Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Three years have passed since I entered the university. I haven't seen many of my classmates after we parted when the college entrance examination was over. So we decided to have a get-together party this summer vacation. As you can imagine, I could hardly wait to have the day for our reunion. After several month's waiting, 25 of my former higher school classmates and 3 of our teachers were crowded in a small restaurant near our high school. We were more than happy to meet with each other again. Our former Chinese teacher was so excited that he even choked to say some words. With gratitude, we thanked our teachers for their hard work; with great joy, we exchanged the happy things happening in each of our present colleges; We talked before someone shouted. "Oh, it is 11:30 now." But no one would be the first to say goodbye to others . I shall always bear this unforgettable get-together in my mind. With time passing, I believe I will meet many new friends, but I think the friendship among high school classmates will be the purest and will be the most valuable thing to cherish. Question: What is the writer probably? - He is a middle school student. - He is a university student. - He is a teacher . - He is a reporter.
He is a university student.
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Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Every day, 15-year-old Martha wrote on the Internet about the meal she ate at school. She also took pictures of the food. However, Martha was very honest about the food. She did not just describe the food. She judged the taste and health of the food. Martha also began to use her blog for an important reason. She began to raise money for the organization Mary's Meals in the East African country of Malawi. It provides food for children in schools for free. Martha encouraged her readers to send money to Mary's Meals to help build a kitchen. But then, Martha began to have a problem. Many people read her blog. She became big news. The news stories showed that the food at Martha's school was not always healthy. And that made some people angry. So the school officials decided to stop Martha's blog. They said that she could not take her camera to school. But an amazing thing happened. Many people began sending messages of support across the Internet. Martha's story was even bigger than before. Now the officials had to change their minds. A few days later, Martha was again writing her blog. But more than that, people had sent a lot of money for the Malawi school children. Martha had hoped to raise about 10,000 dollars. But the total reached 100,000 dollars and still kept on growing! Martha's blog also helped to improve meals at her school. One day she wrote: As we waited for dinner we were told that we are allowed to eat as much fruit and bread as we want. No one knows what will happen to Martha's blog in future. But already this little girl has helped to change the eating experience of many children just by sharing on the Internet pictures of her school meals. Question: Martha wrote about her school meals on her blog to _ . - invite students to judge the food - show the terrible taste of the food - express her opinion about the food - ask the school to improve the food
express her opinion about the food
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Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: I once had a house guest from Cuba. During his visit, I happened to throw an old broken blender in the trash. The next day it was sitting on my counter - in working order. In his world, people simply cannot afford to replace an item which doesn't work properly. They take the time and figure out how to fix it. In Cuba, they are still driving cars from the 1960's, mainly because they do not have a choice. In contrast, the U.S. is a "throw-away society." Statistics show that each American produces six pounds of trash per day. I believe a combination of factors has contributed to this phenomenon. "Planned obsolescence " is not a secret. It is a manufacturing philosophy developed in the 1920's and 1930's, when mass production became popular. The goal is to make a product or part that will fail, or become less desirable over time or after a certain amount of use. This pressures the consumer to buy again. Planned obsolescence does keep costs down. Instead of making an expensive product that will last a long time, businesses produce more affordable, disposable items. Some electronic items have become so inexpensive that it is cheaper to replace them than to repair them.[:&&Z&X&X&K] Busy people often value their time and convenience more than money. If a car starts to have mechanical problems, replacing it with a newer, more reliable model may be more appealing than tolerating it being in the garage for a week. In addition, advertising trains consumers to want what is new and improved. It convinces them that the more they have, the happier they will be. Unlike people in many developing countries, we live in a world of abundance. A study by Dr. Timothy Jones of the University of Arizona also found that in the U.S., 40-50 percent of all food ready for harvest is wasted. Abundance and waste soon became closely associated in the American way of life. Question: According to the article, planned obsolescence _ . - began before mass production became popular - is intended to encourage consumers to buy more things - results in higher prices of items - requires factories to produce high-quality products
is intended to encourage consumers to buy more things
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Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Can you believe your eyes? A recent experiment suggests that the answer to that question may depend on your age. Martin Doherty, a psychologist at the University of Stirling in Scotland, led the team of scientists. In this experiment, Doherty and his team tested the perception of some people, using pictures of some orange circles. The researchers showed the same pictures to two groups of people. The first group included 151 children aged 4 to 10, and the second group included 24 adults aged 18 to 25. The first group of pictures showed two circles alone on a white background. One of the circles was larger than the other, and these people were asked to identify the larger one. Four-year-olds identified the correct circle 79 percent of the time. Adults identified the correct circle 95 percent of the time. Next, both groups were shown a picture where the orange circles, again of different sizes, were surrounded by gray circles. Here's where the trick lies in. In some of the pictures, the smaller orange circle was surrounded by even smaller gray circles -- making the orange circle appear larger than the other orange circle, which was the real larger one. And the larger orange circle was surrounded by even bigger gray circles -- so it appeared to be smaller than the real smaller orange circle. When young children aged 4 to 6 looked at these tricky pictures, they weren't fooled -- they were still able to find the bigger circle with roughly the same accuracy as before. Older children and adults, on the other hand, did not do as well. Older children often identified the smaller circle as the larger one, and adults got it wrong most of the time. As children get older, Doherty said, their brains may develop the ability to identify visual context. In other words, they will begin to process the whole picture at once: the tricky gray circles, as well as the orange circle in the middle. As a result, they're more likely to fall for this kind of visual trick. Question: When asked to find the larger circle, _ . - children at 6 got it wrong 79 % of the time with no gray ones around - only adults over 18 got it right 95% of the time with gray ones around - children at 4 got it right about 79 % of the time with gray ones around - adults got it right most of the time with gray ones around
children at 4 got it right about 79 % of the time with gray ones around
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