Q: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Almost a decade ago, the federal government dropped $10 million for an Earth-monitoring satellite that never made it into space. Today it sits in a closet in Maryland. Cost to taxpayers for storing it: $1 million a year. And _ . Who knows what's in the rest of them? Because we think the government should be held to at least the same standards as a publicly traded company, and because as taxpayers, we're America's shareholders, we performed an audit of sorts of the federal books. We're not economists, but we do have common sense. We tried to get help from Congressional staffers from both parties, as well as various watchdog groups and agencies. In the end, we found that the federal government wastes nearly $1 trillion every year. That's roughly equal to the amount collected annually by the Internal Revenue Service in personal income taxes. Put another way, it's also equal to about one-third of the country's $2.9 trillion total annual budget. And reclaiming that lost trillion could help wipe out the country's annual budget deficit , improve education, and provide health insurance for those who don't have it. So how do you define "waste"? David Walker of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a federal watchdog agency, calls it "the government's failure to give taxpayers the most for their money." For our part, we used the kind of household test you would use on a piece of meat sitting in your refrigerator: If it smells rotten, it's waste. Our government regularly pays for products and services it never gets, wildly overpays companies to do things it could do more cheaply itself, loses money outright due to lax accounting and oversight, and spends money randomly on unnecessary programs. How exactly does the federal government waste your hard-earned tax dollars? We've identified what we consider ten of the worst ways. Question: Which of the following can best describe the feeling of the author? Options: A: Annoyed. B: Calm. C: Surprised. D: Not concerned.
A: A

Q: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: When you think of an artist, you probably think of someone painting on canvas . But Guido Daniele creates fantastic paintings of birds, elephants, tigers, and giraffes by painting on skin. Born in Soverato, Italy, Guido Daniele has been called"Ha nd Gogh" (after artist Vincent van Gogh) since he began creating works of art on people' s hands in 1990. Painting on the hands can be a challenge because, unlike canvas, the skin moves when rubbed. Daniele' s models must remain perfectly still for hours as he paints. He often uses his daughter and his son as his "canvases". Before he can begin to create his "manimals" ( the artist' s name for his hand animals), Daniele studies photographs of the animal that he will be painting in order to be able to understand its character and give it life. "Next," he says, "I look at the hand from different perspectives ,and I begin to imagine what is the best way to position the hand for me to paint the animal. "He also studies the skin of the model, preferring it to have little hair and few blemishes . Daniele starts by drawing on the model' s hand with a pencil. He next paints the skin using watercolor1s made specifically for body art. The eyes of Daniele' s painted animals look amazingly real, and they are the most difficult part to paint. Paintings on hands must eventually be washed away. Guido Daniele says that he's gotten used to this part and that he doesn' t really mind seeing his work washed down the drain . " Tomorrow, I will paint the next one. The important thing is to take many good photo- graphs before washing the hand!" Question: Daniele' s paintings are mainly about _ . Options: A: scenery B: plan ts C: stories D: animals
A: D

Q: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: At age 11, Ghulam was married off to 40-year-old Jaiz in a rural Afghan village, making her only one of more than 10 million young girls who are being forced to wed men old enough to be their fathers of grandfather every year. In an effort to start a global conversation about the devastating effects of early marriages, which are currently practiced in more than 50 developing countries, the United Nations designed October 11 as International Day of the Girl Child this year. Although child marriage is against the law in many countries, and international treaties forbid the practice, it is estimated that about 51 million girls below age 18 are currently married, often under the cover of darkness and in secret. In Afghanistan alone, it is believed that approximately 57 percent of girls wed before the legal age of 16. Various factors drive parents of child bridges to marry off their daughters, from the community's pressure to confirm to age-old cultural customs to economic considerations. In poor, developing nations, it is not uncommon for families to settle debts by offering their daughters as payment. Experts agree that early marriage denies the girl education and robs them of their childhood because most young wives, burdened by grownup responsibilities, do not get a chance to interact with their peers or carry on friendships outside the household. In many cases, the girls are lorded over by their husbands and in-laws, leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence as well as physical, sexual and verbal abuse. Underage wives who are lucky enough to escape from their husbands end up living in poverty, or worse. Most girls who enter early marriages are expected to get pregnant right away, which often leads to tragedy for both the mothers, who are still children themselves, and their babies. Unless international organizations take steps to reverse the troubling trend, it is estimated that over the next decade, 100 million more girls--or about 25,000 girls a day ---will marry before they turn 18. To learn more about... Question: The UN made October 11 as International Day of the Girl Child in order to _ Options: A: urge parents to treat girls equally as boy B: call on people to pay more attention to girls' education C: call on people to pay more attention to girls in poor countries or areas D: start a global campaign against early marriages
A: D

Q: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Put an ice cube from your fridge into a glass of water. You have a piece of string 10 centimeters long. The problem is to take out that piece of ice with the help of the string. But you must not touch the ice with your fingers. You may ask your friends to try to do that when you are having dinner together. There is a saltcellar on the table. You must use salt when you carry out this experiment. First you put the string across the piece of ice. Then put some salt on the ice. Salt makes ice melt . The ice round the string will begin to melt. But when it melts, it will lose heat. The cold ice cube will make the salt water freeze again. After a minute or two you may raise the piece of string and with it you will raise your piece of ice! This experiment can be very useful to you. If, for example, there is ice near the door of your house, you must use very much salt to melt all the ice. If you don't put enough salt, the water will freeze again. Question: We can learn something about _ from the passage. Options: A: Physics B: biology C: chemistry D: maths C
A: C