I believe children have a very pure sense of humor. Well, I would like to share my experiences with you. The other day when I was out with a friend and her daughter Jane at a restaurant, Jane ordered an apple dessert, which was the most attractive dish in that restaurant. However, when she had a bite of the pie, she shouted loudly, "Mom, why does it look good but tastes like rubber?" My friend was uneasy. Then the waiter gave us another dish. A child can say funny things. I was at a friend's home for tea and her son, Mark, wanted her to get up. His mom replied, "I can't, because my foot has fallen asleep now." Little Mark then sang a song and asked, "Mom, will it wake up now?" We laughed together. The other day we were having an interesting conversation over lunch and my friend, an animal activist , was arguing with another group member. Her son Tommy suddenly stood up, "Mom, people should never be allowed to shoot extinct animals!" That was funny and the child did manage to turn the argument into a pleasant conversation. Well, children sometimes really surprise us. I think we can have a lot to learn from them. They can help us understand the simple world through their eyes. Why did Jane shout loudly in the restaurant? A) She wanted to make us laugh. B) She thought her dish was attractive. C) She wanted another piece of dessert. D) She didn't like the flavor of her food.
D
Bill Javis took over our village news-agency at a time of life when most of us only want to relax. He just thought he would like something but not too much to do, and the news-agency was ready-made. The business produced little enough for him, but Bill was a man who only wanted the simplicity and order and regularity of the job. He had been a long-serving sailor, and all his life had done everything by the clock. Every day he opened his shop at six a.m. to catch the early trade; the papers arrived on his door-step before that. Many of Bill's customers were city workers, and the shop was convenient for the station. Business was _ by 10 o'clock, so at eleven sharp Bill closed for lunch. It was hard luck on anybody who wanted a paper or magazine in the afternoon, for most likely Bill would be down on the river bank, fishing, and his nearest competitor was five kilometers away. Sometime in the afternoon, the evening paper landed on the doormat, and at 4 o'clock Bill reopened. The evening rush lasted till seven, and it was worthwhile. He lived in a flat above the shop, alone. Except in the very bad weather, you always knew where to find him in the afternoon, as I have said. Once, on a sunny afternoon, I walked home along the river bank from a shopping trip to the village. By my watch it was three minutes past four, so I was astonished to see Bill sitting there on his little chair with a line in the water. He had had no luck, I could see, but he was making no effort to move. "What's wrong, Bill?" I called out from the path. For answer, he put a hand in his jacket and took out a big, golden object. For a moment I had no idea what it could be, and then it suddenly went off with a noise like a fire engine. Stopping the bell, Bill held the thing up and called back, "Ten to four, you see, and this is dead right." I had never known anyone carrying a brass alarm clock round with him before. On that sunny afternoon, the writer was surprised when he saw Bill because _ . A) he thought it was late for Bill to be still fishing B) he thought Bill was ill, since he was not moving at all C) Bill had not caught anything, and that seemed strange D) Bill stayed in his flat
A
Q: SYDNEY 2005-01-01 08:33--Mother of two, Jillian Searle, had to choose between her children when she made a life-or-death decision. Swept up by mountainous tsunami waves at a Thai resort ( ), she could not hold on to both her young sons and survive . Fighting to stay above the waters , she had to choose which one would have to take his chances in the swirling torrent . "I knew I had to let go of one of them and I just thought I'd better let go of the one that's the older," she told Sky News television in a report broadcast on Thursday. She said she was accompanied by the two boys, Lachie, 5, and two-year-old Blake, and their father, Brad, who had watched the drama helplessly from their first-floor hotel room, when the waves struck. "And I was screaming, trying to find _ , and we thought he was dead," she told reporters on arrival back in Australia. Lachie was found alive about 2 hours later clinging to a door and, looked uninjured as his mother spoke to reporters. British surfer Martin Markwell is also a lucky man. He had always dreamed of catching that perfect wave -but when it finally came along, it was a nightmare. He was on his surfboard when he was swept up by a tsunami wave. "It was really terrible because I was surfing, I was really surfing on a wave I wasn't supposed to be on," he said. "As an experienced surfer, when I saw the wave come I realized something was wrong, but I couldn't escape because my surfboard was tied to my ankle." His wife Vicki and son Jake looked on in horror from a hotel balcony as he crashed towards the shore. Luckily , he stayed on top of his board until he reached the hotel , jumped off and got to safety as the ocean rolled back to feed a much larger tsunami wave on its way . The family regrouped and ran to safety just minutes before a giant tsunami wave 10 meters high. When the waves struck, the father Brad _ . A) reported the disaster to Sky News television B) was watching a drama play on TV in the hotel C) tried to find his son lost in the waters D) watched things going on , unable to do anything
A: D
Q: Every day, millions of shoppers hit the stores in full force--both online and on foot--searching for the perfect gift. Aside from purchasing holiday gifts, most people regularly buy presents for other occasions throughout the year, including weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and baby showers. This frequent experience of gift-giving can cause _ feelings in gift-givers. Many enjoy the opportunity to buy presents because gift-giving offers a powerful means to build stronger bonds with one's closest persons. At the same time, many fear the thought of buying gifts; they worry that their purchases will disappoint rather than delight the intended receivers. What is surprising is that gift-givers have considerable experience acting as both gift-givers and gift-recipients, but nevertheless tend to overspend each time they set out to purchase a meaningful gift. In the present research, we propose a unique psychological explanation for this overspending problem -- i.e., that gift-givers equate how much they spend with how much receivers will appreciate the gift (the more expensive the gift, the stronger a gift-recipient's feelings of appreciation). Although a link between gift price and feelings of appreciation might seem intuitive to gift-givers, such an assumption may be unfounded. Indeed, we propose that gift-receivers will seldom tend to base their feelings of appreciation on the significance weight of a gift than givers assume. Why do gift-givers assume that gift price is closely linked to gift-recipients' feelings of appreciation? Perhaps givers believe that bigger (i.e., more expensive) gifts convey stronger signals of thoughtfulness and consideration. According to Camerer (1988) and others, gift-giving represents a symbolic ritual , by which gift-givers attempt to signal their positive attitudes toward the intended receiver and their willingness to invest resources in a future relationship. In this sense, gift-givers may be motivated to spend more money on a gift in order to send a "stronger... The authors refer to work by Camerer and others in order to _ . A) offer an explanation B) introduce an argument C) question an intension D) support a conclusion
A: A