Most people don't know the true story of the little boy who came to be known as Douglas Craig. He was found wandering around the streets of Washington D.C. He could not hear or speak. Sometimes people pitied him and gave him food and clothing. If not, he ate what he could find in garbage cans. It is said that a man named Craig found the little boy and took him to Dr. E. M. Gallaudet at Gallaudet College. Dr Gallaudet gave him the first name of Douglas, and the last name of Craig, after the man who found him. Dr Gallaudet placed Douglas in the Kendall School, and he stayed there until he was old enough to work. He spent his life working in and around the halls of Gallaudet. Once he courted a black woman from Baltimore. Since his courtship required letter-writing, and he was illiterate, he had a student in the college act as his "private secretary". Though that relationship did not work out, he did finally marry. Later, he married a black deaf woman from Washington D.C. The wedding and reception took place in a church near the college. The happy couple went to Baltimore for a honeymoon, but the honeymoon only lasted for one day. Their plans were cut short when Douglas's pocketbook containing about $300 was either lost or stolen. Douglas never got very far from Washington D.C. and Gallaudet College was his world. He went to Norfolk, Virginia, once on a vacation, but he did not know what a vacation was. He spent the entire time working around the docks of Norfolk. He came home with a pocket of money, and told everyone that he had a fine vacation. Douglas's last public duty was to raise the flag to the top of the new flagpole in front of College Hall. He died on February 11, 1936, but left a story at Gallaudet that would live forever. What is the topic of the passage? A) Craig's working place. B) Craig's friends. C) Craig's life. D) Craig's duty.
C
When a group of children politely stop a conversation with you, saying: "We have to go to work now," you're left feeling surprised and certainly uneasy. After all, this is the 1990s and the idea of children working is just unthinkable. That is, until you are told that they are all pupils of stage schools, and that the "work" they go off to is to go on the stage in a theatre. Stage schools often act as agencies to supply children for stage and television work. More worthy of the name "stage school" are those few places where children attend full time, with a training for the theatre and a general education. A visit to such schools will leave you in no doubt that the children enjoy themselves. After all, what lively children wouldn't settle for spending only half the day doing ordinary school work, and acting, singing or dancing their way through the other half of the day? Then of course there are times for the children to make a name and make a little money in some big shows. Some stage schools give their children too much professional work at such a young age. But the law is very tight on the amount they can do. Those under 13 are limited to 40 days in the year; those over 13 to 80 days. The schools themselves admit that not all children will be successful in the profession for which they are being trained. So what happens to those who don't make it? While all the leading schools say they place great importance on children getting good study results, the facts seem to suggest this is not always the case. "Professional work" as used in the text means _ . A) ordinary school work B) money-making performances C) stage training at school D) acting, singing or dancing after class
C
Q: Dear Editor: I have been reading your newspaper, the Hometown Gazette, for the past two years, ever since I moved to Smithville because of my work. We moved here from New York City, so I am used to reading excellent newspapers such as the Washington Post and the New York Times. In fact, we still have the Times delivered on Sundays. All the members of my family enjoy reading the recipes in the magazine, as well as the Styles section. My children are crazy about their sports section. The Times is great, but the Gazette is another story. I've never read an article that doesn't contain at least three or four spelling or grammatical errors. For example, in last week's issue, you misspelled the word "secretary", used a singular verb with a plural noun, and used "it's" as a possessive . And that was just in the lead story! In case you never went to elementary school, "it's" means "it is". It's not a possessive pronoun! In another case, the re-port you gave on an event was completely different from other newspapers. I didn't know what the reason was. It's a pity that this city, Smithville, Wisconsin, has only one newspaper, because I'd like to have an alternative to the newspaper you publish. I find it hard to believe your news stories. If you can't spell correctly, how can you get your facts right? I've been meaning to get this off my chest for some time. Please cancel my subscription . And buy your-self a dictionary. Sincerely, Jane Z. Jones What is the writer's attitude towards the Gazette? A) Angry. B) Sympathetic. C) Happy. D) Positive.
A: A
Cell phone use and texting are increasingly common, especially among teens. And that could be a problem. Texting affects learning and performing on test, a new study finds. So a Montana teen, Colin decided to test that. They asked 47 classmates to take part in a two-part experiment. The goal was to test how well these students understood written material. Each one had to read a paragraph or two about a certain topic, then answer questions about it. In the first part, the participants had 15 minutes to understand and then answer questions about six readings. Throughout this test, they met no distractions. During a new set of readings, the brothers sent messages to the participants' cell phones every 90 seconds. In each message, there were questions that required a reply. Participants should have scored better on the second test because it was easier. In fact, they scored worse when distracted by messages. Only a few students scored as well when replying to messages as they did when undistracted. But importantly, nobody performed better during the texting part. The brothers presented details of their findings at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Boys and girls scored equally poorly while texting, the brothers noticed. Older participants didn't do any better than younger ones. And it didn't matter if a student thought he was good at multitasking. On average, the brothers found that even students who were confident of their abilities did just as poorly while texting. Surprisingly, even though the students remembered less of what they read while texting, most of them answered questions in messages perfectly. "Our teachers are very happy to see these results," says Coler. The teens' new data strongly support their teachers' opinion that texting while studying is a serious distraction. From the results of the experiment, we can find _ . A) boys were better at multitasking than girls B) the easier the tests were, the more mistakes were made C) nobody did good jobs in the two-part experiment D) some students' test results were not affected by texting
D