"A child is dying---out of breath!" I had just begun my working day in the city, when these words came through the radio of the police car I was driving. I turned on the red lights and siren and drove off as fast as I could. "Just my luck!" I thought. I didn't know this city well and my first call of the day was a life-and-death sudden happening, several kilometers away. I got to the house. A mother, filled with fear, handed me her baby, his face already blue. Was I too late? Dear me! I did what had been taught to do in such a serious condition. A small thing flew out of the baby's mouth on to the floor. It was a button. Thank heaven! The holes in it let a little air through. A doctor rushed into the room. He had with him an oxygen bag. The child began to cry at the top of his voice, burned red and started to look for his mother. He was angry but was saved. The writer of the story is _ . A) a policeman B) a driver C) a doctor D) the boy's father
A
My grandparents were married for over half a century, and played their own special game the time they had met each other. The goal of their game was to write the word "shmily" in a surprise place for the other to find. They took turns leaving "shmily" around the house, and as soon as one of them discovered it, it was their turn to hide it once more. They dragged "shmily" with their fingers through the sugar and flour containers to await whoever was preparing the next meal. "Shmily" was written in the steam left on the mirror after a hot shower, where it would reappear bath after bath. There was no end to the places where "shmily" would _ . Little notes with "shmily" were found on car seats, or taped to steering wheels. The notes were put inside shoes and left under pillows. "Shmily" was written in the dust upon the mantel and traced in the ashes of the fireplace. This mysterious word was as much a part of my grandparents' house as the furniture. It took me a long time before I was able to fully appreciate my grandparents' game. Skepticism has kept me from believing in true love --- one that is pure and enduring . However, I never doubted my grandparents' relationship. It was based on passionate affection which not everyone is lucky enough to experience. But there was a dark cloud in my grandparents' life: my grandmother had breast cancer. The disease had first appeared ten years earlier. As always, Grandpa was with her every step of the way. He comforted her in their yellow room, painted that way so that she could always be surrounded by sunshine, even when she was too sick to go outside. But my grandmother grew steadily weaker until, finally, she could not leave the house anymore. Then one day, what we all dreaded finally happened. Grandma was gone. "Shmily." It was written in yellow on the pink ribbons of my grandmother's funeral bouquet . As the crowd thinned and the last mourners turned to leave, Grandpa stepped up to my grandmother's coffin and, taking a shaky breath, he began to sing to her. Through... Grandpa tried to make Grandma comfortable by _ . A) singing songs to her every day B) painting the room yellow C) encouraging her to go outside D) helping her take a hot shower every day
B
Q: Cowboy or spaceman? A dilemma for a children's party, perhaps. But also a question for economists, argued Kenneth Boulding, a British economist, in an essay published in 1966. We have run our economies, he warned, like cowboys on the open grassland: taking and using the world's resources, confident that more lies over the horizon. But the Earth is less a grassland than a spaceship--a closed system, alone in space, carrying limited supplies. We need, said Boulding, an economics that takes seriously the idea of environmental limits. In the half century since his essay, a new movement has responded to his challenge. "Ecological economists", as they call themselves, want to revolutionise its aims and assumptions. What do they say--and will their ideas achieve lift-off? To its advocators, ecological economics is neither ecology nor economics, but a mix of both. Their starting point is to recognise that the human economy is part of the natural world. Our environment, they note, is both a source of resources and a sink for wastes. But it is ignored in conventional textbooks, where neat diagrams trace the flows between firms, households and the government as though nature did not exist. That is a mistake, say ecological economists. There are two ways our economies can grow, ecological economists point out: through technological change, or through more intensive use of resources. Only the former, they say, is worth having. They are suspicious of GDP, a crude measure which does not take account of resource exhaustion, unpaid work, and countless other factors. In its place they advocate moreholistic approaches, such as the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), a composite index that includes things like the cost of pollution, deforestation and car accidents. While GDP has kept growing, global GPI per person peaked in 1978: by destroying our environment we are making ourselves poorer, not richer. The solution, says Herman Daly, a former World Bank economist and eco-guru, is a "steady-state" economy, where the use of... According to ecological economists, what is the mistake existing in conventional textbooks? A) Ecology and economics are not mixed together B) Human economy isn't recognized as parts of nature C) The environment has both resources and wastes D) Diagrams connect firms, households and the government
A: B
There lived a king who liked art. One day an artist offered to paint the most beautiful picture in the world on the wall of his palace. So the king said, "All right, you may work on one of the walls in the new hall." Just then, another artist said, " Please allow me to work on the opposite wall. I shall make exactly what that man will make on the opposite wall. Moreover, I shall do so without looking at his work. I would even request you to have a thick curtain put up between the two walls so the either of us cann't see the other." Everyone in the king's court, including the king and the first artist was surprised. So the king decided to give the man a chance. The following day a thick curtain was put into place and both the artists got to work. The first artist brought in a regular supply of paint, oil and water. But the second one would come with a cloth and a bucket of water every day. A month later the first artist said that his work was completed and invited the king to come. So the king sent the message to the second artist, saying he was coming to see their works that evening. After seeing the first artist's wall, the king was very impressed with the painting and gave him a huge sum of money as a reward. He then asked for the curtain to be opened up. The same painting was seen on the opposite wall too! It was exactly like the one on the first wall. But this man had not seen what was going on, on the other side of the curtain. The man said simply, "It's very easy I just polished the wall every day!" It was a wall made of white marble. The fellow polished it till it shone like a mirror. The reflection of the painting across the room showed up in it! What would be the best title of the text? _ A) A king who loved art. B) Two artists and the king. C) Whose painting is better? D) The painting on the wall.
D