questions list | article stringlengths 9 6.44k | id stringlengths 9 14 |
|---|---|---|
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Their job required a good memory."
},
"options": [
"Their job required a good memory.",
"Most of them had a talent for acting.",
"They still enjoy popularity nowadays.",
"Their stories focused on the life of the kings."... | In the past, writing wasn't very common in West Africa. In fact none of the major early civilizations of West Africa developed a written language. Arabic was the only written language they used. The lack of a native written language does not mean that the people of West Africa didn't know their history, though. They passed on their tradition orally. An oral history is a spoken record of past event. The task of remembering and telling West Africa's history was given to storytellers.
The storytellers of early West Africa were called griots. They enjoyed high social status because the people of West Africa were very interested in the deeds of their ancestors. Griots helped keep this history alive for each new generation.
The griots' stories were both entertaining and informative. They told of important past events and of the accomplishments of distant ancestors. For example, some stories explained the rise and fall of the West Africa empires. Other stories described the actions of powerful kings and warriors. Some griots made their stories livelier by acting out the events like scenes in a play.
In addition to stories, the griots recited proverbs, or short sayings of wisdom or truth. They used proverbs to teach lessons to the people. One West Africa proverb warns, "Talking doesn't fill the basket on the farm." This proverb reminds people that they must labor to accomplish things. It is not enough for people just to talk about what they want to do.
In order to tell their stories and proverbs, the griots memorized hundreds of names and events. Through this memorization process the griots passed on West African history from generation to generation. However, some griots confused names and events in their heads. When this happened, the facts of some historical events became distorted. | high18231.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "have become victims of modern organizations"
},
"options": [
"have become victims of modern organizations",
"are unworthy of proper consideration",
"have received high quality service",
"deserve the lowest status in soc... | I have had just about enough of being treated like a second-class citizen, simply because I happen to be that unfairly treated member of society --- a customer. The more I go into shops and hotels, banks and post offices, railway stations, airports and the like, the more I am convinced the things are being run merely to suit the firm, the system, or the union. There seems to be a deceptive new motto for so-called "service" organizations --- Staff Before Service.
How often, for example, have you queued for what seems like hours at the Post Office or the supermarket because there was not enough staff on duty to manage all the service grilles or checkout counters? Surely in these days of high unemployment it must be possible to hire cashiers and counter staff. Yet supermarkets, hinting darkly at higher prices, claim that uncovering all their cash registers at any one time would increase operating costs. And the Post Office says we cannot expect all their service grilles to be occupied "at times when demand is low".
It is the same with hotels. Because waiters and kitchen staff must finish when it suits them, dining rooms close earlier or menu choice is cut short. As for us guests, we just have to put up with it. There is also the nonsense of so many friendly hotel night porters having been thrown out of their jobs in the interests of "efficiency" and replaced by coin-eating machines which offer everything. Not to mention the tea-making kit in your room a kettle with a mixed collection of tea bags, plastic milk boxes and lump sugar. Who wants to wake up to a raw teabag? I do not, especially when I am paying for "service".
Can it be stopped, this worsening of service, this growing attitude that the customer is always a trouble? I angrily hope so because it is happening, sadly, in all walks of life.
Our only hope is to hammer home our anger whenever and wherever we can and, if all else fails, bring back into practice that other, older slogan --- Take Our Deal Elsewhere. | high4983.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "he has satisfied his hunger"
},
"options": [
"he has saved up enough money",
"he has grown dissatisfied with his simple shelter",
"he has satisfied his hunger",
"he has learned to build houses"
],
"question": "A... | Human needs seem endless. When a hungry man gets a meal, he begins to think about an overcoat, when a manager gets a new sports car, a big house and pleasure boats dance into view.
The many needs of mankind might be regarded as making up several levels. When there is money enough to satisfy one level of needs, another level appears.
The first and most basic level of needs involves food. Once this level is satisfied, the second level of needs, clothing and some sort of shelter, appears. By the end of World War II, these needs were satisfied for a great majority of Americans. Then a third level appeared. It included such items as automobiles and new houses.
By 1957 or 1958 this third level of needs was fairly well satisfied. Then, in the late 1950s, a fourth level of needs appeared; the "life-enriching" level. While the other levels involve physical satisfaction, that is, the need in comfort, safety, and transportation, this level stresses mental needs for recognition, achievement, and happiness. It includes a variety of goods and services, many of which could be called "luxury" items. Among them are vacation trips, the best medical and dental care, and recreation. Also included here are fancy goods and the latest styles in clothing.
On the fourth level, a lot of money is spent on services, while on the first three levels more is spent on goods. Will consumers raise their sights to a fifth level of needs as their income increases, or will they continue to demand luxuries and personal services on the fourth level?
A fifth level would probably involve needs that can be achieved best by community action. Consumers may be spending more on taxes to pay for government action against disease, ignorance, crime, and prejudice. After filling our stomachs, our clothes closets, our garages, our teeth, and our minds, we now may seek to ensure the health, safety, and leisure to enjoy more fully the good things on the first four levels. | high11573.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "are largely formed in later life"
},
"options": [
"are passed down from their parents",
"are largely formed in later life",
"have nothing to do with gender socialization",
"have a biological origin"
],
"question... | Throughout the world, boys and girls prefer to play with different types of toys. Boys typically like to play with cars and trucks, while girls typically choose to play with dolls. Why is this? A traditional sociological explanation is that boys and girls are socialized and encouraged to play with different types of toys by their parents, peers, and the "society". Growing scientific evidence suggests, however, that boys' and girls' toy preferences may have a biological origin.
In 2002, Gerianne M. Alexander of Texas A&M University and Melissa Hines of City University in London surprised the scientific world by showing that monkeys showed the same sex typical toy preferences as humans. In the study, Alexander and Hines gave two masculine toys (a ball and a police car), two feminine toys (a soft doll and a cooking pot), and two neutral toys (a picture book and a stuffed dog) to 44 male and 44 female monkeys. They then assessed the monkeys' preference for each toy by measuring how much time they spent with each. Their data showed that male monkeys showed significantly greater interest in the masculine toys, and the female monkeys showed significantly greater interest in the feminine toys. The two sexes did not differ in their preference for the neutral toys.
If children' s toy preferences were largely formed by gender socialization, as traditional sociologists' claim, in which their parents give "gender appropriate" toys to boys and girls, how can these male and female monkeys have the same preferences as boys and girls?They were never socialized by humans, and they had never seen these toys before in their lives. | high3034.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "They can help disabled people park their cars."
},
"options": [
"They are all used by disabled people.",
"They are cards designed by disabled people.",
"They can help disabled people park their cars.",
"They allow disab... | Some disabled people use a special card when they park their cars. These are called disabled placards, which are removable signs that can be hung from the rear-view mirror of a car. These placards are only supposed to be for disabled people.
These placards are meant to help disabled people in a number of ways. They allow the person to park in special parking spaces. They can also be used when disabled people are being dropped off or picked up. Disabled people can even use them to park without having to pay.
Parking officials think that some people are cheating. Not all people who have these placards are disabled. Today, one in sixteen drivers in California carries the sign. There are a lot more people who have disabled placards today than ten years ago. An official from the DMV says that there are many reasons for the increase. As people get older, they may develop health problems and need to have one. There are also other reasons why more drivers have them today. Finally, there are a number of people who have them that should not.
Last year the DMV cancelled more than 25,000 permits. They found that lots of people who had the disabled placards had died. These permits are no longer valid.
Some people are worried that the system is being abused. They are worried that access to the program could be limited because of the misuse. More rules could make it harder for people with real disabilities to get these placards. | high11215.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Modern technology."
},
"options": [
"Unhealthy lifestyle.",
"Modern technology.",
"Environmental conditions.",
"Work stress."
],
"question": "Which of the following is not a direct cause of sleep problems?",
... | Do you sleep well? Some people get off to sleep as soon as their head hits the pillow, but many others are not so lucky. In fact, the lack of quality sleep has become a public health issue around the world. According to me World Association of Sleep Medicine, 45 percent of the world's population suffer from sleep problems. One in eight people don't sleep well and are easily woken. 7.6 percent sleep less than 3 hours each night. Some even cannot fall asleep for several days in a row.
As a basic bodily and mental need, sleep is essential for our survival, it helps us to fight diseases, strengthen our memory, perform better in work and school and improve our quality of life. Lack of sleep is known to have a significant negative influence on health, both in the short and long term. Poor sleep has been associated with obesity, diabetes, weakened immune systems and even some cancers, as well as depression and anxiety.
The World Sleep Day, held on the third Friday of March, is an annual celebration of sleep to lighten the burden of sleep problems through better prevention and management of sleep disorders.
To achieve this goal, we must figure out what causes sleepiness and sleeplessness.
Unhealthy lifestyle may be the first to blame. More and more people use cell phones and computers in bed, with many staying up until midnight. Modern technology does make our life convenient, but abuse of it ruins our health. Environmental conditions, such as temperature, noise, light, bed comfort also play an important Pole in one's ability to get proper sleep. Besides, improper evening diet, like a full or an empty stomach, coffee and alcohol all contribute to sleep problems. Of course, when it comes to causing poor sleep, stress from finances, family or work should never be ignored.
However, those who suffer from sleep disorders don't necessarily have to continue to do so -most sleep problems can be managed. | high3752.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "caffeine"
},
"options": [
"fat",
"peanut",
"caffeine",
"nutrition"
],
"question": "There is a controversy over the STEEM Peanut Butter because it contains _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{... | Americans love peanut butter. The average child will eat 1,500 peanut butter before he or she graduates high school. But there is a controversy over a new peanut butter. It is called STEEM Peanut Butter. This peanut butter adds a new ingredient: caffeine . Coffee is a popular morning drink because it has caffeine and gives people energy in the morning. Even small amounts of caffeine can be dangerous to children.
United States Senator Charles Schumer says."Peanut butter, one of the snacks most closely connected with children, might have to be stored in the medicine cupboard rather than in the kitchen cupboard. This will shock the Food and Drug Administration." Schumer wants the U.S. FDA to investigate. He observed that earlier the FDA prevented plans for a caffeinated chewing gum.
STEEM, the manufacturer, said, "We are selling the caffeinated peanut butter all over the world. The product provides caffeine in an easily digestible way. Caffeinated foods have been sold in U.S. stores for well over a decade and are in no way a new idea. Customers tell us they want to eat the caffeinated peanut butter so they don't have to drink as much coffee or energy drinks. The peanut butter is not intended for children."
"Peanut butter has been a favorite of children for generations," Schumer continued: "Parents across the country have to worry about a scene in which their child might unknowingly bite into a peanut butter that contains more caffeine than two cups of coffee."
The American Academy of Pediatrics says caffeine in small amounts can help the physical performance of adults. But the academy urges parents not to allow children to take even small amounts of caffeine owing to caffeine's possible negative effects on a child's heart and brain development. | high19891.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "it's no use dreaming but be practical"
},
"options": [
"you will certainly get what you want",
"it's no use dreaming but be practical",
"you should never be satisfied with what you have",
"it's essential to be ambitious... | You may have heard some respectable elders say, "It's not what you want in this world, but what you get."
Psychology teaches that you do get what you want if you know what you want and want the right things.
You can make a mental blueprint of a desire as you would make a blueprint of a house, and each of us is continually making these blueprints in the general routine of everyday living. If we intend to give a dinner for friends, we plan the menu, make a shopping list, and decide which food to cook first, and such planning is essential and necessary for any type of meal to be served.
Similarly, you can make a blueprint for your could-be-job, take a sheet of paper, and write a brief account of yourself. In making a blueprint for a job, begin with yourself, for when you know exactly what you have to offer, you can intelligently plan where to sell your service.
This account of yourself is actually a description of your working life and should include education, experience and references. Such an account is valuable. It can be referred to filling out standard application blanks and it is extremely helpful in personal interviews. While talking to you, your could-be employer is deciding whether your education, your experience and other qualifications will pay him to employ you, and your abilities must be displayed on an orderly and reasonably connected manner. When you have carefully prepared a blueprint of your abilities and desires, you have something exact to sell. Then you are ready to hunt for a job.
Get all the possible information about your could-be job. Make your eyes and ears open, and use your own judgment. Spend a certain amount of time each day seeking in the employment you wish for, and keep in mind: Obtaining a job is your job now! | high5323.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "there were signs of hibernation in human sleeping habits"
},
"options": [
"people might become lazy as a result of too much sleep",
"there were signs of hibernation in human sleeping habits",
"people tended to sleep more pe... | Have you winterized your horse yet? Even though global warming may have made our climate more mild, many animals are still hibernating .It's too bad that humans can't hibernate. In fact, as a species, we almost did.
Apparently, at times in the past , peasants in France liked a semi-state of human hibernation . So writes Graham Robb, a British scholar who has studied the sleeping habits of the French peasants. As soon as the weather turned cold people all over France shut themselves away and practiced the forgotten art of doing nothing at all for months on end.
In line with this, Jeff Warren, a producer at CBC Radio's The Current, tells us that the way we sleep has changed fundamentally since the invention of artificial lighting and the electric bulb.
When historians began studying texts of the Middle Ages, they noticed something referred to as "first sleep", which was not clarified, though. Now scientists are telling us our ancestors most likely slept in separate periods. The business of eight hours' uninterrupted sleep is a modern invention.
In the past , without the artificial light of the city to bathe in, humans went to sleep when it became dark and then woke themselves around midnight. The late night period was known as "The Watch" It was when people actually kept watch against wild animals ,although many of them simply moved around or visited family and neighbours .
According to some sleep researchers, a short period of insomnia at midnight is not a disorder .It is normal . Humans can experience another state of consciousness around their sleeping, which occurs in the brief period before we fall asleep or wake ourselves in the morning .This period can be an extraordinarily creative time for some people .The impressive inventor, Thomas Edison , used this state to hit upon many of his new ideas.
Playing with your sleep rhythms can be adventurous ,as anxiety may set in. Medical science doesn't help much in this case. It offers us medicines for a full night's continuous sleep, which sounds natural ; however, according to Warren's theory,it is really the opposite of what we need. | high18557.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Something done to gain knowledge while traveling."
},
"options": [
"Something done to gain knowledge while traveling.",
"Something done to know more about one's own country while traveling.",
"Something done to know more abou... | There's no need to say it, but there are really more than a few benefits to educational tours. From the word itself, an educational tour is something done to gain knowledge while traveling and touring to some place. It creates opportunities for people to think out of the box and see things and places that aren't usually seen in their normal environment.
Educational trips aren't always those that cover far distances. As already said, it is done to gain knowledge and you wouldn't need to go very far to have it. Sometimes, an educational trip could be in your hometown.
Historic places and museums are always on top of the lists of the places to go in an educational tour. Educational tours like these would make you know your country better. Your country's history is rich and it is the reason why you came. But remember that the history of other states, counties and countries are as important as your own.
When you go on a trip to another country, it is likely that you learn their culture first. Different cultures have different understanding and perspective of different acts, and it could be dangerous or offending if you cannot understand a culture.
When you go on an educational tour, it is likely that you would have the opportunity to socialize with other people. Students are encouraged to talk to locals and natives and learn from them, because it is with understanding that students gain knowledge. When students talk with local people, they are gaining insights to their life and their culture. It is said that when in Rome, act and think as the Romans do, and this is a valuable skill that not all people could do.
There are millions of people who want to travel, and an educational tour is the perfect time to do so. Traveling opens new doors and opportunities; it always makes you want to learn more. Cultures are many and widely different, and it is a very valuable talent to understand the people of different cultures.
Traveling with groups of other students is safer than traveling alone, and bulk travels like those could also be helpful on the budget. Group of friends could stay at one place and get discounts on the place that you wouldn't get if you are traveling alone. Traveling is fun and more budget-friendly when with other people on an educational tour.
Travel abroad for a month, try and see if you wouldn't miss your own country. Traveling would let you see your own country in a different way. The benefits of an educational tour are all important, but this one creates patriotism in a person.
A school isn't a place where they teach you to find the answers; it is a place where one teaches you to find the questions and learn the answers for yourself. Educational tours are valuable this way. They teach you that you are not the only one seeking for questions and that there are other people who are willing to help you on your way too. | high9519.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Life full of sensual pleasures."
},
"options": [
"Life without pain and grief.",
"Life full of sensual pleasures.",
"Life with desire for possessions.",
"Life full of imagination."
],
"question": "What kind of l... | Everyone agrees that all the creatures want happiness and are afraid of pain and grief. The question, however, is "What is real happiness?" The desire for happiness has no meaning without understanding the real nature of happiness.
Generally, ordinary beings consider sensual pleasures as happiness, and their actions are directed toward gaining these. According to them, searching for happiness means searching for pleasures of the senses. The question, "What is happiness?", does not arise in their hearts, because in their hearts they think of a life full of sensual joys as a happy life.
Some thinkers say, "Happiness does not lie in the objects of enjoyment; happiness or unhappiness lies in the imagination." To prove their belief they give examples like the following one. A man has a two-storey house. When he thinks of those who have a house with three storeys or more, he feels unhappy. When he thinks of those who have just a _ , he feels happy. Such happiness does not lie in possessions , but in the imagination. They advise people to take inspiration from those who have few possessions but are quite happy. If you only consider people wealthier than yourself, you will always be unhappy.
If you want to be happy, they say, look at the poor. But it is unreasonable to hold that happiness lies in the imagination. And it is inappropriate to think that someone is happy if he only imagines himself better than the poor and the unhappy. This attitude also satisfies the sense of pride of possession. This can never be called happiness. Unless we find out where happiness lies, we cannot really become happy.
Some ask people to do this or that, and say, "This way your desires will be satisfied. That way you will get what you want and become happy." People holding these views regard happiness as satisfaction of desires and unhappiness as denial of such satisfaction. | high1145.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Many new websites appear and develop fast."
},
"options": [
"Online games are more and more attractive.",
"Many new websites appear and develop fast.",
"More and more people want to travel abroad.",
"It helps travelers ... | World travel has moved on to a new level as new websites spring up to enable travelers to plan their trips online. Virtual tourism is the latest name of the game and although relatively new, has seen some tourism websites grow to host over one-million users.
Typically, this development features a website that contains the answers to almost any tourism question.Tips and information are not provided by a single source, such as the website host, but rather from travelers themselves-often in the thousands. This has proven to be exceptionally beneficial for would-be travelers who are seeking infomtation on questions such as where to find the best museum or beach; whether it is better to tour Brussels with a bicycle or on foot; and which exchange rate bureaus are available in Italy. Questions about food and restaurants; tourist spots; safety; accommodation; and others are all answered. In addition, posted tips promote better preparation, such as what to pack when heading for Sicily .
Apart from the useful tips, visual images and virtual tours have also been made available.If you'd like to visit the Eiffel Tower, it's a good idea to view the surrounding areas; to pick a safer train route; or to know that it's very close to the Seine River and that a walk along it would enhance the experience.
Virtual tours have _ globally.In South Africa, John Gore established the Virtual Tour Guide in November last year. On his blog, Gore was quoted a saying, "The world is panoramic . "'We are able to tum our heads and look in all directions and get a feel for where we are, but the typical photograph cannot show or describe that experience completely. " However, there is an answer--technology makes it possible to share the world around us in a 360 degree panoramic way, which really makes the viewer feel as though he or she is really there. | high13402.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Because he wanted to be a full-time writer."
},
"options": [
"Because he didn't like the working conditions.",
"Because he couldn't earn enough to make a living.",
"Because he wanted to be a full-time writer.",
"Because... | When middle-aged Alex quit his job and made up his mind to become a self-employed writer, no one could tell for sure whether he would succeed or not.He found a cold storage room in a building, set up a used typewriter and settled down to work.
After a year or so, however, Alex began to doubt himself.He found it was difficult to earn his living by selling what he wrote.But Alex determined to put his dream to the test--even though it meant living with uncertainty and fear of failure.This is the shadowland of hope, and anyone with a dream must learn to live there.
One day Alex got a call, "We need an assistant, and we're paying $ 6,000 a year." $ 6,000 was real money in 1960.It would enable Alex to get a nice apartment, a used car and more.Besides, he could write in his spare time.As the dollars were dancing in Alex's head, something cleared his senses.He had dreamed of being a writer ?full time."Thanks, but no," Alex said firmly and swiftly, "I'm going to stick it out and write."
After Alex got off the phone, he pulled out everything he had: two cans of vegetables and 18 cents.Alex put the cans and cents into a paper bag, saying to himself," There's everything you've made of yourself so far.I'm not sure I ever felt so low."
Finally his work was published in 1970.Instantly he had the kind of fame and success that few writers ever experience.The shadows had turned into focus of attention.
Then one day, Alex found a box filled with things he had owned years before.Inside was a paper bag with two cans and 18 cents.Suddenly he pictured himself working in that cold storage room.It reminds Alex, and anyone with a dream, of the courage and persistence it takes to stay the course in the shadowland. | high15073.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "watch TV programs online"
},
"options": [
"listen to music",
"make a call",
"watch TV programs online",
"read newspapers"
],
"question": "People use iPlayer to _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
}... | The iPhone, the iPad, each of Apple's products sounds cool and has become a fad . Apple has cleverly taken advantage of the power of the letter "i" - and many other brands are following suit. The BBC's iPlayer - which allows Web users to watch TV programs on the Internet -adopted the title in 2008. A lovely bear - popular in the US and UK - that plays music and video is called "iTeddy". A slimmed-down version of London's Independent newspaper was launched last week under the name "i".
In general, single-letter prefixes have been popular since the 1990s, when terms such as e-mail and e-commerce first came into use.
Most "i" products are targeted at young people and considering the major readers of Independent's "i", it's no surprise that they've selected this fashionable name.
But it's hard to see what's so special about the letter "i". Why not use "a", "b", or "c" instead? According to Tony Thorne, head of the Language Center at King's College, London, "i" works because its meaning has become _ When Apple uses "i", no one knows whether it means Internet, information, individual or interactive, Thorne told BBC Magazines. "Even when Apple created the iPod, it seems it didn't have one clear definition," he says.
"However, thanks to Apple, the term is now associated with portability ."adds Thorne.
Clearly the letter "i" also agrees with the idea that the Western World is centered on the individual. Each person believes they have their own needs, and we love personalized products for this reason.
Along with "Google" and "blog", readers of BBC Magazines voted "i" as one of the top 20 words that have come to define the last decade.
But as history shows, people grow tired of fads. From the 1900s to 1990s, products with "2000" in their names became fashionable as the year was associated with all things advanced and modern. However, as we entered the new century, the trend inevitably disappeared. | high8607.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "don't want to have it as food"
},
"options": [
"don't want it to die",
"hope it will grow quickly",
"don't want to have it as food",
"want to practice their fishing skills"
],
"question": "People sometimes set a... | It is often necessary to release a fish, that is, set it free after catching, because it is too small, or you just don't want to take it home to eat. In some cases, releasing fish is a good measure that will help keep fish variety and build their population size. The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) encourages fishermen who practice catch-and-release fishing to use a few simple skills when doing so. The advice provided below will help make sure that the fish you release will survive to bite again another day.
--When catching a fish, play it quickly and keep the fish in the water as much as possible.
Don't' use a net in landing the fish and release it quickly to prevent it from dying.
--Hold the fish gently. Do not put your fingers in its eyes. Don't wipe the scales off the fish because it might cause it to develop a disease and reduce its chance of survival.
--Remove your hook quickly. If the hook is too deep or hooked in the stomach, cut the line and leave the hook in. The hook left inside will cause no serious problem to the fish.
--Take good care of the fish by moving it gently in water . Release the fish when it begins to struggle and is able to swim.
--Do not hold fish in a bucket or some other containers and later decide to release it. If you are going to release a fish, do so right away.
With a little care and by following the suggestions given above, you can give the released fish a better chance of survival. | high7534.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Phil and his wife lived in Australia."
},
"options": [
"Phil and his wife lived in Australia.",
"Phil knew he was going to save his son.",
"Benji was going to see off his son on the beach.",
"Benji and Phil were separat... | Waiting anxiously to be reunited with the son he had not seen for 13 years, Phil Baker took a walk along the beach with his wife Lyn to relax himself. His boy Benji, 21, was finally back to Australia after living most of his life in the UK, half a world away from his dad.
As he looked out at the ocean, wondering how his son might have changed over the years, Phil saw some people on the kayaks in trouble on the water. Without hesitation, he dived into the sea to help. And as he carried a stricken young man trembling and semi-conscious to the shore, he realized the young man was his long-lost son.
"I looked at his face, and something occurred to me," says Phil. "Those brown eyes were very familiar." Although Phil had seen just a few photos of his son since the boy was eight years old, he recognized him at once.
It would be reasonable to suppose it was a father's instinct that _ Phil to help ---- but at the moment he dived into the water to go to the aid of the struggling group, he only thought he was helping a stranger in trouble.
He said, "Two people were desperately paddling on one of the kayaks and it seemed like someone fell into the water. I told Lyn, 'Something is not right; I'm going to help.' "
"l took off my T-shirt and threw my keys on the sand. Diving into the water, I saw there were two instructors on board and a man lying in the water. He was shaking violently. Linking arms with one instructor, I helped to carry the man out of the water. He was drifting in and out of consciousness and his hands and feet were blue."
Then Phil looked into the boy's eyes and wept as he realized the stricken stranger was his own son. Phil recalled, "I asked the instructor, 'what's his name?' " He replied, 'Benji'. In an instant, I knew that stranger was my boy. I checked his breathing and pulse and said, "It's me, your dad. You're going to be OK."
Benji tells how it felt to be saved by his long-lost dad. "All I remember was waking up on the beach and seeing my dad there," he says, "And I recognized his face straight away." | high12293.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "because Allie is anxious about talking about leaving"
},
"options": [
"because Allie is anxious about talking about leaving",
"Because Allie is tired of the author's suggestion",
"Because the author is angry with Allie's rude... | My daughter Allie is leaving for college in a week. Her room is cluttered with shopping bags filled with blankets, towels, jeans, sweaters. She won't talk about going.
I say, "I'm going to miss you," and she gives me one of her looks and leaves the room. Another time I say, in a voice so friendly it surprises even me: "Do you think you'll take your posters and pictures with you, or will you get new ones at college?"
She answers, her voice filled with annoyance, "How should I know?"
My daughter is off with friends most of the time. Yesterday was the last day she'd have until Christmas with her friend Katharine, whom she's known since kindergarten. Soon, it will be her last day with Sarah, Claire, Heather... and then it will be her last day with me.
My friend Karen told me, "The August before I left for college, I screamed at my mother the whole month. Be prepared."
I stand in the kitchen, watching Allie make a glass of iced tea. Her face, once so open and trusting, is closed to me. I struggle to think of something to say to her, something meaningful and warm. I want her to know I'm excited about the college she has chosen, that I know the adventure of her life is just starting and that I am proud of her. But the look on her face is so mad that I think she might slug me if I open my mouth.
One night -- after a long period of silence between us -- I asked what I might have done or said to make her angry with me. She sighed and said, "Mom, you haven't done anything. It's fine." It is fine -- just distant.
Somehow in the past we had always found some way to connect. When Allie was a toddler , I would go to the day- care center after work. I'd find a quiet spot and she would nurse -- our eyes locked together, reconnecting with each other.
In middle school, when other mothers were already lamenting the estrangement they felt with their adolescent daughters, I hit upon a solution: rescue raids. I would show up occasionally at school, sign her out of class and take her somewhere -- out to lunch, to the movies, once for a long walk on the beach. It may sound irresponsible, but it kept us close when other mothers and daughters were floundering. We talked about everything on those outings -- outings we kept secret from family and friends.
When she started high school, I'd get up with her in the morning to make her a sandwich for lunch, and we'd silently drink a cup of tea together before the 6:40 bus came.
A couple of times during her senior year I went into her room at night, the light off, but before she went to sleep. I'd sit on the edge of her bed, and she'd tell me about problems: a teacher who lowered her grade because she was too shy to talk in class, a boy who teased her, a friend who had started smoking. Her voice, coming out of the darkness, was young and questioning.
A few days later I'd hear her on the phone, repeating some of the things I had said, things she had adopted for her own.
But now we are having two kinds of partings. I want the romanticized version, where we go to lunch and lean across the table and say how much we will miss each other. I want smiles through tears, bittersweet moments of reminiscence and the chance to offer some last bits of wisdom.
But as she prepares to depart, Allie's feelings have gone underground. When I reach to touch her arm, she pulls away. She turns down every invitation I extend. She lies on her bed, reading Emily Dickinson until I say I have always loved Emily Dickinson, and then she closes the book.
Some say the tighter your bond with your child, the greater her need to break away, to establish her own identity in the world. The more it will hurt, they say. A friend of mine who went through a difficult time with her daughter but now has become close to her again, tells me," Your daughter will be back to you."
"I don't know," I say. I sometimes feel so angry that I want to go over and shake Allie. I want to say, "Talk to me -- or you're grounded!" I feel myself wanting to say that most horrible of all mother phrases: "Think of everything I've done for you."
Late one night, as I'm getting ready for bed she comes to the bathroom door and watches me brush my teeth. For a moment, I think I must be brushing my teeth in a way she doesn't approve of. But then she says, "I want to read you something." It's a pamphlet from her college. "These are tips for parents."
I watch her face as she reads the advice aloud: "'Don't ask your child if she is homesick,' it says. 'She might feel bad the first few weeks, but don't let it worry you. This is a natural time of transition. Write her letters and call her a lot. Send a package of goodies...' "
Her voice breaks, and she comes over to me and buries her head in my shoulder. I stroke her hair, lightly, afraid she'll bolt if I say a word. We stand there together for long moments, swaying. Reconnecting.
I know it will be hard again. It's likely there will be a fight about something. But I am grateful to be standing in here at midnight, both of us tried and sad, toothpaste smeared on my chin, _ . | high22350.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "negative"
},
"options": [
"negative",
"responsible",
"shocking",
"positive"
],
"question": "The author's attitude towards images of alcohol is _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{
"answer... | Children form opinions about drugs and alcohol at a very early age. Even four and five year olds have definite opinions about alcohol. Preschoolers, because of the commercials they see on TV, often think that alcohol helps people have more fun and be better athletes! Images of alcohol are everywhere in out society--consumption of alcohol is represented twice per hour in daytime shows, and three times in an average evening program.
Despite the wide spread of alcohol in our society, and the problems that can be connected with it, many parents feel uncomfortable when talking about alcohol with their children, or are not sure when and how to start. Many parents believe that teenage drinking is something that their children would never be involved in.
Unfortunately, teenage drinking is very common in North Dakota. In a state wide survey of adolescents in junior and senior high school. Only 24% claimed to have never consumed alcohol. When asked about their drinking in the past 30 days:
*61% adolescents reported drinking
*42% drank five or more drinks in a row
*17% reported binge drinking
*4.2% reported driving and drinking
Other research on rural youth in North Dakota has found that about 10% of a sample of fifth and sixth graders were engaged in frequent drinking. Teenagers who reported alcohol use (especially those who began use in late elementary school and junior high school) were more likely to be depressed, feel less positive about both their family and friends, and have poorer grades.
Research has found that children and even teenagers look to their parents in making decisions about important things in their life. Decisions about using alcohol are undoubtedly something that parents will want to provide guidance about. Here are some suggestions about talking to children about alcohol. | high9096.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Egg in a bottle"
},
"options": [
"An interesting story",
"The pressure of the air",
"Egg in a bottle",
"Egg, bottle and match"
],
"question": "The best title of this passage can be _ .",
"question_type": "... | Here's an amazing way to get a hard-boiled egg into a bottle, even though the mouth of the boiled is smaller than the egg! What's more, you don't even need to touch the egg to get it to go in!
For this experiment you will need:
*a hard-boiled egg
*a glass bottle with a mouth just slightly smaller than the egg (a fruit-drink bottle works well)
*a 8-cm by 8-cm(3-inch by 3-inch)piece of newspaper
*a match
Remove the shell from the egg. Set the egg on the mouth of the bottle to see that the egg does not fit through the mouth.
Light the paper. Remove the egg from the mouth of the bottle and drop the burning paper into the bottle. Before the fire goes out, set the egg back onto the mouth of the bottle. Within a few seconds the egg will squeeze through the mouth and into the bottle.
As it entered the bottle, the egg may have broken into pieces. This happens when the diameter of the egg is more than about 0.5 cm(about 3/16 inch) larger than the diameter of the bottle's opening.
Why does the egg slide into the bottle, even though no one is pushing it? Because the pressure of the air is pushing it. Before the burning paper is put into the bottle, the pressure of the air inside is the same as outside. The burning paper, however, heats the air inside. This causes the air inside to expand. When the egg is placed on top of the bottle, it seals the bottle. When the fire goes out, the air inside cools. As it cools, the air contracts , and the pressure of the air inside becomes less than the pressure outside. Then, the higher outside pressure pushes the egg into the bottle! | high10484.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "David Cameron isn't as popular in America as James Cameron"
},
"options": [
"Americans are dissatisfied with the quality of life at present",
"71 percent of Americans are pessimistic about the future.",
"Michael Hogan is exec... | Most Americans think the quality of life for adults under 30 years old, or Generation Y, won't be as good as it is for their baby-boomer parents, according to a new poll.
More than 60 percent of people are pessimistic about the future, and 71 percent of young Americans under 30 said they would rather go back in time than leap to the future.
"It's interesting how strongly people feel things are getting worse, and how strongly people are backward looking," said Michael Hogan, 35, executive online editor at Vanity Fair which conducted the survey with CBS News.
"This is a time of high unemployment, people coming out of school with very few job prospects. The past probably seems more comforting," he added.
Although the past may seem appealing for young Americans, only 50 percent of seniors over 65 said they wanted to travel back in time.
The nationwide poll of 1,167 adults, which included questions about culture, lifestyle and politics, also revealed that if given the choice to take anything with them to the afterlife, 25 percent would take a pet, 47 percent would opt for a photo album but only nine percent wanted to take an iPhone or a Blackberry.
Despite romancing the past, people believe in rewarding the forward-minded. Thirty-three percent of those polled believe Internet entrepreneurs are most deserving of their large salaries, followed by 15 percent for sports stars and 12 percent for bankers. Only eight percent felt movie stars should get the dollars they do.
And despite a recent trip to the United States, more than three-quarters of people questioned could not identity David Cameron as the prime minister of Great Britain. Twenty seven percent might have confused him with "Avatar" director James Cameron when they thought he was a movie director. | high21881.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "send postcards as the gifts to the class"
},
"options": [
"send postcards as the gifts to the class",
"make phone calls to all the classmates",
"buy gifts for some of the classmates",
"give each classmate a picture as a... | Ask a question! Email it to Letters@Highlights.com.
Gift Giving
I'm going to China and everyone in my class is asking me to buy them something. What should I do?
Reply from the Highlights Editor:
Your classmates are probably just excited about your trip. Most likely they don't expect you to buy gifts for everyone. Sending a few postcards to the entire class during your trip would be a wonderful way to share your experiences. The pictures on the cards and your words of description will be the best gift of all.
Dog Begging
My dog always begs for food at the dinner table. I really want to feed him, but my mom says I can't. I'm afraid he won't like me anymore. What should I do?
Reply from the Highlights Editor:
Your dog loves you for many more reasons than just for what you feed him. You can show him that you care about him by playing with him, by petting him and speaking kindly to him and by making sure he has fresh water. It might be best if your dog is not near the dinner table while you are eating. You could teach him to stay in another room.
Being Bilingual
My aunt insists that we speak our language(Tagalog) at home and English outside the house. Do you think she is right?
Reply from the Highlights Editor:
It is a great gift to have someone in your family who is willing to take the time to teach you another language. It's a good way to keep family traditions alive, and it helps develop your language skills. Your ability to use both English and Tagalog will help you learn a third and fourth language later in life. So it sounds like a great idea! | high11942.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "offer some ways to experience extreme sports"
},
"options": [
"offer some ways to experience extreme sports",
"help readers have different excitement during their holidays",
"introduce the most exciting sports around the worl... | Ice-climb in London
The huge ice skating area at Somerset House has been drawing crowds each winter for years, but last November an ice wall was added for the first time, bringing even more danger and excitement. Standing more than 26 feet high is along line of pure ice, featuring three climbing faces of varying difficulty using crampons ,ice picks. and ropes. Using it costs about PS40 (020 7854600;www. somersethouseicednk. org. uk). It is open from late November to the end of January.
Hang-gliding in Rio De Janeiro
According to the hang-gliders of Rio, once you ' ve swooped over the city's streets,gazing at the Sugar Loaf, and the city of Niteroion, the other side of Guanabara Bay, you will understand why birds are peaceful animals. Accept the romantic idea on a 30-minute cycling flight from the 525-meter Pedra Bonita in the Sao Conrado mountain down to the Sao Conrado beach. It costs aroundPS55.
Contact Air Adventures (021 98439006;www. rio-hanggliding, com).
Sky-walk in Sydney
This experience takes having a look at a nice view to the whole other level, as you are suspended more than 850 feet (260m)above street level,controlled to a glass viewing platform of Sydney Tower. It's the city's highest building. After a thorough briefing and being fitted with protective sky suits , sky-walkers make their way along two-purpose-built walkways and platforms, which have transparent floor,while a guide points out landmarks. Night time sky-walks. are also available. It costs PS46.
Mountain-boarding in Leeds
Riders roll down hills and fly off jumps, doing tricks. A number of special mountain-board parks have been opened around the country (see www. ridethehill. com). But the Leeds body of the Boarding Society practice at least twice a week in the city in locations that include Roundhay Park. Those with their own boards are welcomed to join them. Contact the society at www. scua. info. Alternatively, beginners can get lessons in Halifax at the Another World(014 22 245196; www mountainboarding.co.uk)mountain-board center for PS8 an hour with equipment. | high20547.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "a river"
},
"options": [
"a river",
"a lake",
"a sea",
"an ocean"
],
"question": "The largest island surrounded by fresh water is in _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
}
] | The total area of land on earth is about 149 million square kilometers, or about 39 percent of the total area of the earth.
The average height of the land is about 750 metres above the sea level .The Eurasian land mass is the largest with an area of 54,527,600 square kilometers .The smallest continent is the Australian mainland, with an area of about 7,614,600 square kilometers, which together with Tasmania, New Zealand, New Guinea and the Pacific Islands, is described as Oceania .The total area of Oceania is about 8,935,500 square kilometres, including West Iran which is political in Asia .
The world's largest peninsula is Arabia ,with an area of about 3,327,500 square kilometres .
The largest island in the world is Greenland, with an area of about 2,175,600 square kilometres. The largest island surrounded by fresh water is the Ilha de Marajo (4,022 square kilometres) in the mouth of the Amazon River, Brazil .The largest island in a lake is Manitoulin Island (2,766 square kilometres) in the Canadian section of Lake Huron . This island itself has on it a lake of 106 square kilometres called Manitou lake, in which there are several islands. | high21659.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "temperatures and water levels in the air"
},
"options": [
"different temperatures",
"different water levels",
"temperatures and water levels in the air",
"temperatures and levels of air"
],
"question": "The shap... | Winter weather has returned to northern areas of the world. In much of the United States, winter means the return of snow.
Snow is a form of frozen water. It contains many groups of tiny ice particles ( ) called snow crystals ( ) . These crystals grow from water particles in cold clouds. They usually grow around a piece of dust. All snow crystals have six sides, but they grow in different shapes. The shape depends mainly on the temperature and water levels in the air. The shape of a snow crystal may change from one form to another as the crystal passes through levels of air with different temperatures. Snow contains much less water than rain. About seventy-five centimeters of snow has as much water as two and one-half centimeters of rain.
Generally, the color1 of snow and ice appears white. This is because the light we see from the sun is white. Most natural materials take in some sunlight. However, when light travels from air to snow, some light is sent back, or reflected ( ). Snow crystals have many surfaces to reflect sunlight. It is this light that gives snow its white color1.
Much of the water we use comes from snow. Melting snow gives water to rivers and crops. Snowfall helps to protect plants and some wild animals from cold. Fresh snow is made largely of air which is kept among the snow crystals. Because the air has trouble moving, the movement of heat is greatly reduced. However, snow is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people in the United States every year. Many people die in traffic accidents on roads that are covered with snow or ice. | high18966.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "to supply information which might be useful"
},
"options": [
"to argue that women are superior to men",
"to convince women that they should spend more time at home",
"to convince women that they should spend more time at work... | Many American women are earning money outside their homes today. Among women who are eighteen to sixty-four years old, more than fifty per cent have jobs.
In general, working women have had more education then those who stay at home. Of those who work, thirty-two per cent have attended college, compared with twenty per cent of those who do not have jobs.
Among women with jobs, eight out of ten drive a car to work, and eight per cent took a vacation a way from home during the past year. Much of their traveling was by air.
These figures come from a report which was written for advertisers. The report gives advertisers a new picture of women today. For instance, it tells advertisers that fifty-one per cent of all American women have traveled by air--along with fifty-nine per cent of all American men.
The lesson for American business is that many women now have other interests in addition to their homes. They like advertisements which show women in office, planes, and cars. | high20221.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "further researches on the Mona Lisa"
},
"options": [
"the famous artist Leonardo da Vinci",
"an American physicist's discovery",
"further researches on the Mona Lisa",
"The uses of modern technology"
],
"questio... | A camera and a computer can "see" something that perhaps millions of pairs of eyes failed to see for 480 years: the Mona Lisa's necklace. The discovery about the famous painting was made by an American physicist.
The Mona Lisa, painted by the Italian, Leonardo da Vinci, has been on show for many years in Paris. Now a row of white spots on the neck have been "seen". They are said to be the remains of a necklace which the artist later painted over.
The painting will be examined further by using infrared scanning techniques. Laser technology can be used to show what lies directly under the surface of the finished work, too. This will help us to understand how the artist drew the picture: Did he begin with a quick-made drawing or have second thoughts as he painted the picture?
This kind of knowledge will show us the famous artist at work. It may also help to explain Mona Lisa's smile, which has puzzled art lovers for centuries. | high638.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "They are almost separated from the outside world."
},
"options": [
"They look much like their great-grandparents.",
"They can do everything as they like.",
"They are well developed on all sides.",
"They are almost separ... | There's a dark little joke: Rip Van Winkle awakens in the 21st century after a hundred-year sleep. Men and women dash about, talking to small metal devices. Young people sit on sofas, moving miniature athletes around on electronic screens. Airports, hospitals, shopping malls-- every place Rip goes just puzzles him. But when he finally walks into a schoolroom, the old man knows exactly where he is. "This is a school," he declares. "We used to have these black in 1906. Only now the blackboards are green."
American schools aren't exactly frozen in time, but considering the pace of change in other areas of life, our public schools tend to feel like throwbacks. Kids spend much of the day as their great-grandparents once did: sitting in rows, listening to teachers lecture, scribbling notes by hand, reading textbooks that are out of date. A yawning chasm separates the world inside the schoolhouse from the world outside.
The national conversation on education has long focused on reading scores, math tests and closing the "achievement gap". This is not a story about that conversation. This is a story about the big public conversation the nation is not having about education, the one that will ultimately determine whether an entire generation of kids will fail to make the grade in the global economy because they can't think their way through abstract problems, work in teams or speak a language other than English.
This week the conversation will burst onto the front page, when the NCSAW releases a blueprint for rethinking American education from pre-K to 12 and beyond to better prepare students _ in the global economy. While that report includes some debatable proposals, there is a remarkable agreement among educators and business and policy leaders on one key conclusion: we need to bring what we teach and how we teach into the 21st century. Today's economy demands not only a high-level competence in the traditional academic disciplines but also what might be called 21st-century skills. | high24047.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "find land; get permission; cost project"
},
"options": [
"get permission; cost project; finish touches",
"cost project; build project; finish touches",
"find land; cost project; build project",
"find land; get permissio... | Build the Dream is a website produced by Travis Perkins, one of the UK's leading builders merchants, to assist with self-builds, renovations, extensions and improvements. Go with the first step; find land, get planning permission and cost your project. Start out with our advice and practical help on costing your project--labor, materials and those hidden extras. All of the information you need on all aspects of building your project, from sourcing building materials to understanding building regulations and from site safety to hiring tools and equipment.
Click for details
Cost Your Project. Our cost-effective estimating and take-off service gets your project off to a flying start. Your material and labor costs are set out by build stage to help you control your project costs.
Use Our Estimating Service
All Your Toolhire Needs, All in One Place
Visit the Travis Perkins Hire Website
Branch Finder. We supply more than 120,000 products across our 1200+ branch network to satisfy your self-build needs. Use our Branch Finder Service your local branch.
Use Our Branch Finder Service
Code For Sustainable Homes. The Code for Sustainable Homes sets new national standards for the sustainable design and construction of new homes.
Read More About the Code for Sustainable Homes
Finishing Touches. We can provide everything you need to complete your project including _ , _ , _ , _ and _ .
Building Materials. We supply over 120,000 products from the leading manufacturers.
Read more about Building Materials | high7905.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "seek their favorite food in a new place"
},
"options": [
"seek their favorite food in a new place",
"avoid being constantly hunted",
"breed more young in a new place",
"adjust themselves to the changes of weather"
]... | Contrary to people's previous knowledge, it's food shortage not dietary preference that motivates birds to migrate thousands of miles back and forth between breeding and nonbreeding areas each year, a new research shows.
"It's not whether you eat insects,fruits or candy bars or where you eat them that counts,but how reliable that daytoday food source is," said the study leader W.Alice Boyle of the University of Arizona.
To figure out the underlying pressure that drives some birds to leave home for the season,Boyle examined 379 related species of New World flycatchers and compared their sizes,food types, habitats, migratory behaviors and whether or not they fed in flocks.
To compare the birds,the researchers constructed a "supertree" showing the exact evolutionary relationships among different species.
A computer analysis then determined whether a particular species was migratory because it ran in the "family" or whether something in the bird's environment was forcing it to leave each season.Boyle and her colleagues found that food shortage was the number one issue that predicted a species' migratory behavior. "Food availability is the underlying pressure, not diet and habitat," Boyle said.
An alternative strategy that the birds use to handle food shortage is to hunt in flocks, since a group is more likely to find a new source of food than an individual.
"If you suffer from food shortage, you have two options," Boyle said."You can either hunt with other birds or you can migrate." | high14184.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "By boat."
},
"options": [
"On foot.",
"By plane.",
"By boat.",
"By train."
],
"question": "How did the writer travel to Dublin?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_i... | London is my favorite city in the world and it's a place that draws me back to it again and again.
My first trip to London at the age of 19 was my first solo trip anywhere. I found a home stay program in one of my guidebooks so I spent my first several days staying on the out streets of London near Ealing Broadway. Each morning the older lady I was staying with would come into my room and place a cup of tea by my bedside and then wake me up so I could have breakfast and start my day of sight-seeing. It was like having my own British grandmother.
On that first trip to the UK, which was three weeks long, I decided to spend a week in London and then the rest of the time in Liverpool with a pen pal of mine. Well, after traveling up to Liverpool and spending two days with him, I found we really weren't such great friends after all, so I decided to take the boat from Liverpool to Dublin and make my way to County Galway to see my family. Partly, I wanted to go to Ireland. And partly, I just wanted to get away from my pen pal and couldn't afford a whole week on my own in England, so family to the rescue!
After a great week in Galway with my s, I went back to London for a few more days and ended up staying with some s there I didn't even know I had.
One of the funny things about that entire trip was that every single day when I was in London it rained. The only time it didn't rain was the week I spent in Ireland. | high22436.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Material goods bring people less happiness than experiences."
},
"options": [
"Material goods bring people less happiness than experiences.",
"About onethird of the people prefer material goods to experiences.",
"Materialists... | If your parents were to surprise you with a present on your birthday, which one would you prefer, a trip to the amusement park or a new pair of shoes?
According to Science Daily, about onethird of the people are likely to prefer shoes to a fun trip. These people are called "materialists", namely, those who value material goods more than experiences. But which of the two choices makes people happier?
Back in 2009, Ryan Howell, a professor at San Francisco State University, found that in the long run, experiences make people happier than possessions. This is because the joy of receiving a new object fades over time as you get used to seeing it every day. Experiences, on the other hand, can continue to bring you joy in the future through happy memories.
But materialists should at least be happy when they first buy something, shouldn't they?
To figure it out, Howell did another study. He classified a group of adults according to their personality types, ranging from less materialistic to more materialistic. Each person was asked different questions to see how they felt about spending money on material goods versus spending money on experiences.
As expected, the more materialistic participants got less happiness from purchases than the less materialistic, because such purchases didn't fit with their personalities and values. But to Howell's surprise, he found that materialists weren't any happier even if they spent money on material items.
This is because materialists worry that others may criticize or look down on their choices. "There are certain value systems that are rejected by society," said Howell. "When we find out someone is materialistic, we think less of them, and that drives their happiness down."
Another reason is that materialistic people always focus on what they don't have instead of what they have now. This makes them feel less satisfied and grateful.
If you happen to be a materialistic person, there's something you can try. "If materialists make more accurate purchases, rather than trying to impress others, they will be happier," Howell said.
You should also remember what an ancient Greek philosopher once said, "Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." | high13833.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "have normal language skills"
},
"options": [
"are poor in their lessons",
"have normal language skills",
"work much harder than others",
"are looked down upon by others"
],
"question": "Children with a stutter a... | A new Australian research indicates that children with a stutter do not suffer disadvantages at school, More than ten percent of children have a stutter by the age of four but they score just as high as other children on tests designed to judge their language, thinking skills and character.
Professor Reilly's team studied over 1600 children from Melbourne, Australia. Their mothers had been filling out regular questionnaires since their babies were eight months old and the children were judged by a range of language and behaviour tests when they reached the age of four. Reilly and her colleagues asked the parents to call the study group if their children started showing signs of stuttering. Diagnoses were confirmed by a researcher, who then visited the homes of children with a stutter every month to check on their progress.
By the age of four, 181 of the children studied had been diagnosed with a stutter. Follow-up visits to the 181 children who were judged after diagnoses showed just nine no longer had a stutter one year later. Stuttering children scored 5. 5 points higher than that of their non-stuttering children on language tests and 2. 6 points higher on the test of non-verbal intelligence. The researchers said it was possible that stuttering could improve language skills, or that stuttering could result from very fast language development among some children.
The research suggests parents of children who stutter are usually advised to wait a year before looking for treatment --which can be expensive -- to see if the stutter goes away by itself, unless the children become very unhappy or stop talking. | high9928.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Get the tears big enough to break away from his eyes."
},
"options": [
"Get the tears big enough to break away from his eyes.",
"Get the tears big enough to fall off of his eyes.",
"Rub his eyes against his helmet to let the ... | Entering Space, astronauts can give us a fascinating account of a shuttle flight, describing the pressure of a countdown and launch, the complexities of living the days in the strange weightless environment, the challenges of working in space, the emotional effect of seeing earth from space, the drama of the meteoric landing.
However, there are also plenty of things that astronauts can't do because of their weightless environment, and that's very sad. What's more, they can't even let their sadness show, because it's impossible to cry in zero gravity.
Of course, astronauts can still produce tears. But crying is much more difficult in space, reported The Atlantic in January. Without gravity, tears don't flow downward out of the eyes like they do here on Earth. This means that when you cry in space, your tears have nowhere to go - they just stick to your eyes.
In May 2011, astronaut Andrew Feustel experienced this during one of his spacewalks. "Tears," he said, "don't fall off of your eye... They just kind of stay there."
Besides making your vision unclear, this can also cause physical pain. Back on Earth, tears are supposed to bring comfort to the eyes. But that's not the case in space. The space environment dries out astronauts' eyes, and when tears suddenly wet the eyes, it can cause pain rather than comfort. "My right eye is painful like crazy." Feustel told his teammate during the walk.
Since gravity doesn't work in space, astronauts need some extra help to get rid of the tears. Feustel chose to rub his eyes against his helmet to wipe the tears away. Another choice is to just wait - "When the tears get big enough they simply break free of the eye and float around," astronaut Ron Parise told The Atlantic.
There are lots of small things - things like crying - that we are so used to on Earth. We usually take them for granted, until they become a problem in a totally different environment, like space. There, astronauts can't talk to each other directly. They also can't eat or drink in normal ways. They can't even burp , because there is no gravity to hold the food down in their stomach. If they do burp, they just end up throwing up everything in their stomach, according to the UK National Space Center.
Thus, perhaps it's only space explorers who can honestly say: "Gravity, you're the best." | high7911.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "To improve Aboriginal children's school attendance."
},
"options": [
"To develop advanced education.",
"To improve Aboriginal children's school attendance.",
"To get tribal chiefs to support education.",
"To punish pare... | Parents on South Australia's Aboriginal lands may lose some of their financial aid if they do not send their children to school. The new rules draw wide concern.
Mundine is Prime Minister Tony Abbott's top advisor on issues concerning Aboriginals, native Australians. "Now, I know the government needs some necessary measures but I think punishing the parents is really the last choice." Mr. Mundine says the situation can be changed if the tribal leaders support education. "We need to work with parents and communities because we are making a huge cultural change here." But other officials say they believe the threat of stopping aid will force families to take education more seriously.
The State of South Australia says it has special programs for Aboriginal children. The students work with their parents and teachers first to develop a personal learning plan and the public schools provide special workers to work individually with Aboriginal students. At the age of seven, Aboriginal students can join a program called Enter for Success designed to attract students to school. The students can choose which high school to attend and receive support in reaching the goals on their individual learning plans.
The State of Western Australia also has special programs for Aboriginal and other ethnic groups. The state operates a program called Focus Schools which centers on basic skills like reading, writing and counting. 67% of these public focus schools serve the students in 79 very rural areas. Most of them are primary schools. The Focus Schools program also includes 118 coaches working with students in 134 schools. | high13827.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "introduce a movie called Night at the Museum"
},
"options": [
"introduce a book called Night at the Museum",
"introduce a movie called Night at the Museum",
"made known a USdirector Shawn Levy",
"make students learn his... | Teachers spend countless years trying to make history come alive for their students. But, prefix = st1 /USDirector Shawn Levy attempts to do this on film in the recently released Night at the Museum.
The film is adapted from Milan Trenc's book of the same name. It brings to life a world where dinosaurs wander the earth, a former president rides again, warlike early Asians return, and cowboys and Roman soldiers seek to bring back their old goals.
The familiar comedy star Ben Stiller acts as a luckless dreamer named Larry Daley. He takes a position as night watchman at the New York Museum of Natural History.
On Larry's first night, he's left alone by the three aging guards he's replacing. They fail to inform him of the museum's rather unusual nightlife.
Soon Larry finds himself chased down the hallways by the very lively skeleton of a dinosaur, in the middle of a confrontation with Asian warriors. He is caught in a territorial battle between a cowboy and a Roman general and meets face-to-face with former USpresident Teddy Roosevelt, played by Robin Williams. They are each from an exhibit that has come to life through the magic of a priceless Egyptian tablet.
While the film fails to develop very much in some areas (for example, Larry's troubled relationship with a son), it does have enough special effects, and jokes to engage the audience.
Bottom Line: Definitely not Oscar-worthy, but a great way to relax during a holiday. | high16787.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Three."
},
"options": [
"Two.",
"Three.",
"Four.",
"One."
],
"question": "At least how many children does Mrs. Gardiner have?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_ind... | When Cathleen Gardiner's twins were born 17 years ago, doctors told her that they were a pair in a million. One had Down syndrome , while the other did not. Here, Cathleen tells their touching story.
Since Sean was born 17 years ago, I have always thought that he is just as wonderful as his brother and sister. Though he had a disability , we have never viewed him as a burden. He has always been a blessing. The doctors explained that though they were twins, they came from two different eggs. Lisa could walk at 11 months old, while Sean didn't take his first steps till he was three. By two, Lisa was talking a lot, but Sean wasn't able to speak until he was nearly four.
For the first five years of his life, Sean needed a great deal of care. Looking after him was my full-time job, though I also worked as a technical adviser in a computing company. We never treated them differently. We gave them the same toys and spoke to them in the same way. We encouraged Sean to keep up with Lisa, even though he never could, and we would help him develop his abilities. We sent them to the same primary school even after doctors advised us that Sean should go to a school for the disabled.
We had to explain to Lisa that he wouldn't learn as quickly as she would. She told us that she'd help him with his school work. Having a non-disabled twin has really helped Sean develop. The love they share has given him a great deal of support. Now Sean and Lisa are both about to finish high school. I don't think he would have done nearly as well today without Lisa's help. | high2869.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Huge."
},
"options": [
"Huge.",
"Hot.",
"Bright.",
"All above."
],
"question": "Which words tell us what the sun is like?",
"question_type": null
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answ... | The sun is a huge, hot, bright star. It is important because without it there would be no life on Earth. The sun gives us light and heat.
All living things need light and heat from the sun to live. Plants need light and heat to grow. They use the light from the sun to make food. We cannot make our own food, but plants can. All the food we eat comes from plants in a food chain which starts with the sun. For example,
Animals need sunlight, too. Just like us, their food comes from a food chain which begins with the sun and the plants.
sun- leaf- caterpillar -bird
sun- seaweed -small fish- whale
Sunlight means we can see during the day. If there was no sun, it would be dark all the time. Even when the sky is cloudy, the sunlight is very strong and it shines through the clouds. | high20235.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "More people may lose their jobs."
},
"options": [
"The economic recovery is to be sped up.",
"Many companies may make higher profits.",
"More people may lose their jobs.",
"Traditional skills will be improved."
],
... | The Toyota Prius hybrids adapted by Google's engineers have covered 300,000 miles on the roads of California without a human at the wheel, but with only one accident by a human-controlled car.It's clear that driverless cars are much safer than human-controlled ones.40,000 people are killed every year in road accidents in the US, many of which are caused by human error.Besides, driverless vehicles could make better use of the road and reduce the size of car parks, too.
With technology, a machine can perform a complex task without human involvement This means our thought about what machines can and cannot do needs updating urgently.
However, ignore the beautiful words and think about what Google has done.This isn't just about care.Economists are increasingly puzzled by the fact that the rate of job-creation is much lower than expected and the length of time for which people are unemployed has rocketed to 40 weeks twice as long as that during any previous postwar recovery.Economic theory says that when companies begin to grow or become profitable again, they buy equipment and hire workers.But that isn't happening.Companies are still buying equipment, but they're not employing workers.
So where did the jobs go? Andrew McAfee explains his view in his new book Race Against the Machine." Advances in self-driving car by Google represent the next wave of job-eliminating technology.Many skills (such as driving) may eventually become worthless, at least in the job market."
And as for those thinking that driverless cars might appeal to most motorists, there is the uncomfortable fact that the car has peaked.We are driving less year on year.Traffic jams reduce the romance from driving.And young people no longer have the desire to own cars like they used to. | high17499.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "the patient was being unreasonable"
},
"options": [
"Mrs. Jones would ask for more tests",
"the patient was being unreasonable",
"the nurse was joking with him",
"Mrs. Jones would call him"
],
"question": "The w... | My first reaction was annoyance. It was Friday afternoon, and I was within an hour of finishing my work for the week. As I was leaving, a nurse brought me one more patient message. The statement read: "Mm. Jones called to say that she has had blurred vision ever since her medical test this morning. " I smiled. Suddenly our tests were causing eye problems.
This week my patients had questioned everything. My patient with high blood pressure had stopped coming to her treatment on the advice of an Internet chat room. A woman who had a mental problem was substituting (......) St. John' s word for her medication. Now Mrs. Jones was imagining problems. I rolled my eyes.
My second reaction was worry. As I looked through her record, I tried to figure out why she would have blurred vision, but nothing in her record explained the new problem. She' s probably just anxious, I thought. Still, she wouldn't have called if she had been all right. I picked up the phone.
What 1 next felt can only be described as delight. Before I made the call, the nurse ran in: Mrs. Jones called. Her vision is fine. Turns out she picked up the wrong glasses when she left the office. The X-ray technician has been having the same problem. I let out a lugh. Mrs. Jones had been right. Her vision had been blurred. Now we know why.
Finally I felt shame. I came to realize what Mrs. Jones had taught me. I had first known she was wrong, that her anxiety had _ . Instead, my medical training had clouded mine. Now I feel thankful that Mrs. Jones figured it out before I made a mistake about our relationship. Patients come to me for my help. They pay me to listen, diagnose , treat and talk. That suggests trust; I must remember that, and trust them too. | high21895.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "has side effects on students in college entrance exams"
},
"options": [
"can't be avoided before college entrance exams",
"contributes to scores in college entrance exams",
"has no effects on good math students",
"has s... | Worrying about how you'll perform on a math test may actually contribute to a lower test score, US researchers said on Saturday.
Math anxiety--feelings of dread and fear and avoiding math--can weaken the brain's limited amount of working capacity, a resource needed to calculate difficult math problems, said Mark Ashcrafi, a psychologist at the University of Nevada Las Vegas who studies the problem.
"It turns out that math anxiety occupies a person's working memory," said Ashcraft, who spoke at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco.
Ashcraft said while easy math tasks such as addition require only a small part of a person's working memory, harder calculations require much more.
Worrying about math takes up a large part of a person's working memory stores as well, _ disaster for the anxious student who is taking a high-stakes test .
Stress about how one does on tests like college entrance exams can make even good math students choke. "All of a sudden they start looking for the short cuts," said University of Chicago researcher Sian Beilock.
Although test preparation classes can help students get over this anxiety, they are limited to students whose families can afford them.
Finally, she said, "It may not be wise to rely completely on scores to predict who will succeed."
While the causes of math anxiety are unknown, Ashcraft said, "People who manage to get over math anxiety have completely normal math ability." | high20553.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Tough."
},
"options": [
"Tough.",
"Smooth.",
"Normal.",
"Tiring."
],
"question": "Which of the following best describes Webster's life at Yale?",
"question_type": null
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_... | Noah Webster, born on October 16, 1758 , is known for The American Dictionary of the English Language. He has been called the " Father of American Scholarship and Education. " His " Blue-Backed Speller" books were used to teach spelling and reading to five generations of American children. But how much .do you know about him beyond that?
At the age of 16, Noah Webster began attending ,Yale College. Unfortunately, he spent his four years at Yale during the American Revolutionary War, and, because of food shortages, many of his college classes were held in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Later, he served in the army.
Having graduated from Yale in 1778, Webster wanted to continue his education in order to earn his law degree. He had to teach school in order to pay for his education. He set up many small schools that didn't survive, but he was a good teacher because instead of forcing his students to learn, like most teachers did, he rewarded them. He earned his law degree in 1781, but did not practice law until 1789. Once he started he found the law was not to his liking.
Webster did not have much money. In 1793 , Alexander Hamilton lent him $ 1500 to move to New York City to edit a newspaper. In December, he founded New York ' s first daily newspaper, American Minerva, and edited it for four years. For decades, he published . textbooks, political essays, a report on some diseases, and newspaper articles for his party, He wrote so much that a modern list of his published works required 655 pages .Noah Webster died on May 28, 1843 and was buried in the Grove Street Cemetery. | high5860.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Yonkers"
},
"options": [
"Virginia",
"Yonkers",
"New York City",
"Louisian."
],
"question": "Where did Fitzgerald spend most of her childhood?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
... | One of the most successful singers of the twentieth century , Ella Fitzgerald, has made several different styles of her own. She was born in Virginia but was brought up in Yonkers, New York. Chick Webb noticed her in a competition when she was sixteen. He asked her to sing with his band , and when he died in 1939, she took over.
Unlike Besie Smith, Ella Fitzgerald taught herself the sentimental music so popular in the 1930's--songs like "My Heart Belongs to Daddy"--- and her recordings became best sellers. During the 1940's she developed her own "scat singing", for songs like "Flying Home" and "Lady Be good".
Ella Fitzgerald was the perfect musical partner for her friend, the trumpets Louis Armstrong, matching him in warmth and artistry. " I just like music," she has said."To me, it's a story. There is only one thing better than singing... it's singing." | high9082.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "A robbery can affect your moods at home."
},
"options": [
"You tend to undervalue your possessions.",
"You cannot insure against damage to property.",
"A robbery can affect your moods at home.",
"It takes a long time to... | Many people think there is no need to take special care over home security.
"I'm all right, I'm insured "
Maybe--if you're fully insured. Even then you can never recover the real value you place on your possessions. But you can't insure against the upset and unhappiness that we all feel if our homes are torn apart by some stranger, our windows and doors broken, our precious possessions ruined.
"It won't happen to me"
Won't it? A home is broken into every minute or so of the day. The thefts of all kinds, including cars and property stolen from cars, happen twice as frequently.
"I've nothing worth stealing"
You may think not. But in fact everyone has something worth a thief's attention. And we all have things of special value to us even if they're worth little or nothing in cash terms.
"I'm just a tenant here"
The thief doesn't care whether you're a tenant or an owner-occupier. You're just as likely to be robbed. Have a word with the owner of the house if you think extra locks and fastenings are necessary.
"They'll get in anyway"
Most thieves are on the lookout for easy jobs. They are soon discouraged by houses they can't get into in any quick and easy way. So it's worth taking care.
"This booklet will help you"
It's based on the practical experience of police forces throughout the country. Most of the suggestions will cost you only a few minutes extra time and thought. A few may involve some expense, but this is small compared with the loss and unhappiness you might otherwise suffer.
If you are in doubt, ask for free advice from the Crillle Prevention Officer at your local police station. | high5690.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "A \"wonder\" mineral"
},
"options": [
"Asbestos mined in Canada",
"Fireproof matter",
"A \"wonder\" mineral",
"A new roofing material"
],
"question": "Which title best expresses the main idea of this passage?",
... | Although man has known asbestos for many hundreds of years, it was not until 160 years ago that it was mined for the first time on the North American continent. H. W. Johns, owner of a New York City Supply Shop for roofers , was responsible for(...) the opening of that first mine.
Mr. Johns was given a piece of asbestos which had been found in Italy. He experimented with the material and then showed its surprising powers to his customers. After putting on a pair of asbestos gloves, which looked much like ordinary work gloves, he took red-hot coals from the fireplace and played with them in his hands. How astonished the customers were to discover that he was not burned at all. You can well imagine that he had increasing business in asbestos roofing materials. However, because it was very expensive to transport (carry) them from Italy to the United States, Mr. Johns sent out a young scientist to seek a source nearer home. This young man found great vein , in the province of Quebec in Canada.
Ever since 1881 Quebec has led the world in the production of this unusual mineral, which is made up of magnesium, silicon, iron, and oxygen. When it is mined, the asbestos is heavy, just as you would expect a mineral to be. When it is separated, a strange thing happens; the rock breaks down into fine, soft, soapy fibres .
Scientists do not know why the rock can be separated easily into threads , but they have found thousands of users of this fireproof material, of the so-called "cloth of stone". | high21665.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "less than half of its population"
},
"options": [
"less than half of its population",
"30 million",
"4 million",
"500 million"
],
"question": "Eight months ago the number of registered users of Facebook in UK wa... | Facebook is now used by 30 million people in the UK, around half the population. Joanna Shields, vice president of Facebook Europe, made the announcement this morning at a media conference in London.
Globally, Facebook has more than 500 million registered users, a milestone it hit last summer. Last July it had 26 million registered UK users. In the last eight months, it has attracted four million extra UK users, bringing the UK total to 30 million.
Facebook, the brainchild of Mark Zuckerberg while he was still studying at Harvard University, was launched in February 2004. The pace of its global growth has sped rapidly - Facebook had only 150 million registered users in January 2009.
One third of women aged between 18 to 34 check Facebook when they first wake up, before even going to the toilet, according to the research. 21% check Facebook in the middle of the night, while 42% of the same group think it is fine to post drunken photos of themselves onto the social network, a study by Oxygen Media and Lightspeed Research found.
Shields was speaking this morning at the Financial Times Digital Media and Broadcasting Conference about the power Facebook's referrals can bring to media sites, such as newspapers and TV services. She explained that the average Facebook user has 130 friends who they share links to media sites with regularly. "Media companies which take advantage of that are really seeing the benefits," Shields said. Shields refused to be drawn on whether Facebook would develop its own mobile phone operating system and also said it was "silly" that Google had recently _ the feature which allowed Google users to refresh their contacts with Facebook friends. | high5848.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "he wanted his friends to think that was all he wanted to record"
},
"options": [
"he wanted to record the numbers for his research",
"he wanted to find out whether the tape recorder was working",
"he wanted to make his friend... | Once I invited a group of friends round to my house, telling them that I was going to record their speech. I said I was interested in their regional accents, and that it would take only a few minutes. Thus, on one evening, three people turned up at my house and were shown into my front room. When they saw the room they were a bit alarmed, for it was laid out as a studio. In front of each easy chair there was a microphone at head height, with wires leading to a tape-recorder in the middle of the floor. I explained that all I wanted was for them to count from one to twenty. Then we could relax and have a drink.
I turned on the tape-recorder and each in turn seriously counted from one to twenty in their best accent. When it was over, I turned the tape-recorder off and brought round the drinks, and for the rest of the evening there was general cheerful conversation--interrupted only by the fact that I had to take a telephone call in another room, which unfortunately lasted some time.
Or at least that was how it would appear. For, of course, the microphones were not connected to the tape-recorder in the middle of the room at all but to another one, which was turning happily away in the kitchen. The participants, having seen the visible tape-recorder turned off, paid no more attention to the microphones which stayed in front of their chairs, only a few inches from their mouths, thus giving excellent sound quality. And my lengthy absence meant that I was able to obtain as natural a piece of conversation as it would be possible to find.
I should add, perhaps, that I did tell my friends what had happened to them, after the event was over, and gave them the choice of destroying the tape. None of them wanted to--though for some years afterwards it always seemed to be my round when it came to the buying of drinks. Linguistic research can be a very expensive business. | high7087.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "children's success depends much on good skills in reading and writing"
},
"options": [
"speed-reading is the first step in a child's formal education",
"children today waste too much time on games, movies and sports",
"childr... | We all love our children and we all know how competitive the world is these days. What's it going to be like when our children leave school? Will they have the skills they need to stay ahead of the competition?
All children need two basic skills to succeed. They must be able to read and they must be able to write. And with so much information available to them these days, they must be able to read quickly and accurately. That's why your children need to be able to speed-read.
It'sironic that at this time of space-age technology, we've gone back to one of the earliest forms of mass communication--the written word. The Internet has introduced arevival of writing, and if you can't keep up, you'll be left behind. You certainly don't want your children to be left behind.
You can help to make sure that your children are excellent writers--you can help them to learn how to use their language. Better still, you can learn with them!
You and your children can spend time together in a worthwhilepursuit --learning how to write. Forget the theme parks, the computer games, the expensive movies and interesting sports. If you want your children to have treasured memories of time spent with you, learn together.
For less than you would pay for tickets to a theme park, you can invest in your children's future--help them learn to write well with my six-part writing course.
Don't stand by while your child is left further and further behind. | high162.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "He found it totally unexpected."
},
"options": [
"He found it totally unexpected.",
"He had no doubt about it.",
"He thought it needed further experiments.",
"He thought it was not convincing."
],
"question": "W... | Who cares if money can't buy you love? But it can still be your best friend forever. That's one of the surprising findings in a new research paper, "The Power of Money", published in me journal Psychological Science.
Like any best friend forever, money demonstrated to researchers its ability to _ us, reduce our sense of social exclusion and even reduce life's painful moments.
"I was surprised" says Katherine Vohs, one of the researchers and professor at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. "The findings were surprising because no one had connected the meaning of money to pain. The money wasn't buying the subjects more friends; it was only psychologically helpful."
In the research ,students were told they would be participating in a test of finger dexterity . One group was given some paper money to count, while the other group was given blank pieces of paper. Once the counting was complete, all the test subjects were asked to dip their fingers into bowls of water heated to 122 degrees--roughly the temperature of a very hot bath.
Result? Those who had been counting money reported less pain than those who had not. Subjects also were asked about their feelings. Those who handled actual money reported feeling stronger even 10 minutes after they put down the cash.
Combined with previous experiments, the findings confirmed what researchers have long doubted, that money acts as a general panacea in the brain, giving us social self-confidence and reducing physical pain without having to spend a dime on aspirin.
But can we get the same effect by using credit cards? "No, credit cards do not have the same effect, " Vohs says. "They are scary for most people, and they in fact represent debt m many ways." The findings could have an interesting effect in the business world, where recent trends have been to issue non-monetary rewards and bonuses instead of what was thought of as "cold, hard cash". | high7939.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Be generous to your friends"
},
"options": [
"Be a good listener",
"Be patient, compassionate",
"Be careful",
"Be generous to your friends"
],
"question": "In order to make good friends, you should do the follow... | Put a little love in your life
I remember growing up, my mom always said, "Half the fun of doing anything is sharing it with others." It is so true. Friends and mates allow us to enjoy our success and our joys, comfort us in our challenging moments, and provide a mirror for us to learn more about ourselves. I've always looked at friends as the family we choose. They enrich our lives. As Robert Louis Steven once said, "A friend is a present which you give yourself."
To be a good friend or partner, it's importable be a good listener. Hear what your friend or mate has to say first rather than jumping to conclusions or getting defensive. Sometimes it is useful to be their mirror, for when they hear their words repeated back to them, it can help them to realize that what they said was not exactly what they meant to say.
Patience, compassion and empathy are also important traits in being a good friend or partner. You know the old golden rule, "Care for others the way you would like them to care for you." The support of a friend during a tough time could make the difference between success and failure. Encouragement and confidence are priceless gifts that can help change a person's life.
Take care, though, with whom you choose to have close relationship, for they can have a tremendous impact on your self-esteem and life path. As someone once told me,"the attitude of your friends are like the buttons on an elevator. They will either take you up or down." | high23714.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "A simple, slow-paced life."
},
"options": [
"A simple, slow-paced life.",
"A life of hard work and security.",
"A religious, peasant-like life.",
"A life away from paper and pencils."
],
"question": "Which of th... | To Whom It May Concern:
Your address was forwarded to us by How to Magazine.All of us here think The International Institute of Not Doing Much is the best organization in the world.You know how to avoid unnecessary activities!
As a matter of fact, we closely followed the advice in your article.First, we replaced all our telephones with carrier pigeons.Simply removing the jingle of telephones and replacing them with the pleasant sounds of birds has had a remarkable effect on everyone.Besides, birds are cheaper than telephone service.After all, we are a business.We have to think of the bottom line.As a side benefit, the birds also fertilize the lawn outside the new employees' sauna .
Next, we sold the computers off to Stab, Grab, Grit, and Nasty, a firm of lawyers nearby.Our electricity bill went way down.Big savings! The boss is impressed.We have completely embraced paper technology.Now that we all use pencils, doodling is on the increase, and the quality of pencil woman ship is impressive, as you can tell from my handwriting in this letter.By the way, if you can, please send this letter back to us.We can erase and reuse it.Just tie it to Maggie's leg and she'll know where to take it.
Now it's very calm and quiet here.You can notice the difference.No more loud chatter on the telephones! All we hear is the scratching of pencil on paper, the sound of pigeons, and the delivery of inter-office correspondence by paper airplane.
Wonderful! I've always wanted to work for an insurance company ever since I was a little girl.Now it's perfect.
Sincerely yours,
Eleanor Lightly
Spokeswoman and Company Hair Stylist
ABC Activity Insurance: insure against overdoing it | high9914.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Less than one sixth."
},
"options": [
"Less than one sixth.",
"More than a half.",
"About 40%.",
"The passage doesn't tell us."
],
"question": "How many people in the world are left-handed now?",
"question_t... | Most people around the world are right-handed. This also seems to be true in history. In 1799, scientists studied works of art made at different times from 1,500 B.C. to the 1950s. Most of the people shown in these works are right-handed, so the scientists guessed that right-handedness has always been common through history. Today, only about 10% to 15% of the world's population is left-handed.
Why are there more right-handed people than left-handed ones? Scientists now know that a person's two hands each have their own jobs. For most people, the hand is used to find things or hold things. The right hand is used to work with things. This is because of the different work of the two sides of the brain. The right side of the brain, which makes a person's hands and eyes work together, controls the left hand. The left-side of the brain, which controls the right hand, is the centre for thinking and doing problems. These findings show that more artists should be left-handed, and studies have found that left-handedness is twice as common among artists as among people in other jobs.
No one really knows what makes a person become right-handed instead of left-handed. Scientists have found that almost 40% of the people become left-handed because their main brain is damaged when they are born. However, this doesn't happen to everyone, so scientists guess there must be another reason why people become left-handed. One idea is that people usually get right-handed from their parents. If a person does not receive the gene for right-handedness, he / she may become either right-handed or left-handed according to the chance and the people they work or live with.
Though right-handedness is more common than left-handedness, people no longer think left-handed people are strange or unusual. A long time ago, left-handed children were made to use their right hands like other children, but today they don't have to. | high2841.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Mr. Obama's friends when he was young in Indonesia."
},
"options": [
"The friendship between America and Indonesia.",
"The political views of Obama from his childhood.",
"The determination and hard work of young Obama.",
... | The producer of a new Indonesian movie about President Obama's childhood years in Jakarta is hoping that interested Americans will flock to see the film, Little Obama, in theatres across the country.
Little Obama is the creation of Damien Dematra, an Indonesian writer and artist who has worked on the project since November when he was struck with the idea of writing about the time a young Obama lived in Jakarta with his mother and stepfather in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The film is based on a novel published in March Obama Anak Menteng, and focuses on the president's childhood friendships in Indonesia.
The novel and the film are fictionalized(-) accounts of the president's time in Jakarta and are based on interviews with people who are childhood friends and neighbours of Mr. Obama. Many Indonesians share a deep pride about a man who spent part of his shaping years in the country and went on to become U.S. president.
The film star is a 14-year-old Hasan Faruq Ali, an American who has lived in Indonesia with his family for about 10 years. Like the president, he is the son of a white mother and a black father. Since filming began, he has been under the shine of media attention. "My whole life changed overnight," he says.
The film, which was made on a budget of $1 million, won't get its first public screening until Wednesday, but ads for the movie on YouTube have got a few thousand hits. It isn't clear whether Little Obamawill get a U.S. release , but the film's producer says he is in talks with a U.S. distributor . | high21103.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "her winning the Pulitzer is unexpected"
},
"options": [
"her 10th book is much better",
"her winning the Pulitzer is unexpected",
"the media is surprised at her works",
"she likes being recognized by her readers"
],... | Rae Armantrout, who has been a poetry professor at the University of California San Diego(UCSD) for two decades, has won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in the poetry category for her most recent book, "Versed".
"I'm delighted and amazed at how much media recognition that the Pulitzer brings, as compared to even the National Book Critics Award, which I was also surprised and delighted to win," said Armantrout.
"For a long time, my writing has been just below the media radar, and to have this kind of attention, suddenly, with my 10th book, is really surprising."
Armantrout, a native Californian, received her bachelor's degree at UC Berkeley, where she studied with noted poet Denise Levertov, and her master's in creative writing from San Francisco State University. She is a founding member of Language Poets, a group in American poetry that analyzes the way language is used and raises questions to make the reader think.
In March, she won the National Book Critics Circle Award for "Versed."
"This book has gotten more attention," Armantrout said, "but I don't feel as if it's better."
The first half of "Versed" focuses on the dark forces taking hold of the United States as it fought the war against Iraq. The second half looks at the dark forces casting a shadow over her own life after Armantrout was diagnosed with cancer in 2006.
Armantrout was shocked to learn she had won the Pulitzer but many of her colleagues were not. "Rae Armantrout is a unique voice in American poetry," said Seth Lerer, head of Arts and Humanities at UCSD.
"Versed", published by the Wesleyan University Press, did appear in a larger printing than her earlier works, which is about 2,700 copies. The new edition is scheduled to appear in May. | high2699.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "nobody was doing any work"
},
"options": [
"she had been there only once",
"Mr King was not in the office",
"nobody was doing any work",
"the office had a new appearance"
],
"question": "Marie could hardly recog... | It was a quarter past nine as Marie hurried into the office building where she was going to work. Her bus had inched along through heavy morning traffic, making her a few minutes late for her very first job. She decided to start out half an hour earlier the next day
Once inside the lobby, she had to stand at the elevators and wait several minutes before she could get on one going to the sixth floor. When she finally reached the office marked "King Enterprises", she knocked at the door nervously and waited. There was no answer. She tapped on the door again, but still, there was no reply. From inside the next office, she could hear the sound of voices, so she opened the door and went in. Although she was sure it was the same office she had been in two weeks before when she had had the interview with Mr King, it looked quite different now. In fact, it hardly looked like an office at all. The employees were just standing around chatting and smoking. At the far end of the room, somebody must have just told a good joke, she thought, because there was a loud burst of laughter as she came in.
For a moment she had thought they were laughing at her. Then one of the men looked at his watch, clapped his hands and said something to the others. Quickly they all went to their desks and, in a matter of seconds, everyone was hard at work. No one paid any attention to Marie.
Finally she went up to the man who was sitting at the desk nearest to the door and explained that this was her first day in the office. Hardly looking up from his work, he told her to have a seat and wait for Mr King, who would arrive at any moment. Then Marie realised that the day's work in the office began just before Mr King arrived.
Later she found out that he lived in Connecticut and came into Manhattan on the same train every morning, arriving in the office at 9:35, so that his staff knew exactly when to start working. | high16977.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "have confidence in yourself"
},
"options": [
"have confidence in yourself",
"look up \"creativity\" in the dictionary",
"understand the meaning of being creative",
"learn many new words by heart"
],
"question": ... | Can you become a creative person? Can you learn to come up with great ideas or learn to create new things? The answer is yes.
The first step to becoming creative is to remove the words "I am not creative" from your vocabulary. Seriously, do not say them or do not say them even inside your head.
Now you need to start looking what other people are doing. The more you see what they are doing, the more you can get a feel for how they think, and how they come up with creative ideas.
Find a way or a place where you feel totally relaxed. This is important so you can let your mind come up with ideas. Write them down as you get them. For me a relaxing place is outside in nature where it is quiet and sunny, or when I take a long drive in my car by myself.
The last step is to write down a few ideas every day.
Repeat the process of reading and observing what similar people are doing and how they are being creative, finding a relaxing place to write down your thoughts, and writing down a few ideas every day until you start seeing this kind of results you are happy with. It may take a few weeks to a few months, but this is the training process you need to put your mind through to become creative.
Remember, looking at things from different angle can also make a big difference to creativity. Question the way that everyone else is doing something using the same method and see if being different and doing it another way will produce something cool. | high3593.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "they believe that eating there will show their wealth and social status"
},
"options": [
"the restaurants give customers a taste of foreign culture",
"the restaurants offer different food and drinks from other restaurants",
"... | In China, chain restaurants - especially the big multinational ones - are cool. Going to Starbucks, for example, is a status symbol. It not only says, "I'm rich enough to buy this overpriced coffee," but also, "I'm cosmopolitan enough to be part of globalization."
Where I come from in the UK, however, chains are neither fashionable nor gourmet . Chains are where you go on New Year's Day when nowhere else is open, or when you are 5 years old and your parents can't stand hearing, "I'm huuuuuungry!" any longer. In my own case (with regards to McDonald's), a chain is where you are taken on your first "date". Even at the age of 13, I knew to give the guy the "let's just be friends" phone call the next day.
In the UK, independent cafes and restaurants are making a comeback on the fashion scene. Nowadays, a Londoner who says "let's meet for a coffee at Monmouth" (an independent cafe) is much cooler than one who says "let's go to Starbucks". Even if Monmouth's coffee is a little more expensive, there's a satisfaction in knowing your pounds aren't going straight to the big corporations.
Of course, there are chain stores all over the UK; you can't go five minutes without spotting a Costa Coffee. But numbers do not add up to good taste.
I do, however, have a confession . After moving to China I had moments when all the rice and Kung Pao Chicken became too much. I, too, have retreated to McDonald's. | high19488.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "When passengers complained, the pilot reportedly insulted them by saying something rude and impolite ."
},
"options": [
"The connecting flight was delayed for three hours .",
"After they boarded, the airport staff spent over one ho... | On Friday night, after a three-hour weather delay, passengers boarded a Beijing-bound flight in Dhaka, Bangladesh that had a stopover in Kunming, a provincial capital in southwest China. Scheduled to leave Kunming at 8:45 p.m., the connecting flight was delayed until 11 p.m. by additional poor weather. This did not make the passengers happy. Several refused to board and demanded compensation, but by 1:45 a.m. the airline had persuaded everyone to board.
But that wasn't the end of the passengers' problems. After they boarded, the airport staff had to clear snow from the runway, which took over an hour. Finally, the plane began to taxi at 3:15 p.m.--15 minutes after the pilot inexplicably shut off the air conditioning. When passengers complained, the pilot reportedly asked: "Are you going to die soon? If not, just wait." Two passengers then burst open the emergency exits, which resulted in their arrests.
The journalist Matt Sheehan, who in 2013 described a Chinese airport melee in hugely entertaining fashion, told MSNBC that "Chinese people have just begun waking up to this idea that as a consumer you're entitled(...) to certain protections, but they don't have any of the institutions like consumer rights groups that do this professionally."
Airlines--and the airline industry--are a useful lens for viewing China's development as a whole. In his excellent book China Airborne, Atlantic national correspondent and aviation buff James Fallows described how China is attempting to condense a century's worth of developments in aviation into a few decades. This breakneck pace has resulted in a dazzling array of new airports scattered across the country, but has included some serious growing pains. | high18796.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "the whole society care for children as well as their parents"
},
"options": [
"parents take good care of them both at home and in society",
"the whole society care for children as well as their parents",
"Schools and teachers... | A senior United Nations Children's Fund(UNICEF) official on May 29 praised China for its remarkable achievements in children's welfare .
A. H. M. Farook, UNICEF's operations area officer for prefix = st1 /ChinaandMongoliasaid thatChina"can be very satisfied to tell the whole world what can be done with limited resources to help its children to grow healthily and happily."
China's child population makes up one-fifth of the world's total. "The reason behind the tremendous achievement is China's long tradition of caring for children both at home and in society," he said.
"What's more is that Chinese people have always given special attention to children who are in special need." The UN official made the remarks when addressing a group of 50 children and staff from the Beijing Children's Welfare Home at the Shangri-la Hotel, Beijing.
The hotel invited the orphans to share snacks , sing, dance and play games at a park inside the hotel for a "Share the Sunshine" party, as a prelude to celebrations to mark the Children's Day.
The Beijingchildren's Welfare Home, set up soon after New China was founded in 1949, has at present more than 400 children.
A leading official of the welfare institution said that the children live a happy life and that the agency spends 400--500 yuana month for an average orphan. An average Chinese workers earned 440yuana month during the first quarter this year.
Gu Xiaojin, deputy secretary-general of the China Youth Development Foundation(CYDF), said people from all walks of life have contributed to the welfare of the Chinese children.
She said that CYDF set up the Project Hope in 1989, which calls on people across the country to donate money to help poor children to continue their schooling.
By the end of last year, she said, CYDF had collected nearly 700 million yuanin donations, which has helped the establishment of 2, 074 Hope primary schools and enabled more than 1. 25 million dropouts to return to school classrooms.
Three "Hope Stars" also attended the party. They were model teenagers chosen among students who are economically supported by the Project Hope to further their nine-year compulsory studies in the poverty-stricken regions. They will be torchbearers for the Chinese Team for the up coming Atlanta Olympic Games this year. | high16963.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "be quite confident"
},
"options": [
"be quite confident",
"be polite and friendly",
"have more discussions with them",
"understand what they think about"
],
"question": "To compete with American students it's ve... | "Confidence" is probably one of the most noticeable traits in the Americans. They show confidence in the way they talk, the way they smile, the way they dress and the way they walk. Living and competing with all these confident American students, I find it extremely important to be confident as an international student and instructor. As a student, being confident means you should never hesitate to raise your hand whenever a question or a point comes to your mind. Don't mind if it sounds simple or silly. Otherwise you will never get a chance to speak in class at all. What's worse, the professors may think you are not prepared for the discussion or you do not have your own opinion on the issue--this is the last comment any graduate would like to receive.
Being confident for me as a foreign instructor means calmly asking the student to repeat what he or she has said if I did not get it. Pretending to understand what you actually did not may just bring yourself embarrassment or even disgrace. But the time I most need to be confident is when my students come to my office and bargain about the grades I have given for their speeches. (The course I'm teaching here is Public speaking). Modesty is a trait highly valued in China, but it won't be of much help here if you want to survive and succeed in a good American graduate program. | high88.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Both A and B"
},
"options": [
"master the knowledge",
"train their abilities",
"lean new lessons",
"Both A and B"
],
"question": "Doing homework can help children _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
... | Doing homework not only can help children master the knowledge they have learned, but also can train their abilities of finishing the work alone, planning the time and doing the duties. But some children don't like to complete the work. Why? There are some reasons.
Some children feel it is very difficult to do their homework, because they can't understand their teacher clearly, and can't follow their teacher's teaching process. Maybe there is something wrong with their _
But some children's intelligence is normal. They are even cleverer, but they don't listen to the teacher carefully. It is hard for them to sit well and pay attention to anything. It needs to carry on the attention centralized training to help the children.
Some children love their teacher and then they like the subject. Their interest depends on the teacher who teaches them. So every teacher should be helpful and kind. It can make children love you and the subject you teach. So they can do their homework happily. | high14812.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "watch TV programs online"
},
"options": [
"listen to music",
"make a call",
"watch TV programs online",
"play computer games"
],
"question": "People use iPlayer to _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"... | The iPhone, the iPad, each of Apple's products sounds cool and has become a fashion. Apple has cleverly taken advantage of the power of the letter "i" -- and many other brands are following suit. The BBC's iPlayer -- which allows Web users to watch TV programs on the Internet -- adopted the title in 2008. A lovely bear -- popular in the US and UK -- that plays music and video is called "iTeddy". A slimmed-down version of London's Independent newspaper was launched last week under the name "i".
In general, single-letter prefixes have been popular since the 1990s, when terms such as e-mail and e-commerce first came into use.
Most "i" products are targeted at young people and considering the major readers of Independent's "i", it's no surprise that they've selected this fashionable name.
But it's hard to see what's so special about the letter "i". Why not use "a", "b", or "c" instead? According to Tony Thorne, head of the Language Center at King's College, London, "i" works because its meaning has become ambiguous. When Apple uses "i", no one knows whether it means Internet, information, individual or interactive, Thorne told BBC Magazines. "Even when Apple created the iPod, it seems it didn't have one clear definition," he says.
"However, thanks to Apple, the term is now associated with portability ."adds Thorne.
Clearly the letter "i" also agrees with the idea that the Western World is centered on the individual. Each person believes they have their own needs, and we love personalized products for this reason.
Along with "Google" and "blog", readers of BBC Magazines voted "i" as one of the top 20 words that have come to define the last decade.
But as history shows, people grow tired of fads . From the 1900s to 1990s, products with "2000" in their names became fashionable as the year was associated with all things advanced and modern. However, as we entered the new century, the trend eventually disappeared. | high7093.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "widespread"
},
"options": [
"widespread",
"found among a few families",
"not popular",
"uncommon"
],
"question": "The habit of reading newspapers is _",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{
"ans... | Almost every family buys as least one copy of a newspaper every day. Some people subscribe to as many as two or three different newspapers. But why do people read newspapers?
Five hundred years ago,news of important happenings--battles lost and won,kings or rulers overthrown or killed--took months and even years to travel from one country to another. The news passed by word of mouth and was never accurate. Today we can read in our newspapers of important events that occur in far away countries on the same day they happen.
Apart from supplying news from all over the world,newspapers give us a lot of other useful information. There are weather reports, radio, television and film guides, book reviews, stories, and of course, advertisements. The bigger ones are put in by large companies to bring attention to their products. They pay the newspapers thousands of dollars for the advertising space, but it is worth the money, for news of their products goes into almost every home in the country. For those who produce newspapers, advertisements are also very important. Money earned from advertisements makes it possible for them to sell their newspapers at a low price and still make a profit. | high22378.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "are victims of sleeping sickness."
},
"options": [
"have enough sleep.",
"are working for high-tech companies.",
"are in poor health.",
"are victims of sleeping sickness."
],
"question": "These are designed for ... | Energy pod:
It was designed by a US company with NASA technology. It puts the human body in the best sleeping position and blocks outside noise to create an ideal napping experience. Silicon Valley high-tech companies such as Google provide the Pod for employees.
White noise radio:
White noise is a sound signal that contains equal power and frequency. Some radios provide white noise to mask other noises so that people can sleep without disturbance.
High-tech sleepwear:
A US-based company designs a nightgown with special fabric that stimulates blood flow to tired muscles helping one relax in deeper restorative sleep.
Emu pillow:
Inspired by emu that buried its head in sands when it's scared, a type of pillow has been designed in China for office workers to take a nap, safe and sound. It turns the computer desk into a sleep hub with even two pockets to store the hands. | high176.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "wanted to start business on his own"
},
"options": [
"wanted to start business on his own",
"was afraid of another robbery later",
"was not equal to the job any longer",
"didn't get along well with others"
],
"q... | Jerry was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.
Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?" Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, 'Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life." I reflected on what Jerry said. Later, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life.
Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gun point by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, he forgot the password, nervous. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local hospital. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.
I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live." "Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked. Jerry continued, "The doctors and nurses were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. I knew I needed to take action."
"What did you do?" I asked. "Well, there was a big, strong nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. "Yes," I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, "Bullets!" Over their laughter, I told them. "I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."
Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. | high5684.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "9."
},
"options": [
"8.",
"9.",
"10.",
"11."
],
"question": "How many workers are there in Gonzalez's company at present?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_index":... | Like lots of small-business owners, Lola Gonzalez had to decide to cut down her company's nine-person staff when the economic recovery began to fail last spring. Unlike other companies, she picked an unlikely employee to lay off : herself.
Her business began to have problems in 2008 after going through her books
One day, her husband, Marcos, told her she had to reduce her payroll by one person. Gonzalez said at a meeting, "I want you all to know that I have to lay somebody off and it's been a very difficult decision. And that person is me." Employees first froze in amazement and then burst into laughter until they realized she was serious. Gonzalez 's employees said they were grateful for her kindness.
Her reason was simple. Although she ran the business and her employees did the legwork , she thought she could find work more easily than her staff. Sure enough, she soon got a job as a social worker for a non-profit organization called Devereux Kids. She enjoys her social-worker job now, but the salary cut has required some lifestyle changes. She and Marcos no longer eat out daily; they no longer pay for their son's car and mobile phone, and they changed their car to a smaller one to save $300 a month.
Her business has picked up a bit recently and Marcos has begun to work part-time at Gonzalez's company. Gonzalez says she has no plan to return to work at her company until the economic situation becomes better, perhaps in a year. Her employees, however, will get Christmas bonuses this year. | high4571.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "can purify the polluted air"
},
"options": [
"is designed to suck hair",
"can produce power",
"can purify the polluted air",
"is equipped with a balloon"
],
"question": "Roosegaarde's device .",
"questio... | Hong Kong (CNN)--A Dutch artist and designer has come up with a device he hopes will suck pollutants from Beijing's smog-covered skies, creating columns of clean air for residents.
An electromagnetic field caused by copper coils will pull small pieces in the smog to the ground where they can be easily cleaned.
"It's like when you have a balloon which has electricity and your hair goes toward it.Same with the smog," says artist Daan Roosegaarde.His studio has reached an agreement with the Beijing government to test the technology in one of the capital's parks.With its skies regularly covered by filthy gray smog, Beijing this week announced a series of emergency measures to deal with the problem in public.
Roosegaarde says an indoor experiment has already proved it works and he is confident the results--with the help of a team of scientists and engineers--can be copied outside."Beijing is quite good because the smog is quite low. It's in a valley so there's not so much wind.It's a good environment to explore this kind of thing.We'll be able to purify the air and the challenge is to get rid of the smog so you can see the sun again."
Roosegaarde acknowledges that projects like this are a way of drawing attention to the problem, rather than a complete solution to Beijing's serious and terrible air pollution."This is not the real answer for smog.The real answer has to do with clean cars, different industry and different lifestyles," he says.
However, he hopes the project will make a difference by allowing the city's residents to realize the difference between breathing clean and smog-filled air."I want to take a park in Beijing, 50m by 50m square, and make it the cleanest park in Beijing," he says.He is still discussing with local authorities which park will be used.
Roosegaarde's studio has worked on several projects that use static electricity in unusual ways:creating a road that charges electric cars and a floor that generates electricity when danced on. | high19305.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "a news report"
},
"options": [
"an advertisement",
"a feature story",
"a news report",
"a book review"
],
"question": "This passage can be classified as _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{... | Dogs can be worried and pessimistic just like people, researchers report in a new study in Current Biology. And they aren't talking about basset hounds : those dogs just look as if they expect the worst.
What the scientists say is that dogs that exhibit anxiety when left home alone by their owners may have bigger problems -- they may be in a permanent bad mood.
This pessimistic outlook may not otherwise be easily apparent in a dog's other characteristics, like running speed or learning ability, the study reports.
Dogs are similar to humans in the role that emotional state plays in decision making, said Michael Mendel, a veterinary scientist at the University of Bristol and the study's lead author. The study's researchers looked at 24 dogs in shelters in Britain.
They placed the dogs in isolated settings and observed their reactions -- many barked, jumped on furniture and scratched at the door.
Then they placed bowls in two rooms. One bowl contained food, while another was empty. After training the dogs to understand that bowls can sometimes be empty, and sometimes full, they began to place bowls in ambiguous locations.
Dogs that quickly raced to the locations were more optimistic, and in search of food. Those that did not were deemed pessimistic.
The more separation anxiety a dog expressed while in isolation, the more likely the dog was to have a pessimistic reaction, the researchers found.
The study carries an important message for dog owners, Dr. Mendel said.
Dogs that express serious anxiety when alone may need treatment, as it could be a sign of unhappiness and instability. | high16036.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "make a fortune at weddings and festivals"
},
"options": [
"work on his land",
"sing in the choir on Sundays",
"make a fortune at weddings and festivals",
"teach his daughter how to sing"
],
"question": "When he ... | There was once, in a little market-town not far from Upsala , a peasant who lived there with his family, digging the earth during the week and singing in the choir on Sundays. This peasant had a little daughter to whom he taught the musical alphabet before she knew how to read. Daae was a great musician, perhaps without knowing it. Not a violinist in Scandinavia played as he did. His reputation was widespread and he was always invited to set the couples dancing at weddings and other festivals. His wife died when Christine was entering upon her sixth year. Then the father, who cared only for his daughter and his music, sold his land and went to Upsala in search of fame and fortune. He found nothing but poverty.
He returned to the country, wandering from fair to fair, playing his Scandinavian music pieces, while his child, who never left his side, listened to him in delight or sang to his playing. One day, at Ljimby Fair, Professor Valerius heard them and took them to Gothenburg. He insisted that the father was the first violinist in the world and that the daughter had the making of a great artist. Her education and instruction were provided for. She made rapid progress and charmed everybody with her prettiness, her grace of manner and her real eagerness to please.
When Valerius and his wife went to settle in France, they took Daae and Christine with them. "Mamma" Valerius treated Christine as her daughter. As for Daae, he became ill with homesickness. He never went out of doors in Paris, but lived in a sort of dream which he kept up with his violin. For hours at a time, he remained locked up in his bedroom with his daughter, playing and singing, very, very softly.
Daae seemed not to recover his strength until the summer, when the whole family went to stay at Perros-Guirec, in a far-away corner of Brittany, where the sea was of the same color as in his own country. Often he would play his saddest tunes on the beach and pretend that the sea stopped its roaring to listen to them. And then he persuaded Mamma Valerius to allow him to leave for a while. At the time of the "pardons," the village festivals and dances, he went off with his violin, as in the old days, and was allowed to take his daughter with him for a week. They gave the smallest villages music to last them for a year and slept at night in a barn, refusing a bed at the inn, lying close together on the straw, as when they were so poor in Sweden. At the same time, they were very neatly dressed, refused the halfpence offered to them; and the people around could not understand the behaviour of this country violinist, who walked heavily on the roads with that pretty child who sang like an angel from Heaven. They followed them from village to village. | high11759.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "he could then become the greatest archer"
},
"options": [
"he had nothing more to learn from him",
"he could then become the greatest archer",
"the old man refused to teach him everything",
"the king's old servant order... | Once upon a time a man became a great archer .He asked the king to _
him as the greatest archer of the country.The king was about to do so when an old
servant of the king said,"Wait,sir.I know an old man who lives in the forest.He is a
much greater archer.Let this young man go to him and learn from him for at least three
years."
The man could not believe that there could be a greater archer than him,but he
went and found the old man and he was! For three years he learned from him.Then one
day, when he thought he had learned everything,the thought arose in him:"If I kill this
old man,then 1 will be the greatest archer."
The old man had gone to cut wood and he was coming back carrying wood On his
shoulder.The young man hid behind a tree,waiting to kill him.He shot an arrow.The
old man took a small piece of wood and threw it.It struck the arrow and the arrow
turned back and wounded the young man very deeply.The old man came,took Out the
arrow and said. "I knew that some day or other you were going to do this.That's why
I have not taught you this secret.There is no need to kill me.My Master is still alive,
and I'm nothing before him.You must be with him for at least thirty years.And he is
very old, so go fast! Find the old man!" | high10447.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "one visa is good enough for traveling in a number of countries"
},
"options": [
"you needn't drive a car",
"you can use a calculator to exchange money",
"applying for different visas is much simpler",
"one visa is good ... | Signs in Chinese will be set up in public areas such as airports, to benefit Chinese travelers, the Italian Government announced in late February. _ .
Despite the different languages, travel across Europe has never been so simple. Just five years ago, if you wanted to visit Germany in the north and Spain in the south in one trip, you had to wait for weeks to apply for different visas from the two countries. You also needed a calculator because both countries had different money.
Today, with a Schengen Visa issued by any member country, you can travel across 15 European countries without stopping. Since 2002, within most of the EU, there is now just one type of money called the Euro. The Euro was designed to be the only money in the EU, and already makes it easier to shop around. If you drive, your driving license and car insurance policy are valid in the other European countries. And you can use your mobile phone everywhere.
All the countries in the continent are melting into a united Europe under the EU. For Europeans and visitors, the result is that it is more convenient to travel back and forth between the different countries. | high2100.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "was really fond of mathematics"
},
"options": [
"was really fond of mathematics",
"hoped to change math education in the US",
"had an interest in physics",
"would like her children to be good at math"
],
"questi... | A lot of people say math is not their strong suit. One New Jersey parent wants to help change that. Laura Overdeck grew up with numbers. She always helped measure ingredients when her mother baked, and she learned about angles from her father. She went on to major in astrophysics in college. Overdeck knew she wanted her own children to be good at math, too.
"And when our first child was about two, we just started giving her a math problem every night," Overdeck said. The problem was usually a story, involving animals, cars or candies that let the kid count. "Our third child started, at age two, yelling that he wanted his own math problem because he saw his brother and sister doing it. And we thought, 'Wow, we have a household where math is the popular thing at bedtime,'" Overdeck said.
In February, Overdeck launched Bedtime Math, an Internet website where she posts daily puzzles for children. Overdeck is particularly keen to hook children on numbers before they go to school. So why introduce little ones to math so early?
Sain Beilock, an expert on performance anxiety, says the more fun and familiar math is early on, the less likely children will feel nervous when they start to learn math in school. "My lab has shown recently that kids as early as first grade report feeling anxious about doing math," Beilock said.
"You can hear totally educated adults say, 'You know I'm just not that good at math.' or 'I'm kind of afraid of math.' And that's a totally acceptable thing for a well-educated person to say, but you never hear them say, 'Well, you know, I'm just not that good at reading,'" Overdeck said. She wants children and their parents to become as fluent in numbers as they are in Harry Potter. | high11981.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "It covers an area of 25,000 square feet."
},
"options": [
"It is in Boston.",
"It covers an area of 25,000 square feet.",
"It includes art collections from different countries.",
"It has a large collection of impression... | The Museum of Fine Arts, located in Boston Massachusetts, was founded in 1870. The current buildings, the result of many additions and restructures of the original building, were completed in 1981.
Today the museum is home to more than 25,000 square feet of exhibition space. The collection varies and includes Asian art, Egyptian Old Kingdom sculptures, and collections of silver, decorative arts, furniture drawings, costumes, and musical instruments.
One special note is the Museum extensive Impressionistic collection. Work from such artists as Degas, Van Gogh, and Monet are included and available for viewing. | high20584.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "ask for some advice"
},
"options": [
"tell Betty some good news",
"ask for some advice",
"answer some questions",
"invite her to dinner"
],
"question": "Knowing Nothing wrote a letter to Betty to _ .",
"q... | Dear Betty,
My roommate's family wants me to celebrate Thanksgiving Day with them in their home. I accepted the invitation, and I'm excited about going, but I'm a little nervous about it, too. The social customs in my country are different from those here, so I'm a little worried about making mistakes.
Should I bring a gift, such as candy or flowers? Should I arrive on time or a little late? At the dinner table, how can I know which fork or knife to use? How can I let the family know that I'm thankful for their kindness?
Yours,
Knowing Nothing
Dear Knowing Nothing,
It's a good idea to bring a gift when you go to a dinner party. Flowers are always welcome, or you can bring a bottle of wine if you know the family drink it.
You should arrive on time or five to ten minutes late. Don't get there early. If you are going to be more than fifteen minutes late, you should call and tell them.
Try to relax at the dinner table. If you don't know how to use the right fork, knife or spoon, just watch the other guests, and follow them. If you still have no idea of what to do, don't be shy about asking the person next to you; it's better to ask them than to be silently uncomfortable and nervous.
If you like the food, say so. Of course, you'll thank the host and hostess for the meal and for their kindness. It's also a good idea to send a card to thank them the day after.
Yours,
Betty | high17328.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Because she was criticized by many people for her unintentional behaviors."
},
"options": [
"Because she lost the chance to take part in the Olympic Games.",
"Because she didn't win any medal.",
"Because she was criticized by... | Gabby Douglas stood beneath the Rio Olympic Arena, still in her Team USA leotard, trying hard to understand how she had become the most unpatriotic athlete in Rio. Tears filled in her eyes. She tried hard to talk but no words came out. Her pauses were long and uncomfortable.
"I've been trying to stay off the Internet because there's so much negativity," she said. The attacks against her have been everywhere these last few days. The bullies blamed her for not putting her hand over her heart while the US national song played. Besides, some other people attacked her for not jumping up and cheering hard enough for team-mates at the all-around final. All of this prompted her mother, Natalie Hawkins, to tell Reuters this weekend, that Douglas is "heartbroken".
It showed on Sunday, in Douglas's final performance of this Olympics and maybe in the Games ever. Douglas finished sixth in the uneven bars, far from the medal stand she owned four years ago in London, and shook her head, confused. What had she done wrong? Nothing made sense.
"I mean, you do [Olympics] for your country, and you do it for yourself, how have I offended them? What have I done? I was standing in respect for USA. I'm coming out there representing them to the best of my abilities, so how would I be in disrespect? | high14621.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "very thin"
},
"options": [
"very fat",
"very thin",
"good-looking",
"young-looking"
],
"question": "We can infer from the passage that Sam Berns was _ .",
"question_type": "summarization_questions"
},
... | Sam Berns wasn't like any other boy. He was 17 and he had an aging disease known as progeria.
"Even though I have many difficulties in my life, I don't want people to feel bad for me," Sam said during a TED talk.
Progeria affects approximately one in every 4 million to 8 million newborns. Right now, there are only about 200 children living with it worldwide. The genetic change tied to _ causes those with the disease to produce the protein progerin, which blocks normal cell function.
His view on life is extremely inspiring. He had to face challenges no one else could even dream of. As children with progeria age rapidly, they suffer from a loss of body fat and hair and an inability to gain weight. That didn't keep Sam down, though.
"All in all, I don't waste energy feeling bad for myself," Sam said. "I surround myself with people that I want to be with. And I keep moving forward."
This boy from Boston was so amazing, famous people and athletes wanted to take him under their own. Last Saturday night could have been an amazing moment for Sam. One of his favorite teams, the New England Patriots, wanted to make him their honorary captain during a playoff game.
Instead, it just was't meant to be. Sam passed away before he had a chance to stand next to his team, so they held a moment of silence before the game for him.
Sam's unbelievable view on life, and his deep effect on others, is hard to forget. He was presented with so many challenges in life but he wasn't afraid to face them. Be more like Sam, this wonderful teen. Surround yourself with positive people, love them and move forward. | high9055.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "They should read as wide as possible."
},
"options": [
"They needn't read unless the exams come.",
"They should read books about intelligence.",
"They must read about politics when their major is medicine.",
"They shoul... | Read a lot, I mean a lot! You have to increase your ability for reading. Many students are in the habit of reading only when their exams are approaching while some others read only what they are taught or things that must be read because it is in their curriculum. But listen to me now, I am telling you from my own experience that it is a very bad habit and it is not enough to improve your intelligence.
You have to learn and get ready to become _ in your reading. The fact that you are studying medicine in school does not mean that you should not know one or two things on politics.
Many people have complained to me that they find it hard to read stuffs like novels but I just shake my head in pity for them because it is obvious they have failed to realize the truth in that wise saying by Margaret Fuller that "today a READER, tomorrow a LEADER!"
When you read, you get to "see" so many places and it will be as if you have visited those places in real life. This is because reading will improve your imagination and creativity and understanding. You also get experience from learning about how people dealt with their various problems thereby saving you from going through the pains and difficulties they must have gone through!
Reading will also help you in improving your vocabulary because you will certainly start coming across so many new words which you will try as much as possible to get accustomed to with the help of the dictionary! The good thing about increasing your vocabulary is that it will also improve your thinking ability. After all, we think in words and the more words you know, the easier it will become for you to express yourself or your thoughts.
And when you read, make sure you read so wide because the more you read, the more you know and the more you know the more intelligent you can become. | high6366.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "By air."
},
"options": [
"By bus.",
"By train.",
"By air.",
"On foot."
],
"question": "How did the author get to Nairobi?",
"question_type": null
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answ... | I climbed Kilimanjaro with Lava Expeditions during the rainy season.
I flew to Nairobi in Kenya and spent several days there. At my hotel in Nairobi I met the rest of the group with whom I would spend the next week. We all travelled on the bus together for a 6-hour journey into Tanzania and then Arusha , a quiet town.
After we arrived at our hotel in Arusha , we had dinner and a few drinks. Then we were introduced to more members including Taddeus Minja, the main guide, who was very experienced -- climbing Kilimanjaro runs through the generations of his family.
The next day the Lava Expeditions members checked if we had the correct and enough clothing for our expedition on Kilimanjaro. Only one person needed to bring more clothes.
After that we set off, walking in the rain through the beauty of the rainforest, all the way to the first camp. I was happy the next few days as the view was so wonderful and changed every day. I suffered a little during the trip and I felt so tired. But the members of Lava Expeditions provided me with lots of encouragement, which was one of the best memories. Finally we reached the top of Kilimanjaro in bright blue skies.
I felt excited about climbing Kilimanjaro and the feeling didn't change during my trip. Lava Expeditions looked after me so well that I was deeply thankful for their help. | high1409.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "needs blood to reproduce"
},
"options": [
"is thirsty for your blood",
"needs blood to reproduce",
"loses her heart to you",
"feels hungry at the time"
],
"question": "The female mosquito looks for you because s... | No matter who you are or where you come from, one thing is certain: you are familiar to the mosquito, although you probably wish you weren't. Mosquitoes are everywhere. They can be found all over the world, and they come in more than 2,500 species . Somewhere, at some time, you have surely met at least one.
No one loves the mosquito. But unfortunately, the mosquito may decide who she loves. She? Yes, she. Do you know that only the female mosquito bites? Well, it's true. And it's not because she is unfriendly; she needs blood to reproduce. Do you know how the female mosquito decides whom to bite? She is quite selective, and she chooses her victims carefully. First, she uses sensors to find her victim. These sensors are located on her two antennae and her three pairs of legs. With these sensors, she tests your body moisture, body warmth, and chemical substances in your sweat. If she likes what she finds, she bites. But if you are not attractive, she'll reject you for another one. The next time a mosquito bites you, just remember that you are chosen. You are special.
If the mosquito likes you, she settles onto your flesh very gently, and she breaks your skin with her long nose tip. Long nose tip? What's that? It's a kind of mouth and it sticks out just below the mosquito's eyes. It contains six sharp instruments called styles. She thrusts all six styles into your skin at once, and if she hits a blood pipe, she'll get a full dinner in about a minute. All this usually takes place so quickly and quietly that you may not have doubted anything is happening.
Why does a mosquito bite itch ? The itch is not really from the bite. lt's from the saliva the mosquito mixes with your blood to keep it from being blocked as she sucks up her long nose tip. By the time the itch begins, she has gone.
And then what happens? Well after her delicious dinner, the mosquito is tired. She just wants to find a place to rest. Heavy with your blood, she picks a spot on a leaf, a wall or a stone to quietly lay her eggs. Just one drop of blood will produce hundreds of eggs. | high12250.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "The clone created will be mistreated."
},
"options": [
"The clone created will have one defect or another.",
"The clone created will be mistreated.",
"The clone created is unlikely to fulfill your expectations.",
"The c... | Some scientists have suggested that it might in some cases be ethically acceptable to clone existing people. One possibility is generating replacement for a dying . All such possibilities, however, raise the concern that the clone would be treated as less than a complete individual, because he or she would likely suffer from limitations and expectations based on the family's knowledge of the genetic "twin." Those expectations might be false, because human personality is only partly determined by genes. The clone of an extrovert could have a quite different way of behavior. Clones of athletes, movie stars, or scientists might well choose different careers because of chance events in early life.
Some people have also put forward the belief that couples in which one member is infertile might choose to make a copy of one or the other partner. But society ought to be concerned that a couple might not treat naturally a child who is a copy of just one of them. Because other methods are available for the treatment of all known types of infertility, the traditional choice seems more appropriate. None of the suggested uses of cloning for making copies of existing people is ethically acceptable to my way of thinking, because they are not in the interests of the resulting child. It should go without saying that I am strongly opposed to allowing cloned human embryos to develop so that they can be tissue donors.
In spite of this, it seems clear that cloning from cultured cells will offer important medical opportunities. Predictions about new technologies are often wrong: societal attitudes change; unexpected developments occur. Time will tell. But biomedical researchers looking into the potential of cloning now have plenty to do. | high22393.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "a winning horse"
},
"options": [
"Isaac\"s father",
"a winning horse",
"a slave taking care if horses",
"the first racing horse in Kentucky"
],
"question": "We know from the text that Buchanan is _ .",
"qu... | May : Happenings from the past
May 5,1884
Isaac Murphy , son of a slave and perhaps the greatest horse rider in American history , rides Buchanan to win his first Kentucky Derby . He becomes the first rider ever to win the race three times .
May 9 , 1754
Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette produces perhaps the first American political cartoon , showing a snake cut in pieces, with the words " Join or Die" printed under the picture.
May 11,1934
The first great dust storm of the Great Plains Dust Bowl , the result of years of drought,blows topsoil all the way to New York City and Washington , D.C. .
May 19, 1994
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis , former first lady and one of the most famous people of the 1960s , died of cancer in New York City at the age of 64 .
May 24, 1844
Samuel F.B. Morsr taps out the first message , " What Hath God Wrought ," over the experimental long-distance telegraph line which runs from Washington, D.C. , to Baltimeore , Md . | high7078.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "there is some rain, but far from enough"
},
"options": [
"it rains in spring only",
"it rains for a short time every month",
"there is some rain, but far from enough",
"the rainfall is just enough for the plants"
],... | The deserts of the world are not all covered with sand. Many of them have surfaces of rock or clay or small stones. They are not flat, either. They often have high hills and deep valleys. There is some plants' life in many parts of the desert. There is little rain in the desert, but it does fall often enough for most plants.
The deserts of the world are not uninhabited (not lived by people). People also live outside oases , but these people are not farmers. They have camels, goats, donkeys, sheep, etc. These animals can live on the desert plants and do not need much water.
The people of the desert have to move constantly from place to place, they must always look for grass or desert plants for their animals. They usually live in tents. When there is no more food for their animals, they fold up their tents, pat them on their camels and donkeys, and move to another place. In good years, when there is enough food for their animals, they trade their skins and their goats and camel hairs with the people of oases for wheat and fruit. But in bad years, when there is not enough food for their animals, the people of the desert would attack the oases people. But they are also _ , no man in the desert would ever refuse to give a stranger food and water. | high823.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "different attitudes towards e-textbooks"
},
"options": [
"the development of e-textbooks",
"different attitudes towards e-textbooks",
"the sales of textbooks and course materials",
"the differences between e-textbooks a... | The average college student in America spent an estimated seven hundred dollars on textbooks last year. The National Association of College Stores reported more than five billion dollars in sales of textbooks and course materials. Association spokesman Charles Schmidt says electronic textbooks now represent just two to three percent of sales. But he says that is expected to reach ten to fifteen percent by 2012. Online versions are now available for many of the most popular college textbooks. E-textbooks can cost half the price of a new print textbook. But students usually lose access after the end of the term. And the books cannot be placed on more than one device so they are not easy to share.
So what do students think of e-textbooks? Administrators at Northwest Missouri State University wanted to find out. Earlier this year they tested them with five hundred students in twenty classes. The university is unusual. It not only provides laptop computers to all seven thousand of its full-time students. It does not require students to buy their textbooks either. They rent them to save money. The school aims to save even more by moving to e-textbooks. The students in the survey reported that downloading the books from the Internet was easy. They liked the idea of carrying lighter backpacks. And fifty-six percent said they were better able to find information. But most found that using e-textbooks did not change their study habits. And sixty percent felt they read more when they were reading on paper. In all, almost half the students said they still liked physical textbooks better. But the survey found that cost could be a big influence. Fifty-five percent said they would choose e-textbooks if using them meant their textbook rental fee would not increase. Roger Von Holzen heads the Center for Information Technology in Education at Northwest Missouri State. He tells us that administrators are disappointed with the e-textbooks now available because the majority are not interactive. He thinks growth will come when more digital books include video, activities, games and other ways to interact with the information. The technology is improving. But for now, most of the books are just words on a screen. | high15259.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "gets people ready for effective job hunting"
},
"options": [
"searches jobs for people",
"gets right jobs for people",
"gets people ready for effective job hunting",
"introduces best jobs to people"
],
"question... | To get the right job you need to be attractive to employers from the moment they first hear about you. We specialize in thoroughly preparing professional people for effective job searching.
Our confidential and professional service includes:
l a personal interview with one of our qualified counselors;
l advice and training in approaching employers;
l all application letters prepared and professionally typed or you;
l an individually-prepared CV that emphasizes your achievements;
l training in interview techniques.
Our service will ensure that employers put you on their short list and that you
present yourself positively and effectively at the interview.
SUSANBRIGHT CVs: 891 New Oxford Street, London WC1TSJK 019978091 | high23933.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Shera Road route"
},
"options": [
"Lingarth/Mahoe route",
"Shera Road route",
"Shore Road route",
"Spencer Street starwalkers"
],
"question": "Part of Bell Road route is similar to _ .",
"question_type": "... | Victoria Avenue School supports the Walking School Bus initiative a safe, healthy and fun way for children to walk to and from school, guided by a registered group of parents. If you and your child would be interested in joining one of our buses we would love to hear from you.
Bell Road route
This is a morning bus with over 30 walkers! The route is as follows: Starts at 14 Bell Road, down Scherf Road, crosses Portland Road into Ingram Street, left into Spencer Street then to school. Please call Vanessa McNaught at 5234529.
Lingarth / Mahoe route
This bus runs morning and afternoon. It departs from the corner of Combes Road and Lingarth Street at 8:10 am. There are two routes-one goes along Lingarth Street and the other along Mahoe Avenue and Manawa Road at 8:25 am. The bus continues up Manawa Road, turns right into Victoria Avenue, and goes down Dragon Drive. At the end of the school day all walkers meet at the bottom of Dragon Drive, leaving school at approximately 3:10 pm. Please contact Toko Kofoed tokofoed@gmail. com.
Shore Road route
We gather together at Hapua Reserve at 8:15 am and depart at 8:20 am. We walk along Shore Road to Stirling Street and then up Stirling Street to school. Please contact Nicky Hall nicky. hall@simpsongrierson. com.
Spencer Street starwalkers
The route begins at the crossing of Aldred Road and Spencer Street leaving at 8:20 am.The bus then crosses Glenbrook Street and continues along Spencer Street reaching the school. Please contact Victoria Nicholls victorian@ pascoes. co. nz.
Shera Road route
Currently this bus is not running. Those living in Shera Road, Leys Crescent and Portland Road are welcome to register your interest in taking this bus. We hope to have the bus running in the autumn, when it will travel along Portland Road, up Ingram Street and left into Spencer Street. Pease call Vanessa McNaught at 5234529. | high12536.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "What might cause a series of regular increases and decreases in the amount of CO2in the atmosphere?"
},
"options": [
"What are the steps in the process that takes place as CO2absorbs long-wavelength radiation?",
"How might our unde... | Climatic conditions are delicately adjusted to composition of the Earth's atmosphere. If there were a change in the atmosphere -- for example, in the amounts of atmospheric gases -- the climate would probably change also. A slight increase in water vapor , for example, would increase the heat-keeping capacity of the atmosphere and would lead to a rise in global temperatures.
The level of carbon dioxide, CO2, in the atmosphere has an important effect on climatic change. Most of the Earth's incoming energy is short-wavelength radiation , which tends to pass through atmospheric CO2easily. The Earth, however, reradiates much of the received energy as long-wavelength radiation , which CO2absorbs and then goes toward the Earth. This phenomenon, known as the greenhouse effect, can result in an increase in the surface temperature of a planet. An extreme example of the effect is shown by Venus, a planet covered by heavy clouds composed mostly of CO2, whose surface temperatures have been measured at 430~C.If the CO2 content of the atmosphere is reduced, the temperature falls. According to one respectable theory, if the atmospheric CO2concentration were halved, the Earth would become completely covered with ice. Another equally respectable theory, however, states that a halving of the CO2concentration would lead only to a reduction in global temperatures of 3degC.
If, because of an increase in forest fires or volcanic activity, the CO2content of the atmosphere increased, a warmer climate would be produced. Plant growth, which relied on both the warmth and the availability of CO2, would probably increase. As a consequence, plant would use more and more CO2. Eventually CO2levels would decrease and the climate, in turn, would become cooler. With reduced temperatures many plants would die; CO2would thus be returned to the atmosphere and gradually the temperature would rise again. Thus, if this process occurred, there might be a long-term oscillation in the amount of CO2present in the atmosphere, with regular temperature increase and decrease.
Some climatologists argue that the burning of fossil fuels has raised the level of CO2in the atmosphere and has caused a global temperature increase of at least 1degC. But a supposed global temperature rise of 1 degC may in reality be only several regional temperature increases, restricted to areas where there are many meteorological stations. Other areas, for example, the Southern Hemisphere oceanic zone, may be experiencing an equal temperature decrease that is unrecognized because of the shortage of meteorological recording stations. | high24084.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "7"
},
"options": [
"3",
"7",
"15",
"30"
],
"question": "The diaries above show the writer's _ days in Thailand.",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
... | Saturday, March 24th
We have arrived in the hot, wet city of Bangkok. This is our first trip toThailand . All the different smells make us want to try the food. We aregoing to eat something special for dinner tonight. The hotel we are staying in is
cheap, and very clean. We plan to stay here for a few days, visit some places in
the city, and then travel to Chiang Mai in the North.
Tuesday, March 27th
Bangkok is wonderful and surprising! The places are interesting. We visited
the famous market which was on water, and saw a lot of fruits and vegetables.
Everything is so colorful, and we have taken hundreds of photos already! Later
today we will leave for Chiang Mai. We will take the train north, stay in
Chiang Mai for two days, and then catch a bus to Chiang Rai.
Friday, March 30th
Our trip to Chiang Rai was long and boring. We visited a small village in
the mountains. The village people here love the quiet life-no computers or
phones. They are the kindest people I have ever met. They always smile and say
"hello". Kathy and I can only speak a few words of Thai, so smiling is the best
way to show our kindness. I feel good here and hope to be able to come back
next year. | high14147.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "smells are effective if used in suitable cases"
},
"options": [
"smells are widely used in different shops",
"different smells can keep people feel happy",
"smells are effective if used in suitable cases",
"hospitals ta... | Our sense of smell, which we normally take for granted, is nowadays being increasingly used for purposes which might surprise us if we realized them.
One area in which smells are created to achieve particular results is marketing. For some time producers have taken advantage of our sense of smell with regard to household goods.
When pleasant smells are passed through a store's air conditioning system, people tend to spend more time in the store and buy more. For example, the smell of chocolate is used in sweet stores, while the smell of leather and perfume are used in clothes stores.
In a test, people looked at the same types of shoes in two rooms--one filled with purified air, the other with a smell of mixed flowers. Eighty-four percent of the people preferred the shoes in the room with the smell of flowers. In fact, many said they would have paid up to US $ 10 more for a pair.
Smells also have other uses. Research has shown that certain smells can help to calm anxious people and increase their feeling of safety. Smells such as that of flowers and pine forests might therefore be used to relax patients in doctors' and dentists' waiting rooms, and to make the environment more pleasant and less stressful to _
Some companies are experimenting with different smells to produce different efferent effects on their workers according to the time of day.
For example, early in the morning they might put the smell of lemon in the air conditioning system to wake people up. In the middle of the morning, when the atmosphere tends to become more tense, the smell of wood could be used to calm people down. Before lunchtime the smell of melting butter would encourage people to go to lunch on time. After lunch, when people often begin to lose attention, the smell of mint would increase their watchfulness.
While some of these uses of smells may e helpful and effective, not everyone would agree with their use to control customers in stores. It has been suggested by consumers' organizations that one way to avoid this new subconscious pressure to buy is to go shopping when people are less likely to be influenced by smells. | high9733.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "because your dog loves the particular way you smell."
},
"options": [
"because your dog wants to play with you",
"because your dog is hungry",
"because your dog wants to attract your attention",
"because your dog loves ... | If your dog looks pleased to see you - it is probably because it loves the particular way you smell.
The odour of a familiar human apparently lingers like perfume in the animal's brain - where it triggers an instinctive emotional response, research published yesterday reveals.
Our scent acts on a part of the canine brain associated with reward and the strongest reactions are produced by humans that pets know best, say scientists in America.
Gregory Berns, of Emory University in Atlanta, said: 'While we might expect that dogs should be highly tuned to the smell of other dogs, it seems that the "reward response" is reserved for their humans.
'When humans smell the perfume or cologne of someone they love, they may have an immediate, emotional reaction that's not necessarily cognitive.
'Our experiment may be showing the same process in dogs. But since dogs are so much more olfactory than humans, their responses would likely be even more powerful than the ones we might have.
'It's one thing when you come home and your dog sees you and jumps on you and licks you and knows that good things are about to happen.
'In our experiment, however, the scent donors were not physically present.
Why do animals avoid pylons? Because they emit terrifying flashes of light that are INVISIBLE to humans.
Dolphins use sponges to protect their sensitive noses while foraging for food on the sea floor
'That means the canine brain responses were being triggered by something distant in space and time. It shows that dogs' brains have these mental representations of us that persist when we're not there.'
The university's experiment - the first of its type - involved 12 dogs of various breeds who underwent brain scans while five different scents were placed in front of them.
The scent samples came from the subject itself, a dog the subject had never met, a dog that lived in the subject's household, a human the dog had never met, and a human that lived in the subject's household.
The familiar human scent samples were taken from someone else from the house other than the handlers during the experiment, so that none of the scent donors were physically present.
The results showed that all five scents elicited a similar response in parts of the dogs' brains involved in detecting smells. Responses were significantly stronger for the scents of familiar humans, followed by that of familiar dogs.
The findings, which were published in the journal Behavioural Processes, showed that dogs reacted strongest to the scent of a familiar human even when they were not there.
Pets trained as help or therapy dogs showed greater brain activity than the other dogs in the test.
Researchers say the findings could improve the way animals who assist wounded veterans or disabled people are selected. | high6400.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "A Survival from a Shark Attack"
},
"options": [
"Courage Can Beat Any Difficulty",
"How to Escape from a Shark Attack",
"A Survival from a Shark Attack",
"Sharks Can Target Humans Sometimes"
],
"question": "Whic... | Two years ago ,Hannah Mighall ,then 13, survived a great white shark attack on Tasmania's north-east coast, but despite the terrible scars ,the shy yet courageous teenager is determined to get back into the water.
It's been a long journey back for the brave girl, whose life was changed forever as she was on her surfboard 60 metres offshore at Binalong, Bay ,Tasmania.
Her cousin ,32-yeaf-old syb Mundy ,was surfing nearby, "Suddenly, everything went quiet ,"Hannah ,now15,recalls of the day she almost lost her life, "I look down into the water and noticed a dark shadow under my board I knew instantly it was a shark."
As Syb watched in horror, the five-metre shark put hundreds of sharp teeth onto Hannah's right leg,throwing her from her board, "I was attached to my leg-rope as the shark stared to pull me under the water",She shakes, "I was lying on my back with one leg under the shark's body and the other still in its jaws."
Syb desperately punched the shark's nose and reached out to grab Hannah as the monster bit a huge chunk from the surfboard, "I was still attached to my board and was dragged back under the water again,"she says ,When she came up for air, Hannah dog paddled to Syb's board and he dragged her from the water to lie on his back ,"We looked down and saw the shark circling beneath us,"Hannah says.
Hannah was rushed to the hospital by helicopter ,She needed more than 400 stitches on her leg and spent two weeks in hospital.
Modest about her remarkable courage, Hannah owes her survival to Syb's bravery and the fact that great whites,despite their reputation as man-eaters, typically don't target humans ,After the attack ,Hannah earned the Sea Shepherd award for courage for speaking in defence of the shark "I was in his territory, she wasn't in mine,"she smiles. | high5109.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "they can perform better than others"
},
"options": [
"the work is not divided equally",
"they can perform better than others",
"the group projects are too stressful",
"average students are unwilling to participate"
... | While you may think that being smart and talented would logically make someone successful in running a business, unfortunately, this is often not the case.
This problem starts back in school when the stressful "group projects" are first assigned .The smartest don't want to risk their grade in the class by dividing the work equally and hoping that an average student does his part well. They just take over and do the whole project themselves.
And thus begins the smart-people work cycle. The smartest people do just about everything better than most everyone else until it comes to running a business. They are not better. A smart person who can't stand someone else doing a job badly does everything himself. Then, he is stuck with the one-man band "job-business" and ends up not being able to grow. However, it is quite interesting and strange that some "slackers" ( a person who is lazy and avoids work) are better suited to be a business leader than the "smart" people.
Smart and talented people often have a gift for the unusual, complicated or different. They don't like to follow the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid), which is required to make a business succeed. Maybe you think the global presence of McDonald's complex, but in reality, in the company, every single task is broken down into easy-to-follow steps and everything has been standardized. These successful companies have just a few smart enough people to run the majority of the tasks in a way that can't be screwed up by their average employees. So, being smart or talented isn't going to help you unless you can use those smarts to figure out a way to simplify those tasks that will make a business successful.
Another issue with the smart people starting businesses is that they often have the most to lose. The smarter you are, the more options you have available to you. You will be able to make a lot of money in various fields and have room in your career to become promoted. This means that when you start a business, you have a lot more to risk than those who are not equally smart. This is often referred to as the _ dilemma.
So, don't be surprised when the person "MOST Likely to Succeed" from high school ends up as an employee and it is one average student that finds success in his or her own business. | high10321.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "pay more attention to"
},
"options": [
"Put on a high wall",
"catch a glimpse of",
"pay more attention to",
"come up with"
],
"question": "How do you understand the phrase \"put....high on the agenda\"?",
"q... | The ecosystem is 1ike a chain.If any of the links are broken,the whole system is in danger.This is why wetland protection has been put high on the agenda in recent years.Zhao,vice--director of the State Forestry Administration,says nearly 60 percent of the country's natural wetlands are still not under effective protection.Most Chinese people are ignorant about the importance of protecting the wetlands.
Ocean,forestry and wetlands are the three global ecological systems.Wetlands can conserve and purify water resources, prevent flooding and help protect the ecosystem. As well as ecological values, they can also offer economical returns.
In recent years,many wetlands have become farmland.Drawing too much underground water,hunting and fishing also ruin their ecological system.
Every year,the wetlands in the Sanjiang Plain of Northeast China provide habitat for birds.Local residents search the area for the birds' eggs. They consider the eggs to be a natural gift. rather than wildlife that should be protected. If they were educated,perhaps this is one activity that could be brought to an end.
China is now ready to make a plan to save some of these areas.Some have been restored to raise awareness among the public.But these moves are not enough.There should be laws in place to provide legal support to the fight. Environment protection is a campaign which needs support from everyone in society.Education may be the first step. | high16988.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "young adults depending on parents for financial support"
},
"options": [
"married adult children",
"grown-ups living with parents",
"adult children independent and successful in life",
"young adults depending on parents... | More than half of the parents in the United States are helping, or have helped, support their adult children who have been hit by high unemployment and poor wages , according to a new survey. It showed that present economic conditions are discouraging young adults from leaving home and forcing those who have already gone, so-called boomerang kids, to return.
"Parents are continuing their financial involvement longer than we expected," said Ted Beck, president of National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE).
About 60 percent of parents questioned in the survey said they're helping their adult children who are no longer in school financially. Half are providing housing and nearly half are helping with living expenses.
For an increasing number of adult children, the situation is bad. Two-thirds of adult children, aged 18 to 39, who are not in school said they faced tougher financial pressures than previous generations, according to the survey. And nearly one-third of parents agreed that it was easier for them to find their financial feet than for their children.
Parents are helping their children out of genuine concern because they do not want to see them struggle. But Beck said that parents who make sacrifices to help their adult children should be careful about their own finances.
"If you are taking on extra debt or delaying retirement to help your adult child, you could be making a mistake and putting your own financial future in danger," Beck warned.
Boomerang children can also cause other problems for their parents. Thirty percent of parents said they had given up privacy since their adult children moved back home, while more than a quarter have taken on added debt, and seven percent have delayed retirement. But the survey also showed 42 percent of adult children living at home are helping with the cooking and cleaning. | high3578.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "He didn't quit, but he became quietly desperate and futility was written all over him."
},
"options": [
"The lone goalkeeper gave it everything he had, desperately throwing his body.",
"He became a raging maniac -- shouting, runnin... | I was watching some little kids play soccer. These kids were only five or six years old, but they were playing a real game -- a serious game -- two teams, complete with coaches, uniforms, and parents. I didn't know any of them, so I was able to enjoy the game without the distractionof being anxious about winning or losing.
The teams were pretty evenly matched. I will just call them Team One and Team Two. Nobody scored in the first period. Then came the second quarter. The Team One coach pulled out what must have been his first team and put in the scrubs , except for his best player who now guarded the goal.
The game _ . I guess winning is important even when you're five years old -- because the Team Two coach left his best players in, and the Team One scrubs were no match for them. Team Two packed around the little guy who was now the Team One goalkeeper. He was an outstanding athlete, but he was no match for three or four who were also very good. Team Two began to score. The lone goalkeeper gave it everything he had, desperately throwing his body in front of incoming balls, trying bravely to stop them.
Team Two scored two goals in quick succession. It angered the young boy. He became a raging maniac -- shouting, running, diving. With all the strength he could gather, he covered the boy who now had the ball, but that boy kicked it to another boy twenty feet away, and by the time he repositioned himself, it was too late -- they scored a third goal.
I soon learned who the goalkeeper's parents were. They were nice, decent-looking people. I could tell that his dad had just come from the office -- he still had his suit and tie on. They yelled encouragement to their son. I became totally absorbed, watching the boy on the field and his parents on the sidelines.
After the third goal, the little kid changed. He didn't quit, but he became quietly desperate and futility was written all over him. His father changed, too. He had been urging his son to try harder -- yelling advice and encouragement. But then he became anxious. He tried to say that it was okay -- to hang in there. He sorrowed for the pain his son was feeling.
After the fourth goal, I knew what was going to happen. The little boy fetched the ball from the net and handed it to the referee . He just stood there while huge tears rolled down both cheeks. He went to his knees, and he cried the tears of the helpless and brokenhearted.
At that moment, I saw the father start onto the field. His wife seized his arm and said, "Jim, don't. You'll embarrass him." But he tore loose from her and ran onto the field. Suit, tie, dress shoe, and all -- he charged onto the field, and he picked up his son so everybody would know that this was his boy, and he hugged him and held him and cried with him. I've never been so proud of a man in my life.
He carried him off the field, and when he got close to the sidelines I heard him say, "Scotty, I'm so proud of you. You were great out there. I want everybody to know that you are my son."
"Daddy," the boy sobbed. "I couldn't stop them. I tried, Daddy, but they scored on me."
"Scotty, it doesn't matter how many times they scored on you. You're my son, and I'm proud of you. I want you to go back there and finish the game. I know you want to quit, but you can't. And, son, you're going to get scored on again, but it doesn't matter. In my eyes, you are the winner! Go on, now."
The little guy ran back onto the field -- and they scored two more times -- but it was okay. Now in all viewers' eyes, he is the Winner.
When you're all alone, and you're getting scored on -- and you can't stop them -- it means a lot to know that it doesn't matter to those who love you. In their eyes, so long as you don't give up, you are the winner. And they are always proud of you. | high4217.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Their child death rate remains high."
},
"options": [
"They adopt healthy living habits.",
"They have poor immune systems.",
"They eat food with fewer bacteria.",
"Their child death rate remains high."
],
"quest... | In 1988, a company in Ohio invented an alcohol-based hand cleaner, which was meant to be used by health-care worker; when soap and water were unavailable. Joe Kanfer, the company's C. E. O., told me recently, "there were a couple of other alcohol products out there, but they were really ugly. Either they were greasy or they burned your hands white." Kanfer took a year and a half to develop this product which is visually appealing and does almost no harm to one's skin. Still. Kanfer lost money on it for more than a decade because people couldn't get what it was for.
The product was called Purell. Today, you see it everywhere. My doctor uses it several times during every office visit. You can hear it in almost every office in the U. S. and school picnics would be impossible without it. The former president Grorge W.Bush was called a racist for using hand cleaner after first shaking hands with Barack Obama, but Bush also gave some of it to Obama and recommended it as a cold preventative . What was once barely even a product is now a growing product category, worth hundreds of millions per year.
The rise of Purell makes some health professionals uneasy. Some claimed that promoting hand cleaner may worsen "our culture's irrational fear about bacteria." Still, the clear agreement among experts is that unclean hands pose a serious health risk, and are one of the main reasons in the spread of infections in hospitals. A 2007 study estimated that, in America in 2002, such infections resulted in more than a million and a half patient illnesses and caused or contributed to nearly a hundred thousand patient deaths - about double the number of U. S. deaths currently caused each year by AIDS and guns combined.
However, I asked a food microbiologist whether clean hands might have a medical drawback. He said, "We might have a much healthier population if we adopted the kinds of condition that we see in many Third World countries, with poor-quality food and poor-quality water and lots of bacteria. If we did that, we would have adults who were very healthy and have very strong immune systems. Unfortunately, the price that we would pay would be extremely high child death rate. " | high19463.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "he had bad eyesight"
},
"options": [
"he was unlearned",
"he was in poor condition",
"he was inexperienced",
"he had bad eyesight"
],
"question": "Hemingway was turned down for army service in World war I becaus... | Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois, on July 21st, 1899. Influenced by his father, he enjoyed camping, fishing and hunting at his early age. In 1917, after graduation from high school, Hemingway began his writing career with The Kansas City Star. And then, after being rejected for army service in World War I because of poor vision, he volunteered to serve as a driver for an American ambulance unit in France. In 1918, he transferred to duty on the Italian front, where he was seriously wounded in an explosion. After his recovery, he returned home. He worked for The Toronto star, covered the Greco-Turkish war as a foreign reporter, and then returned to Paris, which was a city full of intellectual life, creativity, and genius after the war. In Paris, where he accomplished a revolution in literary style and language, his first book, Three Stories and Ten Poems, appeared in 1923, and was followed by a short story collection In Our Time, which marked his entry to American literature in 1925.
Hemingway's status as a remarkable writer of his time was confirmed with the publication of A Farewell to Arms in 1929. The novel represented a farewell both for war and for love. In 1937, he became a foreign reporter covering the Spanish Civil war. Three years later, he published For Whom the Bell Tolls. Set in Spain during the Civil war, the novel restated his view of love found and lost and described the tough spirit of the common people. In 1912, the same judgment was reflected in his portrait of fisherman, Santiago, with an _ spirit in defeat, in The Old Man and the Sea, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. With one of the most important influences on the development of the American short story and novel, Hemingway has seized the imagination of the American public like no other twentieth-century author. He died by suicide, in Ketchum, Idaho, in 1961. | high10335.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Guanfu Museum, the first private museum in China was founded fifteen years ago."
},
"options": [
"Guanfu Museum was built in 2008.",
"Ma Weidu was invited to lecture by Guanfu Museum.",
"The public were attracted by Chinese a... | Ma Weidu is the founder and curator of Guanfu Museum, which is the first private museum in China. With mainly Chinese artifacts on exhibition, the museum was founded on Jan. 18,l 997.It was not well-known by the public until 2008.
On Jan. l,2008,Ma Weidu was invited to be the guest in the flagship CCTV program "Lecture Room". He talked about his museum and more importantly, he introduced Chinese artifacts and their underlying historical, cultural significance.
In 2009,Ma Weidu initiated Beijing Guanfu Cultural Foundation. Creating a culture foundation had been Ma's dream for many years. Beijing Guanfu Cultural Foundation is committed to spreading Chinese traditional culture, funding the development of Guanfu Museum, heritage research and conservation projects, building a platform for public culture, promoting and guiding the public in the spirit of "charity&culture sponsorship ".
Guanfu Museum is currently located at No.18 Jinnan Road, Zhangwanfen, Dashanzi, Chaoyang district, Beijing. But due to the city planning, it has to move. Guanfu Museum, which has experienced relocation for three times, is now looking for a new place. According to Mr. Ma, it should be around 20,000-30,000 square meters. | high2672.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "They are all members of groups."
},
"options": [
"They are more or less solitary",
"They all belong to clubs.",
"They are all members of groups.",
"They separate themselves from the rest of mankind."
],
"questio... | The social sciences, as the name shows, are the scientific study of the behavior of human beings, both in groups and individually. There is no past or present information of human beings who were not in groups. The groups may be small, like the family, or large, like a city or nation. But in order to reach complete development, man must be a member of a society. It is true that some individuals are more solitary than others. Some like monks or hermits may decide, for religious or other reasons, to leave their society and live alone. But these are unusual individuals, and even they cannot separate themselves completely from the rest of mankind. A society, then, seems to be the natural environment of mankind. Scholars who study mankind in social organizations are called social scientists.
The human behavior which social scientists study is learned behavior. The behavior of the human body as a living organism is studied by the biologist, the biochemist, or the physician. This behavior of man's physical body is inherited through the genetic development of his species. For example, all physically normal and healthy humans learn to walk as their bodies grow and develop. Social scientists concern themselves with the behavior that man must learn so that he can take his place in a social group. In order to be a functioning member of that group, each member must learn to behave in a way acceptable according to the differences among societies.
The social scientists are newcomers to academic studies. By the end of the 19th century, the natural sciences had developed a method, by which they were able to understand the physical world. By using the scientific method, chemists, physicists, and astronauts, for example, learned a great deal about the universe. It seemed reasonable to apply the same method to the study of man's social life. Through this kind of study man may learn to understand himself much better.
The scientific method is a way of collecting facts in order to describe an existing situation as correctly and completely as possible. The description must consist only of what can be perceived , analyzed, measured and recorded. Feelings and personal opinions or ideas have no place in scientific description. The fact must be observed and described in such a way that another scientist could repeat the same study and get the same results. | high19477.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Ancient dogs entered North America across the Bering Land Bridge."
},
"options": [
"Native Americans domesticated local wolves into dogs.",
"Scientists discovered some ancient dog remains in 1920s.",
"Latin America's dogs are... | When people first walked across the Bering Land Bridge thousands of years ago, dogs were by their sides, according to a study published in the journal Science.
Robert Wayne of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Jennifer Leonard of the Smithsonian Institute, used DNA material--some of it unearthed by miners in Alaska--to conclude that today's domestic dog originated in Asia and accompanied the first humans to the New World about 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. Wayne suggests that man's best friend may have enabled the tough journey from Asia into North America. "Dogs may have been the reason people made it across the land bridge," said Wayne. "They can pull things, carry things, defend you from fierce animals, and they're useful to eat."
Researchers have agreed that today's dog is the result of the domestication of wolves thousands of years ago. Before this recent study, a common thought about the precise origin of North America's domestic dog was that Natives domesticated local wolves, the descendents of which now live with people in Alaska, Canada, and the Lower 48.
Dog _ from a Fairbanks-area gold mine helped the scientists reach their conclusion. Leonard, an evolutionary biologist, collected DNA from 11 bones of ancient dogs that were locked in permafrost until Fairbanks miners uncovered them in the 1920s. The miners donated the preserved bones to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where they remained untouched for more than 70 years. After borrowing the bones from the museum, Leonard and her colleagues used radiocarbon techniques to find the age of the Alaska dogs. They found the dogs all lived between the years of 1450 and 1675 A.D., before Vitus Bering and Aleksey Chirikov who were the first known Europeans to view Alaska in 1741. The bones of dogs that wandered the Fairbanks area centuries ago should therefore be the remains of "pure native American dogs," Leonard said. The DNA of the Fairbanks dogs would also expose whether they were the descendents of wolves from North America.
Along with the Fairbanks samples, the researchers collected DNA from bones of 37 dog specimens from Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia that existed before the arrival of Columbus. In the case of both the Alaska dogs and the dogs from Latin America, the researchers found that they shared the most genetic material with gray wolves of Europe and Asia. This supports the idea of domestic dogs entering the New World with the first human explorers who wandered east over the land bridge.
Leonard and Wayne's study suggests that dogs joined the first humans that made the adventure across the Bering Land Bridge to slowly populate the Americas. Wayne thinks the dogs that made the trip must have provided some excellent service to their human companions or they would not have been brought along. "Dogs must have been useful because they were expensive to keep," Wayne said. "They didn't feed on mice; they fed on meat, which was a very guarded resource." | high4203.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Most movies describe stories that happen in our life."
},
"options": [
"Most movies are about relationships between friends.",
"Most movies describe stories that happen in our life.",
"Movies about friendship are popular with... | Most of the movies show our relationships and our society. What's more important is that people love to watch highs and lows of the relationships in movies. Friendship has been the favorite subject of movie makers for a long time. Many movies are based on lovely relationships like friendship. Friendship can be between two persons or among more than two persons. Movies based on friendship make us remember that the relationship among friends is delicate . These movies also show how important it is to have a true friend in life and to own the friendship.
Friendship is described in different ways in movies. These movies show different faces of this lovely relationship including the pleasant and interesting faces .Let us discuss how friendship is described in movies.
Friends share common interests:In most of the movies, it is shown that two people become friends easily when they share some common interests. For example, two friends may be in love with the same sports, studying in the same school or living in the same neighborhood.You can see such friendship in movies such as "Harry Potter" and "Lord of Rings". Harry Potter has two friends. All of them are interested in the use of magic.
Friends make sacrifices : In most of the movies,friends make sacrifices for each other. A good example is "Sholay". In this movie,there are two friends Jay and Veeru who are there for each other till death. Jay sacrifices his life to save his friend.
Friends never run away from difficulties: In movies,it is always shown that true friends always stand up for their friends in times of difficulties.
Understanding: In movies,friends understand each other without even saying a word. A single smile can brighten up the faces of all the friends. | high16744.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "England"
},
"options": [
"Greece",
"China",
"England",
"India"
],
"question": "Where did the king live?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_... | Long long ago, there lived in England a king named Midas. He was a greedy man and loved gold better than anything else in the world.
One day, he asked a god to give him more gold. The god decided to punish him and said, "Your wish is _ already. Everything you touch will turn to gold."
Midas was very happy when he heard this. The next morning, he got up early to test his skills. When he touched his bed, it turned to gold. "Gold!" cried Midas, laughing like a little boy, "It works."
Not only stones, flowers, and the furniture in his house turned to gold, but, when he sat down to table, so did the food he ate and the water he drank. He was unhappy now. Just then his daughter ran up to him. Midas touched her hand. At once she became a gold statue !
A last, he begged the god to free him from his wish. "Go to the river and bathe in it." said the god. So Midas did, and the water took away his golden touch. | high8439.txt |
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