questions list | article stringlengths 9 6.44k | id stringlengths 9 14 |
|---|---|---|
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Determined"
},
"options": [
"Miserable",
"Unfortunate",
"Determined",
"Disabled"
],
"question": "Which word can best describe Glenn Cunningham according to the author?",
"question_type": null
},
{
"a... | One morning, teachers arrived to find the little country schoolhouse swallowed in flames. They dragged an unconscious little boy, who went to start the fire in the old-fashioned coal stove to heat, out of the flaming building more dead than alive. He had major burns over the lower half of his body and was taken to a nearby county hospital.
From his bed the dreadfully burned, semi-conscious little boy faintly heard the doctor talking to his mother. The doctor told his mother that her son would surely die -- which was for the best, really -- for the terrible fire had ruined the lower half of his body.
But the brave boy didn't want to die. He made up his mind that he would survive. Somehow, to the amazement of the physician, he did survive. When the deadly danger was past, he again heard the doctor and his mother speaking quietly. The mother was told that since the fire had destroyed so much flesh in the lower part of his body, it would almost be better if he had died, since he was doomed to be in a wheelchair all lifetime with no use at all of his lower limbs .
Once more the brave boy made up his mind. He would not be a disabled man. He would walk. But unfortunately from the waist down, he had no motor ability. His thin legs just hung there, all but lifeless.
Ultimately he was released from the hospital. Every day his mother would massage his little legs, but there was no feeling, no control, nothing. Yet his determination that he would walk was as strong as ever.
When he wasn't in bed, he was confined to a wheelchair. One sunny day his mother wheeled him out into the yard to get some fresh air. This day, instead of sitting there, he threw himself from the chair. He pulled himself across the grass, dragging his legs behind him.
He worked his way to the white fence bordering their lot. With great effort, he raised himself up on the fence. Then he began dragging himself along the fence,resolved that he would walk. He started to do this every day until he wore a smooth path all around the yard beside the fence. There was nothing he wanted more than to develop life in those legs.
Ultimately through his daily massages, his iron persistence and his resolute determination, he did develop the ability to stand up, then to walk slowly, then to walk by himself -- and then to run.
He began to walk to school, then to run to school, to run for the pure joy of running. Later in college he made the track team.
Still later in Madison Square Garden this young man, the great athlete, Dr. Glenn Cunningham, ran the world's fastest mile! | high6138.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "feeds on man-made liquid fertilizer"
},
"options": [
"feeds on man-made liquid fertilizer",
"often kills sheep and other animals",
"has once bloomed 15 years before",
"uses animals' rotting bodies as fertilizer"
],
... | A towering South American plant that is believed to kill animals with its spikes and use their rotting bodies as fertilizer is about to bloom in England. A rare Puya chilensis was planted at a greenhouse in Surrey, a county in the southeast of England about 15 years ago. However, despite its frightening description, the tall, spiked plant is considered a threatened species.
The Royal Horticultural Society has been feeding the plant a diet of liquid fertilizer. "In its natural habitat in the Andes it uses its razor sharp spikes to _ and trap sheep and other animals, which slowly starve to death and rot at the base of the plant, providing it with a bag of fertilizer," reads a description on the RHS website, which adds that the plant gives off a "gruesome scent."
But does the plant actually trap and eat sheep? Other sources have simply said it is "believed" that the plant traps small animals with its spikes. After the animals die of starvation, the plant is "believed" to then use their rotting bodies as fertilizer to feed itself.
"I'm really pleased that we've finally persuaded our Puya chilensis into producing flower," horticulturalist Cara Smith said in a press release on the RHS site. Regardless of whether it actually traps sheep, the plant does have sharp spikes that can grow up to 12 feet high and 5 feet wide. However, it's not all death and danger for this plant. Its flowery blooms reportedly provide nectar for bees and birds.
The Puya chilensis blooms annually in its native land of Chile, but this is the first time it has done so after more than a decade of cultivation efforts from the RHS. "We keep it well fed with liquid fertilizer as feeding it on its natural diet might prove a bit problematic," Smith said. "It's growing in the dry section of our glasshouse with its deadly spines well out of reach of both children and sheep alike." | high5431.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "order and rule"
},
"options": [
"learning Latin",
"order and rule",
"individual work",
"school education"
],
"question": "We learn from the text that the author's mother used to lay emphasis on _ .",
"que... | "It hurts me more than you," and "This is for your own good." These are the statements my mother used to make years ago when I had to learn Latin, clean my room, stay home and do homework
That was before we entered the permissive period in education in which we decided it was all right not to push our children to achieve their best in school. The schools and the educators made it easy to us. They thought that it was all right to be parents who take a let-alone policy. We stopped making our children do homework. We gave them calculators, turned on the television, left the teaching to the teachers and went on vacation.
Now teachers, faced with children who have been developing at their own pace for the past 15 years, are realizing we've made a terrible mistake. One such teacher is Sharon Klompus who says of her students - "so passive" - and wonders what happened. Nothing was demanded of them, she believes. "Television," says Klompus, "contributes to children's passivity. We're not training kids to work any more. We're talking about a generation of kids who've never been hurt or hungry. They have learned somebody will always do it for them. Instead of saying 'go look it up', you tell them the answer. It takes greater energy to say no to a kid."
Yes, it does. It takes energy and it takes work. It's time for parents to end their vacation and come back to work. It's time to take the car away, to turn the TV off, to tell them it hurts you more than them but it's for their own good. It's time to start telling them "no" again. | high18245.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "can take home some medicine doctors give them"
},
"options": [
"can take home some medicine doctors give them",
"have confidence in the curative properties of a bottle of medicine",
"are given careful check-ups by doctor",
... | This is a doubtful age, but although our faith in many of the things has weakened, our confidence in the curative (,) properties of the bottle medicine remains the same. This modern faith in medicine is proved by the fact that the annual drug bill of the Health Services is increasing to huge figures and shows no signs at present of stopping to rise. The majority of the patients attending the medical out-patients departments of our hospitals feel that they have not received enough treatment unless they are able to carry home with them some tangible curative in the shape of a bottle of medicine, a box of pills, or a small jar of ointment , and the doctor in charge of the department is only too ready to provide them with these requirements. There is no quicker method of treating of patients than by giving them what they are asking for, and since most doctors in the Health Services are overworked and have little time for offering time-consuming and little-appreciated advice on such subjects as diet, right living, and the need for abandoning bad habits etc.
Nor is it only the ignorant and ill-educated person who has such faith in the bottle of medicine. It is said that Thomas Carlyle (a famous Scottish writer), when he heard of the illness of his friend, went off immediately to visit him carrying with him in his pocket what remained of a bottle of medicine formerly used for a slight illness of Mrs. Carlyle's. Carlyle was entirely ignorant of what the bottle in his pocket contained or the nature of the illness from which his friend was suffering, but a medicine that had worked so well in one form of illness would surely be of equal benefit in another, and comforted by the thought of the help he was bringing to his friend, he rushed to Henry Taylor's house. History does not relate whether his friend accepted his medical help, but probably he did. | high17176.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "he hopes to improve his work and relax himself"
},
"options": [
"he wants to show that he has a lot of courage",
"researchers say standing makes one healthier",
"he intends to catch up the fashion trend",
"he hopes to i... | It takes courage to stand up at work.Now more and more people are standing up when they are working on something important.Standing up is in fashion.Medical researchers have found that people who stand at work tend to be much healthier than those who sit.But I wasn't just looking for better health -- standing would also improve how I work and relax my body.
In recent years, many office supply companies have begun to sell adjustable desks.These so-called "sit / stand" models are equipped with an electric motor that lets them shift from chair height to person height at the push of a button.Unfortunately, sit / stand desks tend to be expensive, hard to find and not very easy to test in person.
I discovered that when I worked standing up, my mind was clearer and new ideas kept coming to me.I suspect that this is because when you're standing, you feel a bit unchained from your desk.If I got stuck on a word or sentence as I wrote it, I found myself shaking my arms, bouncing on my feet or stepping away from the desk for a bit -- things I couldn't do in a chair.Often, standing up seemed to relax my mind enough for me to get over creative barriers.
There's another thing about standing for a long time: I tend to get hungrier than I do when I sit on a chair.That feels like confirmation of the stand-up advocates' belief that you burn more calories when you stand than when you sit.For this reason alone, I' m hoping that one day mass-market furniture companies can make many low-priced versions of sit / stand desks.We could all work with a bit more standing up. | high11507.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "could not work out some simple math problems"
},
"options": [
"could not read or write",
"never knew what people meant when they said to him",
"could not work out some simple math problems",
"found everything he did was... | Solomon Shereshevski was a man with an amazing memory. He was one of the world's most famous me-monists . Born in Russia in about 1900, he spent much of his life performing memory skills that people found difficult to believe. He could memorize long lists of numbers after reading them through once, and he could then recite them forwards or back-wards. He could also remember the same numbers months later. He could easily remember lists of names, dozens of playing cards or hundreds of cities.
Although he had a wonderful memory, he found some normal skills very difficult. For example, he found it difficult to learn to read. He also found it difficult to recognize patterns in words or numbers. When presented with a long list of numbers like this: 1234 4231 5678 8765 6789 9876 he could not see that there was a pattern. If he could see or hear a collection of numbers, he could remember it. However, this did not mean that he could understand what he was looking at. He could remember long complex mathematical formulas, but could not understand what the numbers meant.
Solomon suffered from a condition known as Synaesthesia. This meant that all of his senses were connected in a special way. In other words, when he heard a particular word he also experienced a unique taste, or saw a unique color1. Each word that he heard brought a particular description into his mind. Each word for him was unique, because he remembered it as a taste, a smell, a color1 or a sound, or all of them together.
He was not a clever man except this ability and people found him rather stupid. He found it difficult to become friends with other people because his mind was so different. In a way, his memory was a curse . He remembered everything, and that made it difficult for him to understand anything. | high20902.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "in villages in small houses made of wet earth,grass and wood"
},
"options": [
"with their whole family in large mud houses in the countryside",
"in towns in small houses made of mud and iron",
"in villages in small houses mad... | Uganda is a country in East Africa and,as in many such countries,a high percentage of the population,about 80 percent,are village-dwellers living in huts,which are often no bigger than a garage. The walls of the huts are made of mud,which is held together by reeds and sticks,and the roofs of the older ones are thatched with grass,although an increasing number of newer village houses have roofs made from corrugated iron.
Several generations of the same family live together in the huts,which are usually divided into two sections by a curtain. The inner section,the one furthest from the open door of the hut,is where everyone sleeps and food is prepared and served in the outer part. If the family owns chickens or goats,they are kept in a small room attached to the main house.
Food is usually prepared on open fires although some people prefer to cook inside. However,this is quite dangerous and also means that the walls of the hut are stained by smoke and the atmosphere is acrid. The family sit in a circle on mats while they eat.
Newer village houses are almost always made of corrugated iron and are bigger,with one or two separate bedrooms and the kitchen in a smaller building beside the main house. But,old or new,the houses are not powered by electricity,and all homes are lit by paraffin candles called "tadobba".
Nor is there any running water in the houses. Some villages have their own well,but in many cases,collecting water involves a long and arduous walk to a river or spring,carrying plastic containers or pots made of clay.
Children are the ones who have to fetch water,and they have to do this early in the morning before they go to school,or in the evening when they come home. They often have to climb high hills or walk through valleys with narrow paths through dense vegetation. It is no surprise that they grow up muscular and fit after such daily exercise,walking for several kilometres carrying such heavy weights. | high3040.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "kept their store fronts covered"
},
"options": [
"kept their store fronts covered",
"hung plastic sheets on the walls",
"closed all the doors and windows",
"stopped people throwing at them"
],
"question": "To ke... | BUNOL, Spain (AFP) -- Tens of thousands of people from around the world threw tons of ripe tomatoes at each other in an annual food fight that painted the eastern Spanish town of Bunol red.
More than 40,000 people, including many visitors from Australia, Britain and the United States, took part in the food fight known as the "Tomatina", now in its 64th year, a spokeswoman for Bunol's town hall said.
They were provided with over 100 tons of tomatoes by the town council for the battle which lasted about one hour and left participants covered in red.
Many men were shirtless while others wore old clothes, hardhats, goggles or protective plastic sheets.
Shopkeepers put up huge plastic covers on their store fronts or boarded them up to protect their properties from the sea of red mush .
After the battle, governmental workers and local residents used "giant hoses" to clear the walls and streets of the tomato pulp in just half an hour while the participants headed to a nearby river where temporary showers were set up.
The event cost the town of some l0, 000 residents 40,000 dollars, and Spanish media reported.
The "Tomatina" is held each year in Bunol, located in a fertile region about 40 kilometers north of the coastal city of Valencia, Spain's third-largest city, on the last Wednesday in August.
The origins of the event are unclear although it is thought to have its roots in a food fight between childhood friends in the mid-1940s in the city.
It has grown in size as international press coverage brought more and more people to the festival. | high16268.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Five."
},
"options": [
"Three",
"Four.",
"Five.",
"Six."
],
"question": "How many jobs had Peter taken?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_... | Peter, a high school student, was pretty busy with school, and he was on the soccer team. High school was hard, because everyone wanted to have nice clothes, hang out, drive cars, and all these cost money. Peter's father was the sort of guy that believed you had to earn whatever you got, so he wasn't just about to hand over lots of money for Peter to use to have fun. So, he had to get a job.
During his freshman year summer vacation, his classmate got him a job working on a hay farm. He threw hay up into wagons as the tractor drove around fields, and then they stacked it in the hot barn. It was a hot, lowpaying job.
He once worked a few nights a week at a grocery store. He put things on the shelf. It was a lot of lifting and carrying, and his arms were strong from this and the previous job. It was dull and didn't pay much.
He took some time off when soccer got serious, but the following summer he tried working at a lumber yard. It was hot outside, but he got a lot of exercise lifting and carrying things like boards and drywall. He also learned a lot about building supplies. It still didn't pay well.
From there, he spent a year doing some tutoring for a friend of the family, but that was piecemeal. His first real job came the last year at school, when he fixed registers and worked on computers at a big box store. It was his favorite job yet, but it still didn't pay well.
What Peter realized with all of these jobs was that he needed a better paying job! The only way to get that was to get trained or educated. He could go to school and get a 2year degree in an office or technical position. His other choices were going to a 4year college or joining the army. He wasn't sure what he was going to do yet, but he knew he had to do something. Jobs were a lot of work, money was hard to earn, but he liked staying busy and being able to buy things. Peter wanted the most out of life, and that meant education. | high11088.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "In different countries,the same gesture may mean different meaning."
},
"options": [
"All experts agree that only 30% of communication comes from talking.",
"Typical introductions often begin and end with shaking hands in Western c... | To communicate well with other people,you must learn to speak well,right?
Yes,but speaking isn't everything.Some experts say that only thirty percent of communication comes from talking.Your gestures and other non-verbal actions matter,too.But in different cultures,the same action can have different meanings.
When you have to meet someone from a different culture,be prepared.Do you know what kind of gestures and customs are appropriate ? _
In many Western cultures,men stand up before they are introduced to someone important.Standing up shows politeness and respect.After that,somepne usually offers to shake hands.
But in the east,typical introductions often begin and end with bowing rather than shaking hands.Sometimes even a small nod of the head is enough.Some Westerners visiting Asia misunderstand shaking hands as a sign of unfriendliness.Such a mistake could be harmful to the start of a new frienship. | high2809.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Leak causes panic"
},
"options": [
"Crisis of trust",
"Leak causes panic",
"A funny rumor",
"The blind following the blind"
],
"question": "What is the best title of the passage?",
"question_type": null
},... | The nuclear leak at the Fukushima power plant in Japan, which followed the deadly earthquake two weeks ago, has caused an unexpected reaction in China.
A sudden panic buying of salt occurred in many areas of our
country about a week after the disaster. Salt in these districts was almost bought up overnight. Some sellers wanted to make a fortune by raising the price. The panic buying was caused by two major rumors on the Internet: First, iodized salt can protect against radiation. Second, there might be a fall in sea-salt production following the nuclear pollution of the ocean. Such fears are not new. The same kind of panic happened with vinegar during the SARS outbreak and garlic in the time of the influenza period.
How can rumors like this spread in such a large country as China? Chen Fang, a reporter with the China Youth Daily said that many Internet users say there is a "crisis of trust" in today's China. "Experts don't have enough credibility and people don't trust all government announcements, either." Chen said.
However, Chen added that the rumors should not be exaggerated . Many salt-buyers didn't care; others simply failed to understand what experts and governments were talking about. They just did as their neighbors and friends did. It was a case of the blind following the blind - that was the real reason behind the big increase in the demand for salt.
On March 20, the Ministry of Commerce said: "The panic buying of salt has stopped and the market is back to normal." He also said China has enough salt to satisfy demand.
Now everything is back to normal, many want to return the salt they bought. But in the view of the Xinhua Daily Telegraph, "It is true that these people paid extra money to buy the salt, but they created the crisis in the first place and caused the price to rise." The newspaper continued: "So there is no reason why they should get the money back."
Perhaps consumers should keep the salt to remind themselves that often rumors are without foundation. | high20255.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "In elementary school."
},
"options": [
"In elementary school.",
"The first year in high school.",
"The second and third years in high school.",
"The fourth year in high school."
],
"question": "Which of the auth... | I started to learn English when I was in elementary school. Together with my two friends, I had English classes with a private teacher. I lacked motivation and I learned very little. This stage was insignificant and could just as well have not happened at all.
I began to learn English in earnest when I went to high school. I was in the same class with Michael, but in different groups. I was in a group for students who were to learn English from scratch, and he was in a group for those who had already known some English. Very soon, my teacher noticed that my English was improving rapidly and he told me to join the group for the advanced learners. This was the worst thing that could have happened to me. My new teacher, who was Irish, didn't speak Polish so I couldn't understand her and I never knew what I was supposed to do. I was completely at a loss. My English didn't improve at all. As a result, at the end of that year I was sent back to the group for beginners.
My stay with the advanced group made me realize what kind of learning strategies I should use in the future. I discovered that I cannot pick up a new language directly from foreigners. I started to learn hard again.
I translated into Polish all new words that appeared in my course-book. Before a test I would memorize dozens of words with their Polish equivalents . However, later I would never revise those words so I would soon forget most of them.
I knew that I should improve my learning techniques and I decided to ask for help those who had the best results in our class, that is Michael. That wasn't easy because in the second grade, they seemed to look down on girls. So after a few attempts to approach them I decided to give up. For two years I learned English using the method described above. My English was improving but I was still forgetting new words. Finally, in the fourth grade I got closer to Michael, who started to show me how to learn English more efficiently, which was a breakthrough in the whole process of my learning English.
Michael encouraged me to read books in English with monolingual dictionaries. Several months later, I began to write e-mail messages in English.
I have been using these techniques for four years, and in my opinion, I have achieved pretty good results. | high10396.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Jay and his wife are often not thought of as a couple because their ages are so far apart."
},
"options": [
"There are always fights between Phil and Claire because of their different ways of raising kids.",
"Jay, Claire and Mitche... | It's not so surprising that US First Lady Michelle Obama has called Modern Family her favorite TV series. September saw the fun, heartwarming sitcom take home the Best Comedy Series award at the 2013 Emmys. This is the fourth year in a row that the series has won that title. The show features three families who move in and out of each other's lives. The first one is a typical American family: the working dad Phil, stay-at-home mom Claire and their three children.
The second family is made up of Jay, his young Hispanic wife and her son Manny. Jay, 65, is the father of Claire. He is 30 years older than his wife and everyone mistakes the two for being father and daughter.
The third family is made up of a gay couple, Mitchell and Cameron, and their adopted daughter Lily. Mitchell is Jay's son.
On Sept 25, the show started its fifth season, in which Claire makes a big change - she returns to work. The other big storylines include Jay's stepson Manny starting high school and Mitchell and Cameron looking for a primary school for Lily. Will things go right for the three families?
Modern Family has no spies, aliens or vampires ; it's just about ordinary people. So what has made it such a hit?
According to the Los Angeles Times, its "presentation of contemporary US society" contributes to its success. The show presents what a typical "nuclear family" is like in the US: two parents, a big house and two or three children. When there's a fight between their kids, Phil wants to be the "cool dad" while traditional mom Claire lives by the saying "an eye for an eye". She always forces Phil to punish the troublemaker.
The show also touches upon developments in interracial relations in the US by focusing on Hispanic communities. This makes sense, as "by 2040, America will no longer be a majority-white country, with the fastest growth rate among Hispanics..." BBC pointed out.
In addition, according to BBC, 40 percent of Americans say they have a gay friend or relative. By including Mitchell and Cameron, Modern Family reflects the changing status of gay people in the US.
"The US is a melting pot ... so the family has come to reflect that diversity." commented The Hartman Group, a US research firm. | high7971.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "give an example of the symptoms of OCD"
},
"options": [
"show the trouble caused by OCD",
"give an example of the symptoms of OCD",
"prove stars are more likely to get OCD",
"show how OCD affects family life"
],
... | Can dogs help with OCD?
You might watch and laugh when your dog chases its tail because it looks cute. But did you know that, even though it might appear like a fun game, it could mean your pet is sick?
Researchers have found that if a dog runs after its tail, chases cars and barks at flies that are not there, it may have obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD, ).
In fact, OCD is even more common among humans. The symptoms are varied: some people check and recheck the locks before they go out; others are extremely afraid of germs and have to wash their hands many times a day.
English soccer star David Beckham, for example, cannot stand odd numbers of items in his fridge. So if he has three cans of drink he will throw one out, according to his wife Victoria.
Hoping to better understand OCD in humans, a team of scientists from the University of Helsinki, Finland, studied 368 dogs, including those that chase their tail for several hours daily or a few times a month, according to Sciencedaily.com. They also examined dogs that had never chased their tails. Scientists took the dogs' blood sample and asked their owners some questions about their pets' daily life.
Findings showed that among all kinds of dogs, bull terriers and German shepherds were likely to chase their tails, which led scientists to believe that genes can cause OCD.
Diet also plays a part. It was found that dogs that eat food with certain vitamins and minerals chased their tails less. "Interestingly, there are indications that vitamins and minerals are helpful in human OCD treatment," said researcher Katriina Tiira.
Moreover, tail-chasing is often found among dogs that were separated from their mothers too early or ones that didn't receive enough care. They are also more likely to turn out to be shyer and more afraid of loud noises at a young age.
The study can help us understand the causes of OCD in humans. "Dogs share the same environment with humans, and large animals are physiologically close to humans," said Hannes Lohi, leader of the study. | high22442.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "the author's class regulations"
},
"options": [
"the course material",
"others' misuse of technology",
"discussion topics",
"the author's class regulations"
],
"question": "Some of the students in the history cl... | Students and Technology in the Classroom
I love my blackberry -- it's my little connection to the larger world that can go anywhere with me. I also love my laptop computer,as it holds all of my writing and thoughts. Despite this love of technology, I know that there are times when I need to move away from these devices and truly communicate with others.
On occasion, I teach a course called History Matters for a group of higher education managers. My goals for the class include a full discussion of historical themes and ideas. Because I want students to thoroughly study the material and exchange their ideas with each other in the classroom, I have a rule -- no laptop, iPads, phones ,etc .When students were told my rule in advance of the class, some of them were not happy.
Most students assume that my reasons for this rule include unpleasant experiences in the past with students misusing technology. There's a bit of truth to that. Some students assume that I am anti-technology. There's no truth in that at all. I love technology and try to keep up with it so I can relate to my students.
The real reason why I ask students to leave technology at the door is that I think there are very few places in which we can have deep conversions and truly _ complex ideas. Interruptions by technology often break concentration and allow for too much dependence on outside information for ideas. I want students to dig deep within themselves for inspiration and ideas. I want them to push each other to think differently and make connections between the course the material and the class discussion.
I've been teaching my history class in this way for many years and the evaluations reflect student satisfaction with the environment that I create. Students realize that with deep conversation and challenge, they learn at a level that helps them keep the course material beyond the classroom.
I'm not saying that I won't ever change my mind about technology use in my history class, but until I hear a really good reason for the change, I'm sticking to my plan. A few hours of technology-free dialogue is just too sweet to give up. | high894.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "a tourist guide"
},
"options": [
"a government officer",
"a tourist guide",
"a traveler",
"a teacher"
],
"question": "The author of the passage is likely to be _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
}... | Revealed to the world by the famous British explorer, Dr David Livingstone, in 1855, the Victoria Falls are one of Africa's best-known natural wonders. They form a natural border between Zimbabwe and Zambia .
The falls are named after Queen Victoria by Livingstone. They were known to the native people in the 18th century as: "the smoke that thunders". The waterfall is formed as the two-kilometer-wide Zambezi River spills over the edge of its giant stone riverbed and falls into the gorge below. At their highest point, the Victoria Falls drop a distance of 108m, almost twice as far as the Niagara Falls. As much as 546 million cubic meters of water per minute falls over the edge from that height.
Viewing the falls from the Zambian side means that visitors can follow a path that goes right up to the falls. The falls can also be viewed from the Boiling Pot, right in the depths of the gorge at the bottom of the falls. The 111-meter-high Victoria Falls Bridge, a railway crossing, is now a popular place for Bungee jumping. It can be crossed on foot for excellent views of the falls and the winding blue-green waters of the Zambezi River. It is also possible to see the falls from a plane.
The area around the falls is a major game-viewing place. The best time to view the Victoria Falls is between December and July, when the water level is the highest. Contact Addresses Tourist Centre, Livingstone, Zambia Tel: (03) 321 404E-mail: zntb@zamnet.zm Website: www.zambiatourism.com. | high13847.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "the man would have positive attitude toward life"
},
"options": [
"there would be no homeless people",
"the man would pass on the kindness",
"he would be much richer to help others",
"the man would have positive attitud... | As I walked along the city streets, I passed a young man who was searching through a small block of land that contained a mix of leaves and rubbish. I was somewhat puzzled why some one like him would be searching through rubbish. Finding this a little _ , I asked him, "What are you searching for?" He replied very simply that he was looking for bills of money.
After talking with him for a little longer, I found out that he had become homeless just three months ago after getting laid off from his job. Since then, he had been working part-time jobs in a doctor's office and in a food bank to earn some money. But he made so little that he lost heart. The man seemed fairly talented, although a little dirty.
I offer him a freshly baked peanut cake that I had baked that day. His eyes lit up, and he eagerly jumped at my offer. He immediately took the cake with his dirty hands and quickly began eating the treat on the spot.
I told him that our thought creates our reality, and suggested that he not give up and think in a positive way. I also said that he was young and everything was possible. As he chews the cake, what I said seemed to have an effect on him, and he told me that he would cheer up and try to find a good job.
My sense told me that he might begin to see things a little differently from then on. While walking away, I was thinking of a man eating a cake packed with potential of raising his confidence. And so it is! | high22324.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Test out their claw skills"
},
"options": [
"Show love to the person",
"Test out their claw skills",
"Avoid the attack from the dog",
"Get food from a person's hand."
],
"question": "According to the text small ... | Cats like climbing trees and there are logical reasons behind this behavior. Interestingly, due to some of their physical features, cats will meet trouble getting down from the trees after climbing up, which may seem unusual.
There are several reasons why cats climb trees, mostly to do with defensive purposes. Cats, as predators , like to understand their environment well. As they are small animals, their scope of vision is considerably smaller. Cats often climb trees to get a better view of their surroundings to help them see any potential dangers.
While cats are predators, they are also easy to get attacked from larger animals, such as dogs or even other cats. A tree often provides a safe hiding place. In the wild, cars climb up trees to give them a resting or napping place that is out of predators' range. It also helps disguise their presence.
Some cats may climb trees for fun, on occasion, or possibly to work on improving their climbing abilities. Small cats frequently test out their claw skills by trying to climb up anything and everything, from bookcases to trees to a person's leg. Climbing practice is good for cats; it can improve their strength and flexibility and teach them an important defensive skill.
If a cat has gotten up a tree and cannot get down, the owner may wonder why its remarkable climbing abilities only work in one direction. A cat's claws curve inward, allowing it to grip onto surfaces while going up head first. Unfortunately, this useful climbing curve does nothing to help the animal get back down again.
Eventually, most trapped cats will either jump out of the tree or realize that they can get down by going tail first. Either way, a cat up a tree is usually nothing to worry about; they are intelligent animals and will figure out how to get down sooner or later. | high14696.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "It can actually pronounce the words."
},
"options": [
"I t contains more words and examples.",
"It can actually pronounce the words.",
"It has a smaller size.",
"It has many games."
],
"question": "Why does the ... | I am an English dictionary. I can still remember the day my ex-owner bought me. He had stood in front of the shelf for around half an hour before finally picking me. Originally, he chose my neighbor. But because she had some ink on the cover, he put her down and chose me instead.
I may sound arrogant . But please forgive me. I am so proud of my vocabulary. With 100,000 entries and 300,000 examples, I think no scholar can be more knowledgeable than me. My only weakness is that I can't speak. But that is not my fault. I was not designed to speak in the first place. My ex-owner was supposed to read the phonetic symbols clearly printed beside each word, which were also my selling point. I should have been respected but have ended up lying next to a piece of used toilet paper inside the rubbish bin.
It is all because of the electronic dictionary. He is the bad guy because he takes advantage of my one weakness. And I just don't understand why he can be so slim. He also has about 100,000entries but 450,000 examples! But I know this was not the reason why my ex-owner was attracted, for he was not a very diligent student and seldom read the examples listed. The main reason was that the bad guy had so many games in him. My ex-owner always pretended to be working hard while actually he was playing games.
My ex-owner put me on his bookshelf because of my awesome English name "Advanced English Dictionary". He wanted people to think that he was an advanced learner. I wanted to tell him that it would be better if he hid the comic books standing next to me. But, you know, I can't speak. I stood there for years. I was so bored. So I talked to the comic book next to me. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have talked to him because I was educated and he was not. But who else could I choose? He told me that my ex-owner had read him once only and then put him there. I was upset because he had never read me from page one to page 1,000. Was I not a better book than the comic book? I wanted to challenge his honesty but before I did so, he was thrown away.
I give up. My pages are absorbing waste water. There is no way people will use me again. Suddenly, I want to talk to the comic book. Would he talk to me if we met? | high11936.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "How Gallaudet set up the first school for the deaf in America."
},
"options": [
"How Gallaudet set up the first school for the deaf in America.",
"What contributions Gallaudet made to the education of the deaf in America.",
"... | American sign language has an interesting history. Although there have always been deaf individuals in America, the history really begins in 1817. Before 1817 deaf people communicated by using "home signs". Gestures were individually created and used within the home for simple communication. There were no schools or formal sign language training for the deaf.
So, why was 1817 an important date? Well, the story begins with Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. Gallaudet met his neighbor's daughter Alice Cogswell. Alice was the young deaf daughter of Dr. Mason Cogswell from Hartford, Connecticut. Gallaudet began teaching Alice to read and write a few simple words. Excited by the success Dr. Cogswell encouraged Gallaudet to establish a school for the deaf. Cogswell raised the money and Gallaudet traveled to Britain to learn the methods used there. However, the schools refused to share their instructional techniques and methods.
While in London, there happened to be a demonstration of the French method of deaf education. Britain was using an oral method of instruction; however, the French method used signs. Gallaudet was fascinated with the method and was able to meet with the instructor, Sicard, and his two deaf pupils, Jean Massieu and Laurent Clerc. Sicard agreed to teach Gallaudet his method and Gallaudet went to Paris to learn French signs. After a while, Gallaudet wished to return home and convinced Clerc to go with him and help him establish the school. The trip home was a 52-day voyage during which Clerc taught Gallaudet French signs and Gallaudet taught Clerc English.
On April 15, 1817, Laurent Clerc and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet established what is currently known as the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. The opening of the first school for the deaf can be viewed as one of the most important events in current deaf culture. | high20533.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "She wanted to make them less angry at the real news"
},
"options": [
"She wanted to worry them",
"She wanted to make them laugh",
"She wanted to make them less angry at the real news",
"She wanted to warn them about wha... | Sarah Williams went to a boarding school.Here is one of the letters she wrote to her parents from the school:
Wentworth Girls' school
Beachside
July 20th
Dearest Mom and Dad,
I'm afraid I have some very surprising news for you.I have been very naughty and the school headmaster is very angry with me.She is going to write to you.You must come and take me away from here.She does not want me in the school any longer.
The trouble started last night when I was smoking in bed.This is against the rules, of course.We are not supposed to smoke at all.
As I was smoking, I heard footsteps coming towards the room.I did not want a teacher to catch me smoking, so I threw the cigarette away.
Unfortunately, the cigarette fell into the waste-paper basket, which caught fire.
There was a curtain near the waste-paper basket which caught fire, too.Soon the whole room was burning.
The headmaster phoned the fire department.The school is a long way from the town and by the time the fire department arrived, the whole school was on fire.Many of the girls are in hospital.
The headmaster says that the fire was all my fault and you must pay for the damage.She will send you a bill for about a million dollars.
I'm very sorry about this.
Much love,
Sarah
P.S.None of the above is true, but I have failed my exams.I just want you to know how bad things could have been. | high16081.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "hotel"
},
"options": [
"school",
"hotel",
"store",
"restaurant"
],
"question": "The advertisement is for a _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"... | You bring each other.We'll provide everything else.
To book the romantic getaway of a lifetime.
Visit windjammerlanding.com or call 18775220722
The Romance Package
From $2,650 for 5 days/4 nights in a Premium Ocean View Room
*Allinclusive food&beverage
*1hou couples massage
*Sparking wine&flowers upon arrival
*1 inroom champagne breakfast
*Airport taxi transfers
*All service&taxes
Windjammer
Landing
VILLA BEACH RESORE,ST.LUCIA | high5800.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Her family would be eaten by the wild pig."
},
"options": [
"Her home would be destroyed.",
"Her children would get lost.",
"She would be taken as the cat's food.",
"Her family would be eaten by the wild pig."
],
... | Animals are not always animals. Some of them will try to cheat or cow some others in the way the human beings often do. Here is a fairy tale from Aesop for you to enjoy.
An eagle made her nest at the top of a high tree while a cat, having found a convenient hole, moved into the middle of the trunk, and at the same time a wild pig, with her young took shelter in a hollow at its foot. The cat then decided to make all serve her in her wise way.
To carry out her design, she climbed to the nest of the eagle, saying, "Destruction is preparing for you and for me too, unfortunately. The wild pig, whom you see daily digging up the earth, wishes to uproot the tree, so she may on its fall seize our families as food for her young."
Having thus frightened the eagle out of her senses, she crept down to the cave of the pig, saying, "Your children are in great danger, for as soon as you go out to find food, the eagle is prepared to jump upon one of your little pigs."
Having filled these fears into the pig, she went and pretended to hide herself in the hollow of the tree. When night came she went out silently and obtained food for herself and her children, but pretending to be afraid, she kept a lookout all through the day. Meanwhile, the eagle, full of fear of the pig, sat still on the branches, and the pig, terrified by the eagle, did not dare to go out from her cave. Thus they both, along with their families, starved from hunger, and afforded good food for the cat and her children. | high11922.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Working at Home"
},
"options": [
"Training at Home",
"Learning at Home",
"Recording Work",
"Working at Home"
],
"question": "The best title of the 3rd advertisement would be_.",
"question_type": "cloze_quest... | Inventors
Can you patent and profit from your idea?
We have been assisting inventors since 1975. Full range of patenting and marketing services.
Confidentiality guaranteed
American Inventors Corp.
Call for free information:
1-800=338-5656
or visit www.aic.com
*Parents*
Can you afford to raise your hearing impaired child without the insights this highly valued book has to offer? Make life easier for you and your child!
Bradford
Publications
For information:
1-800-354-2760
or visit www.bpublications.com
Earn up to$25,000 a year as a Medical Transcriptionist!
No experience is needed, Work the hours you choose. Train at home in your spare time. The medical profession needs skilled
transcriptionists. So if you can type, or are willing to learn, we can train you to work at home doing medical transeriptions from tapes dictated by doctors. Get free information!
At-Home Profession Corp.
Call Toll Free 1-800-475-0100
or visit www. athome. Com
Globe Insurance Company
Since 1951, Globe has grown in financial strength and reputation With over 2.8 million policies in force. Globe is committed to providing affordable life, health and accident insurance for the entire family. It only costs$1 to start your Long Life coverage.
Globe Insurance Company
Call Toll Free, Seven Days A
Week, 24-hours A Day.
1-800-358-1945
or visit www.globeic.com | high22330.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "The applicants' resumes and phone numbers are created by Pedulla."
},
"options": [
"The applicants had some things in common at their first two jobs.",
"The applicants' resumes and phone numbers are created by Pedulla.",
"The... | As graduation draws near, those who haven't landed a job yet may be desperate to find one. Perhaps some of the job offers they have received are below their skill and experience levels. Is it better to take these offers, or reject them and remain unemployed?
Recently, David Pedulla, a University of Texas sociologist, conducted a study about how taking a job below your skill level could affect your future employment.
In the study, Pedulla developed resumes for imaginary job applicants. The job seekers he created had a few things in common. They had a college degree, worked nearly two years at their first job, and about 4.5 years at their second job. What differed was their third job in the most recent year. They either had a full-time job that matched their skills, a part-time job below their skill levels, or were unemployed.
Then Pedulla submitted 2,420 resumes based on his imaginary job seekers, along with cover letters, to online ads for 1,210 real jobs. Each applicant had a real phone number that employers could contact if they were interested in talking with the applicant further.
The callback rates varied widely based on how the imaginary job seekers had spent their last year. The applicants who had full-time jobs the previous year were called back 10.4 percent of the time. Those whose most recent year of employment was in a job below their skill levels were only called back about 5 percent. Male applicants unemployed for a year were called back 4.2 percent of the time, while the figure is 7.5 percent for unemployed females.
However, Pedulla cautioned that the experiment only measured the initial interest of employers in his fictional job candidates, not whether the employers would hire them or what they would be paid based on their most recent job experiences. | high14682.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "have been the biggest in Europe"
},
"options": [
"have been the biggest in Europe",
"have been larger than in China",
"reached one million two years ago",
"have taken up 20% of the market"
],
"question": "In Ger... | China may be the world's largest market for e-bikes, but Europe is fast catching up. The EU's official statistics agency says the figure reached the one million e-bike mark two years ago, and sales have sharply increased since then.
When working errands around Berlin, Lutz, who usually works with horses, uses the company's new e-bike that charges easily and has a range of 140 kilometers. "We found there was no parking spot problem or other worries. And on top of all this, we don't pollute the environment. Petrol is also saved," said Lutz Baddack, owner of Reitsport Baddack.
Unlike many other parts of the world, the EU does not require registration for e-bikes. Nearly half a million are expected to be sold in Germany this year, in all shapes and sizes.
It's not just bike fans buying them. People who usually drive cars also use them occasionally," said Stefan Gelbhaar.
Dealers say the elderly are also big customers. Sales of ordinary bicycles fell in Germany last year, but sales of e-bikes rose by eight percent. Sales figures are expected to keep rising. "In five years we will have the market share of 20 percent, maybe more," said Marcus Kendler, owner of E-Motion. In the hillier parts, that figure has already been beyond it.
The sales of e-bikes in Germany have been much larger than those in any other country in Europe. But other countries are fast catching up. In Europe, with the various brands at the market and falling prices, e-bikes are here to stay and not just a repeated trend. | high7965.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "focused"
},
"options": [
"focused",
"interesting",
"very strict",
"free of charge"
],
"question": "The author believes that children's education should be _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{... | Child care programs help us work towards the future of our children, and right from the time they are born until they graduate. It is our job to look for the best educational programs. One of the most important things of a good child care program or child day care is the teacher to child ratio . It means that every student needs a certain amount of attention in order to grow and learn correctly.
It's for this reason that small-sized class in schools are leading to bigger and better opportunities. With smaller classes, each student is given personal attention when it comes to their class work, their personal health and their mental growth.
When there are too many children in a class, individuals get lost in the crowd. They always couldn't get enough attention. When it comes to the educational result, they don't learn well because some are afraid to ask questions in front of so many people. Others become lazy for not having been attended by the teacher.
Some schools are overcrowded these days. Most children don't even get their basic educational work done in schools. How is one expected to grow into a successful , healthy adult if the basics are not done? For these and several other reasons, schools with small class sizes are turning out to be very good for children.
Diana Autumn is Director of Anne Sullivan School. The excellent teachers here often attend different courses and workshops to stay on top of the latest research in education, and the school pays more attention to its interactive classrooms and small-sized classes. | high24027.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "He thought highly of it."
},
"options": [
"He was doubtful about it.",
"He thought highly of it.",
"He showed no interest in it.",
"He was against the use of it."
],
"question": "What was Whitman's attitude towa... | Change is one of the common facts of life. Most of us have seen a number of changes in our own lives from simple things like fashion trends and entertainment to big changes in technology.
Language, too, has experienced change and continues to develop. The continuous change is what keeps languages alive.
Slang is a way in which languages can transform and are renewed. Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in a language. Some consider slang to be witty and clever, adding spice to the informal written and spoken language. Walt Whitman described slang as "the start of imagination and humor, breathing into its nostrils the breath of life". However, others criticize its use, believing that it weakens the language.
The spoken English language of today's younger generation is filled with slang words and expressions. These lively words and phrases are an example of how language plants its own seeds of change that develop within social circumstances.
Sometimes slang is the use of a word that is already in the standard dictionary, for example, lift (to pick up or raise) is given a new meaning, such as "to steal"; or hunk (a large piece of something) has now become "a handsome man". Other times, slang is an invented word, such as chocoholic, which means "a person who loves chocolate". Other invented words are mula, which means "money" and airhead, which means "a person who is stupid".
Now, you'll understand your friends if they say something like, "I was such an airhead to think that I could get away with lifting a whole box of chocolates from the store just because I was all out of mula." | high23748.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "hearing the sound"
},
"options": [
"seeing the shape",
"hearing the sound",
"detecting the smell",
"feeling the air move"
],
"question": "While hunting at night, owls first get a prey's information by _ .",
... | Owls are some of the world's greatest hunters. From head to feet, owls' bodies are built to hunt. Scientists are studying all the things that make owls such great hunters.
Most owls hunt at night. The birds have excellent hearing, which helps them find their next meal in the dark.
Owls have one ear that is larger and set higher than the other. When an owl hears a sound, it listens closely. Is the sound lounder in its right ear or left ear? Does the upper or lower ear detect the sound first? The information helps the owl find the location of its prey without ever seeing it.
Owls don't depend just on their hearing to hunt. After a sound draws an owl's attention, it zeroes in with sight.
Many birds have eyes on either side of their heads. But an owl's eyes face forward, like a person's. Images from each eye combine to form a 3-D picture, similar to how we see. That helps owls better judge a prey's size, distance, and speed.
An owl's eyes are so large that they can gather lots of light. That helps the owl see better when hunting at night. An owl's eyes are also fixed in their sockets . It can't roll them like we can. Instead, an owl keeps prey in its sight by turning its head.
Owls can move their beads nearly upside down and turn them 270 degrees around. Their necks have 14 vertebrae . That's twice as many neck bones as a person has.
The blood vessels thread through holes in an owl's vertebrae. The researchers found that these holes are very large so that the extra space provides an air cushion that protects the vessels.
Detecting prey is only the first step for owls. Next they must catch their meals. An owl can fly inches over your head and you can't hear anything. The secret to owls' silent flight is their feathers. Fine "hairs" cover the surface of an owl's wing feathers. And the feathers' edges have soft barbs . Together, they make the sound of air rushing over the owl's wings quieter and less clear. | high9790.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "mother had a great influence on his career"
},
"options": [
"brothers were more famous than him",
"mother had a great influence on his career",
"father loved his children and wife very much",
"family was rich and happy ... | I was the youngest of five boys and also had four sisters who had to pull together and take care of each other. Dad wasn't around, so I never knew him well. He killed himself when I was three years old, leaving mom with the job of raising nine kids. She was a very hard worker, and in order to make ends meet, she hardly ever rested. With my mom as my example, I learned that hard work is the best way to get what you want.
Even as a little boy, I knew I was going to be successful. Regardless of what I chose, I wanted to make my brothers, sisters and mom proud of me--not only by being successful in what I chose to do, but also as a person who could be looked up to for the right reasons.
Surprising as it might seem, basketball wasn't in my plans. One day, my mom cut a rim off an old water barrel and then held it up for me to throw an old rubber ball through. By junior high, I started playing basketball on a team. I loved to compete. For me, it paid off. I always put the effort in, every day.
I am grateful for the life I've enjoyed as a basketball star. Basketball is not life. It can be exciting. But the most important thing about basketball is that it gives me a way to do good things for others as I move through this journey called life. | high880.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "they are more likely to fall ill"
},
"options": [
"they won't feel happy anymore",
"they are more mentally harmed than physically",
"they will find the feeling goes away by itself",
"they are more likely to fall ill"
... | Do you often feel lonely? What do you do when you feel that way? Hide yourself away and spend your time reading, watching TV or walking around?
You might think that feeling lonely is just like feeling happy, sad or scared -- that it's just one of your various moods. That is true. However, if you let yourself be lonely for too long without dealing with it, you could be making a serious mistake.
Doctors have known for some time that feeling lonely is bad for the mind. It can lead to mental health problems such as depression, stress and reduce confidence. "Being lonely means not feeling connected or cared for, but it's not about being mentally alone," Lisa Jaremka, scientist from Ohio State University, US, told Live Science in January. And there's growing evidence that not having friends is connected with physical illness as well.
In 2006, for example, scientists studied 2,800 women who had cancer. They found that those who had few friends or family were five times more likely to die of their disease than women with many social contacts. Also, even healthy people had a better chance of falling ill if they felt left out by others, according to the BBC.
The results have scientists thinking that loneliness might hurt the immune system , which protects the body from diseases.
Hoping to prove this theory, Jaremka and her research team put volunteers through a stress test. During the test, volunteers were asked to make an unprepared speech in front of a group of stony-faced people. The researchers found that volunteers who said they were lonely in their daily lives felt more stress during the test. And their blood samples showed that all the stress had managed to cause harmful changes to their immune system.
"Loneliness has been thought of in many ways as a chronic stressor -- a socially painful situation that can last for quite a long time, " explained Jaremka, who led the study.
The number of people suffering from loneliness is increasing all over the world. However, solving the problem is easier said than done. It won't work to just "tell anyone to go out and find someone to love you", said Jaremka. "We need to create support networks." | high13853.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "brought to Europe from Constantinople"
},
"options": [
"brought to Europe from America",
"begun when forks first invented",
"brought to Europe from Constantinople",
"thought of by the Italians"
],
"question": "T... | "Fingers were made before forks." When a person gives up good manners, put aside knife and fork, and dives into his food, someone is likely to repeat that saying.
The fork was an ancient agricultural tool, but for centuries no one thought of eating with it. Not until the eleventh century, when a young lady from Constantinople brought her fork to Italy, did the custom reach Europe.
By the fifteenth century the use of the fork was wide-spread in Italy. The English explanation was that Italians were unwilling to eat food touched with fingers, "seeing all men's fingers are not alike clean.
Anyone who used a fork to eat with was laughed at in England for the next hundred years. Not until the late 1600's did using a fork become a common custom. | high23990.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Rain."
},
"options": [
"Poor service.",
"Poor public transport.",
"Rain.",
"Overpriced hotels."
],
"question": "What do tourists complain most?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
"answer": {... | BRITAIN is a popular tourist place. But tours of the country have advantages and disadvantages .
ADVANTAGES
Free museums. No charge for good collections of art works.
Pop music. Britain is the only country to rival(...)the US on this point.
Cabs. London taxi drivers well know where they are going.
Choice of food. Visitors can find food from every corner of the world .
Fashion. Not only do fashion junkies love deeply and respect highly brand names such as Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen; street styles are justly loved, too.
DISADVANTAGES
Poor service. People can dine out on the rudeness they have experienced," says Professor Tony Seaton, of Luton University's International Tourism Research Center.
Poor public transport. Trains and buses are promised to defeat tourists who have the most patience, so the over- crowded London tube is inexplicably popular.
Rain. Still in the number one complaint.
Overpriced hotels. The only European country with a higher rate of tax on hotel rooms is Denmark.
Drinking hours. Alcohol is in short supply after 11 pm even in "24-hour cities". | high9948.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "The History of Folk Music."
},
"options": [
"The History of Folk Music.",
"Folk Music Pioneers",
"The Folk Music Industry.",
"The Voice of China"
],
"question": "Which would be the best title of the passage?",
... | "Folk singers are more like poets than singers," Li Yahe, a music businessman, once told China Youth Daily.
That saying perfectly describes Zhang Lei, the 34-year-old champion of the fourth "Voice of China" singing competition, which ended on Oct 7.
Critics thought Zhang's success as a victory for folk singers. The Voice of China used to attach great importance to singing skills and vocal techniques, which are not necessarily what folk singers are good at. "Folk songs are more about emotions and storytelling," said Li.
Folk is one of the oldest musical styles. It dates back to ancient times, when people sang about their everyday lives and the society around them.
A powerful comeback
Folk music became popular again in the Western world in the 1960s. During social revolutions, many young Westerners turned to the simple rhythms of folk. Pioneers included US singer Bob Dylan, whose songs are reflections of some social issues like the Vietnam War. Singers at that time used traditional folk instruments like the banjo, the upright bass, the mandolin and the piano.
In the late 1970s, folk music was introduced to Taiwan. The rise of singers like Lo Tayu and Chyi Yu popularized folk music, particularly among young Chinese people.
At that time, folk tunes were based on simple song structures, with pleasant chord progression and pretty lyrics, just like during old times. But they focused more on the dreams and sorrow of youth than on politics.
This continued to be the case when the folk "wave" swept Chinese mainland in the 1990s.
Folk pioneers
Sadly, _ didn't last long in China. Folk gave way to pop in the late 1990s, when people started living more fast-paced lives. But that didn't mean folk music had disappeared from the music world entirely.
"The drop in the popularity of folk songs is because the business mode of the music industry is outdated, not because of the music itself," folk singer Song Ke once said.
He was right. Recent years have seen folk songs gaining popularity, with the appearance of singers like Li Jian and Song Dongye.
"The popularity of the Internet has shocked the traditional profit model in music industry," Lu Zhongqiang, manager of 13-Month, a music recording and publishing company, told Tencent Entertainment.
"Not-so-well-known music starts showing its strength when the production of mainstream music is declining," he added. | high12595.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Researchers studied bats to help save people."
},
"options": [
"They carry many deadly diseases like SARS so it's easy for them to get sick.",
"Bats are the only animals that can tell directions easily.",
"Bats are among the ... | Bats are impressive creatures. They are known to carry dangerous diseases like SARS without getting sick.
So researchers wanted to know: How do bats fight off so many deadly diseases? Learning their secret could help doctors better treat humans who have these diseases, therefore saving millions of lives.
To solve this problem, a team of researchers from Australia and China analyzed bat DNA. The scientists studied two kinds of bats--the Australian megabat, known as the flying fox, and the Chinese microbat. The scientists then arranged the bat genome in order by comparing their DNA.
The researchers now think that the special immunity to illness that bats have may be connected to their ability to fly.
Bats are the only mammals that can truly fly. Flying uses up a lot of energy. The energy burned for flying produces something in the animal called free radicals . Free radicals can damage DNA and lead to diseases such as cancer.
However, bats are not affected by free radicals produced during flight. The reason is that bats carry special genes to repair any damaged DNA.
Scientists think that because bats fly and produce free radicals, they've evolved to carry genes that shaped their special immune system.
"We're thinking that the evolution of flight led to a sort of effect, influencing not only the immune system but also things like aging and cancer," says Chris Cowled, of the Australian Animal Health Laboratory. "We think we've really found something special."
Researchers believe that this discovery might one day be key to helping humans fight diseases such as cancer that attack the immune system and damage DNA. | high18906.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "mix English into Chinese"
},
"options": [
"speak as slowly as they like",
"mix English into Chinese",
"use shortened Chinese expressions",
"have much time for their programs"
],
"question": "CCTV anchors have to... | Anchors on China Central Television(CCTV) will need to do some fast talking to replace the popular English acronyms they are now banned from using. Shanghai Dailyreports that "anchors at China Central Television have been banned from saying the English acronyms NBA, CBA, GDP, and the like in their programs."
The replacement for those handy acronyms? Chinese presenters must use the full Chinese name, standardized by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.
Although CCTV(oops, we mean China Central Television) presenters must already have a score of at least 94 in their government-rated oral mandarin proficiency exam, saying the full name of organizations like the CBA and WTO---10 and 6 characters' long respectively---is sure to challenge even the most skillful anchors. CCTV sports anchor Sun Zhengping tells Shanghai Daily, "A full Chinese explanation of the English initials must be followed if my tongue slips. It is a little troublesome but a necessary one because not every member of the audience can understand the initials."
Although the government isn't giving any official explanation for the shift, it is believed to have something to do with a proposal by Huang Youyi, director of the China International Publishing Group, at March's NPC meeting. In his speech, Huang said, "With more and more publications mixing Chinese with English, measures and regulations should be adopted to avoid English invading Chinese. If we don't pay attention and don't take measures to stop the expansion of mixing Chinese with English, Chinese won't be a pure language in a couple of years."
Although China is far from the first country to take measures to protect local languages, acronyms are more about saving time than they are about corrupting a language, we would think. Good luck to the CCTV anchors. | high20241.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Anita's aunt."
},
"options": [
"Anita's aunt.",
"Anita's mother.",
"The operator.",
"The doctor."
],
"question": "Who played the most important part in calling an ambulance fro Anita?",
"question_type": "fac... | It is well known that the United States' population come from all over the world. The immigrants can learn the language, English, to keep this country united, but it is unnecessary to change their culture for an American way of life.
I believe that recent immigrants should learn English in order to live in the country. They should learn the "public language". If they don't learn English, they won't be able to communicate and do what they want. For example, my mother's friend came to the United States from Ecuador three years ago. She doesn't speak English. One day, her daughter, Anita, couldn't breathe. Anita didn't know what was going on, but she told her mother to call an ambulance. When her mother called the hospital, she couldn't communicate. The operator couldn't understand what Anita's mother was saying. Fortunately, her mother's sister arrived and called the ambulance. The doctor told her sister that if she hadn't arrived at the hospital on time, Anita could have died. A pill had gotten stuck in her throat.
Immigrants should learn English to speak with the public, but they can also keep their language at home. The children of immigrants should learn how to speak their parents' language. It is very important to communicate with our relatives and family. If we learn English only and forget our private "language", we won't be able to communicate with our parents. For example, Florence, my co-worker, speaks English only. Her mother didn't teach her Spanish (her mother's mother language). Now, Florence can't communicate with her grandparents or other relatives in Puerto Rico. She has lost her mother's mother language, tradition and culture.
Immigrants have the freedom to keep their culture and values. Immigrants should know where they come from and what their family's culture is. In this way, they can transmit it to future generations.
In conclusion, immigrants should learn English in order to communicate with the public and to keep the country united, but they shouldn't give up their own culture. | high10382.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "promises to offer useful advice to those looking for employment"
},
"options": [
"informs job hunters of the opportunities available",
"informs employers of the people available for work",
"divides available jobs into various... | There is a new type of small advertisement becoming increasingly common in newspaper classified columns.It is sometimes placed among "situations vacant", although it does not offer anyone a job, and sometimes it appears among "situations wanted", although it is not placed by someone looking for a job, either.What it does is to offer help in applying for a job.
"Contact us before writing your application", or "Make use of our long experience in preparing your curriculum vitae or job history", is how it is usually expressed.The growth and apparent success of such a specialized service is, of course, a reflection on the current high levels of unemployment.It is also an indication of the growing importance of the CV, with the suggestion that it may now qualify as an art form in its own right.
There was a time when job seekers simply wrote letters of application."Just put down your name, address, age and whether you have passed any exams", was about the average level of advice offered to young people applying for their first jobs when I left school.The letter was really just for openers, it was explained, everything else could and should be saved for the interview.And in those days of full employment the technique worked.The letter proved that you could write and were available for work.Your eager face and intelligent replies did the rest.
There is no doubt, however, that it is increasing number of applicants with university education at all points in the process of engaging staff that has led to the greater importance of the CV. | high670.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "$350"
},
"options": [
"$350",
"$300",
"$100",
"$400"
],
"question": "If you register both the VIEW qualification course and the Forum at the same time, you will save _ .",
"question_type": "cloze_question... | For the last seventeen years CPSB has had the pleasure of hosting a learning event we call a Forum. We started offering programs inprefix = st1 /Sarasotain February in 1991 and our first Forum was held in 1992 as a small group meeting. Being from the Northern USA, this was a particularly good time to go South for the warmth of our friendship with Dr. Treffinger and Dr. Noller and to keep away from the cold winter.
The Forum is the only chance to learn about various topics of the creativity and innovation from those who have rich experience and interest in the field. The theme of the 2009 Forum includes searching for a few new methods, sharing lessons from experience, and learning and exchange ideas on _ research. Space is limited, so early registration is welcome.
Meeting the Innovation Challenge February 6 and 7,2009
The Lido Holiday Inn
Sarasota,Florida
$ 750(registration includes some meals and materials)
Interested in becoming qualified to use the VIEW assessment of Problem Solving Style? The two days just before our Forum provides you just that chance. For more information on VIEW see pages 24-25.
VIEW Qualification Course
February 4 and 5, 2009
The Lido Holiday Inn
Sarasota,Florida
$650(registration includes lunch and course materials)
Special Offer: If you would like to attend the VIEW qualification course and the Forum, you can register for both events for $ 1,050. | high23760.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Because the Police and other law enforcers made the errors."
},
"options": [
"Because She Xianglin was convicted of murdering his wife.",
"Because the Police and other law enforcers made the errors.",
"Because through DNA tes... | A man who served 11 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of murdering his wife was officially _ yesterday, walking free from Jingshan County People's Court--the same body that sentenced him to a 15year jail term in 1998--as over 2000 local residents cheered.
"Police and other law enforcers made the errors,"39yearold She Xianglin told China Daily, "I believe the law will punish them and give me a just result."
The original conviction came based on a confession which She said was extracted under police torture and the misidentification of a still-unknown woman's body.
"The provincial Hubei government has sent a team of police, procurators and high people's court officials to investigate the case," a spokesperson for the Jingmen government, which administrates Jingshan County, said yesterday.
The miscarriage of justice only came to light when Shen's wife, Zhang Zaiyu, resurfaced late last month after being thought missing for 11 years.
This was despite at least five letters from Zhang to her brother over the last two years, which he said he didn't report to police because he thought they were a hoax.
Zhang disappeared in January 1994 from Yanmenkou Township, and 3 months later a body was found in a pond that her relatives positively identified.
Local police arrested Shen for murder in April 1994,although questions had been raised about discrepancies between the features and clothes of the body and Zhang. Confirmation through DNA testing had not been attempted.
Zhang Chengmao, Shen's lawyer, said yesterday he would seek State compensation "but we have not reached a figure yet".
When asked about compensation, Shen said, "My mother, who died from the stress of continually appealing, cannot be bought. Eleven years of freedom cannot be bought. Schooling of my daughter that was stopped because of poverty cannot be bought."
As for his wife, the man said he did not hate her at all. "If she had not reappeared, maybe I would have been wronged for life," he said.
He also said he did not plan to sue Zhang for bigamy, though she had remarried in Shandong Province without divorcing him. | high7795.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "His lectures were very popular."
},
"options": [
"He liked showing off by talking about his travels abroad.",
"He thought the rich should show mercy to the poor.",
"His lectures were very popular.",
"He supported those ... | In addition to writing articles and books, Mark Twain delighted the audience with his public lectures about the faraway places he visited on his travels. People were eager to learn about his trips to places like the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii), Egypt and the Holy Land. Twain often used the fees he earned from his lectures to pay for more adventures. His well-attended performances also served to bring attention to his published work. At that time, the public lecture was a very popular form of entertainment, and audiences' expectations ran high, but Twain never failed to amuse them.
Twan also wrote on amusing subjects. In 1873, he released a book called The Gilded Age. The book was a satire of the very wealthy of the time. A satire is a work that makes fun of bad human behavior, such as wasteful spending. Twain made people laugh at the excesses of the rich.
In 1889, Twain took on other members of the Establishment. He wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, about a boy who travels back to the time of King Arthur. Twain made fun of those who were given advantages not because they had earned them but because of their family connections. If you have never read any of Mark Twain's works, try reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. They will make you laugh. | high9960.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "forests have increased in the US"
},
"options": [
"farmers have grown more food",
"forests have increased in the US",
"people stopped killing black bears",
"roads were built nearer to the forests"
],
"question":... | In recent years, the black bear population in the US has risen. Forests once cleared for farming have started to grow back and black bears have returned to them. But the bears are finding that their forest habitat has changed. Instead of thick forests covering thousands of acres, bears now have neighbors nearby. Roads, homes, schools, and shopping centers have been built at the edge of their forest home. And with humans and bears trying to share the same space, problems arise.
Black bears usually prefer to avoid people, but their nose may lead them into trouble. Their normal diet includes nuts, insects, and plants. But given the opportunity, they will gladly help themselves to whatever they can find.
With the great sense of smell, the bears can _ a tasty treat 2 or 3 miles away. Food left out in a park or backyard is an invitation to dinner. And whileraiding a cooler, bird feeder , trash can, car, or even a home, they can do a lot of damage. When that happens, people get angry. If another solution doesn't immediately appear, they often want the bears killed.
Bear Aware, Bear Wise, and Bear Smart are trying to keep that from happening. They want people to respect bears, not fear them, and are suggesting ways to reduce the chances of bears stopping by for a snack. They're convincing people that by following some simple steps, it's possible to live peacefully with our wild neighbors. | high2835.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "she has received others' food"
},
"options": [
"she is poor at cooking",
"she is a church member",
"she is friendly to others",
"she has received others' food"
],
"question": "The author has given lots of food t... | I received a call today asking if I would be willing to bring food to a family in need. The mother was having a major operation and would be lying down for several weeks. Of course, I responded with an immediate "Yes!". As I planned the meal in my head, I reflected on how many times over the years I had been asked to prepare food. I have done so countless times with a very open heart.
But the truly amazing thing is that I have received double over the course of my life. When my mother passed away, our house was filled with fresh dinners for weeks. A woman from the church of our community stopped by each evening with some food. The gift of food was her small way of trying to ease our pain.
Later in my life, when I was on bed rest during my pregnancy with twins, women of the church again stepped in to help. They arranged babysitting for my twoyearold daughter, and brought lovely dinners to our house. Even when I was put in the hospital, my husband would bring cooked meals to my hospital room. How we relied on these dinners to feed my tired husband and young daughter.
Food is all about comfort. It feeds our bodies, but it can also feed our souls. When you hear people talking about their favourite holidays, it usually includes their feelings connected with sharing food. I know that I will have many more opportunities in my lifetime to prepare food for others. It is truly a gift I want to prepare and deliver to someone in need. | high5182.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "contribute both to the environment and to students development"
},
"options": [
"not only benefit the environment but also win high awards",
"contribute both to the environment and to students development",
"treat and recycle... | More and more schools are being designed and used in ways that are friendly to the environment. These so-called green schools use less energy, cost less to run and are good for students.
The newly renovated Sidwell Friends Middle School in the District has been awarded the highest rating by the U.S. Green Building Council for having a positive impact on the environment-a rare honor. Soon the school will treat and re-use its wastewater, saving hundreds of thousands of gallons of water per year.
The recycled water from sinks and toilets, which can't be used for drinking, will be color1ed blue, "so we know it's recycled, just in case it gets into the water fountains -not that it would," joked Emily Bernstein, 14, a Sidwell student and building tour guide. Water fountains will still use fresh city water.
Sidwell students are studying the building itself in science classes to help them learn first-hand the positive impact of green buildings. It's affecting how they view the world around them. "If you see a [building] being torn down, you think, 'They're going to fill up a whole landfill with that,'" said Matthew Malone, 13.
In Prince George's County, Suitland Elementary has been so successful that another green school is being planned, in Laurel, for the 2008-09 school year.
At Suitland, a garden courtyard collects and uses rainwater; the roof is angled away from the sun to keep it cool; and skylights and tall windows let in lots of natural light.
"You don't have to switch on the light switch all the time," said Rupert McCave, the county official guiding these projects.
Green schools tend to be sunnier and more _ than older buildings. In fact, a study done inprefix = st1 /Washingtonstate showed that students at green schools performed better and were absent less. | high18090.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "find out what in the plant works to cure disease"
},
"options": [
"find out if the plant is poisonous",
"find out what in the plant works to cure disease",
"look for aspirin in the plant",
"make sure that the plant can ... | For thousands of years humans have used herbs , roots, and other things from nature to cure disease. Scientists looking for new cures often visit traditional healers. They find out what plants are used in healing. Then they look at what the plant contains. They find the active ingredient , which is the chemical in the plant that works to heal. Many of the drugs we use, including aspirin, have come from these natural medicines.
In recent years, many people in the US have taking what are legally known as dietary supplements . They may be vitamins or minerals. They may be herbs that help with health problems, such as depression. Some of them are teas. Others are capsules or tablets. They are sold in natural food stores, drug stores, and groceries. Most people think that because these products are natural they are also safe. This is not always true. There are many plants that are poisonous. There are others that have bad side effects.
The New England Journal of Medicine publishes medical research. A recent edition called for the government to _ dietary supplements. Several doctors wrote to the Journal and told of bad experiences people have had with dietary supplements.
Dietary supplements aren't tested in the same way as drugs. There is not always proof that the supplement really does what it is supposed to do. There is also a problem with purity of the supplements. Supplements have been found to contain things that are bad for the body. For example, the California Department of Health found that of 260 herbs grown in China, one third contained heavy metals. These are minerals such as lead and mercury . They are very poisonous, even in tiny amounts. | high21611.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "are anxious about its potential danger"
},
"options": [
"are aware of its benefits to the country",
"are anxious about its potential danger",
"are curious about the advanced technology",
"are against where the carrier w... | Nuclearpowered aircraft carriers are considered one of the most important marine weapons in the 20th century. So far, only two countries in the world, the USA and France, have ever produced them. But these fearful fighting machines are about to enter Asia.
The US Navy said last month that one of its nine nuclearpowered aircraft carriers will be sent to Japan to replace the diesel powered carrier Kitty Hawk in 2008. In an agreement on October 30, the two countries also planned to level up their military cooperation and the USA called for Japan to take a larger role in alliance military moves.
It will be the first time that a nuclearpowered carrier is based in Japan. Bombed by US forces in World War II at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan is the only world country to have been attacked by a nuclear weapon. Therefore, the citizens are highly sensitive to where nuclearpowered weapons are based.
"A radiation leak at Yokosuka would kill 100,000 people as far away as Tokyo, and could cause billions of dollars in damage," said Masahiko Goto, leader of a protest group in Yokosuka. His group has collected more than 300,000 signatures of people across Japan opposed to the nuclear carrier.
The 44yearold Kitty Hawk, the US Navy's oldest active ship, has been based in Yokosuka since 1998. It had returned to the US to be decommissioned in 2008. The new carrier will travel faster, be capable of supporting longer operations and carry with it the Navy's most modern technology.
Experts pointed that this change is not only to strengthen the USJapan military alliance but also to keep the military power of China and North Korea within limits. However, even Japanese experts don't believe that the two countries are threats to the region.
"There is no need for Japan to have a nuclear carrier as defense," said Tetsuo Maeda, an international relations professor at Tokyo International University. He said that the change of ship indicates an increased military capability in the region, much more than what is needed. | high3295.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "She worked for a bank."
},
"options": [
"She was nice to her son.",
"She died from extreme anger.",
"She worked for a bank.",
"She came from a poor family."
],
"question": "What fact can be learned about Hetty R... | Hetty Robinson learnt all about money when very young. As a child, she read the financial pages of the newspaper to her rich father. Her father died when Hetty was 30, and she inherited $1 million. When she herself died in 1916, she left almost $100 million to her two children.
Hetty made her money on the New York stock exchange. She was a financial genius. She made money so easily that people called her the Witch of Wall Street. But although she was one of the richest women in the world, she counted every cent and spent as little as possible. She didn't own a house, because she didn't want to pay taxes. So she and her children lived in cheap hotels. She spent almost nothing on clothes, and always wore the same long black dress. She washed it herself, but to save soap she only washed the bottom of the dress, where it touched the ground. Other people had their own offices, but Hetty used a desk in the bank where she kept her money, because it didn't cost anything. She sat in the bank and ate her sandwiches while she bought and sold stocks and shares. If the bank complained, she just moved all her money to another bank.
Hetty's family paid the price for her meanness. When she was 33 she married a millionaire, Edward Green, and they had two children. But Green lost all his money, so she left him. When her son, Ned, injured his knee, Hetty didn't want to pay for a doctor, so she took him to a free hospital for poor people. Unfortunately the doctor knew Hetty was rich and he asked for money. Hetty refused and took the boy away. His leg got worse and two years later doctors removed it.
But eventually Ned got his revenge . At the age of 81, Hetty had an argument with a shop assistant about the price of a bottle of milk. She became so angry that she had a heart attack and died. So Hetty's meanness finally killed her. Ned inherited half his mother's fortune, and he spent it all on parties, holidays and expensive jewellery. | high14872.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "More than half families in big cities are \"empty nest\"."
},
"options": [
"The elderly take part in the social and entertainment activities actively nowadays.",
"More than half families in big cities are \"empty nest\".",
"E... | Chinese people first encountered the term "empty nest"in a work of famous writer Bing Xin in 1980. In the past three decades, it has become a widespread social phenomenon. And with society and the economy developing at a faster pace, the condition of elderly couples has worsened.
Data shows that over half of the families in China are "empty nest" households, with the figure being as high as 70 percent in some big cities. There were 41.5 million "empty nest" old people aged 65 or above in 2010.Experts even say that "empty nest" families will become the major pattern in Chinese cities and rural areas, dealing a blow to the traditional family support system and requiring the government to take greater care of the material and spiritual needs of senior citizens and to provide them better psychological comfort, proper healthcare and legal aid.
After retirement, people tend to participate in fewer social activities, spending more time at home reading newspapers or watching television. "Empty nest" people, who are not taken proper care of by their children, are bound to feel lonely, and are usually unwilling to engage in recreational activities, which leads to psychological problems. A survey shows that over half of the "empty nest" old suffer from mental problems to different degrees. Loneliness, anxiety and depression are the most common.
Grown-up children are to take care of not only their parents, but also to respect their feelings, by having more heart-to-heart conversations with them. Family love plays an important role in providing mental comfort for the elderly. They should undertake the responsibility of visiting aged parents more often and making them feel wanted.
There is a lot more communities could do to help make senior citizens' life better. To begin with, they could recruitcommunity volunteers, from warm-hearted university students to helpful and devoted middle-aged citizens.
Senior citizens, too, should make an effort to release tension and prepare for a happy life in their twilight years. They should change their mentality and try to be less emotionally dependent on their children, develop hobbies, extend their social circle, and set new goals to make the rest of their life more interesting. (362words) | high22318.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "free"
},
"options": [
"limited",
"made",
"free",
"possible"
],
"question": "When a person has some money, he or she is _ to decide how to use it.",
"question_type": "cloze_questions"
},
{
"answer"... | When people have money, they have the freedom to choose how to use it. Some people have more money than others, but no one has all the money in the world. The amount of money we have is limited. The supply of goods, land, and resources is limited. Because of this, people can not have or buy everything that they might want. This means that if you have only five dollars to spend, you can not buy something that costs ten dollars. As our country has grown in the number of citizens, the price of goods has increased. In the recent years the cost of food, clothing, housing and cars has risen quickly. The price of films and books has gone up. In a time when prices are rising, people cannot buy as much with the money as before. | high23006.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "the grandson made a lot of noise"
},
"options": [
"the old lady had died",
"a young man moved in",
"the old man could not live alone",
"the grandson made a lot of noise"
],
"question": "Bill's family got angry b... | Bill and his family has been living in the six-family building for years. All the neighbors got along fairly well with each other until recently.
An old man and his wife used to live on the second floor. Bill's mother and the old lady were good friends. Unfortunately the lady died last month. Her husband could not live alone, so he had his grandson move over and live with him.
The grandson has become a problem to all the neighbors, especially to Bill's family. The walls of the building are thin and he is noisy. Bill is used to peace and quiet but the young man likes to listen to the radio late at night. Sometimes friends of his visit and they make a lot of noise. That is too much for Bill's family.
Bill's mother once asked the old man politely if he was able to sleep well at night, but obviously the man didn't understand what she meant. If he did and spoke to his grandson, the young man obviously didn't listen, since things haven't changed any. Everyone in Bill's family agrees that something must be done though they don't want to hurt the kind old man. | high116.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "is an organic disease that affects young and old"
},
"options": [
"is a terrible part of the aging process",
"is an organic disease that affects young and old",
"can be cured by physical treatment",
"causes forgetfulnes... | Alzheimer's disease is a major national health problem. Nearly 2 million Americans over the age of 65 have Alzheimer's disease. It is a leading cause of death among the elderly. But Alzheimer's disease is not confined to the aged. There may be a million or more people under the age of 65 suffering from the disease.
At one time, people suffering from the disease were said to be "getting old". The disease was thought to be a natural part of growing old, but it is now known that Alzheimer's disease strikes young and old alike. It is an organic disease that destroys brain cells.
Alzheimer's disease affects the patient's memory, speech, and movement. In the beginning stages of the disease, the patient may seem slightly confused. He may have trouble speaking, then the patient's memory begins to fail. He may forget dates, numbers, names and plans.
As the disease progresses, the patient may not recognize family and friends. These symptoms often cause terrible anxiety in the patient. He may feel lost and frightened. Sometimes the patient reacts with wild and bad behavior.
In the last stages of the disease, the patient may not be able to take care of himself. He may have lost the ability to speak and walk.
Scientists don't know exactly what causes Alzheimer's disease. It may be caused by a virus .It may be caused by a poisonous substance in the environment. At present, there is no cure for the disease. But there are ways to slow its progress. Exercise and physical treatment can help the patients of this disease. | high1482.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Wearing an Australian uniform during the war, Dietrich was regarded a betrayer to her country."
},
"options": [
"Visitors can see various collections by Marlene in Berlin's new film museum.",
"Dietrich was a famous film star in Ho... | Marlene Dietrich is finally to be honored by her home city, Berlin.
For more than half a century, the famous film star won huge fame in Hollywood, but remained a highly controversial figure in Germany.
When the city's new film museum is opened on September 26, three of its 15 rooms will show the star's possessions collected over a lifetime.
In addition to various collections by Marlene, visitors will be able to see all Marlene Dietrich's movies. There will also be key except for a vast range of Germany-made films.
Dietrich became a world star after her wonderful performance in a movie. After that, _ , horrified by the sudden movement of Nazi in her hometown.
A few years after the war, the star was persuaded to pay a short visit to Berlin. But the trip proved a disaster. At a city hall gathering in West Berlin, crowds turned out to see her, but not all friendly.
She was attacked at times. She found herself being blamed for wearing an American uniform during the war to please U.S. troops in Europe. She was also scolded for "turning her back on the country".
Dietrich, deeply hurt, decided she would never return to Berlin again. But she softened her judgment.
When she died in Paris in 1972, it was at her express wish that her body should be sent back to Berlin for burial alongside her mother in a local cemetery. | high14866.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "you pay with credit card"
},
"options": [
"you pay in cash",
"you pay less than you should",
"you pay with credit card",
"you pay more than you should"
],
"question": "If you use charge accounts, _ .",
"qu... | Are you a compulsive spender,or do you hold on to your money as long as possible? Are you a bargain hunter? Would you rather use charge accounts than pay in cash? Your answers to these questions will reflect your personality.According to psychologists,our individual money habits not only show our beliefs and values,but can also stem from past problems.
Experts in psychology believe that for many people,money is an important symbol of strength and influence.Husbands who complain about their wives' spending habits may be afraid that they are losing power in their marriage.Wives,on the other hand,may waste huge amounts of money because they are angry at their husbands.In addition,many people consider money a symbol of love.They spend it on their family and friends to express love,or they buy themselves expensive presents because they need love.
People can be addicted to different things --for example,alcohol,drugs,certain foods,or even television.They are compulsive in their addictions,i.e.they must satisfy these needs to feel comfortable.In the same way,according to psychologists,compulsive spenders must spend money.
For people who buy on credit,furthermore,charge accounts are even more exciting than money:in other words,they feel that with credit,they can do anything.Their pleasures in spending enormous amounts are actually greater than _ they get from the things they buy.
There is even a special psychology of bargain hunting.To save money,of course,most people look for sales,low prices,and discounts.Compulsive bargain hunters,however,often buy things that they don't need just because they are cheap.They want to believe that they are helping their budgets,but they are really playing an exciting game:when they can buy something for less than other people,they feel that they are winning.Most people,experts claim,have two reasons for their behavior:a good reason for the things that they do and the real reason.
It is not only scientists,of course,who understand the psychology of spending habits,but also business people.Stores,companies,and advertisers use psychology to increase business:they consider people's needs for love,power,or influence,their basic values,their beliefs and opinions, etc.in their advertising and sales methods.
Psychologists often use a method called "behavior therapy "to help individuals solve their personality problems.In the same way,they can help people who feel that they have problems with money:they give them "assignments" If a person buys something in every store that he enters, for instance,a therapist might teach him self discipline in this way:on the first day of his therapy, he must go into a store,stay five minutes,and then leave.On the second day,he should stay for ten minutes and try something on.On the third day,he stays for fifteen minutes,asks the salesclerk a question,but does not buy anything.Soon he will learn that nothing bad will happen to him if he doesn't buy anything,and he can solve the problem of his compulsive buying. | high102.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "the reasons why football is the most popular sport in the world"
},
"options": [
"how to play football",
"the origin of football",
"the reasons why football is the most popular sport in the world",
"the reasons why foot... | There are a lot of reasons to the popularity of football. All around the world, millions play the sport and many like to watch it. Some would say that the simplicity of game is the main reason for its popularity. But that is not right, because this way, running a marathon or a race would be the most popular sport in the world. In fact, it isn't. Football is the most popular of all sports.
The main reason for the popularity of any sport is the room for creativity inside this sport. Because football has plenty of room for creativity, where the player can use his mind and body to do anything in order to get hold of the ball and score and keep the other team from scoring to win the match. All within a set of rules that are made mainly to keep the game clean and better, football becomes the most popular sport in the world.
Another reason is the fact that this game doesn't need expensive equipments. All the kids in poor third world countries play it, they just need a ball and an empty playground, and that would ensure a quality time for a group of kids who want to enjoy their time. The Federation International de Football Association (FIFA) knows this fact and they always try to keep rules and regulations applicable for the poorer countries.
For fans of watching the sport, it is so entertaining to watch the skills and talents of the players in a match. And also the anticipation and the fact that anything could happen is so compelling and engaging in the 90 or 120 minutes of the game, so results could change in the dying moments of the game. For some special matches, they are better than any thriller movie, because you really don't know what is going to happen afterwards. | high18084.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "tell whether a volcano explosion will be small or large"
},
"options": [
"tell whether a volcano explosion will be small or large",
"tell whether a volcano explosion will be worthy or not",
"tell the number of active volcanoe... | Scientists have searched for many years for a method to tell whether a volcano explosion will be small or large. Now, four scientists say they have discovered something in lava that will help do this. They did the research on Mount Unzen on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu.
Mount Unzen exploded in November, 1990. Since then, more explosions have killed 43 people and destroyed the homes of more than 2,000 others. The volcano is still active today.
The scientists say the lava of the volcano contains high level of an element ,which is a sign of the presence of the lava from deep in the earth, not from the surface. They say it shows that the lava coming directly from inside the earth is connected with huge explosions instead of smaller ones.
The scientists examined the lava from 18 explosions of Mount Unzen that took place during many thousands of years. They also studied the lava from other volcanoes in the area that are older than Mount Unzen. The lava studied came from both large and small explosions. The scientists found that large explosions contained more of the element than small ones. The scientists say if they had known this two years earlier, they could have warned the people living in the area near Mount Unzen and saved many lives. | high21605.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "study students' ways of learning math"
},
"options": [
"know the effects of teaching on learning",
"study students' ways of learning math",
"prove women teachers are unfit to teach math",
"find better teaching methods f... | Going to school means learning new skills and facts in such subjects as reading, math, science, history, art or music. Teachers teach and students learn, and many scientists are interested in finding ways to improve both the teaching and learning processes.
Some researchers, such as Sian Beilock and Susan Levine, are trying to learn about learning. Beilock and Levine are psychologists at the University of Chicago. Psychologists study the ways people think and behave, and these researchers want to know how a person's thoughts and behavior are related.
In a new study about the way kids learn math in elementary school, Beilock and Levine found a surprising relationship between what female teachers think and what female students learn: If a female teacher is uncomfortable with her own math skills, then her female students are more likely to believe that boys are better than girls at math.
"If these girls keep getting math-anxious female teachers in later grades, _ ," Levine toldScience News. The study suggests that if these girls grow up believing that boys are better at math than girls are, then these girls may not do as well as they would have if they were more confident.
Just as students find certain subjects to be difficult, teachers can find certain subjects to be difficult to learn--and teach. The subject of math can be particularly difficult for everyone. Researchers use the word "anxiety" to describe such feelings: anxiety is uneasiness or worry. (Many people, for example, have anxiety about going to the dentist because they're worried about pain.)
The new study found that when a teacher has anxiety about math, that feeling can influence how her female students feel about math. The study involved 65 girls, 52 boys and 17 first- and second-grade teachers in elementary schools in the Midwest. The students took math achievement tests at the beginning and end of the school year, and the researchers compared the scores.
The researchers also gave the students tests to tell whether the students believed that a math superstar had to be a boy. Then the researchers turned to the teachers: To find out which teachers were anxious about math, the researchers asked the teachers how they felt at times when they came across math, such as when reading a sales receipt. A teacher who got nervous looking at the numbers on a sales receipt, for example, was probably anxious about math.
Boys, on average, were unaffected by a teacher's anxiety. On average, girls with math-anxious teachers scored lower on the end-of-the-year math tests than other girls in the study did. Plus, on the test showing whether someone thought a math superstar had to be a boy, 20 girls showed feeling that boys would be better at math--and all of these girls had been taught by female teachers who had math anxiety.
According to surveys done before this one, college students who want to become elementary school teachers have the highest levels of anxiety about math. Plus, nine of every 10 elementary teachers are women, Levine said.
This study was small, and it's often difficult to see large patterns in small studies, David Geary told Science News. Geary, a psychologist at the University of Missouri in Columbia, studies how children learn math. "This is an interesting study, but the results need to be interpreted as preliminary and in need of replication with a larger sample," Geary said. That means that the results are just showing something that might be happening, but more studies should be done. If more studies find the same trend as this one, then it's possible that a teacher's anxiety over math really is affecting her female students. | high21163.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "conflicts and fights still exist"
},
"options": [
"the government didn't organize it",
"they are too busy to attend it",
"it is dangerous to celebrate it",
"conflicts and fights still exist"
],
"question": "Why ... | MAY 14 marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel . Many Israelis, however, are not in the mood to celebrate.
Looking at the damage to her neighbor's home from a Palestinian rocket, Batia Katar, a 17-year-old Israeli girl, was in tears. "We can't celebrate (Israel's) independence when things like this are happening," she said.
What is clear is that Israel is not a normal country. The country has a dramatic history and ancient culture but has only officially existed for 60 years. Within hours after it was _ in 1948, Israel was at war with its Arab neighbors for land. It won that time, and in 1956, 1967 and 1973, acquiring the West Bank, the Golan Heights, Gaza and east Jerusalem. For good or ill, Israelis can take pride in victories with so many countries. However, it occupied much more land than the United Nations agreed, which left local Palestinians homeless.
Different from all its neighbors in religion, Israel is also far more successful economically than its neighbors. Though, it gets a great amount of support from America and other Western countries. The country is now a world leader in many industries, such as IT and modern agriculture.
However, conflict exists, just like 60 years ago. And the signal of peace is as weak as ever. Palestinian militants have fired more than 7,000 missiles from Gaza, mainly at Sedro, killing 13 people. In the same period hundreds of Palestinian civilians in Gaza have died in Israeli military action.
In order to create peace, the world community hopes both sides accept and follow the Middle East peace plan. Optimists believe through Israeli-Palestinian negotiations there will finally be peace.
Both Israelis and Palestinians want to live in peace without explosions that remind them that they are living in a special but dangerous place. | high2821.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "go about or stay home instead of being at school"
},
"options": [
"make troubles in and out of schools",
"go about or stay home instead of being at school",
"try hard but always fails in the exams",
"lose hope and give ... | Japanese students work very hard but many are unhappy. They feel heavy pressures from their parents. Most students are always told by their parents to study harder and better so that they can have a wonderful life in the future. Though this may be a good idea for those very bright students, it can have terrible results for many students who are not gifted enough. Many of them have tried very hard at school but have failed in the exams and have their parents lose hope. Such students felt that they are hated by everyone else they meet and they don't want to go to school any longer. They become dropouts.
It is surprising that though most Japanese parents are worried about their children, they do not help them in any way. Many parents feel that they are not able to help their children and that it is the teachers' work to help their children. To make matters worse, a lot of parents serif their children to those schools opening in the evenings and on weekends -- they only help the students to pass the exams and never teach them any real sense of the world.
Many Japanese schools usually have rules about everything from the students' hair to their clothes and things in their school bags. Child psychologists now think that such strict rules are harmful to the feelings of the students. Almost 40% of the students said that no one had taught them how to get on with others, how to tell right from wrong and how to show love and care for others, even for their parents. | high4288.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "He earns an extremely high payment"
},
"options": [
"He earns an extremely high payment",
"He has got a job.",
"He lives at home with his parents.",
"He does not go out much."
],
"question": "Why is David so dif... | Computer programmer David Jones earned PS35,000 a year designing new computer games, yet he cannot find a bank prepared to let him have a check card, he has been told to wait another two years until he is 18.
He works for a small firm in Liverpool, where most young people of his age are finding jobs. David's biggest headache is what to do with his money. Though he has high payment, he cannot drive a car, or get credit card .
David got his job four months ago, a year after leaving school with six O-levels and working for a time in a computer shop. "I got the job because the people who run the firm knew I had already written some programs," he said.
"I suppose PS35,000 sounds a lot but I hope it will come to more than that this year." He spends some of his money on records and clothes, and gives his mother PS20 a week as he lives with his parents. But most of his spare time is spent working.
"Unfortunately, computing was not part of our studies at school, " he said. "But I had been studying it in books and magazines for four years in my spare time. I knew what I wanted to do and never considered staying on at school. Most people in this business are fairly young, anyway. I would like to earn a million and I suppose early retirement is a possibility. You never know when the market might disappear." | high5196.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "feel sad for the death of the woman's husband"
},
"options": [
"listen to the woman's story",
"feel sad for the death of the woman's husband",
"meet some old friends",
"share the woman's sadness"
],
"question": ... | I recently had dinner with someone who told me that one of his best friends had been killed in a private plane crash, and something happened at the memorial service that he'll never forget. He shared the story with me.
At the memorial service, his friend's wife walked to the platform to speak to the gathering. She said a friend had asked her the best memory she had of their life together. At the moment, she had been too sad to answer, but she had thought about it since and wanted to answer the question.
They were in their late forties when he died, and she began talking about a time in their life almost twenty years earlier. She had quit her job to obtain her master's degree, and her husband never hesitated in his support.
He held down his own job and also did the cooking, cleaning, and other housework while she studied for her degree.
One time they both stayed up all night. She was finishing her paper, and he was preparing for an important business meeting. That morning, she walked out of her study, leaned against the door by the stairs, looked at her husband downstairs and just thought about how much she loved him. She knew how important this meeting was to his future, and she was feeling guilty that she didn't even have time to make his breakfast. He took his briefcase and hurried out. She heard the garage door open and close, but much to her surprise, she heard it open again about thirty seconds later. From above, she watched her husband dash into the house and walk over to the forgotten coffee table. Marking the surface of it with his finger through the dust with the words "I love you", then he raced back to his car.
The new widow then looked out at her audience and said, "John and I had a wonderful life together. We have been around the world several times. We've had everything money can buy...but nothing comes close to that moment."
Hearing this, I was deeply moved. "Love makes life worthwhile." | high16917.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Before using the information from Wikipedia, one should first check it."
},
"options": [
"Before using the information from Wikipedia, one should first check it.",
"Though popular and wildly used, Wikipedia provides little reliable... | What do you do when you need to look something up? Go to the library? Open an encyclopedia ? Click onto the Internet? These days, most people go straight to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. But how reliable is it?
There is no denying the popularity and usefulness of Wikipedia. It attracts as many as 78 million visitors every month, and the site is available in more than 270 different languages. It's one of the most comprehensive resources available, which includes almost all details, facts and information that maybe concerned. It's got much more information than an ordinary encyclopedia. The site is updated on a daily basis by thousands of people around the world. Anyone with an Internet connection can log on and edit the contents or add a new page. And you don't need any formal training.
Of course, there are some controls. Wikipedia has a team of more than 1,500 administrators who check for false information. And main targets for harmful comments(such as politicians) are _ to public editing. But with more than 16 million articles to keep an eye on, it isn't easy. So, while Wikipedia benefits from being constantly updated with information from all over the world, it's also open to "vandals" .
Some of the damage is easy to notice. One person drew devil horns and a moustache on Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' photo, while another edited Greek philosopher Plato's biography to say he was a "Hawaiian weather man who is wildly believed to have been a student of'Barney the purple Dinosaur' and to have been deeply influenced by his dog, Cutie".
But other things are harder to spot. The most common form of vandalism involves adding tiny items of false information into the biography of a famous person. Unbelievably, some of this misinformation has appeared in newspapers, with The Daily Mail, The Guardian and The Independent all having fallen victim to the dirty tricks. For example, in an article about British comedian Sir Norman Wisdom, one newspaper claimed that he co-wrote Dame Vera Lynn's wartime hit There'll be bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover. He did no such thing. And in another article, it was reported that TV Theme tune composer Ronnie Hazlehurst had written the S Club 7's hit Reach. Once again, not true.
So, if you are going to use any information from Wikipedia, make sure you double-check it first. | high7959.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "helps people to know what is happening around them"
},
"options": [
"makes people feel angry",
"makes people want to dance",
"helps people to know what is happening around them",
"is something harmful to people"
],
... | Our sense of hearing is one of the most important means of knowing what is going on around us. We are warned of danger by sounds. The sounds of music please us. Sound has a waste product, too, in the form of noise. Noise has been called unwanted sound. Noise is growing and it may get much worse before it gets any better.
Scientists, for several years, have been studying how noise affects people and animals and are alarmed by what they have learned.
Peace and quiet are becoming harder to find. Noise pollution is no joke. It is a threat that should be looked at carefully.
Sound is measured in units called decibels . At a level of 140 decibels people feel pain in their ears.
Trucks, buses, motorcycles, airplanes, boats, and factories all make noise. This noise bothers not only our ears, but our minds and bodies as well.
There is a saying about "it is so noisy that you can't hear yourself think". Doctors who study noise believe that we must be able to hear ourselves think most of the time. If we don't, we may have headaches, other aches and pains, or even mental problems. Noise adds even more tension to a society which already faces too much stress. | high23774.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "five percent kids less than 18 years old"
},
"options": [
"one out of every twenty kids",
"five percent kids less than 18 years old",
"one out of twenty kids at the age of 18",
"five percent kids more than age of 18"
... | Some kids can't sit still for long. They have a hard time paying attention to just one thing. They're easily distracted .They can get very impatient. They hate standing in line or waiting for their turn in a game or activity. They get bored pretty fast. They may also be impulsive--saying the first thing that comes to mind or interrupting someone else who's talking.
For certain kids, this problem is so severe that doctors have a name for it: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Perhaps as many as 1 out of every 20 kids under the age of 18 have characteristics of ADHD. Often, these kids have trouble getting through school and face other difficulties later in life.
Rizzo started developing the Virtual Classroom in 1999.He wanted to see if he could use it as a tool for testing and treating kids who have attention disorders.
To diagnose ADHD, doctors typically test patients by giving them tasks that require attention. As part of one classic test, you watch letters flashed on a computer screen. Every time you see the letter "A" followed by the letter "X",you have to press the space bar. If you're paying close attention, you'll register all the times this combination occurs. If not, you'll miss some.
The Virtual Classroom makes these tests more efficient, Rizzo says. In one experiment, he gave a group of kids the classic "A-X" test. Instead of looking at a computer screen in a doctor's office, though, the kids wore headsets that made it look like they were taking the test in a classroom.
"Basically what we found,"Rizzo says,"is that, in 20 minutes of testing with virtual reality,we replicated a finding that usually requires a couple hours of standard testing with computer screens in the psychologist's office." | high7781.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "an essay about another topic"
},
"options": [
"useful suggestions on politeness",
"an essay about another topic",
"an article hard to understand",
"a link to a video website"
],
"question": "The article on Busin... | The Internet is full of headlines that grab your attention with buzzwords . But often when we click through, we find the content hardly delivers and it wastes our time. We close the page, feeling we've been cheated. These types of headlines are called "click bait".
A headline on Busin,esslnsider.com reads: "This phrase will make you seem more polite". First, when you click through, you find another headline: "Four words to seem more polite." Then, on reading the article, you find it's actually an essay about sympathy. And what are the four words? They're "Wow, that sounds hard." On some video websites, you might encounter headlines such as "Here's what happens when six puppies visited a campus". Turns out it's just some uneventful dog footage .
Nowadays, with the popularity of social media, many news outlets tweet click bait links to their stories. These tweets take advantage of the curiosity gap or attempt to draw the reader into a story using a question in the headline. These click bait headlines are so annoying that someone is attempting to save people time by exposing news outlet click bait through social media. The Twitter account @SavedYouAClick, run by Jake Beckman, is one such example.
Beckman's method is to grab tweets linking to a story and retweet them with a click-saving comment. For example, CNET tweeted "So iOS 8 appears to be jailbreakable but...", with a link to its coverage of Apple's product announcements. Beckman retweeted it with this comment attached: "... it hasn't been jailbroken yet."
Since founding the account, Beckman's Twitter experiment has brought him more than 131,000 followers. Beckman said that @SavedYouAClick is "just my way of trying to help the Internet be less temble." Asked about his goal, he said, "I'd love to see publishers think about the experience of their readers first. I think there's an enormous opportunity for publishers to provide readers with informative updates that include links so you can click through and read more. | high9974.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Information about end-of-the-world predictions."
},
"options": [
"Information about end-of-the-world predictions.",
"Different opinions about end-of-the-world predictions.",
"Some doubts about end-of-the-world predictions.",
... | Many people have been talking about the way in which the world will come to an end in 2012. Everybody wants to find out if December 21, 2012 is the last day of the earth. The rumor has already been spreading for a very long time. The Mayan's predictions can account for the rumor. According to the rumor, the earth will experience dramatic changes in 2012 and the changes will be disastrous to all of the living creatures on earth .It is widely assumed that a Planet X will return to orbit the solar system. The return of Planet of Planet X will have a destructive effect on the solar system as well as on some planets including the Neptune , the Jupiter and the earth. Planet X will cross into their orbits. There's a possibility that Jupiter will change into a little sun at this time, so folks will be well placed to see two suns in the sky in 2012.
The solar flares that occur in a l1-year cycle will reach their highest point in 2012. The powerful solar flares will affect the magnetic field of the earth and cause disasters. On December 21,2012,the sun and the earth will line up in the same line at the equator . The winter solstice only occurs once every 25,800 years.The events in the universe are signals that the world will come to an end.As a result of the solar flares, lots of disasters will happen that will destroy the face of the whole earth.Scientists are making the guess primarily based on the Mayan Long Court Calendar.
Many films have been made about the end of the world including End Game by Alex Jones and End Clock:Nostradamus 2012.The former provides insights about the way the world will become one state.After the world government is in place,it's going to be easy to _ 80%of the people in the world.The rest will continue to live with assistance from advanced technology.
No one knows whether the world will end on December 21,2012,There is no clear answer until the day arrives.Just as the Mayans claims,it will not be the time for the world to end.Instead.it will be the dawn of a flesh start. | high22481.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "She was surprised by his response."
},
"options": [
"She quite agreed with her friend.",
"She was completely certain about it.",
"She thought he was telling a lie.",
"She was surprised by his response."
],
"ques... | "At least you'll be close to home!"That phrase dominated the weeks before my move to my college.I took comfort in knowing that home was close by if I needed it
The night before the move,I spoke with a sophomore friend of mine who was moving back the next morning.I asked if he was sad to be leaving home and his response sparked in me an internal debate."It was nice to be back but honestly. I've come to think of the college as my home."Up until that moment,the move to college seemed like an extended version of summer camp.School wasn't a home;it was a place for me to explore when I was away from home right?
As I packed my things,I really started thinking about the concept of home,and I couldn't help but wonder would I ever consider college my own home? The next day,once my bags were unpacked and my parents were gone,I took a moment to look around my dorm.It was absolutely nothing like my room...no _ ,no blue curtains and no queen--sized bed.Despite the fun I was having and things I was learning in the following Welcome Week,I couldn't bring myself to call it home.I longed for my _ .I even wanted my mom's calls."There's no place like home."I murmured.
Last night,I went to visit my friends and we spent the next hour talking about that missing feeling we all shared-our families,our friends,our old lives--and soon the sadness turned to fondness.One by one our friends came in to say goodnight and the room was filled with girls,all laughing and sharing our high school experiences.It wasn't until about l:00 a.m.that I turned to my roommate,unconsciously saying,"It's getting late...we should probably go home soon."I was taken aback by my own words.Somehow in the few hours,my dorm room had turned into a home. | high12542.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "he didn't have parents to teach him"
},
"options": [
"he didn't have parents to teach him",
"he couldn't get a good school education",
"he didn't listen to his teacher, Bill",
"he was living on the street"
],
"q... | My life began similarly to most children but I grew up without knowing what a father or mother was. No one was there to teach me how to tell right from wrong. Because of this, I got into some bad habits and spent seven years as a boy on the street.
When I was 20, I was taken in a rehab clinic . Inside I met Bill, my counselor . He taught me a lot of things. The main thing was the gift of giving.
It was the night before an important test and I was very nervous. Bill invited me to go out for a walk to relax me. As we walked and talked, Bill suggested we should go for a coffee. I told him I had no money when I got paid, and I offered to pay him back. He stopped then and looked at me in a serious, but loving way and said he was doing this because he wanted to. Then he said, "One day when you'll be around someone who will need a coffee, you'll be able to buy it for them. That's how you can pay me back."
I'm a primary school teacher now. My job is simple and I can buy young people coffee now. Bill taught me how to offer help to others. | high14133.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "he was suspected of possessing drugs"
},
"options": [
"he was too weak to move",
"he couldn't find his way back home",
"he then had nowhere else to go",
"he was suspected of possessing drugs"
],
"question": "Mr.... | An old man in a faded yellow shirt sat in a windowless room on a raised concrete form. The only source of heat came from somewhere beneath the plastic mattress and the rough blanket the blank-faced police woman had handed him after taking his thumb prints. He heard voices and metallic clang as the cell door swung open.
At the front desk a tired looking policeman handed the old man back his belongings, his worn-out cap and the Seiko watch that had stopped working the day his beloved Evelyn left. The policeman dramatically held the blue plastic bag at an arm's length to the old man who took it and made sure its contents were undamaged: the goat meat, palm oil, leaves and spices. He ignored the confused expression on the officer's face and signed the document declaring he had been returned the possessions they had taken off him the night before.
No one spoke to him as he walked slowly towards the exit. "Mr. Easy-nwa?" He stopped and prayed to the God who now took care of Evelyn to please take him far away from this unhappy place of expressionless faces, clipped accents and people who did not even attempt to pronounce his name right.
"Ezenwa," He said and looked at a woman with tangerine lips, her name tag said Jessica Harlow, Social Services. "A bit far from home,,,she said as she drove fast and with confidence the way Evelyn used to. He wondered if she meant the 50 miles from Liverpool or the 50,000 miles from Enugu,a city in Nigeria. He did not bother replying as this woman had plenty to say about the weather, bad drivers, her daughter's school play...
At last she drew up outside the block of flats where he lived.
"Got here in the end",said she seriously, "Really Mr. Easy-nwa, if you keep getting lost, we will have to consider moving you into a home".
"No need, I was not lost,,,he answered. He carefully rolled up the sleeves of the oversize bomber jacket he wore and turned on the tap to wash his hands, relieved the pipes were not frozen. In a clean pan he placed the chopped pieces of goat meat. The herbs and spices that had taken him three months to track down, the uziza seeds had taken him into the heart of Granby Market in Liverpool, his uchanwu leaves down a shady back alley in Manchester, and yesterday, among other food items, the finest goat meat from a Sierra Leonean Butcher in Birmingham. That had taken some time, so much he missed the last train and when the police found him shivering outside the locked up station, so cold he couldn't answer loudly enough the pink-faced big copper who yelled in his face, "What's your name sir?" spraying his face with spittle as he did so, leaving them with no choice but to search an exhausted, frozen old black man and finding him in possession of mysterious condiments including a bag of dried bitter-leaf which could of course be mistaken for anything that resulted in him getting read his rights and charged with ...possession???
He lifted the lid of the bubbling soup, the room was filled with the rich and spicy scent of his culinary effort. He served two bowls, taking the chipped one and placing the other opposite where Evelyn would have sat. He would tell her about his adventure, it was their anniversary and this was the perfect pepper soup to celebrate.
Ken Onyia, UK (Nigeria) Commonwealth Sport Short Story Prize | high9747.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "The broken car in the valley"
},
"options": [
"The bright moon.",
"Duffy's car.",
"The broken car in the valley",
"an unknown place"
],
"question": "The strange light came from _ .",
"question_type": "clo... | One night last February, a seventeen-year-old Duffy drove home along a winding road, he saw a strange light thrown against the tree. "I knew it wasn't the moon", he said. "I drive this road all the time and I notice little things out of place."
Duffy stopped his car and got out to examine. Below him far down in the deep valley lay a broken car with its headlights on. Thirty minutes earlier, a man had driven off the edge of the road, which has no guardrail. His car fell and rolled end over end, landing on its top more than two hundred feet below.
Duffy rushed to call for help, then returned and got down to reach the injured driver. Snow covered the valley and the temperature was below freezing. After struggling back up the cliff, Duffy took off his jacket and shirt and wrapped the injured man in time, along with the blankets from his car.
Life-saving deeds are starting to become usual action for Duffy, the oldest of seven children. When he was 12, he saved his ten-year-old brother from drowning. Two years ago, his three-year-old sister ate rat poison, and Duffy cleaned out her mouth, make her drink milk to protect her stomach and called doctors.
"We have tried to teach the children good values, and it looks like we have got some reward for it." His father says. | high17.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "A doctor."
},
"options": [
"A newspaper carrier.",
"A teacher.",
"A construction worker.",
"A doctor."
],
"question": "Which of the following jobs did Mr Hennen NOT serve as?",
"question_type": null
},
{... | I have a new hero. It is G. M. Hennen. I found him in the old newspapers as I was doing my research for the column A Look Back in History.
In 1958, he retired as a newspaper carrier from the Sherman Herald Democrat. He was 77 years old and had delivered four million copies of the Democrat. He had gone through 17 automobiles and had thrown on average 400 newspapers a day, six days a week. He drove 100 miles a day, including the day he collected.
Before he was a newspaper carrier, he was also a teacher and a construction worker.
He opened the first motor delivery route in the newspaper's history. Driving a Model T Ford, his route consisted of Pottsboro, Gordonville, Sadler and Southmayd. Before he started in delivery, he solicited subscriptions riding horseback over the county.
Mr Hennen had only one wreck in 30 years. The car spun out of control and flipped on its top. That didn't stop him. A man with a truck used a tow rope to flip the car back over and tied the doors shut, leaving Mr Hennen to continue on his way. Now _ that _ was _
determination!
Mr Hennen told of the time his headlights went out as he was delivering newspapers. He borrowed a kerosene lantern from a farmer to light the way and continued his route.
What a story! I complain when I have to drive to work when it is snowing, and I only have to travel three miles. I could never be that tough. | high18709.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "He now lives in Baddeck."
},
"options": [
"He was a Canadian.",
"He is regarded as the symbol of Canadian aviation and aircraft industry.",
"He is the first man to finish a figure high in the air.",
"He now lives in Bad... | It isn't often that an entire industry is symbolized in the figure of a single human being, and such is the case with Canadian aviation and the aircraft industry. The man is the Hon. John A. D. McCurdy and the life story of this still vigorous , distinguished Canadian is at once and at the same time the thrilling history of aviation's progress in Canada.
It all began one cold February day in 1909 at Baddeck, Nova Scotia, when John McCurdy confounded the critics by flying the Silver Dart, an aircraft designed by himself, for half a mile over the ice of Brasdeor Lakes. This was the first powered flight in Canada and the first by a British subject in the Commonwealth. McCurdy gave proof of his flying ability and of the development and the use of the aileron by being the first man in the world to carry out a figure high in the air. He became the first to pilot a flying boat, taking off from Long Island Sound. He flew the first airplane to Mexico. In 1911 he had made the longest flight to date, and that over open sea 90 miles from Key West to Havana. He won the first crosscountry race in Canada 40 miles from Hamilton to Toronto and he transmitted the first radio message from aircraft.
When World WarIIcame, McCurdy took on board supervisory authority for Canadian aircraft production by serving with the government in various senior positions.
Following World WarII, McCurdy was honored by being made lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia where he made Canada's first historic flight. He now lives in Montreal with a summer home in Baddeck, site of his first flight. | high20296.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Liz"
},
"options": [
"Fred",
"Andy",
"Liz",
"Chris"
],
"question": "Who is opposed to the flu vaccine in the text?",
"question_type": "factiod_questions"
},
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
... | I'm not so sure I like my friends any more. I used to like them-to be honest. We'd have lunch, talk on the phone or exchange emails, and they all seemed normal enough. But then came Face Book, and I was introduced to a sad fact: many of my friends have dark sides that they had kept from me.
Today my friends show off the more unpleasant aspects of their personalities via FaceBook. No longer hidden, they're thrown in my face like TV commercials -unavoidable and endless advertisements for the worst of their personalities.
Take Fred. If you were to have lunch with him, you'd find him warm, and self-effacing .Read his FaceBook and you'll realize he's an unbearable, food-obsessed boring man. He'd pause to have a cup of coffee on his way to save a drowning man-and then write about it.
Take Andy. You won't find a smarter CEO anywhere, but now he's a CEO without a company to run. So he plays Mafia Wars on FaceBook. He's doing well-level 731. Thanks to FaceBook, I know he's playing about 18 hours a day. Andy, you've run four companies-and this is how you spend your downtime? What happned to golf?What happened to getting another job?
Take Liz. She is positive that the flu vaccine will kill us all and that we should avoid it. And then comes Chris who likes to post at least 20 times a day on every website he can find, so I get to read his thoughts twice, once on FaceBook and once on Twitter.
In real life, I don't see these sides of people. Face to face, my friends show me their best. They're nice, smart people. But face to FaceBook, my friends is like a blind date which goes horribly wrong.
I'm left with a dilemma. Who is my real friend?Is it the Liz I have lunch with or the anti-vaccine madman on FaceBook? Is it the Fred I can grab a sandwich with or the Fred who weeps if he's at a party and the wine isn't up to his standard? | high4263.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "making profits"
},
"options": [
"gaining social experience",
"increasing knowledge",
"widening vision",
"making profits"
],
"question": "According to the passage, _ doesn't belong to the benefits of travel."... | People joke that the so-called travel is to leave one's familiar places and visit others' familiar places, which refers to the phenomenon of taking travel as sightseeing in different places. In fact, going travel does not simply mean pursuing fashion or widening vision. It is a kind of social experience and dynamic learning. Furthermore, it is a process of expanding cognition and understanding society and life, and especially has advantages and charm in increasing knowledge and widening vision.
The ancient people not only mentioned "traveling a thousand miles" and "reading a thousand books" together but also regarded them as the necessary course of perfecting personality and making progress. Going travel can widen the life path and give it new social meanings and spirits of the time, making it socialized, popular, industrialized and fashionable.
Under these circumstances, special efforts should be made to bring culture back to tourism and have culture conveyed in tourism. By doing so, the soul of tourism will be helpful for people to learn and think. In this way, tourists can combine relaxations and joys with learning and thinking, and improve their minds while visiting historic relics.
Once tourism departs from culture, it will be stuck in vulgarity and shallowness, and make it difficult to develop tourism. Some tourist cities and spots are so commercialized that people are put in no mood for the enjoyment of cultural and historic flavors of ancient buildings. Furthermore, in some places, historic and natural relics are decreasing, while more and more artificial scenes and antiques block the view of real scenes and mislead people with false information and historic relics.
Culture is the core of tourism. Taking back the culture as the soul provides the right way for the development of tourism, and the build-up of spiritual home and social civilization. | high19417.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "memory and association"
},
"options": [
"memory lapse and human brain",
"memory and association",
"memory and television ads",
"memory and our daily life"
],
"question": "The example of the keys and soap is give... | As you dash outdoors in the middle of winter, you might make it halfway down the block before realizing that your ears are freezing because you forgot your hat.
Now, scientists have shown that even though you've had an apparent memory lapse , your brain never forgot what you should have done. Ww w.ks 5u.c om
Memory works mainly by association. For example, as you try to remember where you left your keys, you might recall you last had them in the living room, which reminds you that there was an ad for soap on television, which reminds you that you need soap, and so on. And then, as you're heading out of the door to buy soap, you remember that your keys are on the kitchen counter. Your brain knew where the keys were all along. It just took a round-about way to get there.
Now, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies are studying associative memory in monkeys to figure out just how this complicated process works.
First, the researchers trained a group of monkeys to remember arbitrary pairs of symbols. The researchers showed the monkeys one symbol(cold weather) and then gave them the choice of two other symbols, one of which (a hat) would be associated with the first. A correct choice would earn them a sip of their favorite juice.
Most of the monkeys performed the test perfectly, but one kept making mistakes.
"We wondered what happened in the brain when the monkey made the wrong choice, although it apparently learned the right pairing of symbols," said study leader Thomas Albright.
Albright and his team observed signals from the nerve cells in the monkey's inferior temporal cortex (ITC), an area of its brain used for visual pattern recognition and for storing this type of memory.
As the monkey was deciding which symbol to choose, about a quarter of the activity in the ITC was due to the choice behavior. www.ks5u.com
Meanwhile, more than half the activity was in a different group of nerve cells, which scientists believe represent the monkey's memory of the correct symbol pairing, and surprisingly, these cells continued to fire even when the monkey chose the wrong symbol.
"In this sense, the cells 'knew' more than the monkeys let on in their behavior," Albright said. "Thus, behavior may vary, but knowledge _ " | high16724.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "They are amazing."
},
"options": [
"They are amazing.",
"They are common.",
"They are boundless.",
"They are unimaginable."
],
"question": "What does the author think of oceans?",
"question_type": null
},
... | The oceans are unique to our planet. No other planet in our solar system has liquid water. The oceans cover about 70% of the earth's surface. They contain about 97% of the earth's water supply. Life on earth originated in the seas. The oceans continue to be home to an incredible number of plants and animals.
We know very little about the oceans. Because they are so deep and dark, they are hard to study. But scientists are discovering new strange creatures all the time. We are learning more by using satellites to look at the oceans' surfaces and by using buoys ( ) to measure temperature and saltiness. Special vehicles can now travel deep into the dark oceans to see what mysteries can be discovered.
More of the sun's heat is assimilated by water along the equator than at the poles. This means the water at the equator is warmer than water at the poles. These different water temperatures cause the water in the oceans to move. This is called an ocean current.
The air above ocean currents also moves. The warm or cold ocean air moves over the land as wind. Oceans are also a really important part of the water cycle. Evaporation from oceans creates most of the world's rainfall. Plants on land need the rain to absorb nutrients from the soil.
The oceans are also home to all kinds of sea life. These include fish, whales, dolphins, octopi, lobsters, crabs and shrimps. There are also jellyfish and starfish.Many kinds of plants, such as plankton, kelp and sea grass are part of the "forest of the seafloor."
Carbon dioxide in-oxygen out! Oceans help to capture and store carbon dioxide(C02). They are the largest natural "carbon sinks" in the world. Oceans trap about1/4of the CO2 that humans put into the air. Oceans also release oxygen. Half of the world's oxygen is produced by these tiny plants! | high19371.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "he didn't think she could run the marathon"
},
"options": [
"he thought she could run the marathon",
"he didn't think she could run the marathon",
"he wanted her to run the marathon",
"she wanted to run the marathon"
... | Last year, my boyfriend suggested that I should run the London marathon, and I laughed. He laughed too, but he laughed too long and too loud. That made me think. I realized that he didn't believe that I could do it. That made me angry, and determined. Now he knows that I can!
Training wasn't easy, but I kept going. I didn't need special training but I did need to buy very good shoes. Each day, I went a little further. By the end of three months, I was running five days a week. Sometimes in the evenings I ran 10 km; on Sunday mornings, I sometimes ran about 30 km. I used to come home, have a shower and eat my breakfast. I felt wonderful!
On the day of the race in London, I lined up with about 30,000 other runners. The faster runners were at the front, while slower runners like me were placed further back. In that way, the professional runners and club runners were not slowed down by the amateurs.
At first, there were so many runners close together that we were almost falling over each other. We could only run very slowly but that was a good thing because it meant that we didn't rush off too quickly. Gradually the runners spread out and there was more space. There were thousands of people watching us along the route and they cheered and clapped everyone, even the slowest runner. It was wonderful!
For the first 10 km I felt very happy and my legs felt very comfortable. However, at 15 km I got a pain in my side and running became difficult, but I kept going and the pain disappeared. At the 30 km mark, I felt extremely tired, and wanted to stop, but I kept on going. I covered another 3 km and then I began to feel better again.
By the time I reached the 35 km mark, I knew I was going to get to the end of the course. Somehow that confidence made me feel lighter and faster and it seemed as if my legs flew over the last few kilometers. I passed hundreds of slower runners, some of whom had passed me earlier, and I felt wonderful! As I came round the last bend and saw the finishing line, I could see three runners ahead of me. I raced past all of them to finish the race in just under four hours. The winner had completed the race in 2 hours and 10 minutes, but I didn't care! I had run 42 km and completed my first marathon! | high16042.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Offering help to others when it's possible."
},
"options": [
"Exploring a new place alongside her mother.",
"Visiting favorite cities with her mother.",
"Looking both ways when crossing the street.",
"Offering help to o... | Hey, mom, I want you to stop dropping me off at the airport for some trip that I am about to take and start becoming my seatmate. I want to travel with you---just you.
I want to explore a new place alongside a woman who raised me, who put up with my teenager anxiety and my rebellious college years. I want to see my favorite cities with the lady who taught me basic life lessons, such as looking both ways before crossing the street, how to use a glue gun, and that the most important thing in the world is to help others.
I always appreciated the vacations you planned for our family. I also remember how you watched me as I read The Great Gatsby on the balcony at midday. I wonder if you felt proud of me. These days, I am sick of traveling to places with wishy-washy friends. I want to travel with a strong woman who can see how capable I am of learning to speak French or hiking on a glacier or eating something as unpleasant-smelling fruit.
Now I want you to see how much I grow up while abroad---I'm a different person, Mom. And I know you'd be different too. I know that someone has shared a similar burst of emotion while diving into Australia's Great Barrier Reef for the first time.
So what do you say, Mom? Will you _ ? I want to travel with you. Let's just go---we can go anywhere in the world, just you and I. You can pick the place, and I will do the rest.
Love,
Katka | high10433.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "something unfair"
},
"options": [
"something unfair",
"small hot-tasting peppers",
"the person who is very angry",
"popular music like Dixieland Jazz"
],
"question": "Americans use \"red hot\" to describe the fo... | As is known to all, colors appear in every language to express people's feeling and thoughts.Then, what is the situation in American English?
Red is a hot color.Americans may say they are red hot about something unfair.They are red hot when they are very angry about something.The small hot-tasting peppers found in many Mexican foods are called red hot for their color and their fiery taste.Fast loud music is popular with many people.They may say the music is red hot, especially the kind called Dixieland Jazz.
Pink is a lighter kind of red.People sometimes say they are in the pink when they are in good health.The expression was first used in America at the beginning of the twentieth century.It comes from the fact that many babies are born with nice pink skin that shows that they are in good health.
The color black is often used in expressions.People describe a day on which everything goes wrong as a black day.People or things on a blacklist are connected with things illegal now.But at one time, some businesses refused to employ people who were on a blacklist for belonging to unpopular organizations.
The color green is natural for trees and grass.But it is an unnatural color for humans.A person who has a sick feeling in his stomach may say he feels a little green.A passenger on a boat who is feeling very sick from high waves may look very green.
Sometimes a person may be upset because he does not have something as nice as a friend has.That person may say he is green with envy.Some people are green with envy because a friend has more dollars or greenbacks.Dollars are called greenbacks because green is the color of the back side of the paper money. | high2174.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "the robot delivery is cheaper than human delivery"
},
"options": [
"they are easy to operate",
"the robot delivery is appreciated in big cities",
"the robot delivery is cheaper than human delivery",
"they can travel for... | Your next Saturday night takeaway could be brought to you by a robot after a major food delivery company announced plans to use automated vehicles to transport meals. Europe's biggest online takeaway food company Just Eat has partnered with Starship Technologies to deliver food with robots on the streets of London later this month. "Nobody has ever done deliveries with land-based robots," said Allan Martinson, the chief operating officer of Starship.
The robot courier can travel up to 4 miles per hour for about 10 miles. It uses a GPS signal and nine cameras to navigate . Instead of a person arriving at their door, customers could find themselves receiving a notification on their phone that says a robot is on its way and a code to unlock the automated courier. "Put the code in, the robot opens up, and there's your food," said David Buttress, chief manager of Just Eat.
The robot, which has so far been tested in Greenwich, Milton Keynes and Glastonbury, costs PS1 to transport within 3 miles, compared with the PS3 to PS6 it costs for a human courier. To date 30 robots have driven nearly 5,000 miles without getting into an accident or finding themselves picked on by passers-by. They have driven in more than 40 cities around the world, including London and Tallinn, Estonia.
An initial worry was how the public would react to robots. But Martinson said the public has been calm when passing the delivery machine on the streets. "The most surprising reaction has been the lack of reaction," said Martinson.
Another significant fear was that people would disrupt the robots, or try to steal them and their contents. To prevent this, the robot is fitted with nine cameras, two way audio, and movement sensors that send a warning if it is lifted off the ground. And it opens only with a pass code provided to the customer via a notification. "It's much easier to shoplift than it is to steal a robot," said Martinson. | high14655.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "they have little communication with their parents"
},
"options": [
"they watch non-educational programs",
"they have little communication with their parents",
"they lost interest in real things",
"their parents don't sp... | Babies who watch TV are more likely to show late learning development and language at 14 months, especially if they are watching programs aimed at adults and older children, according to a new study, which would probably surprise those parents who leave their babies in front of a TV set.
Babies who watched 60 minutes of TV daily had developmental scores a third lower at 14 months than babies who were watching less TV. Although their developmental scores were still in the normal range, the difference may have been due to the fact that when children and parents are watching TV, they are missing the talking, playing and other communications that are important to learning and development.
This new study, which appeared in the Aechives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, followed 259 lower-income families in New York, most of whom spoke Spanish as their primary language at home. Other studies of higher-income families have also come to the same conclusion: TV watching is not only non-educational, but it seems to slow down babies' development.
But what about "good" TV, like Sesame Street? The researchers didn't find any difference when compared to non-educational programs designed for small children, like Spongebob SquarePants. Earlier research by some of the same scientists, most of whom are at New York University School of Medicine's Bellevue Hospital Centre, has found that parents whose children watch non-educational TV programs like Spongebob SquarePants spend less time reading to their children or teaching them.
At this point, parents reading this will probably be astonished. TV is so often a parent's good friend, keeping children happily occupied so that the adults can cook dinner, answer the phone, or take a shower. But, clearly, this electronic babysitter is not an educational aid. It is best to make sure the babies are fast asleep if you have to watch TV. | high9021.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "they can earn much money"
},
"options": [
"they are mad",
"they don't think them dangerous",
"no training is needed",
"they can earn much money"
],
"question": "Quite a number of people want to do dangerous acts... | Would you jump off the Great Wall of China for 300 pounds a day?
A stunt person is a man or woman who does all the dangerous bits of acting work in films or on TV. This can be anything from a simple fall into a swimming pool, or walking off the top of a tall building. It sounds like a job that you would have to be made to try, but there are actually lots of people who want to do it.
Sarah France, twenty-four, is one of Britain's sixteen professional stunt women ---there are one hundred and sixty stunt men in the country. We asked Sarah how she came to be a stunt woman.
"When I was young I was trained to be a dancer, and for seven years after school I was hardly out of work. A dancer's life is pretty short, though, and my father suggested I should think about doing stunt work after I'd given up dancing. I thought about it for the next two years and decided to have a go. For six months, I worked really hard every day. I had to learn different skills---swimming, jumping, horse -riding, etc."
Sarah finished the course in just five months and applied to the office which decides whether you're accepted as a professional stunt person or not. Two weeks after she was accepted, Sarah was throwing off the Great Wall of China in Superman IV.
"I was very lucky to get work so quickly. I had a small part, playing a traveler who fell off the Wall after an earthquake. The traveler's life was saved by Superman, of course! Actually, I fell forty-five feet into a pile of cardboard boxes! You can't use anything softer than that or you will be brought back into view of the cinema. Instead you just have to learn to fall properly. It's quite dangerous but I enjoy it." | high6312.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "festivals give people the best chances to experience a culture"
},
"options": [
"there should be festivals celebrated by the whole world",
"festivals give people the best chances to experience a culture",
"it's usually hard f... | I can't think of a better way of appreciating a new culture than by taking part in one of its festivals. You'll find that some festivals are celebrated by an entire country, while others may be known only to a single city or region, but either way festivals play an important role in a certain culture. Just enjoy them!
Tomatina -- Bunol, Spain
Every last Wednesday in August, the town of Bunol is filled with tons of tomatoes in the world's biggest food flight. Many people wear goggles during this hour of great fun, as the town becomes a red river.
Boryeong Mud Festival -- Boryeong, South Korea
For two weeks in July, millions gather in Boryeong to experience the grey pools and slides. What began as a way to help sell the region's mineral-rich mud has turned into a festive party with music and fireworks. The mud is usually only available in cosmetic products , but here you can cake yourself in grey as you want.
Holi -- India
Holi, the Festival of Colors, is a Hindu celebration full of joy and one of India's most important holidays. During the day of the last full moon of the lunar month, usually late February or early March, the air is full of brightly colored powder . The festival is celebrated differently throughout the country, with bonfires and music, but the cheerful spirit is common among Hindu people around the world.
International Pillow Fight Day -- Worldwide
Tens of thousands of people took part in the 4th annual International Pillow Fight Day on April 2, 2013. From London to Vancouver to many other cities, the festival is held in more than 100 countries. So just bring a soft pillow in early April, and watch feathers fly. | high14641.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Londoners read a lot."
},
"options": [
"Londoners are great because they read a lot.",
"There are a great number of readers in London.",
"Londoners read a lot.",
"Londoners are readers who read only great books."
],... | Londoners are great readers. They buy vast numbers of newspapers and magazines and of books --- especially paperbacks, which are still comparatively cheap in spite of ever-increasing rises in the costs of printing. They still continue to buy "proper" books, too, printed on good paper and bound between hard covers.
There are many streets in London containing shops which specialize in book-selling. Perhaps the best known of these is Charring Cross Road in the very heart of London. Here bookshops of all sorts and sizes are to be found, from the celebrated one which boasts of being "the biggest bookshop in the world" to the tiny, dusty little places which seem to have been left over from Dickens' time. Some of these shops stock, or will obtain, any kind of book, but many of them specialize in second-hand books, in art books, in foreign books, in books on philosophy, politics or any other of the countless subjects about which books may be written. One shop in this area specializes only in books about ballet!
Although it may be the most convenient place for Londoners to buy books, Charring Cross Road is not the cheapest. For the really cheap second-hand books, the collector must _ , to Farringdon Road, for example, in the East Central district of London. Here there is nothing so impressive as bookshops. The booksellers come along each morning and pour out their sacks of books onto small hand carts. And the collectors, some professionals and some amateurs, have been waiting for them. In places like this they can still, occasionally, pick up for a few pence an old one that may be worth many pounds. | high6306.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "Networks."
},
"options": [
"Networks.",
"Friends.",
"Phones.",
"Parents."
],
"question": "According to the Pew study, what do many people rely on to make major life decisions?",
"question_type": "factiod_que... | Professor Barry Wellman of the University of Toronto in Canada has invented a term to describe the way many North Americans interact these days. The term is _ . This concept is not easy to understand because the words seem to have opposite meanings. How can we be individuals and be networked at the same time? You need other people for networks.
Here is what Professor Wellman means. Before the invention of the Internet and e-mail, our social networks included live interactions with relatives, neighbors, and friends. Some of the interaction was by phone, but it was still voice to voice, person to person, in real time.
A recent research study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project showed that for a lot of people, electronic interaction through the computer has replaced this person-to-person interaction. However, a lot of people interviewed for the Pew study say that's a good thing. Why?
In the past, many people were worried that the internet isolated us and caused us to spend too much time in the imaginary world of the computer. But the Pew study discovered that the opposite is true. The Internet connects us with more real people than expected--helpful people who can give advice on careers, medical problems, raising children, and choosing a school or college. About 60 million Americans told Pew that the Internet plays an important role in helping them make major life decisions.
Thanks to the computer, we are able to be alone an together with other people--at the same time! | high1469.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "what she was willing to"
},
"options": [
"what she was willing to",
"what she felt easy to",
"what she was able to",
"what she felt right to"
],
"question": "Mama insisted that the child should do _ .",
"... | Papa's jaw dropped when Mama told him that Sister had cheated on her final exams--not to succeed but to fail. "It's unbelievable!" he said. "Sister has always been so proud of her good grades!"
"Yes, she has," said Mama. "But it's not unbelievable. It just shows how badly she wanted off the swimming team."
"Wanted off the swimming team?" said Papa. "She never said anything about that to me."
"Of course she didn't," said Mama. "She was afraid you'd _ . You already had her getting a swimming scholarship to college and winning gold medals at the Olympics. Can you imagine how much pressure she must have felt? For her, being on the team couldn't have been much fun."
"Oh, my gosh!" Papa said, clapping a hand to his forehead. "I've been so stupid! I just thought she'd want to be a champion swimmer because she's so good at it."
"It's like anything else, dear," said Mama. "No matter how good at it you are, if it stops being fun, you won't want to do it anymore."
Papa put his head in his hands.
"She must be really mad at me," he mumbled. "Maybe I should say sorry to her."
Sister's footsteps could be heard on the stairs. She came into the kitchen and looked hopefully up at her parents.
"Honey," said Mama with a smile, "your papa and I have decided that there's no reason for you to be on the swimming team if you don't want to."
Sister's face lit up like a Christmas tree. "Yippee!" she cried.
"And," added Papa, "there's no need for any more drills. I'm sure you'll bring your grades back up all by yourself."
Sister ran to Papa and jumped into his arms. She gave him a big hug. "I'm going to go play cards with Lizzy!" she said. "See you later!"
From the kitchen window, Mama and Papa watched their daughter run down the sunny road toward Lizzy's house.
"It's good to see her happy again," said Mama.
"It sure is," Papa agreed. "As for the swimming team, there's always next year."
"If?" Mama prompted him.
"Oh, right," said Papa. "If she wants to."
Mama smiled. "At least you're learning, dear," she said. She kissed him.
"Well, you know what they say," Papa said. "Better late than never." | high14899.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "they don't get on well with their co-workers"
},
"options": [
"they are not fit for their work",
"they have power over hiring and pay",
"they are faced with severe competition",
"they don't get on well with their co-wor... | Being the boss might mean more money and challenging work but it can also cause damage to physical and mental well-being, according to a Canadian study.
For years studies have shown people in lower-status jobs generally have higher rates of heart disease and other illnesses and die earlier than those in higher-status positions while job authority has shown no relationship with workers' health. But University of Toronto researchers, using data from 1,800 US workers, found the health of people in higher positions is affected by work as they are more likely to report conflicts with co-workers and say work disturbs their home life. However, the positive aspects of having a power position at work, such as higher status, more pay and greater independence, seemed to cancel out the negative aspects when it came to people's physical and psychological health.
These latest findings, reported in the journal Social Science & Medicine, suggest that the advantages and disadvantages of authority positions basically cancel each other out, giving the general impression that job authority has no health effects. For the study, the researchers surveyed participants about various aspects of their work, life and well-being. Job authority was judged based on whether a person managed other employees and had power over hiring, firing and pay.
Physical health complaints included problems like headaches, body aches, heartburn and tiredness. Psychological complaints included sleep problems, difficulty concentrating and feelings of sadness, worry and anxiety.
"This isn't to suggest that having authority is 'bad' -- in fact, we show it has benefits ... but it is important to identify the negative sides and deal with them." researcher Scott Schieman said. Schieman said conflicts with co-workers or involvement of work into home life may destroy physical and mental well-being by creating stress. "These are key stressors that can tax individuals' ability to function effectively," Schieman said. | high7018.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "His talent and hard work."
},
"options": [
"His family background.",
"His talent and hard work.",
"His good sense of humor.",
"His big, good-natured smiles."
],
"question": "What made Louis Armstrong become the ... | No one knows exactly when jazz was invented, or by whom. But it is said that it began in the early 1900s. Jazz was a new kind of music, for America and the world, and New Orleans was its birthplace.
Who were the jazz pioneers? Most were blacks. This music was not written down, and at first only blacks played it. It was hard for white musicians to learn the new style. But soon they, too, were playing jazz.
The popularity of this music spread. From New Orleans, it traveled up the Mississippi to Chicago, then to Kansas City and New York. By the 1920s, there were many jazz musicians, both black and white. Many of them were famous. One man was better than the rest. His name was Louis Armstrong.
Louis Armstrong was a born musician. He was not only talented but also hard-working. He also had a good sense of humor and a big, good-natured smile. These personal qualities were valuable in his rise to fame. After he became famous, he traveled around the world. It seemed that everyone wanted to hear Louis play. But life was not always easy, especially at the beginning.
Louis Armstrong was born in 1900 in New Orleans. His father never went to school and his mother could hardly read. When Louis was still a kid, his parents separated, and Louis lived with his mother. How hard their life was can readily be imagined. And yet Louis smiled through everything. He later wrote, "My whole life has been happiness. Life was there for me and I accepted it. Whatever happened has been beautiful to me. I love everybody." | high19365.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "she was afraid the smoke was caused by her carelessness"
},
"options": [
"the smoke came out of the kitchen",
"she left something in the kitchen",
"she was afraid the smoke was caused by her carelessness",
"things in th... | "Bad luck always comes in three" and last Saturday seemed to prove it. After trouble with the car, the television, we spent the evening waiting for the next trouble. Shortly after dinner we both smelled smoke. My wife, who was often careless when cooking, ran to the kitchen but returned looking puzzled. I rushed up the stairs to see smoke coming from under our bedroom door. I went to the bathroom and tied a wet cloth over my face. Then I returned to the bedroom, opened the door andcrawled in--there would be less smoke at floor level. With one hand reaching out in front of me I advanced carefully feeling for the switch to turn off the electric blanket. At that moment I heard the bell of a coming fire engine. Thank goodness my wife had not been wasting her time. | high11739.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "beneficial, though their inventors are less famous"
},
"options": [
"beneficial, because their inventors are famous",
"beneficial, though their inventors are less famous",
"not useful, because their inventors are less famous"... | We know the famous ones--the Thomas Edisons and the Alexander Graham Bells --but what about the less famous inventors? What about the people who invented the traffic light and the windshield wiper ? Shouldn' t we know who they are?
Joan Mclean thinks so. In fact, Mclean, a professor of physics at Mountain University in Range, feels so strongly about this matter that she' s developed a course on the topic. In addition to learning "who" invented "what" , however, Mclean also likes her students to learn the answers to the "why" and "how" questions. According to Mclean, "When students learn the answers to these questions, they are better prepared to recognize opportunities for inventing and more motivated to give inventing a try. "
Her students agree. One young man with a patent for an unbreakable umbrella is walking proof of McLean's statement. "If I had not heard the story of the windshield wiper' s invention," said Tommy Lee, a senior physics major. "I never would have dreamed of turning my bad experience during a rain storm into something so constructive. " Lee is currently negotiating to sell his patent to an umbrella producer.
So, just what is the story behind the windshield wiper? Well, Mary Anderson came up with the idea in 1902 after a visit to New York City. The day was cold and stormy, but Anderson still wanted to see the sights, so she jumped aboard a streetcar. Noticing that the driver was struggling to see through the snow covering the windshield, she found herself wondering why there couldn' t be a built - in device for cleaning the window. Still wondering about this when she returned home to Birmingham, Alabama, Anderson started drafting out solutions. One of her ideas, a lever on the inside of a vehicle that would control an arm on the outside, became the first windshield wiper.
Today we benefit from countless inventions and innovations. It' s hard to imagine driving without Garrett A. Morgan' s traffic light. It' s equally impossible to picture a world without Katherine J. Blodgett' s innovation that makes glass invisible. Can you picture life without clear windows and eyeglasses? | high10427.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "Females do more often than males."
},
"options": [
"Only females do",
"Females and males both do.",
"Females do more often than males.",
"Males do more often than females."
],
"question": "In many Western countr... | Cooking is an important skill with an interesting history. Every culture has their own types of foods and methods of cooking. Most cities and towns have local specialties and dishes. Families often have special recipes and meals that nobody else knows how to cook. Food comes in almost as many shapes, sizes, and varieties as people do. And behind every meal and every dish there is a cook.
In many cultures, especially in the West, cooking has traditionally been a task more often performed by women than by men. Today, however, it would be foolish to say cooking is only for females. Even though people are becoming busier and busier with their jobs, more and more people are cooking, including men. People cook to relax, to save money, to eat healthier foods, or just to eat tastier foods.
This activity has become so popular that in the United States there is a television channel that does nothing but teach you how to cook. The internet has made it easier and easier to get all kinds of recipes. Because of globalization more types of spices and ingredients are available to more people at cheaper prices. This has helped contribute to new types of foods, dishes, and styles of cooking. Simply put, cooking is on the rise.
In most places you can survive without knowing how to cook. But in my opinion if you don't know how to cook, you had better know somebody else that can cook, or life just won't be as enjoyable. | high21822.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "The Body Temperature Should Always Be the Same"
},
"options": [
"The Patients' Temperature",
"The Body Temperature Should Always Be the Same",
"The Body Temperature",
"The Temperature and Your Skin"
],
"question... | The Body Temperature
The temperature of your body should be always just the same, no matter whether the weather is hot or cold. That is why the doctor uses his thermometer when your are sick.
The body keeps the same temperature all the time ,because it balances the heat it produces and it gives off. It is always burning up food and , producing heat. It can produce heat faster when it needs to give off heat than when it becomes too warm. Let's see how this happen.
The heat of your body is given off mainly through the skin. When you are cold, your skin is tight and shows "good flesh". When you get chilly, you must dance around to keep warm or else you will shiver. Then your muscles begin to work, burn up fuel, and produce more heat. It is not pleasant to shiver, so you usually prefer to warm up by exercise, or put on more clothes to keep heat in.
When you are warm, the skin is loose and soft. It is so supplied with blood that heat is given off rapidly. If you get too warm, you begin to sweat ,and more body heat is used in evaporating the moisture from your skin. You wear less clothing, too, in warm weather or warm room, so that warm can be given off freely. You feel less like exercising because your body is warm already, and the extra heat produced by exercise makes you uncomfortable.
You can see from the way you feel differently in different kinds of weather. In summer, when it is warm, you feel tired and lazy. You do not care to work or play, but enjoy lying and doing nothing. When you get out of doors in winter, the cold air makes you feel lively. You want to play. | high2160.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "it is common that people tell white lies"
},
"options": [
"it is common that people tell white lies",
"Dick could do nothing about bad traffic",
"it is common that people delay their payment",
"Dick found it had to de... | At 9:00 Dick Spivak's bank telephoned and said his payment was late. "The check is in the post," Dick replied quickly. At 11:45 Dick left for a 12:00 meeting across town. Arriving late, he explained that traffic had been had. That evening, Dick's girlfriend wore a new dress. He hated it. "It looks just great on you," he said. Three lies in one day! Yet Dick Spivak is just an ordinary man. Each time, he told himself that sometimes the truth causes too many problems.
Most of us tell much the same white lies, harmless untruths that help to save trouble. How often do we tell white lies? It depends in part on our age, education, and even where we live. According to one U.S. study, women are more truthful than men, and honesty increases as we get older.While most people use little white lies to make life easier, the majority of Americans care about honesty in both public and personal life. They say that people today are less honest than they were ten years ago. Although it is believed that things are getting worse, lying seems to be an age-old human problem. The French philosopher Vauvenarges, writing in the eighteenth century, touched on the truth when he wrote, "All men are born truthful and die liars ." | high17348.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Injuries from cars and dogs."
},
"options": [
"Habitat loss.",
"Injuries from cars and dogs.",
"Climate change.",
"A deadly disease."
],
"question": "Which isn't considered the main cause of koala's population d... | The koala is one of Australia's most treasured creatures, which is a lovely little creature. But now, it is in big trouble.
Affected by habitat loss and climate change, like many other uniquely Australian animals, koalas are being squeezed into smaller regions. But at present, it is a deadly disease, a somewhat silent killer that causes a further decline in the koala population, that is worrying many scientists about the fate of the koala.
The killer is Chlamydia, which has caused symptoms in up to 50 percent of the wild koalas, with probably even more infected but not showing symptoms. It has been particularly severe in Queensland, where nearly all koalas are infected. The disease causes many symptoms including eye infections, which can lead to blindness, making it difficult for them to find their primary food.
Treating Chlamydia in wild koalas is a challenge. There is no treatment available for _ . Only a small percentage of the animals can be treated successfully and returned to the wild. Besides, there is no national plan in Australia to save the koala;it is up to each region to make management plans for its koala population.
The good news is that researchers are working to test a vaccine that would help prevent further spread. If all goes well, plans can be carried out to distribute the vaccil1e more widely. But it's impossible to vaccinate all wild koalas.
Another possibility would be to make vaccine distribution a routi11e part of treatment for the thousands of koalas brought into care centers every year after they are injured by cars or dogs.
While it is a combination of problems that are affecting the wild koala population, many experts believe this vaccine would be an important step in helping koalas survive longer. It may buy enough time to give researchers a chance to solve some of the other problems facing Australia's koalas. | high5169.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "generally make one feel uneasy."
},
"options": [
"show one's consideration for others.",
"are a good way to make friends",
"are proper to ask a man in action",
"generally make one feel uneasy."
],
"question": "A... | One silly question I simply can't understand is "How do you feel?" Usually the question is asked of a man's action-- a man on the go, walking along the street or busily working at his desk. So what do you expect him to say? He'll probably say," Fine, I'm all right.", but you've put a bug in his ear. ---Maybe now he's not sure. If you have a good friend, you may have seen something in his face, or his walk, that he overlooked that morning. It starts him worrying a little. First thing you know, he looks in a mirror to see if everything is all right, while you go merrily on your way asking someone else. "How do you feel?"
Every question has its time and place. It's perfectly acceptable, for example, to ask "How do you feel?" if you're visiting a close friend in hospital. But if the fellow is walking on both legs, hurrying take a train, or sitting at his desk working, it's no time to ask him that silly question. [:Z _ xx _ k.Com]
When George Bernard Shaw, the famous writer of plays, was in his eighties, someone asked him, "How do you feel?" Shaw put him in his place. "When you reach my age," he said, "either you feel all right or you're dead." | high10341.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "keeps himself away from his parents"
},
"options": [
"is always busy with his studies",
"doesn't want to be disturbed",
"keeps himself away from his parents",
"begins to dislike his parents"
],
"question": "\"Th... | Parents often believe that they have a good relationship with their teenagers . But last summer , Joanna and Henry noticed a change in their older son : suddenly he seemed to be talking far more to his friends than to his parents . " The door to his room is always shut ." Joanna noticed .
Tina and Mark noticed similar changes in their 14-year-old daughter . "She used to cuddle up with me on the sofa and talk ," said Mark . "Now we joke that she does this only when she wants something . Sometimes she wants to be treated like a little girl and sometimes like a young lady . The problem is figuring out which time is which ."
Before age 11, children like to tell their parents what's on their minds . "In fact , parents are first on the list ." said Michael Riera, author of Uncommon Sense for Parents with Teenagers . "This completely changes during the teen years ." Riera explained . "They talk to their friends first , then maybe their teachers , and their parents last ."
Parents who know what's going on in their teenagers' lives are in the best position to help them . To break down the wall of silence , parents should create chances to understand what their children want to say , and try to find ways to talk and write to them . And they must give their children a mental break , for children also need freedom , though young . Another thing parents should remember is that to be a friend , not a manager , with their children is a better way to know them . | high3518.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "the pictures were thought to be helpful"
},
"options": [
"the hunters wanted to see the pictures",
"the painters were animal lovers",
"the painters wanted to show imagination",
"the pictures were thought to be helpful"
... | People have been painting pictures for at least 30,000 years. The earliest pictures were painted by people who hunted animals. They used to paint pictures of the animals they wanted to catch and kill. Pictures of this kind have been found on the walls of caves in France and Spain. No one knows why they were painted there. Perhaps the painters thought that their pictures would help them to catch these animals. Or perhaps human beings have always wanted to tell stories according to pictures.
About 5,000 years ago, the Egyptians and other people in the Near East began to use pictures as kind of writing. They drew simple pictures or signs to represent things and ideas, and also to represent the sounds of their language. The signs these people used became a kind of alphabet.
The Egyptians used to record information and to tell stories by putting picture writing and pictures together. When an important person died, scenes and stories from his life were painted and carved on the walls of the place where he was buried. Some of these pictures are like modern comic strip stories. It has been said that Egypt is the home of the comic strip. But, for the Egyptians, pictures still had magic power. So they did not try to make their way of writing simple. The ordinary people could not understand it.
By the year 1,000 BC, people who lived in the area around the Mediterranean Sea had developed a simpler system of writing. The signs they used were very easy to write, and there were fewer of them than in the Egyptian system. This was because each sign, or letter, represented only one sound in their language. The Greeks developed this system and formed the letters of the Greek alphabet. The Romans copied the idea, and the Roman alphabet is now used all over the world.
These days, we can write down a story, or record information, without using pictures. But we still need pictures of all kinds: drawing, photographs, signs and diagrams. We find them everywhere: in books and newspapers, in the street, and on the walls of the places where we live and work. Pictures help us to understand and remember things more easily, and they can make a story much more interesting. | high4277.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 0,
"answer_text": "You can enjoy your favorite foods but don't eat too much."
},
"options": [
"You can enjoy your favorite foods but don't eat too much.",
"You must pour down the foods you enjoy,for it is reasonable.",
"You shouldn't refuse any... | Do you love holidays, but hate the increase in weight that follows?You _ are _ not _ alone. Holidays are time for splendid meals and celebrating, especially with the traditional cultural foods.
With proper planning, though, it is possible to keep normal weight during the holidays. The idea is to enjoy the holidays and think about moderation .Whether it is celebrating at the office party or sitting down for the traditional family dinner, regard eating as a time for tasting a variety of foods. Here are some tips to carry you through the round of celebrations and your social calendar without feeling having done wrong.
Set some goals that you can reach. Unless you have special needs to go on a diet, there are no forbidden foods. Don't turn down the foods you enjoy, but be sensible.
Before you leave home, have a small, lowfat meal or a snack. This can help you to avoid eating or drinking much. Use a small luncheonsize plate and avoid the large ones that may encourage you to "load up".You should be most comfortable eating an amount of food about the size of your fist. Once you have had your "tasting" serving,move away from the dining room. Doing so will make it easy to stop yourself eating constantly at the sight of food.
Eat slowly and fill up beforehand with clear soup and raw fruit or vegetables and fruit in a yogurt dressing rather than cream and cheese sauces. You can also drink a large glass of water before you eat to help you feel full.
If you have a sweet tooth,try mints,hard candies,and fruit. These don't have the fat content of creamy desserts and chocolate.
Avoid highfat foods. Dishes that look oily or creamy may have a generous amount of fat. Choose lean meats. Fill your plate with salad and green vegetables.
Don't let exercise take a break during the holidays. A 20minute walk after a meal can help burn off extra calories. | high22495.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 1,
"answer_text": "Her parents' educational methods."
},
"options": [
"Her parents' knowledge.",
"Her parents' educational methods.",
"Her parents' love.",
"Her parents' personalities."
],
"question": "What are the gems in the wri... | My parents are amazing. I had the most wonderful childhood, and it's not because I had everything I wanted or because I was a cool kid. I have learned a lot about parenting from what my parents did. Here are a few gems that I use now or plan to use in the future with my two boys.
Here's how a conversation often went when I was a kid. Usually it was around 4:30 p.m. I said, "I'm hungry. Can I have a cookie?" My mom answered, "No. Have a banana." "I don't want a banana." "Then you're not hungry." Sometimes I was angry about it, but I knew that was good for me. Thanks mom for not letting me eat junk food . Now I agree with my mother and I have this same conversation with my three-year-old son. I hope it helps him form healthy diet habits.
I know many of us heard this as children. "If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?" If our kids asked for something just because everyone else had it or was doing it, we often got this response. It was the perfect response, and we soon learned not to ask for things because everyone else had it, but because it was something we wanted.
I will always be thankful that my parents let us try the things that interested us, not the things they wanted to push us into. This helped me try swimming, dance, and the piano before second grade. I found a love -- singing -- and kept up with that through my college years. It drives me crazy, as a mom and teacher, when I see kids who are pushed into their parents' favorite activities, even when they don't have a passion for them. | high13890.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 2,
"answer_text": "is addressed to the parents"
},
"options": [
"must be returned to the teachers",
"should be carried by the kids",
"is addressed to the parents",
"must be mailed to the school"
],
"question": "According to the pa... | Memo to: Parents
Memo from: Administration Office, St. Augustine's Elementary School
Topic: Lunch Program and School Information
Date: Tuesday, November 23, 2010
We would like to thank all parents and guardians for your cooperation as we carry out a new method of delivering our lunch program. So far the month-long test of the new system has gone smoothly.
For your convenience, we have included a copy of the envelope below to allow you to record the days you have ordered lunch for your child. You can keep this copy at home for your reference.
Please note, lunches are prepared using the School Food Guidelines both in terms of items served and size. During the first two weeks some people wrote in additions to the menu, such as ordering extra items. Due to the logistics involved and our limited volunteer base we are unable to fulfill these requests.
Ordering process:
This year we will distribute a two week lunch envelope. If you decide to order the meal offered on a given day, simply check the box in front of that meal choice. For example, if you choose seven meals over the two weeks, then please enclose (7 x $2.00) fourteen dollars ($14.00) in the envelope. Seal it, and return it to your child's teacher. Please note that the cost for the lunch remains the same: $2.00 daily and includes fruit and milk.
You will note that we have also reduced daily choices. For example on Fridays, we offered chicken burgers and hamburgers. This has been changed to chicken burgers on one week and hamburgers the following week. Food prepared according to special requests has also been changed. These items will now be prepared with the same ingredients.
If your child does not like the lunch being served on a particular day please ensure that he/she has a packed lunch from home.
Thank you for your attention on this matter and we look forward to working with you once again this year.
Please return the attached envelopes by Thursday, December 2, 2011. | high23953.txt |
[
{
"answer": {
"answer_index": 3,
"answer_text": "Because she knew the rules well and was fair."
},
"options": [
"Because she called them brothers.",
"Because they wanted to make her happy.",
"Because no one else wanted to do it for them.",
"Because she knew the rules ... | Amanda Clement grew up in Hudson, South Dakota. Baseball was always her favorite sport. Once in a while her brother Hank and his friends would let her play first base in their games. More often, however, they asked her to umpire for them, because they knew her calls would be fair and there would be no arguing.
One day in 1904, Amanda and her mother traveled to Hawarden, Iowa, to watch Hank play for the home team against Hawarden. When they arrived at the ball field, two local teams were waiting to play a preliminary game. The umpire hadn't arrived, so Hank argued that the teams should let his sister serve as umpire. The players finally agreed.
Amanda, then sixteen and standing five feet, ten inches tall, made perfect calls. She was so good that players for the main game asked her to umpire for them and even offered to pay her. Thus, at sixteen, Amanda Clement became the first paid female baseball umpire of all time. She is honored in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. | high12556.txt |
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