questions list | article stringlengths 9 6.44k | id stringlengths 9 14 |
|---|---|---|
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "When he heard the violin at a school concert."
},
"options": [
"When he was exploring the city.",
"When he played games on the streets.",
"When he heard a boy playing piano.",
"When he heard the violin at a school conce... | George Gershwin was born in New York City in 1898. His parents were Russian Jews who had immigrated to the United States. George and his two brothers and sister had a close, happy family life. George liked playing games on the streets of New York. He liked exploring the city. He did not like school or studying.
While exploring the city, George heard jazz and blues music in and out of public drinking places. However, he did not become seriously interested in music until he heard another boy playing the violin in a concert at his school. George began to take piano lessons. His teacher was a fine classical musician. He immediately recognized George's unusual ability. The teacher wrote about him to a friend: "I have a student who will make his mark in music, if anybody will. The boy is a genius, without doubt. "
George studied classical piano. But his strongest interest continued to be jazz and popular music. At the age of fifteen, he left school and went to work in the music business. At that time, the New York City street where most music publishers had their offices was called "Tin Pan Alley." The piano players played the songs all day long to interested singers and other performers. George Gershwin was one of the youngest piano players in Tin Pan Alley. Soon, he was considered one of the finest there. He was already writing his own songs. He succeeded in getting one published when he was only eighteen years old.
George Gershwin was now a real composer. The rest of his life was an unbroken record of success. He wrote song after song. His ideas were so endless that he was not even troubled when he once lost some music he had been writing. "There is plenty more where that came from," he said.
George Gershwin had his first big hit in 1919, when he was twenty-one years old. It was a song called "Swanee." A popular entertainer, Al Jolson, sang the song. "Swanee" was made into one of the first musical recordings. George Gershwin was suddenly famous. | high13211.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "tried to please his serious boss with it"
},
"options": [
"was tired of his boss seriousness",
"tried to please his serious boss with it",
"wanted to improve his working conditions",
"wanted to see his boss' laughing fa... | Waller was a liked-by-all fellow full of fun who often went to coffee houses to tell people interesting stories, of which some even brought him some money. One day, asked by an office secretary who told Waller that his boss was a never-seen before serious man and he never even smiled. Waller would tell a most funny story. "Well, sir," Waller said before he began the story, "What will be given in return of my success?""$100,"replied the secretary. "I haven't seen him have a bright face since I worked in his office."
"Then _ " Waller went to the man's table and whispered to him, "Please tell your boss that the funny man Waller's hen gave birth to a baby."
Three days later a letter reached Mr. Waller in which were $100 and a piece of yellow paper with the words, "Mr. Waller, you have succeeded--When I repeated your $100-worth sentence, my boss burst into frightening laughter, saying that whoever has managed to make him laugh during the business hours will get dismissed!" | high1756.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Take a short sleep."
},
"options": [
"Talk with his friends.",
"Take a short sleep.",
"Get his eyes examined.",
"Stay away from the class."
],
"question": "What did the author want to do just before his first cl... | I can still remember it as if it happened yesterday. I was a college freshman and had stayed up most of the night before laughing and talking with friends. Now just before my first class of the day my eyelids were feeling heavier and heavier and my head was drifting down to my desk to make my textbook a pillow. A few minutes' nap time before class couldn't hurt, I thought.
Boom! I lifted my head immediately and my eyes opened wider than saucers. I looked around with my heart beating quickly trying to find the cause of the noise. My young professor was looking back at me with a _ , boyish smile on his face. He had intentionally dropped the pile of textbooks he was carrying onto my desk. "Good morning!" he said, still smiling. "I'm glad to see everyone is awake. Now let's get started."
For the next hour I wasn't sleepy at all. It wasn't from the shock of my professor's textbook alarm clock either. Instead, it was from the attractive discussion he led. With knowledge and good humor, he made the material come alive. His insights were full of both wisdom and loving kindness. And the enthusiasm and joy that he taught with were contagious . I left the classroom not only wide awake, but a little smarter and a little better as well.
I learned something far more important than not sleeping in class that day too. I learned that if you are going to do something in this life, do it well, do it with joy, and make it an expression of your love. What a glorious place this world would be if all of us did our work joyously and well! What a beautiful world we could create if every doctor, teacher, musician, cook, waitress, poet, miner, farmer, and laborer made their work an expression of their love! Don't sleepwalk your way through life then. Wake up! Let your love fill your work and your soul. Life is too short not to live it well. | high14218.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "the protective coloration of animals and pests"
},
"options": [
"the change of color in locusts",
"the protective coloration of animals and pests",
"how a certain sea fish protects itself",
"animals or pests can dye the... | Have you wondered why different animals or pests have their particular colors? Colors in them seem to be used mainly to protect themselves.
Birds, especially seagulls are very fond of locusts, but birds can't easily catch locusts because locusts change their colors together with the change of the color of crops. When crops are green, locusts look green. But when crops are ripe, locusts take on exactly the same brown color as crops have. Some other pests with different colors from plants are usually easily found and eaten by their enemies. So they have to hide themselves in terror for lives and appear only at night.
If you study the animal life in any part of the world, you will find the main use of coloring is to protect themselves, bears, wolves and other beasts move quietly through forests. They are usually _ to the eyes of hunters, because they have the color much like the barks of trees.
An even more strange act remains to be noticed. A kind of fish living in seas can send out a kind of very black liquid when it faces danger. While the liquid is over, its enemies cannot find it, and it quickly swims away. Thus, it has existed up to now though it is not powerful at all. | high1030.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "tend to perform better in their school work"
},
"options": [
"are more likely to fail in their school performance",
"definitely can perform better in their school work",
"usually have more of fat and less of fruit and vegetab... | NEW YORK (Reuters Health)--Kids who eat better perform better in school, a new study of Nova Scotia fifthgraders confirms.
Students who ate an adequate amount of fruit,vegetables,protein,fiber and other components of a healthy diet were significantly less likely to fail a _ test,Dr.Paul J.Veugelers of the University of Alberta in Edmonton and colleagues found.
While a healthy diet is generally assumed to be important for good school performance, there has actually been little research on this topic, Veugelers and his colleagues note.To investigate,they looked at 4, 589 fifthgraders participating in the Children's Lifestyle and Schoolperformance Study, 875 (19.1 percent) of whom had failed an elementary literacy assessment.
The better a student's eating habits based on several measures of diet quality,including adequacy and variety, the less likely he or she was to have failed the test, the researchers found,even after they adjusted the data for the effects of parental income and education, school and sex.Eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, and getting fewer calories from fat, was also associated with a lower risk of failing the test.
To date, Veugelers and his team say, most research on diet and school performance has focused on the importance of eating breakfast, as well as the ill effects of hunger and malnutrition .
"This study extends current knowledge in this area by demonstrating the independent importance of overall diet quality to academic performance.We should not only realize the importance of children's nutrition at breakfast but also that throughout the day," the researchers conclude.
Another research from the UK is suggesting that children's diets in the preschool years affects how they perform at school later on.The researchers from the Institute of Education, at the University of London say in fact that what children were eating in those days before primary school has more of an effect than the chicken nuggets they ate at lunchtime.The researchers say they have found that children who ate a diet of "junk food" at the age of three, made less progress in school between the ages of six and ten.They say children's diet at later ages appears to have less impact on their school attainment. | high6987.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Troubles always happen at the same time."
},
"options": [
"Troubles always happen at the same time.",
"Everyone may have trouble every day.",
"A small matter can cause great trouble.",
"Only the lucky man won't have any... | We have all experienced days when everything goes wrong. A day may begin well enough, but suddenly everything seems to get out of control. It seems as if a single unimportant event may cause a number of things to happen. Let us suppose that you are preparing a meal and keeping an eye on the baby at the same time. The telephone rings and this means your troubles are beginning. While you are on the phone, the baby pulls the table-cloth off the table, destroying your prepared meal. You hang up hurriedly and attend to your baby. Meanwhile, the meal gets burnt. As if these were not enough to bring you to tears, your husband arrives unexpectedly bringing three guests to dinner.
Things can go wrong on-a number of people on the road. During the rush hour one evening, two cars hit each other and both drivers began to argue. The woman driver behind the two cars happened to be a learner. She suddenly went into a panic and stopped her car. This made the driver following her stop suddenly. His wife was sitting beside him holding a large cake. As she was thrown forward, the cake went right through the window and landed on the road'. Seeing a cake-flying through the air, a truck driver had to stop his truck all of a sudden. The truck was carrying empty beer bottles and hundreds of them slid off the back of the truck and fell onto the road. This led to yet another angry argument. Meanwhile, the traffic piled up behind. It took the police nearly an hour to get the traffic to move again. In the meanwhile, the truck driver had to sweep up hundreds of broken bottles. Only two dogs were enjoying themselves from the accident; for they were happily having what was left of the cake. It was just one of those days. | high7441.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Daniel"
},
"options": [
"the author's wife",
"the author's neighbour",
"Daniel",
"a suffering child"
],
"question": "We can see that this text is written to _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
... | It is six o'clock in the morning. You are asleep in my left arm and I am learning the art of one-handed typing. Your mother, more tired yet more happy than I've ever known her, is sound asleep in the room next door.
When you're older we'll tell you that you were born in Hong Kong in the lunar year of the pig. "It's a boy, so lucky," our neighbours told us. They said you were the first baby to be born in the block this year. This, they told us, was good Feng Shui, in other words, a positive sign. Naturally your mother and I were only too happy to believe that.
Your coming has turned me upside down and inside out. I am pained by the memory of each suffering child I have come across on my journeys as a journalist. To tell you the truth, it's nearly too much for me to even think of the children being hurt and abused and killed.
Last October, in Afghanistan, when you were growing inside your mother, I met Sharja, aged twelve, motherless, fatherless, guiding me through the grey ruins of her home. Everything was gone, she told me.
There is another memory of Rwanda, and the churchyard where I found a mother and her three young children huddled together where they'd been beaten to death. The children had died holding on to their mother.
Daniel, these memories explain some of the protectiveness I feel for you, and the occasional moments of blind terror when I imagine anything bad happening to you. | high15106.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "About 100 RMB"
},
"options": [
"About 5RMB",
"About 25 RMB",
"About 100 RMB",
"About 125 RMB"
],
"question": "How much rebate can I get from a 500 dollars payment?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},... | Topic: "Enjoy Worldwide privileges with BOC cards" 5% cash rebate from UnionPay credit card issued by Bank of China
Time: April 1, 2014 to February 28, 2015
Customer: Personal credit cards with card number starting with "62" and with the UnionPay logo on the card
Details:
Payments with business cards, corporate cards or transactions through third-party platform (PAYPAL, Alipay and the internet banking payment and Kuai payment supported by Alipay) are not eligible for the promotion.
The promotion is applicable to online shopping payments to appointed business partners only, and all the transactions need to be completed via UnionPay online. Amazon (U.S.) personal credit cards with card number starting with "62" and with the UnionPay logo on the card are eligible for the promotion.
As the promotion has no pre-defined upper limit on the number of transactions, all transactions meeting the criteria above will enjoy the cash rebate. The value of eligible transactions will be the settlement amount in RMB according to the UnionPay system.
All single transactions of RMB 500 or more with payment made by UnionPay credit card issued by Bank of China (card number starting with '62') via UnionPay online platform will enjoy a 5% cash rebate, capped at RMB 100 per card per month.
Cardholders will receive the cash rebate within 90 calendar days after every promotion period. If the cardholder has any questions on the amount of rebate, please contact Bank of China Credit Card Customer Care Hotline(4006695566)within 30 calendar days since receiving the rebate; if no question is raised within 30 calendar days, the bank with deem the client agreeable to the amount of rebate. The date of cash rebate arriving in client's account could be later than the date described above due to force majeure that is not unforeseeable.
Only transactions made with specified credit cards to appointed business partners will be eligible for the cash rebate promotion; in case of refund, no cash rebate will be made. At the same time, Bank of China reserve the right to recall any unqualified cash rebate already made.
Cardholders will need to ensure no late payment, card freeze or other abnormal occasions during the promotion period, otherwise the cardholder will not be eligible for the promotion.
Income tax associated with the cash rebate will be taken care of by the cardholder. Cardholders hold the responsibility to declare the income and settle the tax payment. | high8772.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Dog and Cat Honored for Saving Their Masters"
},
"options": [
"Great Honors for Cat and Dog",
"Dog and Cat Honored for Saving Their Masters",
"Unforgettable Experiences",
"So Smart Animals Are"
],
"question": "W... | For their nick-of-time acts, Toby, a 2-year-old dog, and Winnie, a cute cat, were named Dog and Cat of the Year by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
As Amy Paul choked on a piece of apple at her home, her dog jumped up, landing hard on her chest and forcing the piece in her throat out. When the Keesling family of Indiana was about to be killed by carbon monoxide, their cat clawed at the wife Cathy's hair until she woke up and called for help.
No one could explain their timely heroics.
Both pets were rescued by their owners in _ -----Toby as a 4-week-old thrown into a garbage bin to die, and Winnie as a week-old orphan hiding under a barn, so helpless that Cathy's husband, Eric, had to feed her milk with an eyedropper.
As the Keeslings recalled it, a gas-driven pump being used broke down, spreading carbon monoxide through the house. By the time Winnie went to rescue, the couple's 14-year-old son was already unconscious. "Winnie jumped on the bed and was clawing at me, with a kind of angry sound," Cathy Keesling said. The state police responding to her 911 call said the family was only minutes from death, judging by the amount of poisonous gas in the house.
Amy Paul's husband was at his job when she took a midday break from making jewelry and bit into an apple. "Normally I peel them, but I read in Good Housekeeping Magazine that the skin has all the nutrients, so I ate the skin, and that's what caused me to choke," she recalled. "I couldn't breathe and I was in panic when Toby jumped on me. He never does that, but he did, and saved my life."
Both Toby and Winnie accompanied their owners to the awards luncheon. | high4148.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Cats show more feelings with tails than dogs."
},
"options": [
"Cats draw more attention from humans than dogs.",
"Cats are friendlier to humans than dogs.",
"Cats have more feelings than dogs.",
"Cats show more feeling... | We can express our feelings and needs by using body language. Cats can do that too. The ways that cats use their tails to show their feelings and needs are interesting.
Unlike dogs, which generally wave their tails to express good feelings, cats use their tails to send a lot of signals. When a cat waves its tail strongly from side to side, it may be a sign for us to leave it alone, or we may get scrathed . Throwing a little toy for the cat to play with can get it relaxed. When a cat holds its tail upwards with a slight move, it means the animal is very happy to see its owner.
We all like to cuddle inside our bed, and cats do that thing, too. Much as little children like to wrap (......) their arms around their Teddy Bears, cats like to wrap their own tails around their bodies to get a sense of safety while asleep. If we notice a cat sleeping in such a position, we should not break its peace.
Usually the tip of the cat's tail doesn't draw our attention. But its particular position may also show the cat's feelings. For example, a cat holding the tip of its tail pointed downwards may try to say that it is not feeling comfortable. So at this point, the cat not only feels angry, but also unsafe. This may again be a sign for us not to upset the cat in any way.
In conclusion, cats use their tails in many different, sometimes funny ways to send us messages, and we can learn to know more. | high3627.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "offers students the chances to have a natural living at college"
},
"options": [
"offers students the chances to have a natural living at college",
"was firstly built by two college students",
"was designed for saving buildin... | Across the United States, universities and colleges have been looking to become more sustainable and more than 600 schools have already planned to become eco-friendly. The EcoDorm, home to 36 students at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, was designed to be sustainable from top to bottom, or in this case, from its rainwater-collection system to its garden. The dormitory is bringing new meaning to the concept of living "green" at college.
At Warren Wilson College, a biological science school with fewer than 1,000 students, the sustainability drive came from the student body. The EcoDorm concept was presented ten years ago by two students; a planning committee firstly suggested using building materials like corncob. Although the architects disagreed with the idea, they came up with other creative solutions: Wood siding was taken from the trees grown in the school yard that were suffering from a disease, and rainwater was collected in an old railway car and pumped back into the house to clean the toilets.
All in all, the dorm uses nearly two-thirds less electricity than a similar-sized traditional building world. But even the most sustainable homes need continued efforts from its livers. And in the case of EcoDorm, students live by their words. Most also take advantage of the dorm's bio-garden, planting and harvesting fruits and vegetables. "I didn't have to worry about paper towels being wasted or feel bad about drying my clothes outside," Jeremy Lekich, the dorm's gardener, said. "Basically, it has made my life easier." | high11360.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "his wife"
},
"options": [
"his wife",
"his mother-in-law",
"his own mother",
"no one"
],
"question": "The man said he wanted to buy a pearl for _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{
"answe... | A well-dressed man entered a famous jewelry shop. He explained that he wished to buy a pearl for his wife' s birthday. The price didn't matter, since business had been very good for him that year. After examining a nice black one that costs $5, 000, he paid for the pearl in cash, shook hands with the jeweler, and left.
A few days later the man returned and said that his wife liked the pearl so much that she wanted another one just like it. It had to be exactly the same size and quality as she wanted a pair of earrings made. "Can you give me any advice on how to get such a pearl?" said the man. The jeweler regretfully replied, "I would say it's exactly impossible to find one exactly like that pearl."
The rich man insisted that the jeweler advertise in the newspapers, offering $25,000 for the matching pearl. Many people answered the advertisement but nobody had a pearl that was just right.
Just when the jeweler had given up hope, a little old lady came into his store. To his great surprise, she pulled the perfect pearl from her purse." I don't like to part with it." she said sadly, I got it from my mother, and ,my mother got it from hers. But I really need the money.
The jeweler was quickly to pay her before she changed her mind .Then he called the rich man's hotel to tell him the good news .The man, however, was nowhere to be found. | high2539.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "They may not get satisfactory scores and it influences their admission to college."
},
"options": [
"The SAT is unacceptable for the test takers, teachers, officers and the public.",
"They may not get satisfactory scores and it inf... | LAST week, the College Board announced that it was revising the SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test) in an effort to make it more acceptable to test-takers, teachers, college admission officers and the public more generally. Test-takers who receive lower scores than they have hoped for are likely to be concerned about their academic future. It's no wonder that it's hard to discuss the test without negative feelings.
The SAT isn't perfect. Like any test, it can be misused, and may reflect unequal educational opportunities. Even before the announcement of the SAT's redesign, experts were discussing the test's limitations. Writing in The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert described its questions as limited: "Critical thinking was never called for, let alone curiosity or imagination." But the SAT provides an effective measure of a person's ability to reason through verbal and mathematical materials, a skill required in college. Although there are conflicting reports on the issue, a study published in the journal Educational and Psychological Measurement in 2011 found that the SAT can meaningfully add to the prediction of a student's first-year college academic performance, above his grades in high school alone. The fact that the SAT can help predict this is, to me, an astonishing achievement that cannot be ignored.
We cannot afford to ignore tests because they fall short of perfection or make us uncomfortable. But there's a better way to make the SAT more acceptable in the long run: We should expand the types of tests we use so as to more fully reflect what students can do. What if, in addition to the SAT, students were offered new tests that measured more diverse abilities? For future artists or musicians, there are tests that measure creative thinking --a largely ignored ability by the SAT. For future engineers, there are tests that measure their sense of space. And new measures of "personal intelligence" -- the ability to reason about a person's motives, emotions and patterns of activities -- may also tell us something important about students' self-knowledge and understanding of others. | high17711.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "he gave some leftovers to the poor woman"
},
"options": [
"he couldn't cook",
"he didn't work hard",
"he didn't like him at all",
"he gave some leftovers to the poor woman"
],
"question": "Mr White sent Mr. Back... | Mr. Backer is a kind-hearted man. Once he gave some food to a poor woman . Mr White, the boss of the restaurant, found it and became angry. He often gave the leftovers to some poor workers. Mr. Backers lost his work for it. It was difficult for him to find work in the small country though he was an able cook. The war made all stop. Children couldn't go to school, most shops were closed, even some farmers were hungry. Some people were made to leave their houses and they had to find the safe places. It was an autumn night. Mr Backer hadn't any food to eat and went to bed, but he couldn't fall asleep, because he was very hungry . suddenly he heard a noise in his room. He saw a man looking for something useful there. He said nothing and watched it carefully. At last the man took a few old clothes out of a broken paper box and took them away. He got up from his bed quickly and followed him gently , with his _ on his back. The man didn't find him and went into a small and wet house. Mr. Backer also went in and saw there was nothing in the room. The thief saw him and was surprised. He asked, "What did you come here for?" "You have carried my things here," said Mr. Backer. "I have to move here, too!" | high5256.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Americans want to increase the purchasing power of their incomes."
},
"options": [
"Americans never feel satisfied with their incomes.",
"Americans tend to overstate the amount of their incomes.",
"Americans want to have thei... | The American economic system is organized around a basically private-enterprise, market-oriented economy in which consumers largely determine what shall be produced by spending their money in the marketplace for those goods and services that they want most. Private businessmen, striving to make profits, produce these goods and services in competition with other businessmen; and the profit motive, operating under competitive pressures, largely determines how these goods and services are produced. Thus, in the American economic system it is the demand of individual consumers, coupled with the desire of businessmen to maximize profits and the desire of individuals to maximize their incomes, that together determine what shall be produced and how resources are used to produce it.
An important factor in a market-oriented economy is the mechanism by which consumer demands can be expressed and responded to by producers. In the American economy, this mechanism is provided by a price system, a process in which prices rise and fall in response to demands of consumers and supplies offered by seller-producers. If the product is in short supply to the demand, the price will be bid up and some consumers will be eliminated from the market. If, on the other hand, producing more of a commodity results in reducing its cost, this will tend to increase the supply offered by seller-producers, which in turn will lower the price and permit more consumers to buy the product. Thus, price is the regulating mechanism in the America economic system.
The important factor in a private-enterprise economy is that individual are allowed to own productive resources (private property), and they are permitted to hire labor, gain control over natural resources, and produce goods and services for sale at a profit. In the American economy, the concept of private property embraces not only the ownership of productive resources but also certain rights, including the right to determine the price of a product or to make a free contract with another private individual. | high18422.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Negative."
},
"options": [
"Approving.",
"Negative.",
"Doubtful.",
"Neutral."
],
"question": "What's Han Jeong-hee's attitude toward South Korea's proposal of doing scientific whaling?",
"question_type": "fa... | Environmental activists in South Korea are condemning a government plan to hunt endangered whales for scientific research. They believe the plan is part of an effort to restart commercial whaling activities. Such activities are banned in many countries. South Korea announced the proposal in July at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Panama. The head of the South Korean delegation said the plan was needed to answer questions about minke whale populations. He said the hunt would take place near the South Korean coast. But he did not say how many of the animals would be caught.
The International Whaling Commission has yet to make a decision on the South Korean plan. The organization banned commercial whaling in 1986 because of concerns about the survival of whale species. But now, some South Korean fishermen say they are facing a threat from minke whales. They say these animals are eating what would have been their catch.
The plan was immediately condemned by anti-whaling nations. Wildlife activists also criticized the proposal. Han Jeong-hee works in Seoul for the environmental group Greenpeace."It's really regretful to hear that the South Korean government is, like, considering conducting scientific whaling. Scientific whaling is just, like, thinly disguised commercial whaling. And, you know, we are of course against all commercial whaling. Japan's the only country that is doing scientific whaling at the moment and South Korea is just trying to follow that."
Apart from the plan in South Korea, an aquarium in the American state of Georgia also wants to import eighteen beluga whales from Russia. The United States currently has 31 beluga whales. They are living in six aquariums and marine parks. Four of them are at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.
The Georgia Aquarium has asked the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for permission to import the beluga whales. If it was approved, aquarium officials would send some of the animals to the other facilities. The Georgia Aquarium says it hopes to use the beluga whales in research, education and breeding programs. They currently are being held at a Russian research center. Yet many people oppose the plan. They say it is wrong to catch any wild animal.
NOAA officials are studying how the beluga whales might be affected by being brought to the United States. They also want to know whether the Georgia Aquarium and its partners can properly care for the whales and how they might be used in educational activities. The federal Marine Mammal Protection Act sets rules which NOAA must consider when deciding whether these animals may be imported. NOAA officials told VOA they plan to make a decision on the request by early next year. | high19728.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Tomato Festival"
},
"options": [
"Egg Days",
"Seafood Festival",
"Tomato Festival",
"Vegetable Days"
],
"question": "The passage mainly tells us something about _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
}... | Sonoma County, California is famous for its natural beauty. The area is also known for its fruits, vegetables, eggs, and seafood. When I first moved to the area years ago, I had no idea I would be living in such a rich area!
After the summer, local festivals practically celebrate the richness of the county every weekend. From Egg Days, Tomato Festival to Seafood Festival, Sonoma County has something for everyone. An event held every year is one of the most special in the area, which celebrates the harvest of tomatoes, showing over 170 kinds of this tasty fruit. Cooks prepare the most favorite tomato-inspired dishes. You can enjoy all kinds of food while listening to live music, and taste the world famous Kendall Jackson wine.
Another great feature of this event is the opportunity to take part in the yearly competition with your own tomatoes. Tomatoes are judged on looks, taste, and weight and winners will be awarded . If you're planning on visiting and want to attend this event, get your ticket early as it sells out quickly.
This year, to celebrate Tomato Festival, I decided to plant a few tomatoes in a wine barrel that had kept a lemon tree before. The tree, after about 6 years, finally did not produce fruits anymore, so I changed to plant 3 tomato plants instead. The three wine barrel plants stand over six feet tall and that's above the top of the barrel! They have lots of flowers and some have started to produce fruits. As usual, harvest may be late this year, but the quality of my tomatoes will be excellent. I believe I'll realize my dream of being the best tomato gardener. | high3633.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Jeffery Deaver is a \"00\" agent in Her Majesty's secret service in a James Bond movie."
},
"options": [
"Jeffery Deaver is a \"00\" agent in Her Majesty's secret service in a James Bond movie.",
"Jeffery Deaver was working as a la... | Jeffery Deaver looks more like a brainy villain in a James Bond movie than a "00" agent in Her Majesty's secret service.Best known for his thrillers starring criminalist Lincoln Rhyme, Jeffery Deaver has a new mission: Bring Bond into the 21st century in a new 007 novel.
The yet-to-be-named book is cryptically referred to as "Project X" by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd., which owns the rights to Fleming's work.Most of the details surrounding Project X, to be published in May, are being kept under wraps, but under gentle coaxing Deaver begins to spill his guts."The novel," he says, "is set in the present day, in 2011.Bond is a young agent for the British secret service.He's 29 or 30 years old, and he's an Afghan war vet." That in itself is big news.After all, if Bond were aging in real time -- he first appeared on the screen in 1953 -- the now doddering 007 would be nearly 90.
But first up: a new stand-alone Deaver novel, Edge (Simon & Schuster, $26.99), to be published Tuesday.It's about a federal agent who risks his life to protect a Washington police detective from a man hired to extract information from him using any means at his disposal .
Sipping coffee while seated on a leather chair in a sitting room decorated with portraits of his dogs and show ribbons, the mild-mannered author who writes about murderers and serial killers talks about his career and the solid fan base that has allowed him to pursue writing full time since 1990."I may not sell as many books as John Grisham(although he has sold a cool 20 million), but I have a very loyal fan base," says Deaver, 60, who wrote some of his novels while working as a Wall Street lawyer.Deaver's initiation into the Bond family -- more than 100 million 007 novels have sold worldwide -- could significantly raise his profile .
Other novelists have written Bond novels since Ian Fleming's death in 1964 -- including Kingsley Amis, John Gardner and, most recently, Sebastian Faulks -- but they all took place in the original era.Deaver is taking a new approach."There's no more Cold War to fight," says Deaver, so his new Bond, of the Fleming estate, will fight "post-9/11 evil." "I want to stay true to the original James Bond, who many people don't know much about," he says, referring to the secret agent Fleming portrayed in 14 novels, and not the movie Bond."People know Daniel Craig, they know Pierce Brosnan, they know Roger Moore and Sean Connery, all of whom brought a great deal to the stories of 007.But the original Bond was a very dark, edgy character." | high11374.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "introduce the film \"The Day After Tomorrow\""
},
"options": [
"introduce a famous director, Richard Emmerich",
"introduce Roland Emmerich and his films",
"introduce the film \"The Day After Tomorrow\"",
"warn people of... | What would the world look like if it lost its battle against the greenhouse effect and global warming? We are talking about worldwide disaster, including hurricane, earthquake, tidal waves, floods and the beginning of the next Ice Age.
This is the scene that faces those who see "The Day After Tomorrow", a new Hollywood sci-fi movie. It is in the second place of prefix = st1 /USbox office chart. Some say that the director, Roland Emmerich, has an uncontrollable desire to destroy the world, especiallyNew York. In 1996, he made "Independence Day", in which aliens destroy the earth. Two years later, he brought "Godzilla" to the screen. This saw a giant monster appear inNew Yorkand almost tear the city to pieces.
"The Day After Tomorrow" shows disaster and destruction on a global scale---all thanks to the weather.
In the movie, Jack Hall, a weather scientist, is the first man to realize that a new ice age is coming. In one of several natural disasters, his son Sam became trapped in New York's Public Library when a tidal wave strikes the city. He is forced to fight rapidly dropping temperatures. And a pack of hungry wolves escaped from the zoo. Meanwhile, Jack must think of ways to save his son, himself and the whole world. He must follow a hard path north, as everyone else races south to live in warmer climates.
This film also brings a direct attack on the refusal of the current US government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions . It is hoped that "The Day After Tomorrow" may encourage a change in the government's attitude towards environmental protection. | high17705.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "had shown a surprising ability in the electrical field"
},
"options": [
"had to drop out of school to help on the family farm",
"was sent to school to study electrical engineering",
"wanted to be the first person to invent th... | When the Farnsworth family moved to their new farm in 1919, eleven-year-old Philo was surprised to find it wired for electricity. This unusual circumstance contributed to his fate -- to become an important inventor of the twentieth century.
By thirteen, Farnsworth had become a self-taught electrical engineer. He was able to fix the farm's generator when none of the adults could. In 1922, he read an article about a new idea of John Baird, a Scottish scientist, who had been working with the cathode ray tube for the transmission of electronic pictures and wanted to attempt it himself.
Farnsworth studied everything he could find on the subject. Although many older engineers with money backers were already developing television, Farnsworth made a bold decision -- he was going to perfect a working model of it before anybody else.
In college, Farnsworth continued his research with cathode ray and vacuum tubes, but the death of his father, the only money maker in the family, forced him to give up this research and find a job. His first job was for George Everson, with whom Farnsworth discussed his dream of television. While acknowledging the achievements of those who came before, Farnsworth thought that he could get closer. Everson agreed to risk $6,000 for the research.
Backers came in 1927 to see the first American television, one year after Baird's. They were astonished to see the image of a single white line resolve itself on the screen before them, and agreed that this new invention was worth putting money into.
In 1930, Farnsworth won a patent for his all-electronic TV. By the time he died, he had earned over 300 American and foreign patents for electronic and mechanical devices. | high5242.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Kids care more about achievement."
},
"options": [
"20% of the students are not ambitious.",
"Kids care more about achievement.",
"About 80% of the students are not caring.",
"A majority of the kids are kind students."
... | A new study from Harvard University revealed that the message parents mean to send to children about the value of sympathy is being mistaken by the message they actually send. In fact they value achievement and happiness above all else.
The Making Caring Common Project at Harvard's Graduate School of Education surveyed 10,000 middle and high school students about which is more important to them--achievement, happiness, or caring about others. Almost 80 percent of students placed achievement or happiness over caring about others. Only 20 percent of students considered caring about others as their top aim.
In the study "The Children We Mean to Raise: The Real Message Adults Are Sending about Values", the authors refer to a reality gap, an incongruity between what adults tell children they should value and the message we grown-ups actually send through our behavior.
Simply talking about sympathy is not enough. While 96 percent of parents say they want to raise caring children, and cite the development of moral character as "very important, if not essential", 80 percent of the youths surveyed reported that their parents "are more concerned about achievement and happiness than caring about others". Approximately the same percentage of the students reported that their teachers put their achievement over caring.
As the report shows, simply talking about sympathy is not enough. Children are sensitive creatures, fully capable of telling the true meanings in the blank spaces between well-organised words. If parents really want to let their kids know that they value care and sympathy, the authors suggest, they must make a real effort to help their children learn to care about other people--even when it's hard, even when it does not make them happy, and yes, even when it is at odds with their personal success. | high9478.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "is in charge of the Oakland A's"
},
"options": [
"is interested in competition",
"is good at statistical analysis",
"is in charge of the Oakland A's",
"is the leading player of his team"
],
"question": "In the f... | When the film opens, the Oakland A's have just lost a game to the New York Yankees. And they're about to lose three of their best players to richer teams. Beane is sad, because he doesn't have enough money to compete with the big teams. But then he meets Peter Brand, a young Yale graduate and statistics expert.
Brand introduces Beane to sabermetrics---a controversial system for measuring how good a baseball player is. It applies computer-generated( )statistical analysis to work out a player's ability. It's completely different from the more traditional methods of talent spotting that all the other teams are using. With sabermetrics, Beane begins buying players other teams aren't interested in. And he manages to build a winning team with very little money.
Monayball is based on a true story, but characters have combined, dates have been changed and some events have been invented all for dramatic effect. For example, Peter Brand, Beane's assistant, never existed. However, he is largely based on Beane's former assistant Paul DePodesta. Though there are these changes, critics think that Brad Pitt's portrayal of Beane is _
One journalist wrote, " Pitt imitates Beane's gestures and speech patterns."
Beane's use of sabermetrics changed baseball. Now many teams rely on the method. But this form of complex computer-generated statistical analysis is used in business too. And these days, many businesses use sabermetrics to help plan their business strategies.
But Moneyballisn't just about facts and figures. Billy Beane himself was once a major-league baseball player. At the start of his career people expected big things from him. But he didn't achieve what is expected of him and in 1990 he retired with an average record. This past failure always returns to his mind, and the film is also about whether Beane will finally achieve success in his life.
The critics love Moneyball. One called it " the most soulful of baseball movies", another described it as a " home run". And most agree it's on track for some major awards. | high22966.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Justin and Teddy"
},
"options": [
"Justin himself",
"Kathy and Victor",
"Justin and Teddy",
"Kathy herself"
],
"question": "Who actually had the airplane accident?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},... | "Get out of the plane!" Justin shouted.Teddy and he dropped to the ground,...
When Kathy and Victor reached the edge of the meadow flames of the fire were shooting more than five meters into the air.
Kathy couldn't believe what she was seeing.One glance told her they needed medical attention immediately.She questioned Victor, "Are you able to find someone nearby for help?"
"There are no farmers, nor villagers nearby," he replied.
"I'm a distance runner, and I'll go for help." Looking at the seriously injured men, Kathy said to Victor, "It may take me several hours to get out." She started out.
When she was 23, Kathy set a women's record in a Marathon of 42 kilometers. _ She had nearly 30 kilometers of hard wilderness to cover to get help.
Kathy had been running for two hours.This was far back into the wilderness.The country path was growing vague .She stopped to take a quick compass reading.Yes, she had run almost for more than 20 kilometers.Her heart fell, her muscle aching.And finally she saw her car in the distance.
She jumped into the car and sped away.She reached a holiday house and called the police.
During the wait, she walked around, relaxing her legs and drinking water.It took almost two hours for a police helicopter to reach her at the trail end.They needed her for one more task. | high1024.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "to be a gentleman"
},
"options": [
"to be a writer",
"to be a gentleman",
"to work in a factory",
"to support his family"
],
"question": "As a boy, Charles Dickens' dream was _ .",
"question_type": "cloze... | Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth.Finances were a constant concern for his family.The expenses of having a large family were too much for his father's salary.In fact, when Charles was just four months old, the family moved to a smaller home to cut expenses.
At a very young age, despite his family's financial situation, Charles dreamed of becoming a gentleman.However, when he was 12, it seemed his dream would never come true.He suffered a lot.Charles' education was unplanned, but he supplemented it with constant reading, particularly of the eighteenthcentury novels in his father's small library.He was poorly clothed, ill fed, forced to live in the cheapest place.
Also,12yearold Charles was removed from school and sent to work at a factory to help support the family.Charles was deeply marked by these experiences.This childhood poverty, although unknown to his readers until after his death, would be a heavy influence on Dickens' later views on social reform and the world he would create through his fiction.He knew those kinds of feelings.He was lost at that time when he worked hopelessly in the factory.That period was so bitter to the sensitive boy.When he was a successful, happy man, he could not look back upon it without tears in his eyes.
Luckily the situation improved within a year.Charles was released from his duties at the factory. | high6993.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "about 90 years"
},
"options": [
"about 50 years",
"about 70 years",
"about 90 years",
"about 150 years"
],
"question": "TIME has a history of _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{
"answer"... | TIME is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It was created in 1923 by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce, making it the first weekly news magazine in the US. Hadden was considered carefree, liked to tease Luce and saw TIME as important but also fun. That accounted for its heavy coverage of celebrities(including politicians), the entertainment industry, and pop culture--criticized as too light for serious news.
It tells the news through people, and for many decades, the magazine's cover depicted a single person. On Hadden's death in 1929, Luce became the most important man at TIME and a major figure in the history of 20th-century media.
TIME is also known for its signature red border, first introduced in 1927. It has only changed four times since then. The issue released shortly after the September 11 attacks on the United States featured a black border to symbolize mourning. However, this edition was a special "extra" edition published quickly for the breaking news of the event; the next regularly scheduled issue contained the red border. Additionally, the April 28, 2008 Earth Day issue, dedicated to environmental issues, contained a green border. The next change in border was in the September 19, 2011 issue, commemorating the 10thanniversary of the September 11 attacks with a metallic silver border. The most recent change(again with a silver border) was in the December 31, 2012 issue, noting Barack Obama's selection as Man of the Year.
TIME has a division magazine, TIME FOR KIDS(TFK), which is especially published for children and is mainly distributed in classrooms. TFK contains some national news, a "Cartoon of the Week", and a variety of articles concerning popular culture that the younger U.S. citizens are interested in. All the stories in TFK are written by young reporters.
In some advertising campaigns, the magazine has suggested that the letters TIME stand for "The International Magazine of Events". | high7455.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Five days."
},
"options": [
"Two days.",
"Three days.",
"Four days.",
"Five days."
],
"question": "How many days is it from the day this article was made to the Lunar New Year?",
"question_type": "factiod_qu... | His eyes nearly in tears from the crush of fellow travelers at Guangzhou's train station, Hong Tao said things were much better on Sunday, after days of waiting for a train to his home in Hubei province.
"I think it's fine today, and everything is going smoothly," the 28-year-old said. "I thought it would be really crowded but it has turned out to be OK."
Chinese authorities say they expect 1.3 million people to travel out of Guangzhou's train station over the next few days, as they rush to get home by Wednesday, the eve of Lunar New Year.
Hong's optimism may have been helped by the blue skies that emerged over Guangzhou on Sunday for the first time in a week.
Last week, a rare winter storm paralyzed China's transportation system as millions tried to get home to celebrate the holiday -- the only chance for many migrant workers to see their families all year.
China's state-run Xinhua news agency said Friday that 95 percent of rail traffic had "returned to normal." But Guangzhou's train station remained packed with a backlog of hundreds of thousands of travelers hoping to get home for the holiday.
A young woman was stepped on in a stampede at the train station Friday, and later died of her injuries, according to Xinhua. Video of the situation on Friday showed crowds of people screaming, elbowing each other, in some cases sobbing and collapsing in the rush to get a slot (,) on a train.
China Sunday announced it has organized over 300,000 People's Liberation Army forces to southern China in what it described as a "war on winter weather".
The government also announced a $700 million plan to help farmers whose crops have been destroyed. | high8766.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Timothy"
},
"options": [
"Steve Jobs.",
"Michael Bloomberg.",
"Moammar Gadhafi.",
"Timothy"
],
"question": "Who has been appointed as the new CEO of Apple?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
... | NEW YORK CITY?A hurricane warning has been given for New York City.Forecasters say Hurricane Irene could cause widespread flooding, power failure and billions of dollars in damage.About 65 million Americans live in Hurricane Irene's projected path --many of whom have been _
In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered the city's first-ever evacuation. Roughly 250,000 people have been told to leave their homes in low-lying areas, including the Wall Street financial district.
WASHINGTON D.C.--On Aug.24, 2011, Apple announced that Mr.Steve Jobs, who has battled cancer for several years, was stepping down as the CEO but would serve as chairman.
In January, he had announced that he was taking a medical leave of absence from Apple.In announcing his leave, he turned daily oversight of the company over to the chief operating officer, Timothy D.Cook, and it was Mr.Cook whom Apple named to succeed him as the next CEO of the company.
TRIPOLI--Opposition forces in Libya say they control more than 90 percent of the country.It is still not clear where Moammar Gadhafi is.The opposition has offered more than 1,600,000 dollars for his capture .The head of the opposition forces said his group supports a decision by local businessmen to provide the money in an effort to speed up the capture.Earlier Wednesday, government forces fired onto the former headquarters of Mr.Gadhafi, which is now controlled by opposition forces.Heavy fighting also continued near Tripoli's airport and in a town of Zuara. | high15112.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "$25"
},
"options": [
"$5",
"$10",
"$15",
"$25"
],
"question": "If a boy and his parents go to Blue Ridge Folklife Festival,they should pay _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
... | The arrival of autumn starts the traditional fall festivals which aim to welcome the new season. Here's a guide to several fall festivals that are held in the Roanoke region each year.
Boones Mill Apple Festival
It is held the third Saturday in September every year.The festival is hosted by the Boones Mill Lions Club and attracts people from all over Virginia. The most important things of the festival include art shows, fried apple pies,and a high school band. There are lots of food,crafts,music,and games for every age group. Admission is free. For more information, call 540-334-5975.
Blue Ridge Folklife Festival
Ferrum College hosts the festival as an October celebration of the harvest every year.The festival shows some farm fresh produce and the farming practices of the last year.Children can enjoy playing many of the games.The festival begins at 10:00 a.m.Admission is $ 10 for adults and $ 5 for children and senior citizens.You can call 540-365-4412 or visit the website:http://www,blueridgeinstitute.org.
Mountain Magic Fall Festival
The town of Buchanan on the outskirts of Roanoke is the place where the Mountain Magic Fall Festival is held.The festival is held in October and has two to four groups of crafters,antique dealers,and food vendors.Live Bluegrass music plays all day and children enjoy visiting the pet zoo. The auto show and farmers' market are also big attractions. Call 540-357-2509 for more information.
Vinton Fall Festival
A 5K walk, a truck ride, and a civil war group are just some of the exciting parts of the Vinton Fall Festival.The festival is held in October under the golden shade trees in downtown Vinton.Other attractions include hayrides,agriculture judging, health education,and children's activities.Phone: 540-343-1364. | high7333.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "He has determination and strong will-power."
},
"options": [
"He used to work as a fireman.",
"He has determination and strong will-power.",
"He learnt running from a coach.",
"He was advised to ride a bike when he was ... | Why do people run? That is, why do thousands get up early and put their knees and ankles and hearts and lungs through the hell of 10,000 meters on the roads? For those who stick with it and are lucky, they get into another world: a state of physical and mental grace reached when their blood is racing through every vein .
And in Austin, those who long to get better, even when they know it's impossible, hang on Gilbert's every word.
Gilbert's methods are simple. It's all about form: how the arms move and the feet land. He pushes his students hard. When they feel like they're about to die, they look at Gilbert's scars -- the burns along his right arm, and then to his right leg, where the flames ate down to the bone. Whatever they feel, how bad, really, could it be?
"He gets people to believe in themselves," says Lisa Spenner, one of the _ , who are crazy about Gilbert. "He treats everyone like they're amazing." If Gilbert is their savior, they are his saviors too. "Eventually, I realized I had to help people. When I help people, I feel good," he says.
Gilbert's right leg was so badly burnt that the knee was stuck at a 90-degree angle. The doctor said it would take six months to heal. Frustrated, Gilbert got on a bike. The biking led to walking, which finally led to running a year after he had been left to die.
In truth, runners don't race other runners. They race against themselves to conquer their wills. So Gilbert spent the spring and summer of 2007 trying to do that, racing men faster than he is, knowing it would make him better.
Gilbert's students, of course, keep rooting for him, though sometimes they wonder, "How much better can he get?" After all, they see him as more than just a runner and a coach. He's a flesh-and-blood symbol: the daily struggle to show what you're made of. | high8000.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "procedure"
},
"options": [
"procedure",
"engine",
"function",
"impression"
],
"question": "The Rolls-Royce is expensive for its _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
"... | The famous car Rolls-Royce has been largely hand-made and always one of the most expensive cars on the market.
In fact, Rolls-Royce is made up of two men's names, Charles S. Rolls and Henry Royce. They came from very different backgrounds, received very different educations and when they met; their careers were going in very different directions.
In 1903, Royce bought a second-hand France Decauville car. He found the car unreliable, difficult to start and overheated. Royce decided he could do better himself and set about building two-cylinder car of his own design. The first of these, built almost completely by Royce himself, was a success in almost every way: it started easily, ran smoothly and was very reliable. It never failed to impress everyone who saw it rode in the car, including Rolls.
While he was a university student at Cambridge, Rolls acquired a French Peugeot. It was the first automobile seen at Cambridge and by the time Rolls finished his studies, he was probably the most skilled driver in Britain. In 1902, Rolls went into the business of selling cars and became a leading automobile
. He was looking for a British car to market when he was told that Henry Royce had designed and built a two-cylinder automobile.
In 1904, Royce and Rolls joined together to build and sell motor car. They combined their talents--Royce the engineer and Rolls the salesman and businessman.
And, just two years later, the partnership produced the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, a milestone car acclaimed by many by the time as the " best in the world". Over the years the automaker built a legendary reputation. | high15674.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "the fish resource near the shore was decreasing"
},
"options": [
"the fish resource near the shore was decreasing",
"the fishes farther away from the sea tasted fresher",
"people would prefer eating fresh fishes to less fresh... | It is well known that the Japanese people's love of fish is almost as strong as a bee's interest in honey. As fish populations were decreasing, fishing companies were forced to fish further and further away from the shore. Then they had a big challenge -- how to keep the fish fresh for longer. So they decided to keep the fish stored in freezers on the boats. But the public did not like frozen fish. So again the fishing companies had a new bigger challenge. What they decided to do was to have fish tanks on their boats. After catching fishes, they would put them in the tanks and keep them living there until they got back to shore. But in this protected environment, lacking predators , the fish stopped moving around. The Japanese public felt these dull fish did not taste fresh, which had an unpleasant effect upon sales. Once again the fishing companies had an even bigger challenge ...
Stop for a minute! Before we go any further, I would like to ask "What are your challenges? How do you handle an unexpected challenge? " May I think it this way that you should try to attack your challenges? Conquer them with a Swiss Army knife. Take the most proper and simple tool that you can adopt to deal with your situation.
Now back to our story. How did the Japanese finally figure out the fresh fish problem? Sharks! You might think the same. Sharks were caught and put into the tanks with other fishes. Don't sharks EAT fish? Well, they do eat a few fish, but they did also keep more fish active and alert . The fish stay fresh because they are challenged.
_ to offer yourself achallengein your own business and career. | high17063.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "he thought they were too old to play basketball"
},
"options": [
"he thought they were too old to play basketball",
"they looked young for their age",
"the old seldom went to the bar",
"he didn't believe they played bas... | "How's the basketball coming on?"
I put down my drink and looked across at the next table. I was curious about that because both the man and the woman were at least 65.
"Oh, I'm not playing much basketball these days," the woman replied. "But I'm getting much better at golf."
What's this, I thought. I opened my packet of crisps, thoughtfully. "I'm still pretty hopeless at chess, I'm afraid," the man said. "It beat me on level one this morning."
_ . These two were the proud owners of computer games.
It's very likely that one of the results of the development of the silicon chip will be that a lot of people will have more exciting ways to spend their leisure time. It already has. Space invader machines are now a familiar sight everywhere. A lot of people play them, and some, particularly school children, get remarkably high scores. How, one wonders, do they find the time (and money) to become so good?
If you have your own computers, the possibilities are endless. You can play any active sports without stepping out of your living room.
You can become an expert at chess or backgammon without ever playing with another human being. Indeed, human beings aren't needed at all.
So, what of the future? Will we see school children stealing or even robbing to feed space invader machines? Will football grounds lie empty as families sit at home playing video football, or watching the national video football championship? Perhaps, it won't go that far. But we won't have to wait long for the Video Olympics. I'm sure of that.
Back in the pub, I stood up, took out 20 pence, and went over to the space invader machine. I may not be much good at beating computers at backgammon, but any space invaders who arrive on Earth anywhere near me had better watch out. | high18350.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Spring"
},
"options": [
"Spring",
"Summer.",
"Autumn.",
"Winter."
],
"question": "Which is the busiest season for workers at Wild Friends?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
... | Every year in late spring at Wild Friends, the wildlife health center, workers receive baby animals, including songbirds and rabbits. This is the busiest time when workers care for and raise all the little ones before sending them back into the wild.
There are many reasons for these little animals' coming to the center. First of all, street cats or dogs catch, injure or take away little birds from their nests. Sometimes people catch baby animals and keep them at home, giving them food that they are not used to. It would make them sick. Most people don't realize that it's against law to get live animals out of their nests.
As for songbirds, people often find them on the ground in their yards, thinking they have no other choice but to leave them on the ground to die. This is because many people wrongly believe that once a bird is touched by a person, its mother will not accept this child bird. But that's not true.
If a little bird falls out of the nest, you should check whether it is injured. If not, you should put the bird back in the nest. If the bird is injured, call your local wildlife center quickly.
As for the progress of protecting wild animals, people at Wild Friends devote all their energy to this work. Over the last weeks, they have been able to send many of the birds and rabbits that came here earlier this spring back to nature. | high5524.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "she had never performed in public before"
},
"options": [
"her mother and father weren't present",
"the strong spotlight was shining onto the stage",
"she hadn't mastered the entire piece",
"she had never performed in p... | My first performance in front of an audience was coming up soon.
I tried as hard as I could to remain calm, but my heart was racing. I stared down at my sweat-covered, shaking hands.
I looked up again at the audience, realizing that these were real people. They were not just my mum and dad, who would say, "Good job!" even if I messed up the entire piece.
What if I had the wrong music? What if I played the wrong notes?
As it turned out, I was never able to answer these questions because the spotlight was waiting for me. I grasped my hands tightly together, drying off the sweat.
Slowly I walked to the mud-brown piano in the center of the room. It contained 88 demanding keys, which were waiting impatiently to be played. I swallowed the golf-ball-sized lump in my throat and sat down. Slowly, I opened the music. Next, I rested my still shaking hands on the ivory keys.
As my fingers played across the keys, I was becoming more unsure of my preparation for this moment. But the memory of my years of training came flooding back. I knew that I had practiced this piece so many times that I could play it backwards if requested.
Although at one point I accidentally played two keys instead of the intended one, I continued to move my fingers automatically .
My eyes burned holes into (were fixed on) the pages in front of me.
There was no way that I was going to lose my concentration. To keep this to myself, I leaned forward and focused carefully on the music.
When I came to the end of the page, a warning went off inside my head: DON'T MAKE A MISTAKE WHEN YOU TURN THE PAGE!
Needless to say, I obeyed myself with all my heart and mind. And, proud of my "page-turning" feat , I finished the rest of the piece without making a single mistake.
After the final note died away, a celebration went into action inside my head. I had finished. I had mastered the impossible. | high20817.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Eleven."
},
"options": [
"Three.",
"Eight.",
"Eleven.",
"Twenty-two."
],
"question": "How many deaths have the thunderstorms and tornadoes on Friday caused?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
... | NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A line of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes marched across the South on Friday, peeling away roofs, overturning cars and killing at least 11 people in Tennessee, officials said.
It was the second wave of violent weather to hit the state in less than a week. Last weekend, tornadoes killed 24 people in the western part of the state and destroyed more than 1,000 homes and buildings.
The storms crossed an area from northern Mississippi to northern Virginia as they moved to the northeast late Friday after developing from a low-pressure system in the central Plains.
The Nashville suburbs were the hardest hit, with at least eight deaths happening northeast of the city. Three more people were killed in a rural area about 65 miles southeast of Nashville.
Tornadoes were also reported in some other places. The storms pulled up trees, knocked down power lines and damaged buildings. What's worse, phone lines and most businesses were out of service. Hospitals admitted at least 60 people with storm-related injuries and transferred at least nine badly injured patients to Nashville hospitals.
In southern Indiana, the storms damaged some areas with golf ball-sized hail. High winds blew the roof off a country club and overthrew a semitrailer . As the storms moved farther east, parts of West Virginia were lashed with heavy rain and winds, great damages caused.
The number of tornadoes in the US has jumped through the first part of 2006 compared with the past few years. Through the end of March, an estimated 286 tornadoes had hit the US, compared with an average of 70 for the same three-month period in each of the past three years.
The number of tornado-related deaths was 38 before Friday's storms. The average number of deaths from 2003 to 2005 was 45 a year, the prediction center said. | high11412.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Fu Xiaoyu's parents can't earn enough money to send her to school."
},
"options": [
"Fu Xiaoyu's parents can't earn enough money to send her to school.",
"Huang Ruoqing and Zhang Linna talked with 29 children this summer during the... | FU Yuan has been left at home with his grandparents since he was one month old. His mom and dad left to work in Fujian Province. For the past eight years, Fu has only seen his parents three times although they send home 500 yuan every two or three months.
Fu Xiaoyu, 16, has had to live alone since her grandmother passed away three years ago. Her parents do not want to renounce their jobs at a clothing factory in Guangdong Province. Nor can they afford the cost of sending her to a school in the city where they work.
These are just two of the 29 kids that 16-year-olds Huang Ruoqing and Zhang Linna at Beijing No 4 High School talked with this summer in Guixiang Village in Sichuan Province.
What Huang and Zhang learned from their three-day visit shocked them. They wrote down all the kids' stories in a moving 40-page essay filled with statistical charts.
In the poor village with a population of 2,118 people, 582 adults have left to find work, leaving 156 children without parents. Among these so-called left-behind kids, 88 percent of them live with their grandparents, five percent live with uncles or aunts and seven percent have to live on their own.
To Huang and Zhang's surprise, 80 percent of the children said they love going to school. Even
though, some children have to walk along the hilly roads for two hours to get there.
However, for this village's students studying is not their first task. Housework, such as helping feed pigs or buffalos and taking care of old grandparents, younger sisters or brothers, takes up a considerable amount of their time.
Despite having to work hard at home, over 65 percent of the young interviewees would prefer their parents' stay away working rather than returning to live with them.
"These kids are understanding and considerate and know how important money is for their families. Their little wishes like having dinner with their parents inspire us never to take what we have had for granted," Zhang said. | high15884.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "music is popular in some professions"
},
"options": [
"music is popular in some professions",
"most surgeons in the UK are fond of singing",
"office workers learn a lot from listening to music",
"fewer than half of the ... | Will you be playing some music at work?
Music is particularly popular in the medical profession, especially among surgeons . A recent survey shows that 90% of surgeons in the UK put music on the sound system in the _ during operations. Plastic surgeons play the most music; it appears that ear, nose, and throat specialists the least.
But it isn't only in surgeries where music is popular. In another recent survey, one-third of the 1,613 people said they listen to music while working. And 79% of them said that humming along improves their job satisfaction or productivity.
Is listening to music at work a good idea? Yes, say the experts. Many surgeons say that music helps to create a "calm atmosphere", and a third of them added that it avoids getting bored! Also, listening to music raises the levels of a brain chemical that can help people focus. Office workers say it improves job satisfaction. Several studies suggest that it's also good for hospital patients. Those listening to music through headphones during surgery require less anesthetic , up to 50% less in some cases, and recover more quickly afterwards. "Sure, music reduces anxiety before surgery," says Zeev Kain, an anesthetist at Yale University.
So, what type of music should we be listening to? Surgeons from the previous survey preferred rock, pop music and classical. And hip-hop is popular too. However, whatever the kind, it appears that self-selected music is the best choice. Pennsylvania State University research showed that when people chose their own music there was more stress reduction . And other researchers found that when listening to self-selected music, surgeons did the maths faster and more accurately than when they were listening to music chosen for them. | high9336.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "It has a wonderful jumping talent."
},
"options": [
"It likes living on the ceiling.",
"It is good at flying in the air.",
"It is the same length as a pencil.",
"It has a wonderful jumping talent."
],
"question"... | Imagine you are in a jumping contest. Animals and insects can also enter this contest. But they might just leave humans in the dust!
The first event is the long jump. The human athlete is Mike Powell. In 1991, he jumped nearly 30 feet, which is the world record for the long jump. That is about five times his own height.
His competitor in the long-jump contest is a frog named "Rosie the Ribbiter." Rosie set the world record for frogs in 1986 by jumping more than 21 feet. Her record has never been broken by any other frog. Compared to Mike Powell, Rosie's jump is not that amazing. But wait! Rosie is only about 10 inches long when her legs are stretched to their full length. She can jump more than 25 times her size. Rosie, the frog, wins the long-jump event.
The next event is the high jump. Javier Sotomayor, the world record holder, can jump a bar 8 feet high. That is about as high as the ceiling in most homes.
Looking around for someone to challenge his record, Javier might need a magnifying glass . The next _ is a tiny insect called the spittlebug .
The spittlebug can jump 28 inches into the air. It is only a quarter-inch long, less than the width of a pencil. If the spittlebug were the same size as Javier, it would be able to jump 600 feet into the air. That is like a human jumping over a building 55 stories high!
Though the humans lose the "jumping contest," their competitors would probably agree that Mike and Javier are still pretty excellent athletes. If only Rosie and the spittlebug could speak! | high14542.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Because they wanted to get rich by looking for gold."
},
"options": [
"Because towns and cities there developed quickly.",
"Because the mountains in California were a great place for travel.",
"Because they wanted to get rich... | Today's word, pan, takes us back to the days of the gold rush in California.
On January 24th, 1848, a man named James Wilson Marshall discovered gold in California. The news spread quickly. Thousands rushed west. They traveled on foot, on horseback and by boat to reach the gold fields. By 1849, the great gold rush was on. Towns and cities grew overnight. Throughout California --- in the mountains, along the streams and rivers --- thousands of people searched for gold.
Some found areas of mountain rock thick with gold. These men got rich. But such areas were few and quickly claimed by the first men to find them. Others searched for gold in the rivers coming down the mountains. They were after pieces of gold that the rains had washed down from above .
The only way to find this gold was by panning. First a gold miner put dirt in a metal pan and added water. Then he shook the pan so that the water would wash the dirt. Slowly, he poured the water out of the pan. If he was a lucky miner, pieces of gold would remain.
Across the nation, newspapers carried stories of the gold being found. Each one hoped that the place he claimed panned out well --- had some gold.
For many, gold mining did not pan out. For a few, it panned out well. But in time, huge machines were built that could wash many tons of dirt at a time. Panning died out.
The word, however, remained in the language. Today, Americans still say, " It panned out well ," when something they have done pleases them. A business, a discovery, a simple event pans out well if it is successful. Unhappily, sometimes things do not pan out.
In recent years, the word pan has taken on another meaning. Today, it also means to criticize. How it got this meaning is hard to discover. But the job of a critic is to sometimes pan the work of a writer, artist or singer. | high6005.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "the amount of water the plant stands in"
},
"options": [
"soil conditions and plant age",
"the amount of water the plant stands in",
"the amount of fertilizer used on the crop",
"the amount of time the plant is underwat... | Rice plants normally grow well in still water. But most will die if they are completely underwater for more than four days. Now, researchers have identified a gene that helps rice survive longer underwater. They say the discovery will lead to new kinds of rice plants that can survive flooding, and therefore reach their final aim, ensuring more dependable food supplies.
Tests are now being done in prefix = st1 /Laos,BangladeshandIndia. The researchers say experimental rice plants with the gene have survived underwater as long as two weeks. When flooding happens, most kinds of rice plants cannot get enough oxygen, carbon dioxide or sunlight. But the scientists say crop loss depends on several conditions. These include soil conditions and plant age. Others include the amount of time the plant is underwater and the amount of fertilizer used on the crop.
On a genetic map of rice, the scientists became interested in a group of three genes. They experimented with one of them, a gene known as Sub-One-A. They found that when this gene becomes very active, it improves the ability of rice to survive longer when rice is covered by water. They believe it succeeds because it affects the reaction to hormones . _ control the ability of a flooded plant to survive. Placing the gene into rice plants that are especially good for conditions inIndia, researchers say the genetically engineered plants not only survived but also produced good crops.
The researchers are now trying to identify all the genes governed by the Sub-One-A gene. Being able to leave water on rice plants for an additional week might also help farmers prevent the growth of weeds. Less weed growth around their crops would mean less need for herbicide chemicals. | high18378.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Its ocean adds to people's excitement about life beyond Earth."
},
"options": [
"It is a planet with the largest moon in our whole solar system.",
"Its ocean adds to people's excitement about life beyond Earth.",
"It will be ... | Washington: NASA has announced evidence that Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, has a saltwater ocean under its icy surface. The ocean seems to have more water than all the water on Earth's surface, according to new Hubble observation.
New Hubble observations of Ganymede's magnetic field strongly suggest that the moon, which is the largest in our whole solar system, is home to a subsurface ocean.
Scientists estimate the ocean is 95 kilometres thick, which is about 10 times deeper than Earth's oceans. But unlike our salty waters, Ganymede's ocean is buried under 150 kilometres of ice.
While scientists have speculated since 1970s about the presence of an ocean on Ganymede------the largest moon in our solar system------ until now the only observational evidence came from a brief flyby by the Galileo spacecraft, which didn't observe the moon long enough to confirm a liquid ocean.
This discovery marks an important milestone, highlighting what only Hubble can accomplish. In its 25 years in orbit, Hubble has made many scientific discoveries in our own solar system. A deep ocean under the icy surface of Ganymede opens up further exciting possibilities for life beyond Earth.
Scientists have already confirmed the existence of an ocean on Europa, another moon orbiting Jupiter, and NASA has announced plans to send an unmanned mission there searching for the life that might come with liquid water.
Hubble is a telescope that orbits Earth, but because of its impressive gravitational analyses it can be used to study the inside of far distant planets. Using these same principles, scientists could theoretically detect oceans on distant planets as well. | high10724.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Cigarette smoking contributes to decreased IQ and thinking."
},
"options": [
"Cigarette smoking contributes to decreased IQ and thinking.",
"Alcohol abuse is to blame for the poorer mental function.",
"Most of the alcoholics ... | The poorer mental function seen among alcoholics,many of whom also regularly smoke cigarettes,may be partly due to the long term effects of nicotine ,new research suggests.
"People who are also smokers are at a much higher risk," Dr.Jennifer M.Glass of the University of Michigan's Addiction Research Center said. In her study,"Cigarette smoking has a bad effect on IQ and thinking," she said.
This finding may seem counterintuitive ,since many smokers show that they feel quicker and focused after smoking. Indeed,research shows that improved mental functioning is one of the immediate effects of nicotine exposure. _ Studies show that up to 87 percent of alcoholics smoke cigarettes.
Yet,few studies have looked into cigarette smoking as a factor that might explain the cognitive lack reported among alcoholics. To search for that association,Glass and her colleagues examined brain function among 172 men from the same area,including 103 men who abused alcohol. The team found that men with higher scores on the lifetime alcohol problems scale(LAPS)and those who reported a higher number of pack years of smoking both had lower IQ scores.
Upon further research,the researchers found that smoking also appeared to be independently associated with weaker word and space reasoning.
Thus,though smoking did not account for all of the decreased mental functioning observed among the alcohol abusers,it did seem to account for some of the effects,the report indicates. | high2263.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "the old age is seen as something that isn't admired"
},
"options": [
"the old age is seen as something that isn't admired",
"it is now believed to bring bad luck to elderly people",
"the standard of getting old has changed",
... | "I'm seventy years old," says the gray-haired lady proudly to the entertainer at her Community Club dinner.
"Did you hear that, everyone?" says the entertainer. "This lovely lady is just seventy years young! And she doesn't look a day over fifty. "
He has been careful not to use the word "old". In a society where youth is so admired, old age is often seen as something sad, something to fight against. Americans prefer not to say "old" people. They use the expression "senior citizens". They do not talk about "old people's" homes, but "retirement" homes.
In fact, the entertainer is not so wrong. Seventy is not very old these days. People in theprefix = st1 /USare living longer and longer. In1980, 12 percent of Americans were over sixty-five years old. By 2030, 21 percent will be over sixty-five. One reason for this is that families are getting smaller. The average couple now has only 1. 8 children. At the same time, improved medical care means that people are living longer.
This change in the age of Americans is going to have serious results. For one thing, medical costs are rising. The government is unable to pay the elderly people's medical bills that have gone up very much. Some old people have to leave hospital "sicker and quicker" than they should, before they are really better.
More fortunate senior citizens, though, who still have good health, want new laws to be passed to allow them to stay at work. In the past, the retirement age was sixty-five, but that is changing now. Older people are stronger and more energetic than ever before. Many of them refuse to stop working just because they have reached a certain age.
There is a change, too, in the way in which elderly people see themselves. _ are no longer happy to accept the gray hair, bald heads, and boring clothes of their own parents. They like to wear younger-looking clothes and bright makeup . American women spend millions of dollars a year on operations to lift their faces and make those ugly wrinkles disappear. Men are prepared to spend even more on operations to plant new hair on their bald spots. It's worth any money to look younger. | high19066.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "this island was treeless"
},
"options": [
"this island was treeless",
"they nested randomly",
"they reproduced too rapidly",
"their chicks were extremely weak"
],
"question": "Birds on Hawadax Island became an e... | While the presence of rats in homes may cause anxiety and annoyance, they rarely result in driving out the residents. But
is exactly what happened to the inhabitants of the 10squaremile Hawadax Island off the coast of Alaska, almost 230 years ago. Now thanks to a fiveyear effort by scientists, the terribly silent "Rat Island" as it had been called for many years has been returned to its rightful owners ----birds!
Hawadax Island is part of a chain of volcanic islands in the Bering Sea called the Aleutian Islands. The rats that arrived there in 1780, when a Japanese ship carrying them broke down nearby, completely destroyed the native population because the environment of the island was not built to defend its animals from these predators. There isn't any tree on the Island, which meant that the birds were accustomed to building their nests low in the ground, giving the rodents easy access to both eggs and baby chicks. As years passed, the birds that had called the island home for thousands of years became endangered and eventually, disappeared completely.
In 2007, the U.S. FWS (Fish and Wildlife Service) started a serious plan to rid the island of the rats and try bringing back the beautiful birds that had once called it home. Given that there were an estimated 10,000 rodents inhabiting "Rat Island" and the fact that they reproduce rapidly, it was not an easy task. But by 2009, the Island was officially declared rat free!
Then slowly but surely, the birds began to return. Unfortunately, some of the pioneers were unintentionally killed from the leavings of the raticide, a poison that had been used to wipe out the rodents. But now it seems things are becoming more stable and the Island is starting to increasingly look like its former self. Before the transformation, "Hawadax", also known as "Rat Island", was a silent and ghostly place with bird bones, snail remains and rocks covered in rat feces .
Today, birds' singing and flying in and out is a common sight. Tufted puffins and song sparrows, which had long disappeared, are gradually making their way back. Scientists have also been observing an increase in ground nesting and shorebirds. Though the Island is still not back to its full glory, the signs are encouraging and things can only get better, as time passes. | high16355.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "offer students more chances to make friends"
},
"options": [
"remind students of their old friends",
"help students improve their communication",
"provide students with more activities to relax",
"offer students more ch... | Clare is a third grader at Hoover Elementary School in Dubuque, Iowa. She often saw some!body outside during a class break, sitting alone and not having any friends to play with. When see!ing this scene,she felt bothered,for in her mind everybody in the world needed friends. That was why Clare came up with an idea -- "a buddy bench".
Buddy benches have been tried at other schools. In 2012, a girl named Acacia came up with the idea of the friendship bench with her parents' help. The students found it was something that was badly needed. Many students went there and found their friends. Other students learnt the importance of social communication with the words,like"hope","respect","listen"and"dream",painted on the benches. The friendship bench was also praised by teachers there.
Clare thinks her school also needs such benches. So she has been working on raising the mon!ey to pay for the benches and talking with school officials about getting them installed. "They are certainly something that I think will be great additions to our school, "said Claret principal , Kath!leen. ^Clare thinks that everybody needs friends, " said her mom, Tricia. "Moreover , she wants everybody to be her friends. Clare had been inspired by her elder sister who is disabled. ""Having seen her sister's struggles,she understood what other kids felt when they were struggling. Clare didn't want to see her sister or anybody else struggle."
As the actor Will Rogers said,"A stranger is just a friend I haven't met yet. "That's appar!ently how Clare sees people as well. "I hope that I can have thousands and thousands of friends, " Clare said. "Everybody needs friends. " | high19700.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "A family of artists."
},
"options": [
"The life of Charles Willson Peale.",
"Portraits in the 18th century.",
"The Peale Museum.",
"A family of artists."
],
"question": "What is the main topic of the passage?",
... | The Peales were a famous family of American artists. Charles Willson Peale is best remembered for his portraits of leading figures of the American Revolution. He painted portraits of Franklin and Jefferson and over a dozen of George Washington. His life-size portrait of his sons Raphaelle and Titian was so realistic that George Washington reportedly once tipped his hat to the figures in the picture.
Charles Willson Peale gave up painting in his middle age and devoted his life to the Peale museum, which he founded in Philadelphia. The world's first popular museum of art and natural science mainly covered paintings by Peale and his family as well as displays of animals in their natural settings. Peale found the animals himself and found a method to make the exhibits more lifelike. The museum's most popular display was the skeleton of a huge, extinct elephant, which Peale _ on a New York farm in 1801.
Three of Peale's seventeen children were also famous artists. Paphaelle Peale often painted still lives of flowers, fruit, and cheese. His brother Rembrandt studied under his father and painted portraits of many noted people, including one of George Washington. Another brother, Rubens Peale, painted mostly landscapes and portraits.
James Peale, the brother of Charles Willson Peale, specialized in miniatures . His daughter Sarah Miriam Peale was probably the first professional female portrait painter in America. | high4174.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "What kind of songs the drivers should choose to listen to during driving."
},
"options": [
"Songs that drivers prefer to listen to on their way.",
"A study made by the confused.com MotorMate app.",
"What kind of songs the dri... | New research has revealed that which song drivers listen to can influence how safe they are on the roads.Among the top ten safest songs to drive to are Come Away With Me by Norah Jones,I Don't Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith and Tiny Dancer by Elton John.Each of the songs has an optimum tempo for safe driving,imitating the human heartbeat at around 60 to 80 beats per minute.The Scientist by Coldplay and Justin Timberlake's Cry Me a River also appeared in the top 10.
The study,conducted at London Metropolitan University,also revealed the type of songs that cause motorists to drive dangerously.Unsurprisingly,music that is noisy increases a driver's heart rate,which can be deadly.Fast beats cause excitement that can lead people to concentrate more on the music than on the road and to speed up to match the beat of the song.Styles of music were also measured during the experiment and revealed differences between male and female drivers.Hiphop made a female driver drive far more aggressively,speeding up faster than male driver.The heavy metal music caused the fastest driving among males in the group while the dance music had the same effect among women.The male and female drivers who listened to the classical music drove the most irregularly.
The experiment involved eight people driving 500 miles each using the confused.com MotorMate app,which
driving behaviors through GPS technology. | high16433.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "encouraging young people to achieving success"
},
"options": [
"help students with study problems",
"persuade teenagers to do volunteering",
"encouraging young people to achieving success",
"teach people how to apply fo... | Extraordinary Teens
The book will inspire young adults with its tales of teenagers achieving great success. It includes personal stories from many well-known young athletes, businessmen, actors, writers and filmmakers. Every person shares his or her story along with valuable advice that will show you how you can also achieve success. Learn from these people who are walking examples of possibility.
Teens Talk High School
This book is written for high school kids, aged 14-18. Teens in high school have mainly moved past worrying about puberty , so the stories in this book cover topics of interest to older teens, such as sports and clubs, driving, faming relationships, friends, and preparing for life after high school. High school students will find comfort and inspiration in the words of this book, referring to it through all the four years of their high school experience.
Getting into College
Every year colleges receive a lot of applications, and the application process has become something hard that students and parents experience together. This book isn't about how to get into college. It's about providing emotional support. The stories in this book are written by kids who have been there and want to pass on their words of support to others. Parents and students will find this book a great source of inspiration.
Campus Stories
College life can be fun, exciting, and educational in more ways than one. Campus Storesis a book for any current or future college student who wants to know what really goes on the campus. Campus Storesis about growing up, making choices, learning lessons, and making the best of your last as a student. | high20181.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "The effects of music on us."
},
"options": [
"The effects of music on us.",
"The importance of music teaching.",
"How to create music by ourselves.",
"How to teach children music."
],
"question": "What does the ... | All of us love music; we just differ in the kind of music we like to play and listen to. Music plays a huge part in our life. Even when we were still inside our mother, we heard music. Babies easily fall asleep when they hear lullabies and most mothers believe that making their child listen to music at an early age can develop their musical skills.
Aside from improving sleep quality and making us feel relaxed, music also helps develop our brain. Studies have proven that musical education or training helps develop the left side of the brain which is responsible for processing language. We easily remember things when we link them to a particular song and this can help them get good grades especially in math since they can link the songs they sing to the elements of math.
Music can also cure people. These days music is used to help treat depression , high blood pressure, brain injuries and many other problems. Most of all, according to researchers, music can help improve people's memory, if not totally bring it back. Doctors play the favorite songs of their patients to help them recall things. Music is also used to reduce pain after a person receives a surgery.
Music also affects the way we live and get along with other people. Creating music together with people in a band can help a person learn how to communicate well with other people. Music activities provide enjoyment for children and adults alike. They have fun making music together with friends and at the same time learn how to sing or play a musical instrument.
Music really has amazing effects on us; it may be physical, emotional, social, or psychological . Make sure to enjoy life by listening to your favorite music along with your family and friends. | high23488.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "The air we breathe may be polluted."
},
"options": [
"Many animals species have died out.",
"More traffic accidents happen every day.",
"The air we breathe may be polluted.",
"It is much easier for us to watch meteor sh... | As the population of the planet increases, so does the number of homes, businesses, parking lots, schools, airports and roadways. All these structures use electricity and need to be lighted. Humans demand these lights. They want their homes more comfortable and they want their streets safe. The problem is that researchers are finding that all the light is having a negative effect on humans and wildlife as well.
Less than 10 years ago I drove to a thinly populated section of my town, lay down in the middle of the road and watched an attractive meteor shower . The area was short of homes, street lights and traffic. If I did that today, I wouldn't be able to see the meteor shower as well. Due to the increase in street lights, I would surely be run over by a car.
Nowadays scientists are finding light pollution can be almost as bad as carbon dioxide pollution. If you've ever taken a flight at night, the view is beautiful, but you must remember that all the light you see wastes electricity. The crew of the space shuttles see an even bigger picture of how extensive the wasted electricity is worldwide.
One of the saddest parts of light pollution is that most of it is unnecessary and most of the outdoor light that we use is wasted. One only needs to look at a row of street lights to see how much of the light shines upwards and lights the sky; a total waste of electricity.
Additionally, somewhere electricity needs to be produced, and the production of electricity creates pollution by releasing greenhouse gases. This affects the air we breathe and our quality of life.
Scientists are also studying the effects of light pollution on wildlife. Thousands of birds die each year when they crash into highly lighted buildings, as they become puzzled by the light. It has been long known that tiny baby sea turtles become lost and follow lights on the shore instead of heading towards the sea.
Fortunately, light pollution is one of the easiest sources of pollution that can be corrected without a negative effect. Following some guidelines and a little searching on Google can give you many ideas on how to reduce your contribution to light pollution. | high9450.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "He got inspired by a book."
},
"options": [
"He was good at writing.",
"He was eager to go abroad.",
"He got inspired by a book.",
"He wanted others to help his family."
],
"question": "Why did Toby want to writ... | In June 2013 a five-year-old boy, Toby, was walking home from school thinking about the long summer ahead. Money was tight that year and Toby's parents had told him they would not be able to afford a holiday.
Instead of dreaming about foreign travel, he had been reading a book, Letter to New Zealand, where the author explains what happens in an envelope's journey from England to the other side of the world. As they neared their house, Toby asked his mum, Sabine, if he could write a letter to New Zealand. After a few more steps he was struck by an even better idea. "Can I write a letter to every country in the world?"
Sabine says she often wonders what would have happened if she had replied differently that day. "It was just one of those typical questions that five-year-olds have," she says. " If he had asked me in the evening when I was tired, I might have refused. But as parents you realize there's a lot of power in just allowing kids to have a go. Also, it seemed a nice way to do some armchair exploration. So I told him" Let's see how far you get."
The answer was very far indeed. Toby has since written and posted letters to all 193 UN mumber states, as well as numerous other bad-conditioned areas with comforting ones.
To date he has written 681 letters- the best of which have been selected to appear in a new book called Dear World, How Are You?- although so productive is Toby' pen that the number will have risen by the time you read this.
"Writing these letters has made me realize that the world isn't actually all that big," he says with a grin.
In the future, part of him would like to be a musical director to turn his beloved Star Wars into a ballet. Of course, he also hopes to travel the globe in person to see some of the countries where his letters have ended up.
"We're so lucky to have this wonderful world, and I hope we can live on planet Earth in peace." | high14224.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "19 South 8th St. NY. 13214"
},
"options": [
"237 Rockledge St.,Syracuse, NY.13224",
"404 Snow Road Syracuse, NY. 13224,",
"500 Park Drive, DeWitt, NY. 13214",
"19 South 8th St. NY. 13214"
],
"question": "If you ... | Help Wanted
PAINTER Must have at least 3 years painting experience. Commercial and new construction work. $10/hr. Immediate opening. Call 435-9201 with work history.
SECRETARY Part time position available in friendly, busy office. Good typing and general office skills. Some weekends required. High pay. Various duties. Apply at East Side Management, 500 Park Drive, Dewitt, NY. 13214.
Help wanted
VET ASSISTENT Person needed for busy animal hospital. Some nights and weekends. Apply in person to Johnson Marks Animal Hospital, 404 Snow Road, Syracuse, NY 13224. After 4 p.m. only please.
NURSES' ASSISTANTS
Fulltime and part time positions available for modern nursing home. High pay. Call Mrs. Downes, R.N. at 543 7618.
Help Wanted
COOK NEEDED
Immediately. Busy downtown restaurant. Must be good and dependable. Experience preferred. Weekends required. Call 324-9817.
SALESPERSON
Experienced. Must have some knowledge of men's clothing industry. Available to work evenings and some Saturdays. Send resume to: Martin Apparel, 237 Rockledge St., Syracuse, NY. 13224.
Help Wanted
TEACHER Small private school needs English and maths teachers. Must have BS degree and at least 4 years teaching experience. Send resume to: Wales Charter School 19 South 8th St. NY. 13214.
HOTEL needs part time FRONT DESK CLERK No experience necessary. Excellent people and phone skills a must. Some computer skills helpful. $13/hr.
Call: Mr. Jones 357-2897. | high8996.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Because she felt traveling by subway in New York was a basic life skill."
},
"options": [
"Because she always let her son do whatever he wanted.",
"Because she believed that her son had memorized the subway map.",
"Because sh... | My son ,Izzy, was a nine-year-old boy and had been begging me to please let him find his way home by subway, by himself. After all, we live in New York City, and getting around by public transportation is a basic part of life. It is also the first step toward feeling grown-up. So on that sunny Sunday,I gave him a subway map, a transportation card,$20 for emergencies, and a couple of coins so that he could call me if necessary. I didn't give him a cell phone because nine-year-olds lose things. A few days later, I wrote about his adventure,or non-adventure for a newspaper. Little did I realize the idea that a kid could tour the city on his own, and that a mom would let him, was big news.
It turned out that many TV shows called me and asked for an interview. Bloggers were going crazy, so I started a blog, too, and letters came pouring in. Finally I found out why this was such a big story: we have become fearful for our children. Fear is hardly a new thing for parents, of course. But the fear of letting our children out of sight for even a second-that's new. How did this happen? How did it become too scary to let kids be kids? I asked the question when the reporter Trevor Butterworth interviewed me.
"News reports," he answered. "News reports scare the pants off you. What is scarier than a kidnapped kid no matter how far away?Because there are so many such stories, it starts to feel as if kidnappings are happening all the time. That's why the kid-on-the-subway story surprises the whole world."
Izzy probably did a good job. He simply proved that kids could leave home alone and return home safely! But he didn't think it was a big deal. "It was fun," he said. "But I missed some classes because of the interviews." Sometimes it really pays to be brave. | high12655.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "is active and mature"
},
"options": [
"is beautiful",
"is lovely and full of confidence",
"is active and mature",
"has rich knowledge"
],
"question": "You Mi was chosen to be a cover of Seventeen, mainly because... | You Mi, a lovely and confident 17-year-old student, is the first Chinese high school student to appear on the cover of the popular young adults' fashion magazine Seventeen.
"You is IN," said Wang LiHua, Editor-in-Chief of Seventeen. "She is active and mature because of her knowledge on everything from academic studies, to books on art, to movies. We found she's the very style we're looking for to represent young people's attitudes."
You also impressed Wang with her fluent English when they first met last year. As the hostess of an English broadcasting programme at the High School Attached to Renmin University, You is always praised for speaking English almost like a native speaker. "I've built up my English by watching thousands of English DVDs since I was 10," she explained.
But for You, watching isn't enough. Last year, while in Senior 1, she met a talented boy who showed self-made DV movies at the English Corner in her school.
"I thought it was so cool and I knew that I should start making my own films," she said. So she wrote a campus story, persuaded schoolmates to star in it and then began shooting a 30-minute DV movie, all in English. "I played one of the leading roles, actually I was everything in my film. I worked on it every single day during the SARS holidays," she recalled. The movie finally became a big hit on campus, earning You a strong reputation as a DV movie director.
But this is not the only field she wants to master. Despite being a science student, You likes art, literature and fashion design very much.
"There are people who can be artists, there are people who edit books, and there are people who become film producers. But I just hope to mix all the things up!" she said. "There is an old saying I believe: Chance favours only the prepared mind." | high22796.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "one month"
},
"options": [
"one day",
"one month",
"two months",
"three months"
],
"question": "Susan's father stayed in hospital for _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
}
] | Sometimes I really doubt whether there is love between my parents. Every day they are very busy trying to make money for my schooling.
One day, my mother was sewing a quilt . I silently sat beside her. "Mum, is there love between you and Dad?" I asked in a very low voice.
With surprise in her eyes, she stopped her work for a while. Then she said, "Susan, look at this thread . It can hardly be seen, but it' s really there. It makes the quilt strong. If life is a quilt, love should be a thread. Love is inside. "
I couldn' t understand her until the next spring. At that time, my father suddenly got sick seriously. My mother had to stay with him in the hospital for a month.
After they were back, my mother helped my father walk slowly on the country road every day. They were so kind to each other and it seemed they were the happiest couple.
After two months my father still couldn' t walk by himself. "Dad, how are you feeling now?" I asked him one day.
"Susan, don' t worry about me," he said. "I just like walking with your mum. I like this kind of life." Reading his eyes, I knew he loves my mother deeply.
Now I understand that love is just a thread in the quilt of our life. Love is inside, making life strong and warm. | high14230.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "a website that helps you to prepare for special occasions"
},
"options": [
"a person who guides you to make your yearly celebration a real success",
"a magazine that helps the family to prepare for special occasions",
"a comp... | Christmas,Easter and Birthday parties can be difficult times for grandmothers and parents as they rush around trying to arrange the perfect celebration or making everyone as happy as possible! What's better than a birthday party that makes your grandchild smile throughout or a celebration that impresses relatives and close friends?
That is why Granny Look has supplied in this section,one of the most comprehensive guides to making these special occasions that happen perhaps once a year a real success.
From a selection of Advent Calendars to party planning or Christmas-stocking fillers we have all the possibilities covered so that your children and grandchildren will really have a memorable time with attractive gifts and original ideas.
Bring that festive spirit to all those traditional days,and ensure you are always ready for any possibility. Granny Look's extensive links are bound to make every special occasion an entirely different experience from the year before and allow everyone to feel entertained and content.
_
LOOK no further!! Granny Look helps the family to prepare in time for FATHER CHRISTMAS. Give SANTA CLAUS some ideas.He can fill all the children's Christmas-stockings with goodies! Unique Christmas gifts for children-stocking fillers.
A Granny Look favorite!
_
All children love the build-up to CHRISTMAS! What is better than choosing one of Granny Look's selection of Advent Calendars! Here you will find a list of websites to buy traditional or fun Advent Calendars for children at Christmas time.
A Granny Look favorite!
_
LOOKING for a SPECIAL BIRTHDAY GIFT? Explore Granny Look's selection of PRESENTS,PARTY PLANNING,PARTY TOYS and PARTY GAMES for your Children and Grandchildren's BIRTHDAYS.
Plan and organize the KIDDIE'S PARTIES ahead of time!!
Don't forget the PERSONALISED INVITATIONS!
_
LOOK and BOOK now!! Granny Look's selection of CHRISTMAS GIFTS for children.
Some guides to "What's on in your area"...for the kids.PANTOS,SHOWS,THEATRES...at Christmas time!
UNIQUE Christmas gifts for Children.Spend QUALITY TIME with your Children's Children this FESTIVE SEASON! | high12899.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "presidential visits bring inconvenience to the locals"
},
"options": [
"it's a bad decision to work from home",
"presidential visits bring inconvenience to the locals",
"if a person wants to be more productive, he must work f... | Fortunately, I've been able to avoid the traffic jam brought by presidential visits because ! don't have to commute anywhere. Barack Obama visited Los Angeles recently which paralyzed large sections of a city and you could almost hear the collective pain of unhappy commuters.
I am among the l0 percent of people in the US that regularly work from home. You could include Obama among them, although I suspect his working area in the White House is better-equipped than my small space on to the back of the garage. He also probably doesn't have a problem with three little kids interrupting his phone calls or bursting into his office at inappropriate moments.
Every day there they are, knocking on my window and peering inside, as if looking at an animal in a zoo. Once, a telephone interview I was doing with the former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was interrupted by my older son, then three years old, and completely naked "Ahaaar!" he shouted to my face. "What was that?" said Schwarzenegger. I stammered something about the joys of children and silently managed to shoo the boy out of the room without putting down the phone.
I shouldn't complain. I no longer have to stand having someone's armpit being pressed into my face on a crowded train and home status means ! should be a more productive worker although working from home could also lead to "avoiding duties from home". I would argue that a bigger problem is going nuts: Staring at the same walls every day and not going anywhere can do strange things to a person.
I realized I had to get out of the house at least once a day to avoid turning into an unshaven and unshoweredrecluse who was still in his pyjamas at dinner time. I would work for an hour or so in a local coffee shop but, like most routine, this became boring because I would constantly see the same faces: Screenwriters poring over screenplays, elderly women heading to the yoga studio next door and hordes of overweight middle-aged male cycling by.
And yet here I am several years later, still working from home consciously and, I'm happy to report, not sitting at my desk in my pyjamas. Not since last Tuesday, anyway. | high6777.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "he was telling a story he had told before"
},
"options": [
"she didn't like him",
"she didn't like stories",
"he was telling a story he had told before",
"the story he told was not interesting"
],
"question": "T... | My husband, Micheal, and I were at a restaurant with his boss, a rather stern elderly man. When Micheal began a story I was sure he had told before, I gave him a kick under the table. There was no response, so I gave him another kick. Still the story went on. Suddenly he stopped and said with a smile, "Oh, but I've told you this one before, haven't I ?" We all chuckled and changed the subject.
Later, on the dance floor, I asked my husband why it had taken him so long to get my message. "What do you mean?" he replied. "I cut off the story as soon as you kicked me."
"But I kicked you twice, and it still took you a while to stop!"
Suddenly we realized what had happened and returned to our table. The boss smiled and said, "Don't worry. After the second one I thought it wasn't for me, so I passed it along!" | high1018.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "solid evidence is inadequate to prove how colors affect us"
},
"options": [
"the research findings are practical in indoor decoration",
"solid evidence is inadequate to prove how colors affect us",
"a larger study may help co... | We might think we know which colours do what.The idea that red wakes us up or blue calms us down is deeply rooted in Western culture.But do they really change our behaviour in the ways that we assume?
When it comes to scientific research, the results are mixed and at times contested.Some studies have found that people do better on cognitive tasks when faced with red rather than blue or green; others show the opposite.The idea is that if you repeatedly have a particular experience surrounded by a certain colour, then you eventually begin to associate that colour with the way you were feeling or behaving.A school career spent reading your teacher's red writing circling your mistakes forever makes you link red with danger.Blue meanwhile is more likely to be associated with calmer situations like marvelling at a big blue expanse of sky.
Of course there will always be exceptions --- the comment from the teacher saying "well done" is also written in red.It is true that people do make different associations with different colours, but whether this translates into behaving in a certain way or succeeding at a particular task is a different question.
In 2009 researchers tried to clarify the situation.They sat their participants at computer screens colored blue, red or "neutral" and tested them on various tasks.With a red screen people did better on tasks requiring attention to detail, but when the screen was blue they did better on creative tasks.In practice this might be tricky.In a classroom you might want to think creatively some of the time and pay attention to detail at others.
However, when another team tried to repeat the study with a larger group of people in 2014, the effect of color disappeared.The initial study consisted of just 69 people.In this new, bigger study, of 263 volunteers, background color made no difference.
So colors might well have an effect, but so far those effects have been difficult to demonstrate consistently and sometimes don't seem to exist at all. | high12641.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "After dinner, the children either went out or shut themselves up in their rooms."
},
"options": [
"The family sat down in a circle and shared an interesting story.",
"After dinner, the children either went out or shut themselves up... | I opened my new patient's chart and headed for her room. My son, Eric, had just brought home a disappointing report card, and my daughter, Shannon, and I had argued again about her getting a driver's license. For the next eight hours I wanted to throw myself into helping people who I knew had much more to worry about than I did. Rebekah, mother of three lovely little girls, was only 32, admitted for chemotherapy after breast-cancer surgery, When I gave her an injection, Rebekah shut her eyes tightly and murmured a prayer until it was over. Then she smiled and squeezed my hand. "Before you go, could you get my Bible from the table?" I handed her the worn book. "Do you have a favorite Bible verse?" she asked. "Jesus wept. John 11: 35." "Such a sad one," she said. "Why?""It makes me feel closer to Jesus, knowing he also experienced human sorrow." Rebekah nodded thoughtfully and started flipping through her Bible as I shut the door quietly behind me.
During the following months, her hospital stays became frequent and she worried about her children. One day when I entered her room, I found her talking into a tape recorder. She picked up a notebook and held it out to me. "I'm making a tape for my daughters, " she said. I read the list on her pad: starting school, confirmation, turning 16, first date, graduation. While I worried how to help her deal with death, she was planning for her children's future. She usually waited until the early hours of the morning to record the tapes so she could be free from interruptions. She filled them with family stories and advice,trying to cram a lifetime of love into a few precious hours. Finally, every item in her notes had been checked off and she entrusted the tapes to her husband.
I often wondered what I would say in her place. My kids joked that I was like an FBI agent, with my constant questions about where they'd been and who they'd been with. Where, I thought, are my words of encouragement and love?
It was three o'clock one afternoon when I got an urgent call from the hospital. Rebekah wanted me to come immediately with a blank tape. She was breathing hard when I entered her room. I slipped the tape into the recorder and held the microphone to her lips. "Ruthie, Hannah, Molly, this is the most important tape." She held my hand and closed her eyes. "Someday your daddy will bring home a new mommy. Please make her feel special. Show her how to take care of you. Ruthie, honey, help her get your Brownie uniform ready each Tuesday. Hannah, tell her you don't want meat sauce on your spaghetti. Molly, don't get mad if there's no apple juice. Drink something else. It's okay to be sad, sweeties. Jesus cried too. He knows about sadness and will help you to be happy again. Remember, I'll always love you. I shut off the recorder and Rebekah sighed deeply. "Thank you, Nan, "You'll give this one to them, won't you?" she murmured as she slid into sleep.
A time would come when the tape would be played for Rebekah's children, but right then, after I smoothed Rebekah's blanket, I got in my car and hurried home. I thought of how my Shannon also liked her sauce on the side and suddenly that quirk, which had annoyed me so many times, seemed to make her so much more precious. That night the kids didn't go out; they sat with me long after the spaghetti sauce had dried onto the dishes. And we talked, without interrogations, without complaints,late into the night. | high22782.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "all of the above"
},
"options": [
"they need more independence",
"mothers want daughters to be mama's girls again",
"they think their mothers' clothes are no longer in fashion",
"all of the above"
],
"question":... | What happens to mother-daughter relationships when girls become teenagers. It seems that girls go from playing "dress up", to arguing with their mothers about how they should dress.
When a girl is 3-4 years old they love to "dress up" in their mothers' clothes, put on their mothers' makeup, cook, and do whatever else their mother does. This is the time when she can be classified as being a mama's girl.
How come girls change so much from childhood to the teenage years? Many parents seek the answer when their daughter becomes a teen. Often when a girl enters high school her behavior changes as well as her physical appearance.
When I was young I always liked playing "dress up". It made me feel older and more like my mother. Even when I entered middle school, I still depended a lot on my mother to choose and buy my clothes. Once I entered high school there was a big change. To me, my mother's clothes were no longer "in fashion", and neither was her opinion. I started becoming interested in boys and tried to improve the way I looked. It was not that I wanted to look cool, I just wanted to look my age.
This is the time that the mother-daughter relationship can take a turn. It's difficult for a mother to know that her daughter is no longer totally dependent on her.
When the daughter starts wearing revealing clothing, dating, and just wanting to be more independent, a mother starts to feel left out, or not needed. The number of arguments increases, and the number of times when the mother and daughter get along happily decreases.
When these things start to happen, it is a sign that the daughter wants her independence and the freedom to grow up.
When you notice how much your relationship had changed, try to believe positive things come out of the change. Put all the negatives aside and concentrate on what your mother is feeling instead of just on what you're feeling.
When it seems too hard to handle, take some quiet time and write out your feelings. Maybe at another time, you can share them with your mother and try to find a way to better your relationship as mother and daughter. If you don't feel comfortable sharing your feelings, at least write them down so you can get them out. It's better than keeping them bottled up inside. | high7469.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "A radio program."
},
"options": [
"A newspaper.",
"A textbook.",
"A radio program.",
"A language magazine."
],
"question": "Where does the passage probably come from?",
"question_type": null
},
{
"an... | The question this week comes from our listener Herve Acard, who asks about the American word "OK", which means "all right" or "acceptable". It expresses agreement or approval. The word is used more often than any other word in the world.
Language expert Allen Walker Read said the word began as a short way of writing a different spelling of the words "all correct". Old stories say some foreign-born people would write "all correct" as o-l-l k-o-r-r-e-c-t and spoke it as "OK". Some people say it came from the Native American Indian tribe known as the Choctaws. The Choctaw word "okeh" means the same as the American word "OK". Experts say early explorers in the Western America spoke the Choctaw language in the nineteenth century. The language spread across the country.
According to some people, "OK" was a way to shorten Greek words that mean everything is fine. It is also said that a railroad worker named Obadiah Kelly invented the word. He is said to have put the first letters of his names -- O and K -- on each object people gave him to place on the train.
Another explanation is that "OK" was invented by a political organization that supported Martin Van Buren for president in the 1800s. They called their organization the OK Club. The letters O and K were taken from the name of the town where Martin Van Buren was born -- Old Kinderhook, New York.
Not everyone agrees with these explanations, but experts do agree that the word is purely American and has spread to almost every country on Earth. Yet in the United States, it is used mostly in speech. Serious writers prefer using words, such as "agree", "approve" or "confirm" instead. | high4160.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "By using #AEW2015 on social media."
},
"options": [
"By making an ad yourself.",
"By using #AEW2015 on social media.",
"By delivering a speech.",
"By planning the activity."
],
"question": "How can you celebrate... | Today we celebrate our nation's school support staff and their tireless work in meeting the needs of all the students. See how Native American specialist Cecil Crawford is addressing a critical need by helping to lower the dropout rate at his school.
How Are You Celebrating American Education Week
Share your plans and photos with us at AEW@nea.org!
If you're on social media, be sure to use #AEW2015.
2015 Artwork: Click here for our 2015 poster, web banners, ads and more.
What Is American Education Week?
American Education Week -- November 16-20 -- presents all Americans with a wonderful opportunity to celebrate public education and honor individuals who are making a difference in ensuring that every child receives a quality education. This year's theme is "Great Public Schools: A Basic Right and Our Responsibility", and can be reflected in special observances each day of the weeklong celebration:
Monday, November 16: Kickoff Day
Tuesday, November 17: Parents' Day
Wednesday, November 18: Education Support Professionals' Day
Thursday, November 19: Educator for a Day
Friday, November 20: Substitute Educators' Day
Online Q&A: The Power of Teacher-parent Relationships for Student Success
Our Q&A has ended, but you can still visit our Facebook page and read through the great advice and discussion between parents and educators. Weigh in with your own ideas and keep the conversation going! Read more here.
Read more about the history of American Education Week. | high19714.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "live near deep channels"
},
"options": [
"are beautiful, and live on seaweed",
"are as big as regular horses",
"live near deep channels",
"like to be alone"
],
"question": "We can learn from the passage that sea... | Do you like seahorses? What do you know about them?
The seahorse is actually not a horse but a fish, and much smaller than any regular horse. In general, a seahorse is about an inch long. It is a beautiful fish that likes warm waters, swims upright , and looks a little like a chess piece.
Seahorses are an unusual kind of animal because the males give birth to babies. Mating takes place in cooler waters on spring and summer nights with a full moon. The females put their eggs into the bodies of the males, and the males give birth to baby seahorses.
The seahorse can use each eye separately, which allows it to search for food without moving the rest of its body. Seahorses situate themselves near deep, fast-running channels rich in plankton, a kind of life on which they feed. They can catch food from an inch and a half away. Seahorses can change from gray or black to yellow or purple within seconds to fit in with their surroundings, and in this way escape from most of their enemies.
One of the surprising facts about seahorses for most people is that they are vertebrates . They can turn and curl freely, and like to swim in pairs connected by their tails. Their tails are powerful, and they can use them to grasp the surrounding seaweed to keep themselves from being swept away. So seahorses are usually found in warm water filled with seaweed.
Now that you know all these facts about seahorses, don't you find them more interesting? | high16427.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "they have experienced some failures before"
},
"options": [
"they are too lazy to move on",
"they feel pleased with the present life.",
"they have experienced some failures before",
"they show little interest in the str... | Psychology tells us that many people hate to take risks. But it is good for us to take risks, especially when the risk is to achieve a desired result. In that way, we become stronger and braver.
Our human nature should be to take risks, but some people just sit and wish they didn't have the fear to move on. This is because of one or two failures in their lives. Please step out and don't let the past hold you back from living life to the fullest. Move forward and move on!
In studying the psychology of taking risks, we find that human nature provides us with the desire to experiment and take chances.
Risk taking is a great benefit that allowed our ancestors to become stronger and stronger day by day. By taking risks they fought off enemies and discovered new territories . _ has become a part of our modern culture. Riding a roller coaster is a common risk taking activity that even the average person seems to enjoy although they have the understanding that it is dangerous. This psychological and biological connection creates an interesting connection between what is unsafe and what humans enjoy.
Getting in a car each day is a risk. Getting out of bed is a risk. There is such thing as perfect safety. We need to take risks so that we can complete (finish) many things. Astronauts take risks when they get inside a rocket; however, the things they achieve are great. Businessmen take a risk when they buy parts of a company. However, without doing that, they could not make more money.
We need to take risks so that we can gain something. It is impossible to move forward in life, earn money, enjoy a relationship, play a sport, or do anything else without taking a risk. It is all part of the game. It's one of the most important parts of life. | high11348.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "pleasure"
},
"options": [
"pleasure",
"health",
"wealth",
"honor"
],
"question": "What Long got most from bands was _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": ... | When someone told 85-year-old Johnny Long that he was called a living legend, he replied, "I don't know about that, but I'm living, and that's important."
Starting in 1949 as a high school band director and later as director of the Troy University band, Johnny Long became known as one of the most inspirational band directors in America. More than three hundred of his students went on to become band directors them-selves. "I have been a band director for more than 60 years and all I know about the word band is that you spell it F-U-N," Long said. "And if you change that, it's over."
Long retired 14 years ago to spend more time with his wife Mary Lynn. But his passion for bands never went away. He dreamed of forming a top-notch community band in Troy. But Troy is a small town -- with not a ton of top-notch talent. "I didn't think it would work, I really didn't," Long said.
Fortunately, there was one thing Johnny hadn't considered: the devotion of his former students. Now, once a week during the concert season, they drive in from all over the south and across the decades.
65-year-old Bobby Johnson was in Long's first college class. He lives in Atlanta and drives 3 hours to practice. Johnson said he does it because Long's "such a unique character and I just admire him so much."
Many people do it for the same reason. "He's the single biggest influence on my career." "He was a father figure to me. He's just a genuine person."
Long said he wanted to be remembered as a teacher. "I think 'teacher' is the greatest word in the English language, next to 'mother'." | high10056.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Too much emphasis on being intelligent."
},
"options": [
"Teachers' failure to recognize their potential.",
"Too much emphasis on being intelligent.",
"Studying topics outside the regular subjects.",
"Lack of encouragem... | Contrary to many people believe, highly intelligent children are not necessarily certain to achieve academic success. In fact, so-called gifted students may fail to do well because they are unusually smart. Ensuring that a gifted child reaches his or her potential requires an understanding of what can go wrong and how to satisfy the unusual learning requirements of extremely bright young people.
One common problem gifted kids face is that they, and those around them, place too much importance on being smart. Such an emphasis can encourage a belief that bright people do not have to work hard to do well. Although smart kids may not need to work hard in the lower grades, when the work is easy, they may struggle and perform poorly when the work gets harder because they do not make the effort to learn. If the academic achievement of highly intelligent children remains below average for an extended period, many teachers will fail to recognize their potential. As a result, such students may not get the encouragement they need, further depressing their desire to learn. They may fall far behind in their schoolwork and even develop behavior problems.
IQ is just one element among many in the recipe for success--Children develop well or struggle in school for a host of reasons apart from IQ. These include motivation and persistence, social competence, and the support of family, educators and friends.
Because highly gifted children solve the most varied thought problems faster and more thoroughly than those with more average talents do, they need additional intellectual stimulation while they wait for the rest of the kids to learn the basics. Two central approaches are used to satisfy the educational needs of such children: acceleration and enrichment. Acceleration means studying material that is part of the standard subjects for older students. Enrichment involves learning information that falls outside the usual subjects.
A child might skip one or more grades as a way of accelerating in school. But being with older children for the entire school day--and perhaps for grade-based extracurricular activities such as sports--can make a child feel inferior in every filed outside of academics. One very bright fourth-grader who had skipped two grades remained far ahead of his classmates intellectually, but as his classmates reached adolescence, his social and other shortcomings became painfully apparent. While acceleration is not an option, or not a good one, enrichment can be. After all, school is not a race but an adventure in learning. As such, the goal is not finishing first but absorbing as much knowledge as possible in the time assigned. Thus, providing opportunities for a child to study topics outside the regular subjects can be at least as valuable as pushing him or her through the required material faster. | high20195.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "all of the above"
},
"options": [
"decoration",
"decoration on presents",
"presents",
"all of the above"
],
"question": "Paper cuttings can be used for _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{
... | One of China's most popular folk arts is paper cutting . Archaeological finds trace the tradition back to the 6thcentury; it is supposed that the beginnings of paper cutting were even a few centuries earlier. Paper cuttings are used for religious purposes, for decoration and as patterns .
Today, paper cuttings are mainly used as decoration. They _ walls, windows, doors, columns mirrors, lamps and lanterns in homes. They are also used for decoration on presents, and are given as presents themselves. They are of special importance at festivals. At the Spring Festival for example, entrances are decorated with paper cuttings which are supposed to bring good luck.
Paper cuttings are not produced by machine, but by hand. There are two kinds of paper cuttings; scissor cuttings and knife cuttings. Scissor cuttings are fashioned with scissors. Several pieces of paper--- up to eight pieces---are fastened together. The motif is then cut with sharp, pointed scissors.
Knife cuttings are fashioned by putting several layers of paper on a relatively soft foundation consisting of a mixture of tallow and ashes. Following a pattern, the artist cuts the motif into the paper with a sharp knife which he usually holds vertically . The advantage of knife cuttings is that considerably more paper cuttings can be made in one operation than scissor cuttings.
In the countryside, paper cuttings are usually made only by women and girls. This used to be one of the skills that every girl was to master and that were often used to judge brides . Professional paper cutting artists are, on the other hand, almost always men who have guaranteed incomes and work together in workshops. | high5518.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "in Kensington Gardens."
},
"options": [
"in Regent's Park.",
"in St. James's Park.",
"in Hyde Park.",
"in Kensington Gardens."
],
"question": "Where can visitors find thePeter Pan Statue?",
"question_type": ... | Visitors worry that London is an expensive city but there really are so many free things to do here. The following ideas should get you started.
All of London's major museums are free, but most offer some special exhibitions for a fee. My favorite is the Museum of Londonwhere you can learn the history of London from Roman times to today. And I love theGeffrye Museumwhich shows English domestic interiors and helps bring to life what it was really like to live in London.
I regularly hear people tell me theQueen Mary's Rose Gardens in Regent's Parkis their favorite spot in London, and who am I to argue? I would also recommend St. James's Park as it offers one of the best views ofBuckingham Palace. Hyde Park is enormous and Kensington Gardens nearby includes the ever popular Diana Memorial Playgroundand thePeter Pan Statue.
No visit to London is complete without seeing this military tradition. The Queen's Guard in London changes in the Forecourt inside the gates ofBuckingham Palaceat 11.30am every day in the summer and every other day in the winter. Get there early and view the spectacle from outside the front gates.
Trafalgar Square is one of Britain's greatest visitor attractions and was designed by John Nash in the 1820s and constructed in the 1830s. This iconic square has many sights to see including Nelson's Columnand theNational Gallery. It is both a tourist attraction and the main focus for political demonstrations. Every December, Norway donates a marvelous Christmas tree, to thank Britain for liberation from the Nazis. | high10730.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "To provide a general idea of the size of businesses in the United States."
},
"options": [
"To tell the reason why the largest firms are in New York.",
"To show the geographical distribution of the United States businesses.",
... | Suppose that we lined up our roughly 14 million United States businesses in order of size, starting with the smallest, along an imaginary road from San Francisco to New York. There will be 4,500 businesses to the mile, or a little less than one per foot. Suppose further that we planted a flag each business. The height of the flag pole represents the yearly volume of sales , each $ 10, 000 in sales in shown by one foot of pole.
The line of flagpoles is a very interesting sight. From San Francisco to about Reno, it is almost unnoticeable, a row of poles about a foot high. From Reno eastward the poles increase in height until, near Columbus, Ohio - about four - fifths of the way across the nation - flags fly about 10 feet in the air.
But as we approach the eastern terminus , the poles suddenly begin to mount . There are about 300, 000 firms in the country with sales over $ 500, 000. These firms take up the last 75 miles of the 3,000 - mile road. There are 200, 000 firms with sales over $ 1 million. They take up the last 50 miles. Then there are 1, 000 firms with sales of $ 50, 000, 000 or more. They take up the last quarter of a mile before the city limits, flags flying at cloud height, 5 , 000 feet up .
At the very gate of New York, on the last 100 feet of the last mile , we find the 100 largest industrial firms . They have sales of at least $ 1.5 billion, so that their flags are already miles high. Along the last 10 feet of road , there are 10 largest companies . Their sales are roughly $ 10 billion and up : their flags fly 190 miles in the air , almost in the stratosphere . | high2277.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "It has a cell phone."
},
"options": [
"It is golden.",
"It has a cell phone.",
"It is new.",
"It has many items."
],
"question": "What is special about the coffin in the second news?",
"question_type": null
... | Ladies and Gentlemen, some strange, wild and wonderful stories colored the news in 2010, you may like them.
* A Copenhagen bus company has put "love seats" on 103 of its buses for people looking for a partner. "Even love at first sight is possible on the bus," said a spokesman for the company to explain the two seats on each bus that are covered in red cloth and a "love seat" sign.
* Shoppers at an international luxury fair in Italy, found a cell-phone-equipped golden coffin among the items on display. The phones will help "the dead" contact relatives if they have been buried alive by mistake.
* A man in New York came up with a disarming way to perform his latest bank _ , approaching the clerk's window with a large bunch of flowers and handing over a note saying "give me the money!"
* An Englishman who lost all his legs and arms in an electrical accident successfully swam across the Channel, a challenge he had been preparing for two years. The whole cost is 400 dollars.
* A set of artificial teeth made for Britain's war-time prime minister Winston Churchill known as "the teeth that saved the world" sold for nearly 18,000 pounds (21,500 euros, 24,000 dollars) at auction .
* A British woman caused an Internet hate campaign after she was caught on camera dumping a cat in a rubbish bin. She was fined 250 pounds (400 dollars, 280 euros) after pleading guilty.
* The BBC apologized completely and without any doubts after a radio presenter jokingly announced that Queen Elizabeth II had died.
* Two Australian men needed surgery after shooting each other in the bottoms during a drinking session to see if it would hurt and they were charged 400 dollars separately.
* A Kuwaiti MP suggested state-aid for male citizens to take second wives, in an effort to reduce the large number of unmarried women in the oil-rich state. | high3169.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "octopi and their behavior"
},
"options": [
"the horrors of the octopus",
"the largest octopus in the world",
"octopi and their behavior",
"the octopus's deadly hunting method"
],
"question": "This passage is mai... | The octopus's reputation as a human-killer isn't simply an exaggeration --it is a total myth. The octopus can indeed be a deadly hunter, but only of its natural victims. Some shellfish and an occasional sick or incautious fish have reason to be frightened of this multi-armed hunter, but a person is much too large to interest even the biggest octopus. Even the largest among octopi is much smaller than most people imagine. Far from being large enough to swallow a ship, as monster octopi in movies have been known to do, the largest octopus, found on the Pacific coast, weighs around 110 pounds and grows to no more than ten feet in width.
The hard, parrot-like beak of an octopus is not used for attacking deep-sea divers, but for cutting open shellfish. Indeed, the octopus possesses such a tiny throat that it cannot swallow large pieces of meat. Instead, it feeds by pouring digestive juices into its victims, and then sucking up the soupy remains. A shellfish that finds itself in the grasp of an octopus has only a short time to live. But human beings are perfectly safe. Still, people rarely care to go close enough to these _ to get a good look at them. | high4606.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "National Tourism Day"
},
"options": [
"the beginning of the NBA playoffs",
"in memory of Spiderman",
"Earthquake Day",
"National Tourism Day"
],
"question": "From the passage we know May19 is _ in China .",
... | What's the News ?
The NBA playoffs began on April 28, and the next two months will be filled withgames decided in the final minutes . The playoffs are also a way to show off the world's bestbasketball players .
There's a saying from Spiderman: "With great power comes great responsibility ." This istrue no matter whether you are a class monitor or a president . A recent survey in the USA askedkids what they would do to make life better for other kids if they were president. "Providingshelter "topped the list .
May 19,1613: Xu Xiake, a famous traveler during the Ming Dynasty , started his trip aroundChina, which lasted for more than 30 years . In 2011, China announced its first National TourismDay , held on May 19 every year in memory of this ancient explorer .
Do you have female friends that refer to as "guimi"? If you are a girl and the answer is yes,you are a lucky dog . "Guimi"is only used among girls . It refers to your most honest friends. InEnglish , the word to use is "BBF"---which stands for best friend forever. But if you want to say aguy is your close friend or "nanguimi", you should use "bromeo" , which is made up of "bro" and"Romeo" .
CHINA is planning to build a national earthquake monitoring and warning system in fiveyears . While the system would never be able to forecast an earthquake , it could detect quakes and notify people within seconds before seismic wave actually hitthem , and a trial program including nearly 100 monitoring stations is currently being carried outin southeast China's Fujian Province and has proven successful . | high19072.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "beat a strange passer-by without any reason."
},
"options": [
"invite his friends to dinner.",
"beat a strange passer-by without any reason.",
"speak to a Dutch uncle.",
"become angry with the teacher."
],
"ques... | Here below we will talk about the American expressions using the word "Dutch". Many of the "Dutch" expressions heard in American English were first used in England in the seventeenth century. Britain used to be called "empire on which the sun never sets",which gained its supreme power mostly by its naval( )military forces. The period of the Anglo-Dutch Wars was a time of fierce naval competition between England and the Netherlands. At that time, the British used "Dutch" as a word for something bad, or false, or mistaken.
A "Dutch agreement" was one made between men who had drunk too much alcohol. "Dutch courage" was the false courage produced by the effects of drinking alcohol. And "Dutch leave" was what a solider took when he left his base without permission.
Some of these old expressions are still used today with a little different meaning. "Dutch treat" is one example. Long ago, a Dutch treat was a dinner at which the invited guests were expected to pay for their own share of the food and drink. Now, Dutch treat means that when friends go out to have fun, each person pays his own share.
Another common expression heard a few years ago was "in Dutch", which simply referred to the country then. Nowadays, if someone says to you, you are in Dutch, they are telling you that you were in trouble. An important person, a parent or teacher perhaps, is angry with you.
Some of the Dutch expressions heard in American English have nothing to do with the Dutch people at all. In the 1700s, Germans who moved to the United States often were called Dutch. This happened because of mistakes in understanding and saying the word "Deutsch", the German word for German. Families of these German people still live in the eastern United States, many in the state of Pennsylvania. They are known as the Pennsylvania Dutch.
During the American Civil War, supporters of the northern side in the central state of Missouri were called Dutch, because many of them were German settlers. In California, during the Gold Rush, the term Dutch was used to describe Germans, Swedes, and Norwegians as well as people from the Netherlands.
President Theodore Roosevelt once noted that anything foreign and non-English was called Dutch.One expression still in use, "to talk to someone like a Dutch uncle", did come from the Dutch.The Dutch were known for the firm way they raise their children. So if someone speaks to you like a Dutch uncle, he is speaking in a very severe way. And you should listen to him carefully. | high15648.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "only an experimental one carried out in some schools"
},
"options": [
"widely accepted by most schools in the United States",
"only an experimental one carried out in some schools",
"a compulsory one carried out by the U.S go... | Roslyn Hing School on long Island recently started a pilot program using iPads in some classrooms.
A growing number of schools across the U.S.are multimedia,history through gamse and math with step-by -step animation of complex problems.
As part of a pilot program,Roslyn High School handed out 47 iPads on Dec.20,2010 to the students and teachers in two humanities classes. The school district hopes to provide iPads eventually to all 1,100 of its students.
The iPads are to be used in class and at hom during the school year to replace texbooks,allow students to correspond with teachers and tum in papers and homework tasks,and preserve a rocord of student work in digital files.
"It allows us to extend the classes beyond _ "said larry Reiff,an English teacher at Roslyn who now posts all his course mateials online.
But educators are still divided over whether practices to give every student a laptop have made a difference academically.
"Thre is very little evidence that kids learn more,faster of better by using these machines,"said Larry Cuban,a retried professor of eduction at Staford University."IPads are excellent tools to attract kids,but then the fieshness wears off and you eget int hard-core problems of teaching and learning."
But school leaders say the iPad is not just a cool new toy but rather a powerful and multifunctional tool with a number of applications,including thousands with educational uses.
"If there isn't an application that does something I need ,there will be sooner or later,"said Mr.Reiff,who said he now used an application that includes all of Shakespare's plays. | high12127.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "both talented and common people"
},
"options": [
"only outstanding people",
"both talented and common people",
"only common people",
"more talented people than common people"
],
"question": ".In the author's opi... | There is that great idea that in an information and knowledge based economy, the most important thing for companies is attracting and holding outstanding talented guys.Obviously I will not say
is not important, but in my opinion a successful and groundbreaking company cannot be built just from the collection of high talented people, as a great sports team can't be constructed only by the collection of great players.
It is more important to build teams of people that achieve the goals according to the company's organizational vision.It is necessary to create organizations where everybody (with outstanding talent or not) can develop their best personal capabilities and that these capacities are addressed to achieve the corporate goals and mission.The company efforts must be addressed to design an organizational system that produces and uses talent from everyone in the company.
Trying to get the best from our people through corporate team building policies, establishing a concrete corporate culture and values, making our company a place where people want to work because it is a good place to stay and develop their capacities, is the best way to compete in the knowledge economy.That will keep us out of the obligation to constantly seek for the "best players" and entering in the retribution auctions .
We have to take into account that, nowadays, the real talented and creative people, like to work or engage themselves in projects where they can develop their capacities, they can be involved in the organizational goals and vision, and where they are treated with respect and dignity.Definitively, they want to be happy doing their jobs.And we have to build organizations where they can find that. | high15890.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "make it smell and taste a little better"
},
"options": [
"make it heated",
"warm his cold hands",
"avoid paying the restaurant owner",
"make it smell and taste a little better"
],
"question": "The poor man held ... | One day, a poor man, who had only one piece of bread to eat, was walking past a restaurant. There was a large pot of soup on the table. The poor man held his bread over the soup, so the steam from the soup went into the bread, and gave it a good smell. Then he ate the bread.
The restaurant owner was very angry at this, and he asked the man for money, in exchange for the steam from the soup. The poor man had no money, so the restaurant owner took him to Nasreddin, who was a judge at that time. Nasreddin thought about the case for a little while.
Then he took some money from his pocket. He held the coins next to the restaurant owner's ear, and shook them, so that they made a dingling noise.
"What was that?" asked the restaurant owner.
"That was payment for you," answered Nasreddin.
"What do you mean? That was just the sound of coins!" protested the restaurant owner.
"The sound of the coin is payment for the smell of the soup," answered Nasreddin. "Now go back to your restaurant." | high13239.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Because we are used to listening to others' voices."
},
"options": [
"Because we are not old enough.",
"Because we are used to listening to others' voices.",
"Because our parents and professors ask us to listen to the voices ... | Because, like most of you, I began college in my teens, but after a year, I was offered my dream job at Universal Studios, so I dropped out.
Well, I left college because I knew exactly what I wanted to do and some of you know, too -- but some of you don't. Or maybe you thought you knew but are now questioning that choice. Maybe you're sitting there trying to find out how to tell your parents that you want to be a doctor and not a writer.
I told my parents if my movie career didn't go well, I'd re-enroll . It went all right. But finally, I returned for one big reason.
Most people go to college for an education, and some go for their parents, but I went for my kids. I'm the father of seven, and I kept insisting on the importance of going to college, but I hadn't walked the walk. So, in my fifties, I re-enrolled at Cal State-Long Beach, and I earned my degree.
Well, what you choose to do next is what we call in the movies the 'character-defining moment'.
Life is one strong, long string of character-defining moments. And I was lucky that at 18 I knew what I exactly wanted to do. But I didn't know who I was. How could I? And how could any of us? Because for the first 25 years of our lives, we are trained to listen to voices that are not our own. Parents and professors fill our heads with wisdom and information, and then employers and tutors take their place and explain how this world really works.
And I want to be clear that your intuition is different from your conscience. Here's the difference: Your conscience shouts, 'here's what you should do,' while your intuition whispers, 'here's what you could do.' Listen to that voice that tells you what you could do. Nothing will define your character more than that.
Sticking to your character requires a lot of courage. And to be courageous, you're going to need a lot of support. And if you're lucky, you have parents like mine. I consider my mom my lucky charm.
But look, if your family's not always available, there's backup. Do you remember that movie? It's a Wonderful Life? There's an actor's line in it: No man is a failure who has friends." And I hope you hold on to the friendships you're made here at Harvard. And among your friends, I hope you find someone you want to share your life with. | high14556.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "people trade by the exchange of goods"
},
"options": [
"people trade by the exchange of goods",
"patients can receive a free treatment",
"customers pay the goods in cash",
"trees are taken good care of"
],
"ques... | A clinic in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, works to support the health of people and forests.
Kinari Webb is an American doctor who helped start the non-profit group that operates the clinic. The group is known as ASRI. Dr. Webb says most communities value the local forests, but illegal logging was often their only way to earn money to pay for health care. "Villagers know that if they protect the forest, that's good for their long-term well-being. But if they have no money to see a doctor, they have to do illegal logging," said Dr. Webb.
The clinic is in Sukadana, a village outside Gunung Palung National Park. Each month someone from ASRI visits the surrounding villages to see if they are actively logging or burning land within the park. Communities that do not take part in illegal logging pay about 40 percent less for health care than those that do. Also, the clinic uses a barter system. Patients can pay with things like handmade baskets, labor exchanges, young trees or fruit they grow.
Patients learn about environmental conservation as they wait to register at the clinic. Many of the 70 staff members also help communities learn about organic farming and other ways to earn money. In May, ASRI started a program to identify forest "guardians". These guardians work with the community to try to prevent illegal logging. One of the guardians says he entered the program because ASRI helped his son recover from tuberculosis .
The clinic is small, but very busy. However, people did not trust the clinic at first. They wanted to go to the only hospital in the area. Yet its resources are limited and villagers often have to travel more than two hours to get there.
Now, people happily share stories about the clinic. Amelia's mother is one of them. She started going there when her daughter was eight months old. She says the treatment is good. Dr. Webb smiled when she heard that.
Dr. Webb said: "Health care is an incredible key. And everyone everywhere around knows that we really care and that we are helping save their lives." | high9322.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Future man will look quite different from us"
},
"options": [
"Man's life will be different in the future",
"Future man will look quite different from us",
"Man is growing taller and uglier as time passes",
"Man's organ... | What will man be like in the future -- in 5,000 or even 50,000 years from now? We can only make guesses, of course, but we can be sure that he will be different from what he is today, for man is slowly changing all the time.
Let us take an obvious example. Man, even five hundred years ago, was shorter than he is today. Now, on average, men are about three inches taller. Five hundred years is relatively a short period of time, so we may suppose that man will continue to grow taller. Again, in the modern world we use our brains a great deal. Even so, we still make use of only about 20% of the brain's capacity . As time goes on, however, we shall have to use our brains more and more, and finally we shall need our brains more and more, and finally we shall need larger ones! This is likely to bring a physical change too: the head, in particular the forehead, will grow larger.
Nowadays our eyes are in constant use. In fact, we use them so much that very often they become weaker and we have to wear glasses. But over long period of time it is likely that man's eyes will grow stronger.
On the other hand, we tend to make less use of our arms and legs. These, as a result, are likely to grow weaker. At the same time, however, our fingers will grow more sensitive because they are used a great deal in modern life.
But what about hair? This will probably disappear from the body altogether in course of time because it does not serve a useful purpose any longer. In the future, then, both sexes are likely to be bald.
Perhaps all this gives the impression that future man will not be a very attractive creature to look at! This may well be true. All the same, in spite of all these changes, future man will still have a lot in common with us. He will still be a human being, with thoughts and motions similar to our own. | high201.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Its ability to ward off disasters is incredible."
},
"options": [
"It ensures the normal functioning of an airplane.",
"The idea for its design comes from a comic book.",
"Its ability to ward off disasters is incredible.",
... | You never see him, but they're with you every time you fly. They record where you are going, how fast you're traveling and whether everything on your airplane is functioning normally. Their ability to withstand almost any disaster makes them seem like something out of a comic book. They're known as the black box.
When planes fall from the sky, as a Yemeni airliner did on its way to Comoros Islands in the India ocean June 30, 2009, the black box is the best bet for identifying what went wrong. So when a French submarine detected the device's homing signal five days later, the discovery marked a huge step toward determining the cause of a tragedy in which 152 passengers were killed.
In 1958, Australian scientist David Warren developed a flight-memory recorder that would track basic information like altitude and direction. That was the first mode for a black box, which became a requirement on all U.S. commercial flights by 1960. Early models often failed to withstand crashes, however, so in 1965 the device was completely redesigned and moved to the rear of the plane - the area least subject to impact - from its original position in the landing wells . The same year, the Federal Aviation Authority required that the boxes, which were never actually black, be painted orange or yellow to aid visibility.
Modern airplanes have two black boxes: a voice recorder, which tracks pilots' conversations, and a flight-data recorder, which monitors fuel levels, engine noises and other operating functions that help investigators reconstruct the aircraft's final moments. Placed in an insulated case and surrounded by a quarter-inch-thick panels of stainless steel, the boxes can withstand massive force and temperatures up to 2,000degF. When submerged , they're also able to emit signals from depths of 20,000 ft. Experts believe the boxes from Air France Flight 447, which crashed near Brazil on June 1,2009, are in water nearly that deep, but statistics say they're still likely to turn up. In the approximately 20 deep-sea crashes over the past 30 years, only one plane's black boxes were never recovered. | high1795.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "over-generalizing might cause you not to accept yourself"
},
"options": [
"over-generalizing might cause you not to accept yourself",
"over-generalizing might encourage you to expect the future",
"we can tolerate the fact tha... | We are not born doubting ourselves.We learn to do it.In fact,we are usually taught to doubt ourselves.We can learn some ways that allow us to become more accepting of ourselves.Following are two behaviors that might explain the reasons why you can't move towards greater self-acceptance.
One thing that might cause you not to accept yourself is over--generalizing about something you've done that you don't like.For example,if you fail a test you might generalize and say,"I'm really a stupid person.''When you do this you are making a statement about all of you all of the time and not just about this one situation at this time.Instead,you might decide that your grade on this test in this subject at this time was indeed poor,and then go on to decide what you want to do about your poor grade,if anything.Getting stuck in over--generalizing discourages you from taking steps that might allow you to do better on the next exam and to build an expectation of future failure.
Having standards that are impossibly high is a second way you can not accept yourself.It may not come as a surprise to you that most of us are more demanding of ourselves than we are of others.We don't know why we can tolerate the fact that other people fail, that they aren't always kind,that they've done things they aren't proud of,but we have difficulty accepting those on ourselves.The need to be perfect is another way to set yourself up for failure and strengthen the feeling that you are not acceptable.We all make mistakes.Accepting less than perfection simply means recognizing the limitations natural in being born a human being.Learn to value who you are rather than who you could become.Wouldn't it be overpowering if we always had to do what we imagine we could do? Nobody has the time and energy to do all of that.We must make choices about what we will seek and do them the best we can under the conditions,which aren't always ideal.by the way. | high23311.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "You can't sleep well all the time."
},
"options": [
"You can't sleep well all the time.",
"You have a break after work.",
"You always feel happy and relaxed.",
"You only do one thing at a time."
],
"question": "... | While it is impossible to live completely free of stress,it is possible to prevent stress as well as reduce its effect when it can't be avoided.The US Department of Health and Human Services offers the following suggestions for ways to deal with stress.
*Try physical activity
When you are nervous, angry or upset, try releasing the pressure through exercise or physical activity. Running,walking,playing tennis,and working in your garden are just some of the activities you might try.
*Take care of yourself
You should make every effort to eat well and get enough rest. If you easily get angry and can't sleep well enough, or if you're not eating properly, it will be more likely that you will fall into stressful situations.If stress repeatedly keeps you from sleeping,you should consult a doctor.
*Make time for yourself
Schedule time for both work and entertainment.Don't forget,play can be just as important to your overall well-being as work. You need a break from your daily routine to just relax and have fun.Go window-shopping or work on a hobby.Allow yourself at least a half hour each day to do something you enjoy.
*Make a list of things to do
Stress can result from disorganization and a feeling that "there's so much to do,and not enough time".Trying to take care of everything at once can be too much for you and as a result,you may not achieve anything.Instead,make a list of everything you have to do,then do one thing at a time,checking off each task as it is completed.Set out to do the most important task first. | high3182.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "he would take the car to be serviced at a nearby garage"
},
"options": [
"he knew how to get there",
"he promised not to spend too much time at the movie theatre.",
"the boy agreed to pick him up at 4 o'clock",
"he woul... | I grew up in the south of Spain in a little community called Estepona. I was 16 when one morning, my father told me I could drive him into a remote village called Mijas, about 18 miles away, on the condition that I take the car in to be serviced(,) at a nearby garage. Having just learned to drive and hardly ever having the opportunity to use the car, I readily accepted. I drove Dad into Mijas and promised to pick him up at 4 p.m., then drove to a nearby garage and dropped off the car. Because I had a few hours to spare, I decided to catch a couple of movies at a theatre near the garage. However, I became so interested in the films that I didn't pay attention to the time. When the last movie had finished, I looked down at my watch. It was six o'clock. I was two hours late!
I knew Dad would be angry if he found out I'd been watching movies. He'd never let me drive again. I decided to tell him that the car needed some repairs and that they had taken longer than had been expected. I drove up to the place where we had planned to meet and saw Dad waiting patiently on the corner. I apologized for being late and told him that I'd come as quickly as I could, but the car had needed some major repairs. I'll never forget the look he gave me.
"I'm disappointed that you feel you have to lie to me, Jason."
"What do you mean? I'm telling the truth."
Dad looked at me again. "When you did not show up, I called the garage to ask if there were any problems, and they told me that you had not yet picked up the car. So you see, I know there were no problems with the car." A feeling of guilt ran through me as I weakly confessed to my trip to the movie theatre and the real reason for my being late. Dad listened intently as a sadness passed through him.
"I'm angry, not with you but with myself. You see, I realize that I have failed as a father if after all these years you feel that you have to lie to me. I have failed because I have brought up a son who cannot even tell the truth to his own father. I'm going to walk home now and think seriously about where I have gone wrong all these years."
"But Dad, it's 18 miles to home. It's dark. You can't walk home."
My protests and my apologies were useless. I had let my father down and I was about to learn one of the most painful lessons of my life. Dad began walking along the dusty road. I quickly jumped in the car and followed behind, hoping he would weaken. I begged all the way, telling him how sorry I was, but he simply ignored me, continuing on silently, thoughtfully and painfully. For 18 miles I drove behind him, at a speed of about five miles per hour.
Seeing my father in so much physical and emotional pain was the most distressing and painful experience that I have ever faced. However, it was also the most successful lesson. I have never lied to him since. | high21506.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "animals"
},
"options": [
"oil",
"water",
"animals",
"money"
],
"question": "Mr. King traveled all over the world for collecting _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
"ans... | Mr. King lived with six hundred wild animals on the Greek Island of Kyklos. Ever since he left school, he had traveled all over the word collecting animals for his own zoo. He hoped to collect two examples of every kind of animal on his island. But he was afraid that people would find him someday.
He wrote books about his travels and about his animals that he collected. The money from the books helped to pay for all the food that these animals ate.
One day, when Mr. King was out looking for drinking water, he found oil. He needed money for his travels and for his zoo, and a little oil would buy enough water for what he needed all his life, but he knew that if he told anyone else about it, it would be the end of his zoo and his life's work. So he decided not to tell anyone else about what he had found, because oil and water couldn't mix. | high10903.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "based on the wide use of the Internet"
},
"options": [
"to prove Columbus's idea is wrong",
"based on the wide use of the Internet",
"using some technological forces",
"because of the great change of the Earth itself"
... | About 500 years ago, the Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus proved the Earth was round. Now American author Thomas Friedman tells us the Earth is flat in his best seller: The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century.
If he is not joking, then why is the world flat? Friedman says it is due to technological forces. Because of the Internet and the World Wide Web, he believes geographical barriers are disappearing. Individuals and companies around the world can cooperate or compete on the same level.
Bill Gates explains the meaning of this transformation best. "Thirty years ago," he tells Friedman, "if you had to choose between being born a genius in Shanghai and an average person in Poughkeepsid (a city in southeast New York), you would have chosen Poughkeepsie because your chances of living a wonderful life were much greater there. "Now," Gates says, "I would rather be a genius born in China than an average person born in Poughkeepsie." This shows that success today is determined more by ability than by location.
"Globalization 3.0", as he calls it, is driven by ambitious individuals: freelancers and creative new businesses all over the world, especially in India and China. They can compete not just for low-salary manufacturing industry but, increasingly, for the highest-end research and design work as well.
Big companies have played another important role in this globalization process. They move their factories from one country to another to cut costs. It's usual now for an engineer in China to be working for an American company. The Internet keeps them in constant touch with their American partners. People everywhere, from the US to China, have procedures of the same standard for getting their work done.
The Reuters news agency provides a good example. The company moved its operation offices from London and New York to India. The Indian employees have the necessary technical skills. But the salaries and office rents are less than one-fifth of what they would be in New York or London. | high19099.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "To observe its starry night sky"
},
"options": [
"To observe its starry night sky",
"To visit its friendly people",
"To enjoy the beautiful lake",
"to make a wish at the shooting meteors"
],
"question": "Why do ... | Nowadays, pollution is becoming worse and worse. A starry night seems to be a luxury for people living in cities. Is there any ideal place for stargazers ? A small town in New Zealand is here to surprise you with its breathtaking starry night sky.
Lake Tekapo is located at the heart of New Zealand's South Island. It has been a popular tourist destination for stargazers. At night, innumerable stars dot the sky above the small town. The Milky Way and various constellations can be clearly seen. Visitors can also watch meteors shooting across the sky. For people living in big cities, these can only be seen in movies or fairytales.
Though stargazing is common for people in Lake Tekapo, the local people have paid great attention to protecting their starry night sky. After midnight, all landscape lights must be turned off. In 2005, Lake Tekapo's starry night sky was even listed as a world heritage .
Besides its starry sky, the town has many other things to offer. One of them is the flower, Russell Lupin. Every summer, Russell Lupins make Lake Tekapo more attractive. However, once the Russell Lupins die off, the banks of Lake Tekapo look bare.
After reading the above introduction of Lake Tekapo, you must envy the local people a lot, because they can see the starry sky every night and appreciate the beauty of Russell Lupin every summer. If you are interested in Lake Tekapo, why not go and visit it this coming summer vacation? | high18387.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "they may feel they're forced to do so"
},
"options": [
"they may feel they're forced to do so",
"they often feel lonely in a new school",
"they are ignored by their busy parents",
"they are tired of the moving process"
... | Sooner or later, many families will face the situation of moving. The experience can be very bad for kids, who may not be a part of the decision to move and may not understand it. You can take steps to make the entire process easier for everyone.
Many kids like to stay in familiar places. So as you consider a move, weigh the benefits of that change against the comfort that neighborhood, school, and social life give your kids. If your family has recently dealt with a big life change, such as death, you may want to put off a move to give your children time to accept the fact.
The decision to move may be out of your hands, perhaps because of a new job or money problems. Even if you're not happy about the move, try to keep a positive attitude to it. During the move, a parent's attitude can greatly influence kids.
No matter what the results are, the most important way to prepare kids to move is to talk about it. Try to give your children as much information about the move as possible. You can ask kids to join in the planning such as house-hunting or the search for a new school. This can make the change feel less like it's being forced on them. If you're moving across town, try to take your children to visit the new house and the new neighborhood.
A move can have many problems, but good things also come from this kind of change. Your family might grow closer and you may learn more about each other by going through it together. | high4835.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Israeli people's attitudes to the prisoner exchange."
},
"options": [
"Israeli people's attitudes to the prisoner exchange.",
"How the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit managed to return home.",
"The stories of many terrorist at... | Israel was happy, very happy. The news of a deal to bring home the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit , a young man held prisoner by Hamas for five years,spread.
But the happiness was hardened by the reality of the price Israelis had paid to set him free. The 1,027 Palestinian prisoners to be exchanged for the single Israeli corporal turned out to include men and women convicted of some of the worst terrorist attacks in the country.
"Ambivalent," says Aya Ilouz, of her feelings on the matter. Strolling in downtown Jerusalem with her husband Liron and their 5-month-old daughter Yael, the couple is so in sync on the question of the day that they finish each other's thoughts.
"Yes," says Liron, "we are very happy and excited to see Gilad meet his family. And on the other hand--"
"We are very concerned," says Aya.
"About what happens next," Liron explains. "When the next terrorist blows himself up, someone will have to answer."
Just around the corner, on King George Street, Alan Bauer had been walking home with his son on March 21, 2002, when a Palestinian man named Mohammad Hashaika exploded a suicide vest packed with metal scraps. Eighty-four people were wounded that day. Of the three killed, one was a woman pregnant with twins.
Though the bomber of course died, Israeli courts convicted the two women who drove him to the site of the bombing, easing his way past the Israeli checkpoint by buying flowers to carry in the Mother's Day crowd.
"These women, as I speak, are being released," Bauer says.
Specifics have a way of weakening the joy of Shalit's release. Among the 477 prisoners released on Tuesday, in the first phase of the exchange, are an organizer of the 2002 Passover bombing that killed 30 people; a woman who developed an online relationship with a lovesick Israeli youth she then had murdered when he came to meet her; and the man who proudly displayed his bloody hands to the mob gathered outside the Ramallah building where two Israeli soldiers were beaten to death after making a wrong turn on Oct. 12, 2000.
When the list became public, s of terrorism victims appealed, without success, to Israel's supreme court to prevent the prisoner exchange. The court hearing was interrupted repeatedly by upset survivors, including Shvuel Schijveschuurder, who lost five of his family members in a 2001 attack at a Jerusalem Sbarro. To protest the release of the woman who drove the suicide bomber to the pizza restaurant, Schijveschuurder poured paint on a memorial to Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister slain by an Israeli extremist for signing the Oslo Accords.
"When we say 1,027 prisoners will be released, it's abstract, it doesn't mean anything," says Eliad Moreh Rosenberg, who was wounded in the 2002 terrorism bombing at the Hebrew University cafeteria. "But for victims of terror, it's a reality."
Israeli officials calculate that 60% of those released resume terrorism attacks. To help prevent that resumption this time around, Israel insisted that most of the prisoners liberated be sent either to the Gaza Strip -- which is sealed off from Israel and under the control of Hamas, which says it continues to observe a cease-fire -- or into exile in Turkey, Qatar or Syria. About 100 arrived in the West Bank, where the government led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas works diligently to suppress terrorism, cooperating with Israeli intelligence and military.
With the future uncertain, on Tuesday, Jewish Israelis stopped and stared at televisions wherever they came upon them. On the sidewalk at midmorning outside the 24-hour Hillel Market, 50 people were gathered under a flat screen to catch the first images of Shalit, looking painfully thin . "It was moving. It was very exciting," says Anat Rubin, 42. "I just saw photos of him getting out of the car. It gave me chills." But she says she heard Hamas say that, learning from success, it was keen to kidnap more Israelis in order to win freedom for the 6,000 Palestinians still in Israeli prisons. "I don't want to see the photos of them doing the V for victory," she says. "Like they won. They are really releasing murderers. I'm happy and sad all together." | high19927.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "XOS2."
},
"options": [
"AirPod.",
"EMIEW2.",
"XOS2.",
"EMILY."
],
"question": "Which invention was made to help the military?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_ind... | Inventors are always looking for ways to make our lives easier, greener and a lot more fun.Take a look at 2010's biggest and coolest breakthroughs in science and technology.What in the world will inventors dream up next?
Superhero Suit
Have you ever dreamed of becoming a superhero? Dream no more.There's a real Iron Man suit, XOS 2, which provides the power to lift 200 pounds with ease .It was designed to help the military with heavy lifting.One person in the suit could do the work of three soldiers.
Up, Up and Away!
It took him 30 years to develop it, and now Glen Martin's invention is ready to take off.The Martin Jetpack allows its operator to fly 8,000 feet into the air.Unfortunately, you can't soar through the skies too long.The jetpack holds only about 30 minutes' worth of fuel.
Hardworking Robot
The EMIEW2 robot is the perfect office helper.Need a document delivered? No problem! It can also guide visitors to their destinations.The three-foot-tall robot can identify different human voices and respond to commands.One day, it may serve as a receptionist or a security guard.
Green Machine
Say goodbye to gasoline! The AirPod car runs on air power.That means this car won't pollute.A high-pressure air tank can fill the car in minutes.The three-wheeler can travel about 130 miles between fill-ups.
Beef Power
All aboard the beef train! Amtrak's Heartland Flyer runs partly on fuel that is made from cow fat.The goal is to reduce carbon emissions by 10%.The train travels between Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Fort Worth, Texas.
Robo-Guard
EMILY is a robotic, four-foot-long buoy .She can swim through riptides at up to 24 miles per hour.Her inventor, Tony Mulligan, says that's 15 times as fast as human lifeguards! EMILY is powered by a tiny electric pump and operated by remote. | high21260.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "hannanh-bartlett@botmail.co.uk"
},
"options": [
"info@ bath-bike-workshop. Org.uk",
"alexatontaguc@ aol.com",
"www.ehyokah.co.uk",
"hannanh-bartlett@botmail.co.uk"
],
"question": "If a person is interested in cl... | Welcome to the entrepreneur's Club. Don't hesitate to contact any of the entrepreneurs if you are interested in.
Recycled-Bath Bole Workshop
Bath Bike Workshop is a recycling social enterprise initiative, unique to Bath and aims to rake action about environmental issues by getting mire people cycling. It makes cycling as green as possible by recycling used bikes for re-use and selling them at competitive prices. It also provides affordable bike repair and servicing. All our reeycled . repaired and serviced bikes are certified safe by a qualified bike mechanic before they leave the shop. Email: info@ bath-bike-workshop, org ok.
Old Bank Antiques Centre
Antiques are the very last word in rccyeling, and at Old Bank Antiques Centre, on the London Road in Bath, we do it with style. Among out fifteen dealers is Norman kemp, who not only restores furniture but gives abandoned timber a whole new lease of life. Norman has worked as a restorer specializing in painting effects for more than thirty years, and examples of his work have been exported to many parts of the globe. 14-17 Walecot Buildings. London Road. Bath Bal 6AD. Email: alexatontague@ aol.com
Heyokah Photos
My personal photography projects are concerned with the beauty in the ordinary. I like to celebrate real people and the way they interact with their surroundings and material possession. I also etcate images for businesses and performers in a documentary style, trying to get beneath the hype and show something about who they really are. These photos are part of my recent project: Boater on the Kennet and Avon Canal. Contact: www.ehyokah.co.uk
Hannah Bartlett
The garments are a mix of tailored wools and leather. I trained as the UCA as a creative pattern cutter so I like my work to be cut in a creative way. It is important for me not to waste too much fabric so I like to make some garments out of leftovers. Email: hannanh-bartlett@botmail.co.uk | high6944.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Heavy snow hits China"
},
"options": [
"Heavy snow hits China",
"Chinese New Year in snow",
"China's terrible translation system.",
"An accident"
],
"question": "Choose the best title for this passage.",
"qu... | China's government has issued a severe weather warning after the heaviest snowfalls in decades. The country is experiencing transport delays and power cuts as millions of people prepare to make long journeys home for the Chinese New Year. This report from Quentin Summerville: China hasn't experienced weather this bad in decades. And as the country prepares for Chinese New Year, the disruption couldn't come at a worse time. Over 100,000 people are stranded in Guangzhou railway station in the south. It may climb to as many as 600,000 as more people arrive to make their journeys home for the Spring Festival. Travellers have been evacuated to nearby sports stadiums and exhibition centres.
Across China around nineteen airports have shut because of the weather. Around half the provinces in the country have had to start rationing power , according to the state media. The government has suspended coal exports in favour of home consumption. At least a dozen people died over the weekend because of heavy rains and the snowfall.
The Spring Festival is China's most important holiday when people journey home to be with their families. For millions of the country's migrant workers it's their only holiday. Some two billion journeys were made during the festival last year, making it the largest migration of people on the planet. And even without the severe weather, conditions on overcrowded trains and buses are terrible. The holiday stretches China's transport system to its very limits | high7482.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "increase efficiency in carrying goods and passengers"
},
"options": [
"be finished in three years",
"match the speed of air travel",
"cover the whole area of Asia and Europe",
"increase efficiency in carrying goods and ... | Passengers will be able to travel by train from Londonto Beijing in just two days on trains that travel almost as fast as airplanes under new plans from China.
China is under discussion with 17 countries to build a high-speed rail network to India and Europe with trains that are able to run at over 200mph within the next decade.
The network would eventually carry passengers from London to Beijing and then to Singapore. It would also run to India and Pakistan, according to Wang Mengshu, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a senior consultant on China's high-speed rail project.
A second project would see trains heading north through Russia to Germany and into the European railway system, and a third line will extend south to connect Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar and Malaysia.
Mr. Wang said that the rail lines will draw together and open up the whole of Central, East and Southeast Asia, which would also allow China to transport valuable raw materials more efficiently.
Mr. Wang said the route of the three lines had yet to be decided, but that construction for the South East Asian line had already begun in the southern province of Yunnan and that Burma was about to begin building its link. China has offered to supply money to the Burmese line in exchange for the country's rich reserves of lithium, a metal widely used in batteries.
At present, the only rail line that links China to South East Asia is an old track built by the French in Vietnam a century ago. The Asian Development Bank has recently agreed a second PS27 million loan as part of the PS93 reconstruction of Cambodia's network, which should finish by 2013. The cost of the lines from Cambodia to Singapore and then from Vietnam to China could be roughly PS400 million. | high22769.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "releasing too many greenhouse gases."
},
"options": [
"cutting down too many trees.",
"releasing too many greenhouse gases.",
"growing too many vegetables.",
"raising too many cows."
],
"question": "Generally sp... | Think about what you usually have for a meal: Is it a hamburger? What about vegetables? Would it surprise you to learn that what you eat can affect the whole planet?
It can--in a big way. Scientists attending the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago presented new studies showing how food and its production affect the globe and its warming climate. It is generally believed that global warming is caused by the large amounts of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. One of these greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide.
What does this have to do with food? A big part of the carbon dioxide comes from the process of making and eating food, the scientists reported in Chicago. The production of meat contributes to a lot of that carbon dioxide.
The process of making a hamburger, for example, requires a lot of energy. A cow has to be fed and raised on farmland, and cow manure is a major source of methane --an especially powerful greenhouse gas. By the time a hamburger is finally served on a dinner plate, it has done great harm to the environment.
The message from the research is clear: We can greatly reduce the production of greenhouse gases by eating less meat.
All kinds of meat, the scientists reported, are harder on the planet than vegetables. To grow and eat a pound of potatoes, for example, sends less than one-quarter pound of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases into the air. So shifting our diet to less meat and more vegetables ,as it turns out, may do the world some good. | high12872.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "to show that his father worked hard all the year on the sea"
},
"options": [
"to prove that his father was as great as the ocean",
"to prove that his father was a fisherman",
"to tell us that his father's clothes were very di... | Frank looked at us and said, ''My Dad was a fisherman. He was a big man, and he was strong from pulling the nets and fighting the seas for his catch. When you got close to him, he smelled like the ocean. He would wear his old canvas, foul-weather coat and his bibbed overalls. No matter how much my Mother washed them, they would still smell of the sea and of fish.''
His voice dropped a bit. ''When the weather was bad he would drive me to school. He had an old truck which was older than he was. You could hear it coming for blocks. As he drove toward the school, I would shrink down into the seat hoping to disappear. Then he would lean over and give me a big kiss on the cheek and tell me to be a good boy. It was so embarrassing for me. Here, I was twelve years old, and my Dad would lean over and kiss me goodbye!''
He paused and then went on, ''I remember the day I decided I was too old for a goodbye kiss. When we got to the school and came to a stop, he had his usual big smile. He started to lean toward me, but I put my hand up and said, 'No, Dad. I'm too old for a goodbye kiss. I'm too old for any kind of kiss.''
''My Dad looked at me for the longest time, and his eyes started to tear up. I had never seen him cry. He turned and looked out the windshield . 'You're right,' he said. 'You are a big boy....a man. I won't kiss you anymore.''
Frank got a funny look on his face, and the tears began to well up in his eyes, as he spoke. ''It wasn't long after that when my Dad went to sea and never came back. It was a day when most of the fleet stayed in, but not Dad. He had a big family to feed. They found his boat adrift with its nets half in and half out. He must have gotten into a gale and was trying to save the nets and the floats.'' | high23477.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Get four books for free in the first year"
},
"options": [
"Order a free watch.",
"Get a gift for nothing.",
"Get four books for free in the first year",
"Order a DVD at a low price."
],
"question": "Which of th... | Have you ever thought of joining a book club and buying new books through the post? Here at the International Book Club, we already have many members buying books from us by mail.
Immediate benefits:
*As a special offer, you may choose any reduced-price books from our new members' book list, to the value of $6 in total (plus postage and packing). By doing this, you will save pounds on the publishers' prices.
*Tick the box on your form to order a free watch.
*If you reply within seven days, we will send you another free gift carefully chosen from our book list by our staff.
*Order a DVD from the many on offer in our list, at half the recommended retail price.
*When you've joined:
As a member, you'll enjoy savings of between 30% and 50% off the publisher's price on every book you buy, and what's more, they'll come straight to your door. Your free club magazine arrives once a month, to keep you up-to-date with the latest bestsellers. This means that every year we offer over 1,000 books to choose from. On the Internet, you can find all our titles for the year on our exclusive members' website.
Being a member:
All we are asking you to do while you are a member is to choose four books during your first year. After that, you can decide on the number of books you wish to take.
In each of our monthly club magazines, our experienced staff choose a Club Choice book -- a work of fiction or a reference title which they feel is particularly worth buying, and which is offered at an extra-special price. However, if you do not want this book, just say so in the space provided on the form. We will always send the book if we do not receive this.
So, return your application form today, but hurry -- it's not every day we can make you an offer like this. To apply to become a member, all you need to do is simply fill in the enclosed form and return it in the envelope supplied.
Before you know it, your books will be with you. Please don't send any money now, as we will send you your bill with the books. And remember, you have up to a fortnight to decide if you wish to keep the books you have ordered. You should then either return the books or send your payment. | high8969.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "received more patents than any other American"
},
"options": [
"was the only important American inventor",
"received the first American patent",
"received more patents than any other American",
"was the first American i... | Thomas Alva Edison was awarded more patents on inventions than any other American. When he died in 1931, Americans wondered how they could best show their respect for him. One suggestion was that the nation observe a minute or two of total blackout(,). All electric power would be shut off in homes, streets, and factories. Perhaps his suggested plan made Americans realize fully what Edison and his inventions mean to them. Electric power was too important to the country. Shutting it off for even a short time would have led to complete confusion . A blackout was out of the question.
On the day of Edison's funeral ,many people silently dimmed their lights. In this way they honoured the man who had done more than anyone else to the great force of electrity | high6950.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Internet"
},
"options": [
"newspaper",
"TV programme",
"Radio broadcast",
"Internet"
],
"question": "Can you infer where this passage is from?",
"question_type": null
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_i... | It's time to be water efficient!
As populations increase across Australia and the rest of the world, demand for water will also increase. If we don't reduce each individual's demand for water (both directly and through embodied water) the water situation will become dire.
It is obvious that we cannot increase demands for water much more without detrimental effects to the environment, society and the economy.
It's all too easy to blame someone else for the water situation -"if 70% of water is used for agriculture then that's what we should target" - but it's not that easy. We all depend on the food and resources that agriculture provides, and while there are definitely opportunities to increase water efficiency on the farm, the solution will take more than that.
We each share responsibility for the sustainable management of our water resources, which means using less water at home, in the workplace, at school, on holidays, on the farm, ... everyone, everywhere, every time.
It's time to become water efficient! This involves reassessing our relationship with water, and learning to use it more sparingly. On the most basic level, it requires a behavioural change, and assigning a value to water that truly reflects its worth.
We can also unlock economic benefits of being water efficient. There are many real world examples given in the case studies on this site.
Everybody has a responsibility to save water, if future generations are to enjoy a similar standard of living to the one we enjoy now. In fact, many of the impacts associated with water use are likely to have an effect on our own lives!
www.savewater.com.au has been designed to help you respond to the challenge to become water efficient. It acts as a central repository for relevant information and further advice, so that you can actually achieve significant savings. It also showcases those companies with products that will assist you in your goal. | high7496.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Because she would be much sadder looking at Captain."
},
"options": [
"Because she didn't want to help with dinner.",
"Because she would be much sadder looking at Captain.",
"Because she wanted to play with Captain outside.",... | I was standing in the kitchen helping with dinner, asking my mom about my brother's doctor ' s appointment. They were testing him for autism( ) . My brother, Captain, four years old at the time, had always been my best friend. We would wrestle, play games and have the best of times together, even though we were far apart in age. My mom told me about the appointment, but ,when she got to the point about the test, she stopped. I turned around and she had tears in her eyes. I stared at her, wishing she would say something , when I realized what that silence meant. My eyes got blurry ( ) and my breathing got very ragged. " The test was positive , sweetheart , " she said. I broke down, crying.
My mom was trying to cool me down, saying that Captain couldn't see me like this and I had to be a big girl , when the front door opened, and Captain, our three-year-old sister Cali, and my father came in. I walked out of the kitchen. I couldn't look at him. Everything had just changed. He was no longer that little baby brother who was just a normal little boy.
We had to move a while later because Captain needed treatment. One day ,I was standing in the bus line waiting when the " short bus" came and picked some kids up. The children in the other line started making jokes about the " retards " on that bus and I felt a strange feeling in my stomach, ,which I had never felt before.
During a band class, my teacher, Mrs. Young, stopped our playing to give us some feed- back. " Guys ,we ' re playing like the kids on the short bus ! Come on!" I felt that same feeling I had in the bus line. The entire room was laughing when I raised my hand. " Yes , Alexis?" Mrs. Young asked. "I don't think we should make fun of the short bus, because there are a lot of people on that bus who have great personalities and have the same feelings as we do. And also ,I know some people on those buses and they are some of the most caring, sweetest, and smartest people , so I would appreciate it if you didn't make fun of them. "
Everyone stared at me. Mrs. Young apologized for the comment and then started the song again. | high6788.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "he believed that the telephone knew everything."
},
"options": [
"he believed that the telephone knew everything.",
"the telephone could tell him a doctor's number",
"his mother was on the other end of the telephone",
"... | When I was young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember the shiny box on the wall. But I was too little to reach it, I could only listen to my mother talk on it.
I discovered that inside the wonderful box lived an amazing person whose name was Information Please. There was nothing she did not know.
One day my mother went out. I accidentally hurt my finger when I was playing with a hammer. I walked around the house sucking my hurting finger, finally seeing the telephone. Quickly I dragged a chair over and climbed up.
"Information Please," I spoke into the receiver. A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear, "Information."
"I hurt my finger..." I cried into the phone.
"Isn't your mother home?" came the question.
"Nobody's home but me." I sobbed.
"Are you bleeding?" the voice asked.
"No," I replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts."
"Can you open your icebox?" she asked. I said I could.
"Then take a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger." Said the voice.
After that, I called "Information Please" for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me her name was Sally.
Then there was the time my pet canary died. I called "Information Please" and told Sally the sad story. "Why is it that birds sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a pile of feathers?" She listened, then said quietly, "Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in." Somehow I felt better.
One day when I called "Information Please" again, a different voice answered "Information."
I asked for Sally. "Are you a friend?" she said.
"Yes." I answered
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this," she said. "She died five days ago." Before I could hang up she said, "Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?"
"Yes!"
"Well, Sally left a message for you. The note said, "Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He'll know what I mean." I thanked her and hung up. I knew what Sally meant. | high12866.txt |
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