*Question*
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: When a 13-year-old Virginal girl started sneezing, her parents thought it was merely a cold. But when the sneezes continued for hours, they called in a doctor. Nearly two months later the girl was still sneezing, thousands of times a day, and her case had attracted worldwide attention. Hundreds of suggestions, ranging from poured in. But nothing did any good. Finally, she was taken to Dr. Leo Kanner, one of the world's top authorities on sneezing, who solved the problem with great speed. He used neither drugs nor surgery for, curiously enough, the clue for the treatment was found in an ancient superstition about the amazing bodily reaction we call the sneeze.It was all in her mind, he said, a view which Aristotle, some 3,000 years earlier, would have agreed with heartily. Dr. Kanner simply gave a modern psychological interpretation to the ancient belief that too much Sneezing was an indication that the spirit was troubled; and he began to treat the girl accordingly. "Less than two days in a hospital room, a plan for better scholastic and vocational adjustment, and reassurance about her unreasonable fear of tuberculosis quickly changed her from a sneezer to an ex-sneezer," he reported. Sneezing has always been a subject of wonder, awe and puzzlement. Dr Kanner has collected thousands of superstitions concerning it. The most universal one is the custom of begging for the blessing of God when a person sneezes-- a practice Dr. Kanner traces back to the ancient belief that a sneeze was an indication that the sneezer was possessed of an evil spirit. Strangely, people over the world still continue the custom with the traditional, "God bless you" or something else. When scientists look at the sneeze, they see a remarkable mechanism which, without any conscious help from you, takes on a job that has to be done. When you need to sneeze you sneeze, this being nature's clever way of getting rid of an annoying object from the nose. The object may be just some dust in the nose which nature is trying to remove. Question: When the girl began to sneeze continuously, _ . Options: A: a lot of people offered their advice B: she was taken to John Hopkins Hospital C: she was given a treatment found in ancient superstition D: many doctors treated her in different ways
**Answer**
A

*Question*
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Sustainable development is applied to just about everything from energy to clean water and economic growth, and as a result it has become difficult to question either the basic assumptions behind it or the way the concept is put to use. This is especially true in agriculture, where sustainable development is often taken as the measure of progress without a proper appreciation of historical and cultural perspectives. To start with, it is important to remember that the nature of agriculture has changed markedly throughout history, and will continue to do so. Medieval agriculture in northern Europe fed, clothed and sheltered a mainly rural society with a much lower population density than it is today. It had minimal effect on biodiversity, and any pollution it caused was typically localized. In terms of energy use and the nutrients captured in the product it was relatively inefficient. Contrast this with farming since the start of the industrial revolution. Competition from overseas led farmers to specialize and increase yields. Throughout this period food became cheaper, safer and more reliable. However, these changes have also led to habitat loss and to reducing biodiversity. All this means that agriculture in the 21st century will have to be very different from how it was in the 20th. This will require thorough thinking. For example, we need to move away from the idea that traditional practices are certainly more sustainable than new ones. We also need to abandon the notion that agriculture can be "zero impact". The key will be to abandon the rather simple and static measures of sustainability, which centre on the need to maintain production without increasing damage. Instead we need a more dynamic interpretation, one that looks at the pros and cons of all the various way land is used. There are many different ways to measure agricultural performance besides food yield: energy use, environmental costs, water purity, carbon footprint and biodiversity. It is clear, for example, that the carbon of transporting... Question: What will agriculture be like in the 21st century? Options: A: It will abandon traditional farming practices B: It will mainly keep traditional farming C: It will go through complete changes D: It will cause zero damage to the environment
**Answer**
C

*Question*
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: While your pet fish may appear to be ignorant of your presence, chances are that it knows you extremely well and can probably even identify you from a crowd of human faces! At least, that is the conclusion reached by scientists the University of Oxford in the U.K. and the University of Queensland in Australia, following an extensive study of the archerfish , a species of tropical fish that can be found all the way from India to Indonesia, the Philippines, and Australia. The ability to distinguish between human faces is a complex task. That's because we all have the same basic features -- two eyes sitting above a nose and a mouth. It's only the subtle differences that make humans distinct from one another. Since this requires a combination of both visual sense and memory, researchers had always assumed that _ was a skill possessed only by those with complicated brains, i.e., humans, a few select animals -- such as horses, cows, dogs, monkeys and some birds, like pigeons. To test if this assumption was accurate, a team of scientists led by Dr. Cait Newport, Marie Curie Research Fellow in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University, decided to study fish. The aquatic animals have small brains that lack the neocortex , or neocortex-like structure, believed to help recognize the subtle differences between human facial features. The team began by presenting four archerfish with images of two human faces. Initially, the fish spat randomly at both. However, they soon learned that pouring water at the one selected by the researchers earned them a food treat. After that, they focused primarily on that image. The researchers then took the experiment one step further, by introducing 44 other human faces to the mix. To the researcher's astonishment, the trained archerfish were able to recall the learned image almost 81% of the time. And this accuracy improved to 86% when the researchers made the identification even harder, by replacing the colored photos with a set of black and white images and hiding the shape of the head. Question: What is the conclusion of the study made by the scientists from the universities? Options: A: Some fish may ignore your presence. B: Some fish can recognize your faces. C: Some fish have complicated brains. D: Some fish have large brains.
**Answer**
B