Scotland has long been characterized as a land of romance. It contains ruins of many ancient castles and abbeys,and there is an attractive beauty in its mountains,long deep valleys,and ribbon lakes.Each year those things attract a great number of tourists. Numerous islands line the coast.In the north are two large groups,the Orkney Islands and the Shetland Islands.Close to the west coast are the Inner and Outer Hebrides groups,and the islands of Arran and Bute. The land may be divided into three regions: the Highlands in the north,the Central Lowlands and the Southern Uplands. The Highlands are wild and picturesque . A long valley called Glenmore crosses the Highlands from southwest to northeast. In the south of the Highlands are the Grampian Mountains,highest in the British Isles. Ben Nevis,the highest peak,rises to 1,243 meters.Ben Lomond rises from the shore of Loch Lomond,Scotland's largest freshwater lake. The Central Lowlands run from southwest to northeast and the greatest length is nearly 145 kilometers.The soil here is fertile,and there are four coalfields underlying the area.In the east is Edinburgh,Scotland's historic capital city,and in the west is Glasgow. Almost 90 percent of Scotland's population live in the Lowlands. In the Southern Uplands, the hills are generally less than 600 meters high. Their rounded or flat tops are often _ with dark peat . Along the slopes are plants like grass and heather . The author's aim of writing this passage is _ . A) to attract people to visit Scotland B) to describe the beautiful scenery of Scotland C) to show people the history of Scotland D) to introduce Scotland generally
D
E-mail is one of the biggest threats to your home computer. By understanding how E-mail works, and by taking some steps in how you deal with reading and writing messages, you can keep this threat out of your computer. When you exchange E-mail with someone else, the messages sent between you and that person pass through several computer before they reach their places. Imagine this conversation as it is taking place in an Internet "room", a very, very big room. Anyone, or more exactly, any program can probably understand what is being said, because most Internet conversations are not hidden in any way. As a result, others may be listening in, _ what you send, and using it for their own good. E-mail-borne viruses often arrive in attractive, fantastic appearances, much like the beautiful ads we receive by way of traditional mail that is made to sell us something. By beautiful appearances, an infected E-mail message seems to be something we want to read from someone we know, not a mean virus ready to destroy or damage our computers. There are some steps that you can take to help you decide what to do with every E-mail message with an attachment that you receive. You should only read a message that passes all of these tests: 1) The Know Test: Is the E-mail from someone that you know? 2) The Received Test: Have you received E-mail from this sender before? 3) The Expect Test: Were you waiting for E-mail with an attachment from this sender? 4) The Meaning Test: Do the topic line of the E-mail message and the name of the attachment both have meanings? 5) The Virus Test: Is the E-mail infected? What is the passage mainly talking about? A) The threats of E-mail. B) The safety of home computers. C) The E-mail-borne viruses. D) The steps to receive E-mail messages.
B
Q: How do you get a man to do his share of the housework? If you are like most women, you've faced this question the hard way. A man will enjoy a clean, orderly house, but he usually won't make the effort to clean or organise it. This doesn't mean that a woman has to do all the housework:; she may have to manage many of the household duties, and request her partner's participation . A woman can often say that men and women should take equal responsibility for housework. Very few men are raised to be fully responsible for housework, and many men look on housework as women's work. On the other hand, most men will readily work around the yard, make repairs and complete projects on weekends or evenings, and it's important that you give your man appreciation for those things, too. Most men will take on a little additional housework around the house if asked politely. They are even more likely to do housework if they can choose what they want to do, and do it without being monitored. Here's the key: men want to feel that they are doing housework either because they want to do a task, or because they simply want to please their women. Men are much less likely to take on household tasks they consider uninteresting and unimportant. In other words, men are likely to do a household task just for the good of the house. According to the passage, a man _ . A) is willing to do housework B) likes to be told to do housework C) is taught to be responsible for housework from childhood D) likes a clean house but doesn't make efforts to clean it
A: D
(Q).
Texting long messages can be a pain in the neck. The repetitive action of working your fingers across the keyboard of your cell phone can cause some of the same chronic pain problems previously limited to those who'd spent a lifetime typing. The possible connection is particularly worrying considering how much teens and young adults -- and increasingly those in professional settings -- are texting nowadays, said Judith Gold, who carried out one of the first studies on the potential connection. Text messaging is a fairly new technology, Gold says, so this is a new area of research for those who study ergonomics . But "considering the similarities in body position, findings from research on overuse injuries from computers could be applicable" to texting. "The way the body is positioned for texting - fixed shoulders and back with rapidly moving fingers - is similar to the position for typing on a computer," Gold explained. Previous research has found pain in the elbow connected with too much thumb texting. To look for a broader link between texting and chronic pain, Gold and her colleagues sent a questionnaire to 138 college students, asking them to report the number of text messages they sent per day (in four categories: 0, 1-10, 11-20, 21+ messages) and to point out any discomfort they felt on a body map. The research showed an association between the number of text messages sent per day and shoulder discomfort. The effect seemed to be particularly pronounced in males, though Gold says she doesn't know why that would be. "What we've seen so far is very similar to what we see with office workers who've spent most of their time at a computer," Gold said. However, Gold's study did not take account of the amount of time the people surveyed also spent typing on computers, which could be affecting the results. In which column in the newspaper can you find the passage? A) Fashion B) Education C) Health D) Entertainment
(A).
C