Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Richard Wagner was a German musician has been a very controversial person, but he has gained great fame by writing opera, a form of performance combining singing, music on instruments, and drama. While he wrote excellent music, many people think his operas are too dark and serious, lacking the fun common in operas written before his time. Wagner, on the other hand, thought the opera of his time was too simple.He wanted to make opera a serious form of art that combined drama and music to tell deep stories that would have a strong effect on the audience. Some people thought Wagner's new kind of music was too different from the operas they were used to hearing.Wagner agreed with them.In fact, he didn't call his works "operas" at all, using instead a German word that means "Musical Festival" or "Musical play". While many people today still do not like Wagner's operas, they cannot deny that Wagner has had a lot of influence on opera as a form of art.Wagner invented the tradition of turning off the lights before starting a play.He also was the first person to make the whole audience sit down for an entire play.Today, almost all operas are performed in this manner. Wagner as a man was even more controversial than Wagner as a writer of music.He hated Jewish people, and made many people angry, which we would today think of as evil.Some would say he was a good musician, while others would say that he was a bad musician.But it would be difficult to say he was not an important person in music and in the world. Question: Why did Wagner write what is considered serious music? Options: A: He wanted to influence people with deep stories. B: He wanted to make his music simple to follow. C: He wanted to make it suitable for his deep voice. D: He was greatly influenced by previous musicians.
A

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: If you think that running marathons will help you live a long and healthy life,new research may come as a shock.According to a recent scientific study,people who do a very _ workout are as likely to die as people who do no exercise at all. Scientists in Denmark have been studying over 1,000 joggers and non-joggers for 12 years.The death rates from the sample group suggest that people who jog at a moderate pace two or three times a week for less than two and a half hours in total are least likely to die. The best speed to jog at was found to be about 5 miles per hour.The research suggests that people who jog more than three times a week or at higher speeds of over 7 mph die at the same rate as non-joggers.The scientists think that this is because strenuous exercise causes structural changes to the heart and arteries .Over time,this can cause serious injuries. Peter Schnohr,a researcher in Copenhagen,said,"If your goal is to decrease risk of death and improve life expectancy,jogging a few times a week at a moderate pace is a good strategy .Anything more is not just unnecessary,and it may be harmful." The implications of this are that moderate forms of exercise such as tai chi,yoga and brisk walking may be better for us than "iron man" events,triathlons and long-distance running and cycling.According to Jacob Louis Marott,another researcher in the study,"You don't actually have to do that much to have a good impact on your health.And perhaps you shouldn't actually do too much". Question: What can be inferred from the text? Options: A: No exercise at all is the best choice. B: More exercise means a healthier life. C: Marathons runners are least likely to die. D: Proper exercise contributes to good health.
D

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: In spite of ill health and a physical incapacity that threatened her career, Carson McCullers completed a novel in the summer of 1961 that made the best-seller list before its official publication; date by virtue of prepublication sales. In an interview at her home, the noted novelist looked back on some of her problems of recent years and spoke without emotion of her latest book, Clock without Hands, her first in fifteen years, "For many years I had been thinking of the novel and finally wrote it this passed year. ""The tall, frail novelist, forty-three years old in 1961, suffered a series of strokes in her twenties that left her partially incapacitated, and she also admitted that a mental block kept her away from writing for many years after the strokes. Mrs McCullers once wrote that "writing is a wandering, dreaming occupation. " But beyond the admission that she works" very hard" at her writing, she is shy about discussing her work. She is remote from literary fashions, and she has never learned to intellectualize her art, but she reads her critics and takes them seriously. Clock Without Hands depicts Mrs McCullers' native South and the slow passing of the old way of life through the lives of a dying pharmacist , a white judge and former congressman, his rebellious grandson, and two Negroes. Among her earlier noted works are Member of the Wedding, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and Ballad of Sad Cafe. Question: The novel made the best-seller list _ . Options: A: one month after publication B: immediately upon publication C: before publication D: before completion
C

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Sir Nicholas Winton, rescuer of children, died on July 1st,2015,aged 106. When the letters and the honor came knocking on the door of his house in Maidenhead, and the filmmakers came calling, Nicholas Winton always protested that he was no hero. Heroes faced danger; he never had. They put their lives on the line; he had just worked at home in Hampstead, after a day being a stockbroker in the City. They avoided bullets and the secret police; he wrote letters, made telephone calls,and composed lists. The fact that he had rescued 669 children from Czechoslovakia just as the Nazis invaded did not, in his mind, constitute heroism. He hadn't gone out there in 1938 with any burning urge to do good; just for a holiday, in fact. Nor had he gone looking for children to rescue. Instead they and their parents had come to him, as soon as word got round that he might be able to help them leave Prague and get to the West. From 6.00 a.m. the knocks would come at the door of his room in the Europa Hotel, and he would open it to find some shivering, starving, desperate figure. When faced with a problem, his instinct was to solve it. So he made lists of the children, took their photographs, got them Home Office entry permits, found them foster families and organised their departure on trains, via the Netherlands, to Liverpool Street. After just three weeks in Prague, he went back to Britain and carried on the work from there. The British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia gave him almost no help, so he took sole charge himself. The Home Office was slow with entry permits, so he copied some illegally. In search of foster-parents for the children he put their photos in Picture Post; in the hope of farther havens for them he wrote to governors and senators in America and even to President Roosevelt, to no avail. He could have rescued at least 2,000 more, he said later, if America had been willing to take any. A hero might have got involved in the stress and distress of individual cases. He avoided that by treating them... Question: What is the best title for the passage? Options: A: A job well done B: A risky rescue C: A group of lucky children D: A living legend
A