Q: Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: To the Editor, I have been reading your newspaper,the Hometown Gazette, for the past two years, ever since I moved to Smithville. We moved here from New York City, so I am accustomed to reading excellent newspapers such asThe New York Times . In fact, we still havethe Timesdelivered on Sundays. The entire family enjoys reading the recipes in the magazine, as well as the Styles section. The Times is great, butthe Gazetteis another story. I've never read an article that doesn't contain at least three or four spelling or grammatical errors. For instance, in last week's issue you misspelled the word "secretary", used a singular verb with a plural noun, and used "it's" as a possessive . And that was just in the lead story! In case you never went to elementary school, "it's" means "it is ".It's also a possessive adjective! It's a pity that this tiny little hick town has only one newspaper, because I'd like to have an alternative to the rag you publish. I find it hard to believe your news stories. If you can't spell correctly. How can you get your facts right? I've been meaning to get this off my chest for some time. Please cancel my subscription . And buy yourself a dictionary. Sincerely, Jane Z, Jones Question: The author's tone in this passage can best be described as _ - happy - angry - sympathetic - objective
A: angry

Q: Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: They may have text,email,Facebook and Twitter,but young people are still lonelier than any other age group.The Loneliness in New Zealand Report,published by Statistics New Zealand,shows under 30s are more likely to feel lonely than older people because loneliness decreases with age.Loneliness and poor mental health were strongly related across all ages.Young people were not as likely to feel lonely because of financial hardship,but among older people,lack of money was a significant influence on loneliness.Women were more likely to feel lonely than men. Philip Walker,spokesman for the General Social Survey,said because it was ly new it was hard to know whether loneliness among young people was a new trend.But overseas research has found that levels of loneliness in youth today are growing. Mr.Walker said the finding needed more exploration,including looking at the role of technology and social media."It could be that people's expectations of connection have gone up,so we expect increased levels of connection,"he said."While technology like cell phones could help young people stay connected,on the other hand for those who do get bullied ,especially bullied online,it's quite isolating.A lot of the time potentially it is a big contributor to loneliness." Figures from online dating website FindSomeone also confirmed more young people were looking for love.Manager Rick Davies,said younger dating hopefuls were the fastest growing group on the site. Mr.Davies noted that since the report data was collected in 2010there had been huge growth in smart phones,which meant people were online even more.He believed online tools,such as Skype,could help people stay connected."People can keep in touch with a wide range of friends from all over the world much more easily now.It's like you're sitting in your living room having a chat with them." Bemardine Reid,operations committee chairwoman for Samaritans,which operates a free helpline,said many of their calls came from people who were lonely."It might be that they've got some... Question: Which of the following may Mr.Walker agree with? - High technology may become a reason for loneliness. - People shouldn't use the Internet to get to know strangers. - It's hard for people to get enough connection online as expected. - Social media should play an important role in helping lonely people.
A: High technology may become a reason for loneliness.

Q: Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Five years ago, I was sent to a better middle school. For me, everything there was new and strange. After I had been there for two months, there was an important test in the middle of the term. It covered all my courses. In that test, I didn't get a good grade, but most of my classmates got an A. It made me upset for a long time. I felt everything in the world was changing. I thought my classmates were all better than me. During those days I was very unhappy. One day, my aunt, after talking with my teachers, talked to me. She told me to think about what I had done in the past and what I should do in the future. I was shocked by her words. I thought about what I had done during the past months, and I found I had done nothing to improve my grades. I thought I should work harder. After that, I paid more attention to the teachers' talking in the classes, and I asked my teachers or my classmates when I didn't understand something. I studied very late at night when I met with difficult problems. Most of all, I came to understand the importance of taking notes in class. As a result, I did better in some tests. About three months later, the most important test came at the end of the term. _ From then on, I have tried to do my best when I do something because I know if I want something, I should work hard for it. Question: What did the writer's aunt do to help him out? _ - She punished him for not working hard. - She helped him find out the reasons for his poor performance. - She forced him to work harder. - She asked his teachers to talk with him about his problems.
A: She helped him find out the reasons for his poor performance.

Q: Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: The speed of light is often called a"constant ". New experiments show that may not be true, even within a vacuum. Sometimes, light slows a bit. The new research is"very impressive work", Robert Boyd toldScienceNews.An optical physicist at the University of Rochester in New York, he did not work on the study. He speaks of the new finding:"It's the sort of thing that's so obvious; you wonder why you didn't think of it first." Light travels as particles and as waves. Photons are the name given to those particles that represent the smallest possible amount of light. At their fastest, photons travel nearly 300 million meters (almost 1 billion feet) in a single second. That's fast enough to get to the moon and back in about 2.6 seconds. Scientists had long known, though, that they could slow light photons down by shining them through a material such as glass or water. Still, light moving through a vacuum has usually been assumed to move at a peak speed. That would seem to make sense. After all, a vacuum is a space with nothing in it to slow light down. In a new study, however, scientists show that even racing through a vacuum, light can slow. So the speed of light is more of a universal speed limit than an rule for how fast photons travel, the new data suggest. Miles Padgett led the new study. As an optical physicist, he works at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. He and his colleagues showed that the key to slowing light is to change the shape of a light wave. Padgett described how they did this in a paper published online January 22 inScience. His team raced a pair of photons. One traveled unchanged through a cable made from optical fibers. The other passed through a pair of devices that acted like lenses. A lens changes light: It can focus a spread-out beam of light on a point, for instance. The second photon passed through one device that changed the shape of its waveand another that changed it back to its original form. The first photon won the race. The second photon came in a tiny bit later, several... Question: The passage mainly tells . - light travels slowest through a lens - light can be slowed down in a vacuum - why the shape of a light wave can be changed - what optical research looks like currently
A: light can be slowed down in a vacuum