questions list | article stringlengths 9 6.44k | id stringlengths 9 14 |
|---|---|---|
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "medicine"
},
"options": [
"medicine",
"education",
"food",
"business"
],
"question": "This text is likely to be selected from a book of _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
... | "Enough" with the multivitamins already. That's the message from experts behind three new studies that tackled an often debated question: Do daily multivitaminsmake you healthier?
"We believe that the case is closed - supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with (most) mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit and might even be harmful," concluded the authors of the editorial summarizing the new research papers. They urge consumers to not 'waste' their money on multivitamins. "The 'stop wasting your money' means that perhaps you're spending money on things that won't protect you long term," editorial co-author, Dr. Edgar Miller said, "What will protect you is if you spend the money on fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, low fat dairy, and things like that. Exercising would probably be a better use of the money."
The strong message was based on a review of the findings from three studies that tracked multivitamins link to cancer protection, heart health, and brain and cognitive measures. The first study looked at vitamin supplementation's role in preventing chronic disease. The next study looked at whether long-term use of multivitamins would have any effect on slowing cognitive decline. The third study looked specifically at multivitamins and minerals role in preventing heart attack. "The three studies found no difference in rates of chronic disease, heart attack and the need for hospitalization between vitamin-takers and placebo -takers." Dr. Edgar Miller stated.
One expert agreed some nutrient-deficient people may still benefit from multivitamins. "There might be an argument to continue taking a multi(vitamin) to replace or supplement your not healthy diet," Dr. Edgar Miller added. He also notes that vitamins can benefit people with celiac disease and those who are pregnant. | high6392.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "how glaciers changed North America"
},
"options": [
"the ice Age was a long period of time.",
"great glaciers covered North America many years ago.",
"changes in climate helped to melt the glaciers.",
"how glaciers chan... | About one million years ago, the Ice Age began. The Ice Age was a long period of time in which four great glaciers pushed southward to cover almost all the upper half of North America, and then melted away. Each glacier was a thick sheet of ice and snow that spread out from a center near what is now Hudson Bay in Canada. The winters were long, and the cool summers were too short to melt much of the ice and snow. The ever-growing sheet built up to a thickness of two miles at its center.
As all glaciers do, these great glaciers slid. They pushed down giant trees in their paths and scraped the earth bare of soil. Many animals moved farther south to escape. Others stayed and were destroyed.
When winters of little snow came, the summer cut into the edges of the ice sheets. As the glaciers melted, rocks soil and other things that had mixed with the ice and snow were left. New hills, lakes and rivers were formed.
The last of the great glaciers began its melting about 11, 000 years ago. Its melting formed the Great Lakes. These lakes today are little changed from their early sizes and shapes. The largest of the North American river systems was also influenced by the glaciers. This is the Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio system. These rivers were miles wide at first. Through the years they settled into _ present channels. | high22367.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Hold the rein and get on the horse!"
},
"options": [
"How can I speed up?",
"No problem! I can make it!",
"What a big horse! I am scared!",
"Hold the rein and get on the horse!"
],
"question": "According to th... | In our deep mind, we all talk to ourselves -- an inner monologue that might seem rather pointless. But as a study shows, the act of giving ourselves mental messages can help us learn and perform at our best. Researchers have identified the most effective forms of self-talk, collected here -- so that the next time you talk to yourself, you know exactly what you should say.
Self-talk isn't just motivational messages like "You can do it!" or "Almost there," although this inside cheering section can give us confidence. A review of more than two dozen studies, published last year in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science,found that there's another kind of mental message that is even more useful, called "instructional self-talk." This is the kind of running description we engage in when we're carrying out a difficult task, especially one that's unfamiliar to us. Think about when you were first learning to drive. Your self-talk might have gone something like this: "Foot on the gas pedal , hands on the wheel, slow down for the bend here, now put your blinker on..."
Over time, of course, giving yourself instructions becomes unnecessary -- but while you're learning, it does three important things. First, it promotes our attention, focusing us on the important part of the task and keeping out distractions. Second, it helps us manage our effort and make decisions about what to do, how to do it, and when. And third, self-talk allows us to control our cognitive and reactions, making us stay on tasks.
In a recent study of students learning to throw darts in a gym class, Athanasios Kolovelonis and his colleagues at the University of Thessaly in Greece found that self-talk is most effective when involved in a cycle of thought and action. First comes forethought, when you set a goal for yourself and make a plan for how to get there. That's followed by performance, when you enact the plan to the best of your ability. Last comes self-reflection, when you carefully evaluate what you've done and adjust your plan for the next time.
Self-talk can play a key part in this cycle. During the forethought stage, consider carefully what you'll say to yourself. You can even write them down. Repeat these self-instructions during the performance stage. With practice, you may find that your self-instructions become shorter; research has found that these words can become powerful signals.
After the action is over, consider how you might change your self-talk to improve your performance next time -- so that at the moment it matters, the right words are ringing in your ears. | high22401.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "October 2016 writing contest."
},
"options": [
"How to write an essay.",
"How to protect our planet.",
"October 2016 writing contest.",
"Some environmental problems."
],
"question": "What is the text mainly abou... | Although environmental problems have existed for centuries, some people still care little about our environment. Problems like ice melting, electronic waste are lighting up news programs and becoming part of an ongoing dialogue about the environment.
As a teenager, what do you think all the problems mean for your future and for the future of the planet? For our October 2016 writing contest, we want you to really consider what you think about environmental problems.
Use these questions to help focus your essay
* What environmental problem do you think should cause the greatest alarm and action?
* Do you think that you have a personal responsibility to help solve environmental problems or do you feel helpless against the struggle?
* What do you think could help a specific environmental problem?
Don't try to answer all these questions. Use one of them to make a personal essay.
The title of the essay
When you hand in your essay, title it as: Environmental Problems: _ .
Include the phrase "Environmental Problems" as the beginning of your essay title, but then make the rest of your story title unique. Examples:
* Environmental Problems: Trashy Behavior and the Plastic Bottle
* Environmental Problems: We Can't Exist If We Refuse to Change
Rules:
(1) This is a non-fiction essay contest.
(2) Essays are 500 words or less.
(3) Essays must be your original work.
The deadline:
Midnight Oct. 30, 2016
Results:
The winner will be posted on our writing contest website or on Teen Trend Report after Nov. 26, 2016. | high13804.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "he was ashamed of his father's old truck"
},
"options": [
"he was ashamed of his father's old truck",
"he didn't want his schoolmates to see his father",
"he thought he was old enough to go to school alone",
"he hated t... | The Board Meeting had come to an end. Bob started to stand up and knocked into the table, spilling his coffee over his notes. "How embarrassing! I am getting so clumsy in my old age."
Everyone had a good laugh, and soon we were all telling stories of our most embarrassing moments. It came around to Frank, who sat quietly listening to the others. Someone said, "Come on, Frank. Tell us your most embarrassing moment."
Frank laughed and began to tell us of his childhood. "I grew up in San Pedro. My Dad was a fisherman, and he loved the sea. He had his own boat, but it was hard making a living on the sea. He worked hard and would stay out until he caught enough to feed the family. Not just enough for our family, but also for his Mom and Dad and the other kids that were still at home."
He looked at us and said, "I wish you could have met my Dad. He was a big man, and he was strong from pulling the nets and fighting the seas for his catch. When you got close to him, he smelled like the ocean. He would wear his old canvas, foul-weather coat and his bibbed overalls. His rain hat would be pulled down over his brow. No matter how much my mother washed them, they would still smell of the sea and of fish."
Frank's voice dropped a bit. "When the weather was bad he would drive me to school. He had this old truck that he used in his fishing business. That truck was older than he was. It would wheeze and rattle down the road. You could hear it coming for blocks. As he would drive toward the school, I would shrink down into the seat hoping to disappear. Half the time, he would slam to a stop and the old truck would belch a cloud of smoke. He would pull right up in front, and it seemed like everybody would be standing around and watching. Then he would lean over and give me a big kiss on the cheek and tell me to be a good boy. It was so embarrassing for me. Here, I was twelve years old, and my Dad would lean over and kiss me goodbye!"
He paused and then went on, "I remember the day I decided I was too old for a goodbye kiss. When we got to the school and came to a stop, he had his usual big smile. He started to lean toward me, but I put my hand up and said, "No, Dad." It was the first time I had ever talked to him that way, and he had this surprised look on his face. I said, "Dad, I'm too old for a goodbye kiss. I'm too old for any kind of kiss." My Dad looked at me for the longest time, and his eyes started to tear up. Then he turned and looked out of the windshield . "You're right," he said. " You are a big boy....a man. I won't kiss you anymore."
Frank got a funny look on his face, and the tears began to well up in his eyes, as he spoke. "It wasn't long after that when my Dad went to sea and never came back. It was a day when most of the fleet stayed in, but not Dad. He had a big family to feed. They found his boat adrift with its nets half in and half out. He must have gotten into a strong wind and was trying to save the nets and the floats."
I looked at Frank and saw that tears were running down his cheeks. Frank spoke again. "Guys, you don't know what I would give to have my Dad give me just one more kiss on the cheek...to feel his rough old face... to smell the ocean on him... to feel his arm around my neck. _ . If I had been a man, I would never have told my Dad I was too old for a goodbye kiss." | high97.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Not all people think that the \"born in the 1980s\" are selfish and irresponsible."
},
"options": [
"The development of information technology contributed to the '80s'greater awareness of itself.",
"The E-generation rushed to Shang... | The '80s' "important role" in the family has also meant a greater concentration and focus on the individual. And, it has made the word "me" one of the most frequently used words. Everything seems to be about "me". This generation has a greater awareness of itself.
Some people do not seem to agree that all this is self-centred. When Cai Fuchao, prefix = st1 /Beijing's publicity head, was asked to comment on the lack of responsibility of university students during the SARS period, his reply was: "Modern university students are ambitious, knowledgeable and have a very strong sense of responsibility to the society."
As news analyst from sina.com, Pan Fengliang, echoed that, saying that blindly blaming them(for running away during the SARS outbreak)was prejudiced and unfair and not backed with evidence.
No doubt, the development of information technology has contributed its bit to broadening, or bending, the minds of the 80s generation.
Some people even call Gen'80 "the E-generation". They get in touch with each other via email, QQ, ICQ and MSN.
While the people of the '60s and '70s swarmed to Shanghai to catch Luo Dayou, Gen'80s were on the BBS saying that it was "really dumb".
"The internet is so much more to those of the '80s than you can imagine," said Wu Junyong, an IT engineer who was born in 1978.
In Wu's opinion, it's the Internet that separates the 70s from the 80s, "Many of the'70s don't see why those from the '80s can spend everyday in front of a computer."
A new weekly Magazine/163.com survey last year found that 40 percent of the 7,000 people surveyed, born in the '80s, thought the computer was the most important article in life; more than 70 percent of their parents preferred the home. | high24070.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Every two weeks"
},
"options": [
"Once a week",
"Twice a week",
"Every two weeks",
"three times a month"
],
"question": "How often is Street Sense printed?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
... | Do you know what Street Sense is? It's a newspaper in Washington D.C. about homeless people and problems that affect them. Homeless, or formerly homeless, Washingtonians write many of the articles. The newspaper's business model is based on homeless sellers who sell the newspaper. You can hear them call out "Street Sense for sale!" near subway entrances, lunch places and other areas around the city.
The Street Sense newspaper is housed in an office in a Christian church in Washington. Every other Wednesday about fourteen thousand copies are printed. The newspaper expresses the thoughts and experiences of people who call the streets home.
Four staff members work at Street Sense and two of them are paid. The staff members write the first two pages of the paper. Interns--students working as part of their studies--and volunteers help. Homeless writers provide the rest of the material. This includes poems, stories and essays.
Street Sense provides training for the homeless people who want to become part of the sales team. After the training, each student is given ten free copies of Street Sense. Once those are sold, trainees become real salespeople. They buy papers for thirty-five cents each and sell them for a dollar.
Lisa Gillespie is the managing editor of Street Sense, She says the newspaper plays a part in homeless people's lives that other media can not. With the help of the newspaper, a lot of homeless people have become confident again, and their lives have also been improved a lot. | high7932.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "It's universally acknowledged that wasting food is a crime."
},
"options": [
"Over 200 billion yuan is wasted every year on food around China.",
"It's quite common for Chinese people to order more food than they need in restaurants... | The common Chinese greeting of "Ni chi le ma?" may soon be replaced by a new greeting: "Have you cleaned your plate?"
Over the Spring Festival holiday there was a big effort to get people to curb their habit of ordering too much food in restaurants because a lot of that food ended up being wasted. Holiday eaters were urged to "clean their plates" and were asked to take leftover food home in "doggy bags."
The impetus behind the campaign was the startling government statistic that over 200 billion yuan is spent every year on food that ends up in the garbage bin. And in the midst of all this waste, statistics show that 128 million people are living below the poverty line and going hungry.
The "clean your plate" campaign is part of a worldwide effort to stop precious food from being wasted. The United Nations estimates that $1trillion (yes, that's a very big number) worth of food is wasted each year. Most of that is lost during food production and transportation, but a significant percentage is attributed to waste by consumers. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has launched a campaign called "Think. Eat. Save." to make people aware of the problem.
Chinese actress Fan Bingbing is an ambassador for UNEP and she encouraged people to upload pictures of their "clean plates" to show their support for the program. Thousands of people responded and demonstrated that they had a clear conscience to go along with their full stomachs.
Xi Jinping, the incoming Chinese president, is also urging people to be less wasteful and he told Party members to cut back on extravagant holiday banquets and to be more careful when spending the people's money.
For some, though, Xi Jinping's and Fan Bingbing's admonitions don't go far enough. Yuan Longping, an agricultural scientist, caused a stir by saying that wasting food should be treated as a crime. (Jail time for leftover chicken feet!?)
If not a crime, wasting food is certainly a sin and it goes against what Xi Jinping calls, "the Chinese tradition of being diligent and thrifty." Having a "clean plate" is just a traditional and responsible thing to do. | high2692.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Organizations like Student Hubs belong to the center."
},
"options": [
"Volunteers can find plenty of opportunities in the center.",
"The center does not charge money for their service.",
"The center does not run volunteering... | We have information about over 300 volunteering opportunities with more than 250 local organizations (charities, statutory organizations such as hospitals and social services and community groups). We are a registered charity and our service is free of charge.
We do not run volunteering projects ourselves bur recruit volunteers for a whole range of organizations across Cambridge and South Cambs.
Volunteering Links
National Council for voluntary Organizations
A center to champion and strengthen the voluntary sector in the UK with advice, support and public policy.
Cambridge Council for voluntary Service
An independent registered charity to help community and voluntary groups in Cambridge, South Cambridgeshire and Fenland.
Volunteering Wales
Voluntering and volunteer Centers in Wales.
Volunteer Development Scotland
Volunteering and Volunteer Centres in Scotland.
Community Service Volunteers
Volunteer placements in the UK.
Student Hubs
A branch of Student Hubs, a youth-led charity working across the UK to transform student involvement in charitable activities.
Timebank
A national campaign inspiring and connecting people to share and give time.
Registration Information
If you spot an opportunity that you like, you can go through a simple online registration process and then we will send you the details.
Alternatively you can down load a VOLUNTEER REGISTRATION FORM (please save it to your own computer before editing) and email the completed form to us at info@carn-volunteer.org.uk.
If you need a bit more help, then we can offer you a confidential one-to-one chat with a member of staff to discuss what you would like to do. But you must make an appointment beforehand.
You don't have to visit the Volunteer Centre in person to get help. We can also provide information by e-mail, post or over the telephone. | high18789.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "it is easy and fast to get in touch with your friends"
},
"options": [
"it is wonderful to see your friends by clicking",
"it is popular to make friends online",
"it is possible to live much closer to your friends",
"it... | Your friends might be in Australia or maybe just down the road, but they are all just a few clicks away. Life has changed for millions of young people across the world who now make friends online. Whether you use chat-rooms, QQ, MSN or ICQ, you are a member of this group.
"I don't often talk with my parents or grandparents, but I talk a lot with my old friends on QQ," said Fox's Shadow, the online name used by a girl student in China. "Most of my classmates use QQ after school."
QQ is the biggest messaging service in China. A record from Tencent, the company which developed QQ, shows that 4 million people used it one Saturday night in October.
And probably Fox's Shadow was one of them. "I _ on Friday nights, and Saturdays or Sundays when I feel everything around me boring. I usually spend about ten hours chatting online every week," she said. "But I never talk with strangers, especially boys or men."
Even though she likes chatting, she is careful about making friends with strangers online. "You don't know who you're talking to. You should always be careful about whom you believe in online."
Many people would like to meet offline when they feel they have known someone very well. Fox's Shadow once met one of her online friends face to face. It was a girl who was a football fan like herself and they went to a football match together.
A 16-year-old Beijing boy, named Bart Simon online, dislikes QQ users. "I used to chat on QQ, but I found that most people were talking about foolish things," he said. Now he chats online in English, using MSN. "I only chat online because I've got friends in Japan, the US and Singapore," he said. "I want to learn more about foreign cultures." But he spends little time chatting on QQ as he sees it as a waste of time and money.
"If you are really addicted to it, sometimes you can't give your mind to your lessons," he said. "And friends in your real life are always more important than those so-called friends you meet online." | high20216.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "He is the first black president in the US history."
},
"options": [
"He has a black father and a white mother.",
"He is the first black president in the US history.",
"He defeated Republican Sen. John McCain easily.",
"... | WASHINGTON - Barack Obama swept to victory as the first black president in the US history Tuesday night in an electoral college landslide that overcame racial barriers as old as America itself. "Change has come," he told a huge group of cheering supporters.
In his first speech as victor, Obama catalogued the challenges ahead. "The greatest of a lifetime," he said, "two wars, a planet in danger, the worst financial crisis in a century."
He added, "There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president, and we know that government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face."
The son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, the Democratic senator from Illinois sealed his historic triumph by defeating Republican Sen. John McCain in a string of wins in hard-fought battleground states -- Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Iowa and more.
In his speech, Obama invoked the words of Lincoln and echoed John F. Kennedy.
"So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder," he said.
He and his running mate, Joseph Biden of Delaware, will take their oaths of office as president and vice president on Jan. 20, 2009.
Obama will move into the Oval Office as leader of a country that is almost certainly in recession , and fighting two long wars, one in Iraq, the other in Afghanistan.
Obama has said his first order of presidential business will be to tackle the economy. He has also pledged to withdraw most US combat troops from Iraq within 16 months. | high21108.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "In most parts of Asia, people usually have rice for meals."
},
"options": [
"All people have the same feeling about food.",
"In most parts of Asia, people usually have rice for meals.",
"People often consider other people to ... | Isn't it astonishing how much time we spend talking about food? "Have you ever eaten ...?" "What did you have for lunch?" and so on. And yet when you travel from one country to another, you will find that people have quite different feelings about food. People often feel that what they eat is normal and that what other people eat is strange or silly. In most parts of Asia, for example, no meal is complete without rice. In England, people eat potatoes every day. In the Middle East, bread is the main part of every meal. Eating like so many things we do, becomes a habit which is difficult to change. Americans like to drink a lot of orange juice and coffee. The English drink tea four or five times every day. Australians drink a great deal of beer, and the French drink wine every day.
The sort of meat people like to eat also differs from one country to another. Horse meat is thought to be delicious in France. In Hong Kong, some people enjoy eating snakes. New Zealanders eat sheep, but they never eat goat meat. The Japanese don't like to eat sheep meat because of its smell, but they enjoy eating raw fish .
So it seems that although eating is a topic we can talk about for hours, there is very little common sense in what we say it. People everywhere enjoy eating what they have always eaten, and there is very little we can do to change our eating habits. | high18951.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Farming organically is growing around the world."
},
"options": [
"Organic food has become much more common.",
"People do not want to eat food with chemicals in it.",
"Farming organically is growing around the world.",
... | Not long ago, people could only buy organic food in small shops. Today it is common in most major supermarkets. The reason for the increase is that more and more people are demanding food grown without chemicals. Since the 1990s, organic farm production has gone up 20 percent every year. This pattern is expected to continue around the globe.
Australia leads the world in land used for organic agriculture. It has four times as much land devoted to organic farming as all of Asia. However, most of the land is not very fertile, and it only produces a modest amount of food. Argentina is a distant second, followed by Brazil, the United States and China. In Africa, only a very small amount of land is registered for organic farming. That does not mean Africa relies on chemicals. In fact, many farmers do not use chemicals because they cannot afford them. Yet there are no programs for these farmers to prove they do not use chemicals. Without these programs their food can never be approved organic.
India has had the most dramatic recent increase in organic farming. Like many other countries, India sees continual growth in organic food sales around the world. This, of course, leads to growth in profits. Sales of organic food were more than doubled from 2000 to 2005. Like India, many countries are trying to increase commercial organic farming to get a share of the sales. This has led to criticism. Some people believe that organic farming should not just be about making money. They think the goal is to help the environment. Others say organic farming will not continue if it is not profitable. They say that people should be able to make money while providing food that is healthy to mankind. | high19118.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Tour B"
},
"options": [
"Tour A",
"Tour B",
"Tour C",
"Tour D"
],
"question": "Which tour will you choose if you want to see England's oldest university city?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
... | Tour A--Bath & Stonehenge including entrance fees to the ancient Roman bathrooms and Stonehenge--PS37until 26 March and PS39 thereafter.
Visit the city with over 2,000 years of history and Bath Abbey, the Royal Crescent and the Costume Museum. Stonehenge is one of the world's most famous prehistoric monuments dating back over 5,000 years.
Tour B--Oxford & Stratford including entrance fees to the University St Mary's Church Tower and Anne Hathaway's housePS32 until 12 March and PS36 thereafter.
Oxford: Includes a guided tour of England's oldest university city and colleges. Look over the "city of dreaming spires "form St Mary's Church Tower. Stratford: Includes a guided tour exploring much of the Shakespeare wonder.
Tour C--Windsor Castle & Hampton Court including entrance fees to Hampton Court Palace--PS34 until 11 March and PS37 thereafter.
Includes a guided tour of Windsor and Hampton Court, HenryVIII's favourite palace. Free time to visit Windsor Castle(entrance fees not included). With 500 years of history, Hampton Court was once the home of four Kings and one Queen. Now this former royal palace is open to the public as a major tourist attraction. Visit the palace and its various historic gardens, which include the famous maze where it is easy to get lost!
Tour D--Cambridge including entrance fees to the Tower of Saint Mary the Great--PS33 until 18 March and PS37 thereafter.
Includes a guided tour of Cambridge, the famous university town, and the gardens of the 18th century.[ | high10882.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Because he landed in Tajikistan without permission."
},
"options": [
"Because he stole a plane in Tajikistan.",
"Because he didn't land in Tajikistan safely.",
"Because he landed in Tajikistan without permission.",
"Bec... | (ALAUDDIN VALLEY) -- Russia's relationship with Tajikistan has _ following an incident involving a Russian pilot who was arrested -- after making an emergency landing in the Central Asian nation.
Russia responded by beginning to drive out Tajik guest workers, a move that threatens Tajikistan's entire economy. In total, some 700,000 Tajik citizens work in Russia. In the past quarter, they sent home some $742 million in remittances . Overall, the money guest workers send back makes up half of the republic's government budget.
The Alauddin Valley is in the Fann Mountains in eastern Tajikistan. The place long held an attraction for Russian writers and adventurers. Later, during the Soviet era, it was a popular tourist destination. Yet establishing a strong relationship with the people of the mountainous region is not easy.
Men are seldom seen in the area. Nearly every family has at least one breadwinner working in Russia, if not more. The farm work falls to the women, who divide it up among themselves.
Each summer, the village chooses the most experienced and skilled women to take all of the cows (up to 300 of them) to the summer pastures high up on in the mountains. The women spend four months there with their children since there is no one to leave the children with. They milk the cows and prepare products for the winter: cheese, butter and so on. These fermented goods get them through the winter when snow and avalanches cut off all contact with civilization.
Residents here generally have two questions for visiting Russians. The first one is obvious: Is President Dmitri Medvedev going to limit the entry of Tajik guest workers? The second question is less obvious: Are there cows in Moscow? The Alauddin Valley's women truly can't imagine life without either. | high21487.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "an unsympathetic attitude toward the homeless"
},
"options": [
"an insincere attitude toward the homeless",
"an unbearable attitude toward the homeless",
"an uncivilized attitude toward the homeless",
"an unsympathetic ... | According to the United States government, people are classified as homeless if they have no place to stay and no expectation of finding a place for the next thirty days.Although technically accurate, that is an impersonal assessment of an enormous and very human problem.
The homeless population represents all of us Americans.It includes men and women, the elderly, children, and infants.Its members are from all ethnic groups.What they have in common is poverty.
Currently in the U.S., thirty-nine million people live in poverty.When money is really tight, paying the rent or buying food often becomes a choice.Government assistance in the form of food stamps does help but, as one homeless man explains, you can't pay the rent with food stamps.
With no money for rent, the streets and homeless shelters become the alternative.
Although men constitute the largest group within the homeless population, homeless women with children are rapidly joining them.In fact, one quarter of the homeless people in the U.S.are teenagers and young children.
People may become homeless for numerous reasons.However, there are certain factors that many of these individuals have in common.They include a lack of adequate education and job skills.A majority of the teenagers and adults have not completed high school.
The abuse of alcohol and drugs is also a common factor.One third of the adult homeless population abuses alcohol.While one quarter of the same group uses drugs.
Some members of this population suffer mental health problems.Within the past several years many institutions for the mentally ill have been closed and their patients sent "home".Unfortunately, a number of those people have no home to go to and they are unable to adequately look after themselves.
Job loss in today's economy has also become a real factor in the loss of people's homes.The breakup of families through abandonment and divorce are also contributing factors, particularly when there are children involved.The parent who is left to care for the kids with inadequate income may be forced to depend on the homeless shelters to put a roof over their heads. | high11544.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "trendy"
},
"options": [
"lack of imagination",
"deep in thought",
"unproductive",
"trendy"
],
"question": "According to the writer, most fashion designers are _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},... | It took me more than 10 years to realize that the world has no shortage of fashion designers who have the ability to make trendy and elegant garments, but that it is badly in need of, simply, clothes designers. My own definitions would set fashion and clothing greatly apart. It is a fact that, in the shopping malls, there are plenty of beautiful garments whose unpredictability makes our life color1ful and interesting. You are almost convinced: You can buy whatever you dare to think.
There is no doubt that fashion designers are usually with high qualifications. They study fashion trends, select color1s, and make sure the final production of their designs is done properly. However, as experience grew with age, my attraction to arts became ever stronger. I have a strong desire for clothing to stand as does paint to the painter, as does stone to the sculptor, as a simple and particular language of an individual creation, which draws the audience from an appreciation of the surface to deeper thoughts with the world of the soul. I believe that the most meaningful creative motives should arise through caring for other people, the great care of humanity--a concern for human feeling and spirituality. _ , but it is bigger than love, and it is unconditional. I believe the greatest works of art can touch the deepest and strongest parts of human feelings and the world of the spirit, and only these works can be the memories of history, preserving the most valuable feelings that have ever existed, and inspiring a greater awareness of ourselves.
I am not satisfied if people only appreciate clothing if it merely satisfies their desire. I believe clothing could be a specific creative language for communicating ideas and thoughts, for inspiring you and shaping your behavior. Those clothes fashioned out of necessity possess a power that can continue to exist across the ages. This is what I have tried to achieve, the clothing to return to its original simplicity, the clothing to help people regain the natural sense. The true fashion today should not follow the trends. It should instead uncover the extraordinary in the ordinary, for I believe the pleasure you get from the clothing is not its price, but its spirit. | high20941.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "The difficulty in meeting people."
},
"options": [
"The difficulty in meeting people.",
"The idea of supermarket dating.",
"The items on their grocery list.",
"The inconvenience in shopping."
],
"question": "Wha... | Although Paris is often considered the city of romance, close to a million adults who call it home are single. Many single people say that France's capital is one of the most difficult places to meet people. The complaints of this lonely group have inspired a new phenomenon known as "supermarket dating." At Galerie Lafayette Gourmet,singles can shop for more than just the items on their grocery list. They can look for someone who has blue eyes, brown hair,and is 1.8 meters tall,or whatever may be on their romantic shopping list.
At this Paris location,single people of all ages can schedule their shopping for Thursday nights between 6:30 and 9:00 p.m. When they walk through the door,they pick up a purple basket to advise that they are looking for love. They try to arrive early because the baskets disappear quickly, and then they have to wait in line for their turn to wander the store aisles .
With purple baskets in hand, shoppers can consider their romantic options while they pick out their groceries. When they are ready to pay, they can go to the checkout line for singles who want to chat.
Most of the people who look for love in the supermarket are skeptical of Internet dating. They know that it is easy to embellish one's appearance or to lie about one's age over the Internet. The supermarket, on the other hand,is considered a safe and casual environment in which to meet a potential match. In addition, what one finds in another's grocery basket can say a thing or two about that person's character or intentions. Buying pet food can be a man's way of showing a potential match that he has a sensitive side. Women who fill their baskets with low-fat food show their healthy style of living. These ways it's possible to find much more than food at a grocery store. | high3003.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "48 minutes."
},
"options": [
"48 minutes.",
"45 minutes.",
"80 minutes.",
"20 minutes."
],
"question": "If it takes 1 hour to cook a dish using a conventional oven, how much time will one need on average to cook... | Convection vs. Conventional Ovens
If you are in the market for a new oven and you've already begun shopping for one, you've probably noticed that there are a few different types. Two of the most popular oven types are conventional and convection. The difference in these two types of ovens is the way in which the heat in the oven is spread during the cooking process.
Convection ovens
A convection oven uses a fan which is usually located on the back side of the oven. The purpose of the fan is to force the heated air inside of the oven and circulate it around the item being cooked. The heater air is constantly pushed over and around the food, and therefore a convection oven cooks food much faster than a conventional oven.
Not only does a convection oven cook food more quickly than a conventional oven, but it can also thoroughly cook food at lower temperatures. The average amount of time saved when cooking with a convection oven is about 20 percent of the food's normal cooking time. The temperature a convection oven uses to cook food is also about 20 percent lower than a recipe's suggested cooking temperature.
Convection ovens are speedier and more efficient than conventional ovens, and therefore may be more expensive. However, professional chefs from around the world swear by them and rely on them for delicious tasting food. Also, since the air circulation in a convection oven is the same throughout, food will cook at the same rate no matter where it is placed in the oven....on the top or bottom rack or near the front or back.
Conventional Oven
Traditionally, most personal residences in the United States come equipped with a modern conventional oven. These are the most common types of household ovens, and are used every day to cook all sorts of meals, desserts, breads, and many other types of food.
Conventional ovens are similar to convection ovens in that they both cook food using heat. They both have the ability to use either gas or electricity, depending on the hook-up in a home. Some may use either gas or electricity simply depending on what is plugged in to them, and some are made to be either gas specific or electricity specific.
In a conventional oven, the heat circulation in the oven can become blocked by pots and pans inside of the oven, which will result in uneven cooking. Uneven cooking is especially noticeable when both the bottom and top racks in the oven are being used at the same time. The items on top will cook faster because heat rises to the tops and when there is a lot in the oven, the heat gets trapped there.
There are pros and cons to both conventional and convection ovens. Conventional ovens have been serving people for years and years and food has been cooked successfully in them for many decades. Convection ovens have many followers and fans, but these types of ovens can be hard to get used to...especially for novice cooks. | high18206.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "learn to be your own best friend"
},
"options": [
"get into the habit of living alone",
"make many friends in society",
"always tell the truth",
"learn to be your own best friend"
],
"question": "If you want to ... | Many people tend to complain about not having good friends in their lives. Sadly, they seem to think that their own company is not enough to make them happy. Nothing could be further from the truth though. In order to get along with others, the first thing you need to do is learn to get along with yourself. Only in this way will you succeed in developing healthy, solid relationships with others.
Listen to your inner voice. Remember that inner voice that keeps whispering to you what you really want and need as well as what you do not really want and need. It is about time you started listening to it. In order to get to know yourself in depth, it is important to learn and accept what you want and what you do not want.
Learn to enjoy your own company. You will be surprised to find out how many things you can do by yourself and actually have fun in the process. Reading romantic novels, poetry or science fiction is only a few of the things that you can do by yourself, which not only can offer you hours of enjoyment, but also the chance to get to know yourself better.
Satisfy yourself. Pay special attention to your personal hygiene . Do your hair and nails often and experiment with new styles. Follow a healthy diet and exercise regularly to stay in good shape. No matter how busy your daily schedule is, always find at least an hour per day for yourself, when you can either relax doing absolutely nothing, or doing something that you enjoy.
Learn to respect your own _ . Find out what your boundaries are and learn to respect them. You are the only one who knows what you can and what you cannot accept;no one else can point that out to you, or force you to compromise . | high5472.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "some good learning skills"
},
"options": [
"some ways to listen carefully",
"some new memorizing skills",
"some methods for reading complex works",
"some good learning skills"
],
"question": "The passage mainly ... | Sheela spent three days memorizing a poem for an oral test, but her friend Nisha merely scanned a new poem twice before reciting it from memory! Why then was there a difference? Nisha just knew how to learn better than Sheela. She had increased the ability of her brain by using some skills. Here are some steps to better learning.
Preview the matter first: That is, _ l. You can understand more if you first scan it or skim over it quickly. Read the first sentence of each paragraph, and glance at the table of contents and the preface.
Slow down and read it aloud to yourself: Speed reading is fine for easy material but for more complex works, slower reading is much more effective. Good learners vocalize , either loudly or in their minds, listening to each word as they read. They also actively think about what they read and take in it.
Organize facts into categories: For instance, if you have to memorize a _ list containing names of animals, types of transport, items of clothing and kinds of jobs, it is easier if you divide them into groups or categories. Dividing it into smaller, meaningful parts makes it easier to learn.
Be focused: To improve concentration and focus, fix a particular time and place for studying. Use a variety of methods, like writing down what you've read or taping it and then listening to it, or making an outline.
Follow your own learning style: Each person has his own way of learning. lf given the pieces of an object to assemble , each of us uses a different method to arrive at the same result. Analyze your approach and follow the method that you feel most comfortable with. | high20799.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Check thetime duringtheexam at a certain time."
},
"options": [
"Check thetime duringtheexam at a certain time.",
"Staying up all night and studying is tiring, but effective way.",
"You should studyin a different place every ... | Do youwanttoimprovetheway youstudy? Do you feel nervous before a test? Many students say that a lack of concentration is their biggest problem. It seriously affects their ability tostudy, sodotheir test results.If so, use these tips tohelpyou.
Study Techniques
*You should always study in the same place. You shouldn't sit in a position that you use for another purpose. For example, when you sit on a sofa to study, your brain will think it is time to relax. Don't watch TV while youare studying. Experts warn that your concentration may be reduced by 50 percent if youattempttostudyin thisway. Always try tohave a white wall in front ofyou, so there is nothingtodistract(make less concentrated) you.
*Your eyes will become tired if youtrytoread a text which is on a flat surface. Position your book at an angle of 30 degrees.
*Don't try to complete too much in one study period. Finish one thing before beginning another.If you need a break, get up and walk around for a few minutes.
Test-taking skills
*All your hard work will be for nothing if youare too nervoustotake your test. Getting plenty of rest is very important. This means donotstudyall night before your test! It is a better ideatohave a long-termstudyplan. Try tomake a timetable for yourstudywhich lasts for a few months.
*Exercise is a great waytoreduce pressure. Doing some form of exercise every day will also improveyour concentration. Eat healthy food too.
*When youarrive intheexamination room, find your seat and sit down. Breathe slowly and deeply. Check thetime ontheclock duringthetest, but not too often. Above all, take no notice of everyone else and give thetest paper your undivided attention. | high23290.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Children form their reading tastes by the time they are seven"
},
"options": [
"Children begin to read very fast at an early age",
"Children examine in detail what they read at school",
"Children can read clearly in primary s... | A good deal of fascinating research has been done about the reading patterns of young people,and it is surprising to discover at what an early age children start expressing preferences for particular kind of books. A recent report,which examined in detail the reading habits of primary-school children.showed that even seven-year-old boys and girls have clear views about what they want to read. Girls,in general,read more,and far more girls than boys preferred reading stories. Boys were showing a taste for the more instant appeal of picture stories,or else books about their hobbies.
These tastes continue unchanged until the children are teenagers. Apparently girls read more in general,but more fiction in particular .You could say that there are more opportunities for girls to read fiction:magazines encourage the fiction habit in girls in their early teens,and by their late teens they have probably moved on to the adult women's magazines.Teenage boys tend to buy magazines about their hobbies:motorcycles,heavy transport and to on.
Adult reading tastes are also the subject of research.Again the number of women who read for pleasure is considerably higher than the number of men. It seems that the majority of women still want love stories.There has also been some analysis of what men actually read Apparently only 38 percent of men read anything,but 50 percent of what they read is fiction in the form of action-packed stories of space or gunmen | high9248.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "74"
},
"options": [
"74",
"70.",
"56",
"78"
],
"question": "How old is James Harrison?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "someone e... | An Australian man who has been donating his extremely rare kind of blood for 56 years has saved the lives of more than two million babies.
James Harrison has an antibody in his plasma that stops babies dying from Rhesus disease, a form of severe anaemia . He has enabled countless mothers to give birth to healthy babies, including his own daughter, Tracey, who had a healthy son thanks to her father's blood.
Mr. Harrison has been giving blood every few weeks since he was 18 years old and has now racked up a total of 984 donations. When he started donating, his blood was deemed so special that his life was insured for one million Australian dollars.
He was also nicknamed the "man with the golden arm" or the "man in _ ". He said, "I've never thought about stopping. Never!" He made a pledge to be a donor aged 14 after undergoing major chest surgery in which he needed 13 liters of blood. "I was in hospital for three months," he said. "The blood I received saved my life so I made a pledge to give blood when I was 18."
Just after he started donating he was found to have the rare and life-saving antibody in his blood. At the time, thousands of babies in Australia were dying each year of Rhesus disease. Other newborns suffered permanent brain damage because of the condition. _ . It stems from one having Rh-positive blood and the other Rh-negative .
His blood has since led to the development of a vaccine called Anti-D. After his blood type was discovered, Mr. Harrison volunteered to undergo a series of tests to help develop the Anti-D vaccine. "They insured me for a million dollars so I knew my wife Barbara would be taken care of," he said. "I wasn't scared. I was glad to help. I had to sign every form going and basically sign my life away."
Mr. Harrison is Rh-negative and was given injections of Rh-positive blood. It was found his plasma could treat the condition and since then it has been given to hundreds of thousands of women. It has also been given to babies after they are born to stop them developing the disease.
It is estimated he has helped save 2.2 million babies so far. Mr. Harrison is still donating every few weeks now. | high1614.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Glasgow"
},
"options": [
"Liverpool",
"London",
"Stoke-on-Trent",
"Glasgow"
],
"question": "Manchester took the place of _ and became Britain's fattest city.",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{... | LONDON--Manchester is Britain's fattest city, a survey for "Men's Health" has found, beating Glasgow for the first time since the magazine started examining the issue three years ago.
Editor Pete Muir said the survey had looked at a variety of factors from gym membership to heart disease rates to find the fattest city. "Manchester has more fast food restaurants than anywhere else in the UK," he told Reuters. "People are taking the easy choice --eating and then just sitting in front of the TV."
Manchester's problem is part of a wider trend . On Thursday, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) blamed a lack of exercise and poor diet for a fifth of adult Britons being obese . "Obesity is a major risky factor related to heart disease, diabetes and premature death ," said an ONS survey. "None of the 108 young men in the survey reported eating five portions of fruit or vegetables on average each day."
In Manchester, the head of the city's public health programs said he did not believe that they were necessarily the fattest city, but that they did have problems and were aiming to address them. Social deprivation was a major factor. "One of the myths is that the stressed-out rich businessman is the one who is overweight," David Regan told Reuters. "In fact, it is the poor areas that have the most problems. We aim not to be the fattest but the fittest city but we have a long way to go."
Second in the survey is Stoke-on-Trent, followed by Liverpool, Swansea and Leicester. Glasgow is sixth. | high13353.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "what had happened to Frank was killing Fee"
},
"options": [
"Frank did kill someone and deserved the punishment",
"Frank should have told Fee what had happened",
"what had happened to Frank was killing Fee",
"Frank had ... | Everyone gathered around and Paddy read out loud, slowly, his tone growing sadder and sadder. The little headline said: BOXER RECEIVES LIFF SENTENCE.
Frank Cleary, aged 26, professional boxer, was today found guilty of the murder of Albert Gumming, aged 32, laborer, last July. The jury reached its decision after only ten minutes, recommending the most severe punishment to the court. It was, said the Judge, a simple case. Cumming and Cleary had quarreled violently at the Harbour Hotel on July 23rd and police saw Cleary kicking at the head of the unconscious Gumming. When arrested, Cleary was drunk but clear-thinking.
Cleary was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour. Asked if he had anything to say, Cleary answered, "Just don't tell my mother."
"It happened over three years ago," Paddy said helplessly. No one answered him or moved, for no one knew what to do. "Just don't tell my mother," said Fee numbly . "And no one did! Oh, God! My poor, poor Frank!"
Paddy wiped the tears from his face and said. "Fee, pack your things. We'll go to see him."
_ "I can't go," she said without a hint of pain, yet making everyone feel that the pain was there. "It would kill him to see me. I know him so well--his pride, his ambition. Let him bear the shame alone, it's what he wants. We've got to help him keep his secret. What good will it do him to see us?"
Paddy was still weeping, not for Frank, but for the life which had gone from Fee's face, for the dying in her eyes. Frank had always brought bitterness and misfortune, always stood between Fee and himself. He was the cause of her withdrawal from his heart and the hearts of his children. Every time it looked as if there might be happiness for Fee, Frank took it away. But Paddy's love for her was as deep and impossible to wipe out as hers was for Frank.
So he said, "Well, Fee, we won't go. But we must make sure he is taken care of. How about if I write to Father Jones and ask him to look out for Frank?"
There was no excitement in the eyes, but a faint pink stole into her cheeks. "Yes, Paddy, do that. Only make sure he knows not to tell Frank we found out. Perhaps it would ease Frank to think for certain that we don't know." | high8156.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "to struggle for a better-off life in a big city"
},
"options": [
"to live in a beautiful villa of European style",
"to have more opportunities to be promoted",
"to struggle for a better-off life in a big city",
"to enjo... | Every day Yang Hongwei takes the bus home from work, staring silently at the European-style villas , luxury cars and twinkling lights from the shopping center that he sees through the window.
Yang works for a software company in Zhongguancun. He dreams of such a life, away from poverty, and that hope has kept him in Beijing for three years since he graduated from university.
Soon Yang squeezes his way off the bus to the reality of his life: his home--a 10-square-metre room that costs 550 yuan(81 US dollars) or about one-fifth of his salary in rent every month. It's very cold inside the house as it has no central heating system. He has to stand the long and cold winter. Determined to achieve his dream, Yang says he has changed jobs "numerous" times in the past three years and is considering quitting his present job.
Yang's frustration over his life as a migrant is shared by many other graduates that have moved into big cities. Together they have come to be called the "ant tribe", a term created by Chinese sociologists to describe the struggles of young migrants, who, armed with their diplomas, flood to big cities in hopes of a better life only to put up with low-paying jobs and poor living conditions. They share every similarity with ants. They live in colonies in crowded areas. They're intelligent and hardworking, yet unknown and underpaid. The term, sociologists have said, also reflects their helplessness in a world governed by the law of the concrete jungle--only the strongest survive.
A survey in Ant TribeII found nearly 30 percent of the "ants" are graduates of famous key universities--almost three times the percentage of 2009. Most have degrees in popular majors, such as medicine, engineering, economics and management. In addition, 7.2 percent of the "ants" have at least a master's degree compared to 1.6 percent in 2009. Most said the economic recovery did not really improve their financial situations, and 66 percent said their incomes fell short of their expectations, the survey also found.
For two years, Lian Si, a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Chinese and Global Affairs of Peking University, who has studied the phenomenon, led a team of more than 100 graduate students to follow the groups in university towns like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Xi'an. Lian evaluates the total population of the "ant community" in major cities at one million across China, with about 100,000 found in Beijing alone. Lian predicts that an increasingly challenging job market will see the ant tribe growing further in number. Another 6.3 million graduates are expected to join migrant workers and other job hunters in what promises to be a fierce labour competition.
The ant tribe's embarrassing living situations have become a serious social issue, and the government should develop "second-and-third-tier cities" to attract more graduates from big cities. However, "ants" expect more study and training opportunities in big cities, which keeps them in positive mindsets despite their situations. As in the case of Yang, he is optimistic about getting a new job soon, having received eight interview offers in a week after sending out his resume. The prospect of landing a higher-paying job keeps him hopeful of moving out of the slum district soon. The sooner the better. | high15722.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "students might steal things"
},
"options": [
"people might be angry about the lining up",
"the shop might be over-crowded",
"students might steal things",
"kids should be accompanied by their parents"
],
"questi... | Imagine that someone in your neighborhood broke the law, and the judge put the whole neighborhood under suspicion. How fair will that be? Well, it happens every day to high schoolers. Just because some students have stolen things in shops, all of us are treated like _ Even though I'd never steal, store employees looked at me like I'm some kind of hardened criminal mastermind.
For example, during one lunch period, my friend Denny and I went to the Grab "n" Go on Tuesday. We arrived to find a line of students waiting outside. A new sign in the window told the story:" NO MORE THAN TWO STUDENTS AT A TIME." After 15 minutes, we finally got in. But the store manger laid the evil eye on us. I asked him about the new sign, and he said, "You kids are lifting too much stuff." You kids? Too much stuff? Not only were we considered to be shoplifters, but brilliant, greedy shoplifters.
The Grab "n" Go isn't an isolated case. Earlier this year, a department store worker told me to leave my backpack at the front of the store. When I asked who was going to keep an eye on my stuff, she said, "Don't worry. It isn't going anywhere." In other words, I had to risk losing my stuff so that the store wouldn't have to risk losing theirs. "Don't worry," I replied, "I don't need to shop here."
The most annoying thing, though, is the way employees watch my friends and me. It's almost strange and frightening. Once, at a drug store, I went down an aisle and found a guy standing on a box, stocking the shelves. He was watching my hands, which were empty. He got down off his box and rushed off, as if he was going to get the store manger. How crazy is that?
You know, _ . I work at the CD Crib, and every day I see adults commit a terrible crime. They put on a set of headphones and sort of dance to the music. Talk about bad! Tomorrow, I'm going to put a sign in the window: " NO MORE THAN TWO ADULTS LISTNENING TO MUSIC AT A TIME." | high7265.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Website."
},
"options": [
"Newspaper.",
"Website.",
"Student book.",
"Magazine."
],
"question": "Where can the article be found according to the passage?",
"question_type": null
},
{
"answer": {
... | Today, nearly 400 animals are listed as threatened or endangered animals in the United States. Many are at risk of becoming extinct or disappearing permanently. Unless efforts to save these vulnerable animals succeed, many of the country's greatest creatures will be lost forever. From the facts listed, guess which animals are endangered. Click on the picture to find out more about each of these animals in trouble.
American Crocodile
*American crocodiles are about 12 feet long. They live on land and in shallow water, swamps and marshes.
*American crocodiles like to float in the water with only their eyes and noses above the water surface.
*American crocodiles eat mostly small animals, which they grab with their strong jaws and sharp teeth.
*American crocodiles lay eggs. They hide their eggs under twigs and leaves, or bury them in the sand.
*Some crocodiles help their young hatch, and then carry them to the water in their mouth.
Habitat
Southern Florida, Mexico, Central and South American, Caribbean islands.
Why It's Endangered
Overhunted for its skin and habitat destruction.
Peninsular Bighorn Sheep
*Bighorn sheep can weigh as much as 280 pounds and stand about 3 feet tall.
*They live in dry, desert mountain ranges, near rocky cliffs.
*Bighorn sheep eat grass, twigs and leaves.
*Male sheep are called rams and can be recognized by their huge, brown horns. The horns curl back over the ears, down,and up past the cheeks.
*They live in herds or groups. The male sheep with the biggest horns are usually in charge. Male horns can weigh as much as 30 pounds.
*Males will use their massive horns to fight. The fights can last as long as 24 hours.
*Females are called ewes. They are smaller than rams and have shorter, smaller horns.
Habitat
Nevada and California to west Texas and south into Mexico.
Why It's Endangered
Loss of habitat, hunting illegally, drought and disease. | high8630.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "To show the shortage of girls in engineering."
},
"options": [
"To show the shortage of girls in engineering.",
"To introduce some famous girl engineers.",
"To promote the social status for engineers.",
"To give girls a... | When Dawn Bonfield, the former chief executive of the Women's Engineering Society, ran a stand recently at a big military air show, she was in for a shock.
There were around 900 _ among the crowd and Ms Bonfield says, "I'm saying to all these girls, 'Do you know about engineering, would you like to be an engineer, have you thought about engineering?' And in the whole day... probably five or six of them said yes. Every other one said no, just straight out no."
What surprised her most, she says, is that it wasn't that these eight and nine-year-old girls didn't know what engineering was. Simply that they had already switched off. They had lost interest in engineering. "So how much work does it take to change that?" asks Ms Bonfield. "I mean it's huge."
There's no shortage of data to back up her estimation of the scale of work required. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that women make up around just 8% of engineers in the UK. And this is at a time when the UK needs to produce thousands more engineers, so much so that the inventor, Sir James Dyson, is planning to open his own instituteto address the skills shortage.
Not enough female role models is well documented as a reason why girls don't choose engineering.
The attitude of parents was also an important factor in career choices. For girls, perhaps unsurprisingly, mothers were particularly influential.
"My mum was a bit iffy about it at first because she was more like, 'Girls should do this and that and the other,' more like 'keep your posture up and be ladylike'," says middle school student Hannah. "But my dad used to build a lot of stuff and he got me into that. So after my mum saw how me and my dad interacted she said, 'Yeah, go for it' and she's kind of the one who supported me with this." | high15044.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Beijing's economy will go on as usual."
},
"options": [
"Beijing's economy will have a downturn after the 2008 Olympic Games.",
"The 2008 Olympic Games have no effects on Beijing's economy.",
"Beijing's economy will go on as ... | Once the 2008 Olympic Games finishes, the drums and trumpets of the competitions would also stop. But would the city remain as lively as it would be after this world event? Investment sustainability and high demand are two highly invaluable economic concepts that can be looked at in order to ensure post-Olympics flourish, or perhaps, an even better future for Beijingers.
Naturally, an economic downturn occurs in an Olympic host city once the major event finishes. Renmin University Professor Jin Yuanpu noted that a global event like this would put Beijing into a position of large importance in the international stage. But after this event, who would use the heavily-funded equipment and public and private investments left in the city? Various economists argued that a meltdown is highly unlikely. Jonathan Anderson, UBS Asia economist, suggested that the negative effects of the end of Beijing Olympics 2008 on the entire country aren't important compared to previous host cities. China is such a huge economy that the conclusion of the Olympics games is the same as an ant-bite on a dragon.
But what about post-Olympics Beijing? Retired Headmaster of Peking University, Li Yining, noted that a long-term civil demand growth and a popular desire by companies to adopt careful financial management decisions can lead to continued investment growth. Even though demand in some departments of the economy would drop in the short-run, creativity, practicality and innovation would be the key factors that would continually enhance the city's image and flourish long after the Olympics in the city has ended.
So what's next for Beijing after the Olympics? Well, it's business as usual... | high7503.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "she introduced black culture by writing poems"
},
"options": [
"she was an expert on the language of poetry",
"she introduced black culture by writing poems",
"she fought for black rights by writing poems",
"her poems s... | Gwendolyn Brooks wrote hundreds of poems during her lifetime. She was known around the world for using poetry to increase understanding of black culture in America.
During the 1940's and the 1950's, Gwendolyn Brooks used her poems to describe conditions among the poor,racial inequality and drug use in the black community. She also wrote poems about the struggles of black women.
But her skill was more than her ability to write about struggling black people. She combined traditional European poetry styles with the African American experience.
Gwendolyn Brooks once said that she wrote about what she saw and heard in the street. She said she found most of her materials through looking out of the window of her second-floor apartment in Chicago, Illinois.
In her early poetry, Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about the South Side of Chicago, where many black people live. In her poems, the South Side is called Bronzeville. It was "A Street in Bronzeville" that gained the attention of literary experts in 1945. Critics praised her poetic skills and her powerful descriptions about the black experience during the time. The Bronzeville poems were her first published collection.
In 1950, Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. She won the prize for her second book of poems called "Annie Allen". "Annie Allen" is a collection of poetry about a Bronzeville girl as a daughter, a wife and a mother. She experiences loneliness, loss, death andpoverty .
Gwendolyn Brooks said that winning the prize changed her life.
Her next work was a novel written in 1953 called "Maud Martha". "Maud Martha" attracted little attention when it was first published. But now it is considered an important work by some critics. Its main ideas about the difficult lives of many women are popular among female writers today. | high1172.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "The E-book-- a New and Big Challenge"
},
"options": [
"Changes Brought by E-books",
"The E-book-- an Extra Income Stream",
"An Economic Rise from E-books",
"The E-book-- a New and Big Challenge"
],
"question": "... | Electronic book publishing has many of the same risks and opportunities as electronic music publishing. By delivering text direct to the user's computer screen, the e-book could cut down costs, and allow creators to deal directly with their audience, bypassing traditional publishers and readers. But it also raises the possibility of mass piracy . Phil Rance, founder and managing director of Online Originals, a London-based e-book publisher, sums it up. "No one wants Napster to happen to books."
Indeed, the most popular MP3 have put the frighteners on an industry that generally operates some way behind the "bleeding edge". The Mata Group, a leading US-based market researcher, says publishers are far too concerned about protecting their rights, "We believe all the recent legal control over Napster is like putting a finger in a river that is already overflowing. Publishers need to deal with reality and come up with new ways to develop wide electronic distribution , asking the question: 'How can we use the certainty of wide distribution to our advantage?'"
At the moment, most publishers would like to limit the use of e-books to the person who bought them, or to the computer used to download them. If that can be done, e-books become just an extra income stream in a publishing industry that would continue to operate the way it does today, according to Terry Robinson, business manager for Adobe's e-paper group. "If you've cracked digital rights aspect, you've cracked the market," he says.
Robert Nichols, Books Director at BOL agrees, "Rights management is absolutely important. Publishers just say that 'until copyright is secure, we're not going to talk'." | high13435.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "promoting"
},
"options": [
"helping",
"changing",
"promoting",
"influencing"
],
"question": "The word \"stimulating\" in line 5 is closest in meaning to",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
"a... | The work of railroad pioneers in America became the basis for a great surge of railroad building halfway though the nineteenth century that linked the nation together as never before. Railroads eventually became the nation's number one transportation system, and remained so until the construction of the interstate highway system halfway through the twentieth century. They were of great importance stimulating economic expansion,but their influence reached beyond the economy and was strong in American society at large.
By 1804, English as American inventors had experimented with steam engines for moving land vehicles. In 1820,John Stevens ran a locomotive and cars around in a circular track on his New Jersey estate,which the public saw as amusing toy. And in 1825, after opening a short length of track, the Stockton to Darlington Railroad in England became the first line to carry general traffic. American businesspeople, especially those in the Atlanic coastal region who looked for better communication with the West, quickly became interested in the English experiment. The first company in America to begin actual operations was the Baltimore and Ohio,wich opened a thirteen-mile length of track in 1830. It used a team of horses to pull a trainof passenger carriages and freight wagons along the track. Steam locomotive power didn't come into regular service until two years later.
However, for the first decade or more, there was not yet a true railroad system. Even the longest of the lines was ly short in the 1830's, and most of them served simply to connect water routes to each other, not to link one railroad to another. Even when two lines did connect, the tracks often differed in width, so cars from one line couldn't fit onto tracks of the next line. Schedules were unreliable and wrecks were frequent. Significantly, however, some important developments during the 1830's and 1840's included the introduction of heavier iron rails, more flexible and powerful locomotives, and passenger cars were redesigned to become more stable, comfortable, and larger. By the end of 1830 only 23 miles of track had been laid in the country. But by 1936, more than 1,000 miles of track had been laid in eleven States, and within the decade, almost 3,000 miles had been constructed. By that early age, the United States had already surpassed Great Britain in railroad construction, and particularly from the mid-1860's, the late nineteenth century belonged to the railroads. | high18560.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "New trends and problems that Brits have with the way they greet people."
},
"options": [
"Origin of the traditional British way of greeting someone.",
"New trends and problems that Brits have with the way they greet people.",
... | Kiss crisis, hug horrors and the UK's handshake headaches
Greeting someone, saying goodbye - these situations fill me with unease. You have a second to make a dangerous decision. One peck ? Two pecks? Three? No kisses at all? Why, I think, as I crash into the other person's face, why can't it be as simple as a handshake?
A survey by the soap company Radox in May showed one in five Brits now feels a handshake is "too formal", according to the Daily Mail. Some 42 percent said they never shook hands when greeting friends. For one third of people the alternative was a hug, for 16 percent a kiss on the cheek.
British people are known to be reserved - unfriendly, some would say. Handshakes used to work for us because we didn't have to get too close. But the super-British handshake is no longer fashionable. We want to be more like our easygoing Mediterranean neighbors who greet each other with kisses and hugs.
The trouble is, we still find it a bit awkward. What does a married man do when greeting a married female friend, for example? How should someone younger greet someone older?
Guys don't tend to kiss one another; my male friends in Britain go for the "manly hug", taking each other stiffly in one arm and giving a few thumps on the back with words like "Take it easy, yeah?".
The biggest questions, if you do decide to kiss, are how many times and which cheek first. Unlike the French, who comfortably deliver three, our cheek-pecks usually end in embarrassed giggling : "Oh, gosh, sorry, I didn't mean to kiss you on the lips, I never know where to aim for first!"
But then it's never been easy for us poor, uncomfortable Brits. Even the handshake had its problems: don't shake too hard, but don't hold the other person's hand too limply either, and definitely don't go in with sweaty hands.
Maybe it's better to leave it at a smile and a nod. | high5314.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "California."
},
"options": [
"Texas",
"Kansas.",
"Ohio",
"California."
],
"question": "Which of the following states had wildfires within its borders?",
"question_type": null
},
{
"answer": {
"... | Climate change will increase U.S wildfires, and the smoky air will cause terrible problems in areas far beyond those burned, reports an environmental group Thursday.
Two-thirds of Americans, or nearly 212 million, lived in states suffering from wildfire smoke three years ago, according to the report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). These areas, which had smoke for at least a week, were nearly 50 times greater than those burned directly by fire.
" It affects a much wider area of the United States than people have realized, " says author Kim Knowlton, a Columbia University health professor, adding the smoke can move up to hundreds of miles. She says the smoke contains air pollution and can cause several kinds of disease.
Texas was hit hardest in 2011, when smoke stayed for at least a week in areas that are home to 25 million people, according to NRDC's report. Illinois, which recorded no wildfires within its borders( ) ,ranked ( ) second with nearly 12 million people affected by smoke that moved in from elsewhere. The other eight states with the most people exposed ( ) to smoky air were, in descending ( ) order: Florida, Missouri, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Alabama, Oklahoma and Iowa.
Nearly two dozen states had no wildfires within their borders in 2011, but eight of them still had at least one week of smoky air: Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Indiana, Wisconsin and Ohio.
Only 18 states and the District of Columbia had no people exposed to at least a week of smoke that year, although five of them----Alaska, California, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah---had a large area burned by wildfires.
The problem will only get worse, Knowlton say. Scientific research shows climate is causing higher temperatures and health problems. | high17653.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "he has been out of work"
},
"options": [
"he has been out of work",
"he doesn't like being a mime",
"he likes performing at the zoo",
"he is offered a higher pay there"
],
"question": "The mime accepts the zooke... | One day a mime is visiting the zoo and attempts to earn some money as a street performer. As soon as he starts to draw a crowd,a zookeeper drags him into his office.The zookeeper explains that the zoo's most popular attraction,a gorilla ,has died suddenly and the keeper fears that attendance at the zoo will fall off.He offers the mime a job to dress up as the gorilla. The mime accepts.
The next morning the mime puts on the gorilla suit and enters the cage before the crowd comes.He soon discovers he can sleep all he wants,play and make fun of people and he draws bigger crowds than he ever did as a mime--the job he likes but loses.
However, with days going by,he begins to notice that the people are paying more attention to the lion in the cage next to his.Not wanting to lose the attention of his audience, he climbs to the top of his cage,crawls across a partition ,and dangles from the top to the lion's cage. The lion gets angry at this. The scene is _ to the crowd.
At the end of the day he is given a raise for being such a good attraction--Well,this continues for some time.The crowds grow larger,and the mime's pay keeps going up.
Then one day when he is dangling over the lion he slips and falls.The mime is terrified. He starts screaming, "Help me!",but the lion is quick.The mime soon finds himself flat on his back looking up at the angry lion and the lion says, "Shut
up you fool! Do you want to get us both fired?" | high11222.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "The CFCs will have a long impact once they are released."
},
"options": [
"Some are surely produced by the development of agriculture.",
"The CFCs will have a long impact once they are released.",
"They gather together in the... | Scientists from the University of East Anglia have identified four new man-made gases that are contributing to the damage to the ozone layer. Two of the gases are accumulating at a rate that is causing concern among researchers.
Worries over the growing ozone hole have seen the production of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases restricted since the mid 1980s. But the precise origin of these new, similar substances remains a mystery.
Lying in the atmosphere, the ozone layer plays a critical role in blocking harmful UV rays, which cause cancers in humans and reproductive problems in animals.
Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey were the first to discover a huge "hole" in the ozone over Antarctica in 1985. The evidence quickly pointed to CFC gases, which were invented in the 1920s, and were widely used in refrigeration. Extraordinarily, global action was rapidly agreed to deal with CFCs and the Montreal Protocol to limit these substances came into being in 1987. A total global ban on production came into force in 2010.
Now, the newly discovered four new gases can destroy ozone and are getting into the atmosphere from as yet unidentified sources. Three of the gases are CFCs and one is a hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC), which can also damage ozone.
The research has shown that four gases were not around in the atmosphere at all until the 1960s, which suggests they are man-made. The scientists discovered the gases by analyzing polar snow pack. Air from this snow is a natural archive of what was in the atmosphere up t0 100 years ago. The researchers also looked at modern air samples, collected at remote Cape Grim in Tasmania.
They estimate that about 74,000 tonnes of these gases have been released into the atmosphere. Two of the gases are accumulating at significant rates. However, they don't know where the new gases are being released from and this should be investigated. Possible sources include chemicals for insecticide production and solvents for cleaning electronic components. The three CFCs are being destroyed very slowly in the atmosphere - so even if emissions were to stop immediately, they will still be around for many decades to come.
Of the four species identified, CFC-113a seems the most worrying as there is a very small but growing emission source somewhere, maybe from agricultural insecticides. We should find it and take it out of production. | high17647.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "their body shape"
},
"options": [
"their home comforts",
"their body shape",
"house buying",
"healthy diets"
],
"question": "The text is especially helpful for those who care about _ .",
"question_type": ... | Your house may have an effect on your figure. experts say the way you design your home could play a role in whether you pack on the pounds or keep them off. you can make your environment work for you instead of against you. Here are some ways to turn your home into part of your diet plan.
Open the curtains and turn up the lights. dark environments are more likely to encourage overeating, for people are often less self-conscious when they're in poorly lit places - and so more likely to eat lots of food. If your home doesn't have enough window light, get more lamps and flood the place with brightness.
Mind the colors. Research suggests warm colors fuel our appetites. In one study, people who ate meals in a blue room consumed 33 percent less than those in a yellow or red room. Warm colors like yellow make food appear more appetizing, while cold colors make us less hungry. So when it's time to repaint, go blue.
Don't forget the clock - or the radio. People who eat slowly tend to consume about 70 fewer calories per meal than those who rush through their meals. Begin keeping track of the time, and try to make dinner last at 30 minutes. And while you're at it, actually sit down to eat. If you need some help slowing down, turning on relaxing music. It makes you less likely to rush through a meal.
Downsize the dishes. Big serving bowls and plants can easily makes us fat. We eat about 22 percent more when using a 12-inch plate instead of a 10-inch plate. When we choose a large spoon over a smaller one, total intake jumps by 14 percent. And we'll pour about 30 percent more liquid into a short, wide glass than a tall, skinny glass. | high10128.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "she should have been doing her housework"
},
"options": [
"she was too old to fly kites",
"her husband would make fun of her",
"she should have been doing her housework",
"her girls weren't supposed to the boy's games"
... | It was Saturday. As always, it was a busy one, for "Six days shall you labor and all your work" was taken seriously back then. Outside, Father and Mr. Patrick next door were busy chopping firewood. Inside their own houses, Mother and Mrs. Patrick were engaged in spring cleaning.
Somehow the boys had slipped away to the back lot with their kites. Now, even at the risk of having brother caught to beat carpets, they had sent him to the kitchen for more string . It seemed there was no limit to the heights to which kites would fly today.
My mother looked at the sitting room, its furniture disordered for a thorough sweeping. Again she
cast a look toward the window. "Come on, girls! Let's take string to the boys and watch them fly the kites a minute."
On the way we met Mrs. Patric, laughing guiltily as if she were doing something wrong, together with her girls. There never was such a day for flying kites! We played all our fresh string into the boys' kites and they went up higher and higher. We could hardly distinguish the orange-colored spots of the kites. Now and then we slowly pulled one kite back, watching it dancing up and down in the wind, and finally bringing it down to earth, just for the joy of sending it up again.
Even our fathers dropped their tools and joined us. Our mothers took their turn, laughing like schoolgirls. I think _ . Parents forgot their duty and their dignity; children forgot their everyday fights and little jealousies. "Perhaps it's like this in the kingdom of heaven," I thought confusedly.
It was growing dark before we all walked sleepily back to the housed. I suppose we had some sort of supper. I suppose there must have been surface tidying-up, for the house on Sunday looked clean and orderly enough. The strange thing was, we didn't mention that day afterward. I felt a little embarrassed. Surely none of the others had been as excited as I. I locked the memory up in that deepest part of me where we keep "the things that cannot be and yet they are."
The years went on, then one day I was hurrying about my kitchen in a city apartment, trying to get some work out of the way while my three-year-old insistently cried her desire to "go park, see duck." "I can't go!" I said. "I have this and this to do, and when I'm through I'll be too tired to walk that far."
My mother, who was visiting us, looked up from the peas she was shelling. "It's a wonderful day," she offered, "really warm, yet there's a fine breeze. Do you remember that day we flew kites?"
I stopped in my dash between stove and sink. The locked door flew open and with it a rush of memories. "Come on," I told my little girl. "You're right, it's too good a day to miss."
Another decade passed. We were in the aftermath of a great war. All evening we had been asking our returned soldier, the youngest Patrick Boy, about his experiences as a prisoner of war. He had talked freely, but now for a long time he had been silent. What was he thinking of --- what dark and horrible things?
"Say!" A smile sipped out from his lips. "Do you remember --- no, of course you wouldn't. It probably didn't make the impression on you as it did on me."
I hardly dared speak. "Remember what?"
"I used to think of that day a lot in POW camp , when things weren't too good. Do you remember the day we flew the kites?" | high3771.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Make time to attend a family reunion."
},
"options": [
"How to attend a family reunion?",
"What is a family reunion?",
"Tips for a family reunion.",
"Make time to attend a family reunion."
],
"question": "What w... | The month of May is not only a graduation month in the US, but also a month when some families hold reunions.Have you ever considered why it is important that families get together in one place for a particular time? I believe the reason is honor.
Family reunions are a time we can take out of our busy schedules and spend quality time with our extended families .It is a time when we can make our sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and others we love a priority in our life.
Some reunions take place over a picnic lunch and some last a whole weekend.They can be costly and are sometimes crazy.But the truth is, when people you love grow up and move away, getting together for a family reunion and holding that family bond together is so important.
Family reunions build a renewed closeness as we mix with our relatives.We sit and talk about old times and listen to the stories that our older and wiser relatives love to share.As the children run and play and get to know each other, we sit and revisit our childhood memories and enjoy the short time we have together.
The best part of a family reunion is the time spent simply being around the people you care about A reunion shows how important it is to take time for each other.When you receive a family reunion invitation, make it a priority in your life.It's a great chance to see your relatives once again, give them a big hug and enjoy the time you have with them. | high16559.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "are scary but at the same time fascinating"
},
"options": [
"are scary but at the same time fascinating",
"provide excitement for people who lead dull lives",
"are mysterious and have supernatural powers",
"can change i... | They may make us scared, but somehow we just can't get enough of our favorite monsters.From literature to movies, TV shows to Halloween costumes , we want more of these blood-drinking, walking-dead, scary creatures!
Here's a look at a few of them.
Mummy : All you'll need is a generous supply of toilet paper of make this instantly recognizable costume.The concept of mummies dates back thousands of years and across many cultures.Mummies are constantly seen in books, movies, and of course, on every Halloween night.
Werewolf : The werewolf is known for its superhuman strength and shape-shifting powers.Examples of the werewolf date back to ancient Greek and Roman stories, which were about humans changing into animals and animals changing into humans.With television shows and movies, werewolves are once again having a strong influence on popular culture.
Frankenstein: Mary Shelley created the monster in her 1818 novel.Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who is curious about life and death, uses different body parts to create his works.Shocked by his new scientific creation, however, Victor ran away, leaving the creature to leave the laboratory and go out into the human world.Whether in books, movies, or onstage, this monster is still a costume favorite for people of all ages.
Zombie : Halloween activities would incomplete without zombies to really give people a fright.The zombie earned its title as one of Halloween's most terrifying creatures after popular films.Zombies still frighten audiences as undead monsters that return to feast on the living.
Dracula : This classic vampire has terrified audiences for decades, but first appeared as a character in Irish writer Bram Stoker's 1897 novel.In horror films, Dracula remains the most popular character.He is known for his pale skin, sharp teeth, red lips and son on. | high15050.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Genes help scientists understand how living things develop their characteristics."
},
"options": [
"Defective genes can never be repaired.",
"Genes are too small to be seen through a microscope.",
"Genes help scientists under... | Every living cell contains genes. They are too small to be seen in a microscope, but they are very important. Each set of genes in the body contains all the instructions needed to make a human being. Some genes determine hair color. Some determine the shape of a nose. Some genes help determine your height and even your weight.
Genes are made of a chemical called DNA-the letters stand for deoxyribonucleic acid . In the early 1950's, two scientists, Francis Crick and James Watson, figured out how the parts of DNA fit together. Once scientists understood this structure, it became possible to take pieces of DNA apart and put them together in new ways. New kinds of genes could be made in this manner.
Scientists have studied the genes of many plants and animals. They have worked out which genes affect the color of a tomato and the thickness of its skin. Working out which genes determine which features is called genetic mapping, scientists have begun the Human Genome Project, an ambitious effort to map all the genes in the human body.
Some genes may be defective . For example, something might be wrong with the gene that makes blood clot . A baby born with this defective gene could suffer serious hemorrhages or even bleed to death because his or her blood fails to clot. If scientists ever learn how to map all the genes in our bodies, they can determine whether or not an unborn child has any defective genes. They might even discover how to treat these genes before the child is born. | high8624.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Graduates Who Can Only Dream of Being Boss"
},
"options": [
"A Tough Job Market",
"Graduates Who Can Only Dream of Being Boss",
"The Ambitious Fresh Graduates",
"The Story of Guo Bing"
],
"question": "Which of t... | Faced with a tough job market, fresh graduates are dreaming of running their own businesses instead. But a recent survey has showed that such ambitions lack the required support and remain just that -- dreams.
The Shanghai Municipal Employment Promotion Center poll of 1,276 graduates in several universities and colleges in the city, released last Friday, showed 59.78 percent of respondents considered the possibility of setting up a company or at least a small store. "But they just stop at the 'thinking' stage," it stated.
Respondents put the top reasons for not going it alone down to a shortage of investment and a lack of business opportunity. They also listed lack of business experience and social networks, the need for advanced study and objections from family members as factors that stood in their way.
More than 90 percent of the interviewees said they would rather take up a job after graduating and then consider starting their own business two or three years down the road.
Guo Bing, a senior student in Shanghai International Studies University majoring in English, decided he wanted to be his own boss last year. But he is looking for a job first. "If I fail to find a satisfying job, I would like to establish a company in exhibition services," Guo said.
The Shanghai native has some relatives working in a local printing plant. With their help, Guo hopes to produce exhibition brochures at a relatively low price. He is also confident that his English language skills can help him do well in the industry.
"Social networking is an important factor leading to business success," Guo said.
Guo said that the shortage of graduate jobs is the main reason driving more university students to set up a business right after their graduation.
Jiang said the university sets up a business guide team made of government officials and professionals. They regularly give training courses to students who show an interest in having their own business. The parents of university graduates are more willing to help their children start up alone, the survey showed" Once you win the support of your family, you have won half the battle," Guo added. | high1166.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "To look into the outbreak of Ebola."
},
"options": [
"To look into the outbreak of Ebola.",
"To help the people who suffer from Ebola.",
"To help cure the infected boy of Ebola.",
"To make a study of the bats including ... | The largest outbreak of the deadly disease Ebola was caused by an infected bat biting a toddler, say a group of international researchers.
The 17-strong team of European and African tropical disease researchers, ecologists and anthropologists have spent three weeks investigating the outbreak of the disease in Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Nigeria. The researchers captured the bats and other creatures near the village of Meliandoua in remote eastern Guinea, where the disease began in December 2013. The boy was bitten and passed the infection on to his mother and both died within a week. The disease was then spread far and wide by the people who came to the funeral.
Most of the previous outbreaks have been caused by meat from dead infected animals collected by hunters who then sell it on. Fruit bats, however, are widely eaten in rural West Africa.
The team, led by epidemiologist Herr Leendertz, a disease ecologist at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, are expected to publish their results in a major journal soon.
Herr Leendertz's team believe that an infected straw-colored fruit bat brought the disease to Guinea. The mammals are known to travel long distances and usually settle in forests near cities. Herr Leendertz said, " The evidence is not 100 percent and we can only say that it is possible. They can travel far in one night. I don't think an individual bat or colony migrated all the way from Congo or Gabon to West Africa. These big colonies are connected. There is a possibility for the virus to mix between colonies. The bats share the same fruit. It is likely not to have even been one species of bat. The virus may jump from one species to another."
If the bat theory is confirmed, the locals would try to destroy the colonies, which, Herr Leendertz says, would be an ecological disaster, because bats pollinate plants and kill insects. And bat hunts would also only increase human contact with potentially infected animals. | high13421.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "The price of rice and vegetables will go up."
},
"options": [
"Heavy tropical storms will follow shortly.",
"The price of rice and vegetables will go up.",
"Many people will write in to the newspaper.",
"More rice and v... | In Singapore,most of us love window-shopping while some others enjoy having a picnic at East Coast Park or Changi Beach on sunny days.Singaporeans are never bothered by the occasional thunderstorm.However,we know that if it rains for long continuous periods,there will be more serious effects.Just recently the main shopping street of Orchard Road was flooded and some part of Bukit Timah was impassable to traffic.People reacted by writing in to the newspaper to complain about this! We forget that other countries suffer much worse effects.
Elsewhere,heavy tropical storms often result in floods that ruin crops especially in Thailand and Malaysia.This in turn usually means that the price of rice and vegetables here in Singapore will rise because we import these products from them.If there is a typhoon or tsunami,thousands of lives are lost too.This happened in Indonesia and Phuket in Thailand in 2004 and _ serves to remind us of how Mother Nature can cause great damage.
Weather patterns in general have changed dramatically in recent years.Scientists believe that global warming and the resulting melting of the polar ice-cap has caused the level of the ocean to rise.This in turn causes flooding of low-lying areas in countries where the land is rather flat and some parts of which is below water level.It is believed that human activities have caused Mother Nature to show her extreme anger,so it is now important that we really work together to cut down on harmful activities,for example,illegal logging or irresponsible forest-burning to clear land for farming. | high6609.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Some fish can recognize your faces."
},
"options": [
"Some fish may ignore your presence.",
"Some fish can recognize your faces.",
"Some fish have complicated brains.",
"Some fish have large brains."
],
"questio... | While your pet fish may appear to be ignorant of your presence, chances are that it knows you extremely well and can probably even identify you from a crowd of human faces! At least, that is the conclusion reached by scientists the University of Oxford in the U.K. and the University of Queensland in Australia, following an extensive study of the archerfish , a species of tropical fish that can be found all the way from India to Indonesia, the Philippines, and Australia.
The ability to distinguish between human faces is a complex task. That's because we all have the same basic features -- two eyes sitting above a nose and a mouth. It's only the subtle differences that make humans distinct from one another. Since this requires a combination of both visual sense and memory, researchers had always assumed that _ was a skill possessed only by those with complicated brains, i.e., humans, a few select animals -- such as horses, cows, dogs, monkeys and some birds, like pigeons.
To test if this assumption was accurate, a team of scientists led by Dr. Cait Newport, Marie Curie Research Fellow in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University, decided to study fish. The aquatic animals have small brains that lack the neocortex , or neocortex-like structure, believed to help recognize the subtle differences between human facial features.
The team began by presenting four archerfish with images of two human faces. Initially, the fish spat randomly at both. However, they soon learned that pouring water at the one selected by the researchers earned them a food treat. After that, they focused primarily on that image. The researchers then took the experiment one step further, by introducing 44 other human faces to the mix.
To the researcher's astonishment, the trained archerfish were able to recall the learned image almost 81% of the time. And this accuracy improved to 86% when the researchers made the identification even harder, by replacing the colored photos with a set of black and white images and hiding the shape of the head. | high14428.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Wisconsin Historical Museum."
},
"options": [
"Wisconsin Historical Museum.",
"Swiss Historical Village.",
"Artisan Gallery & Creamery Cafe.",
"Christopher Columbus Museum."
],
"question": "Which of the follow... | 30 N. Carroll Street on Madison's Capitol Square
Discover Wisconsin's history and culture on four floors of exhibits. Open for public programs. Admission is free.
Open Tuesday through Saturday, 9:00 am -- 4:00 pm.
(608) 264-6555 www.wisconsinhistory.org/museum
_
612 Seventh Ave., New Glarus
The Swiss Historical Village offers a beautiful look at pioneer life in America's heartland. 14 buildings in the village give a full picture of everyday life in the nineteenth-century Midwest.
Tue.--Fri., May 1st -October 31st , 10:00 am--4:00 pm. Admission is $20.
(608) 527-2317 www.swisshistoricalvillage.com
_
6858 Paoli Rd., Paoli, WI
One of the largest collections of fine arts in Wisconsin. Over 5000 sp. ft. of exhibition space in a historic creamery. While visiting enjoy a wonderfully prepared lunch at our cafe overlooking the Sugar River. Just minutes from Madison!
Gallery open Tue. -Sun., 10:00 am--5:00 pm.
Cafe open Wed. -Sat., 11:00 am -3:00 pm.
Sun. brunch with wine, 10:00--3:00 pm.
(608) 845-6600 www.artisangal.com
_
239 Whitney St., Columbus
World-class exhibit -2000 quality souvenirs marking Chicago's 1893 World Columbian Exhibition. Tour buses are always welcome.
Open daily, 8:15 am - 4:00 pm.
(920) 623-1992 www.columbusantiquemall.com | high1600.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "teachers"
},
"options": [
"students",
"girls",
"teachers",
"doctors"
],
"question": "The passage is mainly written for _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_index"... | Hello and welcome! My name is Shelley Ann Vernon and I am glad that you want to find out more about teaching English through games. Right here you will find ways to get great results in the classroom for children aged 4 to 12; ways that from my experience will bring more success and joy into the lives of the children you teach.
You'll learn how to make your serious classes fun, how to ensure everyone gets better grades, how to help inspire the brighter kids while taking care of the slower ones, and how to associate fun with learning by teaching vocabulary and grammar through language games. Earn even more appreciation, love and respect from your students and their parents for your teaching.
The games presented here work for ESL (English as a Second Language) pupils aged 4 to 12. These games are most suitable for beginners to general level students.
Achieve results 2 X as fast.
Don't take my word for it; read evidence from teachers and parents:
She found it valuable right away!Although I only bought your book on Monday, and today is Wednesday, I want you to know how valuable I have found it to be. I have used a couple of the games in school already and the children loved them.Most importantly, they were learning and reviewing English at the same time. Can I admit that I also enjoyed my lessons more?
Gila Goldberg, Jerusalem
The games help with learning difficulties!
My daughter Aurore has learning difficulties and since coming to your classes she has gained confidence and has improved in all subjects at school.
Mrs. J. Brown, Canterbury, Kent, UK
Click here to order now with our secure server. Remember, if you are not satisfied, just let us know and we will refund you in full. You still get to keep the essential bonus material, yours for FREE, and that's a rare time saving gain, plus a value of 25 dollars. | high12059.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "To help parents and students make better choices of colleges."
},
"options": [
"To require colleges to make their graduation rates known to the public.",
"To help colleges perform better in the future.",
"To help parents and ... | The popular college rankings focus primarily on prestige as measured by the SAT scores of incoming students and how many applicants are turned away. An initiative started last fall by the Obama administration could help families go beyond these limited, and far too easily exploited, indexes to learn quickly and easily how a college is compared with its competitors nationally on important criteria like graduation rates, what a degree actually costs and how much debt a student can expect to run up by graduation day.
If the federal government makes it legally necessary to disclose this information in a clear and consistent way, as it should, families will be better able to make informed college choices. And this will help put pressure on colleges that perform poorly to improve.
Critics may regard this initiative as an example of government overreach. But given that the federal government spends nearly $190 billion a year on higher education aid to students, it has a legitimate interest in making sure that the money flows to the schools that best meet their responsibilities to families and students.
Congress has taken some steps to require greater transparency from colleges. The 1990 Student Right to Know Act, for example, required colleges and universities that receive federal aid to disclose graduation rates. And the 2008 Higher Education Opportunity Act required schools to offer a way for consumers to determine actual costs after student aid is taken into account.
But many colleges have done a poor job of obeying federal disclosure rules, and much of the available information is not in one place. The administration's new efforts would enforce reporting requirements and provide some new tools.
President Obama wants to expand campus-based aid to about $10 billion from the current $2.7 billion. He has proposed moving money away from colleges that fail to control tuition increases or provide good value to others that do a better job. That is a worthy idea in principle, but he will need strong data-based evidence to determine how colleges are doing.
The transparency initiatives are a good place to start and should be embraced by both parties in Congress. If students and families, facing higher tuition and rising debt, are to make sound choices, they need more and better information. | high15736.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "They enjoy free and delicious dishes and make comments on them."
},
"options": [
"They enjoy free and delicious dishes and make comments on them.",
"They only work for local magazines and newspapers.",
"Once they become food ... | To some, it's a dream job---eating delicious meals for free and then writing about them. But _
Karen Fernau, a food writer for The Arisona Republic, said when she first started her job -she began to gain weight. "I always looked forward to lunch before this job, then all of a sudden lunch was all day every day. " she says. Nine years later, keeping her weight steady and her health intact is a daily battle. If she knows she will be going to a tasting at a bakery or eating a four-course meal, she usually eats fruits or salads throughout the day. Now she is always keeping track of what's in the food she eats and she says most people don't even look at or consider it. At one tasting task alone, she says, upward of l,000 calories is often added to her day. That's about half of the recommended total calories per day for the average adult.
But even though she's thought of a special eating method, Fernau says sticking to it is a daily battle. And food editors, writers and critics across the country couldn't agree more. "When I'm at home or not eating for work, it's healthy food to the extreme," says Phil Vettel, who's been a restaurant critic for the Chicago Tribune for 19 years.
Vettle, who eats dinner at four restaurants each week, says unlike most professions, he has no right to choose. "If I'm going out to eat, I can't choose the healthiest thing on the menu, I have to eat when they're bringing me. " While Vettel exercises when he can, Joe Yonan, a food editor at The Washington Post, has strengthened his exercise habits since he started the job two years ago. Yonan says he realized early on that he was gaining weight and immediately hired a personal trainer to meet with three times a week, on top of his body training three to five times a week.
Still, it's a struggle that many Americans might envy. After all, it's one thing to get your calories from lobster tails or a delicate chocolate cookie and quite another to get them from sodas and fast-food burgers. | high4778.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "The tremble of Upsilon Andromeda."
},
"options": [
"That he found a dog owner was pulled by his dog.",
"That he believes any star has its planets.",
"That any planet has gravity.",
"The tremble of Upsilon Andromeda."
... | What science fiction once told of other worlds far away is now a fact. Astronomers prove the existence of another solar system like ours with some planets in the constellation Andromeda .
Geoffrey Marcy is a professor of astronomy and physics at San Francisco State University and says, "What we have found now, for the first time ever, is indeed a fully-grown system of planets around the star Upsilon Andromeda, in which there are three planets, one close in, one at a middle distance, and one farther out." The star is slightly larger than our sun. The planets are huge, like our Jupiter .
Marcy's partner in this research, Debra Fischer, describes the solar system, "Here's the inner planet that goes around every 46 days, the middle planet that goes around every 242 days, and then the outer planet that goes around every three and a half to four years."
Astronomically, it's not far away, 44 light years. The sun of that solar system, Upsilon Andromeda, is so near and bright that it can be seen by using no equipment during summer and fall.
For twelve years astronomers searched the skies in the belief that if our sun has planets around it, surely others do, too. Geoffrey Marcy says, "And then starting three and a half years ago, we began finding for the first time planets singly, one planet here around one star."
"When I look up at the stars now at night, I can imagine easily that every one of them has planets around them," says Debra Fischer.
It was the tremble in the star that led Marcy to discover the planets. "The star rocks around due to the gravity of the planet much like a dog owner gets pulled around by a little dog."
Can they support life? We don't know, because present technology is not advanced enough to determine what the planets are made of. That, Marcy says, is astronomy's next challenge. | high21493.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "the two authors"
},
"options": [
"boy and girl",
"the two authors",
"research and result",
"pink and blue"
],
"question": "The word \"pair\" in Para.4 refers to _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
... | Anyone who ever wondered why a dying plant, say, a freshly-cut red rose may appeal to a lady friend, might take some comfort in science, which once again offers us a reasonable answer to one of the world' s great mysteries.
Beyond a common preference in people for blue, "the long history of color preference studies has been described as 'confusing and contradictory '," write scientists Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of England' s Newcastle University, authors of a new study in the journal Current Biology. "This fact is perhaps surprising," they said, "though the popularity of the concept that little girls differ from boys in preferring pink."
But the scientists believe they have an answer to this scientific mystery, discovering women's preference for red, hidden above the average liking for blue.
In their study, the pair quickly flashed color cards, displaying many different aspects, at 208 volunteers, mostly Britishers but with a number of Han Chinese, who moved to the United Kingdom recently. Tested in three different experiments, the researchers found out a small but significant preference for reddish colors in the female volunteers.
Puzzled, the authors realized that most of the difference between men and women came in the form of a preference for green VS red in the color cards, regardless of the other slight differences such as the slightly blue ones that everyone liked. Why might this be?
Evolution might offer an answer, they reason. Human color perception , the assessment of three separate color types -- red -- green -- blue-- in our vision is a relatively recent addition to our line of mammals
Adding weight to their argument, they found the women who are most typically feminine on a psychological survey also had the biggest preference for reddish colors. "My love is like a red, red rose," wrote the Scottish poet Rober Burns in 1794. | high3017.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "The American dream of owning a house."
},
"options": [
"The cost of having a house built.",
"The American dream of owning a house.",
"The life of owner-builders in America.",
"A comparison between young couples and thei... | For millions of people, the American dream of owning a home seems to be slipping out of reach.
"Maybe young couples can no longer afford to buy a ready-made house as their parents did,'' says 40-year-old building instructor Pat Hennin. "But they can still have a home. Like their pioneer ancestors, they can build it themselves, and at less than half the cost of a ready-made house."
The owner-builders came from every occupational group, although surprisingly few are professional building workers. Many _ with little or no experience. "I learned how to build my house from reading books," says John Brown, who built a six-room home for $25, 000 in High Falls, New Jersey. "If you have patience and the carpentry skill to make a bookcase, you can build a house." An astonishing 50 percent of these owner-builders hammer every nail, lay every pipe, and wire every switch with their own hands. The rest contract for some parts of the task. But even those who just act as contractors and finish the insides of their homes can save from 30 percent to 45 percent of what a ready-made home would cost.
One survey revealed that 60 percent of owner-builders also design their homes. Many others buy commercial house plans for less than $100 or use plans available from the U. S. Department of Agriculture. | high20955.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Other countries have increased their efforts in public relations."
},
"options": [
"The number of US public relations agencies had greatly decreased by 1991.",
"Other countries have increased their efforts in public relations.",
... | The rise of multinational corporations , global marketing, new communications technologies, and shrinking cultural differences have led to an unparalleled increase in global public relations or PR.
Surprisingly, since modern PR was largely an American invention, America's relations is being threatened by PR efforts in other countries. Ten years ago, for example, the world's top five public relations agencies were American-owned. In 1991, only one was. The British in particular are becoming more sophisticated and creative. A recent survey found that more than half of all British companies include PR as part of their corporate planning activities, compared to about one-third of U.S. companies.It may not be long before London replaces New York as the capital of PR.
Why is America lagging behind in the global PR race? Firstly, Americans as a whole tend to be fairly provincial and take more of an interest in local affairs. Knowledge of world geography, for example, has never been strong in this country. Secondly, Americans lag behind their European and Asian counterparts in knowing a second language. Less than 5 percent of Burson--Marshall's U.S.employees know two languages. Ogilvy and Mather have about the same percentage. Conversely, some European firms have half or more of their employees fluent in a second language. Finally, people involved in PR abroad tend to keep a closer eye on international affairs. In the financial PR area, for instance, most Americans read the Wall Street Journal. Overseas, their counterparts read the Journal as well as the Financial Times of London and The Economist, publications not often read in this country.
Perhaps the PR industry might take a lesson from Ted Turner of CNN (Cable News Network). Turner recently announced that the word "foreign" would no longer be used on CNN news
broadcasts. According to Turner, global communications have made the nations of the world so interdependent that there is no longer any such thing as foreign. | high2309.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "as the situation changes"
},
"options": [
"in order to identify themselves with others",
"as the situation changes",
"in order to better identify others",
"as their mental processes change"
],
"question": "Accor... | Statuses are marvelous human inventions that enable us to get along with one another and to determine where we "fit"in society.As we go about our everyday lives,we mentally attempt to place people in terms of their statuses.For example,we must judge whether the person in the library is a reader or a librarian,whether the telephone caller is a friend or a salesman,whether the unfamiliar person on our property is a thief or a meter reader,and so on.
The statuses we assume often vary with the people we encounter,and change throughout life.Most of us can,at very high speed,assume the statuses that various situations require.Much of social interaction consists of identifying and selecting among appropriate statuses and allowing other people to assume their statuses in relation to us.This means that we fit our actions to those of other people,based on a constant mental process of _ and interpretation.Although some of us find the task more difficult than others.most of us perform it rather effortlessly.
A status has been compared to ready-made clothes.Within certain limits the buyer can choose style and fabric.But an American is not free to choose the costume of a Chinese peasant or that of a Hindu prince.We must choose from among the clothing presented by our society.Further more,our choice is limited to a size that will fit,as well as by our pocketbook.Having made a choice within these limits,we can have certain alterations made,but apart from minor adjustments.We tend to be limited to what the stores have on their racks.Statuses too come ready made,and the range of choice among them is limited. | high5466.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "He is in search of new dialects."
},
"options": [
"He is buying some flowers.",
"He is in search of new dialects.",
"He is making a speech in London.",
"He is watching a play in the Royal Opera House."
],
"quest... | Phonetics Professor Henry Higgins first meets Eliza Doolittle, a flower girl, near the Royal Opera House, late on a cold March night. Eliza is selling flowers. Higgins is out on his endless search for new dialects of prefix = st1 /London's speech.
Higgins makes a bet with Colonel Pickering that he can turn the cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into a lady within three months. To do so, he must change her thick Londonaccent, teach her to speak proper English and teach her manners.
Higgins looks upon her not as a person but as raw material for his experiment. He trains Eliza for weeks. When no progress is made, Eliza, loses her courage, Higgins loses his temper, and even Pickering's patience wears thin.
At last she improves. In order to test Eliza, he decides to introduce her to his mother's guests at the Ascot Race Meeting. Eliza proves to be a success. Pickering and Higgins are very proud, and neither of them takes into account Eliza's personal accomplishments in the matter. Eliza has absorbed the sophistication and the courage to see the unfairness of this, and she _ , demanding recognition. The Professor is astonished. It is as though a statue has come to life and spoken. Eliza rushes out of the house angrily.
Higgins discovers that he is hurt because Eliza leaves him. He meets her at his mother's flat where she has gone for advice. They argue violently and she storms out. It is only a moment after her departure that Higgins finally wakes up to the fact that Eliza has become an entirely independent and admirable human being. He realizes that he will have a difficult time getting on without her. | high18212.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25"
},
"options": [
"on the same date every year",
"on Sunday on March 22",
"on Sunday on April 25",
"on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25"
],
"question": "Easter come... | The most important holiday in spring, especially for Christians , is Easter. This Christian holiday is not on the same date every year, but it's always on a Sunday. It can be any Sunday between March 22 and April 25. Many people celebrate Easter by buying new clothes. Children celebrate by hunting for color1ed eggs that their parents have hidden around the house. People also give Easter baskets filled with candy and other goodies to one another to celebrate the day.
But the holiday is more than new clothes and good things to eat. On Easter, many people go to church to celebrate Jesus' resurrection from the dead.
Most people color1 them. Some people hide them. Others just eat them. But no matter what one does with Easter eggs, they are an important Easter tradition throughout the Western world.
People from many different cultures celebrate Easter. In both America and Belgium, children look for Easter eggs hidden on lawns and in bushes. In America, children believe the eggs are hidden by the Easter bunny . But in Belgium, the hidden eggs are supposed to have fallen from church bells. In Bulgaria, red Easter eggs are lucky in churches; Bulgarian families also hit these Easter eggs together to see whose is the strongest. The winner looks forward to good fortune that year. Still dozens of other Easter traditions exist. In parts of Austria, for example, children sing from door to door and are rewarded with color1ful eggs. | high17121.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Developing new resources."
},
"options": [
"Promoting services.",
"Training employees.",
"Consuming fossil fuels.",
"Developing new resources."
],
"question": "Which of the following probably creates green-colla... | Going Green
For career changers thinking about growth and advancement potential, forget the blue-collar and white-collar categories: Green is the way to go. According to Bracken Hendricks, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Progress, careers that promote environmental responsibility will become main stream within a decade. "The growth in green careers will be like the Internet boom, which not only created new jobs, but also had an influence on the overall economy ," he says.
The increasing environmental problems and need for eco-friendly products and services are creating a new job section of green-collar jobs. Many countries of the world have realized the importance and need for energy-saving products and services. It is expected that by 2025 about 25% of the jobs in developed countries will be of green-collar jobs. Doesn't the data look promising for the future?
Green-collar jobs have become a bright career chances for all. And jobs will pop up at every income level, from environmental manager to gardener. For example, many countries including the United States have understood that fossil fuels have negative effect on the environment which can later become a serious danger to mankind. As a result, possibilities are being explored to find alternatives to satisfy demands in a better way. The increasing demand of newer resources has creating the need for experts and researchers who can find better ways to deal with the ongoing needs. In addition, in order to meet the increasing demands of environment-friendly equipment, both green product designer and educated and trained workers are needed. Management of environmental organizations also demands a large number of environmental managers.
Where can you find green-collar jobs? Internet is undoubtedly the best way to find information on almost any matter. Nowadays, different kinds of jobs are being posted online. Search through a couple of job websites to look for a bright future in energy conversion and recycling of waste management. Check regularly and find the right work for yourself. People who read newspapers can also find different kinds of green-collar jobs. | high6147.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "March."
},
"options": [
"September.",
"May.",
"June.",
"March."
],
"question": "When is the best time to visit Joshua Tree NP?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_in... | Visiting Joshua Tree National Park, California
Joshua Tree National Park is nearly 800,000 acres large and surrounds parts of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts in South-central California. Although deserted at first sight, the park is full of wildlife and provides a variety of entertainment activities from hiking to climbing. Within a three-hour drive, Joshua Tree National Park takes at least a full day to visit.
Things to do
Hiking opportunities within the park include several choices, from 12 self-guided nature routines to all-day back-country hikes.
Joshua Tree NP has nine camping grounds, and back-country camping is also allowed.
Rock climbing is a popular activity in the park, which has 10 mountains greater than 5, 000 feet in height.
When to visit
Joshua Tree NP is open 365 days a year, although the best time to visit is October through April, when temperature is milder. The peak season is when the wild flowers bloom, and the summer months are the least crowded.
What to bring
In addition to your camera and telescope, be sure to carry lots of water. Park and guiding maps can be picked up at any of the three visitor centers.
Fees
Parking fees: You can buy a seven-day vehicle permit for $ 15, a single entry permit for $ 5, or Joshua Tree National Park annual pass for $ 60.
Camping fees: They vary by camping ground | high14400.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "take a blood test"
},
"options": [
"take a blood test",
"wait for one day",
"fill in a form",
"rest for a while"
],
"question": "Before giving blood, you will _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},... | What is so amazing about giving blood?
The National Blood Service, which covers all of England and North Wales, needs nearly two and a half million blood donations each year. When you give blood, you'll be doing one of the most amazing things anybody could dream of -- saving a life.
_
All types of blood are needed --not just rare ones. In fact, the commoner the blood type, the more are needed. So even if your blood is one of the most common types -- group O for example -- you can be sure that by donating three times a year, you really are doing something amazing.
What is the donation process?
The donation will last about an hour in all. When you arrive, you will be asked a few questions about your health. Then a drop of blood will be taken and tested just to make sure you're not anemic . If all is well, your donation will be taken.
This only takes about ten minutes, during which time 470ml of blood will be collected. Most people hardly feel a thing. After a short rest, a drink and biscuits, you'll be up and ready to go. All equipment used in the collection of your blood is new and is never reused, so you don't have to worry about risks to your health in the collection of your blood.
Who can become a blood donor?
Becoming a blood donor really is very simple. As long as you're in good health and aged between 17 and 60, you can become a blood donor. If you would like more information or advice, or you want to become a blood donor, ring the donor helpline on 0845 7711. The donor helpline is open 24 hours a day -- every day of the year. | high9274.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Practice speaking English"
},
"options": [
"How to speak to foreigners",
"How to write English well",
"How to organize the idea in English",
"Practice speaking English"
],
"question": "What's the best topic for ... | Many of Chinese students who have learnt English for more than ten years are still unable to speak English fluently when they meet a foreigner. They seem to have mastered the basic language structure, but a conversation in English will make them feel uneasy. They are afraid that other people might find out their mistakes.
It is not uncommon that many students, who are bad speakers of English, can write English perfectly. This proves that they are not unable to organize their idea in English. The center of the problem is that they don't have enough practices and confidence.
Why should you be afraid? Do you fear those foreigners to whom you are speaking? Don't be shy. They will not laugh at you just for a little mistake you make. The best to _ this trouble is to learn to speak by speaking more. I am sure that more practice will help you to succeed. | high1628.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "are named after some famous people"
},
"options": [
"are named after some famous people",
"reach the top of some high mountains.",
"provide visitors with free water and food.",
"have attracted many well-known cowboys."
... | The following are a few cities with cheap attractions or restaurants in California, the US.
Cathedral City
The Indian Oven in the city will give you a high-quality dining experience. It's a restaurant with traditional Indian dishes. All of the lunch specials are $5.95 and are served from 11:30 am to 2:00 pm. The windows of the restaurants give you the beautiful views of desert mountain scenes. You need to call 92234(760)770-3918 to book a table.
Palm Desert
Palm Desert, a city in Riverside County, has a number of free desert hiking trails . They are named after famous Western Hollywood cowboys. The trails are fun to hike on. At some points they go up very high and you can get a bird's-eye view of the surrounding desert cities. The paths are dusty, so bring some good hiking boots and hats. Do bring some water and your phone. It's great for an afternoon hike after 2 pm. Call 92260(760)340-0574 or 92253(760)564-4712 to learn more.
Lake Cahuilla
Away from the busy streets of the city of Palm Springs, Lake Cahuilla is a great recreational area you can visit in La Quinta. It is at the foot of the Santa Rosa Mountains. It costs $3.00 for per person to enter the area, but a half for kids under 7. The activities include: camping, fishing, bicycling, and horseback riding. If you want to save on rooms, you can stay in an RV. Call 92278(760)664-7215 and you'll learn something else. | high12071.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "get a membership card"
},
"options": [
"give away a bicycle",
"know Nice Ride well",
"pay the cost in advance",
"get a membership card"
],
"question": "If one wants to use the bike,it's a must to _ .",
"q... | Right in front of the Minneapolis Central Library,a row of green bikes sits parked in a special stand.Each bike is designed with the logo"Nice Ride"--the name of the city's bike-share program.
Nice Ride bikes are a lot like the library books that people come here to borrow.To rent a bike,you simply use your membership card at a Nice Ride bike station.Members can rent one of 1,200 bikes from 138 stations throughout Minnesota's largest city.People use the Nice Ride bikes to go to work,to go out on business,or just to enjoy the city's many bike paths.
The rise of bike-share programs like Nice Ride is encouraging more people than ever to choose biking over driving.Rising gas prices and concerns about the environment have also gotten people to dust off their bike helmets, pump air into flat tires,and hit the road.
Why ride? Not only is biking good exercise,but switching from a car to a bike also reduces the amount of pollution in the air.Carbon dioxide,a greenhouse gas linked to climate change,is one of the many polluting substances that come out of a car's tallpipe.
Bike-share systems are found around the world in cities like London,Paris,Barcelona,and Melbourne,Australia.The largest program-with 70,000 bikes-is in Wuhan,China.
To make roads friendlier to non-motorists,the U.S.Department of Transportation has invested more than a billion dollars in cycling and pedestrian projects in recent years.The money went toward building thousands of miles of on-street bike lanes and bike-and pedestrian-only passages called green ways. | high7259.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "To protect digital infrastructure in the world."
},
"options": [
"To fight against Internet-related crimes.",
"To protect digital infrastructure in the world.",
"To respect Internet sovereignty of each country.",
"To ma... | China supports international efforts to secure cyberspace but believes each nation's "Internet sovereignty " must be respected, a top Chinese official said at a cyber security conference on Tuesday.
"China, like many other countries, is very concerned about cyber security," said Liu Zhengrong, deputy director general of the Internet Affairs Bureau of the State Council Information Office.
"China faces severe cyber security threats," Liu told participants here at the Worldwide Cyber Security Summit, a gathering of government and business leaders from 40 countries hosted by the EastWest Institute think tank.
"International cooperation is much needed to safeguard international cyberspace," Liu said.
But "Internet sovereignty of each country needs to be respected," the Chinese official added. "Different national and cultural conditions" should be taken into account.
Liu declined to answer repeated questions about cyber attacks last year on Google which the Internet giant said originated in China and led to the California company's decision to reroute its searches through Hong Kong.
"The Chinese government firmly opposes cyber attacks in any form and Chinese law clearly states that any hackers will be held responsible for their actions," he said.
Liu said China itself is a "a major victim of cyber attacks and network viruses" and has laws in place to deal with hackers.
"Internet-related crimes (in China) are showing a steady upward trend," Liu said. "We suffer big economic losses from hacking networks and viruses - around $1 billion dollars (6.8 billion yuan) a year."
In 2009, Chinese law enforcement authorities investigated about 48,000 cases, a 37 percent increase over 2008, he said.
While China has a dynamic Internet population of more than 400 million users and millions of bloggers, there is no "absolute freedom" on the Web, Liu said.
"I don't think there is absolute freedom in this world," he said. "When you are speaking via the Internet you must obey laws and respect others' lawful rights."
Last Thursday, Wang Chen, minister of the State Council Information Office, said China has been actively promoting a real-name registration system for Internet and cell phone users to better manage Internet information and services.
China needs laws that will step up monitoring for "harmful information" and block "overseas hostile forces from infiltrating through the Internet," Wang said.
Last week, China tightened its State Secrets law, holding Internet and mobile phone operators responsible for customers who try to leak State secrets.
Some 400 government officials, business leaders and cyber security experts are attending the summit, which features three days of discussions on ways to protect the world's digital infrastructure from electronic threats.(427) | high16217.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "A blind couple was walking into the driveway"
},
"options": [
"some drivers were driving their cars very fast",
"a couple failed to cross the road as usual",
"most drivers drove in the same direction",
"A blind couple w... | One day I was driving to a business appointment and, as usual, I was planning in my mind what I was going to say. I came to a very busy crossroad where the stoplight had just turned red.
A young couple, both blind, were walking across the road. Each of them had a white cane . They were overcoming the most feared blindness. I held my breath when I noticed that the couple was not walking on the crosswalk, but was instead stepping directly into the middle of the crossroad. Without realizing the danger they were in, they were walking right into the path of the oncoming cars. I was frightened for them because I didn't know if the other drivers understood what was happening. Then I saw a _ unfold before my eyes. Every car in every direction came to a stop at the same time. Nobody can yelled, "Get out of the way!"
Amazed, I noticed that everyone's attention was also fixed on the couple. Suddenly the driver to my right reacted. He yelled, "To your right."Other people followed, shouting, "To your right!"Trusting their elite canes and the calls from some concerned citizens, they made it to the other side of the road. I could judge they had no idea what was really going on around them. Yet I immediately felt smiles appeared on everyone's face. The driver to the left of me was saying, "I can't believe it!"
I thought all of us were deeply moved by what we had just seen. Here were human beings stepping outsides themselves for a while to help other people in deed. | high4750.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Her success is partly due to her family."
},
"options": [
"She is studying at a public school.",
"She dreams of becoming a scientist.",
"Her success is partly due to her family.",
"She was sure she would win the contest... | A 15-year-old Saanich student who invented a flashlight powered by body heat is heading home today from California with a big prize--and an opportunity to expand on her work.
St. Michaels University School student Ann Makosinski was the only Canadian among the four winners at Google's annual international science fair, beating out thousands of other young scientists from around the world.
Winning the international contest was "a total shock", Ann said from San Francisco. "I definitely think it will have an influence on my future."
Ann thanked her family for encouraging her interest in science, telling the judges that her first toy was a box of transistors .
Ann's prize includes a $25,000 scholarship and a "once-in-a-lifetime experience" from either the European Organization for Nuclear Research, Lego or Google for her Hollow Flashlight, which has no moving parts or batteries.
Ann created the flashlight for a local science fair. The inspiration for the invention came from seeing unwanted batteries and after visits to the Philippines, where she saw the need for a battery-free flashlight. A friend at school there failed in her studies because of a lack of electricity and light to study when it became dark.
In her project, Ann wrote that she "made two flashlights that do not use any batteries, harmful chemicals, or kinetic energy . They do not create any noise and will always work. The flashlight's only limitation is its need for at least a 5degC temperature difference to provide usable light."
A You Tube video of Ann explaining how she created the flashlight has been viewed more than 1.4 million times.
Despite her success, the private school student is undecided about her career path. Ann hopes she can find a way to combine her love of film with science.
The four winners were chosen from 15 finalists from eight countries. The contest attracted thousands of entries from students in 120 countries. | high19124.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "The couple will set up their new home in Nelson."
},
"options": [
"They decided to leave all the things behind in Britain.",
"The wife always complained about the life in Britain.",
"The couple will set up their new home in N... | Eric and Doris King Turner are packing their bags for New Zealand. They're busy deciding what to pack and what to leave behind in Britain and are making plans to extend their new home in Nelson. Doris is looking forward to getting the garden into shape and Eric has his heart set on a spot of fly fishing. The difference is that Eric is 102, Doris is 87. Eric thinks he's Britain's oldest _
In January next year Eric King Turner and his wife of 12 years will wave goodbye to their neighbors, and set sail from Southampton on the voyage of a lifetime. The ocean liner Saga Rose will take six weeks to get to Auckland and the couple are expecting a red-carpet welcome from family.
Doris was born in New Zealand but gave up her homeland when the couple met and married in the late 1990s. But New Zealand is close to both their hearts and the attraction of family and friends, and the good fishing helped to persuade them to move.
Doris, who has five children and nine grandchildren, supported her husband's application to settle in New Zealand. The paperwork took five months. Eric says, "We not only had to produce a marriage certificate but we had to produce evidence that we were in a long and stable relationship!" He also said he was not asked about his age but had to show that he could support himself financially in New Zealand.
"I like New Zealand. The way of life is very much the same as it is here but it is not so crowded." His wife has always been "a little bit homesick" but has never complained. Now the couple are in the middle of the task of sorting out possessions and selling their flat. | high11578.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Private houses"
},
"options": [
"Private houses",
"Taxis.",
"Restaurants.",
"London clubs"
],
"question": "Which of the following places may still be smoking areas in England?",
"question_type": null
},
... | LONDON (AP) -- England joins on Sunday the growing list of places that ban smoking in public buildings, taxis and other places including even Buckingham Palace with a tough law.
Pubs, clubs and restaurants will all be smoke-free. Taxi and delivery drivers have been warned that they too could be fined 50 pounds, or about $100, if caught lighting up inside work vehicles.
Experts say the bans have become an irreversible tread because of greatly rising health costs and public uneasiness over second-hand smoke. Some of the strictest smoking bans are in the United States, even though there is no federal anti-smoking policy. New York and Florida have strict bans, while California has certain outdoor smoking bans.
Spain, Italy, Iran, Norway, Sweden, Singapore, South Africa, Uruguay and new Zealand have passed legislation to restrict smoking. France banned smoking in many public places in February and plans to extend the ban to cafes and restaurants next year. Finland is introducing a ban in 2009.
Despite the spread of bans, the World Health Organization predicts a steady rise in tobacco sales. In its Tobacco Atlas, the WHO said that by 2030 there will be "at least another two billion smokers in the world" and an expected decrease in male smokers "will be _ by an increase in female smoking rates, especially in developing countries."
In advance of the English ban, anti-smoking ads have coated bus stops and the British government has subsidized programs to help people quit. The rest of Britain--Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland --already have smoking bans in place. | high2321.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "better get on with others"
},
"options": [
"put on heavy makeup",
"better get on with others",
"learn to smoke cigarettes",
"buy a luxury car or dress"
],
"question": "The writer holds the opinion that being an ... | As the school year comes to an end, many senior students of school across the nation will not just be starting another summer of holidays to provide a break during semesters. Leaving their _ , many of them are to take their first step into the world of adulthood, attending fast-paced, crowded universities, taking up part-time or full-time employment. Many may even move from family homes in their pursuit of educational fulfillment or the "perfect" job opportunity.
One ceremony that has become part of coming of age has been the senior prom . The senior prom is an opportunity for youth to celebrate the entrance into the world of adulthood with color and formality. However, there is far more behind the social event than ever noticed.
What is formal? Formal means to present one's self to others in a way which is "with form", with shape, polite, inoffensive and organized. We see the example of a formal letter; it uses proper grammar and sentence structure in order to be respectful, while at the same time serving a purpose or getting an important message across.
In our society, what is formal? Very little. On average, clothing, language, behavior --- all is very informal. Individuals who are formal (polite, inoffensive, organized) in their daily dealings with people are often looked upon as boring. Yet in certain situations, individuals play with the concept of formality not truly to achieve respectfulness and order but because it becomes fashionable to do so. While a prom may seem, on the surface, like a fun opportunity to behave formally, it is actually a flowery version of Halloween.
On the occasion of the spring prom, we see flowering youth taking on the formalities of "adult". Fine dress, careful makeup, luxury cars all become part of being an adult. But being "adult" isn't that way.
In our society we have a wrong idea of what adulthood actually is. It has always been my understanding that adulthood and maturity are not based upon one's ability to hold a cigarette in a certain way or tie a bow tie. Adulthood comes with understanding of one's place in the universe; it comes with the knowledge of how to interact with our fellow human beings; it comes with the ability to take responsibility for one's own actions --- whether good or bad. | high4988.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "who have lest their consciousness owing to a stroke"
},
"options": [
"whose parent has experienced a head injury",
"who have lived in a foreign country for a long time",
"who have lest their consciousness owing to a stroke",
... | Two years ago,Wendy Hasnip,47,experienced a brain injury that left her speechless for two weeks.When she finally recovered.she found herself talking with what seemed to be a French accent."I phoned a friend the other day, and she spent the first ten minutes laughing."Hasnip said at the time."While I have nothing against the French."
Hasnip suffered from foreign accent syndrome ,am condition in which people find themselves speaking their own language like someone from a foreign country.The condition usually occurs in people who have experienced a head injury or a stroke a sudden loss of consciousness,sensation,or movement caused by a blocked or broken blood vessel in the brain.
The condition was first identified during the Second World War in a Norwegian woman whose head was injured during an attack by the German military.The woman recovered but was left with a German-sounding accent,to the horror of fellow villagers who avoided her after that.
Researchers have discovered that the combined effect of the damage to several parts of the brain makes victims lengthen certain syllable,mispronounce sounds,and change the normal pitch of their voice.Those changes in speech add up to what sounds like a foreign accent.
Another researcher,a phonetician ,says victims of the syndrome don't acquire at me foreign accent.Their strangely changed speech only resembles the foreign accent with which it has a few sounds in common.
When an English woman named Annie recently developed foreign accent syndrome after a stroke.she spoke with what seemed to be a Scottish accent.However.Annie's Scottish coworkers said she didn't sound at at like a Scot. | high17109.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "can cause you to think of your past which was full of hopes and dreams"
},
"options": [
"can cause you to think of your past which was full of hopes and dreams",
"might cause you to try to realize the golden dream in the present li... | Can feeling of nostalgia be good for you? Or is it unhealthy to have a strong love for the past?
For years, medical experts have studied nostalgia and the reasons for it. Many experts warn that too much nostalgia is harmful. They say living in the past shows that a person is unhappy with his present life. These feelings keep the person from living his life to its fullest.
However, experts say it is normal to love the past sometimes. In fact, a little nostalgia can enrich a person's life.
Dr. Louise Kaplan has written several books about nostalgia. She says these feelings often begin when a young person is between 13 and 19 years old.
"This is the time when you must face the loss of your childhood, "Kaplan says. "You see your new life is easily destroyed. But you think romantically about a golden past. You remember your childhood as a time when life is perfect."
These feelings continue as the person gets older, Kaplan adds. She says many grown persons have a hard time keeping up with changes in the modem world, so they think back to their younger years. At that time the world seemed simple and more harmless.
Kaplan says these feelings do not always actually exist. The good old days did not always exist. The good old days weren't always good. However, she says nostalgia can be helpful, if used properly.
"Feelings of nostalgia can cause you to remember a time when you had high hopes and dreams, "Kaplan says. "It might give you the strong wish to catch those dreams today in your past life." She adds that nostalgia can prevent you from "cutting yourself off from your aim". | high3981.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "acquire more experience"
},
"options": [
"make more money in the future",
"acquire more experience",
"get a better job",
"become more responsible"
],
"question": "College graduates who go to work can _ than ... | It seems that many college graduates are unsure of what to do with their lives, so they jump back into the college scene by default . But graduate school is costly, time consuming and requires a lot of in-depth study, and also parents will lay down more money and banks will supply more student loans.
However, there are some students who should be pursuing graduate degrees. Teachers, lawyers, doctors, professors and ministers are a few examples of those who will benefit from class work past a bachelor's degree. Their professions call for additional courses and more specialization and therefore higher education is a must. Still, all students in general should not adopt the idea that graduate school is necessary for individuals who want to make more money. Working hard right after college can lead to promotions in the future. It seems that it does more good to network or internship with professionals while pursing a bachelor's degree than it does to complete a master's and distant oneself from the world of work.
If a student graduates with a four-year degree and immediately enters the work force , he will most likely start an entry-level pay. In a couple of years this employee will gain seniority and experience, therefore increasing their chance for pay rise. He will learn the information at his job-site that he did not learn in school. His bachelor's degree loan can be immediately _ ,and his maturity level can increase as real work related responsibilities set in. But, if the student pursues a master's degree, he may be able to demand more pay initially when he finally goes job hunting, but years of serious money making as well as work experience will already be lost.
Students should not shy from the workforce just because uncertainty follows graduation. Those who pursue a graduate degree just because they do not want to leave school and because they view the "real world" as scary should think again. Using graduate studies as a hiding place from the full-time job is a waste of time. | high5328.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "avoiding pains caused by using PC"
},
"options": [
"avoiding pains caused by using PC",
"the science of ergonomics",
"illness caused by a computer",
"how to keep fit"
],
"question": "The passage mainly talks abo... | When you think of all the ways your body can get hurt---falling off a bike, stepping on a nail, being bitten by a crazed dog---the aches and pains that come from sitting at a computer may not seem like much.
But more doctors are getting worried about just that. If you sit at a PC the wrong way, the nerves and muscles in your back, neck and arms can get out of line.
_ is the study of how people work and how jobs and equipment can be designed so that people are safer and more comfortable in the things they do---whether that's working on a factory assembly line or sitting in front of a computer.
The monitor
You should not have to tilt your neck up or down to lock at the screen. Your eyes should be level with the top of the screen.
How far away should you sit? Reach your arm out so your fingertips just touch the screen.
The keyboard
It should be directly in front of you. Don't unfold the legs on the bottom of the keyboard so that it tilts up toward you---it should be as flat as possible, or even tilted away from you. You want your wrists "neutral," which means straight, not bent. This puts less strain on your nerves and muscles.
Arms should be close to the body. Don't look at your fingers as you type. Use a document holder to hold papers at the same level as the monitor. Keep the mouse on the same level as the keyboard and close by--- so you don't have to reach for it.
The chair
Your feet shouldn't dangle---the blood will pool in your feet. They should rest flat on the floor, or on phone books, if necessary. Your back needs support. Roll up a towel and stick it there.
The Body
If you think of your body as a collection of right angles when you sit at a computer, you should be just fine.
Your hips should be at a 90-degree angle to your back. That takes the pressure off the spine. And your knees should bend at a 90 degree angle so your feet are flat. | high2447.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "we know ourselves better through re-reading experience"
},
"options": [
"reading benefits people both mentally and physically",
"readers mainly focus on feelings on their first reading",
"we know ourselves better through re-r... | As we grow old, we realize that we have so little time to read and there are so many great books that we've yet to get around to. Yet re-readers are everywhere around us. For certain fans, re-reading The Lord of the Rings is a conventional practice annually. One friend told me that Jane Austen's Emma can still surprise him, despite his having read it over 50 times.
New sudden clear understandings can be gained from the process of re-reading. Journalist Rebacca Mead, a long-time Englishwoman in New York, first came across George Eliot's Middlemarch at 17. Since then, she has read it again every five years. With each re-reading, it has opened up further; in each chapter of her life, it has resonated differently. Mead evidenced the large number of ways in which really good books not only stand the test of repeat reads, but also offer fresh gifts each time we _ . These kinds of books grow with us.
Scientists have also recognized the mental health benefits of re-reading. Research conducted with readers in the US found that on our first reading, we are concerned with the "what" and the "why". Second time round, we're able to better appreciate the emotions that the plot continues to express. As researcher Cristel Russell of the American University explained, returning to a book "brings new or renewed appreciation of both the great book and its readers."
It's true that we often find former selves on the pages of old books (if we're fond of making notes on the pages). These texts can carry us back to a time and place, and remind us of the kind of person that we were then. We're changed not only by lived experience but also by read experience - by the books that we've discovered since last reading the one in our hand.
More so than the movie director or the musician, the writer calls upon our imaginations, using words to lead us to picture this declaration of love or that unfaithfulness in life. A book is a joint project between writers and readers, and we must pour so much of ourselves into reading that our own life story can become connected with the story in the book.
Perhaps what's really strange is that we don't re-read more often. After all, we watch our favorite films again and we wouldn't think of listening to an album only once. We treasure messy old paintings as objects, yet of all art forms, literature alone is a largely one-time delight. A book, of course, takes up more time, but as Mead confirms, the rewards make it adequately worthwhile. | high10100.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "analyze an education problem and give opinions"
},
"options": [
"teach parents the ways to keep their children safe",
"show solutions to developing children's character",
"analyze an education problem and give opinions",
... | Due to the increasing number of violence acts produced in schools all over the world, more and more parents prefer to have their children educated at home rather than at school. This way they can ensure their safety and well-being, although teachers and school representatives are trying to improve the situation in schools by increasing the number of the persons in charge of the safety of the students.
The main reason for violence acts are the films and cartoons that fill the children's time. They want to do everything they watch on TV and never think of the consequences, and they may hurt a classmate or a teacher.
On the other hand, parents are not fully satisfied with the children's results obtained in classes and they consider private classes would have better results. When a teacher has to watch 30 students in class he can't probably see what each of them is doing, how he is writing, or if he understands the explanations. At home the teacher can explain in details everything the child doesn't understand as many times as he considers proper. And many times the child grows fond of the teacher at home, who becomes his best friend, and who helps him whenever he needs someone to talk to.
However, the best solution would be a mixture between the education received at school and that at home, because school makes children communicate and socialize. Keeping a child at home for fear there might happen something bad to him only makes the child's character weak and prevents him from knowing what real life is. Staying in _ only does harm to the child.
All in all, schools have been created to help children, not to harm them, so it's best to keep children in these special places, where they learn, laugh, have fun and make new friends | high3759.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "to find out the differences between the male and female sense of humour"
},
"options": [
"to find the funniest joke in European countries",
"to know what funny people are like from different nations and cultures",
"to find ou... | Dr Wiseman started "the laugh lab" project in September 2001. It is the largest study of humour. Participants are invited to log on to the laugh lab website, give a few personal details, tell their favourite jokes and judge the jokes told by other people.
The project will last for a year, and the organizers hope to finally discover the world's funniest joke. But there is also a serious purpose. The researches want to know what people from different nations and cultures find funny. And they want to find out the differences between the male and female sense of humour. The idea is that if we want to understand each other, we have to find out what makes us laugh.
This is a subject that has long attracted psychologists and philosophers. Most of the time, people are not completely honest. We do things that society expects us to and say things that help us get what we want. But laughing cannot be controlled. When we laugh, we tell the truth about ourselves. By December 2001 over 10, 000 jokes had been submitted. This gave the scientists enough evidence to make early conclusions. It seems that men and women do have different senses of humour, for instance.
"Our findings show the major differences in the ways in which males and females use humour, " said Dr. Wiseman. "Males use humour to appear superior to others, while women are more skilled in languages and prefer word play. "
Researchers also found that there really is such a thing as a national sense of humour. The British enjoy what is usually called "toilet humour". But the French like their jokes short and sharp: "You're a high priced lawyer. Will you answer two questions for $500?" "Yes. What's the second question?"
The Germans are famous for not having a sense of humour. But the survey found that German participants were more likely to find submitted jokes funny than any other nationality. Perhaps that proves the point. Is this joke funny? I don't know, but let's say yes, just to be safe.
Dr Wiseman and his workmates also submitted jokes created by computer. But none of those who took part in the survey found any of them amusing. Perhaps this is relief. Computers already seem like they can do everything. At least they should leave the funny stuff to us. | high16571.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Reduce the number of cruise ships in the rivers."
},
"options": [
"Make regulations to control tourists' behavior.",
"Reduce the number of cruise ships in the rivers.",
"Build solid dams along the rivers in case of flood.",
... | At the entrance to one of the ruined temples of Petra in Jordan, there is an inscription in the soft red rock. It looks as if it has been there for centuries. It could have been carved by one of King Herod's soldiers, when they were imprisoned in the town in 40 BC. But closer examination reveals that it is not so ancient after all. It reads: Shane and Wendy from Sydney were here. April 16th 1996,
The ruins of Petra were discovered in 1810 by a Swiss explorer, and a recent report has just concluded that 66they are in grave danger of being destroyed by the unstoppable march of tourism". More than 4,000 tourists a day pour into Petra's rocky tombs. They wear away the soft red sandstone to powder and (occasionally!) scratch their names into the rock.
It is not just Petra that is under threat of destruction. With more than 60,000 visitors to Venice each day, cruise ships that have made Venice tourists' top destination bring one of the most significant dangers to the city, leading to tides that are further damaging the foundation of the Venetian structures.
The prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux in France were being slowly ruined by the breath and bacteria from 200,000 visitors a year. The caves have now been closed to the public and a replica has been built, Will there be more replicas like in Lascaux? There already are. Heritage theme parks are springing up everywhere. Many of the great cities of Europe are finding that their historic centers are fast becoming theme parks, filled with clicking cameras and whirring camcorders, abandoned by all local residents except for the souvenir sellers.
Until recently, we all believed that travel broadened the mind, but now many believe the exact opposite: "Modem travel narrows the mind". | high19642.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "because of a network of many computers"
},
"options": [
"because human beings are intelligent",
"because a computer works as the brain does",
"because of a network of many computers",
"because of the number of computers... | Sometimes life gets a little dull. What used to be fun and different becomes boring. That is the time to look for something new. It is the time for a big idea to get your mind off everyday life. So why not search for extraterrestrial intelligence? Or even better, why not get your computer to do it for you?
Over two million people have joined the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence(SETI)project. Based in California, the SETI project analyzes information taken from a giant radio telescope based in South America. Its task is to look for signals from outer space that might prove that life exists on other planets.
Processing this information is far too big a job for one computer. So the SETI project workers divide the work among volunteers who visit their website. Each computer gets some information to work out from the SETI network through the Internet. This process is often known as "meta-computing".
It is a wonderful thought. You are sleeping, eating a meal or going out with friends. All this time, your computer is searching the stars for signs that might show something is out there trying to get in touch. Volunteers are proud of being involved in the SETI project. It shows that they understand the potential of computing. They know that it is more than just a way of working or playing games.
Meta-computing may also be creating intelligence as well as looking for _ . This idea is based on the theory that human intelligence is created by the way in which different parts of the brain communicate with each other. As the saying goes, "The whole is more than the sum of its parts." People who join the SETI project sometimes wonder whether their computer will become part of a huge network that has learned to think for itself. | high15078.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "how zoos have improved"
},
"options": [
"how zoos have improved",
"whether a zoo should be closed down",
"a new environmental organisation",
"the difference between zoos and circuses"
],
"question": "The passage... | As a child, visiting the zoo was more a punishment than a treat. I didn't find the chimps' tea parties funny, nor the bird shows entertaining. Feeding time for seals was less painful, but their performances still seemed like they belonged more in a circus.
And I hated circuses, especially the animal acts -- men teasing lions, girls balancing on elephants and monkeys playing football. I knew that every trick a circus animal did was unnatural, achieved through strict training and quite possibly cruelty.
Happily, during my lifetime public attitudes and the law have changed. Circuses using wild animals are now almost extinct, and zoos have definitely evolved.
When my children were young, I occasionally took them to our local zoo. The elephants were in tiny cages and the gorillas looked bored as they sat peeling bananas and staring at teasing visitors. Each cage had a sign which listed the animal's name and where it came from. But, back then, there was little information included about the environmental challenges they faced.
As a result, environmentalists and animal lovers often oppose zoos. "Animals belong in the wild," is a common -- and understandable -- complaint. But what do the animals themselves prefer?
Generally speaking, zoo animals have a longer life. But -- you may protest -- they are not free. What? Free to be hunted and killed, free to die of hunger or thirst? Maybe sitting in a cage eating bananas isn't so bad.
Not that such conditions are acceptable in modern zoos, due to the work of BIAZA, the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums. These days every zoo requires BIAZA's approval to operate, and the association sets the standards, observes conditions in zoos and develops animal-research programmes, both in the UK and abroad. BIAZA also organises the animal exchanges between zoos all over the world.
Consequently, today, most zoo animals are born and raised in zoos, live in large, comfortable enclosures and are cared for by well-trained, knowledgeable and caring zoo employees. Of course it's no substitute for living in the wild but unfortunately this isn't always possible. Meanwhile, why not visit your local zoo and decide for yourself? | high12717.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Hungarian"
},
"options": [
"Hungarian",
"Spanish",
"Italian",
"English"
],
"question": "According to the passage which language doesn't share the same root with Germanic or Romance languages?",
"question_typ... | Have you ever found yourself in this situation: You hear a song you used to sing when you were a child - a bit of nostalgia or "blast from the past," as we say. But it is not a distant childhood memory. The words come back to you as clearly as when you sang them all those years ago.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh studied the relationship between music and remembering a foreign language. They found that remembering words in a song was the best way to remember even one of the most difficult languages.
Here is what they did. Researchers took 60 adults and randomly divided them into three groups of 20. Then they gave the groups three different types of "listen-and-repeat" learning conditions. Researchers had one group simply speak the words. They had the second group speak the words to a rhythm, or beat. And they asked the third group to sing the words.
All three groups studied words from the Hungarian language for 15 minutes. Then they took part in a series of language tests to see what they remembered.
Why Hungarian, you ask? Researchers said they chose Hungarian because not many people know the language. It does not share any roots with Germanic or Romance languages, such as Italian or Spanish. After the tests were over, the singers came out on top. The people who learned these new Hungarian words by singing them showed a higher overall performance. They did the best in four out of five of the tests. They also performed two times better than those who simply learned the words by speaking them.
Dr. Katie Overy says singing could lead to new ways to learn a foreign language. The brain likes to remember things when they are contained in a catchy 3, or memorable 4, tune 5.
Dr. Ludke said the findings could help those who struggle to learn foreign languages. On the University of Edinburgh's website Dr. Ludke writes, "This study provides the first experimental evidence that a listen-and-repeat singing method can support foreign language learning, and opens the door for future research in this area." | high13409.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "All of the above"
},
"options": [
"Because they overwork for a long time.",
"Because they are too busy to have time for a rest.",
"Because they hardly have time to do exercise after work.",
"All of the above"
],
... | Some recent surveys show that the health conditions of many white collar employees and office workers are rather dangerous. Death cases among white collar employees and office workers are increasing year by year and these cases are generally believed to have been caused by overwork and spending little time taking rest or doing exercise.
If their offices are within the distance of half an hour's walk, some office workers now choose to go to work on foot. Ms. Deng, who works in a foreign enterprise in Beijing, has been walking to her office for more than six months now. " I usually have a tight work schedule and can't find time to do exercise. So I choose to walk to work. " As she said, if the office is not far from home, most women would like to go to work on foot. Walking is good for their health and can help them to keep good figures as well.
Apart from walking to office,one can also find time to do exercise when one is at work. The simplest way is to desert the lift. Mr. Wei, who works in the Passenger Service Department at Shenzhen Airlines, is one of such men who frequently climb stairs. " I only use the lift whenever I'm with my colleagues or my boss. Otherwise, I would climb stairs instead of taking the lift. "
In addition, some office workers try to find time to go to a gym at the end of a day. Ms. Sang works in a law firm in Shenzhen. She goes to the gym several times a week when she has the time. " I go to the gym every weekend. During the weekdays,I will also go there whenever I have the time. " Ms. Sang and her husband both have a gym membership card for a whole year. The cards cost them 3000 yuan. However, they think it's worth it. | high9512.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Mrs. Perry wanted to test her husband."
},
"options": [
"Mrs. Perry arrived at Mrs. Young's before lunch.",
"Mr. Perry had a good lunch.",
"Mrs. Perry wanted to test her husband.",
"Mr. Perry liked fish."
],
"qu... | One day Mrs. Perry said to her husband, Jack, there is a meeting of our ladies' club at Mrs. Young's house at lunch time today. And I want to go to it. I'll leave you some food for your lunch. Is that all right?"
"Oh, yes," her husband answered, "that's quite all right. What are you going to leave for my lunch?"
"This tin of fish." Mrs. Perry said. "And there are some cold boiled potatoes and some beans here, too."
"Good," Mr. Perry answered. "I'll have a good lunch."
So Mrs. Perry went to her meeting. All the ladies had lunch at Mrs. Young's house , and at three o'clock she came home.
"Was your fish nice?" asked she.
"Yes, but my feet are hurting," he answered.
"Why are they hurting?"
"Well, the words on the tin were Open the tin and stand in hot water for five minutes." | high8618.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "catch the attention of a stranger"
},
"options": [
"address a person you don't know",
"apologize to others",
"catch the attention of a stranger",
"suggest good manners"
],
"question": "According to the passage, ... | Are there any foreigners in your city? How do you address them in English when you want to talk to these foreigners? The following may be some simple rules the beginners should follow.
1. When talking to strangers there is often no special form of address in English. In most cases, if you want to catch the attention of a stranger it is necessary to use such phrases as "Excuse me".
2. In British English "Sir" and "Madam" are considered to be too formal for most situations. They are used mostly to customers in shops or restaurants .While in American English "Sir" and "Madam" are not so formal and are commonly used between strangers, especially with older people whose names you don't know.
3. When you talk to some people you know, you can use their names directly. If you are friends, use their first names; if your relationship is more formal, use "Mr.", "Mrs.", "Ms.", etc, before their family names.
4. There are many other forms of address which can be used between friends and strangers. However, many of these are limited in use. For example, "pal" and "mate" can be used between strangers, but are usually only used by men talking to other men.
If you meet foreigners, do remember not to address them in wrong ways. | high12703.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "often gets inspired by secondhand books"
},
"options": [
"combines the minimalism and complexity of paper",
"often gets inspired by secondhand books",
"makes architectural masterpieces with Simon Schubert",
"is a magici... | Paper is a cheap and accessible medium that can produce beautiful results. To most people, making a paper plane could be one of the simplest things to do. It's the simplest and easiest form of paper art. And paper art can be dated back to Japan, where it originated over a thousand years ago. However, there's a special minority who takes paper art to the next level, magically turning the plain white or colored paper into some of the most amazing artworks. Check out the following artists and their works!
The Danish artist Peter Callesen is famous for his talent in combining the minimalism of a white sheet of paper with the complexity of carefully cut and folded paper and uses the two to build out some pleasing works.
The British artist Su Blackwell often goes to secondhand bookstores -- to look for materials with which she can carve out delicate sculptures. The models look as if they "grow" naturally from the pages of the books. The artist finds inspiration from the book title or a paragraph or picture inside and then spends months carefully making each one into an eye-catching paper model. Her old book sculptures sell for up toPS5,000 each.
By carefully folding simple pieces of paper, German artist Simon Schubert creates amazing masterpieces. He turns paper into architectural masterpieces by folding a simple piece of paper to shape the creases , then unfolding it to show the fascinating artwork.
Another master of paper-folding is Jen Stark. Her artwork is often in the form of colorful caves and land maps. Using her imagination and a special knife, she is a modern day magician who turns _ materials like construction paper and glue into fantastic, complicated sculptures that puzzle the eyes. Her work draws inspiration from nature. | high14372.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "They have studied for years to get qualified."
},
"options": [
"Their work requires greater intelligence.",
"They are under constant pressure at work.",
"They work harder than most other people.",
"They have studied for... | One of the most difficult questions to answer is how much a job is worth. We naturally expect that a doctor's salary will be higher than a bus conductor's wages. But the question becomes much more difficult to answer when we compare a miner with an engineer, or an unskilled man working on an oil-rig with a teacher in a secondary school. What the doctor, the engineer and the teacher have in common is that they have devoted several years to studying in order to obtain the necessary qualifications for their professions. We feel instinctively that these skills and these years should be rewarded. At the same time we recognize that the work of the miner and the oil-rig laborer is both hard and dangerous, and that they must be highly paid for the risks they take.
Another aspect we must take into consideration is how socially useful a man's work is. Most people would agree that looking after the sick or teaching children is more important than, say, selling second-hand cars. Yet it is almost certain that the used-car salesman earns more than the nurse and the schoolteacher.
Indeed, this whole question of just rewards can be turned on its head. You can argue that a man who does a job which brings him personal satisfaction is already receiving part of his reward in the form of a so-called "psychic wage", and that it is the man with the boring, repetitive job who needs more money to make up for the soul-destroying repetitiveness of his work. It is significant that the jobs like nursing and teaching continue to be poorly paid, while others, such as those in the world of sport or entertainment, carry financial rewards out of all proportion to their social worth.
Although the amount of money that people earn is largely determined by market forces, this should not prevent us from seeking some way to decide what is the right pay for the job. A starting point would be to try to decide the ratio which ought to exist between the highest and the lowest paid. The picture is made more complicated by two factors: firstly by the welfare benefits which every citizen receives, and secondly by the taxation system which is often used as an instrument of social justice by taxing high incomes at a very high rate indeed. Most countries now regard a ratio of 7:1 as socially acceptable. If it is less, the highly-qualified people carrying heavy responsibilities will become disappointed, and might even end up by leaving for another country. If it is more, the difference between rich and poor will be so great that it will lead to social unrest. | high3995.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "in the street"
},
"options": [
"in a shoe shop",
"in the street",
"at the rich man's house",
"near the boy's home"
],
"question": "The story happened _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{
"... | Tom was a poor boy. He made a living by cleaning leather shoes for others in the street. Tom was also a clever boy.
One day, a very rich man with the name Miser appeared in front of Tom. He watched his dirty shoes for a while, and then looked at Tom. Tom knew this kind of people well: they love money very much and hate to spend it.
Tom said, "Let me clean your shoes, sir."
"For nothing?" the rich man asked.
"Only two pence, sir."
Mr Miser shook his head and walked away.
Tom thought for a moment and then called out, "I'd like to clean it for nothing!" This time Mr Miser agreed. And soon one of his shoes was shining brightly.
When the rich man put his other shoe on the stool , Tom said he wouldn't clean it for him unless he was paid two pence for his work. Mr Miser was very angry. He refused to pay anything and went away with a smile on his face.
But to his surprise, the well-cleaned shoe was so bright that it made the other one look even dirtier. Mr Miser took a look around. People in the street were laughing at him. He couldn't walk on any further.
Finally the rich man returned and gave Tom two pence. In a very short time his two shoes shone brightly. | high2453.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Because she knew she should have felt sad."
},
"options": [
"Because she couldn't accept her father's death.",
"Because she wanted to hold back her sadness.",
"Because she knew she should have felt sad.",
"Because she h... | My father passed away in a nursing home on a September day. I never remembered him telling me he loved me. Upon hearing his death, I didn't feel the need to cry. I struggled with my lack of strong feelings over his passing, knowing it was not healthy for me to avoid sadness.
On Christmas Day of the year, I was reflecting on as many good memories of my father as I could. I decided to work out my feelings, so I sat down and wrote my father a letter.
Dear Daddy,
I remember something today. I remember when I was 3 years old, mom carried me right before bedtime and you sang "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep" to me, and I remember your voice like it was just yesterday. I remember the warmth of you lying next to me and how special I felt at that moment. Then my mom carried me off to my own bed to tuck me in.
I remember times when I could sit out on the porch with you and watch an approaching thunderstorm, and you would tell me the scientific facts behind lightning and thunder. I thought you knew everything.
I remember you taking my two brothers and me on trips to a stream out in the country on summer days. We would walk along the stream, picking wildflowers to take home to mother.
I want to thank you for giving me an appreciation of nature and science and of God's beautiful creation, Earth. I want to thank you for making us take part in "family worship" every evening after dinner. I remember that Bible stories and the Golden Rule on how to treat others, and I learnt how to appreciate music in my life from the hymns we sang. I also learnt to harmonize with my sisters.
And most of all, I want to forgive you. I forgive you for not being able to tell me that I was a special girl and that you loved me. I longed for your spoken affection. But I realize something in your own upbringing would not allow you to express your feelings verbally . I realize that you did the best that you could with what you knew.
I signed the letter and put it into my wooden box to join many other cards and letters from my family and loved ones that I cherished. But somehow, it had not brought any relief I desired.
On New Year's Eve, I remember the letter to my father. I took it outside to the yard. Then I built a fire and dropped it into the flame and watched it burn.
As I thanked my father for giving me life, the tears came. I released all the grief and whispered, "you were my father... and I love you." | high10114.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "He found his wife had an affair with his agent and that she had also transferred the couple's joint assets."
},
"options": [
"He abandoned his wife and family deliberately",
"He wanted to make his divorce a top trending topic on th... | A Chinese actor's divorce from his wife, over her alleged extramarital affair, has social media buzzing, with posts about the subject gaining over five billion views.
Wang Baoqiang announced online on Sunday that he was divorcing his wife, Ma Rong, and sacking his agent, Song Zhe. He alleged that his marriage broke down after his wife had an affair with his agent, and that she had also transferred the couple's joint assets. Ma has hit back at Wang, accusing him of abandoning their family.
The topic has sparked a debate about relationships and divorce. It seems Wang's situation has struck a chord with many - which could explain the number of views, which are high even by Chinese standards.
The divorce quickly became a top trending topic in China. According to micro blog Sina Weibo, posts with the hashtag "Wang BaoQiang Divorce" have been viewed over five billion times. Chinese netizens seem to have rallied around Wang, with topics like "Wang Don't Cry" "Wang We Support You", quickly trending after news of the divorce spread. Statistics by Weibo showed that 47% of netizens' posts condemned Ma for her affair, saying it had shattered her family.
But why are they so interested? what is it about this one that's got all of China ruffled up?
Some people feel that this divorce seems to fit a certain trope - of a beautiful but ordinary girl marrying a rich but less good-looking man. It is not uncommon to hear the belief that a couple has to "match" at every level - be it in status, or physical appearance - for a relationship to work out. Wang and Ma's split has many people wondering if uneven matches are unlikely to succeed.
A lot of social media discussion has also centred around divorce, and in particular how people can protect themselves. Wang has alleged that his wife transferred and hid some of the couple's assets. They're a wealthy couple - their assets, according to Chinese media, include nine flats, a BMW car and various luxury goods. As a result, people are debating the importance of protecting individual assets, even after marriage. | high19656.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "all of the above"
},
"options": [
"the face turns grey",
"the skin becomes damp and cold",
"he patient breathes quickly",
"all of the above"
],
"question": "If someone goes into shock after receiving an injury, ... | First aid is the aid or the help which can be given to an injured person first, that is, before any other help comes. Nowadays there is usually a telephone not far away and the first we should do, if a serious accident happens, call the phone for an ambulance. Sometimes our quick action may save someone's life.
Shock. People often suffer from shock after receiving an injury, sometimes even when the injury is very tiny. The face turns grey, and the skin becomes damp and cold. They breathe quickly. They should be kept warm. Cover them with a blanket and give them a warm drink.
Broken bones. Do not move the patient. Send for an ambulance at once.
Bleeding. A little bleeding doesn't harm. It washes dirt from the wound. But if the bleeding continues, try to stop it by placing a clean cloth firmly over the wound until the bleeding stops or helps arrive.
Poison. A person who has taken poison should be taken to a hospital at once. With some poisons, sleeping pills, for example, it is a good thing to make the patient throw up by pressing your fingers down his throat.
Remember: When an accident happens, send someone to telephone for an ambulance at once. Keep the injured person warm and quiet. Give him plenty of air. Do not let other people crowd around him. | high19130.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "0.000%."
},
"options": [
"0.000%.",
"0.005%.",
"0.080%.",
"0.096%."
],
"question": "What is the legal alcohol level for a 20-year-old driver in the US?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
"an... | An alcohol breath test (ABT) is often used by the police to find out whether a person is drunk while driving. In the United States, the legal blood alcohol limit is 0.08% for people aged 21 years or older, while people under 21 are not allowed to drive a car with any level of alcohol in their body. A "positive" test result, a result over the legal limit, allows the police to arrest the driver. However, many people who tested positive on the test have claimed that they only drank a "non-alcoholic" energy drink. Can one of these energy drinks really cause someone to test positive on an ABT? Researchers in Missouri set up an experiment to find out.
First, the amount of alcohol in 27 different popular energy drinks was measured. All but one had an alcohol level greater than 0.005%. In nine of the 27 drinks, the alcohol level was at least 0.096%.The scientists then investigated the possibility that these small levels of alcohol could be discovered by an ABT. They asked test _ to drink a full can or bottle of an energy drink and then gave each subject an ABT one minute and 15 minutes after the drink was finished.
For 11 of the 27energy drinks, the ABT did find the presence of alcohol if the test was given within one minute after the drink was taken. However, alcohol could not be discovered for any of the drinks if the test was given 15 minutes after the drink was consumed. This shows that when the test is taken plays an important role in the test result. The sooner the test is conducted after the consumption of these drinks, the more likely a positive alcohol reading will be obtained. | high4744.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "separate their work from feelings"
},
"options": [
"work with their conscience",
"respect the privacy of the victim",
"separate their work from feelings",
"ask police for permission to take photos"
],
"question"... | "Wanna buy a body? "That was the opening line of more than a few phone calls I got from self-employed photographers when I was a photo editor at U.S.News.Like many in the mainstream press, I wanted to separate the world of photographers into "them" ,who trade in pictures of bodies or run after famous people like Princess Diana, and "us" ,the serious newspeople.But after 16 years in that role, I came to wonder whether the two worlds were easily distinguishable.
Working in the reputable world of journalism, I told photographers to cover other people's difficult life situations.I justified marching into moments of sadness, under the appearance of the reader's right to know.I worked with professionals talking their way into situations or shooting from behind police lines.And I wasn't alone.
In any American town, after a car crash or some other horrible incident when ordinary people are hurt or killed, you rarely see photographers pushing past rescue workers to take photos of the blood and injuries.But you are likely to see local newspaper and television photographers on the scene -and fast ...
How can we justify doing this? Journalists are taught to separate, doing the job from worrying about the consequences of publishing what they record.Repeatedly, they are reminded of a news-business saying: Leave your conscience in the office, A victim may lie bleeding, unconscious, or dead.Your job is to record the image.You're a photographer, not an emergency medical worker.You put away your feelings and document the scene.
But catastrophic events often bring out the worst in photographers and photo editors.In the first minutes and hours after a disaster occurs, photo agencies buy pictures.They rush to obtain the rights to be the only one to own these shocking images and death is usually the subject.Often, an agency buys a picture from a local newspaper or an amateur photographer and puts it up for bid by major magazines.The most sought-after special pictures command tens of thousands of dollars through bidding contests.
I worked on all those stories and many like them.When they happen, you move quickly: buying, dealing, trying to beat the agencies to the pictures.
Now, many people believe journalists are the hypocrites who need to be brought down, and it's our pictures that most anger others.Readers may not believe, as we do, that there is a distinction between clear-minded "us" and mean-spirited " _ ".In too many cases, by our choices of images as well as how we get them, we prove our readers right. | high20969.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Three, two blue and one red."
},
"options": [
"Two, one blue and one red.",
"Three, two blue and one red.",
"Three, one blue and two red.",
"Four, two blue and two red."
],
"question": "To do the experiment, alt... | To discover whether bees can see colors, the following experiment is set up. A table is put in a garden and on the table is a piece of blue cardboard with a drop of syrup on it. After a short time, bees come to the syrup. The bees then fly to their hive and give the syrup to other bees in the hive. Then they return to the feeding-place which they have discovered. After a while, the blue cardboard with the syrup on it is taken away. Instead of this card, a blue card is now put on the left side of the first feeding-place and a red card to its right. These new card have no syrup on them. Thus, the blue card is on the left, the red card on the right, and there is nothing where the first blue feeding-card used to be. Very soon bees arrive again, and fly straight to the blue card. None to the red card. | high10672.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Having some money brings happiness to some degree."
},
"options": [
"Having some money brings happiness to some degree.",
"The more money one earns, the sadder one becomes",
"Buying expensive things will surely bring pleasure... | Many of us dream of having thousands and thousands of dollar to spend on what we desire We can buy lottery tickets, enter contests or spend hours building a business or invest in the stock market. We are sure that when we have plenty of money, we will be happy.
While having some money does have an impact on our level of happiness, having a lot of money does not. It is reported that Americans whose income goes from $20,000 a year to $50,000 a year are more likely to be happy. But beyond $50,000, happiness does not increase as salaries go up. It is because we are never satisfied. Catherine Sanderson, a psychology professor at Amherst College says, "We always think if we just had a little more money, we'd be happier. But when we get there, we are not."
Daniel Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard notes,"The more you make, the more you want. The more you have, the less it brings you joy. We incorrectly assume we'Il get more pleasure from more, and we don't."
The things money can buy don't make you happy either. A lot of research suggests that you won't find the "good life" buying expensive "toys". You finally buy that BMW you've always wanted and it soon loses its appeal. Then, instead of wondering if a new car is what really makes you happy, you decide you just need a different new car. It is an endless cycle.
To really be happy, you need to understand what makes you happy in the first place. One secret of happiness is people. Surveys have found that people need people. Those who have five or more close friends are 50% more likely to describe themselves as "very happy". Good relationships have a far greater effect on happiness than larger salary. Andrew Oswald, an economist at England's University of Warwick says, "B you are looking for happiness in life, find the right husband or wife rather than trying to double your salary."
So invest your time and energy in people. The reward is much bigger in terms of happiness! | high6153.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Donation."
},
"options": [
"Income.",
"Faith.",
"Education.",
"Donation."
],
"question": "What causes the happiness difference?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_i... | Americans gave nearly $300 billion away last year. Do you know the reason? Beyond the noble goals of helping others, it is that giving will make them happier.
It is a fact that givers are happier people than non-givers. According to the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, a survey of 30,000 American households, people who give money to charity are 43% more likely than non-givers to say they are "very happy" about their lives. Similarly, volunteers are 42% more likely to be very happy then non-volunteers.
The happiness difference between givers and non-givers is not due to differences in their personal characteristics, such as income or religion. Imagine two people who are identical in terms of income and faith, as well as age, education, politics, sex, and family circumstances, but one donates money and volunteers, while the other does not. The giver will be, on average, over 40 percentage points more likely to be very happy than the non-givers.
A number of studies have researched exactly why charity leads to happiness. The surprising conclusion is that giving affects our brain chemistry. For example, people who give often report feelings of euphoria, which psychologists have referred to as the "Helper's High". They believe that charitable activity produces a very mild version of the sensations people get from drugs like morphine and heroin.
Of course, not only does giving increase our happiness, but also our happiness increases the possibility that we will give. Everyone prefers to give more when they are happy. Researchers have investigated this by conducting experiments in which people are asked about their happiness before and after they participate in a charitable activity, such as volunteering to help children or serving meals to the poor. The result is clear that giving has a strong, positive causal impact on our happiness, so does happiness on giving | high9260.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "he has been out of work"
},
"options": [
"he doesn't like being a mime",
"he has been out of work",
"he likes performing at the zoo",
"he is offered a higher pay there"
],
"question": "The mime accepts the zooke... | One day a mime is visiting the zoo and tries to earn some money as a street performer. As soon as he starts to draw a crowd, a zookeeper pulls him into his office. The zookeeper explains that the zoo's most popular attraction, a gorilla , has died suddenly and the keeper fears that attendance at the zoo will fall off. He offers the mime a job to dress up as the gorilla. The mime accepts.
The next morning the mime puts on the gorilla suit and enters the cage before the crowd comes. He soon discovers he can sleep, play and make fun of people and he draws bigger crowds than he ever did as a mime -- the job he likes but loses.
However, with days going by, he begins to notice that the people are paying more attention to the lion in the cage next to his. Not wanting to lose the attention of his audience, he climbs to the top of his cage, crawls across a partition , and dangles from the top to the lion's cage. The lion gets angry at this. The scene is _ to the crowd.
At the end of the day he is given a raise for being such a good attraction -- well, this continues for some time. The crowds grow larger, and the mime's pay keeps going up.
Then one day when he is dangling over the lion he slides and falls. The mime is terrified. He starts screaming "Help me!", but the lion is quick. The mime soon finds himself flat on his back looking up at the angry lion and the lion says, "Shut up you fool! Do you want to get us both fired?" | high14414.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "it doesn't damage the paper"
},
"options": [
"it is cheaper",
"it is simpler",
"it can be removed more easily",
"it doesn't damage the paper"
],
"question": "One way the paperclip is better than the pin is that ... | A paperclip,made of steel wire bent into a looped shape,is an instrument used to hold sheets of paper together.This common device is a wonder of simplicity and function.But where did this simple,cheap,and practical invention come from?
In the late 19th century,the most common way to hold papers together was by using a pin.Although the pin was an inexpensive tool and was easily removable,it would 1eave holes in the paper. Later,as steel wire became more common,inventors began to notice its elastic feature. With this feature,it could be stretched and twisted into various clip--like objects.In the years just before 1900,quite a few paperclip designs appeared.The name most frequently associated with the paperclip invention is Johan Vaaler,a Norwegian inventor. However, Vaaler's clips were not the same as the paperclips currently in use.Specifically,they did not have the inside loop we see today.The familiar looped design was invented by Gem Manufacturing Ltd.in England.This clip is therefore sometimes known as the Gem clip.
Because of Vaaler,the paperclip played an important historical role in Norway.During World War II,Norway was occupied by the Nazis.Norwegians were prohibited from wearing any symbol of their national unity ,such as buttons with the initials of their king.Thus,in protest,they started wearing paperclips to show their unity.The reason for doing this was simple:Paperclips were a Norwegian invention whose original function was to bind together.After the war,a giant paperclip statue was put up in Oslo to honour Vaaler--even though his design was never actually produced. | high12065.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Because her efforts at softball were disappointing."
},
"options": [
"Because her body has many health problems.",
"Because coordination was her strongest feature.",
"Because she was forced to learn to play softball.",
... | When I was 12 years old, I was at a very hard stage in life. I was short and fat, which was bad for a girl, so coordination was not one of my strongest features. On the other hand, my mother was a very talented
softball player who even acted as my coach. Night after night, I would try my best to impress "my coach".Unfortunately, I just felt like a terrible disappointment to my mother.
One summer afternoon, my mother told us we were going to visit Uncle David. Since we lived in an apartment, going to the country was quite a treat. My uncle David always had a way of making me feel special.
When we arrived, my uncle and cousin Jeff were throwing metal rings at two holes in the ground. I was curious about what they were doing so I went over to watch. Noticing that I was standing there, my uncle asked if I had ever played washers.
Being a "city girl", my reply was that the only "washers" I knew were the ones that cleaned clothes. To my embarrassment, Uncle David, chuckling ,explained that the metal rings were called washers. I was shocked to hear my uncle saying he wanted me to take his place. He then gave me the washers and gave tips on how to throw better.
Unwillingly, I joined Jeff. Gradually, I found myself not only enjoying but also wanting to win this game. The washer went into the air and began to fall. Then a cloud of dust appeared as the washer sank into the hole. My first try! I had actually thrown the washer into the hole!
Although 23 summers have gone by since that day, this small success in washer playing helped me get back self confidence lost when I struggled with the game of softball. | high8195.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "it is shameful for boys to read"
},
"options": [
"reading is more important than sports",
"it is shameful for boys to read",
"boys should not work as a teacher",
"boys lack the gift for reading"
],
"question": "... | Where have all the boys gone?You may be able to find them in the gym, at work or hanging out, but there's
where boys are underrepresented, and the problem seems to be getting worse. These days, at high school graduation ceremonies, there are a lot more girls than boys.
In fact, every year, 10 percent more girls graduate from high school than boys. "I think that there's a tendency to focus on boys as problems at this point, rather than recognize that boys have problems," says Joanne Max, PhD. Experts say the problems start in grade school, where there's often an emphasis on sports instead of reading, for example. "I think that with boys there's some idea that it's not masculine to read," says Rob Jenkins, an English professor.
There's also a shortage of male teachers as role models. "I think boys need role models, so if you're a boy and you don't have a dad in your home and then you have one male teacher and it's your athletic coach then I don't think you have a message that education is very important," says Carol Carter, another expert. In addition, classrooms often have too little activity and too much passive listening, which is not conducive to boys' learning.
Experts say parents can fight back in many ways. Read to your sons early and often; show by your actions that you value their education. Ask them about their schoolwork, offer help, drop by their classroom and finally, appeal to their competitive spirit: challenge them to do better and help them understand that their future depends on it. | high15939.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "views of Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara province"
},
"options": [
"views of the towns in the Albay province",
"views of the Pacific Ocean",
"views of the Cagsawa Ruins",
"views of Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara province... | Are you a volcano lover? Here is a list of some of the world's most beautiful volcanoes
that our travel agency can offer you to visit. Don't miss them!
Mount Mayon, the Philippines
Located about 450 km southeast of Manila on the island of Luzon, Mount Mayon is the
most active volcano in the Philippines; a September 2014 eruption forced thousands to flee the
area. Those who hike the volcano are rewarded with views of the towns in the Albay province
and the Pacific Ocean. But even those who prefer the view from a distance have a historical
good point at the Cagsawa Ruins, once an 18th Century Franciscan church that was destroyed
by an 1814 eruption.
Kilauea and Marina Kea, Hawaii
Hawaii's volcanoes are known for their active eruptions and extraordinary scenes. Mauna Kea is around one million years old, while Kilauea is the youngest volcano in Hawaii and has
been erupting continuously since 1983. The lava falls straight into the sea, creating fantastic
forms of black rocks and smoke clouds.
Mount Kelimutu, Indonesia
Kelimutu's three mysterious crater lakes attract both scientists and tourists to the island
of Flores in Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara province. One is emerald green , another
dark red, and the third pitch black. Scientists say the lakes take on such colors because the
volcanic gases met the lakes' minerals centuries ago. | high13390.txt |
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