We bet that on cold wintry days, many of you love to stay in your warm home and, every now and then, come out into the kitchen for a snack. Unfortunately, plenty of creepy-crawly critters like to do the same thing! Winter is the time when bugs invade your house without an invitation. The season can be tough for such creatures. In winter the air is cold, the ground is hard and many trees have no leaves. So bugs do what they have to do to survive. Monarch butterflies head south to warmer climates. Ants crowd in deep underground colonies and eat food they have been storing all year. Many insects go into a deep sleep called diapause. There're different kinds of diapause, but all are similar to hibernation, a time when bigger animals become inactive in the cold. Insects go into an inactive period, too, but it often isn't when the temperature drops. They rely on more dependable signals in the environment. For example, many insects can tell how much sunlight there's each day. They use that to tell themselves when to shut down. Bugs are cold-blood-ed, meaning that their inside temperature is the same as the outside. They can't move much when it gets below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. So they search for any warm place. They're looking for protection. These guys have been doing this for 300 million years, so they don't really know they're coming into your house. The home is a recent event in terms of their evolutionary behav-ior. They enter through tiny cracks or come in unnoticed on your clothes or shoes. Remember that they may be invading your homes for warmth and food, but they don't care about humans. According to the text, what is diapause? A) It is the same as the animals' hibernation B) It often appears in warm areas all the year. C) It is done to keep bugs active in winter. D) It is a deep sleep similar to hibernation.
D
(Question)
It is said that a great many things about languages are mysterious, and many will always be so. But some things we do know. Firstly, we know that all human beings have a language of some kind. There is no race of men anywhere on earth so backward that it has no language, no set of speech sounds by which the people communicate with one another. In historical times, there has never been a race of men without a language. Secondly, there is no such thing as a primitive language. There are many people whose cultures are underdeveloped, who are, as we say, uncivilized, but the languages they speak are not primitive. In all known languages we can see complexities that must have been tens of thousands of years in developing. This has not always been well understood; indeed, the direct contrary has often been stated. Popular ideas of the language of the American Indians will illustrate. Many people have guessed that the Indians communicated in a very primitive system of noises. Study has proved this to be nonsense. There are, or were, hundreds of American Indian languages, and all of them turn out to be very complicated and very old. They are certainly different from the languages that most of us are familiar with, but they are no more primitive than English and Greek. A third thing we know about language is that all languages are perfectly adequate. This means each one is a perfect means of expressing the culture of the people who speak the language. Finally, we know that language changes. It's natural and normal for language to change; the only languages which do not change are the dead ones. This is easy to understand if we look backward in time. Change goes on in all aspects of language. Grammatical features change as do speech sounds and changes in vocabulary are sometimes very extensive and may occur very rapidly. Vocabulary is the least stable part of any language. According to the author, language changes are most likely to appear in _ . A) grammar B) vocabulary C) intonation D) pronunciation
(Answer)
B
Ques: President Coolidge's statement, "The business of America is business," still points to an important truth today---that business institutions have more prestige in American society than any other kind of organization, including the government. Why do business institutions possess this great prestige? One reason is that Americans view business as being more firmly based on the ideal of competition than other institutions in society. Since competition is seen as the major source of progress and prosperity by most Americans, competitive business institutions are respected. Competition is not only good in itself, it is the means by which other basic American values such as individual freedom, equality of opportunity, and hard work are protected. Competition protects the freedom of the individual by ensuring that there is no monopoly of power. In contrast to one, all-powerful government, many businesses compete against each other for profits. Theoretically, if one business tries to take unfair advantage of its customers, it will lose to competing business which treats its customers more fairly. Where many businesses compete for the customers' dollar, they cannot afford to treat them like inferiors or slaves. A contrast is often made between business, which is competitive, and government, which is a monopoly. Because business is competitive, many Americans believe that it is more supportive of freedom than government, even though government leaders are elected by the people and business leaders are not. Many Americans believe, then, that competition is as important, or even more important, than democracy in preserving freedom. Competition in business is also believed to strengthen the ideal of equality of opportunity. Competition is seen as an open and fair race where success goes to the swiftest person regardless of his or her social class background. Competitive success is commonly seen as the American alternative to social rank based on family background. Business is therefore viewed as an expression of the idea... Who can benefit from business competition? A) Honest businessmen. B) Both businessmen and their customers. C) People with ideals of equality and freedom. D) Both business institutions and government.
Ans: B
Ques: Mr. Frank shot well and once he had come in fourth in a competition. Then he went to a big city on business. There he joined the local rifle club. The club had a very good team, which used to take part in a lot of important shooting competitions. One of these took place while Frank was with them. But one of the members of the club's team suddenly fell ill just before the match. The captain had heard of Mr. Frank. He therefore invited Mr. Frank to take the sick man's place. Mr. Frank felt greatly happy to be asked to shoot for such a good team, but he also felt very nervous, because he was afraid of making a fool of himself. In fact, he was so nervous that he could not keep his hands from trembling while he was shooting, with the result that he did very badly in the competition. When he took his score card to his captain, he said:" After seeing my score, I want to go outside and shoot myself. " The captain looked at the card for a few seconds and then said, "Well, you'd better take two bullets with you if you want to do that. " Mr. Frank once _ in a competition. A) joined the fourth team B) took the fourth place C) was the fourth to start shooting D) shot with the other three
Ans:
B