*Question*
Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: The United States economy has dipped into economic recession . This caused discomfort and hardship in every level of society; but for many of the nation's poor, discomfort and hardship turned into misery . An increase in homelessness is probably the worst result of a nation's financial disaster. About 3 million Americans were homeless because of a lack of affordable housing. Experts suggest that a family should spend no more than 30 percent of its income on housing. In fact, in some families housing costs make up 50 percent or more. An unexpected event, such as losing work or illness, can quickly push a family into homelessness. An article in Time magazine tells a story of one such family. A young couple and their three children rented a two-bedroom apartment for about $350 a month. They could hardly go on with the husband's $920-a-month take-home pay; so when their rent was raised to $500 a month, they could no longer make ends meet. Another woman was found dead on a street in Washington D.C., the capital, and she died at a bus-stop across the street from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. People become homeless for different reasons. Some may not be able to pay for housing, because they have lost their job and cannot find another place they can afford. Others have mental diseases, or are addicted to drugs or alcohol, many of whom do not live with their family. And what's more, there are not enough centers for shelter as the government doesn't pay enough attention to this social problem. People are making efforts to solve the problem. However, it will not be easy, because it is a personal and economical problem as well as a social problem. Question: How many reasons why people become homeless are listed in the passage? - 2. - 3. - 4. - 5.
**Answer**
3.

*Question*
Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: The people who built Stonehenge in Southern England thousands of years ago had wild parties, eating barbecued pigs and breaking pottery. This is according to recent work by archaeologists--history experts who investigate how human beings lived in the past. Archaeologists digging near Stonehenge last year discovered the remains of a large prehistoric village where they think the builders of the mysterious stone circle used to live. The village is about 4,600 years old, the same age as Stonehenge and as old as the Pyramids in Egypt. It is less than two miles from the famous ancient landmark and lies inside a massive man-made circular dirt wall, or "henge", known as the Durrington Walls. Remains found at the site included jewellry, stone arrowheads, tools made of deer antlers, wooden spears and huge amounts of animal bones and broken pottery. "These finds suggest Stone Age people went to the village at special times of the year to feast and party", says Mike Parker-Pearson from Sheffield University in England. He said many of the pig bones they found had been thrown away half-eaten. He also said the partygoers appeared to have shot some of the farm pigs with arrows, possibly as a kind of sport before barbecuing them. An ancient road which led from the village to the River Avon was also found. Here, the experts think, people came after their parties to throw dead s in the water so the bodies would be washed downstream to Stonehenge. Parker-Pearson believes Stonehenge was like a cemetery where ancient Britons buried the dead and remembered their ancestors. The theory is that Stonehenge is a kind of spirit home to the ancestors. The recent discovery of the village within the Durrington Walls shows that Stonehenge didn't stand alone but was part of a much bigger religious site, according to Parker-Pearson.People still come to worship and celebrate at Stonehenge today. They meet there when the sun sets on the shortest day of winter and when it rises on the longest day of summer. But the days of barbecuing whole pigs... Question: What was Stonehenge according to the text? - A village where hundreds of people once lived. - A place that regularly hosted large parties. - A church where local villagers would get married. - A site where dead people were placed or remembered.
**Answer**
A site where dead people were placed or remembered.

*Question*
Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Time Zones Strange things happen to time when you travel. Because the earth is divided into twenty-four zones one hour apart .You can have days with more or fewer than twenty-four hours, and weeks more or fewer than seven days. If you make a five-day trip across the Atlantic Ocean ,your ship enters a different time zone every day. As you enter each zone, the time changes one hour. Travelling west ,you set your clock back; traveling east , you set it ahead. Each day of your trip has either twenty-five or twenty-three hours. If you travel by ship across the Pacific , you cross the international date line. By agreement, this is the point where a new day begins, when you cross the line, you change your calendar one full time day, backward or forward. Travelling east, today becomes yesterday; traveling west, it is tomorrow. Question: Strange things happen to time when you travel because _ . - no day really has 24 hours - the earth is divided into time zones - time zones are not all the same size - no one knows where time zones are
**Answer**
the earth is divided into time zones

*Question*
Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: MOST recently, my world has been shaken by the death of a teacher at my school. He was Dr Allan Woolley and he was only 52. Suddenly he took his own life, which remains a mystery. That morning, everyone sensed that something wasn't right. During our lessons, an announcement was made that an assembly was scheduled for morning break, which was only done in emergencies. Once morning break came, the entire school gathered in the main hall. As our headmaster marched out to announce the "momentous news", it felt like the air around us trembled . Many students broke down in tears, and the reaction afterward was intensely powerful and unifying . The headmaster said that students were allowed to miss lessons and have a free period to _ themselves if they found the news too distressing . Many students went outside and shared memories of Dr Woolley to control theirselves. Dr Woolley taught me chemistry two years ago, but up until his death he still taught many of my close friends. Many of my friends were so shocked that they still couldn't believe the person that they had owed some homework to was now dead. It was heart-warming to spend time with teachers that morning and get to know more about them. _ Question: Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage? - The real cause of Dr Woolley's death is known to us. - Many students didn't prepare themselves for the bad news so that they felt very sad. - It takes the whole school some time to recover from the dispressing news. - Dr Woolley's death allows students to understand teachers better.
**Answer**
The real cause of Dr Woolley's death is known to us.