Read the article and select the best answer. Article: My conscience was pricked again on a tour of Venice in 2010. I had taken refuge from the crowds in a quiet canal-side cafe. Outside the cafe was an old woman kneeling on the ancient cobbled stones, begging. Steady streams of tourists were walking past her. A lone young back-packer stood away from the throng drinking something, but I noticed he was also observing the woman. A tourist group glanced at the woman and walked on. Another group of tourists arrived and, again, walked past her. The backpacker watched. Then, as I prepared to leave, I stopped at the sight of the backpacker stepping forward and placing some money in the woman's cup. He did this rather ostentatiously , just before the arrival of another tourist group. I watched as the leader of the group stopped and put some money in the cup. Having been shown the way, other tourists followed suit and added more coins to the woman's cup. The young backpacker repeated this process in front of the next tour party going past. Once again, the subtle peer pressure worked on the tourists, who all added coins to the cup. His work done, the young man walked over to the old beggar woman, patted her shoulder and said, "I hope that helps a bit." I don't know if the woman understood his English or realized what had just happened, but I did. I placed some money in the woman's cup and continued my travels, light-hearted after witnessing such an astute act of caring. Question: The author went to a quiet canal-side cafe to _ . Options: A: take a rest B: watch the woman beggar C: get away from the crowds D: avoid meeting the beggar
C

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: In recent years, the world has made progress in reducing deaths among children under the age of five. A new report says an estimated 6.9 million children worldwide died before their fifth birthday. That compares to about twelve million in1990. The report says child _ rates have fallen in all areas. It says the number of deaths is down by at least 50 percent in eastern, western and southeastern Asia. The number also fell in North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Ties Boerma is head of the WHO's Department of Health Statistics and Informatics. He says most child deaths happen in just a few areas. TIES BOERMA: "Sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia face the greatest challenges in child survival. More than eighty percent of child deaths in the world occur in these two regions. About half of child deaths occur in just five countries--India, which actually takes twenty-four percent of the global total; Nigeria, eleven percent; the Democratic Republic of Congo, seven percent; Pakistan, five percent and China, four percent of under-five deaths in the world." Ties Boerma notes that, in developed countries, one child in one hundred fifty-two dies before his or her fifth birthday. But south of the Sahara Desert, one out of nine children dies before the age of five. In Asia, the mortality rate is one in sixteen. The report lists the top five causes of death among children under five worldwide. They are pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and problems both before and during birth. Tessa Wardlaw is with the U-N Children's Fund. She is pleased with the progress being made in Sub-Saharan Africa. The area has the highest under-five mortality rate in the world. But she says the rate of decline in child deaths has more than doubled in Africa. TESSA WARDLAW: "We welcome the widespread progress in child survival, but we importantly want to stress that there's a lot of work that remains to be done. There's unfinished business and the fact is that today on average, around nineteen thousand children are still dying every day from... Question: _ is the top-one cause of death among children under five worldwide. Options: A: Global warming B: Malaria C: Pneumonia D: Diarrhea
C

Q: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: It is difficult to imagine what life will be like without memory. The meanings of thousands of everyday perceptions(, ), the bases for the decisions we make, and the roots of our habits and skills are to be found in our past experiences, which are brought into the present by memory. Memory can be defined as the capacity to keep information available for later use. It includes not only "remembering" things like arithmetic or historical facts, but also involves any change in the way an animal typically behaves. Memory is involved when a rat gives up eating grain because he has sniffed something suspicious in the grain pile. Memory is also involved when a six-year-old child learns to swing a baseball bat. Memory exists not only in humans and animals but also in some physical objects and machines. Computers, for example, contain devices from storing data for later use. It is interesting to compare the memory-storage capacity of a computer with that of a human being. The instant-access memory of a large computer may hold up to 100,000 "words"--ready for instant use. An average prefix = st1 /U. S. teenager probably recognizes the meaning of about 100,000 words of English. However, this is but a fraction(, ) of the total amount of information which the teenager has stored. Consider, for example, the number of faces and places that the teenager can recognize on sight. The use of words is the advanced problem-solving intelligence of human beings. A large part of a person's memory is in terms of words and combinations of words. Question: The phrase "in terms of" in the last sentence can best be replaced by _ Options: A: in connection with B: expressed by C: consisting D: by means of
A: B

Q: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: In 1693 the philosopher John Locke warned that children should not be given too much "unhealthy fruit" to eat.Three centuries later, misguided ideas about child-raising are still popular.Many parents fear that their children will die unless ceaselessly watched.In America the law can be equally paranoid .In South Carolina this month Debra Harrell was jailed for letting her 9-year-old daughter play in a park unsupervised . Her severe punishment reflects the rich world's worry about parenting.By most objective measures, modern parents are far more conscientious than previous generations.Dads are more hands-on than their fathers were, and working mothers spend more time nurturing their children than the housewives of the 1960s did.However, there are two problems in this picture, connected to class.One is at the lower end.Even if poor parents spend more time with their children than they once did, they spend less than rich parents do.America is a _ here: its government spends abundantly on school-age kids but much less than other rich countries on the first two or three years of life.If America did more to help poor parents with young children, it would have huge returns. The second one, occurs at the other end of the income scale, and may even apply to otherwise rational Economist readers: well-educated, rich parents try to do too much.Safety is part of it--they fear that if they are not constantly watching their children may break their necks, which is the least rational.Despite the impression you get from watching crime dramas, children in rich countries are safe, so long as they look both ways before crossing the road.The other popular parental fear--that your children might not get into an Ivy League college--is more rational.Academic success matters more than ever before.But beyond a certain point, parenting makes less difference than many parents imagine.Studies in Minnesota and Sweden, for example, found that identical twins grew up equally intelligent whether they were raised together or apart.A... Question: Which of the following statements is NOT a misguided idea of parenting mentioned in the passage? Options: A: Children should be protected from any dangers by their parents B: The more conscientious parents are, the more children will surely benefit from parenting C: Children will die unless ceaselessly watched D: Children are likely to fulfill their potential with a loving home and adequate stimulation
A: D