013, the Nobel Prize committee named Munro the "master of the contemporary short story". Question: In her representative work Runaway, Carla _ Options: A: leads a happy life with Clark B: is a faithful wife to her husband C: loses all hopes for a better life D: tries to run away from her husband
Ans: D

Ques: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Brazil has become one of the developing world's great successes at reducing population growth, but more by accident than design. While countries such as India have made joint efforts to reduce birth rates, Brazil has had better result without really trying, says George Martine at Harvard. Brazil's population growth rate has dropped from 2.99% a year between 1951 and 1960 to 1.93% a year between 1981 and 1990, and Brazilian women now have only 2.7 children on average. Martine says this figure may have fallen still further since 1990, an achievement that makes it the envy of many other Third World countries. Martine puts it down to, among other things, soap operas and installment plans introduced in the 1970s. Both played an important, although indirect, role in lowering the birth rate. Brazil is one of the world's biggest producers of soap operas. Globo, Brazil's most popular television network, shows three hours of soaps six nights a week, while three others show at least one hour a night. Most soaps are based on wealthy characters living the high life in big cities. "Although they have never really tried to work in a message towards the problems of reproduction, they describe middle and upper class values-not many children, different attitudes towards life, women working," says Martine. "They sent this image to all parts of Brazil and made people aware of other patterns of behavior and other values, which were put into a very attractive package." Question: What can you infer from the passage about many Third World countries ? Options: A: They haven't attached much importance to birth control. B: They would soon join Brazil in controlling their birth rate. C: They haven't yet found an effective measure to control their population. D: They neglected the role of TV plays in family planning
Ans: C

Ques: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Many thousands of Chinese are studying at schools in the United States. And writer Liel Leibovitz says the students are following an example that began in the eighteen seventies. Mr. Leibovitz and writer Matthew Miller joined forces to tell the story of the students in their book, "Fortunate Sons." The book says China sent one hundred twenty boys from 1872 to 1875 to America to learn about developments that could help modernize their country. Mr. Leibovitz got the idea for the book about the boys a few years ago when he was traveling with his wife in China. Mr. Leibovitz learned that Qing government sent a whole delegation of boys to learn the ways of the West. The goal was for them to return to China and help their country. The book says the boys received their American training in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. It must have been a very good education. Mr. Leibovitz says the first prime minister of the Chinese Republic completed this program. And so did the first engineer to build a large-scale railroad without foreign help. The same was true of the fathers of Chinese education, diplomacy and the Navy. The book-writers had only to open some boxes containing the writings of these men to learn about them. Their notebooks, journals, letters and postcards were in English. Mr. Leibovitz said he was lucky to have so much information from events that took place long ago. The students returned to China after about nine years. They no longer spoke Mandarin well enough to answer questions. Police welcomed them home by putting them in jail. The young men were released after about a week. But they were given low-level jobs. Mr Leibovitz says it took about ten years for them to rise to higher positions. He said their story continues today with large numbers of Chinese studying in the United States. Question: Which of the following is Not true according to the passage? Options: A: Many thousands of Chinese are studying at schools in America. B: Some of the boys received their American training in California. C: Police welcomed the boys home by putting them in jail. D: One of the boys became the father of Chinese education.
Ans:
B