Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Have you ever noticed how much the number twelve is used? A ruler that is a foot long has twelve inches. A yardstick has three times twelves inches, or thirty-six inches. On a canlender you will see twelve months in each year. A clock face is numbered from one to twelve for the hours. The time span from noon to midnight is twelve hours; from midnight to noon there are twelve more hours. Each day is two times twelve, or twenty-four hours long. We buy eggs by the dozen, which means twelve at once. Sometimes we buy other things by the dozen. The stores sell different things by the dozen. In a store you may have seen a dozen pencils held together by a paper wrapping or a dozen oranges in a sack. Stores also buy things in lots of twelve dozens, or by the gross(,12 ) . One gross consists of twelve dozens, or one hundred and forty-four items. Question: A foot-long ruler has _ inches. - six - twelve - twenty-four - thirty-six
twelve

Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: As is known to us, Washington University in St. Louis became the first college in the United States to ban selling bottled water in 2009. Since then, more than a dozen small colleges and schools have done the same. The ban isn't because the schools don't want students to have easy access to water. Instead, the goal is to encourage students to bring reusable bottles to save money and, more importantly, to save the environment. Many people believe that producing and using bottled water not only wastes money but also harms the environment. They say that bottled water is unnecessary because public water supplies in the U.S. are among the best in the world. These people believe that water fountains and reusable bottles with easy access to filling stations are a better choice. But the makers of bottled water argue that plastic bottles make up a small part of the nation's total waste. They say it's unfair to single out their product when so many other items are packaged in plastic containers, and what's more, water is a healthy choice compared to some sodas and juices that are also sold at school. What do you think: Should sales of bottled water be banned from schools? We want to hear your opinion. Write a 200-word response. Send it to tfkasks4you@timeforkids.com . Your response may be published in a future issue of Time For Kids. Please include your grade level and contact information for your parent or teacher if you want your response to be published. The deadline for responding is August 31, 2012. Question: Some colleges and schools ban selling bottled water in order to _ . - save water - encourage students to bring water from home - reduce pollution - keep students away from bottled water
reduce pollution

Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Legend has it that sometime toward the end of the Civil War (1861 - 1865) a government train carrying oxen was caught in a snowstorm and had to be abandoned. The driver returned the next spring to see what had become of his cargo. Instead of the skeletons he had expected to find, he saw his oxen, living, fat, and healthy. How had they survived? The answer lay in a resource that unknowing Americans had trampled underfoot in their haste to cross the "Great American Desert" to reach lands that sometimes proved barren. In the eastern parts of the United States, the preferred grass for forage was a cultivated plant. It grew well with enough rain, then when cut and stored it would cure and become nourishing hay for winter feed. But in the dry grazing lands of the west, that familiar blue joint grass was often killed by drought. To raise cattle out there seemed risky or even hopeless. Who could imagine a fairy-tale grass that required no rain and somehow made it possible for cattle to feed themselves all winter? But the surprising western wild grasses did just that. They had wonderfully convenient features that made them superior to the cultivated eastern grasses. Variously known as buffalo grass, not only were they immune to drought, but they were actually preserved by the lack of summer and autumn rains. They were not juicy like the cultivated eastern grasses, but had short, hard stems. And they did not need to be cured in a barn, but dried right where they grew on the ground. When they dried in this way, they remained naturally sweet and nourishing through the winter. Cattle left outdoors to fend for themselves thrived on this hay. And the cattle themselves helped plant the fresh grass year after year, for they trampled the natural seeds firmly into the soil to be watered by the melting snows of winter and the occasional rains of spring. The dry summer air cured them much as storing in a barn cured the cultivated grasses. Question: According to the passage, the cattle helped promote the growth of the wild grasses by _ . - stepping on and pressing the seeds into the ground - naturally fertilizing the soil - continually moving from one grazing area to another - eating only small quantities of grass
stepping on and pressing the seeds into the ground