Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: The Winter Palace was built between 1754 and 1762 for Empress Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great. Unfortunately, Elizabeth died before the palace was completed and only Catherine the Great and her successors were able to enjoy the great interior of Elizabeth's home. Many parts of the palace's impressive interior have been remodeled since then, particularly after 1837, when a huge fire destroyed most of the building. Today the Winter Palace, together with four more buildings arranged side by side along the river embankment, houses the extensive collections of the Hermitage. The Hermitage Museum is the largest art gallery in Russia and is among the largest and most respected art museums in the world. The museum was founded in 1764 when Catherine the Great bought a collection of 255 paintings from the German city of Berlin. Today, the Hermitage boasts over 2.7 million exhibits and displays, a diverse range of art and artifacts from all over the world and throughout history (from Ancient Egypt to the early 20th century Europe). The Hermitage's collections include works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian, a collection of Rembrandts and Rubens, many French Impressionist works by Renoir, Cezanne, Monet and Pissarro, and several works by Rodin. The collection is really worth a stop for all those interested in art and history. The experts say that if you were to spend a minute looking at each exhibit on show in the Hermitage, you would need 11 years before you'd seen them all. However, we suggest you choose a guided tour instead! Location: Dvortsovaia Naberezhnaia, 32-38. www.ks5u.com Open: 10:30 am to 5:30 pm, Sunday till 5 pm. Closed: Mondays. Ticket-office closes 1 hour before closing time. Question: According to the passage, the Winter Palace was built for _ . - Catherine the Great - Empress Elizabeth - Peter the Great - Empress Elizabeth's successors
Empress Elizabeth
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Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: If the hackings taught us anything in 2014, it's actually nothing. Password management firm SplashData released its list of the worst passwords of the year and it's just as terrible as you'd think. The most common leaked password in 2014 was "123456," followed by "password" -- both topped the list the year before, too. While numbers were as popular as ever as passwords, sports terms like "baseball" and "football" were used more often. Birthday years were common too (especially 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1992) and names like "Michael", "Jennifer" and "Hunter" are also among the top 100 worst passwords of 2014. Here's a look at the top 10 worst passwords of the year: 1. 123456 (Unchanged from 2013) 6. 234567890 (Unchanged) 2. password (Unchanged) 7. baseball (New) 3. 12345 (Up 17) 8. dragon (New) 4. 12345678 (Down 1) 9. football (New) 5. qwerty (Down 1) 10. monkey (New) This year's worst passwords are painfully weak, but what were once considered clever password strategies -- using symbols, capitalizations, the number 3 in place of the letter "e" -- are old tricks. It's now recommended to pick a different password for each account you use -- you wouldn't use the same key in all of your locks, and the same goes for passwords. Companies like Facebook, Twitter and Apple are now trying to make hacking more difficult on their services by offering two-factor authentication , which is basically like double locking your door at night. Each time you want to log into that account, the company will send a code to your phone -- it changes after each login attempt, so hackers would have to be in physical possession of your smartphone to know the code. Question: To fight against hacking, some companies _ . - don't accept weak passwords - double lock their doors at night - combine the password with a code to prove one's identity - prevent hackers from stealing customers' smartphones
combine the password with a code to prove one's identity
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Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: As young Chinese increasingly forget how to write characters because they don't have to, using keyboards and touch screen technology on mobile phones is changing the trend. For Yin Liang, a 26-year-old purchasing agent at a company, his embarrassment over forgetting how to write characters has gradually disappeared since he started to use the handwriting input method on his iPhone 4 a month ago. "When you write on the touch screen, you use your finger, instead of a mouse or keyboard," Yin says. "Actually, your finger is like a pen, writing the complicated characters that have long been spelled by pinyin, an alphabet-based input system. Whether typing on computers or texting on phones, most users in China type by phonetically spelling out the sounds of the characters and the software then gives a menu of characters that fit the pronunciation, so users only need to recognize the character. Handwriting technology on a mobile phone touch screen has been around for years and became popular with the iPhone, which recognizes the input and offers a wide selection of characters. "It's efficient and accurate," Yin says. Chinese characters are the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world, but as pinyin-based typing has become more widespread, youths have started forgetting how to write out characters. This was one of the main topics for debate at the first Cross-Straits Chinese Character Art Festival, held recently in Beijing, which attracted experts from Taiwan and the mainland. According to Zhang Zikang, president of the Culture and Art Publishing House, writing with a pen on the touch screen brings handwriting into the digital age. It is even better when you write with your finger, feeling the flow of the cursive script and the grace and art of Chinese characters, he says. "Smart gadgets don't take life from the square-shaped characters, instead they offer a new and advanced platform to show the charm of Chinese characters, which are always evolving," Zhang says. Question: Which way is not mentioned in the passage to input characters on the phone? - Taking pictures. - Using a kind of alphabet-based input system. - Spelling out the sounds of the characters. - Using their fingers as pens to write.
Taking pictures.
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