The first time I went for a walk around my father-in-law's neighborhood was garbage day, and I was shocked to see what people were throwing out. It was back in 1981, and I saw many people gathered in someone's front yard. As I went nearer to see what was happening I got my first introduction to yard sales. For the few dollars I had in my wallet, I was able to buy a seven-inch black-and-white portable TV. I also bought a flashlight. The following weekend, at another yard sale, I saw a 14-inch color1 TV being sold for almost nothing. I felt I could not miss the offer and bought it. Now I had two sets and couldn't wait to see what else I could afford the next weekend. Spring ended, and by then I had accumulated almost every type of electronic equipment I had always wished to have back home. Then this new idea came to mind. I had heard about a man who traveled back home every few months. He drove a truck filled with boxes of new and used stuff that people were sending to s. So I told my father that I would send as many types of items as I could so that he could start his resale business. Every few months I would gather several boxes of American "junk" --- televisions, toasters, fans, hair dryers, etc. and send them home. As word got out about my father's "trash" market, people all came to buy these things. Three years later, when I visited my family for the first time since leaving home, I learned that many of the families in our neighborhood had a piece of "trash". It proved that I had the responsibility to keep people back home up to date with the latest technology you no longer need.(304words) What did the author think of the "junk" he bought? A) He was not surprised to see them thrown away. B) He thought they were valuable. C) He thought they were worth buying. D) He thought he could sell them for a good price.
B
Close relationships, thought to help communication by giving speakers a common context, are actually more likely to make _ when strangers are involved, a new study suggests. Because close colleagues and friends already share so much common knowledge that they often use short, ambiguous messages which can lead to misunderstandings. "People are so used to talking with those with whom they already share a great deal of information that, when they have something really new to share, they often present it in a way that they assume the person already knows it." says study-team member Boaz Keysar. Keysar and his graduate student, Shall Wu, trained 40 pairs of undergraduate students to memorize made-up names and descriptions of strange shapes. In each pair, the "director" had to communicate the identity of one of the 24 shapes. The partner had to use the information to choose the correct shape from a set of three images on a computer monitor. Half of the partners studied only the first six shapes, while the others learned the first 18 shapes. The directors, who had memorized all the shapes, were aware of their partners' knowledge levels of the shapes. In the pairs with the most shared knowledge, the directors were more likely to rattle off shape names, compared with pairs with little knowledge overlap , in which the directors were more likely to describe the actual shapes. Not surprisingly, participants with more shared knowledge were twice as likely to ask for clarification as those with less overlap. Language itself can be confusing. "The reason all this is happening at all is that language in general is ambiguous," said Keysar. He recalls an ambiguous billboard near a stadium holding a Rolling Stones concert that night. The billboard read, "Avoid LSD tonight." (:LSD"") Hmmm? "It was about Lake Shore Drive, and I'm sure the writer of the sign didn't realize he was being ambiguous," Keysar said. "Even though miscommunication can lead to missed meetings or deadlines, people are often unaware when their language is... By this passage, the author mainly wants to say _ . A) ambiguous language can lead to misunderstandings B) familiarity can mess up communication C) accurate descriptions of identity help guess shapes D) close relationships do not mean good communication
B
Q: The NSA and GCHQ are tapping popular smart phone apps such as Angry Birds to gather the enormous amounts of very personal data those bits of software collect--including age, gender, marital status, income, education level and more, according to new reports from the New York Times and The Guardian. Citing secret documents provided by Edward Snowden, former NSA staff, the reports detail efforts to gain data collection from cell phone carriers and smart phones by tapping into "leaky" apps themselves. Both spy agencies showed a particular interest in Google Maps, which is accurate to within a few yards or better in some locations and would clearly pass along data about the area where phone owner is. "It effectively means that anyone using Google Maps on a smartphone is working in support of a GCHQ system," reads a secret 2008 report by the NSA's sister spy agency, according to the New York Times. More surprising is the wide range of apps that the agencies search for data, including innocent-seeming apps such as Angry Birds. One document in particular from GCHQ listed what information can be found from which apps, mentioning Android apps but suggesting the same data was available from the iPhone platform. Angry Birds maker Rovio Entertainment of Finland said it had no knowledge of any NSA or GCHQ programs for tapping into its users' data. "Rovio doesn't have any previous knowledge of this matter, and have not been aware of such activity in 3rd party advertising networks," said Saara Bergstrom. "Nor do we have any involvement with the organizations you mentioned." Mobile photos uploaded to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter appear to be a particularly rich source of information for the spy agencies as well. Metadata in the photos is briefly available. The NSA and GCHQ are able to tap into that metadata to collect a wealth of key data points about a person's life. "NSA does not profile everyday Americans as it carries out its foreign intelligence mission," the agency told the Times in response to... What did Jay Carney's words imply? A) NSA didn't gather any worthy information from Americans. B) NSA would stop its foreign intelligence mission in the future. C) NSA and White House shared different attitude towards the affair. D) NSA collected information with the permission of White House
A: D