Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: A twenty-nine-year-old kindergarten teacher from Maryland was named National Teacher of the Year in 2006. On June first she would begin a year as a national and international spokeswoman for education. Kimberly Oliver was the first National Teacher of the Year from her state. She taught five-year-old children at a public school in Maryland, near Washington, D.C. President Bush honored her and other top teachers at the White House. Kimberly Oliver said she wanted people to understand that the first several years of a child's life were the most important for learning. She said investing in children at a very young age would result in great gains later in school and in life. She called on parents to read to children from an early age so they would not fall behind in school. One of the activities at her school was an event called " Books and Supprer Night ". Families read together at the school and received free books to take home. Parents, children and teachers also ate dinner together. Broad Acres Elementary School was in a poor area. Many of the parents were immigrants with limited English. Kimberly Oliver helped improve learning environment at her school. She received money to buy electronic learning systems, tape players and books in English and Spanish and sent them home with students. Parents said she had shown them how to help their children at home. She was born and raised in Delaware. She held one degree in English and another in Elementary Education. Kimberly Oliver would follow in the footsteps of another teacher Jason Kamras from the Washington area as National Teacher of the Year. Jason Kamras, as honored for his work, teaching math to middle school students in the nation's capital. The National Teacher of the Year program began in 1952. A fourteen-member committee choose from among teachers honored as the best in their states. Question: The National Teacher just before Oliver comes from _ . - Delaware - Maryland - New York - Washington
Washington

Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: In today's throwaway society,dealing with the city's growing mountain of waste is an increasing challenge for the city council . Recently,Edinburgh is faced with the problem of disposing of about 250,000 million tons of waste a year.Despite different ways to dispose of much of it in a green manner--largely through encouraging recycling--its aging facilities such as the Powderhall landfill do not have the ability to deal with it. The European Union (EU) has issued a new policy,regulating how such mountains of waste are to be disposed of.The five councils (Edinburgh,East Lothian,West Lothian,Midlothian and Borders) face fines around PS18 million a year from 2013 if they don't increase recycling levels and rely less on landfill.With this in mind,the councils got together with the idea of building a large incinerator plant to burn half of the waste produced in their districts.But this plan fell apart after the change of target levels by a new UK government waste policy which required that no more than 25% of the city's waste should be disposed of in this way by 2025. After the plan was abandoned,a private company which already transported millions of tons of the city's waste by train to a landfill site near Dunbar,offered an alternative solution when it suggested opening a huge waste site near Portobello. Since Powderhall is supposed to close in 2015,it seemed necessary for the members of the Edinburgh Council to accept the suggestion.But soon they turned it down--after 700 local objections reached them--because it would have meant hundreds of lorries a day making loud noise through heavily populated areas. That still leaves the council with a problem.By 2013,only 50% of 1995 levels of waste will be allowed to be sent to landfill.Even if recycling targets are met,there will still be a large amount of rubbish to be burnt up.Due to this,Edinburgh and Midlothian councils have now decided to work together to build an incinerator plant as time to find a solution is fast running out.(2011*,C) Question: The five councils worked out a plan to build an incinerator plant to _ . - reduce the cost of burying waste - meet the EU requirements - speed up waste recycling - replace landfill sites
meet the EU requirements

Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: My friend Fowkes, tells a story of a class he took in 1930s, when books were short and expensive. On the first day the professor marched up to the blackboard, looked through his notes, cleared his throat, and began. Fowkes was the only student in the course. Once Fowkes fell ill and missed a class. When he returned, to Fowkes' s astonishment, the professor began to deliver not the next lecture in the sequence but the one after. Had he lectured to an empty hall in the absence of his only student? It was perfectly possible. Today, professors continue to lecture and students to listen much as they did. It' s time for us to abandon the lecture system and turn to methods that really work. Attending lectures is passive learning ,at least for inexperienced listeners. Active learning, in which students write essays or perform experiments and then have their work evaluated by an instructor, is far more beneficial for those who have not yet fully learned how to learn. Most students learn best by engaging in debate. They need small discussion classes that demand a joint effort of teacher and students rather than classes in which one person, however learned, expresses his or her own ideas. The lecture system harms professors as well. It reduces feedback to a minimum, so that the lecturer can neither judge how well students understand the material nor benefit from their questions or comments. Questions that require the speaker to clarify unclear points and comments that challenge inadequately constructed arguments are indispensable to scholarship. Without them, the liveliest mind becomes dull. If lectures make so little sense, why have they been allowed to continue? The truth is that lectures are easier on everyone than debates. Lectures give some students an opportunity to sit back and let the professor run the show. In a classroom where everyone contributes, students are less able to hide and professors have less room to show off how smart they are. Worse still, the lectures too frequently come at the wrong end of the... Question: What can we learn about the current lecture system? - Students take passive part in small discussion classes. - The professors need more room to present their talents. - Lectures are mainly intended for junior and senior students. - It is far from beneficial for those academically inexperienced students.
It is far from beneficial for those academically inexperienced students.