*Question*
Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: When punctuation began, it was mainly to help people read out loud. Until a few hundred years ago, not many people were taught to read, so there was a lot more reading out loud by the few people who could. To help those reading out loud in the old days, sign known as "points" were added to pages of writing. Punctuation comes from the Latin word punctus, meaning "point". These points told readers when to pause or take a breath, and what to emphasize . In Europe from the early centuries AD, these points were widely used although not everybody used the same points for the same thing. When printing was invented, printers had to be made more clearly about what to put where, so that everyone was doing the same thing. Since that point, all sorts of punctuation rules have been discovered and invented. Speech marks "..." Speech marks or quotation marks are used to show that someone is speaking. The sort we have in English today began to be widely used during the 18th century. Before that readers simply understood from the way a sentence was written that someone was speaking although sometimes spoken words were underlined. Comma , colon: period(full stop). All three of these sorts of punctuation marks were given their Greek names by Aristophanes, a librarian who lived in Byzantium in the 2nd century BC. They were marks on the page, each with a message to the reader. Comma meant a short pause. Colon meant a medium sized pause. Period meant a long pause. Exclamation mark! In the early days of punctuation, if you saw this sign, you were supposed to pause. Some people think the exclamation mark began as what the Greek word IO looked like if it was turned 90 degrees. This word means "Oh, gosh!" With the I on the top and the O under it, the sign as we know it today was developed. Question mark? In the middle age, a squiggle above a full stop was sometimes used to show the sentence was a question and that a person's voice should go up at the end. By the 17th century it had turned into what we call a question mark. The... Question: What's the problem about punctuation today? - People have completely different ideas about it. - Not many people are taught to use it correctly. - It has different meanings to different people. - Sometimes spoken words must be underlined.
**Answer**
People have completely different ideas about it.

*Question*
Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: My father is seventy-five years old this year. But he looks very young. He looks like a sixty-year-old man. Now he can do everything all by himself. For example, he cooks, washes clothes, does the housework and so on. Every morning, my father goes out with a radio. He listens to the music or the news and goes to the park to play taijiquan. In the park, he talks and laughs with other old people. After coming back from the park, he begins to have breakfast and then he goes to the university for the old. He learns drawing there. In the afternoon, he plays on the computer for about one or two hours. After supper he watches TV and learns about the world. He goes to bed at about eight o'clock. He never stays up. He likes to share his ways of keeping healthy with others. Are you healthy? If not, what do you learn from my father's secret of keeping healthy? ,. Question: The writer's father will be _ years old next year. - 60 - 61 - 75 - 76
**Answer**
76

*Question*
Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: The first Thanksgiving was in 1621. Each year, we celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. What do American children think of Thanksgiving? This is what some of them wrote. Thanksgiving is a holiday to say "Thank you". It means eating turkey and having a special party with your family. Thanksgiving is giving thanks to people that help you. I think it is a special holiday. You give thanks to your family and your friends. Annie Lots of people have done things for me that I like. Lots of people like to make me happy, like my mum. Many people have done things for me and make sure I am all right. I am pleased that people care about me. Most people I know give me money or presents at Thanksgiving. Sometimes people take me to visit places or ask me to their houses. I like to do nice things for other people. Also I hope people help me when I get old. Jeremy Once we were at my grandparents' house during Thanksgiving and we went to the store to buy a turkey, but they didn't have any, so we had to buy a live one. When we went out to kill it, it had gone! There was nothing left except feathers . That year we had to eat chicken instead of turkey. Eleanor I'm thankful for having a really good mum who looks after me so well and having good teachers and especially Ms. McMillan because she helps to try new things. I love all my family. I enjoy Thanksgiving because I eat turkey with all my family and I love it. Ryan Question: Thanksgiving means _ to Annie. - giving money to people - doing things for others she likes - eating turkey and having a special party with the family - cooking dinner
**Answer**
eating turkey and having a special party with the family

*Question*
Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Maybe you have seen this in schools: some students are studying hard all the time but they just pass their exams, while some others may spend much less time on their books but do much better in exams. How could this happen? People used to think that hard-work is the only way to success. But now they have understood that smart work can make them succeed, too. Hard workers don't mind working for long hours, while smart workers always think of several different answers to these questions, " Why should I suffer this? Isn't there s better way to do this?" Thanks to these people, we can use computers instead of the abacus now. Progress in every field is the direct result of " try a better way" by smart workers. There was a large soap factory in Japan. Once it received an unusual letter, complaining that there was no soap in the soapbox he bought. How could empty soapboxes go out of the factory? The engineers checked the producing and packing . The producing was fine, but in about one in ten thousand cases, the packing machine let an empty soapbox go. There was no need to spend a lot of money repairing the machine for such a small problem. The engineer soon work out a solution. He put a huge X-ray machine and two large computers to find out the empty soapboxes. After teaching the worker how to use it, he sat down in his seat, exhausted . " Sir, we could have solved the problem in a much easier and cheaper way." said one worker. " Really? How?" " We can put a huge fan near the packing machine. The wind will _ the empty boxes. There would be no need for an X-ray machine and computers." See, this is smart work. In order to succeed, we should not work hard like the engineer, but also think smartly like this worker. Question: The article mainly tell us that we should _ in order to succeed. - think of different answers to our questions - spend much less time on our school work - work hard like the engineer and think smartly like the worker - spend enough money repairing the machine for any problem
**Answer**
work hard like the engineer and think smartly like the worker