Q: Read the following article and answer the question. Article: Technology today has stolen away our voices and robbed our children of memories. I've been keeping count of how often people sing around the house these days. The fact is, they don't. My earliest memories are of my mother crooning lullabies in a gentle low voice as she rocked each infant in turn. She said she "didn't have a singing voice," but her low, wavering alto will always mean comfort to me. Every time I have sat through the night with a feverish body or held a pre - schooler through a nightmare, the melodies returned, words appearing and disappearing like fragments of a dream but held together by the hum of love. Today, young mothers are routinely presented with lullaby tapes at the baby shower. When baby cries, the idea goes, they will be able to switch on the high-tech audio system and _ with the voices of strangers in his ears, perfectly on pitch. If I had my way, new parents would learn the songs themselves, throw out their stereos, and give their child the gift of their own sleepy voices through the midnight hours. These days, when we go on a trip, my daughters take along tiny personal stereos and headphones. They are lost in their private worlds, and I can't help wishing that at least here, in the car my girls would be forced to listen to their mother's voice again, sure I'm out-of-tune songs that they might then pass down to another generation. Those sophisticated earphones have robbed them of something I think every kid should carry from childhood car trips into adulthood. I drove away from that party humming, and all the way home the good old songs kept tumbling out. Damm it , I thought, why did I ever stop singing in the car and start turning on the radio ? Why don't I sing anymore while I'm doing the dishes? I'm going to pull those stereo wires right out of the wall when I get home. We're going to sing grace before meals, sing carols around the piano, sing in the shower instead of switching on that waterproof radio that stole away our voices and our souls. Question: The author hates today's technology because _ . Answer: | OPTIONS:
- driving a car requires high concentration
- children are learning pop songs from tapes
- children have lost touch with good old songs
- high - tech systems do not record the voices of aged people
A: children have lost touch with good old songs

Q: Read the following article and answer the question. Article: The very wealthy English Baron Fitzgerald had only one child, a son, who understandably was the apple of his eye. His wife died when the child was in his early teens. So Fitzgerald devoted himself to fathering the kid. Unfortunately the son died in his late teens. Meanwhile, Fitzgerald's wealth greatly increased. He spent a lot on art works of the masters. Later Fitzgerald himself because seriously ill. Before his death, he had carefully prepared his will as to how his wealth would be settled--to sell his entire collection at an auction . Because of the large quantity and high quality of his collection, a huge crowd of possible buyers gathered for the auction. Many of them were museum directors and private collectors eager to bid .Before the auction, the art works were shown, among which was a painting of Fitzgerald's son by an unknown artist. Because of its poor quality, it received little attention. When it was time for the auction, the auctioneer gaveled the crowd to attention. First the lawyer read from Fitzgerald's will that the first art work to be auctioned was the painting of his son. The poor-quality painting didn't receive and bidders...except one--the old servant who had served the son and loved him, and who for emotional reasons offered the only bid. As soon as the servant bought the painting for less than one English pound, the auctioneer stopped the bidding and asked the lawyer to read again from the will. The crowd became quiet, and the lawyer read from the will:"Whoever buys the painting of my son gets all my collection."Then the auction was over. Question: Why did the old servant bid for the painting of Fitzgerald's son? Answer: | OPTIONS:
- He was devoted to the family.
- He saw that no one bid for it.
- He knew the content of the will.
- He found it cheap for him to buy.
A: He was devoted to the family.

Q: Read the following article and answer the question. Article: Studies show that laughter is something that makes you feel calm or relaxed for both physical and psychological wounds though it may seem futile to laugh in the face of pain and fear. When Dan Rather interviewed comedian Bill Cosby just one week after his son, Ennis, was killed, Cosby said, "I think it is time for me to tell people that we have to laugh. You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, you can survive it." Call it a flashlight for dark times: laughter just seems to adjust attitude better than anything else. Inspirational speaker Steve Rizzo recalls a TV interview with an injured firefighter a few days after 9.11.The man had fallen more than 30 stories in one of the towers and had broken a leg. Everyone was crying, and the reporter asked, "How is it that you've come out of this alive?" He looked at her and without missing a beat, said, "Look, lady, I'm from New York and I'm a firefighter; that' all you need to know." "Everyone laughed and though the laughter was only a couple of seconds," says Rizzo. "Sometimes that's all you need to catch your second breath. Laughter gives you that couple of seconds. You're sending a message to your brain, and the message is: If you can still laugh even a little among the pain, you are going to be OK." Of course, there is a difference between laughing off a serious situation and laughing off the fear that results. The firefighter was doing the latter, states Rizzo, the author of Becoming a Humorous Being, and so should we. "If there is anything we have learnt from 9.11, it's how precious life really is," she says. "We have to send a message that our spirit won't die. One important thing that unites us is our ability to laugh." Question: We can infer from the passage that Steve Rizzo is _ . Answer: | OPTIONS:
- a reporter
- a soldier
- a firefighter
- a doctor
A: a reporter