Q: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: European Day of Languages falls on 26 September. BBC News Online reported the attitudes across several European Union countries to languages. Tamsin Smith, Rome, Italy Italians place very high importance on learning languages, particularly English. Twenty years ago it was quite difficult to find an English speaker here but today it is quite easy. The strong influence of American and English culture helps young people to learn the English language. They often become familiar with it through "Harry Potter" books or Disney movies. English schools, where Italian children are taught all their lessons in English, are also becoming popular among rich Italians. Lucien Libert, Paris, France Languages are very important in France. A good knowledge of the English language is necessary for many Frenchmen to get a good job and the more languages you can learn, the better. English is the first language you learn in school and you start very young. Most people have at least eight years of learning English at school. Learning German or Spanish comes next and Latin is also taught in most schools. While French people learn languages, there is also a movement to protect the French language. James Helm, Dublin, Ireland The English language predominates in Ireland, but the ancient Irish language is a lasting source of pride and interest, and it remains a living tongue that is used in several areas. School are required to teach ancient Irish, and most students learn it as part of the subjects. There is a continuing discussion about how to protect the language best. In recent years some primary schools have introduced foreign language classes for younger students, and the Irish government has tried to encourage schools to offer more languages such as French, Spanish, German and Italian. Question: In Ireland most students _ . Options: A: like learning English instead of the ancient Irish B: are asked to learn many other foreign languages C: have to spend time learning the ancient Irish D: have no idea how to protect the English language
A: C

Q: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: We may all like to consider ourselves free spirits. But a study of the tracks left by 50,000 mobile phone users over three months has finally proved that the truth is otherwise. "We are all in one way or another boring," says Albert-Laszlo Barabasi at the Center for Complex Network Research at Northeastern University in Boston, who co-wrote the study. "Spontaneous individuals are largely absent from the population," Barabasi and colleagues used three months' worth of data from a mobile phone network to track the mobile phone towers each person's phone connected to each hour of the day, showing their general location. They conclude that regardless of whether a person typically remains close to home or wanders far and wide, their movements are probably predictable as much as 93 percent of the time. Surprisingly, the mobile phone data showed that individuals' movements were more or less as predictable at weekends as on weekdays, suggesting that routine is rooted in human nature rather than being an effect of work patterns. The mobile phone records were handled to make out the most visited locations for each user. Then the probability of finding a given user at his most visited locations at each hour through the day was calculated. People were to be found in their most visited location for any given hour 70 percent of the time. Not surprisingly, the figure increased at night, and decreased at lunchtime and in the early evening, when most people were returning home from work. The team analyzed the randomness of people's traces to show it was possible in theory to predict the average person's places as much as 93 percent of the time. "Say your routine movement is from home to the coffee shop to work: if you are at home and then go to the coffee shop it's easy for me to predict that you are going to work," says co-author Nicholas Blumm. This predictability was not much affected by differences in age, gender, language spoken or whether a person lived in a rural or urban setting. Question: The "spontaneous individuals" are most probably people who _ . Options: A: are boring in some way B: act with much freedom C: can live without a mobile phone D: rely much on a mobile phone in life
A: B

Q: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: The space shuttle Discovery has had a long and busy career. For 27 years, it has worked for NASA, carrying astronauts to space and back on 39 missions. On March 9, 2011, after returning from its final voyage, the world's most traveled spaceship was retired. A crowd of shuttle workers, reporters and schoolchildren waited to greet Discovery at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Three minutes before noon, they watched as the shuttle appeared in the sky and made one last touchdown. "For the final time: wheels stop," Discovery's commander Steven Lindsey said when the shuttle rolled to a stop. Discovery's final trip was to the International Space Station (ISS), a giant space lab in the sky. Discovery's crew took care of the last U.S. construction project at ISS. They delivered 10 tons of supplies for the ISS. The six-person crew also dropped off an unusual companion for ISS's researchers: a human-like robot named Robonaut 2. Astronauts will assemble R2 at the ISS over several months. Now, NASA is its shuttle programme. NASA is to begin work on new spaceships that can travel longer distances. Discovery's retirement is the first of three. Endeavor, another shuttle, is scheduled to make its final voyage soon. And Atlantis's last trip is planned for the end of June. Museums across the country have requested the retired shuttles. The Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum, in Washington, D.C., was the lucky recipient of Discovery. The museum's collection contains hundreds of NASA artifacts. Where will the other shuttles go? You'll have to wait to find out. NASA will announce its decision on April 12, the 30 anniversary of the first space shuttle launching. Stay tuned! Question: According to the text, we can learn about _ . Options: A: people's opinions of Discovery's retirement B: the government's concern about the shuttles' future C: the shuttles' final homes after retirement D: museums' great interest in the retired shuttles
A: D

Q: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: With its 190 million inhabitants, Brazil has the largest population in Latin America and ranks fifth in the world. However, Brazil's population growth rate has dropped greatly and Brazilian women now have only 2.7 children on average. This achievement really becomes the envy of many other Third World countries. Brazil has become one of the developing world's great successes at reducing population growth-----but more by accident than design. While countries such as India have made joint efforts to reduce birth rates, Brazil has had a better result without really trying, says George Martine at Harvard. Martine _ , among other things, soap operas(TV series) and installment plans introduced in the 1970s. Both played an important, although indirect role in lowering the birth rate. Brazil is one of the world's biggest producers of soap operas. Globo, Brazil's most popular television network, shows three hours of soaps six nights a week, while three others show at least one hour a night. Most TV series are based on wealthy characters living the high life in big cities. "Although they have never really tried to work in a message towards the problems of reproduction , they describe middle and upper class values-----not many children, different attitudes towards sex, women working," says Martine. "They sent this image to all parts of Brazil and made people conscious of other patterns of behavior and other values, which were put into a very attractive package." Meanwhile, the installment plans tried to encourage the poor to become consumers. "This led to an enormous change in consumption patterns and showed that consumption was in contradiction with unlimited reproduction," says Martine. Question: The phrase "puts it down to"(Line1, Para. 3) is closest in meaning to " _ ". Options: A: attributes it to B: finds it a reason for C: sums it up as D: compares it to
A: A