Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is one of the most loved children's books of all time, and many adults enjoy it as well. It tells the story of a young girl named Alice, who follows a rabbit entering a magical world called Wonderland: she has many experiences which seem to change the rules of reasoning or common sense. The popularity of the book comes from its imagination, interesting story, and art work. The writer of the book is Lewis Carroll. In fact, Lewis Carroll was not the writer's real name. His real name was Charles Dodgson. One day, he took a boat ride down the Thames River to have a picnic with three little girls who were friends of the family. To keep them entertained on the ride, he told them a story in which Alice, the middle child, was the main character. They enjoyed the story very much. Charles later wrote the story down under the name Alice's Adventures under Ground and gave it to Alice as a Christmas present. Later, he gave a copy to his friend George MacDonald. George read it to his children and they loved it. George suggested to Charles that he make a book from his story. Charles then wrote more parts to the story until it was around 35,000 words. It was first printed in 1866, with art work by John Tenniel, under the name Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The book was an immediate success. One of its first fans was Queen Victoria. She immediately requested a collection of all of Lewis Carroll's works. She was surprised to find that they included many works on math. In fact, Charles Dodgson was a highly respected mathematician. This can be seen in many puzzles and plays on reasoning that appear in his books and poems. Since the story was first printed, it has kept selling up to the present day. It has been translated into over fifty languages and has had several movies based on it. The story is even mentioned in the popular 1999 film The Matrix by the character Morpheus. The passage is mainly about _ . A) Charles' family life B) a girl's adventurous experience C) a magical world called wonderland D) the birth of a book and its lasting influences
D
(Question)
Sailing Through History A group of 1,309 passengers boarded the MSBalmoralon Sunday, in Southampton, England, on a voyage to retrace the path of theTitanic. TheTitanicwas the biggest ship in the world when it sailed on its ill-fated maiden voyage in 1912. Of the 2,227 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died. The ship, which was headed to New York City, carried the rich and famous on its first voyage. It also carried immigrants, who were seeking a better life in America. Relatives of people who sailed on theTitanic, historians, authors and people fascinated by the story of the unsinkable ship, are on theBalmoral. They want to remember the doomed ship and those who died on her first and last voyage. The historic liner had set sail on April 10, 1912, from Southampton. Late at night on April 14, she hit an iceberg. In the early morning hours of April 15, theTitanicsank. TheBalmoralis followingTitanic's original route from Southampton. First, the modern-day cruise liner docked in the port of Cherbourg, France, where theTitanichad picked up more passengers. On Monday afternoon, theBalmoralstops in Cobh, Ireland, theTitanic's last port of call before sailing to New York. Balmoralwill then cruise the North Atlantic Ocean to the location whereTitanichit an iceberg that ripped the ship's hull . On Sunday, April 15, at 2:20 a.m.--the time theTitanicwent down--passengers and crew will hold a memorial service. The next two days will be spent in Halifax, Canada, where many victims of the sinking are buried. Then, theBalmoralwill reach its final destination in New York City, whereTitanicwas supposed to dock--but never did. Until today, several teams of divers have explored the site. They have recovered some items such as dishes and silverware and put them on public display. And more trips are planned to the wreckage in the future. TheTitanicand its passengers and crew have been remembered in books, movies and TV programs. But there's a much more important contribution thatTitanicgave us. After she sank, lawmakers... How many passengers in Titanic survived at last? A) More than 1500. B) About 1309. C) About 1000. D) Less than 750.
(Answer)
D
Ques: Do you want to work with people, animals or machines? Do you want to work indoors or outdoors, directly serve people in need or serve people behind the scenes? These are the typical questions that volunteer service agencies would ask. Every year, thousands of people in the west offer volunteer service. Volunteering greatly strengthens the community because it helps the old, the young, the weak, the sick, the disabled and the injured to overcome difficulties. Volunteers usually help in many different ways. They may give people advice, offer friendship to the young , drive the elderly to church, counsel kids against drugs, work as assistants in schools or nursing homes, raise funds, plant trees, help out in local libraries and do many other things. Volunteering can be a few hours a week or a few hours a month. Anybody who wants to serve people in need can become a volunteer. The art of volunteering is a process of both giving and receiving. Volunteering allows volunteers to meet new people, make new friends and mix with people from all walks of life. Volunteering is an excellent way to experiment,practice and try out new techniques and skills,discover your individual talents and explore career choice. Being a volunteer will take individuals on a wonderful journey and help them learn many important things beyond their school learning. You can infer from the passage that to be a volunteer, A) you need to get trained B) you can get something valuable C) you must be outgoing D) you need to work very long
Ans: B
It's hard to track the blue whale, which has almost been killed off by commercial whaling. Attaching radio devices to it is difficult and visual sightings are too unreliable to give real insight into its behavior. So biologists were delighted early this year when, with the help of the US Navy, they are able to track a particular blue whale for 43 days recording its sounds. This was possible because of the Navy's former top secret system of underwater listening devices across the oceans. Tracking whales is but one example of an exciting new world just opening to civilian scientists after the cold war as the Navy starts to share and partly uncover its global network of underwater listening system built over the decades to track the ships of potential enemies. Earth scientists announced at a news conference recently that they had used the system for closely observing a deep-sea volcanic eruption for the first time and that they planned similar studies. Other scientists have proposed to use the network for tracking ocean currents and measuring changes in the ocean and global temperatures. Different layers of ocean water can act as channels for sounds focusing them in the same way a stethoscope does when it carries faint noises from a patient's chest to a doctor's ear. This focusing is the main reason that even relatively weak sounds in the ocean, especially low-frequency ones, can often travel thousands of miles. What is the passage chiefly about? A) An effort to protect an endangered marine species. B) The civilian use of a military detection system. C) The exposure of a US Navy top-secret weapon. D) A new way to look into the behavior of blue whales.
B