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It was once believed that being overweight was healthy, but nowadays few people subscribe to this view point. While many people are fighting the battle to reduce weight, studies are being conducted concerning the appetite and how it is controlled by both emotional and biochemical factors. Some of the conclusion of these studies may give insight into how to deal with weight problems. For example, when several hundred people were asked about their eating habits in times of stress, 44 percent said they reacted to stressful situations by eating. Further investigations with both humans and animals indicated that it is not food which relieves tension but rather the act of chewing. A test in which subjects were blindfolded showed that obese people have a keener sense of taste and crave more flavor food than non-obese people. When deprived of the variety and intensity of tastes, obese people are not satisfied and consequently eat more to fulfill this need. Blood samples taken from these people after they were shown a picture of food revealed that overweight people reacted with an increase in blood insulin, a chemical associated with appetite. This did not happen with average-weight people. In another experiment, results showed that certain people have a specific, biologically induced hunger for carbohydrates. Eating carbohydrates raises the level of serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the brain. Enough serotonin produces a sense of satiation, and hunger for carbohydrates subsides. Exercise has been recommended as an important part of a weight-loss program. However, it has been found that mild exercises, such as using stairs in stead of the elevator, is better in the long run than taking on a strenuous program, such as jogging, which many people find difficult to continue over periods of time and which also increase appetite.

Question: The passage supports which of the following conclusions ?         

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By adopting a few simple techniques, parents who read to their children can considerably increase their children’s language development. It is surprising, but true. How parents talk to their children makes a big difference in the children's language development. If a parent encourages the child to actively respond to what the parent is reading, the child's language skills increase. A study was done with two or three-year-old children and their parents. Half of the thirty children participants were in the experimental study; the other half acted as the control group. In the experimental group, the parents were given a two-hour training session in which they were taught to ask open-ended questions rather than yes-no questions. For example, the parent should ask, "What is the doggy doing?" rather than, "Is the doggy running away?" Experimental parents were also instructed how to expand on their children's answer, how to suggest alternative possibilities, and how to praise correct answers. At the beginning of the study, the children did not differ on levels of language development, but at the end of one month, the children in the experimental group were 5.5 months ahead of the control group on a test of verbal expression and vocabulary. Nine months later, the children in the experimental group still showed an advance of 6 months over the children in the control group.  

Question: What was the major difference between the control group and the experimental one in the study?         

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A number of factors related to the voice reveal the personality of the speaker.

The first is the broad area of communication, which includes imparting information by use of language, communicating with a group or an individual and specialized communication through performance. A person conveys thoughts and ideas through choice of words, by a tone of voice that is pleasant or unpleasant, gentle or harsh, by the rhythm that is inherent within the language itself, and by speech rhythms that are flowing and regular or uneven and hesitant, and finally, by the pitch and melody of the utterance. When speaking before a group, a person's tone may indicate uncertainty or fright, confidence or calm. At interpersonal levels, the tone may reflect ideas and feelings over and above the words chosen, or may belie them. Here the participant’s tone can consciously or unconsciously reflect intuitive sympathy or antipathy, lack of concern or interest, fatigue, anxiety, enthusiasm or excitement, all of which are usually discernible by the acute listener. Public performance is a manner of communication that is highly specialized with its own techniques for obtaining effects by voice and/or gesture. The motivation derived from the text, and in the case of singing, the music, in combination with the performer's skills, personality, and ability to create empathy will determine the success of artistic, political, or pedagogic communication.

Second, the voice gives psychological clues to a person's self-image, perception of others, and emotional health. Self-image can be indicated by a tone of voice that is confident, pretentious, shy, aggressive, outgoing, or exuberant, to name only a few personality traits. Also the sound may give a clue to the facade or mask of that person, for example, a shy person hiding behind an overconfident front. How a speaker perceives the listener's receptiveness, interest, or sympathy in any given conversation can drastically alter the tone of presentation, by encouraging or discouraging the speaker. Emotional health is evidenced in the voice by free and melodic sounds of the happy, by constricted and harsh sound of the angry, and by dull and lethargic qualities of the depressed.  

Question: According to the passage, an exuberant tone of voice may be an indication of a person's………         

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In my experience, freshmen today are different from those I knew when I started as a counselor and professor 25 years ago. College has always been demanding both academically and socially. But students now are less mature and often not ready for the responsibility of being in college. It is really too easy to point the finger at parents who protect their children from life’s obstacles. Parents, who handle every difficulty and every other responsibility for their children from writing admission essays to picking college courses, certainly may contribute to their children's lack of coping strategies. But we can look even more broadly to the social trends of today. How many people do you know who are on medication to prevent anxiety or depression? The number of students who arrive at college already medicated for unwanted emotions has increased dramatically in the past 10 years. We, as a society, don't want to “feel” anything unpleasant and we certainly don't want our children to “suffer”. The resulting problem is that by not experiencing negative emotions, one does not learn the necessary skills to tolerate and negotiate adversity. As a psychologist, I am well aware of the fact that some individuals suffer from depression and anxiety and can benefit from treatment, but I question the growing number of medicated adolescents today. Our world is more stressful in general because of the current economic and political realities, but I don’t believe that the college experience itself is more intense today than that of the past 10 years. What I do think is that many students are often not prepared to be young “adults” with all the responsibilities of life. What does this, mean for college faculty and staff? We are required to assist in the basic parenting of these students - the student who complains that her professor didn't remind her of the due date for an assignment that was dearly listed on the syllabus and the student who cheats on an assignment in spite of careful instructions about plagiarism. As college professors, we have to explain what it means to be an independent college student before we can even begin to teach. As parents and teachers we should expect young people to meet challenges. To encourage them in this direction, we have to step back and let them fail and pick themselves up and move forward. This approach needs to begin at an early age so that college can actually be a passage to independent adulthood.

Question 42: According to the writer, failure in life and less support from parents will _______.  

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The changing profile of a city in the United States is apparent in the shifting definitions used by the United States Bureau of the Census. In 1870 the census officially distinguished the nation’s “urban” from its “rural” population for the first time. “Urban population” was defined as persons living in towns of 8,000 inhabitants or more. But after 1900 it meant persons living in incorporated places having 2,500 or more inhabitants.

Then, in 1950 the Census Bureau radically changed its definition of urban to take account of the new vagueness of city boundaries. In addition to persons living in incorporated units of 2,500 or more, the census now included those who lived in unincorporated units of that size, and also all persons living in the densely settled urban fringe, including both incorporated and unincorporated areas located around cities of 50,000 inhabitants or more. Each such unit, conceived as an integrated economic and social unit with a large population nucleus, was named a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA).

Each SMSA would contain at least (a) one central city with 50,000 inhabitants or more or (b) two cities having shared boundaries and constituting, for general economic and social purposes, a single community with a combined population of at least 50,000, the smaller of which must have a population of at least 15,000. Such an area would include the county in which the central city was located, and adjacent counties that were found to be metropolitan in character and economically and socially integrated with the county of the central city.By 1970, about two-thirds of the population of the United States was living in these urbanized areas, and of that figure more than half were living outside the central cities.

While the Census Bureau and the United States government used the term SMSA (by 1969 there were 233 of them), social scientists were also using new terms to describe the elusive, vaguely defined areas reaching out from what used to be simple “towns” and “cities”. A host of terms came into use: “metropolitan regions”, “poly-nucleated population groups”, “conurbations”, “metropolitan clusters”, “megalopolises” and so on.  

Question 32: Prior to 1900, how many inhabitants would a town have to have before being defined as urban?         

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The issue of equality for women in British society first attracted national attention in the early 20th century, when the suffragettes won for women the right to vote. In the 1960s feminism became the subject of intense debate when the women’s liberation movement encouraged women to reject their traditional supporting role and to demand equal status and equal rights with men in areas such as employment and pay. Since then, the gender gap between the sexes has been reduced. The Equal Pay Act of 1970, for instance, made it illegal for women to be paid less than men for doing the same work, and in 1975 the Sex Discrimination Act aimed to prevent either sex having an unfair advantage when applying for jobs. In the same year the Equal Opportunities Commission was set up to help people claim their rights to equal treatment and to publish research and statistics to show where improvements in opportunities for women need to be made. Women now have much better employment opportunities, though they still tend to get less well-paid jobs than men, and very few are appointed to top jobs in industry. In the US the movement that is often called the “first wave of feminism” began in the mid 1800s. Susan B. Anthony worked for the right to vote, Margaret Sanger wanted to provide women with the means of contraception so that they could decide whether or not to have children, and Elizabeth Blackwell, who had to fight for the chance to become a doctor, wanted women to have greater opportunities to study. Many feminists were interested in other social issues. The second wave of feminism began in the 1960s. Women like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem became associated with the fight to get equal rights and opportunities for women under the law. An important issue was the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which was intended to change the Constitution. Although the ERA was not passed, there was progress in other areas. It became illegal for employers, schools, clubs, etc. to discriminate against women. But women still find it hard to advance beyond a certain point in their careers, the so-called glass ceiling that prevents them from having high-level jobs. Many women also face the problem of the second shift, i.e. the household chores. In the 1980s, feminism became less popular in the US and there was less interest in solving the remaining problems, such as the fact that most women still earn much less than men. Although there is still discrimination, the principle that it should not exist is widely accepted.  

Question: The phrase “glass ceiling” in paragraph 4 mostly means ______.         

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During the 19th century, women in the United States organized and participated in a large number of reform movements, including movements to reorganize the prison system, improve education, ban the sale of alcohol, grant rights to people who were denied them, and, most importantly, free slaves. Some women saw similarities in the social status of women and slaves. Woman like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone were feminists and abolitionists who supported the rights of both women and blacks. A number of male abolitionists, including William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, also supported the rights of women to speak and to participate equally with men in antislavery activities. Probably more than any other movement, abolitionism offered women a previously denied entry into politics. They became involved primarily in order to better their living conditions and improve the conditions of others.     

When the civil war ended in 1865, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution adopted in 1868 and 1870 granted citizenship and suffrage to blacks but not to women. Discouraged but resolved, feminists worked tirelessly to influence more and more women to demand the right to vote. In 1869, the Wyoming Territory had yielded to demands by feminists, but the states on the East Coast resisted more stubbornly than before. A women’s suffrage bill had been presented to every Congress since 1878, but it continually failed to pass until 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment granted women the right to vote.  

Question: What is the topic of the passage?         

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It was once believed that being overweight was healthy, but nowadays few people subscribe to this view point. While many people are fighting the battle to reduce weight, studies are being conducted concerning the appetite and how it is controlled by both emotional and biochemical factors. Some of the conclusion of these studies may give insight into how to deal with weight problems. For example, when several hundred people were asked about their eating habits in times of stress, 44 percent said they reacted to stressful situations by eating. Further investigations with both humans and animals indicated that it is not food which relieves tension but rather the act of chewing. A test in which subjects were blindfolded showed that obese people have a keener sense of taste and crave more flavor food than non-obese people. When deprived of the variety and intensity of tastes, obese people are not satisfied and consequently eat more to fulfill this need. Blood samples taken from these people after they were shown a picture of food revealed that overweight people reacted with an increase in blood insulin, a chemical associated with appetite. This did not happen with average-weight people. In another experiment, results showed that certain people have a specific, biologically induced hunger for carbohydrates. Eating carbohydrates raises the level of serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the brain. Enough serotonin produces a sense of satiation, and hunger for carbohydrates subsides. Exercise has been recommended as an important part of a weight-loss program. However, it has been found that mild exercises, such as using stairs in stead of the elevator, is better in the long run than taking on a strenuous program, such as jogging, which many people find difficult to continue over periods of time and which also increase appetite.  

Question: According to the passage, _________________         

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Noise is unwanted sound and is among the most pervasive pollutants today. Noise from road traffic, jet planes, jet skis, garbage trucks, construction equipment, manufacturing processes, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and boom boxes, to name a few, are among the unwanted sounds that are routinely broadcast into the air. The problem with noise is not only that it is unwanted, but also that it negatively affects human health and well-being. Problems related to noise include hearing loss, stress, high blood pressure, sleep loss, distraction and lost productivity, and a general reduction in the quality of life and opportunities for tranquility. We experience noise in a number of ways. On some occasions, we can be both the cause and the victim of noise, such as when we are operating noisy appliances or equipment. There are also instances when we experience noise generated by others just as people experience second-hand smoke. While in both instances, noises are equally damaging, second-hand noise is more troubling because it has negative impacts on us but is put into the environment by others, without our consent. The air into which second-hand noise is emitted and on which it travels is a “commons”, a public good. It belongs to no one person or group, but to everyone. People, businesses, and organizations, therefore, do not have unlimited rights to broadcast noise as they please, as if the effects of noise were limited only to their private property. On the contrary, they have an obligation to use the commons in ways that are compatible with or do not detract from other uses. People, businesses, and organizations that disregard the obligation to not interfere with others' use and enjoyment of the commons by producing noise pollution are, in many ways, acting like a bully in a school yard. Although perhaps unknowingly, they nevertheless disregard the rights of others and claim for themselves rights that are not theirs. We have organized to raise awareness of noise pollution and help communities take back the commons from those acting like bullies. Our efforts include building a library of resources and tools concerning noise pollution, establishing links to other groups that have similar collections, establishing networks among local noise activists, assisting communities and activists who are working to reduce noise pollution, and monitoring and advocating for stronger noise controls.

Question: It is mentioned in the passage that when we are operating noisy appliances or we experience noise generated by others ________.             

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 Choosing a career may be one of the hardest jobs you ever have, and it must be done with care. View a career as an opportunity to do something you love, not simply as a way to earn a living. Investing the time and effort to thoroughly explore your options can mean the difference between finding a stimulating and rewarding career and move from job to unsatisfying job in an attempt to find the right one. Work influences virtually every aspect of your life, from your choice of friends to where you live. Here are just a few of the factors to consider.

 Deciding what matters most to you is essential to making the right decision. You may want to begin by assessing your likes, dislikes, strengths, and weaknesses. Think about the classes, hobbies, and surroundings that you find most appealing. Ask yourself questions, such as "Would you like to travel? Do you want to work with children? Are you more suited to solitary or cooperative work?" There are no right or wrong answers; only you know what is important to you. Determine which job features you require, which ones you would prefer, and which ones you cannot accept. Then rank them in order of importance to you.

 The setting of the job is one factor to take into account. You may not want to sit at a desk all day. If not, there are diversity occupation - building inspector, supervisor, real estate agent - that involve a great deal of time away from the office. Geographical location may be a concern, and employment in some fields is concentrated in certain regions. Advertising job can generally be found only in large cities. On the other hand, many industries such as hospitality, law education, and retail sales are found in all regions of the country.

 If a high salary is important to you, do not judge a career by its starting wages. Many jobs, such as insurance sales, offers relatively low starting salaries; however, pay substantially increases along with your experience, additional training, promotions and commission.

 Don’t rule out any occupation without learning more about it. Some industries evoke positive or negative associations. The traveling life of a flight attendant appears glamorous, while that of a plumber does not. Remember that many jobs are not what they appear to be at first, and may have merits or demerits that are less obvious. Flight attendants must work long, grueling hours without sleeps, whereas plumbers can be as highly paid as some doctors. Another point to consider is that as you get mature, you will likely to develop new interests and skills that may point the way to new opportunities. The choice you make today need not be your final one.

Question 31: According to paragraph 3, which of the following fields is NOT suitable for a person who does not want to live in a big city?  

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Until recently, most American entrepreneurs were men. Discrimination against women in business, the demands of caring for families, and lack of business training had kept the number of women entrepreneurs small. Now, however, businesses owned by women account for more than $40 billion in annual revenues, and this figure is likely to continue rising throughout the 1990s. As Carolyn Doppelt Gray, an official of the Small Business Administration, has noted, "The 1970s was the decade of women entering management, and the 1980s turned out to be the decade of the woman entrepreneur". What are some of the factors behind this trend? For one thing, as more women earn advanced degrees in business and enter the corporateworld, they are finding obstacles. Women are still excluded from most executive suites. Charlotte Taylor, a management consultant, had noted, "In the 1970s women believed if they got an MBA and worked hard they could become chairman of the board. Now they've found out that isn't going to happen, so they go out on their own". In the past, most women entrepreneurs worked in "women's" fields: cosmetics and clothing, for example. But this is changing. Consider ASK Computer Systems, a $22-million-a-year computer software business. It was founded in 1973 by Sandra Kurtzig, who was then a housewife with degrees in math and engineering. When Kurtzig founded the business, her first product was software that let weekly newspapers keep tabs on their newspaper carriers and her office was a bedroom at home, with a shoebox under the bed to hold the company's cash. After she succeeded with the newspaper software system, she hired several bright computer-science graduates to develop additional programs. When these were marketed and sold, ASK began to grow. It now has 200 employees, and Sandra Kurtzig owns $66.9 million of stock. Of course, many women who start their own businesses fail, just as men often do. They still face hurdles in the business world, especially problems in raising money; the banking and finance world is still dominated by men, and old attitudes die hard. Most businesses owned by women are still quite small. But the situation is changing; there are likely to be many more Sandra Kurtzigs in the years ahead.  

Question 44: In the passage, “that” refers to_________.         

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 Perhaps it was his own lack of adequate schooling that inspired Horace Mann to work so hard for the important reforms in education that he accomplished. While he was still a boy, his father and older brother died, and he became responsible for supporting his family. Like most of the children in his town, he attended school only two or three months a year. Later, with the help of several teachers, he was able to study law and became a member of the Massachusetts bar, but he never forgot those early struggles.

 While serving in Massachusetts legislature, he signed a historic education bill that set up a state board of education. Without regret, he gave up his successful legal practice and political career to become the first secretary of the board. There he exercised an enormous influence during the critical period of reconstruction that brought into existence the American graded elementary school as substitute for the older distinct school system. Under his leadership, the curriculum was restructured, the school year was increased to a minimum of six months, and mandatory schooling was extended to age sixteen. Other important reforms included the establishment of state normal schools for teacher training, institutes for in-service teacher education, and lyceums for adult education. He was also instrument in improving salaries for teachers and creating school libraries.

 Mann’s ideas about school reform were developed and distributed in twelve annual reports to the state of Massachusetts that he wrote during his tenure as secretary of education. Considered quite radical at the time, the Massachusetts reforms later served as a model for the nation. Mann was recognized as the father of public education.

 Question 40: The word “mandatory” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to _______.         

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By the mid-nineteenth century, the term "icebox" had entered the American language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet of ordinary citizens in the United States. The ice trade grew with the growth of cities. Ice was used in hotels, taverns, and hospitals, and by some forward-looking city dealers in fresh meat, fresh fish, and butter. After the Civil War (1860-1865), as ice was used to refrigerate freight cars, it also came into household use. Even before 1880, half the ice sold in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that sold in Boston and Chicago, went to families for their own use. This had become possible because a new household convenience, the icebox, a precursor of the modern refrigerator, had been invented. Making an efficient icebox was not as easy as we might now suppose. In the early nineteenth century, the knowledge of the physics of heat, which was essential to a science of refrigeration, was rudimentary. The common-sense notion that the best icebox was one that prevented the ice from melting was of course mistaken, for it was the melting of the ice that performed the cooling. Nevertheless, early efforts to economize ice included wrapping the ice in blankets, which kept the ice from doing its job. Not until near the end of the nineteenth century did inventors achieve the nice balance of insulation and circulation needed for an efficient icebox. But as early as 1803, an ingenious Maryland farmer, Thomas Moore, had been on the right track. He owned a farm about twenty miles outside the city of Washington, for which the village of Georgetown was the market center. When he used an icebox of his own design to transport his butter to market, he found that customers would pass up the rapidly melting stuff in the tubs of his competitors to pay a premium price for his butter, still fresh and hard in neat, one-pound bricks. One advantage of his icebox, Moore explained, was that farmers would no longer have to travel to market at night in order to keep their produce cool.

Question: The word "rudimentary" in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to __________.         

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 The time when humans crossed the Arctic land bridge from Siberia to Alaska seems remote to us today, but actually represents a late stage in prehistory of humans, an era when polished stone implements and bows and arrows were already being used and dogs had already been domesticated.

 When these early migrants arrived in North America, they found woods and plains dominated by three types of American mammoths. Those elephants were distinguished from today’s elephants mainly by their thick, shaggy coats and their huge, upward-curving tusks. They had arrived on the continent hundreds of thousands of years before their human followers. The wooly mammoth in the North, the Columbian mammoth in middle North America, and the imperial mammoth of the South together with their distant cousins the mastodons, dominated the land. Here, as in the Old World, there is evidence that humans hunted these elephants, as shown by numerous spear points found with mammoth remains.

 Then, at the end of the Ice Age, when the last glaciers had retreated, there was a relatively sudden and widespread extinction of elephants. In the New World, both mammoths and mastodons disappeared. In the Old World, only Indian and African elephants survived.

 Why did the huge, seemingly successful mammoths disappear? Were humans connected with their extinction? Perhaps, but at the time, although they were hunters, humans were still widely scattered and not very numerous. It is difficult to see how they could have prevailed over the mammoth to such an extent.

Question: The phrase “these early migrants” in paragraph 2 refers to ________.         

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Under certain circumstances, the human body must cope with gases at greater-than-normal atmospheric pressure. For example, gas pressures increase rapidly during a drive made with scuba gear because the breathing equipment allows divers to stay underwater longer and dive deeper. The pressure exerted on the human body increases by 1 atmosphere for every 10 meters of depth on seater, so thay at 39 meters in seawater a diver is exposed to pressure of about 4 atmosphere. The pressure of the gases being breathed must equal the external pressure applied to the body, otherwise breathing is very difficult. Therefore all of the gases in the air breathed by a scuba diver at 40 meter are present at five times their usual pressure. Nitrogen, which composes 80 percent of the air we breathe, usually causes a balmy feeling of well-being at this pressure. At a depth of 5 atmosphere, nitrogen causes symptoms resembling alcohol intoxication, known as nitrogen narcosis. Nitrogen narcosis apparently results from a direct effect on the brain of the large amounts of nitrogen dissolved in the blood. Deep dives are less dangerous if helium is substituted for nitrogen, because under these pressures helium does not exert a similar narcotic effect. As a scuba diver descends, the pressure of nitrogen on the lungs increases. Nitrogen then diffuses from the lungs to the blood, and from the blood to body tissues. The reverse occurs when the diver surfaces, the nitrogen pressure in the lungs falls and the nitrogen diffuses from the tissues into the blood, and from the blood into the lungs. If the return to the surface is too rapid, nitrogen in the tissues and blood cannot diffuse out rapidly enough and nitrogen bubbles are formed. They can cause severe pains, particularly around the joints. Another complication may result if the breath is held during ascent. During ascent from a depth of 10 meters, the volume of air in the lungs will double because the air pressure at the surface is only half of what it was at 10 meters. This change in volume may cause the lungs to distend ang even rupture. This the rise of the exhaled air bubbles, and must exhale during ascent.

Question: What does the passage mainly discuss?         

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The penny press, which emerged in the United States during the 1830's, was a powerful agent of mass communication. These newspapers were little dailies, generally four pages in length, written for the mass taste. They differed from the staid, formal presentation of the conservative press, with its emphasis on political and literary topics. The new papers were brief and cheap, emphasizing sensational reports of police courts and juicy scandals as well as human interest stories. Twentieth-century journalism was already foreshadowed in the penny press of the 1830's. The New York Sun, founded in 1833, was the first successful penny paper, and it was followed two years later by the New York Herald, published by James Gordon Bennett. Not long after, Horace Greeley issued the New York Tribune, which was destined to become the most influential paper in America. Greeley gave space to the issues that deeply touched the American people before the Civil War-abolitionism, temperance, free homesteads, Utopian cooperative settlements, and the problems of labor. The weekly edition of the Tribune, with 100,000 subscribers, had a remarkable influence in rural areas, especially in Western communities. Americans were reputed to be the most avid readers of periodicals in the world. An English observer enviously calculated that, in 1829, the number of newspapers circulated in Great Britain was enough to reach only one out of every thirty-six inhabitants weekly; Pennsylvania in that same year had a newspaper circulation which reached one out of every four inhabitants weekly. Statistics seemed to justify the common belief that Americans were devoted to periodicals. Newspapers in the United States increased from 1,200 in 1833 to 3,000 by the early 1860's, on the eve of the Civil War. This far exceeded the number and circulation of newspapers in England and France.

Question 41: The word “avid” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to _______.         

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Life originated in the early seas less than a billion years after the Earth was formed. Yet another three billion years were to pass before the first plants and animals appeared on the continents. Life’s transition from the sea to the land was perhaps as much of an evolutionary challenge as was the genesis of life. What forms of life were able to make such a drastic change in lifestyle? The traditional view of the first terrestrial organisms is based on megafossils-relatively large specimens of essentially whole plants and animals. Vascular plants, related to modern seed plants and ferns, left the first comprehensive megafossil record. Because of this, it has been commonly assumed that the sequence of terrestrialization reflected the evolution of modern terrestrial ecosystems. In this view, primitive vascular plants first colonized the margins of continental waters, followed by animals that feed on the plants, and lastly by animals that preyed on the plant-eaters. Moreover, the megafossils suggest that terrestrial life appeared and diversified explosively near the boundary between the Silurian and the Devonian periods, a little more than 400 million years ago. Recently, however, paleontologists have been taking a closer look at the sediments below this Silurian-Devonian geological boundary. It turns out that some fossils can be extracted from these sediments by putting the rocks in an acid bath. The technique has uncovered new evidence form sediments that were deposited near the shores of the ancient oceans- plant microfossils and microscopic pieces of small animals. In many instances the specimens are less than one-tenth of a millimeter in diameter. Although they were entombed in the rocks for hundreds of millions of years, many of them fossils consist of the organic remains of the organism. These newly discovered fossils have not only revealed the existence of previously unknown organisms, but have also pushed back these dates for the invasion of land by multicellular organisms. Our views about the nature of the early plant and animal communities are now being revised. And with those revisions come new speculations about the first terrestrial life-forms.

Question: According to the passage, what happened about 400 million years ago?         

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It is hard to get any agreement on the precise meaning of the term "social class". In everyday life, people tend to have a different approach to those they consider their equals from which they assume with people they consider higher or lower than themselves in social scale. The criteria we use to "place" a new acquaintance, however, are a complex mixture of factors. Dress, way of speaking, area of residence in a given city or province, education and manners all play a part. In ancient civilizations, the Sumerian, for example, which flourished in the lower Euphrates valley from 2000 to 5000 B.C. social differences were based on birth, status or rank, rather than on wealth. Four main classes were recognized. These were the rulers, the priestly administrators, the freemen (such as craftsmen, merchants or farmers) and the slaves. In Greece, after the sixth-century B.C., there was a growing conflict between the peasants and the aristocrats, and a gradual decrease in the power of the aristocracy when a kind of "middle class" of traders and skilled workers grew up. The population of Athens, for example, was divided into three main classes which were politically and legally distinct. About one-third of the total population were slaves, who did not count politically at all, a fact often forgotten by those who praise Athens as the nursery of democracy. The next main group consisted of resident foreigners, the, "metics" who were freemen, though they too were allowed no share in political life. The third group was the powerful body of "citizens”, who were themselves divided into sub-classes. The medieval feudal system, which flourished in Europe from the ninth to the thirteenth century, gave rise to a comparatively simple system based on birth. Under the King , there were two main classes–lords and “vassals”, the latter with many subdivisions. In the later Middle Ages, however, the development of a money economy and the growth of cities and trade led to the rise of another class, the "burghers" or city merchants and mayors. These were the  predecessors of the modern middle classes. Gradually high office and occupation assumed importance in determining social position, as it became more and more possible for a person born to one station in life to move to another. This change affected the towns more than the country areas, where remnants  of feudalism lasted much longer.

Question 37: The four main classes of Sumerian civilization ________.         

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 Family life in the United States is changing. Fifty or sixty years ago, the wife was called a “housewife”. She cleaned, cooked, and cared for the children. The husband earned the money for the family. He was usually out working all day. He came home tired in the evening, so he did not do much housework. And he did not see the children very much, except on weekends.

 These days, however, more and more women work outside the home. They cannot stay with the children all day. They, too, come home tired in the evening. They do not want to spend the evening cooking dinner and cleaning up. They do not have time to clean the house and do the laundry. So who is going to do the housework now? Who is going to take care of the children?

 Many families solve the problem of housework by sharing it. In these families, the husband and wife agree to do different jobs around the house, or they take turns doing each job. For example, the husband always cooks dinner and the wife always does the laundry. Or the wife cooks dinner on some nights and the husband cooks dinner on other nights.

 Then there is the question of the children. In the past, many families got help with child care from grandparents. Now families usually do not live near their relatives. The grandparents are often too far away to help in a regular way. More often, parents have to pay for child care help. The help may be a babysitter or a day-care center. The problem witht his kind of help is the high cost. It is possible only for couples with jobs that pay well.

 Parents may get another kind of help form the companies they work for. Many companies now let people with children work part-time. That way, parents can spend more time with their children. Some husbands may even stop working for a while to stay with the children. For these men there is a new word: they are called “househusbands”. In the USA more and more men are becoming househusbands every year.

 These changes in the home mean changes in the family. Fathers can learn to understand their  children better, and the children can get to know their fathers better. Husbands and wives may also find changes in their marriage. They, too, may have a better understanding of each other.  

Question 39: The word “laundry” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ___________          

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 Choosing a career may be one of the hardest jobs you ever have, and it must be done with care. View a career as an opportunity to do something you love, not simply as a way to earn a living. Investing the time and effort to thoroughly explore your options can mean the difference between finding a stimulating and rewarding career and move from job to unsatisfying job in an attempt to find the right one. Work influences virtually every aspect of your life, from your choice of friends to where you live. Here are just a few of the factors to consider.

 Deciding what matters most to you is essential to making the right decision. You may want to begin by assessing your likes, dislikes, strengths, and weaknesses. Think about the classes, hobbies, and surroundings that you find most appealing. Ask yourself questions, such as "Would you like to travel? Do you want to work with children? Are you more suited to solitary or cooperative work?" There are no right or wrong answers; only you know what is important to you. Determine which job features you require, which ones you would prefer, and which ones you cannot accept. Then rank them in order of importance to you.

 The setting of the job is one factor to take into account. You may not want to sit at a desk all day. If not, there are diversity occupation - building inspector, supervisor, real estate agent - that involve a great deal of time away from the office. Geographical location may be a concern, and employment in some fields is concentrated in certain regions. Advertising job can generally be found only in large cities. On the other hand, many industries such as hospitality, law education, and retail sales are found in all regions of the country.

 If a high salary is important to you, do not judge a career by its starting wages. Many jobs, such as insurance sales, offers relatively low starting salaries; however, pay substantially increases along with your experience, additional training, promotions and commission.

 Don’t rule out any occupation without learning more about it. Some industries evoke positive or negative associations. The traveling life of a flight attendant appears glamorous, while that of a plumber does not. Remember that many jobs are not what they appear to be at first, and may have merits or demerits that are less obvious. Flight attendants must work long, grueling hours without sleeps, whereas plumbers can be as highly paid as some doctors. Another point to consider is that as you get mature, you will likely to develop new interests and skills that may point the way to new opportunities. The choice you make today need not be your final one.

Question 30: The word "assessing” in paragraph 2 could best be replaced by _______.         

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It was once believed that being overweight was healthy, but nowadays few people subscribe to this view point. While many people are fighting the battle to reduce weight, studies are being conducted concerning the appetite and how it is controlled by both emotional and biochemical factors. Some of the conclusion of these studies may give insight into how to deal with weight problems. For example, when several hundred people were asked about their eating habits in times of stress, 44 percent said they reacted to stressful situations by eating. Further investigations with both humans and animals indicated that it is not food which relieves tension but rather the act of chewing. A test in which subjects were blindfolded showed that obese people have a keener sense of taste and crave more flavor food than non-obese people. When deprived of the variety and intensity of tastes, obese people are not satisfied and consequently eat more to fulfill this need. Blood samples taken from these people after they were shown a picture of food revealed that overweight people reacted with an increase in blood insulin, a chemical associated with appetite. This did not happen with average-weight people. In another experiment, results showed that certain people have a specific, biologically induced hunger for carbohydrates. Eating carbohydrates raises the level of serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the brain. Enough serotonin produces a sense of satiation, and hunger for carbohydrates subsides. Exercise has been recommended as an important part of a weight-loss program. However, it has been found that mild exercises, such as using stairs in stead of the elevator, is better in the long run than taking on a strenuous program, such as jogging, which many people find difficult to continue over periods of time and which also increase appetite.

Question: The passage supports which of the following conclusions ?         

Question 45: The word "this" in the second paragraph refers to  

Clara Barton became known as “The Angel of the Battlefield” during the American Civil War. Born in Oxford, Massachusetts in 1821, Clara Barton’s interest in helping soldiers on the battlefield began when she was told army stories from her father. Another event that influenced her decision to help soldiers was an accident her brother had. His injuries were cared for by Barton for 2 years. At the time, she was only 11 years old. Barton began teaching school at the age of 15. She taught for 18 years before she moved to Washington, D.C. in 1854. The civil war broke out 6 years later. Immediately, Barton started war service by helping the soldiers with their needs. At the battle of Bull Run, Clara Barton received permission from the government to take care of the sick and hurt. Barton did this with great empathy and kindness. She acknowledged each soldier as a person. Her endurance and courage on the battlefield were admired by many. When the war ended in 1865, she used 4 years of her life to assist the government in searching for soldiers who were missing during the war. The search for missing soldiers and years of hard work made her feeble physically. In 1869, her doctors recommended a trip to Europe for a rest. While she was on vacation, she became involved with the International Red Cross, an organization set up by the Geneva Convention in 1864. Clara Barton realized that the Red Cross would be a big help to the United States. After she returned to the United States, she worked very hard to create an American Red Cross. She talked to government leaders and let American people know about the Red Cross. In 1881, the National Society of the Red Cross was finally established with its headquarters in Washington, D.C. Clara Barton managed its activities for 23 years. Barton never let her age stop her from helping people. At the age of 79, she helped flood victims in Galveston, Texas. Barton finally resigned from the Red Cross in 1904. She was 92 years old and had truly earned her titled “The Angel of the Battlefield”.    

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Although management principles have been implemented since ancient times, most management scholars trace the beginning of modern management thought back to the early 1900s, beginning with the pioneering work of Frederick Taylor (1856-1915). Taylor was the first person to study work scientifically. He is most famous for introducing techniques of time and motion study, differential piece rate systems, and for systemtically specializing the work of operating employees and managers. Along with other pioneers such as Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, Taylor set the stage, labeling his philosophy and methods “scientific management”. At that time, his philosophy, which was concerned with productivity, but which was often misinterpreted as promoting worker interests at the expense of management, was in marked contrast to the prevailing industrial norms of worker exploitation. The time and motion study concepts were popularized by Frank and Lillian Gilbreth. The Gilbreths had 12 children. By analyzing his children’s dishwashing and bed making chores, this pioneer efficiency expert, Frank Gilbreth, hit on principles whereby workers could eliminate waste motion. He was memorialized by two of his children in their 1949 book called “Cheaper by the Dozen”. The Gilbreth methods included using stop watches to time worker movements and special tools (cameras and special clocks) to monitor and study worker performance, and also involved identification of “therbligs” (Gilbreth spelled backwards) - basic motions used in production jobs. Many of these motions and accompanying times have been used to determine how long it should take a skilled worker to perform a given job. In this way an industrial engineer can get a handle on the approximate time it should take to produce a product or provide a service. However, use of work analysis in this way is unlikely to lead to useful results unless all five work dimensions are considered, physical, psychological, social, cultural, and power.

Question: It can be inferred from the first paragraph that ________.

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Harvard University, today recognized as part of the top echelon of the world's universities, came from very inauspicious and humble beginning.

This oldest of American universities was founded in 1636, just sixteen years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. Included in the Puritan emigrants to the Massachusetts colony during this period were more than 100 graduates of England's prestigious Oxford and Cambridge universities, and these universities graduates in the New Word were determined that their sons would have the same educational opportunities that they themselves had had. Because of this support in the colony for an institution of higher learning, the General Court of Massachusetts appropriated 400 pounds for a college in October of 1636 and early the following year decided on a parcel of land for the school; this land was in an area called Newetowne, which was later renamed Cambridge after its English cousin and is the site of the present-day university.

When a young minister named John Harvard, who came from the neighboring town of Charlestowne, died from tuberculosis in 1638, he willed half of his estate of 1,700 pounds to the fledgling college. In spite of the fact that only half of the bequest was actually paid, the General Court named the college after the minister in appreciation for what he had done. The amount of the bequest may not have been large, particularly by today's standard, but it was more than the General Court had found it necessary to appropriate in order to open the college.

Henry Dunster was appointed the first president of Harvard in 1640, and it should be noted that in addition to serving as president, he was also the entire faculty, with an entering freshmen class of four students. Although the staff did expand somewhat, for the first century of its existence the entire teaching staff consisted of the president and three or four tutors.

Question: It can be inferred from the passage that the Puritans who traveled to the Massachusetts colony were ______________.         

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A survey is a study, generally in the form of an interview or a ques­tionnaire, which provides information concerning how people think and act. In the United States, the best-known surveys are the Gallup poll and the Harris poll. As anyone who watches the news during presiden­tial campaigns knows, these polls have become an important part of political life in the United States.

North Americans are familiar with the many "person on the street" interviews on local television news shows. While such interviews can be highly entertaining, they are not necessarily an accurate indication of public opinion. First, they reflect the opinions of only those people who appear at a certain location. Thus, such samples can be biased in favor of commuters, middle-class shoppers, or factory workers, depending on which area the new people select. Second, television interviews tend to attract outgoing people who are willing to appear on the air, while they frighten away others who may feel intimidated by a camera. A survey must be based on a precise, representative sampling if it is to genu­inely reflect a broad range of the population.

In preparing to conduct a survey, sociologists must exercisegreat care in the wording of questions. An effective survey question must be simple and clear enough for people to understand it. It must also be specific enough so that there are no problems in interpreting the re­sults. Even questions that are less structured must be carefully phrased in order to elicitthe type of information desired. Surveys can be indispensable sources of information, but only if the sampling is done properly and the questions are worded accurately.

There are two main forms of surveys: the interview and the ques­tionnaire. Each of these forms of survey research has its advantages. An interviewer can obtain a high response rate because people find it more difficult to turn down a personal request for an interview than to throw away a written questionnaire. In addition, an interviewer can go beyond written questions and probefor a subject's underlying feelings and reasons. However, questionnaires have the advantage of being cheaper and more consistent.

Question 47: The word "exercise" in line 15 is closest in meaning to         

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There is a strange paradox to the success of the Asian education model. On the one hand, class sizes are huge by Western standards with between 30 and 40 students per class, in countries like Japan and Korea. On the other hand, school children in developed Asian economies rank among the highest in the world for academic achievement in the areas of science and mathematics, especially on standardised tests. Meanwhile, British secondary school students fail to shine in conditions most educational researchers would say are far more likely to help them succeed. Classroom management seems to be easier in places like Korea, and perhaps lessons are more effective as a direct consequence. After all, we are only too aware of the decline in discipline standards in our own school: belligerent and disrespectful students appear to be the norm these days. Teachers in Britain seem powerless to control what happens anymore. Surely this situation cannot create a very effective learning environment, so perhaps the number of students is far less relevant than is the manner in which they conduct themselves. But there are other factors to consider, too. There is the home environment. The traditional family unit still remains relatively intact in Korea. Few children come from broken homes, so there is a sense of security, safety and trust both at home and at school. In Britain meanwhile, one in every two marriages fails and divorce rates are sky high. Perhaps children struggle to cope with unstable family conditions and their only way to express their frustration is by misbehaving at school. But while the Japanese, Korean and Asian models generally do seem to produce excellent results, the statistics don’t tell the whole truth. You see, behind those great maths and science scores, there is a quite remarkable work ethic. Asian students tend to put their education before literally everything else. They do very few extracurricular activities and devote far more time to their studies than their British peers. There has been a lot of attention and praise given to these Asian models and their “impressive” statistics of late. And without question, some of this praise is justified, but it seems to be a case of two extremes in operation here. At one end, there is the discipline and unbelievably hard work ethic of the Asian students – success in education before all else. At the other end, British students at times appear careless and extremely undisciplined by comparison, but at least they do have the free time to enjoy their youth and explore their interests. Is either system better outright? Or is it perhaps about time we stopped comparing and started trying to combine the best bits of both, so that we can finally offer our students a balanced, worthwhile education?   

Question: According to the writer, Asian students_______.