I was born an albino.No one in my family had ever known what an albino was,what it meant to be an albino,and what had to be done differently because I was an albino. My parents treated me just like they treated everybody else.That was just about the best thing they could have done.It helped me trust myself,so when the annoyances came along,I could deal with them. True,my photo always looked like a snowball with two pieces of coal for eyes.Kids would tease me,asking if I was joining the circus and calling me "Whitey".Like most albinos,I had terrible eyesight,and my grades suffered until eventually I overcame my feeling ashamed of myself and realized it was okay to ask to sit in the front of the classroom so I could see the blackboard better.People stared at me when I held reading material right at the tip of my nose so I could see it well enough to read.Even when I was eight or nine.movie-theater clerks started asking me to pay adult prices because I "looked older". The worst part for me was that because my eyesight was so bad,I couldn't play sports very well.I didn't give up trying,though.And I studied harder. Eventually,I got better at school and loved it.By the time I got to college 1 was double majoring,going to summer school and devoting myself to every kind of extracurricular activity I could find.I had learned to be proud of being an albino.I did my best to make "albino" a positive word.And I decided to make my living with my eyes. I couldn't see well enough to play spots,but with a solid education and the drive to do it.I could make a living involved in the field I loved.I've done it now for more than thirty years in print and in video,and now in cyberspace.People make jokes about how I'm the only "blind editor" they know,but most of the time the jokes are signs of respect.And I make jokes about being an albino. I was just a proud albino kid from the coal country of Pennsylvania.I now realize that being born an albino helped me to overcome difficulties,gain confidence,and be proud of my personal... Which of the following statements is TRUE? A) The author's study was affected by his eyesight at first. B) The author had to pay adult prices for movies when he was still young C) Despite his bad eyesight,the author played sport well. D) "Albino" has already become a positive word now.
A
(Question)
Many Western people are not used to sitting on the floor any more. In Japan, however, sitting upright on the floor is common in different situations. For example, meals are traditionally had when people sit on the tatami floor around a low table. Also during the tea ceremony and other traditional events, one sits on the floor. The formal way of sitting for both men and women is kneeling upright. People who are not used to sitting in this style may feel uncomfortable after a few minutes, and their legs may go numb. However, foreigners are not usually expected to be able to sit in this style for a long time, and an increasing number of Japanese people themselves aren't able to do so, owing to a more westernized lifestyle. In other situations, men usually sit cross-legged, while women sit on their knees laying both legs to one side. The former sitting style is considered wholly male, while the latter is considered completely female. The most important guest sits on the honored seat which is set farthest from the entrance. If there is a tokonoma in the room, the guest should be seated in front of it. The host or the least important person is supposed to sit next to the entrance. Of course, there are other things to be considered in each particular case. According to the passage we can learn that _ . A) more and more Japanese sit in the formal way B) foreigners should always sit in the formal style in a Japanese home C) men and women in Japan sit in the same informal way D) men shouldn't sit on their knees laying both legs to one side
(Answer)
D
Ques: 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... In Keysar's experiment, which of the following gives more accurate descriptions of the shapes? A) The "directors" of the pairs with little shared knowledge. B) The "directors" of the pairs who shared more knowledge. C) The partners whose directors rattle off shape names. D) The partners whose directors give clear clarifications.
Ans:
A