Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Illustrated Talks at London Canal Museum Illustrated talks are held at 7:30 pm, on the first Thursday of each month except August. Admission to talks and museum is charged at the usual museum admission charges. 3rd September: Protecting our Waterway Heritage by Nigel Crowe. Nigel is the Conservation Adviser to the Canal and River Trust . He undertook a comprehensive survey of the heritage of the waterways when first appointed, and now advises the CRT on its protection. 1st October: The Canal and River Trust by John Dodwell. Founding trustee and long standing waterways enthusiast John Dodwell will detail the Trust's progress to date. He will explain the issues they face and the limits under which they work. 5th November: The work of the Thames Ironworks Heritage Trust by Gavin Redknap. Gavin was one of the founders of the Trust that is working to save and restore some of the few surviving craft built at the Thames Ironworks Yard at the mouth of Bow Creek. The Trust plans to use the fleet of restored one-hundred-year-old lifeboats for community projects on the Lower Lee. 3rd December: The River Thames Society and the River Thames by Peter Finch. Peter, who is Chairman of the River Thames Society, will explain the role and function of the society and then go on to talk about London's river and some of the issues it faces. Question: What is the topic of the talk in November? Options: A: The work of the Thames Ironworks Heritage Trust. B: Protecting our Waterway Heritage. C: The Canal and River Trust. D: The River Thames Society and the River Thames.
A

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: My high school life has been filled with many ups and downs, whether it was social or academic. Even though my current high school was not my first choice, I never regretted attending Southside High School. "Since you have chosen it, then it is the best for you," said my parents. Up until the junior year I did not realize my capabilities as a student. Being in the IB Program, I was told that my junior year would be the toughest in all the years of high school. With this "little" piece of information, I walked into my junior year, scared of my grades. As weeks went by, I started to believe that the junior year was not as hard as everyone had said, but I was wrong. My grades were rapidly declining and by the end of the first term I had had five Cs in seven of my classes! I could not believe it --- I did not want to believe it. I tried my best to get my grades up myself without any help from anyone, but my pride just made my grades worse. And I had to miss out on one of the most important speech and debate competitions all year: States. I was heartbroken. I realized that I could not survive my junior year on my own, so I had to get help fast. Once I got a tutor, my grades went from Cs, Ds, and even some Fs, to nothing but As and Bs. I slowly started to gain my confidence back in all of my classes and even myself. By the time the third and fourth quarter came around, I had been on the honor roll twice, and I was receiving awards from speeches and debates, tennis and school. Southside has taught me to always keep my head up and never give up on myself no matter what life throws at me. I am proud to be a Southside Tiger. Question: How did the writer feel when she walked into her junior year? Options: A: Confident. B: Worried C: Curious. D: Uninterested.
B

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: In its latest step to attract Chinese smartphone users, e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. said it is planning to launch a mobile gaming service soon. Alibaba is considering integrating its new mobile gaming service into its messaging app, Laiwang, as well as its Mobile Taobao app for online shopping, a person familiar with the matter said. It is also planning to launch the gaming service as a standalone app, the person said. In the world of gaming and other mobile-based services, Alibaba faces powerful competitor Tencent Holdings Ltd., a giant in online gaming and social networking services. Many analysts view Tencent as a leader in mobile-based businesses in China because of its popular WeChat instant-messaging app, which has over 272 million monthly active users worldwide according to the company. Tencent could use WeChat's massive user base to offer additional mobile services such as gaming or e-commerce, analysts say. Alibaba's push into mobile-based services hasn't always been smooth. It launched Laiwang more than a year ago, but the app, which competes against WeChat, struggled to gain popularity. In September, a person familiar with the situation said Alibaba was in talks with China Telecom Corp., to have the app preinstalled in smartphones sold by the country's third-largest mobile carrier. According to Alibaba, Laiwang had more than 10 million registered users as of November. Alibaba dominates China's e-commerce market with its Taobao and Tmall shopping sites, but one of the biggest challenges it faces is how to hold onto its vast user base when more Chinese Internet users access online services from smartphones. To meet this challenge, Alibaba has made several acquisitions to strengthen its mobile-based services. Last year, it took an 18% stake in Sina Corp.'s Twitter-like Weibo service and integrated some of Taobao's e-commerce services with the microblog. It also bought a 28% stake in mobile mapping firm AutoNavi Holdings Ltd., a move that could enable Alibaba to send... Question: What can't be concluded from the passage? _ Options: A: Tencent is now the largest online gaming and social networking service provider for smartphone users B: WeChat instant-messaging app has over 272 million active users across the world annually C: Two famous shopping sites Taobao and Tmall are now in the charge of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. D: Alibaba has ever had successful experiences in cooperating with mobile companies
B

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Photos that you might have found down the back of your sofa are now big business! In 2005, the American artist Richard Prince's photograph of a photograph, Untitled (Cowboy), was sold for $ 1, 248, 000. Prince is certainly not the only contemporary artist to have worked with so-called "found photographs"--a loose term given to everything from discarded prints discovered in a junk shop to old advertisements or amateur photographs from a stranger's family album. The German artist Joachim Schmid, who believes "basically everything is worth looking at", has gathered discarded photographs, postcards and newspaper images since 1982. In his on-going project, Archiv, he groups photographs of family life according to themes: people with dogs; teams; new cars; dinner with the family; and so on. Like Schmid, the editors of several self-published art magazines also champion found photographs. One of _ , called simply Found, was born one snowy night in Chicago, when Davy Rothbard returned to his car to find under his wiper an angry note intended for some else: "Why's your car HERE at HER place?" The note became the starting point for Rothbard's addictive publication, which features found photographs sent in by readers, such a poster discovered in our drawer. The whole found-photograph phenomenon has raised some questions. Perhaps one of the most difficult is: can these images really be considered as art? And if so, whose art? Yet found photographs produced by artists, such Richard Prince, may riding his horse hurriedly to meet someone? Or how did Prince create this photograph? It's anyone's guess. In addition, as we imagine the back-story to the people in the found photographs artists, like Schmid, have collated , we also turn toward our own photographic albums. Why is memory so important to us? Why do we all seek to freeze in time the faces of our children, our parents, our lovers, and ourselves? Will they mean anything to anyone after we've gone? In the absence of established facts, the vast collections of found... Question: The author's attitude towards found photographs can be described as _ . Options: A: critical B: doubtful C: optimistic D: satisfied
C