I have this old clock that belonged to my mom. My dad gave it to me years ago after mom passed away. I have mixed feelings about having the clock. I love it because it was my mom's, but it also holds some bad memories. You see, it chimes. It counts out the hour and rings once on the half hour. Or at least it used to. Now you never know what number it will ring. When my mother was at home dying from cancer, she asked for the clock to be unplugged. Hearing the hours count down really angered and frightened her. Mom passed away. I decided I wanted to get the clock fixed so I could remember the good hours we had with her. I took it to a local clock shop the other day. "I know this has no particular value as a clock, but it was my mom's and I need to get it fixed," I said to the shop owner. I went on to describe the problem. "We get a lot of these in," he told me. "Here's what I do. We remove the clock works and replace it with a battery-operated movement that chimes electronically," he told me. "You can't fix this?" "No, we don't have the time nor the parts." I thanked him and went home. I called a few other places and was told the same thing. "How incredibly sad," I told the last one disappointedly. How incredibly sad that we have become a society that replaces craftsmanship with convenience and easy fixes. We copy the original instead of creating something new. We duplicate ; we don't originate . Sadly, the same goes for our attitude to life itself. Each of us is an original, one of a kind. But we find it so much easier to copy another style than to develop our own. We are wannabes rather than hey-world-look-at-mes. We fail to see the real value in who we are, so we spend our lives trying to be someone else. Why did the author decide to get the clock fixed? A) Because it was a really old and valuable clock. B) Because it was the only thing that her mother had left her. C) Because it brought her memories of being with her mother. D) Because it left the author with mixed feelings.
C
Students who date in middle school have significantly worse study skills. They are four times more likely to drop out of school and report twice as much alcohol and tobacco use as their single classmates, according to new research from the University of Georgia. "Romantic relationships are a trademark of adolescence, but very few studies have examined how adolescents differ in the development of these relationships," said Pamela Orpinas, study author and professor in the College of Public Health and head of the Department of Health Promotion and Behavior.[: _ Z _ X _ X _ K] Orpinas followed a group of 624 students over a seven-year period from 6th to 12th grade. Each year, the group of students completed a survey indicating whether they had dated and reported the frequency of different behaviors, including the use of drugs and alcohol. Their teachers completed questionnaires about the students' academic efforts. He found some students never or hardly ever reported dating from middle to high school, and these students had consistently the best study skills according to their teachers. Other students dated infrequently in middle school but increased the frequency of dating in high school. "At all points in time, teachers rated the students who reported the lowest frequency of dating as having the best study skills and the students with the highest dating as having the worst study skills," according to the journal article. Study skills refer to behaviors that lead to academic success such as doing work for extra credit being well organized, finishing homework, working hard and reading assigned chapters. "Dating a classmate may have the same emotional complications of dating a co-worker," Orpinas said, "When the couple break up, they have to continue to see each other in class and perhaps witness the ex-partner dating someone else. It is reasonable to think this could be linked to depression and divert attention from studying." "Dating should not be considered a ceremony of growth in middle school," Orpinas concluded. When doing his study, Orpinas _ . A) followed a group of students of 6th and 12th grade B) completed a survey and a report each year C) completed questionnaires about the students' academic efforts D) found that the students' study skills have connection with their frequency of dating
D
(Question)
Pulling heavy suitcases all day in the summer is hard work, especially when you're a thin 14-year-old.That was me in 1940-the youngest and smallest baggage boy at New York City's Pennsyl-vania Railway Station. After just a few days on the job, I began noticing that the other fellows were overcharging passengers. I'd like to join them, thinking, "Everyone else is doing it." When I got home that night, I told my dad what I wanted to do." You give an honest day's work," he said, looking at me straight in the eye." They're paying you. If they want to do that, you let them do that." I followed my dad's advice for the rest of that summer and have lived by his words ever since. Of all the jobs I've had, it was my experience at Pennsylvania Railway Station that has stuck with me. Now I teach my players to have respect for other people and their possessions. Being a member of a team is a totally shared experience. If one person steals, it destroys trust and hurts everyone. I can put up with many things, but not with people who steal. If one of my players were caught stealing, he'd be gone. Whether you're on a sports team, in an office or a member of a family, if you can't trust one another, there's going to be trouble. The writer can't put up with stealing because he thinks that _ . A) it is a totally shared experience B) it is considered as the most dangerous C) it does great harm to human relationship D) it may lead to the loss of his sports team
(Answer)
C