Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Reading for pleasure is declining among primary-age pupils, and increasing numbers of "time poor" parents are dropping the practice of sharing bedtime stories with their children once they start school. Research presented to a conference last week found that, while parents read to preschoolers, this later tails off, and by the final year of primary school only around 2% read to their children every day. Once children can read skillfully, parents tend to step back, and this usually happens at the age of seven or eight. The report also found that 82% of teachers blame the government's "target--driven" education policies for the fact that fewer children are reading for pleasure. They believe that a straitjacket of strictly organized schooling is containing young people's ability to read more widely. Two-thirds of teachers surveyed said they lacked time in the school day to introduce a variety of books and that this was a "major obstacle to being able to develop a level of reading". Teachers also cited as main factors the reduction in the number of school librarians, who could put interesting books before children, and the rise in "screen time", switching children from reading to playing games. The majority of teachers said the curriculum's " emphasis on reading as a skill to be mastered" was increasing the pressure. This was _ by parents who saw reading just as a focus of learning, a skill critical to career advancement in a competitive world. Reading habits and the digital revolution in publishing were key topics of debate at the conference. The theme of the lack of British culture was supported by children's writer Frank Cottrell Boyce, who wrote the scripts( ) for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics. "We discovered the whole nation had forgotten that they did the industrial revolution," he said. "Books are so central to it; books can be written by anyone. A lot of the pleasure of a book is listening to somebody read it to you. " "We found a real love of reading among teachers, and a... Question: What leads to parents' dropping the practice of sharing bedtime stories with their children? - Children have less time to spend with their parents after they start school. - Parents think it unnecessary to do so when children can read themselves. - The government's education policies have placed much burden on children. - Children don't like parents reading stories to them when they are seven or eight.
Parents think it unnecessary to do so when children can read themselves.

(Question)
Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: _ In order to reduce air pollution and oilshortages, automobile manufacturers have announced their plans to develop hybrid vehicles for the Chinese market. Toyota's hybrid car Prius will be ready to drive in China this week. Let's have a look at the new car. Any vehicle is a hybrid when it combines two or more sources of power. Hybrid cars run off a rechargeable battery and gasoline. Hybrid cars have special engines, which are smaller than traditional gasoline engines. They run at 99 percent of their power when the car is cruising . A specially designed battery motor provides extra power for running up hills or when extra acceleration is needed. Step into a Prius, and turn on the engine. The first thing you notice is how much quieter it is than a traditional car. At this point, the car's gasoline engine is dormant . The electric motor will provide power until the car reaches about 24 km/h. If you stay at a low speed, you are effectively driving an electric car, with no gasoline being used, and no waste gas gives off. The onboard computer makes the decision about when to use a gas engine, when to go electric, and when to use a combination of the two. If you go over 24 km/h, when you step on the gas pedal , you are actually telling the computer how fast you want to go. The electronic motor recharges automatically using a set of batteries. When driving at high speed, the gasoline engine not only powers the car, but also charges the batteries. Any time you use the brake, the electric motor in the wheels will work like a generator and produce electricity to recharge the batteries. As a consequence, the car's batteries will last for around 200,000 miles. Question: What is the most important feature of hybrid cars? - They are powered by both a rechargeable battery and gasoline. - They are much quieter than traditional cars. - They only use 99 percent of their power to run up hills. - They have smaller engines than traditional gasoline ones.
(Answer)
They are powered by both a rechargeable battery and gasoline.

Ques: Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Thirteen vehicles lined up last March to race across the Mojave Desert , seeking a million in prize money . To win , they had to finish the 142-mile race in less than 10 hours . Teams and watchers knew there might be no winner at all , because these vehicles were missinge a key part drivers . DARPA , the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency , organized the race as part of a push to develop robotic vehicles for future battlefields . But the Grand Challenge , as it was called , just proved how difficult it is to get a car to speed across an unfamiliar desert without human guidance . One had its brake lock up in the starting area . Another began by throwing itself onto a wall . Another got tied up by bushes near the road after 1.9 miles . One turned upside down . One took off in entirely the wrong direction and had to be disabled by remote control . One went a little more than a mile and rushed into a fence ; another managed to go for six miles but stuck on a rock . The "winner," if there was any , reached 7.8 miles before it ran into a long , narrow hole , and the front wheels caught on fire . "You get a lot of respect for natural abilities of the living things," says Reinhold Behringer , who helped design two of the car-size vehicles for a company called Sci-Autonics . "Even ants can do all these tasks effortlessly . It's very hard for us to put these abilities into our machines ." The robotic vehicles , though with necessary modern equipment such as advanced computers and GPS guidance , had trouble figuring out fast enough the blocks ahead that a two-year-old human recognizes immediately , Sure , that very young child, who has just only learned to walk , may not think to wipe apple juice off her face , but she already knows that when there's a cookie in the kitchen she has to climb up the table , and that when she gets to the cookie it will taste good . She is more advanced , even months old , than any machine humans have designed . Question: In the race , the greatest distance one robotic vehicle covered was_. - about eight miles - six miles - almost two miles - about one mile
Ans:
about eight miles