Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Disease, poverty, hate, love-Charles Dickens' stories opened his readers eyes to the most important themes of his age. Two hundred years on, his stories still speak volumes across the world, proving that Dickens' legacy was far greater that just "great-literature". February 7 marks the 200thanniversary of the writer's birthday. To mark this date, BBC writer Alex Hudson listed six things Dickens gave the modern world. Let's take a look at two of them. A White Christmas Dickens is described as "the man who invented Christmas" - not the religious festival, but the cultural aspects that we associate with the festive season today. In the early 19thcentury, Christmas was barely worth mentioning, according to critic and writer Leigh Hunt. The committee which ran the Conservative Party even held ordinary business meetings on Christmas Day-unthinkable in the West nowadays, when everyone but the most necessary workers takes at least three days off. Many people believe that Dickens' popular descriptions of the festive period became a blueprint for generations to come. In his classic novel,A Christmas Carol, he not only put forward the idea of snow at Christmas, but also painted a picture of glowing warmth-"home enjoyments, affections and hopes". In his biography of Dickens, Peter Ackroyd wrote: "Dickens can be said to have almost single-handedly created the modern idea of Christmas." "Dickens" poverty Dickens was one of the first to take an honest look at the underclass and the poor of Victorian London. He helped popularize the term " _ " to describe situations where people in power use needless amounts of bureaucracy in a way that particularly hurts the weaker and poorer members of society. "Dickensian" has now become a powerful word for describing an unacceptable level of poverty. In 2009, when the president of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers in the UK wanted to talk about poverty in some areas of Britain, she did not use words like "terrible" or "horrific", but rather described it as "life mirroring the... Question: The article is mainly about _ . Options: A: a brief introduction to Charles Dickens' B: Charles Dickens' impact on the world C: the characters in Charles Dickens' stories D: Charles Dickens' achievements in literature
B

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Man has a big brain. He can think, learn and speak. Scientists thought that men are different from animals because they can think and learn. They know now that dogs, cats and birds can learn too. They are beginning to understand that. They make noises when they are afraid, or angry or unhappy. Apes can understand some things more quickly than human, one or two of them have learnt a few words. But they can not join words to make sentences. They can not think like us because they have no language. Language is a wonderful thing. Man has been able to build a modern world because he has language. Every child can speak his own language very well when he is four or five, --but no animal learns to speak. How do children learn it ? Scientists do not really know. What happens inside our body when we speak? They do not know. They only know that man can speak because he has a brain. Question: An ape can not_. Options: A: make noises B: understand things C: learn words D: speak like man
D

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: One of the qualities that most people admire in others is the willingness to admit one's mistakes. It is extremely hard sometimes to say a simple thing like "I was wrong about that, "and it is even harder to say, "I was wrong, and you were right about that. " I had an experience recently with someone admitting to me that he had made a mistake fifteen years ago. He told me he had been the manager of a certain grocery store in the neighborhood where I grew up, and he asked me if I remembered the egg cartons . Then he related an incident and I began to remember clearly the incident he was describing. I was about eight years old at the time, and I had gone into the store with my mother to do the weekly grocery shopping. On that particular day, I must have found my way to the dairy food department where the incident took place. There must have been a special sale on eggs that day because there was an impressive display of eggs in dozen and half-dozen cartons. The cartons were stacked three or four feet high. I must have stopped in front of a display to admire the stacks. Just then a woman came by pushing her grocery cart and knocked off the stacks of cartons. For some reason, I decided it was up to me to put the display back together, so I went to work. The Manager heard the noise and came rushing over to see what had happened. When he appeared, I was on my knees inspecting (examining)some of the cartons to see if any of the eggs were broken, but to him it looked as though I was the criminal. He severely scolded me and wanted me to pay for any broken eggs. I protested my innocence and tried to explain, but it did no good. Even though I quickly forgot all about the incident, obviously the manager did not. Question: The author was _ when he wrote this article. Options: A: about 8 B: about 18 C: about 23 D: about 15
C