Miss Popular I was awkward in middle school: bony and athletic, with a high grade in science and a low one in self-esteem. Though I had a few friends, I wasn't popular. I was picked last in football and I sometimes ate lunch by myself. I remember the day Brittany came to our school. Her teeth were crooked , and she was a little overweight. Not that this mattered though, because she walked around like she was better than all of us. She was outspoken and incredibly frightening, making people lose confidence. Around Brittany, I tried my best to go unnoticed. Standing out or stealing her spotlight could only result in one thing: conflict. Brittany was always the first girl picked for teams; I was lucky if I was picked at all. I was thrown the ball while she stood with the quarterback, chatting about the last party she'd gone to. I had never been to a party before or kissed a boy. One day, a classmate asked me to the school dance. I was flattered. Then Brittany told me during science class that she had persuaded him to invite me. She asked in front of everyone, "Why would anyone even want you?" I went home and cried. Although she was seemingly perfect in everyone's eyes, I wanted to be everything that she wasn't and yet a million times more perfect. Brittany was so frightening and violent, but I wanted to be calm and not at all aggressive. I found Brittany's online profile a few weeks ago. She still had the same chubby face and mocking simile, and had posted half-naked pictures of herself. But as I read on, I realized that Brittany had died in a drunken driving accident a year ago. She had been 16 and pregnant at the time. Suddenly my view of Brittany changed from a bad influence into a struggling little girl whose life was taken before she could understand right from wrong. My experience with Brittany taught me that though we are all innocent in our youth, the choices we make will have great effects on us forever. I will always remember Brittany as that loud, overconfident girl. As part of that shy insecure... Which of the following is TRUE about Brittany? A) She didn't mean to hurt the author. B) She took delight in hurting others. C) Her confidence came from her popularity. D) Her overweight made her more outspoken.
B
(Question)
Noah Webster, born on October 16, 1758 , is known for The American Dictionary of the English Language. He has been called the " Father of American Scholarship and Education. " His " Blue-Backed Speller" books were used to teach spelling and reading to five generations of American children. But how much .do you know about him beyond that? At the age of 16, Noah Webster began attending ,Yale College. Unfortunately, he spent his four years at Yale during the American Revolutionary War, and, because of food shortages, many of his college classes were held in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Later, he served in the army. Having graduated from Yale in 1778, Webster wanted to continue his education in order to earn his law degree. He had to teach school in order to pay for his education. He set up many small schools that didn't survive, but he was a good teacher because instead of forcing his students to learn, like most teachers did, he rewarded them. He earned his law degree in 1781, but did not practice law until 1789. Once he started he found the law was not to his liking. Webster did not have much money. In 1793 , Alexander Hamilton lent him $ 1500 to move to New York City to edit a newspaper. In December, he founded New York ' s first daily newspaper, American Minerva, and edited it for four years. For decades, he published . textbooks, political essays, a report on some diseases, and newspaper articles for his party, He wrote so much that a modern list of his published works required 655 pages .Noah Webster died on May 28, 1843 and was buried in the Grove Street Cemetery. What did Noah want to be after graduation from Yale? A) A teacher. B) A lawyer. C) A headmaster. D) A scholar.
(Answer)
B
Question: Gadgets can be wildly expensive and quickly out-of-date, but Steven Poole is still the first to buy them. Technological innovations are often quite stupid. The idea that you might want to walk down the street holding a mobile phone in front of your face, just to experience the wonders of video calling, is clearly ridiculous. Luckily for the tech companies, however, there are some people who jump at the chance to buy into new gadgets before they are fully ready and cheap enough for the mass-market. They are called early adopters, and their fate is a terrible one. I should know, since I am one myself. Early adopters have a Mecca: it's Tokyo's Akihabara district, also known as "Electric City". There, in 1999, I bought a digital camera, a gizmo that few people in Britain had heard of. Over the next few years I watched in great sadness as digital cameras became more popular, cheaper and more powerful, until better models could be had for a quarter of the price I had paid. Did I feel stupid? What I actually did was this: I splashed out more money last year for a new one, one that let me feel pleasantly ahead of the curve once again. But I know that cannot last, and I'll probably have to buy another in a few years. Thus early adopters are betting on other people eventually feeling the same desires. And it's worse if that future never arrives. Early adopters of the Betamax home-video format in the 1970s could only look on in sadness when their investment was nullified by the success of VHS. All sorts of apparently splendid inventions, such as videogame consoles like the Atari Jaguar have been abandoned to the dustbin of history right after a few early adopters bought in. Those who invested thousands in a Segway motorized scooter on the wave of ridiculous advertising campaigns that accompanied its launch a couple of years ago can join the club. You might think we should just stop being so silly, save our money, and wait to see what really catches on. But the logic of the industry is such that, if everyone did... By saying the last sentence "Really, we are heroes." the writer wants to express that _ . A) early adopters are likely to get addicted to modern technology B) early adopters bravely spend much money buying new technology C) early adopters are as a matter of fact clever investors of technology D) early adopters help promote the development of technology
Answer:
D