Ques: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: It's just a small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no address. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years. It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas. He didn't hate the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it; overspending, running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and powder for Grandma... Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties and so forth. I reached for something special for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way. Our son Kevin, at 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended and before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church, mostly black. As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear to protect a wrestler's ears. They obviously could not afford. Mike shook his head sadly, "I wish just one of them could have won," he said. "They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could _ ." Mike loved kids--all kids--and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball and lacrosse. That's when the idea for his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year. For each Christmas, I followed the tradition. The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents. The tradition has grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchildren standing around the tree with wide-eyed... Question: Why did Mike hate Christmas according to the passage? Options: A: He didn't like the true meaning of Christmas B: He didn't like people spending too much money on presents C: He hated buying presents for Uncle Harry and Grandma D: He didn't want to receive gifts like shirts, sweaters or ties.
Ans: B

Ques: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: British singer Sarah Brightman began training for a 2015 flight to the International Space Station where she hopes to become the first professional musician to sing from space, the company arranging the trip said on Tuesday. Brightman, a famed soprano who starred in Andrew Lloyd Webber' s "Phantom of the Opera" , will pay about $ 52 million for a 10-day stay aboard the orbital outpost, Tom Shelley, president of privately owned Space Adventures, said. Brightman, who will become the eighth privately funded space tourist, is scheduled to fly in September 2015. Her training to fly on a Russian Soyuz capsule began last fall. Brightman has planned to be the first professional musician to sing from space. But she faces competition from Lady Gaga, who, according to media reports late last year, intends to be the first when _ performs one song in space in early 2015 on a Virgin Galactic flight. Virgin Galactic, part of Richard Branson's Virgin Group, plans to offer suborbital space flights. Brightman said in 2012 that she would travel to the space station, but her plans haven't been confirmed until now. So far. Space Adventures has arranged for nine private missions to the space station, a $ 100 billion research laboratory that flies about 260 miles above the earth. Microsoft co-founder Charles Simonyi made two trips. Brightman will be the first private citizen to visit the station since Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Lalibarte paid about $ 35 million for an 11-day stay in September 2009. Google co-founder Sergey Brin has an option to fly on the next available Soyuz seat after Brightman, which most likely will be in 2017, Shelley told Reuters. Question: What is the purpose of the passage? Options: A: To praise Brightman. B: To persuade the readers that Brightman is more famous than Lady Gaga. C: To instruct the readers how to begin a space flight. D: To give some information about Brightman.
Ans: D

Ques: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Britain's symbolic red phone boxes have become out of date in the age of the mobile, but villages across the country are stepping in to save them, with creative intelligence. Whether as a place to exhibit art, poetry, or even as a tiny library, hundreds of phone boxes have been given a new life by local communities determined to preserve a typical part of British life. In Waterperry, a small village near Oxford, the 120 residents have filled the phone box next to the old house with a pot of flowers, piles of gardening and cooking magazines, and stuck poems on the walls. They took control of the phone box when telecoms operator BT said it was going to pull it down, an announcement that caused such dissatisfaction that one local woman threatened to chain herself to the box to save it. "I'd have done it, " insisted Kendall Turner. "It would have been heartbreaking for the village. " Local councilor Tricia Hallam, who came up with the idea for the phone box's change, said quite a few people would have joined her, adding, " We couldn't let it go because it's a British symbol." Only three feet by three feet wide, and standing 2.51-meter tall, the phone boxes were designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in 1936 for the 25thanniversary of the reign of King George V. Painted in "Post Office red" to match the post boxes, they were once a typical image of England and the backdrop to millions of tourist photographs. Eight years ago there were about 17,000 across Britain, but today, in a country where almost everybody has a mobile phone, 58 percent are no longer profitable and ten percent are only used once a month. "On average, maintaining them costs PS800 a year per phone box-about PS44 million annually," said John Lumb, general manager for BT Payphones. Question: What is John Lumb's attitude towards pulling down the red phone boxes? Options: A: supportive B: Opposed C: Neutral D: Indifferent.
Ans:
A