When I asked my daughter which item she would keep: the phone, the car, the cooker, the computer, the TV, or her boyfriend, she said "the phone". Personally, I could do without the phone entirely, which makes me unusual because the telephone is changing our lives more than any other piece of technology. Point 1: The telephone creates the need to Communicate, in the same way that more roads create more traffic. My daughter comes home from school at 4: 00 p. m. and then spends an hour on the phone talking to the very people she has been at school with all day. If the phone did not exist, would she have anything to talk about? Point 2: The mobile phone means that we are never alone. "The mobile saved my life," says Crystal Johnstone. She had an accident in her Volvo on the A45 between Otley and Skipton. Trapped inside, she managed to make the call that brought the ambulance to her rescue. Point 3: The mobile phone removes our secret. It allows marketing manager of Haba Deutsch, Carl Nicolaisen, to ring his sales staff all round the world at any time of day to ask where they are, where they are going, and how their last meeting went. Point 4: The telephone separates us. Antonella Bramante in Rome says, "We worked in separate offices but l could see him through the window. It was easy to get his number. We were so near--but we didn't meet for the first two weeks!" Point 5: The telephone allows us to reach out beyond our own lives. Today we can talk to several complete strangers simultaneously on chat lines (at least my daughter does. I wouldn't know; what to talk about). We can talk across the world. We can even talk to astronauts (if you know any) while they're space-walking. And, with the phone line hooked up to the computer, we can access(, ) the Internet, the biggest library on Earth. The best title for the passage is _ . A) The Influence of Phones B) Kinds of Phones C) How to Use Phones D) Advantage of Phones
A
(Question)
Traveling in Viet Nam was like visiting a mysterious neighbor. You have lived next door to each other for years but knew very little about what happened on the other side of the fence. I traveled there last August. A simple 180-kilometre trip from a Chinese border town to Hanoi, capital of Viet Nam, took an adventurous eight hours. That's because the country still doesn't have a modern expressway system. The major passage going through the peninsula is only a two-way road. Also, many areas are mountainous. Vietnamese drivers are impatient and fearless. They compete with each other at full speed no matter how scared the passengers feel. When the bus shook us violently many times, the driver made a joke to make us feel better. "See, this is just a gift Vietnamese people give you, a free passage service." It was midnight when I reached the hotel. Turning on the television, I was surprised by something : All the characters in the TV dramas spoke in the same voice. At present, modern Korean dramas and historical Chinese dramas are popular with the Vietnamese. But it seemed they didn't have enough money to dub all these programmes. So, the same boring woman would appear behind every drama to speak for the roles. The next morning when I opened the window, I found myself in a huge "garden". The buildings in the streets were dressed in all kinds of colors you can imagine. Vietnamese residents are allowed to paint their houses as they like. Each one is different and the colors bring the city alive. Which of the following can be used to describe the buildings in Hanoi? A) Very common. B) retraditional. C) Very colorful. D) Rather dull.
(Answer)
C
Ques: F. Scott Fitzgerald, born on September 24, 1896, an American novelist, was once a student of St. Paul Academy, the Newman School and attended Princeton University for a short while. In 1917 he joined the army and was posted in Alabama, where he met his future wife Zelda Sayre. Then he had to make some money to impress her. His life with her was full of great happiness, as he wrote in his diary: "My own happiness in the past often approached such joy that I could not share it even with the person dearest to me but had to walk it away in quiet streets and take down parts of it in my diary." This Side of Paradise, his first novel, was published in 1920. Encouraged by its success, Fitzgerald began to devote more time to his writing. Then he continued with the novel The Beautiful and Damned (1922), a collection of short storiesTales of the Jazz Age(1922), and a play The Vegetable (1923). But his greatest success wasThe Great Gatsby, published in 1925, which quickly brought him praise from the literary world. Yet it failed to give him the needed financial security. Then, in 1926, he published another collection of short storiesAll the Sad Young Men. However, Fitzgerald's problems with his wife Zelda affected his writing. During the 1920s he tried to reorder his life, but failed. By 1930, his wife had her first mental breakdown and went to a Swiss clinic. During this period he completed novel Tender Is the Nightin 1934.While his wife was in hospital in the United States, he got totally addicted to alcohol. Fitzgerald died in 1940, before he could complete the novel The Love of the Last Tycoon. From the passage we can learn that _ . A) The Beautiful and Damnedwas Fitzgerald's first novel B) the work The Great Gatsbybrought Fitzgerald great fame and fortune C) Fitzgerald managed to recorder his life during the 1920s D) Fitzgerald's wife broke down more than once
Ans: D
Question: Believe it or not, there is always something nice to do on weekends. If you take some time to think about your weekends and plan them carefully, they may become more exciting, refreshing and as a result more rewarding. Throughout weekends, you can join in endless activities. You may attend a weekend course to increase your knowledge, for example, listen to a lecture on ancient Egypt. You may also try various activities, such as short countryside trip, or you may want to go skiing on a cold winter weekend. You may invite your best friend to a picnic, tell each other jokes and enjoy each other's company or you may invite more friends to your weekend party and have one another give a talent show. You can help out in a local library or nursing home and do some voluntary jobs. You can go to a sports ground or amusement centre to play various ball games and others. You may do weekend shopping alone or with somebody. Whatever you do, I hope you have a good weekend. According to the passage one can go to _ as a volunteer. A) a nursing home B) a sports ground C) a big company D) a shopping centre
Answer:
A