Question:
Read the text and answer the questions.
Consumer electronics once again topped the list of the most wanted gifts this holiday season. "Seventy-six percent of consumers who plan to buy holiday gifts say that they will spend money buying at least one technology product; definitely a solid vote of confidence for technology." Steve Koenig is with the Consumer Electronics Association. He says the group's latest research also shows that Americans this year are spending more on technology products. "Here in 2012, $252 on average-the technology spend for consumers this year." From tablet computers to smartphones, American shoppers have been lining up to get the newest and coolest electronic devices on the market. There are more choices today than ever before. "It's kind of hard to make a decision." Tablet computers are one of the best-selling products this year. Brian Tong is Senior Editor of CNET.com. The website reports on tech news and examines the latest electronic products. He says the Apple iPad Mini is one of the most popular tablets. Its starting price is $329. One of Apple's biggest competitors is the Google Nexus 7. It starts at $199. "The hardware inside is more powerful than what's in the iPad Mini, but also it offers you a lot of things like maps that work better than Apple's maps." Brian Tong says there is one reason why people may like the iPad Mini more than the Nexus 7. "If you just want to read books and surf the Internet, you don't really need to get an iPad Mini, but if you want the largest group of apps that's where the iPad and Apple's ecosystem shines the most." Elman Chacon is with the electronics store Best Buy. He says another hot product this season is smart cameras. They connect to the Internet through Wi-Fi. This makes it easy for users to email or upload photographs directly from the camera. "You can literally take a picture, upload it into your Facebook in a matter of seconds. These things are pretty cool because they do a lot of things." Streaming media boxes also connect to the Internet. People are able to watch web content such as movies and YouTube videos on their televisions. Another popular item is wireless speaker systems. The newest ones work with any device that has Bluetooth technology, including smartphones, laptops and tablets. With the growing popularity of Internet shopping, many consumers will visit a store first to look at a product, and then go online to find it at a lower price. Stores like Best Buy understand that and they want to stay competitive. "We have something called the perfect match promise which means if you buy a certain device and you find it cheaper within 30 days we'll go ahead and price match that for you." Elman Chacon said.
1. What is the starting price of the Apple iPad Mini?
2. Who is Steve Koenig with?
3. What was the most wanted holiday gifts in the season, according to the article?
4. What percent of gift-givers will get at least one technology product?
5. Are Americans this year spending more on technology products?
6. Who does Brian Tong work for?
7. What is his position there?
8. What is one of the iPad Mini's stiffest competitors?

Numbered answers:
1. $329
2. the Consumer Electronics Association
3. Consumer electronics
4. 76%
5. yes
6. CNET.com
7. Senior Editor
8. the Google Nexus 7

Question:
Read the text and answer the questions.
(CNN) -- The megayacht that Steve Jobs commissioned in the final years of his life has been impounded in Amsterdam after a payment dispute involving the designer, Philippe Starck.

The Venus, a 100-million-euro ($137.5 million), 260-foot-long yacht, made its unofficial debut in late October. It's currently stuck in the Port of Amsterdam after Starck hired a debt-collection agency to attempt to remit the final payment for his design.

According to lawyers at Ubik -- Starck's design company -- speaking with Reuters, the designer has only received 6 million of the 9-million-euro commission and is seeking the rest of the payment before the Venus will be released.

"These guys [Jobs and Starck] trusted each other, so there wasn't a very detailed contract," Roelant Klaassen, a lawyer for Ubik, told Reuters.

The Venus is a floating ode to both Jobs and Starck's minimalist aesthetic. Made entirely out of aluminum, with 40-foot-long floor-to-ceiling windows lining the passenger compartment and seven 27-inch iMacs making up the command center.

In Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs, the late Apple CEO is quoted as saying that, "I know that it's possible I will die and leave Laurene with a half-built boat, but I have to keep going on. If I don't, it's an admission that I'm about to die."

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Copyright 2011 Wired.com.

1. Who's boat had been confiscated?
2. Who requested it to be collected?
3. Why
4. What was the dispute about?
5. What is the name of the Yacht?
6. And how much is it worth in US dollars?
7. How much has Starck been paid?
8. How much was he supposed to receive in total?
9. What is Ubik?
10. Who is Roelant Klaassen?

Numbered answers:
1. Steve Jobs
2. Starck
3. As its stuck in the Port of Amsterdam
4. Money being not payed to Starck's
5. The Venus
6. $137.5 million
7. 6 million
8. 9-million-euro
9. A Starck's design company
10. a lawyer for Ubik

Question:
Read the text and answer the questions.
Europe PubMed Central (Europe PMC) is an on-line database that offers free access to a large and growing collection of biomedical research literature. It was known as UK PubMed Central until 1 November 2012. The Europe PMC project was originally launched in 2007 as the first 'mirror' site to PMC, which aims to provide international preservation of the open and free-access biomedical and life sciences literature. It forms part of a network of PMC International (PMCI) repositories that includes PubMed Central Canada. Europe PMC is not an exact "mirror" of the PMC database but has developed some different features. On February 15, 2013, "CiteXplore" was subsumed under Europe PubMed Central.

The resource is managed and developed by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), on behalf of an alliance of 27 biomedical and life sciences research funders, led by the Wellcome Trust. The Europe PMC funders group requires that articles describing the results of biomedical and life sciences research they have supported be made freely available in Europe PMC within 6 months of publication to maximise the impact of the work that they fund.

Europe PMC provides free access to more than 3.7 million full-text biomedical and life sciences research articles and over 31 million citations. Europe PMC contains some citation information and includes text-mining based marked up text that links to external molecular and medical datasets. The Grant Lookup facility allows users to search for information on over 56,700 grants awarded by the Europe PMC funders.
1. Is it free to access Europe PMC?
2. How many articles does it have?
3. How many citations?
4. What kind of Lookup facility does it have?
5. So how many grants can you look for?
6. Who puts up the money for them?
7. Is the database online?
8. What kind of literature does in contain?
9. What name was it known by until 2012?
10. What year was it first started?
11. As what?
Numbered answers:
1. Yes
2. more than 3.7 million
3. over 31 million
4. grant
5. over 56,700 grants
6. Europe PMC funders.
7. Yes
8. biomedical research
9. UK PubMed Central
10. 2007
11. the first 'mirror' site to PMC