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[
"fun.",
"craze.",
"hysteria.",
"excitement."
]
| The word "mania" (Line 4, Paragraph 2) most probably means | If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in 2006's World Cup tournament, you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk: elite soccer players are more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months. If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this strange phenomenon to be even more pronounced.
What might account for this strange phenomenon? Here are a few guesses: a) certain astrological signs confer superior soccer skills; b) winter-born babies tend to have higher oxygen capacity, which increases soccer stamina; c) soccer-mad parents are more likely to conceive children in springtime, at the annual peak of soccer mania; d) none of the above.
Anders Ericsson, a 58-year-old psychology professor at Florida State University, says he believes strongly in "none of the above." Ericsson grew up in Sweden, and studied nuclear engineering until he realized he would have more opportunity to conduct his own research if he switched to psychology. His first experiment, nearly 30 years ago, involved memory: training a person to hear and then repeat a random series of numbers. "With the first subject, after about 20 hours of training, his digit span had risen from 7 to 20," Ericsson recalls. "He kept improving, and after about 200 hours of training he had risen to over 80 numbers."
This success, coupled with later research showing that memory itself is not genetically determined, led Ericsson to conclude that the act of memorizing is more of a cognitive exercise than an intuitive one. In other words, whatever inborn differences two people may exhibit in their abilities to memorize, those differences are swamped by how well each person "encodes" the information. And the best way to learn how to encode information meaningfully, Ericsson determined, was a process known as deliberate practice. Deliberate practice entails more than simply repeating a task. Rather, it involves setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.
Ericsson and his colleagues have thus taken to studying expert performers in a wide range of pursuits, including soccer. They gather all the data they can, not just performance statistics and biographical details but also the results of their own laboratory experiments with high achievers. Their work makes a rather startling assertion: the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers - whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming - are nearly always made, not born. | 2715.txt | 1 |
[
"depends on meaningful processing of information.",
"results from intuitive rather than cognitive exercises.",
"is determined by genetic rather than psychological factors.",
"requires immediate feedback and a high degree of concentration."
]
| According to Ericsson, good memory | If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in 2006's World Cup tournament, you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk: elite soccer players are more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months. If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this strange phenomenon to be even more pronounced.
What might account for this strange phenomenon? Here are a few guesses: a) certain astrological signs confer superior soccer skills; b) winter-born babies tend to have higher oxygen capacity, which increases soccer stamina; c) soccer-mad parents are more likely to conceive children in springtime, at the annual peak of soccer mania; d) none of the above.
Anders Ericsson, a 58-year-old psychology professor at Florida State University, says he believes strongly in "none of the above." Ericsson grew up in Sweden, and studied nuclear engineering until he realized he would have more opportunity to conduct his own research if he switched to psychology. His first experiment, nearly 30 years ago, involved memory: training a person to hear and then repeat a random series of numbers. "With the first subject, after about 20 hours of training, his digit span had risen from 7 to 20," Ericsson recalls. "He kept improving, and after about 200 hours of training he had risen to over 80 numbers."
This success, coupled with later research showing that memory itself is not genetically determined, led Ericsson to conclude that the act of memorizing is more of a cognitive exercise than an intuitive one. In other words, whatever inborn differences two people may exhibit in their abilities to memorize, those differences are swamped by how well each person "encodes" the information. And the best way to learn how to encode information meaningfully, Ericsson determined, was a process known as deliberate practice. Deliberate practice entails more than simply repeating a task. Rather, it involves setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.
Ericsson and his colleagues have thus taken to studying expert performers in a wide range of pursuits, including soccer. They gather all the data they can, not just performance statistics and biographical details but also the results of their own laboratory experiments with high achievers. Their work makes a rather startling assertion: the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers - whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming - are nearly always made, not born. | 2715.txt | 0 |
[
"talent is a dominating factor for professional success.",
"biographical data provide the key to excellent performance.",
"the role of talent tends to be overlooked.",
"high achievers owe their success mostly to nurture."
]
| Ericsson and his colleagues believe that | If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in 2006's World Cup tournament, you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk: elite soccer players are more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months. If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this strange phenomenon to be even more pronounced.
What might account for this strange phenomenon? Here are a few guesses: a) certain astrological signs confer superior soccer skills; b) winter-born babies tend to have higher oxygen capacity, which increases soccer stamina; c) soccer-mad parents are more likely to conceive children in springtime, at the annual peak of soccer mania; d) none of the above.
Anders Ericsson, a 58-year-old psychology professor at Florida State University, says he believes strongly in "none of the above." Ericsson grew up in Sweden, and studied nuclear engineering until he realized he would have more opportunity to conduct his own research if he switched to psychology. His first experiment, nearly 30 years ago, involved memory: training a person to hear and then repeat a random series of numbers. "With the first subject, after about 20 hours of training, his digit span had risen from 7 to 20," Ericsson recalls. "He kept improving, and after about 200 hours of training he had risen to over 80 numbers."
This success, coupled with later research showing that memory itself is not genetically determined, led Ericsson to conclude that the act of memorizing is more of a cognitive exercise than an intuitive one. In other words, whatever inborn differences two people may exhibit in their abilities to memorize, those differences are swamped by how well each person "encodes" the information. And the best way to learn how to encode information meaningfully, Ericsson determined, was a process known as deliberate practice. Deliberate practice entails more than simply repeating a task. Rather, it involves setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.
Ericsson and his colleagues have thus taken to studying expert performers in a wide range of pursuits, including soccer. They gather all the data they can, not just performance statistics and biographical details but also the results of their own laboratory experiments with high achievers. Their work makes a rather startling assertion: the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers - whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming - are nearly always made, not born. | 2715.txt | 3 |
[
"\"Faith will move mountains.\"",
"\"One reaps what one sows.\"",
"\"Practice makes perfect.\"",
"\"Like father, like son.\""
]
| Which of the following proverbs is closest to the message the text tries to convey? | If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in 2006's World Cup tournament, you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk: elite soccer players are more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months. If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this strange phenomenon to be even more pronounced.
What might account for this strange phenomenon? Here are a few guesses: a) certain astrological signs confer superior soccer skills; b) winter-born babies tend to have higher oxygen capacity, which increases soccer stamina; c) soccer-mad parents are more likely to conceive children in springtime, at the annual peak of soccer mania; d) none of the above.
Anders Ericsson, a 58-year-old psychology professor at Florida State University, says he believes strongly in "none of the above." Ericsson grew up in Sweden, and studied nuclear engineering until he realized he would have more opportunity to conduct his own research if he switched to psychology. His first experiment, nearly 30 years ago, involved memory: training a person to hear and then repeat a random series of numbers. "With the first subject, after about 20 hours of training, his digit span had risen from 7 to 20," Ericsson recalls. "He kept improving, and after about 200 hours of training he had risen to over 80 numbers."
This success, coupled with later research showing that memory itself is not genetically determined, led Ericsson to conclude that the act of memorizing is more of a cognitive exercise than an intuitive one. In other words, whatever inborn differences two people may exhibit in their abilities to memorize, those differences are swamped by how well each person "encodes" the information. And the best way to learn how to encode information meaningfully, Ericsson determined, was a process known as deliberate practice. Deliberate practice entails more than simply repeating a task. Rather, it involves setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.
Ericsson and his colleagues have thus taken to studying expert performers in a wide range of pursuits, including soccer. They gather all the data they can, not just performance statistics and biographical details but also the results of their own laboratory experiments with high achievers. Their work makes a rather startling assertion: the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers - whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming - are nearly always made, not born. | 2715.txt | 2 |
[
"He is one of the missing smugglers.",
"He is one of the persons who made the \"Cuban Adjustment Act\".",
"He is a Cuban.",
"He is the American president."
]
| Who is Fidel Castro? | "American dream? What a lie!" This comment was made by a Cuban teenage girl. She was attending a huge protest in Havana, Cuba, against American immigration laws last Tuesday.
Tens of thousands of people, including Cuba's President, Fidel Castro, took part in the protest to remember 30 missing Cubans, including 13 children. Their boat was lost in the Florida Straits after setting out from Cuba on November 17. It is one of the worst accidents involving Cubans being smuggled into the US. Fourteen people died in the sinking of a smuggler's boat in 1998, and about 40 people died in 1994 when a tugboat sank near Havana. Castro believes that the "Cuban Adjustment Act" is responsible for the 30 people disappearing.
This 1996 law gives special allowances to Cuban immigrants who reach US land by whatever means. It gives them resident's status and chances to work. It is very different from the US policy to immigrants from other countries. Because it encourages illegal immigration and these types of accidents, some called it "the murderous law".
The US uses the so-called "dry foot, wet foot" rule. Those found at sea are sent back to Cuba. But those who set foot on US soil are generally allowed to stay. Castro said that the law encourages Cubans to undertake dangerous sea journeys with the hope of living in the US.
The immigration policy of the US has caused many problems between the US and Cuban. The two countries plan to meet next month to discuss immigration issues. | 2370.txt | 2 |
[
"Because they were not allowed to enter the US.",
"Because their children were missing.",
"Because they wanted to come back to their homeland.",
"Because they were against American immigration laws."
]
| Why did so many people attend the protest? | "American dream? What a lie!" This comment was made by a Cuban teenage girl. She was attending a huge protest in Havana, Cuba, against American immigration laws last Tuesday.
Tens of thousands of people, including Cuba's President, Fidel Castro, took part in the protest to remember 30 missing Cubans, including 13 children. Their boat was lost in the Florida Straits after setting out from Cuba on November 17. It is one of the worst accidents involving Cubans being smuggled into the US. Fourteen people died in the sinking of a smuggler's boat in 1998, and about 40 people died in 1994 when a tugboat sank near Havana. Castro believes that the "Cuban Adjustment Act" is responsible for the 30 people disappearing.
This 1996 law gives special allowances to Cuban immigrants who reach US land by whatever means. It gives them resident's status and chances to work. It is very different from the US policy to immigrants from other countries. Because it encourages illegal immigration and these types of accidents, some called it "the murderous law".
The US uses the so-called "dry foot, wet foot" rule. Those found at sea are sent back to Cuba. But those who set foot on US soil are generally allowed to stay. Castro said that the law encourages Cubans to undertake dangerous sea journeys with the hope of living in the US.
The immigration policy of the US has caused many problems between the US and Cuban. The two countries plan to meet next month to discuss immigration issues. | 2370.txt | 3 |
[
"\"Cuban Adjustment Act\" is a Cuban law.",
"Havana is a place in Cuba.",
"43 people disappeared after they set out on November 17.",
"The American immigration law was made in 1994."
]
| Which of the following is right? | "American dream? What a lie!" This comment was made by a Cuban teenage girl. She was attending a huge protest in Havana, Cuba, against American immigration laws last Tuesday.
Tens of thousands of people, including Cuba's President, Fidel Castro, took part in the protest to remember 30 missing Cubans, including 13 children. Their boat was lost in the Florida Straits after setting out from Cuba on November 17. It is one of the worst accidents involving Cubans being smuggled into the US. Fourteen people died in the sinking of a smuggler's boat in 1998, and about 40 people died in 1994 when a tugboat sank near Havana. Castro believes that the "Cuban Adjustment Act" is responsible for the 30 people disappearing.
This 1996 law gives special allowances to Cuban immigrants who reach US land by whatever means. It gives them resident's status and chances to work. It is very different from the US policy to immigrants from other countries. Because it encourages illegal immigration and these types of accidents, some called it "the murderous law".
The US uses the so-called "dry foot, wet foot" rule. Those found at sea are sent back to Cuba. But those who set foot on US soil are generally allowed to stay. Castro said that the law encourages Cubans to undertake dangerous sea journeys with the hope of living in the US.
The immigration policy of the US has caused many problems between the US and Cuban. The two countries plan to meet next month to discuss immigration issues. | 2370.txt | 1 |
[
"They wanted to live a better life there.",
"They were treated badly in their country.",
"They had relatives in the US.",
"The Americans were very friendly."
]
| Why did so many people want to smuggle into the US? | "American dream? What a lie!" This comment was made by a Cuban teenage girl. She was attending a huge protest in Havana, Cuba, against American immigration laws last Tuesday.
Tens of thousands of people, including Cuba's President, Fidel Castro, took part in the protest to remember 30 missing Cubans, including 13 children. Their boat was lost in the Florida Straits after setting out from Cuba on November 17. It is one of the worst accidents involving Cubans being smuggled into the US. Fourteen people died in the sinking of a smuggler's boat in 1998, and about 40 people died in 1994 when a tugboat sank near Havana. Castro believes that the "Cuban Adjustment Act" is responsible for the 30 people disappearing.
This 1996 law gives special allowances to Cuban immigrants who reach US land by whatever means. It gives them resident's status and chances to work. It is very different from the US policy to immigrants from other countries. Because it encourages illegal immigration and these types of accidents, some called it "the murderous law".
The US uses the so-called "dry foot, wet foot" rule. Those found at sea are sent back to Cuba. But those who set foot on US soil are generally allowed to stay. Castro said that the law encourages Cubans to undertake dangerous sea journeys with the hope of living in the US.
The immigration policy of the US has caused many problems between the US and Cuban. The two countries plan to meet next month to discuss immigration issues. | 2370.txt | 0 |
[
"The two countries plan to meet next month.",
"It is very different from the US policy to immigrants from other countries.",
"Those who set foot on US soil are generally allowed to stay.",
"It encourages Cubans to undertake dangerous sea journeys."
]
| What is the result of "Cuban Adjustment Act" ? | "American dream? What a lie!" This comment was made by a Cuban teenage girl. She was attending a huge protest in Havana, Cuba, against American immigration laws last Tuesday.
Tens of thousands of people, including Cuba's President, Fidel Castro, took part in the protest to remember 30 missing Cubans, including 13 children. Their boat was lost in the Florida Straits after setting out from Cuba on November 17. It is one of the worst accidents involving Cubans being smuggled into the US. Fourteen people died in the sinking of a smuggler's boat in 1998, and about 40 people died in 1994 when a tugboat sank near Havana. Castro believes that the "Cuban Adjustment Act" is responsible for the 30 people disappearing.
This 1996 law gives special allowances to Cuban immigrants who reach US land by whatever means. It gives them resident's status and chances to work. It is very different from the US policy to immigrants from other countries. Because it encourages illegal immigration and these types of accidents, some called it "the murderous law".
The US uses the so-called "dry foot, wet foot" rule. Those found at sea are sent back to Cuba. But those who set foot on US soil are generally allowed to stay. Castro said that the law encourages Cubans to undertake dangerous sea journeys with the hope of living in the US.
The immigration policy of the US has caused many problems between the US and Cuban. The two countries plan to meet next month to discuss immigration issues. | 2370.txt | 3 |
[
"no drive and ambition",
"no electric lighting",
"the best sleep habits",
"nothing to do in the evening"
]
| People in the 18th and 19th centuries used to sleep about 9.5 hours a night because they had ________. | Judging from recent surveys, most experts in sleep behavior agree that there is virtually an epidemic of sleepiness in the nation. "I can't think of a single study that hasn't found Americans getting less sleep than they ought to," says Dr. David. Even people who think they are sleeping enough would probably be better off with more rest.
The beginning of our sleep-deficit crisis can be traced to the invention of the light bulb a century ago. From diary entries and other personal accounts from the 18th and 19th centuries, sleep scientists have reached the conclusion that the average person used to sleep about 9.5 hours a night. "The best sleep habits once were forced on us, when we had nothing to do in the evening down on the farm, and it was dark." By the 1950s and 1960s, the sleep schedule had been reduced dramatically, to between 7.5 and eight hours, and most people had to wake to an alarm clock. "People cheat on their sleep, and they don't even realize they're doing it," says Dr. David. "They think they're okay because they can get by on 6.5 hours, when they really need 7.5, eight or even more to feel ideally vigorous."
Perhaps the most merciless robber of sleep, researchers say is the complexity of the day. Whenever pressures from work, family, friends and community mount, many people consider sleep the least expensive item on his programme. "In our society, you're considered dynamic if you say you only need 5.5 hours' sleep. If you're got to get 8.5 hours, people think you lack drive and ambition."
To determine the consequences of sleep deficit, researchers have put subjects through a set of psychological and performance tests requiring them, for instance, to add columns of numbers or recall a passage read to them only minutes earlier. "We've found that if you're in sleep deficit, performance suffers," says Dr. David. "Short-term memory is weakened, as are abilities to make decisions and to concentrate." | 1497.txt | 1 |
[
"are ideally vigorous even under the pressure of life",
"often neglect the consequences of sleep deficit",
"do not know how to relax themselves properly",
"can get by on 6.5 hours of sleep"
]
| According to Dr. David, Americans ________. | Judging from recent surveys, most experts in sleep behavior agree that there is virtually an epidemic of sleepiness in the nation. "I can't think of a single study that hasn't found Americans getting less sleep than they ought to," says Dr. David. Even people who think they are sleeping enough would probably be better off with more rest.
The beginning of our sleep-deficit crisis can be traced to the invention of the light bulb a century ago. From diary entries and other personal accounts from the 18th and 19th centuries, sleep scientists have reached the conclusion that the average person used to sleep about 9.5 hours a night. "The best sleep habits once were forced on us, when we had nothing to do in the evening down on the farm, and it was dark." By the 1950s and 1960s, the sleep schedule had been reduced dramatically, to between 7.5 and eight hours, and most people had to wake to an alarm clock. "People cheat on their sleep, and they don't even realize they're doing it," says Dr. David. "They think they're okay because they can get by on 6.5 hours, when they really need 7.5, eight or even more to feel ideally vigorous."
Perhaps the most merciless robber of sleep, researchers say is the complexity of the day. Whenever pressures from work, family, friends and community mount, many people consider sleep the least expensive item on his programme. "In our society, you're considered dynamic if you say you only need 5.5 hours' sleep. If you're got to get 8.5 hours, people think you lack drive and ambition."
To determine the consequences of sleep deficit, researchers have put subjects through a set of psychological and performance tests requiring them, for instance, to add columns of numbers or recall a passage read to them only minutes earlier. "We've found that if you're in sleep deficit, performance suffers," says Dr. David. "Short-term memory is weakened, as are abilities to make decisions and to concentrate." | 1497.txt | 1 |
[
"sleep is the first thing that can be sacrificed when one is busy",
"they need more sleep to cope with the complexities of everyday life",
"to sleep is something one can do at any time of the day",
"enough sleep promotes people's drive and ambition"
]
| Many Americans believe that ________. | Judging from recent surveys, most experts in sleep behavior agree that there is virtually an epidemic of sleepiness in the nation. "I can't think of a single study that hasn't found Americans getting less sleep than they ought to," says Dr. David. Even people who think they are sleeping enough would probably be better off with more rest.
The beginning of our sleep-deficit crisis can be traced to the invention of the light bulb a century ago. From diary entries and other personal accounts from the 18th and 19th centuries, sleep scientists have reached the conclusion that the average person used to sleep about 9.5 hours a night. "The best sleep habits once were forced on us, when we had nothing to do in the evening down on the farm, and it was dark." By the 1950s and 1960s, the sleep schedule had been reduced dramatically, to between 7.5 and eight hours, and most people had to wake to an alarm clock. "People cheat on their sleep, and they don't even realize they're doing it," says Dr. David. "They think they're okay because they can get by on 6.5 hours, when they really need 7.5, eight or even more to feel ideally vigorous."
Perhaps the most merciless robber of sleep, researchers say is the complexity of the day. Whenever pressures from work, family, friends and community mount, many people consider sleep the least expensive item on his programme. "In our society, you're considered dynamic if you say you only need 5.5 hours' sleep. If you're got to get 8.5 hours, people think you lack drive and ambition."
To determine the consequences of sleep deficit, researchers have put subjects through a set of psychological and performance tests requiring them, for instance, to add columns of numbers or recall a passage read to them only minutes earlier. "We've found that if you're in sleep deficit, performance suffers," says Dr. David. "Short-term memory is weakened, as are abilities to make decisions and to concentrate." | 1497.txt | 0 |
[
"the performance tests used in the study of sleep deficit",
"special branches of knowledge that are being studied",
"people whose behavior or reactions are being studied",
"the psychological consequences of sleep deficit"
]
| The word "subjects" (Line 1, Para. 4) refers to ________. | Judging from recent surveys, most experts in sleep behavior agree that there is virtually an epidemic of sleepiness in the nation. "I can't think of a single study that hasn't found Americans getting less sleep than they ought to," says Dr. David. Even people who think they are sleeping enough would probably be better off with more rest.
The beginning of our sleep-deficit crisis can be traced to the invention of the light bulb a century ago. From diary entries and other personal accounts from the 18th and 19th centuries, sleep scientists have reached the conclusion that the average person used to sleep about 9.5 hours a night. "The best sleep habits once were forced on us, when we had nothing to do in the evening down on the farm, and it was dark." By the 1950s and 1960s, the sleep schedule had been reduced dramatically, to between 7.5 and eight hours, and most people had to wake to an alarm clock. "People cheat on their sleep, and they don't even realize they're doing it," says Dr. David. "They think they're okay because they can get by on 6.5 hours, when they really need 7.5, eight or even more to feel ideally vigorous."
Perhaps the most merciless robber of sleep, researchers say is the complexity of the day. Whenever pressures from work, family, friends and community mount, many people consider sleep the least expensive item on his programme. "In our society, you're considered dynamic if you say you only need 5.5 hours' sleep. If you're got to get 8.5 hours, people think you lack drive and ambition."
To determine the consequences of sleep deficit, researchers have put subjects through a set of psychological and performance tests requiring them, for instance, to add columns of numbers or recall a passage read to them only minutes earlier. "We've found that if you're in sleep deficit, performance suffers," says Dr. David. "Short-term memory is weakened, as are abilities to make decisions and to concentrate." | 1497.txt | 2 |
[
"improve one's memory dramatically",
"be considered dynamic by other people",
"maintain one's daily schedule",
"feel energetic and perform adequately"
]
| It can be concluded from the passage that one should sleep as many hours as is necessary to ________. | Judging from recent surveys, most experts in sleep behavior agree that there is virtually an epidemic of sleepiness in the nation. "I can't think of a single study that hasn't found Americans getting less sleep than they ought to," says Dr. David. Even people who think they are sleeping enough would probably be better off with more rest.
The beginning of our sleep-deficit crisis can be traced to the invention of the light bulb a century ago. From diary entries and other personal accounts from the 18th and 19th centuries, sleep scientists have reached the conclusion that the average person used to sleep about 9.5 hours a night. "The best sleep habits once were forced on us, when we had nothing to do in the evening down on the farm, and it was dark." By the 1950s and 1960s, the sleep schedule had been reduced dramatically, to between 7.5 and eight hours, and most people had to wake to an alarm clock. "People cheat on their sleep, and they don't even realize they're doing it," says Dr. David. "They think they're okay because they can get by on 6.5 hours, when they really need 7.5, eight or even more to feel ideally vigorous."
Perhaps the most merciless robber of sleep, researchers say is the complexity of the day. Whenever pressures from work, family, friends and community mount, many people consider sleep the least expensive item on his programme. "In our society, you're considered dynamic if you say you only need 5.5 hours' sleep. If you're got to get 8.5 hours, people think you lack drive and ambition."
To determine the consequences of sleep deficit, researchers have put subjects through a set of psychological and performance tests requiring them, for instance, to add columns of numbers or recall a passage read to them only minutes earlier. "We've found that if you're in sleep deficit, performance suffers," says Dr. David. "Short-term memory is weakened, as are abilities to make decisions and to concentrate." | 1497.txt | 3 |
[
"They fail to convert knowledge into money.",
"They do not regard it as their responsibility.",
"They still have a place among the world leaders.",
"They have lost their leading position in many ways."
]
| What does the author think of UK universities in terms of commercialisation? | A recurring criticism of the UK's university sector is its perceived weakness in translating new knowledge into new products and services.
Recently, the UK National Stem Cell Network warned the UK could lose its place among the world leaders in stem cell research unless adequate funding and legislation could be assured. We should take this concern seriously as universities are key in the national innovation system.
However, we do have to challenge the unthinking complaint that the sector does not do enough in taking ideas to market. The most recent comparative data on the performance of universities and research institutions in Australia, Canada, USA and UK shows that, from a relatively weak startingposition, the UK now leads on many indicators of commercialisation activity.
When viewed at the national level, the policy interventions of the past decade have helpedtransform the performance of UK universities. Evidence suggests the UK's position is much stronger than in the recent past and is still showing improvement. But national data masks the very largevariation in the performance of individual universities. The evidence shows that a large number ofuniversities have fallen off the back of the pack, a few perform strongly and the rest chase theleaders.
This type of uneven distribution is not peculiar to the UK and is mirrored across other economies. In the UK, research is concentrated: less than 25% of universities receive 75% of the research funding. These same universities are also the institutions producing the greatest share of PhD graduates, science citations, patents and licence income. The effect of policies generating long-term resource concentration has also created a distinctive set of universities which are research-led and commercially active. It seems clear that the concentration of research and commercialisation work creates differences between universities.
The core objective for universities which are research-led must be to maximise the impact oftheir research efforts. These universities should be generating the widest range of social, economic and environmental benefits. In return for the scale of investment, they should share their expertise in order to build greater confidence in the sector.
Part of the economic recovery of the UK will be driven by the next generation of research commercialisation spilling out of our universities. There are three dozen universities in the UKwhich are actively engaged in advanced research training and commercialisation work.
If there was a greater coordination of technology transfer offices within regions and a simultaneous investment in the scale and functions of our graduate schools, universities could, and should, play a key role in positioning the UK for the next growth cycle. | 1136.txt | 0 |
[
"It masks the fatal weaknesses of government policy.",
"It does not rank UK universities in a scientific way.",
"It does not reflect the differences among universities.",
"It indicates their ineffective use of government resources."
]
| What does the author say about the national data on UK universities' performance in commercialisation? | A recurring criticism of the UK's university sector is its perceived weakness in translating new knowledge into new products and services.
Recently, the UK National Stem Cell Network warned the UK could lose its place among the world leaders in stem cell research unless adequate funding and legislation could be assured. We should take this concern seriously as universities are key in the national innovation system.
However, we do have to challenge the unthinking complaint that the sector does not do enough in taking ideas to market. The most recent comparative data on the performance of universities and research institutions in Australia, Canada, USA and UK shows that, from a relatively weak startingposition, the UK now leads on many indicators of commercialisation activity.
When viewed at the national level, the policy interventions of the past decade have helpedtransform the performance of UK universities. Evidence suggests the UK's position is much stronger than in the recent past and is still showing improvement. But national data masks the very largevariation in the performance of individual universities. The evidence shows that a large number ofuniversities have fallen off the back of the pack, a few perform strongly and the rest chase theleaders.
This type of uneven distribution is not peculiar to the UK and is mirrored across other economies. In the UK, research is concentrated: less than 25% of universities receive 75% of the research funding. These same universities are also the institutions producing the greatest share of PhD graduates, science citations, patents and licence income. The effect of policies generating long-term resource concentration has also created a distinctive set of universities which are research-led and commercially active. It seems clear that the concentration of research and commercialisation work creates differences between universities.
The core objective for universities which are research-led must be to maximise the impact oftheir research efforts. These universities should be generating the widest range of social, economic and environmental benefits. In return for the scale of investment, they should share their expertise in order to build greater confidence in the sector.
Part of the economic recovery of the UK will be driven by the next generation of research commercialisation spilling out of our universities. There are three dozen universities in the UKwhich are actively engaged in advanced research training and commercialisation work.
If there was a greater coordination of technology transfer offices within regions and a simultaneous investment in the scale and functions of our graduate schools, universities could, and should, play a key role in positioning the UK for the next growth cycle. | 1136.txt | 1 |
[
"government aid to non-research-oriented universities",
"compulsory cooperation between universities and industries",
"fair distribution of funding for universities and research institutions",
"concentration of resources in a limited number of universities"
]
| We can infer from Paragraph 5 that "policy interventions" (Line 1, Para. 4) refers to _____. | A recurring criticism of the UK's university sector is its perceived weakness in translating new knowledge into new products and services.
Recently, the UK National Stem Cell Network warned the UK could lose its place among the world leaders in stem cell research unless adequate funding and legislation could be assured. We should take this concern seriously as universities are key in the national innovation system.
However, we do have to challenge the unthinking complaint that the sector does not do enough in taking ideas to market. The most recent comparative data on the performance of universities and research institutions in Australia, Canada, USA and UK shows that, from a relatively weak startingposition, the UK now leads on many indicators of commercialisation activity.
When viewed at the national level, the policy interventions of the past decade have helpedtransform the performance of UK universities. Evidence suggests the UK's position is much stronger than in the recent past and is still showing improvement. But national data masks the very largevariation in the performance of individual universities. The evidence shows that a large number ofuniversities have fallen off the back of the pack, a few perform strongly and the rest chase theleaders.
This type of uneven distribution is not peculiar to the UK and is mirrored across other economies. In the UK, research is concentrated: less than 25% of universities receive 75% of the research funding. These same universities are also the institutions producing the greatest share of PhD graduates, science citations, patents and licence income. The effect of policies generating long-term resource concentration has also created a distinctive set of universities which are research-led and commercially active. It seems clear that the concentration of research and commercialisation work creates differences between universities.
The core objective for universities which are research-led must be to maximise the impact oftheir research efforts. These universities should be generating the widest range of social, economic and environmental benefits. In return for the scale of investment, they should share their expertise in order to build greater confidence in the sector.
Part of the economic recovery of the UK will be driven by the next generation of research commercialisation spilling out of our universities. There are three dozen universities in the UKwhich are actively engaged in advanced research training and commercialisation work.
If there was a greater coordination of technology transfer offices within regions and a simultaneous investment in the scale and functions of our graduate schools, universities could, and should, play a key role in positioning the UK for the next growth cycle. | 1136.txt | 0 |
[
"Publicise their research to win international recognition.",
"Fully utilise their research to benefit all sectors of society.",
"Generously share their facilities with those short of funds.",
"Spread their influence among top research institutions."
]
| What does the author suggest research-led universities do? | A recurring criticism of the UK's university sector is its perceived weakness in translating new knowledge into new products and services.
Recently, the UK National Stem Cell Network warned the UK could lose its place among the world leaders in stem cell research unless adequate funding and legislation could be assured. We should take this concern seriously as universities are key in the national innovation system.
However, we do have to challenge the unthinking complaint that the sector does not do enough in taking ideas to market. The most recent comparative data on the performance of universities and research institutions in Australia, Canada, USA and UK shows that, from a relatively weak startingposition, the UK now leads on many indicators of commercialisation activity.
When viewed at the national level, the policy interventions of the past decade have helpedtransform the performance of UK universities. Evidence suggests the UK's position is much stronger than in the recent past and is still showing improvement. But national data masks the very largevariation in the performance of individual universities. The evidence shows that a large number ofuniversities have fallen off the back of the pack, a few perform strongly and the rest chase theleaders.
This type of uneven distribution is not peculiar to the UK and is mirrored across other economies. In the UK, research is concentrated: less than 25% of universities receive 75% of the research funding. These same universities are also the institutions producing the greatest share of PhD graduates, science citations, patents and licence income. The effect of policies generating long-term resource concentration has also created a distinctive set of universities which are research-led and commercially active. It seems clear that the concentration of research and commercialisation work creates differences between universities.
The core objective for universities which are research-led must be to maximise the impact oftheir research efforts. These universities should be generating the widest range of social, economic and environmental benefits. In return for the scale of investment, they should share their expertise in order to build greater confidence in the sector.
Part of the economic recovery of the UK will be driven by the next generation of research commercialisation spilling out of our universities. There are three dozen universities in the UKwhich are actively engaged in advanced research training and commercialisation work.
If there was a greater coordination of technology transfer offices within regions and a simultaneous investment in the scale and functions of our graduate schools, universities could, and should, play a key role in positioning the UK for the next growth cycle. | 1136.txt | 0 |
[
"By establishing more regional technology transfer offices.",
"By asking the government to invest in technology transfer research.",
"By promoting technology transfer and graduate school education.",
"By increasing the efficiency of technology transfer agencies."
]
| How can the university sector play a key role in the UK's economic growth? | A recurring criticism of the UK's university sector is its perceived weakness in translating new knowledge into new products and services.
Recently, the UK National Stem Cell Network warned the UK could lose its place among the world leaders in stem cell research unless adequate funding and legislation could be assured. We should take this concern seriously as universities are key in the national innovation system.
However, we do have to challenge the unthinking complaint that the sector does not do enough in taking ideas to market. The most recent comparative data on the performance of universities and research institutions in Australia, Canada, USA and UK shows that, from a relatively weak startingposition, the UK now leads on many indicators of commercialisation activity.
When viewed at the national level, the policy interventions of the past decade have helpedtransform the performance of UK universities. Evidence suggests the UK's position is much stronger than in the recent past and is still showing improvement. But national data masks the very largevariation in the performance of individual universities. The evidence shows that a large number ofuniversities have fallen off the back of the pack, a few perform strongly and the rest chase theleaders.
This type of uneven distribution is not peculiar to the UK and is mirrored across other economies. In the UK, research is concentrated: less than 25% of universities receive 75% of the research funding. These same universities are also the institutions producing the greatest share of PhD graduates, science citations, patents and licence income. The effect of policies generating long-term resource concentration has also created a distinctive set of universities which are research-led and commercially active. It seems clear that the concentration of research and commercialisation work creates differences between universities.
The core objective for universities which are research-led must be to maximise the impact oftheir research efforts. These universities should be generating the widest range of social, economic and environmental benefits. In return for the scale of investment, they should share their expertise in order to build greater confidence in the sector.
Part of the economic recovery of the UK will be driven by the next generation of research commercialisation spilling out of our universities. There are three dozen universities in the UKwhich are actively engaged in advanced research training and commercialisation work.
If there was a greater coordination of technology transfer offices within regions and a simultaneous investment in the scale and functions of our graduate schools, universities could, and should, play a key role in positioning the UK for the next growth cycle. | 1136.txt | 2 |
[
"are paid little attention to in many urban centers.",
"help make communities clean and tidy.",
"have nothing to do with the sanitation of communities.",
"are inactive in many urban centers."
]
| Waste recycling programs | In many urban centers throughout the world, vibrant waste recycling programs aren't just eco-minded niceties, but they serve an essential role in keeping communities clean and clutter-free. But thanks to one forward-thinking initiative in the Brazilian city of Jundiaí, trading in trash has never been tastier.
Ten years ago, the city's Municipal Utilities D epartment launched "Delicious Recycling", a program aimed at enc ouraging residents to get into the habit of
collecting recyclable waste in exchange for fresh vegetables, grown locally in a public-run garden - and boy did it take off. Today, the garden boasts more than 30 thousand plants to meet the demand of thousands of veggie-loving recyclers, turning aluminum cans and plastic bottles into edible greens.
Ultimately, the program has done wonders for the health of the environment as well, by ridding the city of improperly disposed waste.
"What once cluttered and even choked the flow of water from storm drains is today used as currency for healthy food," local mayor Miguel Haddad tells Jundiaí Online. "Everybody wins with this."
As innovative as Jundiaí's "Delic i ous Recycling" may seem, it's actually not the first of its kind, but given the program's success, it's no wonder why though a number of other Brazilian municipalities offer similar incentives to reward recyclers with food, the idea seems to be catching internationally - like in Mexico City, where residents recently exchanged trash for nearly three tons of vegetables! | 524.txt | 1 |
[
"to teach residents how to make delicious food.",
"to reward residents who do well in classifying rubbish.",
"to encourage residents to trade recyclable waste for meat or vegetables.",
"to encourage residents to trade recyclable waste for vegetables."
]
| The purpose of "Delicious Recycling" is | In many urban centers throughout the world, vibrant waste recycling programs aren't just eco-minded niceties, but they serve an essential role in keeping communities clean and clutter-free. But thanks to one forward-thinking initiative in the Brazilian city of Jundiaí, trading in trash has never been tastier.
Ten years ago, the city's Municipal Utilities D epartment launched "Delicious Recycling", a program aimed at enc ouraging residents to get into the habit of
collecting recyclable waste in exchange for fresh vegetables, grown locally in a public-run garden - and boy did it take off. Today, the garden boasts more than 30 thousand plants to meet the demand of thousands of veggie-loving recyclers, turning aluminum cans and plastic bottles into edible greens.
Ultimately, the program has done wonders for the health of the environment as well, by ridding the city of improperly disposed waste.
"What once cluttered and even choked the flow of water from storm drains is today used as currency for healthy food," local mayor Miguel Haddad tells Jundiaí Online. "Everybody wins with this."
As innovative as Jundiaí's "Delic i ous Recycling" may seem, it's actually not the first of its kind, but given the program's success, it's no wonder why though a number of other Brazilian municipalities offer similar incentives to reward recyclers with food, the idea seems to be catching internationally - like in Mexico City, where residents recently exchanged trash for nearly three tons of vegetables! | 524.txt | 3 |
[
"water in storm drains is flowing more freely than before because the trash in it has been removed.",
"water in storm drains can be exchanged for healthy food.",
"water in storm drains is essential to the growing of fresh vegetables.",
"there is more trash in storm drains now than there used to be."
]
| According to local mayor Miguel Haddad, | In many urban centers throughout the world, vibrant waste recycling programs aren't just eco-minded niceties, but they serve an essential role in keeping communities clean and clutter-free. But thanks to one forward-thinking initiative in the Brazilian city of Jundiaí, trading in trash has never been tastier.
Ten years ago, the city's Municipal Utilities D epartment launched "Delicious Recycling", a program aimed at enc ouraging residents to get into the habit of
collecting recyclable waste in exchange for fresh vegetables, grown locally in a public-run garden - and boy did it take off. Today, the garden boasts more than 30 thousand plants to meet the demand of thousands of veggie-loving recyclers, turning aluminum cans and plastic bottles into edible greens.
Ultimately, the program has done wonders for the health of the environment as well, by ridding the city of improperly disposed waste.
"What once cluttered and even choked the flow of water from storm drains is today used as currency for healthy food," local mayor Miguel Haddad tells Jundiaí Online. "Everybody wins with this."
As innovative as Jundiaí's "Delic i ous Recycling" may seem, it's actually not the first of its kind, but given the program's success, it's no wonder why though a number of other Brazilian municipalities offer similar incentives to reward recyclers with food, the idea seems to be catching internationally - like in Mexico City, where residents recently exchanged trash for nearly three tons of vegetables! | 524.txt | 0 |
[
"\"Delic i ous Recycling\" has failed to achieve the desired result.",
"There are no waste recycling programs in other Brazilian municipalities.",
"Mexico City is probably imitating Jundiaí's \"Delicious Recycling\".",
"Waste recycling programs in other Brazilian municipalities are more successful than Jundiaí's \"Delicious Recycling\"."
]
| What can be inferred from the last paragraph? | In many urban centers throughout the world, vibrant waste recycling programs aren't just eco-minded niceties, but they serve an essential role in keeping communities clean and clutter-free. But thanks to one forward-thinking initiative in the Brazilian city of Jundiaí, trading in trash has never been tastier.
Ten years ago, the city's Municipal Utilities D epartment launched "Delicious Recycling", a program aimed at enc ouraging residents to get into the habit of
collecting recyclable waste in exchange for fresh vegetables, grown locally in a public-run garden - and boy did it take off. Today, the garden boasts more than 30 thousand plants to meet the demand of thousands of veggie-loving recyclers, turning aluminum cans and plastic bottles into edible greens.
Ultimately, the program has done wonders for the health of the environment as well, by ridding the city of improperly disposed waste.
"What once cluttered and even choked the flow of water from storm drains is today used as currency for healthy food," local mayor Miguel Haddad tells Jundiaí Online. "Everybody wins with this."
As innovative as Jundiaí's "Delic i ous Recycling" may seem, it's actually not the first of its kind, but given the program's success, it's no wonder why though a number of other Brazilian municipalities offer similar incentives to reward recyclers with food, the idea seems to be catching internationally - like in Mexico City, where residents recently exchanged trash for nearly three tons of vegetables! | 524.txt | 2 |
[
"Paul Newman wanted it.",
"The studio powers didn't like his agent.",
"He wasn't famous enough.",
"The director recommended someone else."
]
| Why was the studio unwilling to give the role to author at first? | I first met Paul Newman in 1968, when George Roy Hill, the director of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, introduced us in New York City. When the studio didn't want me for the film - it wanted somebody as well known as Paul - he stood up for me. I don't know how many people would have done that; they would have listened to their agents or the studio powers.
The friendship that grew out of the experience of making that film and The Sting four years later had its root in the fact that although there was an age difference, we both came from a tradition of theater and live TV. We were respectful of craftand focused on digging into the characters we were going to play. Both of us had the qualities and virtues that are typical of American actors: humorous, aggressive, and making fun of each other - but always with an underlying affection. Those were also at the coreof our relationship off the screen.
We shared the brief that if you're fortunate enough to have success, you should put something back - he with his Newman's Own food and his Hole in the Wall camps for kids who are seriously ill, and me with Sundance and the institute and the festival. Paul and I didn't see each other all that regularly, but sharing that brought us together. We supported each other financially and by showing up at events.
I last saw him a few months ago. He'd been in zxx.k and out of the hospital.He and I both knew what the deal was,and we didn't talk about it.Ours was a relationship that didn't need a lot of words. | 3697.txt | 2 |
[
"They were of the same dge.",
"They worked in the same theater.",
"They were both good actors.",
"They han similar charactertics."
]
| Why did Paul and the author have a lasting friendship? | I first met Paul Newman in 1968, when George Roy Hill, the director of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, introduced us in New York City. When the studio didn't want me for the film - it wanted somebody as well known as Paul - he stood up for me. I don't know how many people would have done that; they would have listened to their agents or the studio powers.
The friendship that grew out of the experience of making that film and The Sting four years later had its root in the fact that although there was an age difference, we both came from a tradition of theater and live TV. We were respectful of craftand focused on digging into the characters we were going to play. Both of us had the qualities and virtues that are typical of American actors: humorous, aggressive, and making fun of each other - but always with an underlying affection. Those were also at the coreof our relationship off the screen.
We shared the brief that if you're fortunate enough to have success, you should put something back - he with his Newman's Own food and his Hole in the Wall camps for kids who are seriously ill, and me with Sundance and the institute and the festival. Paul and I didn't see each other all that regularly, but sharing that brought us together. We supported each other financially and by showing up at events.
I last saw him a few months ago. He'd been in zxx.k and out of the hospital.He and I both knew what the deal was,and we didn't talk about it.Ours was a relationship that didn't need a lot of words. | 3697.txt | 3 |
[
"To show his love of films.",
"To remember a friend.",
"To introduce a new movie.",
"To share his acting experience."
]
| What is the author's purpose in writing the test? | I first met Paul Newman in 1968, when George Roy Hill, the director of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, introduced us in New York City. When the studio didn't want me for the film - it wanted somebody as well known as Paul - he stood up for me. I don't know how many people would have done that; they would have listened to their agents or the studio powers.
The friendship that grew out of the experience of making that film and The Sting four years later had its root in the fact that although there was an age difference, we both came from a tradition of theater and live TV. We were respectful of craftand focused on digging into the characters we were going to play. Both of us had the qualities and virtues that are typical of American actors: humorous, aggressive, and making fun of each other - but always with an underlying affection. Those were also at the coreof our relationship off the screen.
We shared the brief that if you're fortunate enough to have success, you should put something back - he with his Newman's Own food and his Hole in the Wall camps for kids who are seriously ill, and me with Sundance and the institute and the festival. Paul and I didn't see each other all that regularly, but sharing that brought us together. We supported each other financially and by showing up at events.
I last saw him a few months ago. He'd been in zxx.k and out of the hospital.He and I both knew what the deal was,and we didn't talk about it.Ours was a relationship that didn't need a lot of words. | 3697.txt | 1 |
[
"has many large squares.",
"has many very magnificent sky-scrapers.",
"draws tourists in large numbers every year.",
"has a center where tourists meet their spouses."
]
| It can be inferred from the first paragraph that each big city in Europe | Centers of the Great European Cities
The centers of the great cities of Europe are meeting places by tradition. People gather there to drink coffee and chat late into the night. A mixture of locals and tourists make for an exciting,metropolitan atmosphere.
Squares, plazas and arcades form the heart of Europe's cities.
Venice in Italy has the Piazza San Marco-- a beautiful square surrounded by shops, churches,restaurants and cafes. In Barcelona, Spain, La Bosqueria is a lively market with hundreds of stalls selling all kinds of goods. London's Covent Garden is filled with fruit and vegetable stalls by day and musicians, acrobats and artists by night. The government buildings at.the center of ma.ny cities often are architecturally impressive. In London, they serve as a beautiful backdrop to the coffee tables that line the streets and the banks of the Thames.
These vibrant ( ) hearts are the product of centuries of evolution, social historian Joel Garreau told US News and Worm Report recently. "The reason people think Venice is so great today is you don't see all the mistakes." said Garreau. "Those have all been removed." Most European cities were laid out before the invention of the car, so bars, restaurants and cafes were near to people's homes. Today, the focus of many Europeans' life has moved away from the centers They live in the suburbs and outskirts, driving to supermarkets to get their supplies. But on a continent where people treasure convention, there are still those who hold onto traditional ways,living and shopping locally. These people, together with tourists, provide the city centers with their reason for existence.
Coffee culture plays a part in keeping these city centers flourishing. This is particularly true of Paris whose citizens are famous enthusiastic conversationalists. This skill is developed over many hours spent chatting over espressos and cigarettes.
Religion also plays a role in developing sociable atmosphere. People in Roman Catholic countries used to visit the church on an almost daily basis. Entire communities would gather in the same building and then move out to the markets, cafes and bars in the surrounding streets. An enormous example of this relationship between church and society is the Duomo. The huge marble cathedral in Florence, Italy is surrounded by bakeries and coffee shops, and caters not only to the tourist crowds, but also the local community. | 1250.txt | 2 |
[
"It is crowded with people.",
"It is located in London.",
"It is filled with stalls.",
"It is surrounded by shops, churches, restaurants and cafes."
]
| Which statement is NOT true of Covent Garden? | Centers of the Great European Cities
The centers of the great cities of Europe are meeting places by tradition. People gather there to drink coffee and chat late into the night. A mixture of locals and tourists make for an exciting,metropolitan atmosphere.
Squares, plazas and arcades form the heart of Europe's cities.
Venice in Italy has the Piazza San Marco-- a beautiful square surrounded by shops, churches,restaurants and cafes. In Barcelona, Spain, La Bosqueria is a lively market with hundreds of stalls selling all kinds of goods. London's Covent Garden is filled with fruit and vegetable stalls by day and musicians, acrobats and artists by night. The government buildings at.the center of ma.ny cities often are architecturally impressive. In London, they serve as a beautiful backdrop to the coffee tables that line the streets and the banks of the Thames.
These vibrant ( ) hearts are the product of centuries of evolution, social historian Joel Garreau told US News and Worm Report recently. "The reason people think Venice is so great today is you don't see all the mistakes." said Garreau. "Those have all been removed." Most European cities were laid out before the invention of the car, so bars, restaurants and cafes were near to people's homes. Today, the focus of many Europeans' life has moved away from the centers They live in the suburbs and outskirts, driving to supermarkets to get their supplies. But on a continent where people treasure convention, there are still those who hold onto traditional ways,living and shopping locally. These people, together with tourists, provide the city centers with their reason for existence.
Coffee culture plays a part in keeping these city centers flourishing. This is particularly true of Paris whose citizens are famous enthusiastic conversationalists. This skill is developed over many hours spent chatting over espressos and cigarettes.
Religion also plays a role in developing sociable atmosphere. People in Roman Catholic countries used to visit the church on an almost daily basis. Entire communities would gather in the same building and then move out to the markets, cafes and bars in the surrounding streets. An enormous example of this relationship between church and society is the Duomo. The huge marble cathedral in Florence, Italy is surrounded by bakeries and coffee shops, and caters not only to the tourist crowds, but also the local community. | 1250.txt | 3 |
[
"Because it is a famous tourist attraction.",
"Because you can reach anywhere by boat.",
"Because it is well-known for its merchants.",
"Because all the mistakes have been removed."
]
| Why do people think that Venice is so great? | Centers of the Great European Cities
The centers of the great cities of Europe are meeting places by tradition. People gather there to drink coffee and chat late into the night. A mixture of locals and tourists make for an exciting,metropolitan atmosphere.
Squares, plazas and arcades form the heart of Europe's cities.
Venice in Italy has the Piazza San Marco-- a beautiful square surrounded by shops, churches,restaurants and cafes. In Barcelona, Spain, La Bosqueria is a lively market with hundreds of stalls selling all kinds of goods. London's Covent Garden is filled with fruit and vegetable stalls by day and musicians, acrobats and artists by night. The government buildings at.the center of ma.ny cities often are architecturally impressive. In London, they serve as a beautiful backdrop to the coffee tables that line the streets and the banks of the Thames.
These vibrant ( ) hearts are the product of centuries of evolution, social historian Joel Garreau told US News and Worm Report recently. "The reason people think Venice is so great today is you don't see all the mistakes." said Garreau. "Those have all been removed." Most European cities were laid out before the invention of the car, so bars, restaurants and cafes were near to people's homes. Today, the focus of many Europeans' life has moved away from the centers They live in the suburbs and outskirts, driving to supermarkets to get their supplies. But on a continent where people treasure convention, there are still those who hold onto traditional ways,living and shopping locally. These people, together with tourists, provide the city centers with their reason for existence.
Coffee culture plays a part in keeping these city centers flourishing. This is particularly true of Paris whose citizens are famous enthusiastic conversationalists. This skill is developed over many hours spent chatting over espressos and cigarettes.
Religion also plays a role in developing sociable atmosphere. People in Roman Catholic countries used to visit the church on an almost daily basis. Entire communities would gather in the same building and then move out to the markets, cafes and bars in the surrounding streets. An enormous example of this relationship between church and society is the Duomo. The huge marble cathedral in Florence, Italy is surrounded by bakeries and coffee shops, and caters not only to the tourist crowds, but also the local community. | 1250.txt | 3 |
[
"Their pursuit of independence.",
"Their enthusiasm for conversation.",
"Their ability to keep the city flourishing.",
"Their devotion to developing a multiple culture."
]
| What are Parisians famous for? | Centers of the Great European Cities
The centers of the great cities of Europe are meeting places by tradition. People gather there to drink coffee and chat late into the night. A mixture of locals and tourists make for an exciting,metropolitan atmosphere.
Squares, plazas and arcades form the heart of Europe's cities.
Venice in Italy has the Piazza San Marco-- a beautiful square surrounded by shops, churches,restaurants and cafes. In Barcelona, Spain, La Bosqueria is a lively market with hundreds of stalls selling all kinds of goods. London's Covent Garden is filled with fruit and vegetable stalls by day and musicians, acrobats and artists by night. The government buildings at.the center of ma.ny cities often are architecturally impressive. In London, they serve as a beautiful backdrop to the coffee tables that line the streets and the banks of the Thames.
These vibrant ( ) hearts are the product of centuries of evolution, social historian Joel Garreau told US News and Worm Report recently. "The reason people think Venice is so great today is you don't see all the mistakes." said Garreau. "Those have all been removed." Most European cities were laid out before the invention of the car, so bars, restaurants and cafes were near to people's homes. Today, the focus of many Europeans' life has moved away from the centers They live in the suburbs and outskirts, driving to supermarkets to get their supplies. But on a continent where people treasure convention, there are still those who hold onto traditional ways,living and shopping locally. These people, together with tourists, provide the city centers with their reason for existence.
Coffee culture plays a part in keeping these city centers flourishing. This is particularly true of Paris whose citizens are famous enthusiastic conversationalists. This skill is developed over many hours spent chatting over espressos and cigarettes.
Religion also plays a role in developing sociable atmosphere. People in Roman Catholic countries used to visit the church on an almost daily basis. Entire communities would gather in the same building and then move out to the markets, cafes and bars in the surrounding streets. An enormous example of this relationship between church and society is the Duomo. The huge marble cathedral in Florence, Italy is surrounded by bakeries and coffee shops, and caters not only to the tourist crowds, but also the local community. | 1250.txt | 1 |
[
"there is a tight link between church and society.",
"all churches are magnificent.",
"old churches are very popular.",
"high-rise churches are impressive."
]
| The writer cites the Duomo in the last paragraph as an example to illustrate that | Centers of the Great European Cities
The centers of the great cities of Europe are meeting places by tradition. People gather there to drink coffee and chat late into the night. A mixture of locals and tourists make for an exciting,metropolitan atmosphere.
Squares, plazas and arcades form the heart of Europe's cities.
Venice in Italy has the Piazza San Marco-- a beautiful square surrounded by shops, churches,restaurants and cafes. In Barcelona, Spain, La Bosqueria is a lively market with hundreds of stalls selling all kinds of goods. London's Covent Garden is filled with fruit and vegetable stalls by day and musicians, acrobats and artists by night. The government buildings at.the center of ma.ny cities often are architecturally impressive. In London, they serve as a beautiful backdrop to the coffee tables that line the streets and the banks of the Thames.
These vibrant ( ) hearts are the product of centuries of evolution, social historian Joel Garreau told US News and Worm Report recently. "The reason people think Venice is so great today is you don't see all the mistakes." said Garreau. "Those have all been removed." Most European cities were laid out before the invention of the car, so bars, restaurants and cafes were near to people's homes. Today, the focus of many Europeans' life has moved away from the centers They live in the suburbs and outskirts, driving to supermarkets to get their supplies. But on a continent where people treasure convention, there are still those who hold onto traditional ways,living and shopping locally. These people, together with tourists, provide the city centers with their reason for existence.
Coffee culture plays a part in keeping these city centers flourishing. This is particularly true of Paris whose citizens are famous enthusiastic conversationalists. This skill is developed over many hours spent chatting over espressos and cigarettes.
Religion also plays a role in developing sociable atmosphere. People in Roman Catholic countries used to visit the church on an almost daily basis. Entire communities would gather in the same building and then move out to the markets, cafes and bars in the surrounding streets. An enormous example of this relationship between church and society is the Duomo. The huge marble cathedral in Florence, Italy is surrounded by bakeries and coffee shops, and caters not only to the tourist crowds, but also the local community. | 1250.txt | 0 |
[
"relationships between causes and results",
"classification of reasoning",
"some other common types of reasoning",
"some special type of reasoning"
]
| What the author discussed in the previous section is most probably about _ . | Another common type of reasoning is the search for causes and results. We want to know whether cigarettes really do cause lung cancer, what causes malnutrition, the decay of teeth. We are equally interested in effects: what is the effect of sulphur or lead in the atmosphere, of staying up late on the night before an examination.
Causal reasoning may go from cause to effect or from effect to cause. Either way, we reason from what we know to what we want to find out. Sometimes we reason from an effect to a cause and then on to another effect. Thus, if we reason that because the lights have gone out, the refrigerator won't work, we first relate the effect (lights out) to the cause (power off) and then relate that cause to another effect (refrigerator not working). This kind of reasoning is called, in short, effect to effect. It is quite common reasoning through an extensive chain of causal relations. When the lights go out we might reason in the following causal chain: lights out - power off - refrigerator not working - temperature will rise - milk will sour. In other words, we diagnose a succession of effects from the power failure, each becoming the cause of the next.
Causes are classified as necessary, sufficient, or contributory. A necessary cause is one which must be present for the effect to occur, as combustion is necessary to drive a gasoline engine. A sufficient cause is one that can produce an effect unaided (as an empty gas tank is enough to keep a car from starting), though there may be more than one sufficient cause. A contributory cause is one which helps to produce an effect but cannot do so by itself, as running through a red light may help cause an accident, though other factors must also be present. | 3190.txt | 2 |
[
"from cause to effect",
"from effect to cause",
"from effect to effect and on to cause",
"from effect to cause and on to another effect."
]
| According to the passage, to do the "effect to effect" reasoning is to reason _ . | Another common type of reasoning is the search for causes and results. We want to know whether cigarettes really do cause lung cancer, what causes malnutrition, the decay of teeth. We are equally interested in effects: what is the effect of sulphur or lead in the atmosphere, of staying up late on the night before an examination.
Causal reasoning may go from cause to effect or from effect to cause. Either way, we reason from what we know to what we want to find out. Sometimes we reason from an effect to a cause and then on to another effect. Thus, if we reason that because the lights have gone out, the refrigerator won't work, we first relate the effect (lights out) to the cause (power off) and then relate that cause to another effect (refrigerator not working). This kind of reasoning is called, in short, effect to effect. It is quite common reasoning through an extensive chain of causal relations. When the lights go out we might reason in the following causal chain: lights out - power off - refrigerator not working - temperature will rise - milk will sour. In other words, we diagnose a succession of effects from the power failure, each becoming the cause of the next.
Causes are classified as necessary, sufficient, or contributory. A necessary cause is one which must be present for the effect to occur, as combustion is necessary to drive a gasoline engine. A sufficient cause is one that can produce an effect unaided (as an empty gas tank is enough to keep a car from starting), though there may be more than one sufficient cause. A contributory cause is one which helps to produce an effect but cannot do so by itself, as running through a red light may help cause an accident, though other factors must also be present. | 3190.txt | 3 |
[
"one without which it is impossible for the effect to occur",
"one of the causes that can produce the effect",
"one that is enough to make the effect occur",
"none of them"
]
| A necessary cause is _ . | Another common type of reasoning is the search for causes and results. We want to know whether cigarettes really do cause lung cancer, what causes malnutrition, the decay of teeth. We are equally interested in effects: what is the effect of sulphur or lead in the atmosphere, of staying up late on the night before an examination.
Causal reasoning may go from cause to effect or from effect to cause. Either way, we reason from what we know to what we want to find out. Sometimes we reason from an effect to a cause and then on to another effect. Thus, if we reason that because the lights have gone out, the refrigerator won't work, we first relate the effect (lights out) to the cause (power off) and then relate that cause to another effect (refrigerator not working). This kind of reasoning is called, in short, effect to effect. It is quite common reasoning through an extensive chain of causal relations. When the lights go out we might reason in the following causal chain: lights out - power off - refrigerator not working - temperature will rise - milk will sour. In other words, we diagnose a succession of effects from the power failure, each becoming the cause of the next.
Causes are classified as necessary, sufficient, or contributory. A necessary cause is one which must be present for the effect to occur, as combustion is necessary to drive a gasoline engine. A sufficient cause is one that can produce an effect unaided (as an empty gas tank is enough to keep a car from starting), though there may be more than one sufficient cause. A contributory cause is one which helps to produce an effect but cannot do so by itself, as running through a red light may help cause an accident, though other factors must also be present. | 3190.txt | 0 |
[
"necessary cause",
"sufficient cause",
"contributory cause",
"none of them"
]
| Your refrigerator is not working and you have found that the electric power has been cut off. The power failure is a _ . | Another common type of reasoning is the search for causes and results. We want to know whether cigarettes really do cause lung cancer, what causes malnutrition, the decay of teeth. We are equally interested in effects: what is the effect of sulphur or lead in the atmosphere, of staying up late on the night before an examination.
Causal reasoning may go from cause to effect or from effect to cause. Either way, we reason from what we know to what we want to find out. Sometimes we reason from an effect to a cause and then on to another effect. Thus, if we reason that because the lights have gone out, the refrigerator won't work, we first relate the effect (lights out) to the cause (power off) and then relate that cause to another effect (refrigerator not working). This kind of reasoning is called, in short, effect to effect. It is quite common reasoning through an extensive chain of causal relations. When the lights go out we might reason in the following causal chain: lights out - power off - refrigerator not working - temperature will rise - milk will sour. In other words, we diagnose a succession of effects from the power failure, each becoming the cause of the next.
Causes are classified as necessary, sufficient, or contributory. A necessary cause is one which must be present for the effect to occur, as combustion is necessary to drive a gasoline engine. A sufficient cause is one that can produce an effect unaided (as an empty gas tank is enough to keep a car from starting), though there may be more than one sufficient cause. A contributory cause is one which helps to produce an effect but cannot do so by itself, as running through a red light may help cause an accident, though other factors must also be present. | 3190.txt | 1 |
[
"causal reasoning",
"various types of reasoning",
"classification of causes",
"the causal process"
]
| This passage mainly discusses _ . | Another common type of reasoning is the search for causes and results. We want to know whether cigarettes really do cause lung cancer, what causes malnutrition, the decay of teeth. We are equally interested in effects: what is the effect of sulphur or lead in the atmosphere, of staying up late on the night before an examination.
Causal reasoning may go from cause to effect or from effect to cause. Either way, we reason from what we know to what we want to find out. Sometimes we reason from an effect to a cause and then on to another effect. Thus, if we reason that because the lights have gone out, the refrigerator won't work, we first relate the effect (lights out) to the cause (power off) and then relate that cause to another effect (refrigerator not working). This kind of reasoning is called, in short, effect to effect. It is quite common reasoning through an extensive chain of causal relations. When the lights go out we might reason in the following causal chain: lights out - power off - refrigerator not working - temperature will rise - milk will sour. In other words, we diagnose a succession of effects from the power failure, each becoming the cause of the next.
Causes are classified as necessary, sufficient, or contributory. A necessary cause is one which must be present for the effect to occur, as combustion is necessary to drive a gasoline engine. A sufficient cause is one that can produce an effect unaided (as an empty gas tank is enough to keep a car from starting), though there may be more than one sufficient cause. A contributory cause is one which helps to produce an effect but cannot do so by itself, as running through a red light may help cause an accident, though other factors must also be present. | 3190.txt | 0 |
[
"mostly in homes",
"mostly on roads and highways",
"mostly in factories",
"almost everywhere"
]
| Accidents take place _ . | Accidents happen almost every day. Some accidents are not serious and some are. We read about such accidents nearly every day in the newspapers. It is wrong for people to think that accidents take place only on the roads or highways, or even at work places. Home accidents are just as common. Because very few home accidents are reported, people come to think that there are few accidents which happen in homes.
There have been many cases where people fall to their deaths from highrise flats.Children often fall over while coming down the stairs. Old people may slip on wet floors if they are not careful.
Nowadays there are a lot of modern electrical appliances such as ricecookers which make life easy for the modern housewives. These appliances can kill if they are not used in the proper way. Gas stoves used for cooking are also dangerous if they are not properly used. They may cause burns or, in more serious cases, even fires.
But all such accidents can be stopped if we are careful and follow simple rules of safety. For example, it is unwise for people to try repairing their own electrical appliances if they do not know how to. It is safer to get them repaired by an electrician. | 662.txt | 3 |
[
"People may fall to death from high buildings.",
"People may be knocked down by cars on the roads.",
"Gas stoves may cause burns or even fires.",
"People may be killed by an electrical appliance."
]
| Which of the following accidents may NOT happen in homes? | Accidents happen almost every day. Some accidents are not serious and some are. We read about such accidents nearly every day in the newspapers. It is wrong for people to think that accidents take place only on the roads or highways, or even at work places. Home accidents are just as common. Because very few home accidents are reported, people come to think that there are few accidents which happen in homes.
There have been many cases where people fall to their deaths from highrise flats.Children often fall over while coming down the stairs. Old people may slip on wet floors if they are not careful.
Nowadays there are a lot of modern electrical appliances such as ricecookers which make life easy for the modern housewives. These appliances can kill if they are not used in the proper way. Gas stoves used for cooking are also dangerous if they are not properly used. They may cause burns or, in more serious cases, even fires.
But all such accidents can be stopped if we are careful and follow simple rules of safety. For example, it is unwise for people to try repairing their own electrical appliances if they do not know how to. It is safer to get them repaired by an electrician. | 662.txt | 1 |
[
"to avoid using electrical appliances",
"to repair their own electrical appliances",
"not to repair their own electrical appliances",
"not to get their electrical appliances fixed"
]
| People are advised _ . | Accidents happen almost every day. Some accidents are not serious and some are. We read about such accidents nearly every day in the newspapers. It is wrong for people to think that accidents take place only on the roads or highways, or even at work places. Home accidents are just as common. Because very few home accidents are reported, people come to think that there are few accidents which happen in homes.
There have been many cases where people fall to their deaths from highrise flats.Children often fall over while coming down the stairs. Old people may slip on wet floors if they are not careful.
Nowadays there are a lot of modern electrical appliances such as ricecookers which make life easy for the modern housewives. These appliances can kill if they are not used in the proper way. Gas stoves used for cooking are also dangerous if they are not properly used. They may cause burns or, in more serious cases, even fires.
But all such accidents can be stopped if we are careful and follow simple rules of safety. For example, it is unwise for people to try repairing their own electrical appliances if they do not know how to. It is safer to get them repaired by an electrician. | 662.txt | 2 |
[
"Food riots and hunger in the world.",
"News headlines in the leading media.",
"The decline of the grain yield growth.",
"The food supply in populous countries."
]
| What does the author try to draw attention to? | Some of the world's most significant problems never hit headlines. One example comes from agriculture. Food riots and hunger make news. But the trend lying behind these matters is rarely talked about. This is the decline in the growth in yields of some of the world's major crops. A new study by the University of Minnesota and McGill University in Montreal looks at where, and how far, this decline is occurring.
The authors take a vast number of data points for the four most important crops: rice, wheat, corn and soyabeans. They find that on between 24% and 39% of all harvested areas, the improvement in yields that took place before the 1980s slowed down in the 1990s and 2000s.
There are two worrying features of the slowdown. One is that it has been particularly sharp in the world's most populous countries, India and China. Their ability to feed themselves has been an important source of relative stability both within the countries and on world food markets. That self-sufficiency cannot be taken for granted if yields continue to slow down or reverse.
Second, yield growth has been lower in wheat and rice than in corn and soybeans. This is problematic because wheat and rice are more important as foods, accounting for around half of all calories consumed. Corn and soyabeans are more important as feed grains. The authors note that "we have preferentially focused our crop improvement efforts on feeding animals and cars rather than on crops that feed people and are the basis of food security in much of the world."
The report qualifies the more optimistic findings of another new paper which suggests that the world will not have to dig up a lot more land for farming in order to feed 9 billion people in 2050, as the Food and Agriculture Organisation has argued.
Instead, it says, thanks to slowing population growth, land currently ploughed up for crops might be able to revert to forest or wilderness.This could happen. The trouble is that the forecast assumes continued improvements in yields, which may not actually happen. | 2501.txt | 2 |
[
"Their self-sufficiency is vital to the stability of world food markets.",
"Their food yields have begun to decrease sharply in recent years.",
"Their big populations are causing worldwide concerns.",
"Their food self-sufficiency has been taken for granted."
]
| Why does the author mention India and China in particular? | Some of the world's most significant problems never hit headlines. One example comes from agriculture. Food riots and hunger make news. But the trend lying behind these matters is rarely talked about. This is the decline in the growth in yields of some of the world's major crops. A new study by the University of Minnesota and McGill University in Montreal looks at where, and how far, this decline is occurring.
The authors take a vast number of data points for the four most important crops: rice, wheat, corn and soyabeans. They find that on between 24% and 39% of all harvested areas, the improvement in yields that took place before the 1980s slowed down in the 1990s and 2000s.
There are two worrying features of the slowdown. One is that it has been particularly sharp in the world's most populous countries, India and China. Their ability to feed themselves has been an important source of relative stability both within the countries and on world food markets. That self-sufficiency cannot be taken for granted if yields continue to slow down or reverse.
Second, yield growth has been lower in wheat and rice than in corn and soybeans. This is problematic because wheat and rice are more important as foods, accounting for around half of all calories consumed. Corn and soyabeans are more important as feed grains. The authors note that "we have preferentially focused our crop improvement efforts on feeding animals and cars rather than on crops that feed people and are the basis of food security in much of the world."
The report qualifies the more optimistic findings of another new paper which suggests that the world will not have to dig up a lot more land for farming in order to feed 9 billion people in 2050, as the Food and Agriculture Organisation has argued.
Instead, it says, thanks to slowing population growth, land currently ploughed up for crops might be able to revert to forest or wilderness.This could happen. The trouble is that the forecast assumes continued improvements in yields, which may not actually happen. | 2501.txt | 0 |
[
"They fail to produce the same remarkable results as before the 1980s.",
"They contribute a lot to the improvement of human food production.",
"They play a major role in guaranteeing the food security of the world.",
"They focus more on the increase of animal feed than human food grains."
]
| What does the new study by the two universities say about recent crop improvement efforts? | Some of the world's most significant problems never hit headlines. One example comes from agriculture. Food riots and hunger make news. But the trend lying behind these matters is rarely talked about. This is the decline in the growth in yields of some of the world's major crops. A new study by the University of Minnesota and McGill University in Montreal looks at where, and how far, this decline is occurring.
The authors take a vast number of data points for the four most important crops: rice, wheat, corn and soyabeans. They find that on between 24% and 39% of all harvested areas, the improvement in yields that took place before the 1980s slowed down in the 1990s and 2000s.
There are two worrying features of the slowdown. One is that it has been particularly sharp in the world's most populous countries, India and China. Their ability to feed themselves has been an important source of relative stability both within the countries and on world food markets. That self-sufficiency cannot be taken for granted if yields continue to slow down or reverse.
Second, yield growth has been lower in wheat and rice than in corn and soybeans. This is problematic because wheat and rice are more important as foods, accounting for around half of all calories consumed. Corn and soyabeans are more important as feed grains. The authors note that "we have preferentially focused our crop improvement efforts on feeding animals and cars rather than on crops that feed people and are the basis of food security in much of the world."
The report qualifies the more optimistic findings of another new paper which suggests that the world will not have to dig up a lot more land for farming in order to feed 9 billion people in 2050, as the Food and Agriculture Organisation has argued.
Instead, it says, thanks to slowing population growth, land currently ploughed up for crops might be able to revert to forest or wilderness.This could happen. The trouble is that the forecast assumes continued improvements in yields, which may not actually happen. | 2501.txt | 3 |
[
"The growing population will greatly increase the pressure on world food supplies.",
"The optimistic prediction about food production should be viewed with caution.",
"The slowdown of the growth in yields of major food crops will be reversed.",
"The world will be able to feed its population without increasing farmland."
]
| What does the Food and Agriculture Organisation say about world food production in the coming decades? | Some of the world's most significant problems never hit headlines. One example comes from agriculture. Food riots and hunger make news. But the trend lying behind these matters is rarely talked about. This is the decline in the growth in yields of some of the world's major crops. A new study by the University of Minnesota and McGill University in Montreal looks at where, and how far, this decline is occurring.
The authors take a vast number of data points for the four most important crops: rice, wheat, corn and soyabeans. They find that on between 24% and 39% of all harvested areas, the improvement in yields that took place before the 1980s slowed down in the 1990s and 2000s.
There are two worrying features of the slowdown. One is that it has been particularly sharp in the world's most populous countries, India and China. Their ability to feed themselves has been an important source of relative stability both within the countries and on world food markets. That self-sufficiency cannot be taken for granted if yields continue to slow down or reverse.
Second, yield growth has been lower in wheat and rice than in corn and soybeans. This is problematic because wheat and rice are more important as foods, accounting for around half of all calories consumed. Corn and soyabeans are more important as feed grains. The authors note that "we have preferentially focused our crop improvement efforts on feeding animals and cars rather than on crops that feed people and are the basis of food security in much of the world."
The report qualifies the more optimistic findings of another new paper which suggests that the world will not have to dig up a lot more land for farming in order to feed 9 billion people in 2050, as the Food and Agriculture Organisation has argued.
Instead, it says, thanks to slowing population growth, land currently ploughed up for crops might be able to revert to forest or wilderness.This could happen. The trouble is that the forecast assumes continued improvements in yields, which may not actually happen. | 2501.txt | 3 |
[
"It is built on the findings of a new study.",
"It is based on a doubtful assumption.",
"It is backed by strong evidence.",
"It is open to further discussion."
]
| How does the author view the argument of the Food and Agriculture Organisation? | Some of the world's most significant problems never hit headlines. One example comes from agriculture. Food riots and hunger make news. But the trend lying behind these matters is rarely talked about. This is the decline in the growth in yields of some of the world's major crops. A new study by the University of Minnesota and McGill University in Montreal looks at where, and how far, this decline is occurring.
The authors take a vast number of data points for the four most important crops: rice, wheat, corn and soyabeans. They find that on between 24% and 39% of all harvested areas, the improvement in yields that took place before the 1980s slowed down in the 1990s and 2000s.
There are two worrying features of the slowdown. One is that it has been particularly sharp in the world's most populous countries, India and China. Their ability to feed themselves has been an important source of relative stability both within the countries and on world food markets. That self-sufficiency cannot be taken for granted if yields continue to slow down or reverse.
Second, yield growth has been lower in wheat and rice than in corn and soybeans. This is problematic because wheat and rice are more important as foods, accounting for around half of all calories consumed. Corn and soyabeans are more important as feed grains. The authors note that "we have preferentially focused our crop improvement efforts on feeding animals and cars rather than on crops that feed people and are the basis of food security in much of the world."
The report qualifies the more optimistic findings of another new paper which suggests that the world will not have to dig up a lot more land for farming in order to feed 9 billion people in 2050, as the Food and Agriculture Organisation has argued.
Instead, it says, thanks to slowing population growth, land currently ploughed up for crops might be able to revert to forest or wilderness.This could happen. The trouble is that the forecast assumes continued improvements in yields, which may not actually happen. | 2501.txt | 1 |
[
"Two, one blue and one red.",
"Three, two blue and one red.",
"Three, one blue and two red.",
"Four, two blue and two red."
]
| To do the experiment, altogether how many cards do you need to prepare? | To discover whether bees can see colors, the following experiment is set up. A table is put in a garden, and on the table is a piece of blue cardboard with a drop of syrup on it. After a short time, bees come to the syrup. The bees then fly to their hive and give the syrup to other bees in the hive. Then they return to the feeding-place which they have discovered. After a while, the blue cardboard with the syrup on it is taken away. Instead of this card, a blue card is now put on the left side of the first feeding-place and a red card to its right. These new cards have no syrup on them. Thus, the blue card is on the left, the red card on the right, and there is nothing where the first blue feeding-card used to be. Very soon bees arrive again, and fly straight to the blue card. None go to the red card. | 1061.txt | 1 |
[
"the original blue card with syrup on it.",
"the new blue card with no syrup on it.",
"the empty space where the original blue card was.",
"the new blue card with syrup on it."
]
| During step 2 of the experiment, the bees come to _ . | To discover whether bees can see colors, the following experiment is set up. A table is put in a garden, and on the table is a piece of blue cardboard with a drop of syrup on it. After a short time, bees come to the syrup. The bees then fly to their hive and give the syrup to other bees in the hive. Then they return to the feeding-place which they have discovered. After a while, the blue cardboard with the syrup on it is taken away. Instead of this card, a blue card is now put on the left side of the first feeding-place and a red card to its right. These new cards have no syrup on them. Thus, the blue card is on the left, the red card on the right, and there is nothing where the first blue feeding-card used to be. Very soon bees arrive again, and fly straight to the blue card. None go to the red card. | 1061.txt | 1 |
[
"cannot see colors.",
"can see colors.",
"cannot see blue.",
"cannot see red."
]
| The experiment has proved that bees _ . | To discover whether bees can see colors, the following experiment is set up. A table is put in a garden, and on the table is a piece of blue cardboard with a drop of syrup on it. After a short time, bees come to the syrup. The bees then fly to their hive and give the syrup to other bees in the hive. Then they return to the feeding-place which they have discovered. After a while, the blue cardboard with the syrup on it is taken away. Instead of this card, a blue card is now put on the left side of the first feeding-place and a red card to its right. These new cards have no syrup on them. Thus, the blue card is on the left, the red card on the right, and there is nothing where the first blue feeding-card used to be. Very soon bees arrive again, and fly straight to the blue card. None go to the red card. | 1061.txt | 1 |
[
"Bees Love Blue.",
"Bees Love Syrup.",
"Bees, Color and Syrup.",
"Can Bees See Color"
]
| Which title best gives the idea of the passage? | To discover whether bees can see colors, the following experiment is set up. A table is put in a garden, and on the table is a piece of blue cardboard with a drop of syrup on it. After a short time, bees come to the syrup. The bees then fly to their hive and give the syrup to other bees in the hive. Then they return to the feeding-place which they have discovered. After a while, the blue cardboard with the syrup on it is taken away. Instead of this card, a blue card is now put on the left side of the first feeding-place and a red card to its right. These new cards have no syrup on them. Thus, the blue card is on the left, the red card on the right, and there is nothing where the first blue feeding-card used to be. Very soon bees arrive again, and fly straight to the blue card. None go to the red card. | 1061.txt | 3 |
[
"About 100years ago.",
"In this century.",
"At the beginning of the 19th century.",
"In 1798."
]
| When did man begin to explore the Antarctic | The discovery of the Antarctic not only proved one of the most interesting of all geographical adventures, but created what might be called "the heroic age of Antarctic exploration". By their tremendous heroism, men such as Shakleton, Scott, and Amundsen caused a new continent to emerge from the shadows, and yet that heroic age, little more than a century old, is already passing. Modern science and inventions are revolutionizing the endurance, future journeys into these icy wastes will probably depend on motor vehicles equipped with caterpillar traction rather than on the dogs that earlier discoverers found so invaluable and hardly comparable.
Few realize that this Antarctic continent is almost equal in size to South America, and enormous field of work awaits geographers and prospectors. The coasts of this continent remain to be accurately charted, and the maping of the whole of the interior presents a formidable task to the cartographers who undertake the work. Once their labors are completed, it will be possible to prospect the vast natural resources which scientists believe will furnish one of the largest treasure hoards of metals and minerals the world has yet known, and almost inexhaustible sources of copper, coal, uranium, and many other ores will become available to man. Such discoveries will usher in an era of practical exploitation of the Antarctic wastes.
The polar darkness which hides this continent for the six winter months will be defeated by huge batteries of light, and make possible the establishing of air-fields for the future inter-continental air services by making these areas as light as day. Present flying routes will be completely changed, for the Antarctic refueling bases will make flights from Australia to South America comparatively easy over the 5,000 miles journey.
The climate is not likely to offer an insuperable problem, for the explorer Admiral Byrd has shown that the climate is possible even for men completely untrained for expeditions into those frozen wastes. Some of his parties were men who had never seen snow before, and yet he records that they survived the rigors of the Antarctic climate comfortably, so that, provided that the appropriate installations are made, we may assume that human beings from all countries could live there safely. Byrd even affirms that it is probably the most healthy climate in the world, for the intense cold of thousands of years has sterilize this continent, and rendered it absolutely germfree, with the consequences that ordinary and extraordinary sickness and diseases from which man suffers in other zones with different climates are here utterly unknown. There exist no problems of conservation and preservation of food supplies, for the latter keep indefinitely without any signs of deterioration; it may even be that later generations will come to regard the Antarctic as the natural storehouse for the whole world.
Plans are already on foot to set up permanent bases on the shores of this continent, and what so few years ago was regarded as a "dead continent" now promises to be a most active center of human life and endeavor. | 77.txt | 0 |
[
"Brave and tough",
"Stubborn and arrogant.",
"Well-liked and humorous.",
"Stout and smart."
]
| What must the explorers be, even though they have modern equipment and techniques | The discovery of the Antarctic not only proved one of the most interesting of all geographical adventures, but created what might be called "the heroic age of Antarctic exploration". By their tremendous heroism, men such as Shakleton, Scott, and Amundsen caused a new continent to emerge from the shadows, and yet that heroic age, little more than a century old, is already passing. Modern science and inventions are revolutionizing the endurance, future journeys into these icy wastes will probably depend on motor vehicles equipped with caterpillar traction rather than on the dogs that earlier discoverers found so invaluable and hardly comparable.
Few realize that this Antarctic continent is almost equal in size to South America, and enormous field of work awaits geographers and prospectors. The coasts of this continent remain to be accurately charted, and the maping of the whole of the interior presents a formidable task to the cartographers who undertake the work. Once their labors are completed, it will be possible to prospect the vast natural resources which scientists believe will furnish one of the largest treasure hoards of metals and minerals the world has yet known, and almost inexhaustible sources of copper, coal, uranium, and many other ores will become available to man. Such discoveries will usher in an era of practical exploitation of the Antarctic wastes.
The polar darkness which hides this continent for the six winter months will be defeated by huge batteries of light, and make possible the establishing of air-fields for the future inter-continental air services by making these areas as light as day. Present flying routes will be completely changed, for the Antarctic refueling bases will make flights from Australia to South America comparatively easy over the 5,000 miles journey.
The climate is not likely to offer an insuperable problem, for the explorer Admiral Byrd has shown that the climate is possible even for men completely untrained for expeditions into those frozen wastes. Some of his parties were men who had never seen snow before, and yet he records that they survived the rigors of the Antarctic climate comfortably, so that, provided that the appropriate installations are made, we may assume that human beings from all countries could live there safely. Byrd even affirms that it is probably the most healthy climate in the world, for the intense cold of thousands of years has sterilize this continent, and rendered it absolutely germfree, with the consequences that ordinary and extraordinary sickness and diseases from which man suffers in other zones with different climates are here utterly unknown. There exist no problems of conservation and preservation of food supplies, for the latter keep indefinitely without any signs of deterioration; it may even be that later generations will come to regard the Antarctic as the natural storehouse for the whole world.
Plans are already on foot to set up permanent bases on the shores of this continent, and what so few years ago was regarded as a "dead continent" now promises to be a most active center of human life and endeavor. | 77.txt | 0 |
[
"in South America.",
"in the Arctic Region.",
"in the Antarctic Continent.",
"in the Atlantic Ocean."
]
| The most healthy climate in the world is _ . | The discovery of the Antarctic not only proved one of the most interesting of all geographical adventures, but created what might be called "the heroic age of Antarctic exploration". By their tremendous heroism, men such as Shakleton, Scott, and Amundsen caused a new continent to emerge from the shadows, and yet that heroic age, little more than a century old, is already passing. Modern science and inventions are revolutionizing the endurance, future journeys into these icy wastes will probably depend on motor vehicles equipped with caterpillar traction rather than on the dogs that earlier discoverers found so invaluable and hardly comparable.
Few realize that this Antarctic continent is almost equal in size to South America, and enormous field of work awaits geographers and prospectors. The coasts of this continent remain to be accurately charted, and the maping of the whole of the interior presents a formidable task to the cartographers who undertake the work. Once their labors are completed, it will be possible to prospect the vast natural resources which scientists believe will furnish one of the largest treasure hoards of metals and minerals the world has yet known, and almost inexhaustible sources of copper, coal, uranium, and many other ores will become available to man. Such discoveries will usher in an era of practical exploitation of the Antarctic wastes.
The polar darkness which hides this continent for the six winter months will be defeated by huge batteries of light, and make possible the establishing of air-fields for the future inter-continental air services by making these areas as light as day. Present flying routes will be completely changed, for the Antarctic refueling bases will make flights from Australia to South America comparatively easy over the 5,000 miles journey.
The climate is not likely to offer an insuperable problem, for the explorer Admiral Byrd has shown that the climate is possible even for men completely untrained for expeditions into those frozen wastes. Some of his parties were men who had never seen snow before, and yet he records that they survived the rigors of the Antarctic climate comfortably, so that, provided that the appropriate installations are made, we may assume that human beings from all countries could live there safely. Byrd even affirms that it is probably the most healthy climate in the world, for the intense cold of thousands of years has sterilize this continent, and rendered it absolutely germfree, with the consequences that ordinary and extraordinary sickness and diseases from which man suffers in other zones with different climates are here utterly unknown. There exist no problems of conservation and preservation of food supplies, for the latter keep indefinitely without any signs of deterioration; it may even be that later generations will come to regard the Antarctic as the natural storehouse for the whole world.
Plans are already on foot to set up permanent bases on the shores of this continent, and what so few years ago was regarded as a "dead continent" now promises to be a most active center of human life and endeavor. | 77.txt | 2 |
[
"Magnetite, coal and ores.",
"Copper, coal and uranium.",
"Silver, natural gas and uranium.",
"Aluminum, copper and natural gas."
]
| What kind of metals and minerals can we find in the Antarctic | The discovery of the Antarctic not only proved one of the most interesting of all geographical adventures, but created what might be called "the heroic age of Antarctic exploration". By their tremendous heroism, men such as Shakleton, Scott, and Amundsen caused a new continent to emerge from the shadows, and yet that heroic age, little more than a century old, is already passing. Modern science and inventions are revolutionizing the endurance, future journeys into these icy wastes will probably depend on motor vehicles equipped with caterpillar traction rather than on the dogs that earlier discoverers found so invaluable and hardly comparable.
Few realize that this Antarctic continent is almost equal in size to South America, and enormous field of work awaits geographers and prospectors. The coasts of this continent remain to be accurately charted, and the maping of the whole of the interior presents a formidable task to the cartographers who undertake the work. Once their labors are completed, it will be possible to prospect the vast natural resources which scientists believe will furnish one of the largest treasure hoards of metals and minerals the world has yet known, and almost inexhaustible sources of copper, coal, uranium, and many other ores will become available to man. Such discoveries will usher in an era of practical exploitation of the Antarctic wastes.
The polar darkness which hides this continent for the six winter months will be defeated by huge batteries of light, and make possible the establishing of air-fields for the future inter-continental air services by making these areas as light as day. Present flying routes will be completely changed, for the Antarctic refueling bases will make flights from Australia to South America comparatively easy over the 5,000 miles journey.
The climate is not likely to offer an insuperable problem, for the explorer Admiral Byrd has shown that the climate is possible even for men completely untrained for expeditions into those frozen wastes. Some of his parties were men who had never seen snow before, and yet he records that they survived the rigors of the Antarctic climate comfortably, so that, provided that the appropriate installations are made, we may assume that human beings from all countries could live there safely. Byrd even affirms that it is probably the most healthy climate in the world, for the intense cold of thousands of years has sterilize this continent, and rendered it absolutely germfree, with the consequences that ordinary and extraordinary sickness and diseases from which man suffers in other zones with different climates are here utterly unknown. There exist no problems of conservation and preservation of food supplies, for the latter keep indefinitely without any signs of deterioration; it may even be that later generations will come to regard the Antarctic as the natural storehouse for the whole world.
Plans are already on foot to set up permanent bases on the shores of this continent, and what so few years ago was regarded as a "dead continent" now promises to be a most active center of human life and endeavor. | 77.txt | 1 |
[
"Building dams along the coasts.",
"Setting up several summer resorts along the coasts.",
"Mapping the coast and whole territory.",
"Setting up permanent bases on the coasts."
]
| What is planned for the continent | The discovery of the Antarctic not only proved one of the most interesting of all geographical adventures, but created what might be called "the heroic age of Antarctic exploration". By their tremendous heroism, men such as Shakleton, Scott, and Amundsen caused a new continent to emerge from the shadows, and yet that heroic age, little more than a century old, is already passing. Modern science and inventions are revolutionizing the endurance, future journeys into these icy wastes will probably depend on motor vehicles equipped with caterpillar traction rather than on the dogs that earlier discoverers found so invaluable and hardly comparable.
Few realize that this Antarctic continent is almost equal in size to South America, and enormous field of work awaits geographers and prospectors. The coasts of this continent remain to be accurately charted, and the maping of the whole of the interior presents a formidable task to the cartographers who undertake the work. Once their labors are completed, it will be possible to prospect the vast natural resources which scientists believe will furnish one of the largest treasure hoards of metals and minerals the world has yet known, and almost inexhaustible sources of copper, coal, uranium, and many other ores will become available to man. Such discoveries will usher in an era of practical exploitation of the Antarctic wastes.
The polar darkness which hides this continent for the six winter months will be defeated by huge batteries of light, and make possible the establishing of air-fields for the future inter-continental air services by making these areas as light as day. Present flying routes will be completely changed, for the Antarctic refueling bases will make flights from Australia to South America comparatively easy over the 5,000 miles journey.
The climate is not likely to offer an insuperable problem, for the explorer Admiral Byrd has shown that the climate is possible even for men completely untrained for expeditions into those frozen wastes. Some of his parties were men who had never seen snow before, and yet he records that they survived the rigors of the Antarctic climate comfortably, so that, provided that the appropriate installations are made, we may assume that human beings from all countries could live there safely. Byrd even affirms that it is probably the most healthy climate in the world, for the intense cold of thousands of years has sterilize this continent, and rendered it absolutely germfree, with the consequences that ordinary and extraordinary sickness and diseases from which man suffers in other zones with different climates are here utterly unknown. There exist no problems of conservation and preservation of food supplies, for the latter keep indefinitely without any signs of deterioration; it may even be that later generations will come to regard the Antarctic as the natural storehouse for the whole world.
Plans are already on foot to set up permanent bases on the shores of this continent, and what so few years ago was regarded as a "dead continent" now promises to be a most active center of human life and endeavor. | 77.txt | 3 |
[
"It cannot hold rainwater for long periods of time.",
"It prevents most groundwater from circulating.",
"It has the capacity to store large amounts of water.",
"It absorbs most of the water it contains from rivers."
]
| Which of the following can be inferred from paragraph 1 about the ground that we walk on? | Groundwater is the word used to describe water that saturates the ground, filling all the available spaces. By far the most abundant type of groundwater is meteoric water; this is the groundwater that circulates as part of the water cycle. Ordinary meteoric water is water that has soaked into the ground from the surface, from precipitation (rain and snow) and from lakes and streams. There it remains, sometimes for long periods, before emerging at the surface again. At first thought it seems incredible that there can be enough space in the "solid" ground underfoot to hold all this water.
The necessary space is there, however, in many forms. The commonest spaces are those among the particles-sand grains and tiny pebbles-of loose, unconsolidated sand and gravel. Beds of this material, out of sight beneath the soil, are common. They are found wherever fast rivers carrying loads of coarse sediment once flowed. For example, as the great ice sheets that covered North America during the last ice age steadily melted away, huge volumes of water flowed from them. The water was always laden with pebbles, gravel, and sand, known as glacial outwash, that was deposited as the flow slowed down.
The same thing happens to this day, though on a smaller scale, wherever a sediment-laden river or stream emerges from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land, dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope. Sediments are also dropped where a river slows on entering a lake or the sea, the deposited sediments are on a lake floor or the seafloor at first, but will be located inland at some future date, when the sea level falls or the land rises; such beds are sometimes thousands of meters thick.
In lowland country almost any spot on the ground may overlie what was once the bed of a river that has since become buried by soil; if they are now below the water's upper surface (the water table), the gravels and sands of the former riverbed, and its sandbars, will be saturated with groundwater.
So much for unconsolidated sediments. Consolidated (or cementeD. sediments, too, contain millions of minute water-holding pores. This is because the gaps among the original grains are often not totally plugged with cementing chemicals; also, parts of the original grains may become dissolved by percolating groundwater, either while consolidation is taking place or at any time afterwards. The result is that sandstone, for example, can be as porous as the loose sand from which it was formed.
Thus a proportion of the total volume of any sediment, loose or cemented, consists of empty space. Most crystalline rocks are much more solid; a common exception is basalt, a form of solidified volcanic lava, which is sometimes full of tiny bubbles that make it very porous.
The proportion of empty space in a rock is known as its porosity. But note that porosity is not the same as permeability, which measures the ease with which water can flow through a material; this depends on the sizes of the individual cavities and the crevices linking them.
Much of the water in a sample of water-saturated sediment or rock will drain from it if the sample is put in a suitable dry place. But some will remain, clinging to all solid surfaces. It is held there by the force of surface tension without which water would drain instantly from any wet surface, leaving it totally dry. The total volume of water in the saturated sample must therefore be thought of as consisting of water that can, and water that cannot, drain away.
The relative amount of these two kinds of water varies greatly from one kind of rock or sediment to another, even though their porosities may be the same. What happens depends on pore size. If the pores are large, the water in them will exist as drops too heavy for surface tension to hold, and it will drain away; but if the pores are small enough, the water in them will exist as thin films, too light to overcome the force of surface tension holding them in place; then the water will be firmly held. | 1376.txt | 2 |
[
"confusing",
"comforting",
"unbelievable",
"interesting"
]
| The word "incredible" in the passage (paragraph 1) 1is closest in meaning to | Groundwater is the word used to describe water that saturates the ground, filling all the available spaces. By far the most abundant type of groundwater is meteoric water; this is the groundwater that circulates as part of the water cycle. Ordinary meteoric water is water that has soaked into the ground from the surface, from precipitation (rain and snow) and from lakes and streams. There it remains, sometimes for long periods, before emerging at the surface again. At first thought it seems incredible that there can be enough space in the "solid" ground underfoot to hold all this water.
The necessary space is there, however, in many forms. The commonest spaces are those among the particles-sand grains and tiny pebbles-of loose, unconsolidated sand and gravel. Beds of this material, out of sight beneath the soil, are common. They are found wherever fast rivers carrying loads of coarse sediment once flowed. For example, as the great ice sheets that covered North America during the last ice age steadily melted away, huge volumes of water flowed from them. The water was always laden with pebbles, gravel, and sand, known as glacial outwash, that was deposited as the flow slowed down.
The same thing happens to this day, though on a smaller scale, wherever a sediment-laden river or stream emerges from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land, dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope. Sediments are also dropped where a river slows on entering a lake or the sea, the deposited sediments are on a lake floor or the seafloor at first, but will be located inland at some future date, when the sea level falls or the land rises; such beds are sometimes thousands of meters thick.
In lowland country almost any spot on the ground may overlie what was once the bed of a river that has since become buried by soil; if they are now below the water's upper surface (the water table), the gravels and sands of the former riverbed, and its sandbars, will be saturated with groundwater.
So much for unconsolidated sediments. Consolidated (or cementeD. sediments, too, contain millions of minute water-holding pores. This is because the gaps among the original grains are often not totally plugged with cementing chemicals; also, parts of the original grains may become dissolved by percolating groundwater, either while consolidation is taking place or at any time afterwards. The result is that sandstone, for example, can be as porous as the loose sand from which it was formed.
Thus a proportion of the total volume of any sediment, loose or cemented, consists of empty space. Most crystalline rocks are much more solid; a common exception is basalt, a form of solidified volcanic lava, which is sometimes full of tiny bubbles that make it very porous.
The proportion of empty space in a rock is known as its porosity. But note that porosity is not the same as permeability, which measures the ease with which water can flow through a material; this depends on the sizes of the individual cavities and the crevices linking them.
Much of the water in a sample of water-saturated sediment or rock will drain from it if the sample is put in a suitable dry place. But some will remain, clinging to all solid surfaces. It is held there by the force of surface tension without which water would drain instantly from any wet surface, leaving it totally dry. The total volume of water in the saturated sample must therefore be thought of as consisting of water that can, and water that cannot, drain away.
The relative amount of these two kinds of water varies greatly from one kind of rock or sediment to another, even though their porosities may be the same. What happens depends on pore size. If the pores are large, the water in them will exist as drops too heavy for surface tension to hold, and it will drain away; but if the pores are small enough, the water in them will exist as thin films, too light to overcome the force of surface tension holding them in place; then the water will be firmly held. | 1376.txt | 2 |
[
"far away",
"hidden",
"partly visible",
"discovered"
]
| The word "out of sight" in the passage (paragraph 2) is closest in meaning to | Groundwater is the word used to describe water that saturates the ground, filling all the available spaces. By far the most abundant type of groundwater is meteoric water; this is the groundwater that circulates as part of the water cycle. Ordinary meteoric water is water that has soaked into the ground from the surface, from precipitation (rain and snow) and from lakes and streams. There it remains, sometimes for long periods, before emerging at the surface again. At first thought it seems incredible that there can be enough space in the "solid" ground underfoot to hold all this water.
The necessary space is there, however, in many forms. The commonest spaces are those among the particles-sand grains and tiny pebbles-of loose, unconsolidated sand and gravel. Beds of this material, out of sight beneath the soil, are common. They are found wherever fast rivers carrying loads of coarse sediment once flowed. For example, as the great ice sheets that covered North America during the last ice age steadily melted away, huge volumes of water flowed from them. The water was always laden with pebbles, gravel, and sand, known as glacial outwash, that was deposited as the flow slowed down.
The same thing happens to this day, though on a smaller scale, wherever a sediment-laden river or stream emerges from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land, dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope. Sediments are also dropped where a river slows on entering a lake or the sea, the deposited sediments are on a lake floor or the seafloor at first, but will be located inland at some future date, when the sea level falls or the land rises; such beds are sometimes thousands of meters thick.
In lowland country almost any spot on the ground may overlie what was once the bed of a river that has since become buried by soil; if they are now below the water's upper surface (the water table), the gravels and sands of the former riverbed, and its sandbars, will be saturated with groundwater.
So much for unconsolidated sediments. Consolidated (or cementeD. sediments, too, contain millions of minute water-holding pores. This is because the gaps among the original grains are often not totally plugged with cementing chemicals; also, parts of the original grains may become dissolved by percolating groundwater, either while consolidation is taking place or at any time afterwards. The result is that sandstone, for example, can be as porous as the loose sand from which it was formed.
Thus a proportion of the total volume of any sediment, loose or cemented, consists of empty space. Most crystalline rocks are much more solid; a common exception is basalt, a form of solidified volcanic lava, which is sometimes full of tiny bubbles that make it very porous.
The proportion of empty space in a rock is known as its porosity. But note that porosity is not the same as permeability, which measures the ease with which water can flow through a material; this depends on the sizes of the individual cavities and the crevices linking them.
Much of the water in a sample of water-saturated sediment or rock will drain from it if the sample is put in a suitable dry place. But some will remain, clinging to all solid surfaces. It is held there by the force of surface tension without which water would drain instantly from any wet surface, leaving it totally dry. The total volume of water in the saturated sample must therefore be thought of as consisting of water that can, and water that cannot, drain away.
The relative amount of these two kinds of water varies greatly from one kind of rock or sediment to another, even though their porosities may be the same. What happens depends on pore size. If the pores are large, the water in them will exist as drops too heavy for surface tension to hold, and it will drain away; but if the pores are small enough, the water in them will exist as thin films, too light to overcome the force of surface tension holding them in place; then the water will be firmly held. | 1376.txt | 1 |
[
"Inside pieces of sand and gravel",
"On top of beds of rock",
"In fast rivers that are flowing beneath the soil",
"In spaces between pieces of sediment"
]
| According to paragraph 2, where is groundwater usually found? | Groundwater is the word used to describe water that saturates the ground, filling all the available spaces. By far the most abundant type of groundwater is meteoric water; this is the groundwater that circulates as part of the water cycle. Ordinary meteoric water is water that has soaked into the ground from the surface, from precipitation (rain and snow) and from lakes and streams. There it remains, sometimes for long periods, before emerging at the surface again. At first thought it seems incredible that there can be enough space in the "solid" ground underfoot to hold all this water.
The necessary space is there, however, in many forms. The commonest spaces are those among the particles-sand grains and tiny pebbles-of loose, unconsolidated sand and gravel. Beds of this material, out of sight beneath the soil, are common. They are found wherever fast rivers carrying loads of coarse sediment once flowed. For example, as the great ice sheets that covered North America during the last ice age steadily melted away, huge volumes of water flowed from them. The water was always laden with pebbles, gravel, and sand, known as glacial outwash, that was deposited as the flow slowed down.
The same thing happens to this day, though on a smaller scale, wherever a sediment-laden river or stream emerges from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land, dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope. Sediments are also dropped where a river slows on entering a lake or the sea, the deposited sediments are on a lake floor or the seafloor at first, but will be located inland at some future date, when the sea level falls or the land rises; such beds are sometimes thousands of meters thick.
In lowland country almost any spot on the ground may overlie what was once the bed of a river that has since become buried by soil; if they are now below the water's upper surface (the water table), the gravels and sands of the former riverbed, and its sandbars, will be saturated with groundwater.
So much for unconsolidated sediments. Consolidated (or cementeD. sediments, too, contain millions of minute water-holding pores. This is because the gaps among the original grains are often not totally plugged with cementing chemicals; also, parts of the original grains may become dissolved by percolating groundwater, either while consolidation is taking place or at any time afterwards. The result is that sandstone, for example, can be as porous as the loose sand from which it was formed.
Thus a proportion of the total volume of any sediment, loose or cemented, consists of empty space. Most crystalline rocks are much more solid; a common exception is basalt, a form of solidified volcanic lava, which is sometimes full of tiny bubbles that make it very porous.
The proportion of empty space in a rock is known as its porosity. But note that porosity is not the same as permeability, which measures the ease with which water can flow through a material; this depends on the sizes of the individual cavities and the crevices linking them.
Much of the water in a sample of water-saturated sediment or rock will drain from it if the sample is put in a suitable dry place. But some will remain, clinging to all solid surfaces. It is held there by the force of surface tension without which water would drain instantly from any wet surface, leaving it totally dry. The total volume of water in the saturated sample must therefore be thought of as consisting of water that can, and water that cannot, drain away.
The relative amount of these two kinds of water varies greatly from one kind of rock or sediment to another, even though their porosities may be the same. What happens depends on pore size. If the pores are large, the water in them will exist as drops too heavy for surface tension to hold, and it will drain away; but if the pores are small enough, the water in them will exist as thin films, too light to overcome the force of surface tension holding them in place; then the water will be firmly held. | 1376.txt | 3 |
[
"fast rivers",
"glaciers",
"the huge volumes of water created by glacial melting",
"the particles carried in water from melting glaciers"
]
| The phrase "glacial outwash" in the passage (paragragh 2) refers to | Groundwater is the word used to describe water that saturates the ground, filling all the available spaces. By far the most abundant type of groundwater is meteoric water; this is the groundwater that circulates as part of the water cycle. Ordinary meteoric water is water that has soaked into the ground from the surface, from precipitation (rain and snow) and from lakes and streams. There it remains, sometimes for long periods, before emerging at the surface again. At first thought it seems incredible that there can be enough space in the "solid" ground underfoot to hold all this water.
The necessary space is there, however, in many forms. The commonest spaces are those among the particles-sand grains and tiny pebbles-of loose, unconsolidated sand and gravel. Beds of this material, out of sight beneath the soil, are common. They are found wherever fast rivers carrying loads of coarse sediment once flowed. For example, as the great ice sheets that covered North America during the last ice age steadily melted away, huge volumes of water flowed from them. The water was always laden with pebbles, gravel, and sand, known as glacial outwash, that was deposited as the flow slowed down.
The same thing happens to this day, though on a smaller scale, wherever a sediment-laden river or stream emerges from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land, dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope. Sediments are also dropped where a river slows on entering a lake or the sea, the deposited sediments are on a lake floor or the seafloor at first, but will be located inland at some future date, when the sea level falls or the land rises; such beds are sometimes thousands of meters thick.
In lowland country almost any spot on the ground may overlie what was once the bed of a river that has since become buried by soil; if they are now below the water's upper surface (the water table), the gravels and sands of the former riverbed, and its sandbars, will be saturated with groundwater.
So much for unconsolidated sediments. Consolidated (or cementeD. sediments, too, contain millions of minute water-holding pores. This is because the gaps among the original grains are often not totally plugged with cementing chemicals; also, parts of the original grains may become dissolved by percolating groundwater, either while consolidation is taking place or at any time afterwards. The result is that sandstone, for example, can be as porous as the loose sand from which it was formed.
Thus a proportion of the total volume of any sediment, loose or cemented, consists of empty space. Most crystalline rocks are much more solid; a common exception is basalt, a form of solidified volcanic lava, which is sometimes full of tiny bubbles that make it very porous.
The proportion of empty space in a rock is known as its porosity. But note that porosity is not the same as permeability, which measures the ease with which water can flow through a material; this depends on the sizes of the individual cavities and the crevices linking them.
Much of the water in a sample of water-saturated sediment or rock will drain from it if the sample is put in a suitable dry place. But some will remain, clinging to all solid surfaces. It is held there by the force of surface tension without which water would drain instantly from any wet surface, leaving it totally dry. The total volume of water in the saturated sample must therefore be thought of as consisting of water that can, and water that cannot, drain away.
The relative amount of these two kinds of water varies greatly from one kind of rock or sediment to another, even though their porosities may be the same. What happens depends on pore size. If the pores are large, the water in them will exist as drops too heavy for surface tension to hold, and it will drain away; but if the pores are small enough, the water in them will exist as thin films, too light to overcome the force of surface tension holding them in place; then the water will be firmly held. | 1376.txt | 3 |
[
"A mountain valley",
"Flat land",
"A lake floor",
"The seafloor"
]
| All of the following are mentioned in paragraph 3 as places that sediment-laden rivers can deposit their sediments EXCEPT | Groundwater is the word used to describe water that saturates the ground, filling all the available spaces. By far the most abundant type of groundwater is meteoric water; this is the groundwater that circulates as part of the water cycle. Ordinary meteoric water is water that has soaked into the ground from the surface, from precipitation (rain and snow) and from lakes and streams. There it remains, sometimes for long periods, before emerging at the surface again. At first thought it seems incredible that there can be enough space in the "solid" ground underfoot to hold all this water.
The necessary space is there, however, in many forms. The commonest spaces are those among the particles-sand grains and tiny pebbles-of loose, unconsolidated sand and gravel. Beds of this material, out of sight beneath the soil, are common. They are found wherever fast rivers carrying loads of coarse sediment once flowed. For example, as the great ice sheets that covered North America during the last ice age steadily melted away, huge volumes of water flowed from them. The water was always laden with pebbles, gravel, and sand, known as glacial outwash, that was deposited as the flow slowed down.
The same thing happens to this day, though on a smaller scale, wherever a sediment-laden river or stream emerges from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land, dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope. Sediments are also dropped where a river slows on entering a lake or the sea, the deposited sediments are on a lake floor or the seafloor at first, but will be located inland at some future date, when the sea level falls or the land rises; such beds are sometimes thousands of meters thick.
In lowland country almost any spot on the ground may overlie what was once the bed of a river that has since become buried by soil; if they are now below the water's upper surface (the water table), the gravels and sands of the former riverbed, and its sandbars, will be saturated with groundwater.
So much for unconsolidated sediments. Consolidated (or cementeD. sediments, too, contain millions of minute water-holding pores. This is because the gaps among the original grains are often not totally plugged with cementing chemicals; also, parts of the original grains may become dissolved by percolating groundwater, either while consolidation is taking place or at any time afterwards. The result is that sandstone, for example, can be as porous as the loose sand from which it was formed.
Thus a proportion of the total volume of any sediment, loose or cemented, consists of empty space. Most crystalline rocks are much more solid; a common exception is basalt, a form of solidified volcanic lava, which is sometimes full of tiny bubbles that make it very porous.
The proportion of empty space in a rock is known as its porosity. But note that porosity is not the same as permeability, which measures the ease with which water can flow through a material; this depends on the sizes of the individual cavities and the crevices linking them.
Much of the water in a sample of water-saturated sediment or rock will drain from it if the sample is put in a suitable dry place. But some will remain, clinging to all solid surfaces. It is held there by the force of surface tension without which water would drain instantly from any wet surface, leaving it totally dry. The total volume of water in the saturated sample must therefore be thought of as consisting of water that can, and water that cannot, drain away.
The relative amount of these two kinds of water varies greatly from one kind of rock or sediment to another, even though their porosities may be the same. What happens depends on pore size. If the pores are large, the water in them will exist as drops too heavy for surface tension to hold, and it will drain away; but if the pores are small enough, the water in them will exist as thin films, too light to overcome the force of surface tension holding them in place; then the water will be firmly held. | 1376.txt | 0 |
[
"cover",
"change",
"separate",
"surround"
]
| The word "overlie" in the passage (paragragh 4)) is closest in meaning to | Groundwater is the word used to describe water that saturates the ground, filling all the available spaces. By far the most abundant type of groundwater is meteoric water; this is the groundwater that circulates as part of the water cycle. Ordinary meteoric water is water that has soaked into the ground from the surface, from precipitation (rain and snow) and from lakes and streams. There it remains, sometimes for long periods, before emerging at the surface again. At first thought it seems incredible that there can be enough space in the "solid" ground underfoot to hold all this water.
The necessary space is there, however, in many forms. The commonest spaces are those among the particles-sand grains and tiny pebbles-of loose, unconsolidated sand and gravel. Beds of this material, out of sight beneath the soil, are common. They are found wherever fast rivers carrying loads of coarse sediment once flowed. For example, as the great ice sheets that covered North America during the last ice age steadily melted away, huge volumes of water flowed from them. The water was always laden with pebbles, gravel, and sand, known as glacial outwash, that was deposited as the flow slowed down.
The same thing happens to this day, though on a smaller scale, wherever a sediment-laden river or stream emerges from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land, dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope. Sediments are also dropped where a river slows on entering a lake or the sea, the deposited sediments are on a lake floor or the seafloor at first, but will be located inland at some future date, when the sea level falls or the land rises; such beds are sometimes thousands of meters thick.
In lowland country almost any spot on the ground may overlie what was once the bed of a river that has since become buried by soil; if they are now below the water's upper surface (the water table), the gravels and sands of the former riverbed, and its sandbars, will be saturated with groundwater.
So much for unconsolidated sediments. Consolidated (or cementeD. sediments, too, contain millions of minute water-holding pores. This is because the gaps among the original grains are often not totally plugged with cementing chemicals; also, parts of the original grains may become dissolved by percolating groundwater, either while consolidation is taking place or at any time afterwards. The result is that sandstone, for example, can be as porous as the loose sand from which it was formed.
Thus a proportion of the total volume of any sediment, loose or cemented, consists of empty space. Most crystalline rocks are much more solid; a common exception is basalt, a form of solidified volcanic lava, which is sometimes full of tiny bubbles that make it very porous.
The proportion of empty space in a rock is known as its porosity. But note that porosity is not the same as permeability, which measures the ease with which water can flow through a material; this depends on the sizes of the individual cavities and the crevices linking them.
Much of the water in a sample of water-saturated sediment or rock will drain from it if the sample is put in a suitable dry place. But some will remain, clinging to all solid surfaces. It is held there by the force of surface tension without which water would drain instantly from any wet surface, leaving it totally dry. The total volume of water in the saturated sample must therefore be thought of as consisting of water that can, and water that cannot, drain away.
The relative amount of these two kinds of water varies greatly from one kind of rock or sediment to another, even though their porosities may be the same. What happens depends on pore size. If the pores are large, the water in them will exist as drops too heavy for surface tension to hold, and it will drain away; but if the pores are small enough, the water in them will exist as thin films, too light to overcome the force of surface tension holding them in place; then the water will be firmly held. | 1376.txt | 0 |
[
"that is enough about",
"now let us turn to",
"of greater concern are",
"this is related to"
]
| The phrase "So much for" in the passage (paragragh 5) is closest in meaning to | Groundwater is the word used to describe water that saturates the ground, filling all the available spaces. By far the most abundant type of groundwater is meteoric water; this is the groundwater that circulates as part of the water cycle. Ordinary meteoric water is water that has soaked into the ground from the surface, from precipitation (rain and snow) and from lakes and streams. There it remains, sometimes for long periods, before emerging at the surface again. At first thought it seems incredible that there can be enough space in the "solid" ground underfoot to hold all this water.
The necessary space is there, however, in many forms. The commonest spaces are those among the particles-sand grains and tiny pebbles-of loose, unconsolidated sand and gravel. Beds of this material, out of sight beneath the soil, are common. They are found wherever fast rivers carrying loads of coarse sediment once flowed. For example, as the great ice sheets that covered North America during the last ice age steadily melted away, huge volumes of water flowed from them. The water was always laden with pebbles, gravel, and sand, known as glacial outwash, that was deposited as the flow slowed down.
The same thing happens to this day, though on a smaller scale, wherever a sediment-laden river or stream emerges from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land, dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope. Sediments are also dropped where a river slows on entering a lake or the sea, the deposited sediments are on a lake floor or the seafloor at first, but will be located inland at some future date, when the sea level falls or the land rises; such beds are sometimes thousands of meters thick.
In lowland country almost any spot on the ground may overlie what was once the bed of a river that has since become buried by soil; if they are now below the water's upper surface (the water table), the gravels and sands of the former riverbed, and its sandbars, will be saturated with groundwater.
So much for unconsolidated sediments. Consolidated (or cementeD. sediments, too, contain millions of minute water-holding pores. This is because the gaps among the original grains are often not totally plugged with cementing chemicals; also, parts of the original grains may become dissolved by percolating groundwater, either while consolidation is taking place or at any time afterwards. The result is that sandstone, for example, can be as porous as the loose sand from which it was formed.
Thus a proportion of the total volume of any sediment, loose or cemented, consists of empty space. Most crystalline rocks are much more solid; a common exception is basalt, a form of solidified volcanic lava, which is sometimes full of tiny bubbles that make it very porous.
The proportion of empty space in a rock is known as its porosity. But note that porosity is not the same as permeability, which measures the ease with which water can flow through a material; this depends on the sizes of the individual cavities and the crevices linking them.
Much of the water in a sample of water-saturated sediment or rock will drain from it if the sample is put in a suitable dry place. But some will remain, clinging to all solid surfaces. It is held there by the force of surface tension without which water would drain instantly from any wet surface, leaving it totally dry. The total volume of water in the saturated sample must therefore be thought of as consisting of water that can, and water that cannot, drain away.
The relative amount of these two kinds of water varies greatly from one kind of rock or sediment to another, even though their porosities may be the same. What happens depends on pore size. If the pores are large, the water in them will exist as drops too heavy for surface tension to hold, and it will drain away; but if the pores are small enough, the water in them will exist as thin films, too light to overcome the force of surface tension holding them in place; then the water will be firmly held. | 1376.txt | 0 |
[
"washed",
"dragged",
"filled up",
"soaked through"
]
| The word "plugged" in the passage (paragragh 5) is closet in meaning to | Groundwater is the word used to describe water that saturates the ground, filling all the available spaces. By far the most abundant type of groundwater is meteoric water; this is the groundwater that circulates as part of the water cycle. Ordinary meteoric water is water that has soaked into the ground from the surface, from precipitation (rain and snow) and from lakes and streams. There it remains, sometimes for long periods, before emerging at the surface again. At first thought it seems incredible that there can be enough space in the "solid" ground underfoot to hold all this water.
The necessary space is there, however, in many forms. The commonest spaces are those among the particles-sand grains and tiny pebbles-of loose, unconsolidated sand and gravel. Beds of this material, out of sight beneath the soil, are common. They are found wherever fast rivers carrying loads of coarse sediment once flowed. For example, as the great ice sheets that covered North America during the last ice age steadily melted away, huge volumes of water flowed from them. The water was always laden with pebbles, gravel, and sand, known as glacial outwash, that was deposited as the flow slowed down.
The same thing happens to this day, though on a smaller scale, wherever a sediment-laden river or stream emerges from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land, dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope. Sediments are also dropped where a river slows on entering a lake or the sea, the deposited sediments are on a lake floor or the seafloor at first, but will be located inland at some future date, when the sea level falls or the land rises; such beds are sometimes thousands of meters thick.
In lowland country almost any spot on the ground may overlie what was once the bed of a river that has since become buried by soil; if they are now below the water's upper surface (the water table), the gravels and sands of the former riverbed, and its sandbars, will be saturated with groundwater.
So much for unconsolidated sediments. Consolidated (or cementeD. sediments, too, contain millions of minute water-holding pores. This is because the gaps among the original grains are often not totally plugged with cementing chemicals; also, parts of the original grains may become dissolved by percolating groundwater, either while consolidation is taking place or at any time afterwards. The result is that sandstone, for example, can be as porous as the loose sand from which it was formed.
Thus a proportion of the total volume of any sediment, loose or cemented, consists of empty space. Most crystalline rocks are much more solid; a common exception is basalt, a form of solidified volcanic lava, which is sometimes full of tiny bubbles that make it very porous.
The proportion of empty space in a rock is known as its porosity. But note that porosity is not the same as permeability, which measures the ease with which water can flow through a material; this depends on the sizes of the individual cavities and the crevices linking them.
Much of the water in a sample of water-saturated sediment or rock will drain from it if the sample is put in a suitable dry place. But some will remain, clinging to all solid surfaces. It is held there by the force of surface tension without which water would drain instantly from any wet surface, leaving it totally dry. The total volume of water in the saturated sample must therefore be thought of as consisting of water that can, and water that cannot, drain away.
The relative amount of these two kinds of water varies greatly from one kind of rock or sediment to another, even though their porosities may be the same. What happens depends on pore size. If the pores are large, the water in them will exist as drops too heavy for surface tension to hold, and it will drain away; but if the pores are small enough, the water in them will exist as thin films, too light to overcome the force of surface tension holding them in place; then the water will be firmly held. | 1376.txt | 2 |
[
"It is unusually solid.",
"It often has high porosity.",
"It has a low proportion of empty space.",
"It is highly permeable."
]
| According to paragraphs 6 and 7, why is basalt unlike most crystalline forms of rock? | Groundwater is the word used to describe water that saturates the ground, filling all the available spaces. By far the most abundant type of groundwater is meteoric water; this is the groundwater that circulates as part of the water cycle. Ordinary meteoric water is water that has soaked into the ground from the surface, from precipitation (rain and snow) and from lakes and streams. There it remains, sometimes for long periods, before emerging at the surface again. At first thought it seems incredible that there can be enough space in the "solid" ground underfoot to hold all this water.
The necessary space is there, however, in many forms. The commonest spaces are those among the particles-sand grains and tiny pebbles-of loose, unconsolidated sand and gravel. Beds of this material, out of sight beneath the soil, are common. They are found wherever fast rivers carrying loads of coarse sediment once flowed. For example, as the great ice sheets that covered North America during the last ice age steadily melted away, huge volumes of water flowed from them. The water was always laden with pebbles, gravel, and sand, known as glacial outwash, that was deposited as the flow slowed down.
The same thing happens to this day, though on a smaller scale, wherever a sediment-laden river or stream emerges from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land, dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope. Sediments are also dropped where a river slows on entering a lake or the sea, the deposited sediments are on a lake floor or the seafloor at first, but will be located inland at some future date, when the sea level falls or the land rises; such beds are sometimes thousands of meters thick.
In lowland country almost any spot on the ground may overlie what was once the bed of a river that has since become buried by soil; if they are now below the water's upper surface (the water table), the gravels and sands of the former riverbed, and its sandbars, will be saturated with groundwater.
So much for unconsolidated sediments. Consolidated (or cementeD. sediments, too, contain millions of minute water-holding pores. This is because the gaps among the original grains are often not totally plugged with cementing chemicals; also, parts of the original grains may become dissolved by percolating groundwater, either while consolidation is taking place or at any time afterwards. The result is that sandstone, for example, can be as porous as the loose sand from which it was formed.
Thus a proportion of the total volume of any sediment, loose or cemented, consists of empty space. Most crystalline rocks are much more solid; a common exception is basalt, a form of solidified volcanic lava, which is sometimes full of tiny bubbles that make it very porous.
The proportion of empty space in a rock is known as its porosity. But note that porosity is not the same as permeability, which measures the ease with which water can flow through a material; this depends on the sizes of the individual cavities and the crevices linking them.
Much of the water in a sample of water-saturated sediment or rock will drain from it if the sample is put in a suitable dry place. But some will remain, clinging to all solid surfaces. It is held there by the force of surface tension without which water would drain instantly from any wet surface, leaving it totally dry. The total volume of water in the saturated sample must therefore be thought of as consisting of water that can, and water that cannot, drain away.
The relative amount of these two kinds of water varies greatly from one kind of rock or sediment to another, even though their porosities may be the same. What happens depends on pore size. If the pores are large, the water in them will exist as drops too heavy for surface tension to hold, and it will drain away; but if the pores are small enough, the water in them will exist as thin films, too light to overcome the force of surface tension holding them in place; then the water will be firmly held. | 1376.txt | 1 |
[
"To explain why water can flow through rock",
"To emphasize the large amount of empty space in all rock",
"To point out that a rock cannot be both porous and permeable",
"To distinguish between two related properties of rock"
]
| What is the main purpose of paragraph 7? | Groundwater is the word used to describe water that saturates the ground, filling all the available spaces. By far the most abundant type of groundwater is meteoric water; this is the groundwater that circulates as part of the water cycle. Ordinary meteoric water is water that has soaked into the ground from the surface, from precipitation (rain and snow) and from lakes and streams. There it remains, sometimes for long periods, before emerging at the surface again. At first thought it seems incredible that there can be enough space in the "solid" ground underfoot to hold all this water.
The necessary space is there, however, in many forms. The commonest spaces are those among the particles-sand grains and tiny pebbles-of loose, unconsolidated sand and gravel. Beds of this material, out of sight beneath the soil, are common. They are found wherever fast rivers carrying loads of coarse sediment once flowed. For example, as the great ice sheets that covered North America during the last ice age steadily melted away, huge volumes of water flowed from them. The water was always laden with pebbles, gravel, and sand, known as glacial outwash, that was deposited as the flow slowed down.
The same thing happens to this day, though on a smaller scale, wherever a sediment-laden river or stream emerges from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land, dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope. Sediments are also dropped where a river slows on entering a lake or the sea, the deposited sediments are on a lake floor or the seafloor at first, but will be located inland at some future date, when the sea level falls or the land rises; such beds are sometimes thousands of meters thick.
In lowland country almost any spot on the ground may overlie what was once the bed of a river that has since become buried by soil; if they are now below the water's upper surface (the water table), the gravels and sands of the former riverbed, and its sandbars, will be saturated with groundwater.
So much for unconsolidated sediments. Consolidated (or cementeD. sediments, too, contain millions of minute water-holding pores. This is because the gaps among the original grains are often not totally plugged with cementing chemicals; also, parts of the original grains may become dissolved by percolating groundwater, either while consolidation is taking place or at any time afterwards. The result is that sandstone, for example, can be as porous as the loose sand from which it was formed.
Thus a proportion of the total volume of any sediment, loose or cemented, consists of empty space. Most crystalline rocks are much more solid; a common exception is basalt, a form of solidified volcanic lava, which is sometimes full of tiny bubbles that make it very porous.
The proportion of empty space in a rock is known as its porosity. But note that porosity is not the same as permeability, which measures the ease with which water can flow through a material; this depends on the sizes of the individual cavities and the crevices linking them.
Much of the water in a sample of water-saturated sediment or rock will drain from it if the sample is put in a suitable dry place. But some will remain, clinging to all solid surfaces. It is held there by the force of surface tension without which water would drain instantly from any wet surface, leaving it totally dry. The total volume of water in the saturated sample must therefore be thought of as consisting of water that can, and water that cannot, drain away.
The relative amount of these two kinds of water varies greatly from one kind of rock or sediment to another, even though their porosities may be the same. What happens depends on pore size. If the pores are large, the water in them will exist as drops too heavy for surface tension to hold, and it will drain away; but if the pores are small enough, the water in them will exist as thin films, too light to overcome the force of surface tension holding them in place; then the water will be firmly held. | 1376.txt | 3 |
[
"it is no surprise",
"it means you have not really learned anything",
"it means you have not chosen the right book",
"you realize it is of no importance"
]
| If you cannot remember what you read or study _ . | It doesn‘t come as a surprise to you to realizethat it makes no difference what you read or study ifyou can‘t remember it. You just waste your valuabletime. Maybe you have already discovered some cleverways to keep yourself from forgetting.
One dependable aid that does help youremember what you study is to have a specificpurpose or reason for reading. You remember better what you read when you know why you‘rereading.
Why does a clerk in a store go away and leave you when your reply to her offer to help is―No, thank you. I‘m just looking‖ ? Both you and she know that if you aren‘t sure what youwant, you are not likely to find it. But suppose you say instead, ―Yes, thank you. I want a pairof sun glasses.‖ She says,‖ Right this way, please.‖ And you and she are off-both eager to lookfor exactly what you want.
It‘s quite the same with your studying. If you choose a book at random, ―just look‖for nothing in particular, you are likely to get just that-nothing. But if you do know what youwant, and if you have the right book, you are almost sure to get it. Your reasons will vary; theywill include reading or studying ―to find out more about‖, ―to understand the reason for‖, ―to find out how‖.A good student has a clear purpose or reason for what he is doing.
This is the way it works. Before you start to study, you say to yourself some thing like this: ―I want to know why Stephen Vincent Benet happened to write about America. I‘m readingthis article to find out.‖ Or, ―I am going to go over this story to see what life was like inmedieval England.‖ Because you know what you are reading or studying, you relatethe information to your purpose and remember it better.
Reading is not one single activity. At least two important processes go on at the same time.As you read, you take in ideas rapidly and accurately. But at the same time you express yourown ideas to yourself as you react to what you read. You have a kind of mental conversationwith the author. If you express your ideas orally, they may sound like this:‖ Yes, I agree. That‘smy opinion too.‖ or ―Ummmm, I thought that record was broken much earlier. I‘d bettercheck those dates,‖ or ―But there are some other facts to be considered!‖ You don‘t just sitthere taking in ideas-you do something else, and that something else is very important.
This extra process of thinking about what you read includes judging it, relating it to whatyou already know, and using it for your own purposes. In other words, a good reader is acritical reader. One part of critical reading, as you have discovered, is to distinguishbetween facts and opinions. Facts can be checked by evidence. Opinions are one‘s ownpersonal reactions. Another part of critical reading is judging source. Still another part isdrawing accurate conclusions. | 2539.txt | 1 |
[
"to make sure why you are reading",
"to relate the information to your purpose",
"to remember what you read",
"to choose an interesting book"
]
| Before you start reading, it is important _ . | It doesn‘t come as a surprise to you to realizethat it makes no difference what you read or study ifyou can‘t remember it. You just waste your valuabletime. Maybe you have already discovered some cleverways to keep yourself from forgetting.
One dependable aid that does help youremember what you study is to have a specificpurpose or reason for reading. You remember better what you read when you know why you‘rereading.
Why does a clerk in a store go away and leave you when your reply to her offer to help is―No, thank you. I‘m just looking‖ ? Both you and she know that if you aren‘t sure what youwant, you are not likely to find it. But suppose you say instead, ―Yes, thank you. I want a pairof sun glasses.‖ She says,‖ Right this way, please.‖ And you and she are off-both eager to lookfor exactly what you want.
It‘s quite the same with your studying. If you choose a book at random, ―just look‖for nothing in particular, you are likely to get just that-nothing. But if you do know what youwant, and if you have the right book, you are almost sure to get it. Your reasons will vary; theywill include reading or studying ―to find out more about‖, ―to understand the reason for‖, ―to find out how‖.A good student has a clear purpose or reason for what he is doing.
This is the way it works. Before you start to study, you say to yourself some thing like this: ―I want to know why Stephen Vincent Benet happened to write about America. I‘m readingthis article to find out.‖ Or, ―I am going to go over this story to see what life was like inmedieval England.‖ Because you know what you are reading or studying, you relatethe information to your purpose and remember it better.
Reading is not one single activity. At least two important processes go on at the same time.As you read, you take in ideas rapidly and accurately. But at the same time you express yourown ideas to yourself as you react to what you read. You have a kind of mental conversationwith the author. If you express your ideas orally, they may sound like this:‖ Yes, I agree. That‘smy opinion too.‖ or ―Ummmm, I thought that record was broken much earlier. I‘d bettercheck those dates,‖ or ―But there are some other facts to be considered!‖ You don‘t just sitthere taking in ideas-you do something else, and that something else is very important.
This extra process of thinking about what you read includes judging it, relating it to whatyou already know, and using it for your own purposes. In other words, a good reader is acritical reader. One part of critical reading, as you have discovered, is to distinguishbetween facts and opinions. Facts can be checked by evidence. Opinions are one‘s ownpersonal reactions. Another part of critical reading is judging source. Still another part isdrawing accurate conclusions. | 2539.txt | 0 |
[
"only two reasons",
"mainly drawing exact conclusions",
"mainly learning about ideas and judging them critically",
"only distinguishing between facts and opinions"
]
| Reading activity includes _ . | It doesn‘t come as a surprise to you to realizethat it makes no difference what you read or study ifyou can‘t remember it. You just waste your valuabletime. Maybe you have already discovered some cleverways to keep yourself from forgetting.
One dependable aid that does help youremember what you study is to have a specificpurpose or reason for reading. You remember better what you read when you know why you‘rereading.
Why does a clerk in a store go away and leave you when your reply to her offer to help is―No, thank you. I‘m just looking‖ ? Both you and she know that if you aren‘t sure what youwant, you are not likely to find it. But suppose you say instead, ―Yes, thank you. I want a pairof sun glasses.‖ She says,‖ Right this way, please.‖ And you and she are off-both eager to lookfor exactly what you want.
It‘s quite the same with your studying. If you choose a book at random, ―just look‖for nothing in particular, you are likely to get just that-nothing. But if you do know what youwant, and if you have the right book, you are almost sure to get it. Your reasons will vary; theywill include reading or studying ―to find out more about‖, ―to understand the reason for‖, ―to find out how‖.A good student has a clear purpose or reason for what he is doing.
This is the way it works. Before you start to study, you say to yourself some thing like this: ―I want to know why Stephen Vincent Benet happened to write about America. I‘m readingthis article to find out.‖ Or, ―I am going to go over this story to see what life was like inmedieval England.‖ Because you know what you are reading or studying, you relatethe information to your purpose and remember it better.
Reading is not one single activity. At least two important processes go on at the same time.As you read, you take in ideas rapidly and accurately. But at the same time you express yourown ideas to yourself as you react to what you read. You have a kind of mental conversationwith the author. If you express your ideas orally, they may sound like this:‖ Yes, I agree. That‘smy opinion too.‖ or ―Ummmm, I thought that record was broken much earlier. I‘d bettercheck those dates,‖ or ―But there are some other facts to be considered!‖ You don‘t just sitthere taking in ideas-you do something else, and that something else is very important.
This extra process of thinking about what you read includes judging it, relating it to whatyou already know, and using it for your own purposes. In other words, a good reader is acritical reader. One part of critical reading, as you have discovered, is to distinguishbetween facts and opinions. Facts can be checked by evidence. Opinions are one‘s ownpersonal reactions. Another part of critical reading is judging source. Still another part isdrawing accurate conclusions. | 2539.txt | 2 |
[
"relates what he reads to his own knowledge",
"does lots of thinking in his reading",
"take a critical attiutude in his reading",
"is able to check the facts against what he has known"
]
| A. good reader is one who _ . | It doesn‘t come as a surprise to you to realizethat it makes no difference what you read or study ifyou can‘t remember it. You just waste your valuabletime. Maybe you have already discovered some cleverways to keep yourself from forgetting.
One dependable aid that does help youremember what you study is to have a specificpurpose or reason for reading. You remember better what you read when you know why you‘rereading.
Why does a clerk in a store go away and leave you when your reply to her offer to help is―No, thank you. I‘m just looking‖ ? Both you and she know that if you aren‘t sure what youwant, you are not likely to find it. But suppose you say instead, ―Yes, thank you. I want a pairof sun glasses.‖ She says,‖ Right this way, please.‖ And you and she are off-both eager to lookfor exactly what you want.
It‘s quite the same with your studying. If you choose a book at random, ―just look‖for nothing in particular, you are likely to get just that-nothing. But if you do know what youwant, and if you have the right book, you are almost sure to get it. Your reasons will vary; theywill include reading or studying ―to find out more about‖, ―to understand the reason for‖, ―to find out how‖.A good student has a clear purpose or reason for what he is doing.
This is the way it works. Before you start to study, you say to yourself some thing like this: ―I want to know why Stephen Vincent Benet happened to write about America. I‘m readingthis article to find out.‖ Or, ―I am going to go over this story to see what life was like inmedieval England.‖ Because you know what you are reading or studying, you relatethe information to your purpose and remember it better.
Reading is not one single activity. At least two important processes go on at the same time.As you read, you take in ideas rapidly and accurately. But at the same time you express yourown ideas to yourself as you react to what you read. You have a kind of mental conversationwith the author. If you express your ideas orally, they may sound like this:‖ Yes, I agree. That‘smy opinion too.‖ or ―Ummmm, I thought that record was broken much earlier. I‘d bettercheck those dates,‖ or ―But there are some other facts to be considered!‖ You don‘t just sitthere taking in ideas-you do something else, and that something else is very important.
This extra process of thinking about what you read includes judging it, relating it to whatyou already know, and using it for your own purposes. In other words, a good reader is acritical reader. One part of critical reading, as you have discovered, is to distinguishbetween facts and opinions. Facts can be checked by evidence. Opinions are one‘s ownpersonal reactions. Another part of critical reading is judging source. Still another part isdrawing accurate conclusions. | 2539.txt | 2 |
[
"inexperienced.",
"promising.",
"new.",
"initiative."
]
| The word "fledgling" (Line 7, Paragraph 1) most probably means _ | The company that revolutionized the delivery of information now aims to do the same with electricity. Technology powerhouse Google today announced it would spend "tens of millions" of dollars next year in research and development and investments in an effort to drive down the cost of large-scale renewable energy to make it cheaper than coal. Not only will Google be hiring engineers and energy experts for its new initiative, known as RE<C (renewable energy at less cost than coal), but it also will make investments in fledgling companies-starting with those that focus on solar-thermal technology, enhanced geothermal, and high-altitude wind power. "Cheap renewable energy is not only critical for the environment but also vital for economic development in many places where there is limited affordable energy of any kind," said Sergey Brin, Google cofounder and president of technology, in a prepared statement.
Coal supplies 40 percent of the world's electricity and more than half of U.S. power, and if current trends continue, it is expected to grab an ever increasing share because it is a plentiful and cheap fuel for big consumers like China and the United States. But coal is also the worst fuel in its production of the global warming gas carbon dioxide. Google cofounder Larry Page said the company's goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal within "years, not decades." Google says that's enough electricity to power a city the size of San Francisco (about 330,000 households).
Google, located in Mountain View, Calif., said it was initially working with two other California companies. They are eSolar, of Pasadena, which is specializing in solar-thermal power, using large fields of mirrors to concentrate sunlight and generate steam to run utility-scale electric turbines, and Makani of Alameda, which is developing wind energy technology that takes advantage of the much stronger and more reliable currents available at high altitudes.
Google did not specify how much money it was putting into its projects with these companies but said they both had "promising scalable energy technologies." This portion of the initiative will be funded through the company's philanthropic arm, Google.org, which is not a traditional charity but can make equity investments in companies. Brin and Page have pledged 1 percent of Google's equity and profits toward efforts including climate change and global poverty.
The RE<C program is the latest of a series of steps Google has taken on climate change. The company says it is on track in its goal to be carbon neutral in 2007. It installed one of the largest corporate solar panel installations anywhere, a 1.6-megawatt rooftop system on its Mountain View campus.
The company also has a project to accelerate development and adoption of ultrahigh-efficiency plug-in hybrid cars. Google has been lobbying for inclusion of a nationwide renewable energy portfolio goal in the energy legislation currently under negotiation on Capitol Hill. And the company is working on an energy-efficient computing initiative with other Silicon Valley companies. | 3662.txt | 2 |
[
"It is a kind of controversial fuel given its large quantity and its harm to the harm the environment.",
"It is a plentiful and cheap fuel that will surely earn more market share.",
"It will be totally replaced by the renewable energy in years because it produces the worst gas-a carbon dioxide.",
"It is supported by enthusiastic countries like China and U.S."
]
| Which one of the following statements is TRUE of the coal? | The company that revolutionized the delivery of information now aims to do the same with electricity. Technology powerhouse Google today announced it would spend "tens of millions" of dollars next year in research and development and investments in an effort to drive down the cost of large-scale renewable energy to make it cheaper than coal. Not only will Google be hiring engineers and energy experts for its new initiative, known as RE<C (renewable energy at less cost than coal), but it also will make investments in fledgling companies-starting with those that focus on solar-thermal technology, enhanced geothermal, and high-altitude wind power. "Cheap renewable energy is not only critical for the environment but also vital for economic development in many places where there is limited affordable energy of any kind," said Sergey Brin, Google cofounder and president of technology, in a prepared statement.
Coal supplies 40 percent of the world's electricity and more than half of U.S. power, and if current trends continue, it is expected to grab an ever increasing share because it is a plentiful and cheap fuel for big consumers like China and the United States. But coal is also the worst fuel in its production of the global warming gas carbon dioxide. Google cofounder Larry Page said the company's goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal within "years, not decades." Google says that's enough electricity to power a city the size of San Francisco (about 330,000 households).
Google, located in Mountain View, Calif., said it was initially working with two other California companies. They are eSolar, of Pasadena, which is specializing in solar-thermal power, using large fields of mirrors to concentrate sunlight and generate steam to run utility-scale electric turbines, and Makani of Alameda, which is developing wind energy technology that takes advantage of the much stronger and more reliable currents available at high altitudes.
Google did not specify how much money it was putting into its projects with these companies but said they both had "promising scalable energy technologies." This portion of the initiative will be funded through the company's philanthropic arm, Google.org, which is not a traditional charity but can make equity investments in companies. Brin and Page have pledged 1 percent of Google's equity and profits toward efforts including climate change and global poverty.
The RE<C program is the latest of a series of steps Google has taken on climate change. The company says it is on track in its goal to be carbon neutral in 2007. It installed one of the largest corporate solar panel installations anywhere, a 1.6-megawatt rooftop system on its Mountain View campus.
The company also has a project to accelerate development and adoption of ultrahigh-efficiency plug-in hybrid cars. Google has been lobbying for inclusion of a nationwide renewable energy portfolio goal in the energy legislation currently under negotiation on Capitol Hill. And the company is working on an energy-efficient computing initiative with other Silicon Valley companies. | 3662.txt | 0 |
[
"conventional type of charity organization.",
"equity investor in companies.",
"a branch website of Google.com that focuses on charity activities.",
"environmental organization that specializes in promoting green fuel."
]
| Google.org is a _ | The company that revolutionized the delivery of information now aims to do the same with electricity. Technology powerhouse Google today announced it would spend "tens of millions" of dollars next year in research and development and investments in an effort to drive down the cost of large-scale renewable energy to make it cheaper than coal. Not only will Google be hiring engineers and energy experts for its new initiative, known as RE<C (renewable energy at less cost than coal), but it also will make investments in fledgling companies-starting with those that focus on solar-thermal technology, enhanced geothermal, and high-altitude wind power. "Cheap renewable energy is not only critical for the environment but also vital for economic development in many places where there is limited affordable energy of any kind," said Sergey Brin, Google cofounder and president of technology, in a prepared statement.
Coal supplies 40 percent of the world's electricity and more than half of U.S. power, and if current trends continue, it is expected to grab an ever increasing share because it is a plentiful and cheap fuel for big consumers like China and the United States. But coal is also the worst fuel in its production of the global warming gas carbon dioxide. Google cofounder Larry Page said the company's goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal within "years, not decades." Google says that's enough electricity to power a city the size of San Francisco (about 330,000 households).
Google, located in Mountain View, Calif., said it was initially working with two other California companies. They are eSolar, of Pasadena, which is specializing in solar-thermal power, using large fields of mirrors to concentrate sunlight and generate steam to run utility-scale electric turbines, and Makani of Alameda, which is developing wind energy technology that takes advantage of the much stronger and more reliable currents available at high altitudes.
Google did not specify how much money it was putting into its projects with these companies but said they both had "promising scalable energy technologies." This portion of the initiative will be funded through the company's philanthropic arm, Google.org, which is not a traditional charity but can make equity investments in companies. Brin and Page have pledged 1 percent of Google's equity and profits toward efforts including climate change and global poverty.
The RE<C program is the latest of a series of steps Google has taken on climate change. The company says it is on track in its goal to be carbon neutral in 2007. It installed one of the largest corporate solar panel installations anywhere, a 1.6-megawatt rooftop system on its Mountain View campus.
The company also has a project to accelerate development and adoption of ultrahigh-efficiency plug-in hybrid cars. Google has been lobbying for inclusion of a nationwide renewable energy portfolio goal in the energy legislation currently under negotiation on Capitol Hill. And the company is working on an energy-efficient computing initiative with other Silicon Valley companies. | 3662.txt | 0 |
[
"It will be realized through investments in solar and wind energy companies.",
"It is a programme of environmental protection.",
"It is one of the measures taken to neutralize carbon.",
"It can come into true in a few years."
]
| Which one of the following is not TRUE of RE<C programme? | The company that revolutionized the delivery of information now aims to do the same with electricity. Technology powerhouse Google today announced it would spend "tens of millions" of dollars next year in research and development and investments in an effort to drive down the cost of large-scale renewable energy to make it cheaper than coal. Not only will Google be hiring engineers and energy experts for its new initiative, known as RE<C (renewable energy at less cost than coal), but it also will make investments in fledgling companies-starting with those that focus on solar-thermal technology, enhanced geothermal, and high-altitude wind power. "Cheap renewable energy is not only critical for the environment but also vital for economic development in many places where there is limited affordable energy of any kind," said Sergey Brin, Google cofounder and president of technology, in a prepared statement.
Coal supplies 40 percent of the world's electricity and more than half of U.S. power, and if current trends continue, it is expected to grab an ever increasing share because it is a plentiful and cheap fuel for big consumers like China and the United States. But coal is also the worst fuel in its production of the global warming gas carbon dioxide. Google cofounder Larry Page said the company's goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal within "years, not decades." Google says that's enough electricity to power a city the size of San Francisco (about 330,000 households).
Google, located in Mountain View, Calif., said it was initially working with two other California companies. They are eSolar, of Pasadena, which is specializing in solar-thermal power, using large fields of mirrors to concentrate sunlight and generate steam to run utility-scale electric turbines, and Makani of Alameda, which is developing wind energy technology that takes advantage of the much stronger and more reliable currents available at high altitudes.
Google did not specify how much money it was putting into its projects with these companies but said they both had "promising scalable energy technologies." This portion of the initiative will be funded through the company's philanthropic arm, Google.org, which is not a traditional charity but can make equity investments in companies. Brin and Page have pledged 1 percent of Google's equity and profits toward efforts including climate change and global poverty.
The RE<C program is the latest of a series of steps Google has taken on climate change. The company says it is on track in its goal to be carbon neutral in 2007. It installed one of the largest corporate solar panel installations anywhere, a 1.6-megawatt rooftop system on its Mountain View campus.
The company also has a project to accelerate development and adoption of ultrahigh-efficiency plug-in hybrid cars. Google has been lobbying for inclusion of a nationwide renewable energy portfolio goal in the energy legislation currently under negotiation on Capitol Hill. And the company is working on an energy-efficient computing initiative with other Silicon Valley companies. | 3662.txt | 0 |
[
"Google's RE<C programme.",
"Google, the Energy Revolutionary.",
"Google, the Environmental Protector.",
"Google's Renewable Energy Project."
]
| The best title of this passage is _ | The company that revolutionized the delivery of information now aims to do the same with electricity. Technology powerhouse Google today announced it would spend "tens of millions" of dollars next year in research and development and investments in an effort to drive down the cost of large-scale renewable energy to make it cheaper than coal. Not only will Google be hiring engineers and energy experts for its new initiative, known as RE<C (renewable energy at less cost than coal), but it also will make investments in fledgling companies-starting with those that focus on solar-thermal technology, enhanced geothermal, and high-altitude wind power. "Cheap renewable energy is not only critical for the environment but also vital for economic development in many places where there is limited affordable energy of any kind," said Sergey Brin, Google cofounder and president of technology, in a prepared statement.
Coal supplies 40 percent of the world's electricity and more than half of U.S. power, and if current trends continue, it is expected to grab an ever increasing share because it is a plentiful and cheap fuel for big consumers like China and the United States. But coal is also the worst fuel in its production of the global warming gas carbon dioxide. Google cofounder Larry Page said the company's goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal within "years, not decades." Google says that's enough electricity to power a city the size of San Francisco (about 330,000 households).
Google, located in Mountain View, Calif., said it was initially working with two other California companies. They are eSolar, of Pasadena, which is specializing in solar-thermal power, using large fields of mirrors to concentrate sunlight and generate steam to run utility-scale electric turbines, and Makani of Alameda, which is developing wind energy technology that takes advantage of the much stronger and more reliable currents available at high altitudes.
Google did not specify how much money it was putting into its projects with these companies but said they both had "promising scalable energy technologies." This portion of the initiative will be funded through the company's philanthropic arm, Google.org, which is not a traditional charity but can make equity investments in companies. Brin and Page have pledged 1 percent of Google's equity and profits toward efforts including climate change and global poverty.
The RE<C program is the latest of a series of steps Google has taken on climate change. The company says it is on track in its goal to be carbon neutral in 2007. It installed one of the largest corporate solar panel installations anywhere, a 1.6-megawatt rooftop system on its Mountain View campus.
The company also has a project to accelerate development and adoption of ultrahigh-efficiency plug-in hybrid cars. Google has been lobbying for inclusion of a nationwide renewable energy portfolio goal in the energy legislation currently under negotiation on Capitol Hill. And the company is working on an energy-efficient computing initiative with other Silicon Valley companies. | 3662.txt | 1 |
[
"curious",
"unhappy",
"thoughtful",
"uncertain"
]
| The word despondent in the passage is closest in meaning to | Joy and sadness are experienced by people in all cultures around the world, but how can we tell when other people are happy or despondent? It turns out that the expression of many emotions may be universal. Smiling is apparently a universal sign of friendliness and approval. Baring the teeth in a hostile way, asnoted by Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century, may be a universe sign of anger. As the originator of the theory of evolution, Darwin believed that the universal recognition of facial expressions would have survival value. For example, facial expressions could signal the approach of enemies (or friends) in the absence of language.
Most investigators concur that certain facial expressions suggest the same emotions in a people. Moreover, people in diverse cultures recognize the emotions manifested by the facial expressions. In classic research Paul Ekman took photographs of people exhibiting the emotions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness. He then asked people around the world to indicate what emotions were being depicted in them. Those queried ranged from European college students to members of the Fore, a tribe that dwells in the New Guinea highlands. All groups including the Fore, who had almost no contact with Western culture, agreed on the portrayed emotions. The Fore also displayed familiar facial expressions when asked how they would respond if they were the characters in stories that called for basic emotional responses. Ekman and his colleagues morerecently obtained similar results in a study of ten cultures in which participants were permitted to report that multiple emotions were shown by facial expressions. The participants generally agreed on which two emotions were being shown and which emotion was more intense.
Psychological researchers generally recognize that facial expressions reflect emotional states. Infact, various emotional states give rise to certain patterns of electrical activity in the facial muscles and in the brain. The facial-feedback hypothesis argues, however, that the causal relationship between emotions and facial expressions can also work in the opposite direction. According to this hypothesis, signals from the facial muscles ("feedback") are sent back to emotion centers of the brain, and so a person's facial expression can influence that person's emotional state.
ConsiderDarwin's words: "The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it. On the otherhand, the repression, as far as possible, of all outward signs softens our emotions." Can smiling giverise to feelings of good will, for example, and frowning to anger?
Psychological research has given rise to some interesting findings concerning the facial-feedback hypothesis. Causing participants in experiments to smile, for example, leads them to report morepositive feelings and to rate cartoons (humorous drawings of people or situations) as being morehumorous. When they are caused to frown, they rate cartoons as being more aggressive.
What are the possible links between facial expressions and emotion? One link is arousal, which is the level of activity or preparedness for activity in an organism. Intense contraction of facial muscles,such as those used in signifying fear, heightens arousal. Self-perception of heightened arousal then leads to heightened emotional activity. Other links may involve changes in brain temperature and the release of neurotransmitters (substances that transmit nerve impulses.) The contraction of facial muscles both influences the internal emotional state and reflects it. Ekman has found that theso-called Duchenne smile, which is characterized by "crow's feet" wrinkles around the eyes and asubtle drop in the eye cover fold so that the skin above the eye moves down slightly toward theeyeball, can lead to pleasant feelings.
Ekman's observation may be relevant to the British expression "keep a stiff upper lip" as are commendation for handling stress. It might be that a "stiff" lip suppresses emotional response-as long as the lip is not quivering with fear or tension. But when the emotion that leads to stiffening the lip is more intense, and involves strong muscle tension, facial feedback may heighten emotional response. | 285.txt | 1 |
[
"differentiate one possible meaning of a particular facial expression from other meanings of it",
"upport Darwin's theory of evolution",
"provide an example of a facial expression whose meaning is widely understood",
"contrast a facial expression that is easily understood with other facial expressions"
]
| The author mentions "Baring the teeth in a hostile way" in order to | Joy and sadness are experienced by people in all cultures around the world, but how can we tell when other people are happy or despondent? It turns out that the expression of many emotions may be universal. Smiling is apparently a universal sign of friendliness and approval. Baring the teeth in a hostile way, asnoted by Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century, may be a universe sign of anger. As the originator of the theory of evolution, Darwin believed that the universal recognition of facial expressions would have survival value. For example, facial expressions could signal the approach of enemies (or friends) in the absence of language.
Most investigators concur that certain facial expressions suggest the same emotions in a people. Moreover, people in diverse cultures recognize the emotions manifested by the facial expressions. In classic research Paul Ekman took photographs of people exhibiting the emotions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness. He then asked people around the world to indicate what emotions were being depicted in them. Those queried ranged from European college students to members of the Fore, a tribe that dwells in the New Guinea highlands. All groups including the Fore, who had almost no contact with Western culture, agreed on the portrayed emotions. The Fore also displayed familiar facial expressions when asked how they would respond if they were the characters in stories that called for basic emotional responses. Ekman and his colleagues morerecently obtained similar results in a study of ten cultures in which participants were permitted to report that multiple emotions were shown by facial expressions. The participants generally agreed on which two emotions were being shown and which emotion was more intense.
Psychological researchers generally recognize that facial expressions reflect emotional states. Infact, various emotional states give rise to certain patterns of electrical activity in the facial muscles and in the brain. The facial-feedback hypothesis argues, however, that the causal relationship between emotions and facial expressions can also work in the opposite direction. According to this hypothesis, signals from the facial muscles ("feedback") are sent back to emotion centers of the brain, and so a person's facial expression can influence that person's emotional state.
ConsiderDarwin's words: "The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it. On the otherhand, the repression, as far as possible, of all outward signs softens our emotions." Can smiling giverise to feelings of good will, for example, and frowning to anger?
Psychological research has given rise to some interesting findings concerning the facial-feedback hypothesis. Causing participants in experiments to smile, for example, leads them to report morepositive feelings and to rate cartoons (humorous drawings of people or situations) as being morehumorous. When they are caused to frown, they rate cartoons as being more aggressive.
What are the possible links between facial expressions and emotion? One link is arousal, which is the level of activity or preparedness for activity in an organism. Intense contraction of facial muscles,such as those used in signifying fear, heightens arousal. Self-perception of heightened arousal then leads to heightened emotional activity. Other links may involve changes in brain temperature and the release of neurotransmitters (substances that transmit nerve impulses.) The contraction of facial muscles both influences the internal emotional state and reflects it. Ekman has found that theso-called Duchenne smile, which is characterized by "crow's feet" wrinkles around the eyes and asubtle drop in the eye cover fold so that the skin above the eye moves down slightly toward theeyeball, can lead to pleasant feelings.
Ekman's observation may be relevant to the British expression "keep a stiff upper lip" as are commendation for handling stress. It might be that a "stiff" lip suppresses emotional response-as long as the lip is not quivering with fear or tension. But when the emotion that leads to stiffening the lip is more intense, and involves strong muscle tension, facial feedback may heighten emotional response. | 285.txt | 2 |
[
"estimate",
"agree",
"expect",
"understand"
]
| The word concur in the passage is closest in meaning to | Joy and sadness are experienced by people in all cultures around the world, but how can we tell when other people are happy or despondent? It turns out that the expression of many emotions may be universal. Smiling is apparently a universal sign of friendliness and approval. Baring the teeth in a hostile way, asnoted by Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century, may be a universe sign of anger. As the originator of the theory of evolution, Darwin believed that the universal recognition of facial expressions would have survival value. For example, facial expressions could signal the approach of enemies (or friends) in the absence of language.
Most investigators concur that certain facial expressions suggest the same emotions in a people. Moreover, people in diverse cultures recognize the emotions manifested by the facial expressions. In classic research Paul Ekman took photographs of people exhibiting the emotions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness. He then asked people around the world to indicate what emotions were being depicted in them. Those queried ranged from European college students to members of the Fore, a tribe that dwells in the New Guinea highlands. All groups including the Fore, who had almost no contact with Western culture, agreed on the portrayed emotions. The Fore also displayed familiar facial expressions when asked how they would respond if they were the characters in stories that called for basic emotional responses. Ekman and his colleagues morerecently obtained similar results in a study of ten cultures in which participants were permitted to report that multiple emotions were shown by facial expressions. The participants generally agreed on which two emotions were being shown and which emotion was more intense.
Psychological researchers generally recognize that facial expressions reflect emotional states. Infact, various emotional states give rise to certain patterns of electrical activity in the facial muscles and in the brain. The facial-feedback hypothesis argues, however, that the causal relationship between emotions and facial expressions can also work in the opposite direction. According to this hypothesis, signals from the facial muscles ("feedback") are sent back to emotion centers of the brain, and so a person's facial expression can influence that person's emotional state.
ConsiderDarwin's words: "The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it. On the otherhand, the repression, as far as possible, of all outward signs softens our emotions." Can smiling giverise to feelings of good will, for example, and frowning to anger?
Psychological research has given rise to some interesting findings concerning the facial-feedback hypothesis. Causing participants in experiments to smile, for example, leads them to report morepositive feelings and to rate cartoons (humorous drawings of people or situations) as being morehumorous. When they are caused to frown, they rate cartoons as being more aggressive.
What are the possible links between facial expressions and emotion? One link is arousal, which is the level of activity or preparedness for activity in an organism. Intense contraction of facial muscles,such as those used in signifying fear, heightens arousal. Self-perception of heightened arousal then leads to heightened emotional activity. Other links may involve changes in brain temperature and the release of neurotransmitters (substances that transmit nerve impulses.) The contraction of facial muscles both influences the internal emotional state and reflects it. Ekman has found that theso-called Duchenne smile, which is characterized by "crow's feet" wrinkles around the eyes and asubtle drop in the eye cover fold so that the skin above the eye moves down slightly toward theeyeball, can lead to pleasant feelings.
Ekman's observation may be relevant to the British expression "keep a stiff upper lip" as are commendation for handling stress. It might be that a "stiff" lip suppresses emotional response-as long as the lip is not quivering with fear or tension. But when the emotion that leads to stiffening the lip is more intense, and involves strong muscle tension, facial feedback may heighten emotional response. | 285.txt | 1 |
[
"They did not want to be shown photographs.",
"They were famous for their story-telling skills.",
"They knew very little about Western culture.",
"They did not encourage the expression of emotions."
]
| According to paragraph 2, which of the following was true of the Fore people of New Guinea? | Joy and sadness are experienced by people in all cultures around the world, but how can we tell when other people are happy or despondent? It turns out that the expression of many emotions may be universal. Smiling is apparently a universal sign of friendliness and approval. Baring the teeth in a hostile way, asnoted by Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century, may be a universe sign of anger. As the originator of the theory of evolution, Darwin believed that the universal recognition of facial expressions would have survival value. For example, facial expressions could signal the approach of enemies (or friends) in the absence of language.
Most investigators concur that certain facial expressions suggest the same emotions in a people. Moreover, people in diverse cultures recognize the emotions manifested by the facial expressions. In classic research Paul Ekman took photographs of people exhibiting the emotions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness. He then asked people around the world to indicate what emotions were being depicted in them. Those queried ranged from European college students to members of the Fore, a tribe that dwells in the New Guinea highlands. All groups including the Fore, who had almost no contact with Western culture, agreed on the portrayed emotions. The Fore also displayed familiar facial expressions when asked how they would respond if they were the characters in stories that called for basic emotional responses. Ekman and his colleagues morerecently obtained similar results in a study of ten cultures in which participants were permitted to report that multiple emotions were shown by facial expressions. The participants generally agreed on which two emotions were being shown and which emotion was more intense.
Psychological researchers generally recognize that facial expressions reflect emotional states. Infact, various emotional states give rise to certain patterns of electrical activity in the facial muscles and in the brain. The facial-feedback hypothesis argues, however, that the causal relationship between emotions and facial expressions can also work in the opposite direction. According to this hypothesis, signals from the facial muscles ("feedback") are sent back to emotion centers of the brain, and so a person's facial expression can influence that person's emotional state.
ConsiderDarwin's words: "The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it. On the otherhand, the repression, as far as possible, of all outward signs softens our emotions." Can smiling giverise to feelings of good will, for example, and frowning to anger?
Psychological research has given rise to some interesting findings concerning the facial-feedback hypothesis. Causing participants in experiments to smile, for example, leads them to report morepositive feelings and to rate cartoons (humorous drawings of people or situations) as being morehumorous. When they are caused to frown, they rate cartoons as being more aggressive.
What are the possible links between facial expressions and emotion? One link is arousal, which is the level of activity or preparedness for activity in an organism. Intense contraction of facial muscles,such as those used in signifying fear, heightens arousal. Self-perception of heightened arousal then leads to heightened emotional activity. Other links may involve changes in brain temperature and the release of neurotransmitters (substances that transmit nerve impulses.) The contraction of facial muscles both influences the internal emotional state and reflects it. Ekman has found that theso-called Duchenne smile, which is characterized by "crow's feet" wrinkles around the eyes and asubtle drop in the eye cover fold so that the skin above the eye moves down slightly toward theeyeball, can lead to pleasant feelings.
Ekman's observation may be relevant to the British expression "keep a stiff upper lip" as are commendation for handling stress. It might be that a "stiff" lip suppresses emotional response-as long as the lip is not quivering with fear or tension. But when the emotion that leads to stiffening the lip is more intense, and involves strong muscle tension, facial feedback may heighten emotional response. | 285.txt | 2 |
[
"They would become less intense.",
"They would last longer than usual.",
"They would cause problems later.",
"They would become more negative."
]
| According to the passage, what did Darwin believe would happen to human emotions that werenot expressed? | Joy and sadness are experienced by people in all cultures around the world, but how can we tell when other people are happy or despondent? It turns out that the expression of many emotions may be universal. Smiling is apparently a universal sign of friendliness and approval. Baring the teeth in a hostile way, asnoted by Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century, may be a universe sign of anger. As the originator of the theory of evolution, Darwin believed that the universal recognition of facial expressions would have survival value. For example, facial expressions could signal the approach of enemies (or friends) in the absence of language.
Most investigators concur that certain facial expressions suggest the same emotions in a people. Moreover, people in diverse cultures recognize the emotions manifested by the facial expressions. In classic research Paul Ekman took photographs of people exhibiting the emotions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness. He then asked people around the world to indicate what emotions were being depicted in them. Those queried ranged from European college students to members of the Fore, a tribe that dwells in the New Guinea highlands. All groups including the Fore, who had almost no contact with Western culture, agreed on the portrayed emotions. The Fore also displayed familiar facial expressions when asked how they would respond if they were the characters in stories that called for basic emotional responses. Ekman and his colleagues morerecently obtained similar results in a study of ten cultures in which participants were permitted to report that multiple emotions were shown by facial expressions. The participants generally agreed on which two emotions were being shown and which emotion was more intense.
Psychological researchers generally recognize that facial expressions reflect emotional states. Infact, various emotional states give rise to certain patterns of electrical activity in the facial muscles and in the brain. The facial-feedback hypothesis argues, however, that the causal relationship between emotions and facial expressions can also work in the opposite direction. According to this hypothesis, signals from the facial muscles ("feedback") are sent back to emotion centers of the brain, and so a person's facial expression can influence that person's emotional state.
ConsiderDarwin's words: "The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it. On the otherhand, the repression, as far as possible, of all outward signs softens our emotions." Can smiling giverise to feelings of good will, for example, and frowning to anger?
Psychological research has given rise to some interesting findings concerning the facial-feedback hypothesis. Causing participants in experiments to smile, for example, leads them to report morepositive feelings and to rate cartoons (humorous drawings of people or situations) as being morehumorous. When they are caused to frown, they rate cartoons as being more aggressive.
What are the possible links between facial expressions and emotion? One link is arousal, which is the level of activity or preparedness for activity in an organism. Intense contraction of facial muscles,such as those used in signifying fear, heightens arousal. Self-perception of heightened arousal then leads to heightened emotional activity. Other links may involve changes in brain temperature and the release of neurotransmitters (substances that transmit nerve impulses.) The contraction of facial muscles both influences the internal emotional state and reflects it. Ekman has found that theso-called Duchenne smile, which is characterized by "crow's feet" wrinkles around the eyes and asubtle drop in the eye cover fold so that the skin above the eye moves down slightly toward theeyeball, can lead to pleasant feelings.
Ekman's observation may be relevant to the British expression "keep a stiff upper lip" as are commendation for handling stress. It might be that a "stiff" lip suppresses emotional response-as long as the lip is not quivering with fear or tension. But when the emotion that leads to stiffening the lip is more intense, and involves strong muscle tension, facial feedback may heighten emotional response. | 285.txt | 0 |
[
"It is based on questionable statistics.",
"It reflects the economic changes.",
"It evidences the improved-welfare.",
"It provides much food for thought."
]
| What does the author think of the 2015 report by the Census Bureau? | Economically speaking, are we better off than we were ten years ago? Twenty years ago?
In their thirst for evidence on this issue, commentators seized on the recent report by the Census Bureau, which found that average household income rose by 5.2% in 2015. Unfortunately, that conclusion puts too much weight on a useful, but flawed and incomplete, statistic. Among the more significant problems with the Census's measure are that: 1) it excludes taxes, transfers, and compensation like employer-provided health insurance; and 2) it is based on surveys rather than data. Even if precisely measured, income data exclude important determinants of economic well-being, such as the hours of work needed to earn that income.
While thinking about the question, we came across a recently published article by Charles Jones and Peter Klenow, which proposes an interesting new measure of economic welfare. While by no means perfect, it is considerably more comprehensive than average income, taking into account not only growth in consumption per person but also changes in working time, life expectancy, and inequality. Moreover, it can be used to assess economic performance both across countries and over time.
The Jones-Klenow method can be illustrated by a cross-country example. Suppose we want to compare the economic welfare of citizens of the U.S. and France in 2005.
In 2005, as the authors observe: real consumption per person in France was only 60% as high as the U.S., making it appear that Americans were economically much better off than the French on average. However, that comparison omits other relevant factors: leisure time, life expectancy, and economic inequality. The French take longer vacations and retire earlier, so typically work fewer hours; they enjoy a higher life expectancy, presumably reflecting advantages with respect to health care, diet, lifestyle, and the like; and income and consumption are somewhat more equally distributed there than in the U.S. Because of these differences, comparing France's consumption with the U.S.'s overstates the gap in economic welfare.
Similar calculations can be used to compare the U.S. and other countries. For example, this calculation puts economic welfare in the United Kingdom at 97% of U.S. levels, but estimates Mexican well-being at 22%.
The Jones-Klenow measure can also assess an economy's performance over time. According to this measure, as of the early-to-mid-2000s, the U.S. had the highest economic welfare of any large country. Since 2007, economic welfare in the U.S. has continued to improve. However, the pace of improvement has slowed markedly.
Methodologically, the lesson from the Jones-Klenow research is that economic welfare is multi-dimensional. Their approach is flexible enough that in principle other important quality-of-life changes could be incorporated-for example, decreases in total emissions of pollutants and declines in crime rates. | 2067.txt | 0 |
[
"It is widely used to compare the economic growth across countries.",
"It revolutionizes the way of measuring ordinary people's livelihood.",
"It focuses on people's consumption rather than their average income.",
"It is a more comprehensive measure of people's economic well-being."
]
| What does the author say about the Jones-Klenow method? | Economically speaking, are we better off than we were ten years ago? Twenty years ago?
In their thirst for evidence on this issue, commentators seized on the recent report by the Census Bureau, which found that average household income rose by 5.2% in 2015. Unfortunately, that conclusion puts too much weight on a useful, but flawed and incomplete, statistic. Among the more significant problems with the Census's measure are that: 1) it excludes taxes, transfers, and compensation like employer-provided health insurance; and 2) it is based on surveys rather than data. Even if precisely measured, income data exclude important determinants of economic well-being, such as the hours of work needed to earn that income.
While thinking about the question, we came across a recently published article by Charles Jones and Peter Klenow, which proposes an interesting new measure of economic welfare. While by no means perfect, it is considerably more comprehensive than average income, taking into account not only growth in consumption per person but also changes in working time, life expectancy, and inequality. Moreover, it can be used to assess economic performance both across countries and over time.
The Jones-Klenow method can be illustrated by a cross-country example. Suppose we want to compare the economic welfare of citizens of the U.S. and France in 2005.
In 2005, as the authors observe: real consumption per person in France was only 60% as high as the U.S., making it appear that Americans were economically much better off than the French on average. However, that comparison omits other relevant factors: leisure time, life expectancy, and economic inequality. The French take longer vacations and retire earlier, so typically work fewer hours; they enjoy a higher life expectancy, presumably reflecting advantages with respect to health care, diet, lifestyle, and the like; and income and consumption are somewhat more equally distributed there than in the U.S. Because of these differences, comparing France's consumption with the U.S.'s overstates the gap in economic welfare.
Similar calculations can be used to compare the U.S. and other countries. For example, this calculation puts economic welfare in the United Kingdom at 97% of U.S. levels, but estimates Mexican well-being at 22%.
The Jones-Klenow measure can also assess an economy's performance over time. According to this measure, as of the early-to-mid-2000s, the U.S. had the highest economic welfare of any large country. Since 2007, economic welfare in the U.S. has continued to improve. However, the pace of improvement has slowed markedly.
Methodologically, the lesson from the Jones-Klenow research is that economic welfare is multi-dimensional. Their approach is flexible enough that in principle other important quality-of-life changes could be incorporated-for example, decreases in total emissions of pollutants and declines in crime rates. | 2067.txt | 3 |
[
"It reflected the existing big gap between the two economies.",
"It neglected many important indicators of people's welfare.",
"It covered up the differences between individual citizens.",
"It failed to count in their difference in natural resources."
]
| What do Jones and Klenow think of the comparison between France and the U. S. in terms of real consumption per person? | Economically speaking, are we better off than we were ten years ago? Twenty years ago?
In their thirst for evidence on this issue, commentators seized on the recent report by the Census Bureau, which found that average household income rose by 5.2% in 2015. Unfortunately, that conclusion puts too much weight on a useful, but flawed and incomplete, statistic. Among the more significant problems with the Census's measure are that: 1) it excludes taxes, transfers, and compensation like employer-provided health insurance; and 2) it is based on surveys rather than data. Even if precisely measured, income data exclude important determinants of economic well-being, such as the hours of work needed to earn that income.
While thinking about the question, we came across a recently published article by Charles Jones and Peter Klenow, which proposes an interesting new measure of economic welfare. While by no means perfect, it is considerably more comprehensive than average income, taking into account not only growth in consumption per person but also changes in working time, life expectancy, and inequality. Moreover, it can be used to assess economic performance both across countries and over time.
The Jones-Klenow method can be illustrated by a cross-country example. Suppose we want to compare the economic welfare of citizens of the U.S. and France in 2005.
In 2005, as the authors observe: real consumption per person in France was only 60% as high as the U.S., making it appear that Americans were economically much better off than the French on average. However, that comparison omits other relevant factors: leisure time, life expectancy, and economic inequality. The French take longer vacations and retire earlier, so typically work fewer hours; they enjoy a higher life expectancy, presumably reflecting advantages with respect to health care, diet, lifestyle, and the like; and income and consumption are somewhat more equally distributed there than in the U.S. Because of these differences, comparing France's consumption with the U.S.'s overstates the gap in economic welfare.
Similar calculations can be used to compare the U.S. and other countries. For example, this calculation puts economic welfare in the United Kingdom at 97% of U.S. levels, but estimates Mexican well-being at 22%.
The Jones-Klenow measure can also assess an economy's performance over time. According to this measure, as of the early-to-mid-2000s, the U.S. had the highest economic welfare of any large country. Since 2007, economic welfare in the U.S. has continued to improve. However, the pace of improvement has slowed markedly.
Methodologically, the lesson from the Jones-Klenow research is that economic welfare is multi-dimensional. Their approach is flexible enough that in principle other important quality-of-life changes could be incorporated-for example, decreases in total emissions of pollutants and declines in crime rates. | 2067.txt | 1 |
[
"It can accurately pinpoint a country's current economic problems.",
"It can help to raise people's awareness of their economic well-being.",
"It can diagnose the causes of a country's slowing pace of economic improvement.",
"It can compare a country's economic conditions between different periods of time."
]
| What is an advantage of the Jones-Klenow method? | Economically speaking, are we better off than we were ten years ago? Twenty years ago?
In their thirst for evidence on this issue, commentators seized on the recent report by the Census Bureau, which found that average household income rose by 5.2% in 2015. Unfortunately, that conclusion puts too much weight on a useful, but flawed and incomplete, statistic. Among the more significant problems with the Census's measure are that: 1) it excludes taxes, transfers, and compensation like employer-provided health insurance; and 2) it is based on surveys rather than data. Even if precisely measured, income data exclude important determinants of economic well-being, such as the hours of work needed to earn that income.
While thinking about the question, we came across a recently published article by Charles Jones and Peter Klenow, which proposes an interesting new measure of economic welfare. While by no means perfect, it is considerably more comprehensive than average income, taking into account not only growth in consumption per person but also changes in working time, life expectancy, and inequality. Moreover, it can be used to assess economic performance both across countries and over time.
The Jones-Klenow method can be illustrated by a cross-country example. Suppose we want to compare the economic welfare of citizens of the U.S. and France in 2005.
In 2005, as the authors observe: real consumption per person in France was only 60% as high as the U.S., making it appear that Americans were economically much better off than the French on average. However, that comparison omits other relevant factors: leisure time, life expectancy, and economic inequality. The French take longer vacations and retire earlier, so typically work fewer hours; they enjoy a higher life expectancy, presumably reflecting advantages with respect to health care, diet, lifestyle, and the like; and income and consumption are somewhat more equally distributed there than in the U.S. Because of these differences, comparing France's consumption with the U.S.'s overstates the gap in economic welfare.
Similar calculations can be used to compare the U.S. and other countries. For example, this calculation puts economic welfare in the United Kingdom at 97% of U.S. levels, but estimates Mexican well-being at 22%.
The Jones-Klenow measure can also assess an economy's performance over time. According to this measure, as of the early-to-mid-2000s, the U.S. had the highest economic welfare of any large country. Since 2007, economic welfare in the U.S. has continued to improve. However, the pace of improvement has slowed markedly.
Methodologically, the lesson from the Jones-Klenow research is that economic welfare is multi-dimensional. Their approach is flexible enough that in principle other important quality-of-life changes could be incorporated-for example, decreases in total emissions of pollutants and declines in crime rates. | 2067.txt | 3 |
[
"It is much better than that of their European counterparts.",
"It has been on the decline ever since the turn of the century.",
"It has not improved as much as reported by the Census Bureau.",
"It has not been accurately assessed and reported since mid-2000s."
]
| What can we infer from the passage about American people's economic well-being? | Economically speaking, are we better off than we were ten years ago? Twenty years ago?
In their thirst for evidence on this issue, commentators seized on the recent report by the Census Bureau, which found that average household income rose by 5.2% in 2015. Unfortunately, that conclusion puts too much weight on a useful, but flawed and incomplete, statistic. Among the more significant problems with the Census's measure are that: 1) it excludes taxes, transfers, and compensation like employer-provided health insurance; and 2) it is based on surveys rather than data. Even if precisely measured, income data exclude important determinants of economic well-being, such as the hours of work needed to earn that income.
While thinking about the question, we came across a recently published article by Charles Jones and Peter Klenow, which proposes an interesting new measure of economic welfare. While by no means perfect, it is considerably more comprehensive than average income, taking into account not only growth in consumption per person but also changes in working time, life expectancy, and inequality. Moreover, it can be used to assess economic performance both across countries and over time.
The Jones-Klenow method can be illustrated by a cross-country example. Suppose we want to compare the economic welfare of citizens of the U.S. and France in 2005.
In 2005, as the authors observe: real consumption per person in France was only 60% as high as the U.S., making it appear that Americans were economically much better off than the French on average. However, that comparison omits other relevant factors: leisure time, life expectancy, and economic inequality. The French take longer vacations and retire earlier, so typically work fewer hours; they enjoy a higher life expectancy, presumably reflecting advantages with respect to health care, diet, lifestyle, and the like; and income and consumption are somewhat more equally distributed there than in the U.S. Because of these differences, comparing France's consumption with the U.S.'s overstates the gap in economic welfare.
Similar calculations can be used to compare the U.S. and other countries. For example, this calculation puts economic welfare in the United Kingdom at 97% of U.S. levels, but estimates Mexican well-being at 22%.
The Jones-Klenow measure can also assess an economy's performance over time. According to this measure, as of the early-to-mid-2000s, the U.S. had the highest economic welfare of any large country. Since 2007, economic welfare in the U.S. has continued to improve. However, the pace of improvement has slowed markedly.
Methodologically, the lesson from the Jones-Klenow research is that economic welfare is multi-dimensional. Their approach is flexible enough that in principle other important quality-of-life changes could be incorporated-for example, decreases in total emissions of pollutants and declines in crime rates. | 2067.txt | 2 |
[
"follow unfavorable asset evaluation rules",
"collect payments from third parties",
"cooperate with the price managers",
"reevaluate some of their assets."
]
| Bankers complained that they were forced to | Bankers have been blaming themselves for their troubles in public. Behind the scenes, they have been taking aim at someone else: the accounting standard-setters. Their rules, moan the banks, have forced them to report enormous losses, and it's just not fair. These rules say they must value some assets at the price a third party would pay, not the price managers and regulators would like them to fetch.
Unfortunately, banks' lobbying now seems to be working. The details may be unknowable, but the independence of standard-setters, essential to the proper functioning of capital markets, is being compromised. And, unless banks carry toxic assets at prices that attract buyers, reviving the banking system will be difficult.
After a bruising encounter with Congress, America's Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rushed through rule changes. These gave banks more freedom to use models to value illiquid assets and more flexibility in recognizing losses on long-term assets in their income statement. Bob Herz, the FASB's chairman, cried out against those who "question our motives." Yet bank shares rose and the changes enhance what one lobby group politely calls "the use of judgment by management."
European ministers instantly demanded that the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) do likewise. The IASB says it does not want to act without overall planning, but the pressure to fold when it completes it reconstruction of rules later this year is strong. Charlie McCreevy, a European commissioner, warned the IASB that it did "not live in a political vacuum" but "in the real word" and that Europe could yet develop different rules.
It was banks that were on the wrong planet, with accounts that vastly overvalued assets. Today they argue that market prices overstate losses, because they largely reflect the temporary illiquidity of markets, not the likely extent of bad debts. The truth will not be known for years. But bank's shares trade below their book value, suggesting that investors are skeptical. And dead markets partly reflect the paralysis of banks which will not sell assets for fear of booking losses, yet are reluctant to buy all those supposed bargains.
To get the system working again, losses must be recognized and dealt with. America's new plan to buy up toxic assets will not work unless banks mark assets to levels which buyers find attractive. Successful markets require independent and even combative standard-setters. The FASB and IASB have been exactly that, cleaning up rules on stock options and pensions, for example, against hostility from special interests. But by giving in to critics now they are inviting pressure to make more concessions. | 2379.txt | 0 |
[
"the diminishing role of management",
"the revival of the banking system",
"the banks' long-term asset losses",
"the weakening of its independence"
]
| According to the author , the rule changes of the FASB may result in | Bankers have been blaming themselves for their troubles in public. Behind the scenes, they have been taking aim at someone else: the accounting standard-setters. Their rules, moan the banks, have forced them to report enormous losses, and it's just not fair. These rules say they must value some assets at the price a third party would pay, not the price managers and regulators would like them to fetch.
Unfortunately, banks' lobbying now seems to be working. The details may be unknowable, but the independence of standard-setters, essential to the proper functioning of capital markets, is being compromised. And, unless banks carry toxic assets at prices that attract buyers, reviving the banking system will be difficult.
After a bruising encounter with Congress, America's Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rushed through rule changes. These gave banks more freedom to use models to value illiquid assets and more flexibility in recognizing losses on long-term assets in their income statement. Bob Herz, the FASB's chairman, cried out against those who "question our motives." Yet bank shares rose and the changes enhance what one lobby group politely calls "the use of judgment by management."
European ministers instantly demanded that the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) do likewise. The IASB says it does not want to act without overall planning, but the pressure to fold when it completes it reconstruction of rules later this year is strong. Charlie McCreevy, a European commissioner, warned the IASB that it did "not live in a political vacuum" but "in the real word" and that Europe could yet develop different rules.
It was banks that were on the wrong planet, with accounts that vastly overvalued assets. Today they argue that market prices overstate losses, because they largely reflect the temporary illiquidity of markets, not the likely extent of bad debts. The truth will not be known for years. But bank's shares trade below their book value, suggesting that investors are skeptical. And dead markets partly reflect the paralysis of banks which will not sell assets for fear of booking losses, yet are reluctant to buy all those supposed bargains.
To get the system working again, losses must be recognized and dealt with. America's new plan to buy up toxic assets will not work unless banks mark assets to levels which buyers find attractive. Successful markets require independent and even combative standard-setters. The FASB and IASB have been exactly that, cleaning up rules on stock options and pensions, for example, against hostility from special interests. But by giving in to critics now they are inviting pressure to make more concessions. | 2379.txt | 0 |
[
"keep away from political influences.",
"evade the pressure from their peers.",
"act on their own in rule-setting.",
"take gradual measures in reform."
]
| According to Paragraph 4, McCreevy objects to the IASB's attempt to | Bankers have been blaming themselves for their troubles in public. Behind the scenes, they have been taking aim at someone else: the accounting standard-setters. Their rules, moan the banks, have forced them to report enormous losses, and it's just not fair. These rules say they must value some assets at the price a third party would pay, not the price managers and regulators would like them to fetch.
Unfortunately, banks' lobbying now seems to be working. The details may be unknowable, but the independence of standard-setters, essential to the proper functioning of capital markets, is being compromised. And, unless banks carry toxic assets at prices that attract buyers, reviving the banking system will be difficult.
After a bruising encounter with Congress, America's Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rushed through rule changes. These gave banks more freedom to use models to value illiquid assets and more flexibility in recognizing losses on long-term assets in their income statement. Bob Herz, the FASB's chairman, cried out against those who "question our motives." Yet bank shares rose and the changes enhance what one lobby group politely calls "the use of judgment by management."
European ministers instantly demanded that the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) do likewise. The IASB says it does not want to act without overall planning, but the pressure to fold when it completes it reconstruction of rules later this year is strong. Charlie McCreevy, a European commissioner, warned the IASB that it did "not live in a political vacuum" but "in the real word" and that Europe could yet develop different rules.
It was banks that were on the wrong planet, with accounts that vastly overvalued assets. Today they argue that market prices overstate losses, because they largely reflect the temporary illiquidity of markets, not the likely extent of bad debts. The truth will not be known for years. But bank's shares trade below their book value, suggesting that investors are skeptical. And dead markets partly reflect the paralysis of banks which will not sell assets for fear of booking losses, yet are reluctant to buy all those supposed bargains.
To get the system working again, losses must be recognized and dealt with. America's new plan to buy up toxic assets will not work unless banks mark assets to levels which buyers find attractive. Successful markets require independent and even combative standard-setters. The FASB and IASB have been exactly that, cleaning up rules on stock options and pensions, for example, against hostility from special interests. But by giving in to critics now they are inviting pressure to make more concessions. | 2379.txt | 2 |
[
"misinterpreted market price indicators",
"exaggerated the real value of their assets",
"neglected the likely existence of bad debts.",
"denied booking losses in their sale of assets."
]
| The author thinks the banks were "on the wrong planet" in that they | Bankers have been blaming themselves for their troubles in public. Behind the scenes, they have been taking aim at someone else: the accounting standard-setters. Their rules, moan the banks, have forced them to report enormous losses, and it's just not fair. These rules say they must value some assets at the price a third party would pay, not the price managers and regulators would like them to fetch.
Unfortunately, banks' lobbying now seems to be working. The details may be unknowable, but the independence of standard-setters, essential to the proper functioning of capital markets, is being compromised. And, unless banks carry toxic assets at prices that attract buyers, reviving the banking system will be difficult.
After a bruising encounter with Congress, America's Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rushed through rule changes. These gave banks more freedom to use models to value illiquid assets and more flexibility in recognizing losses on long-term assets in their income statement. Bob Herz, the FASB's chairman, cried out against those who "question our motives." Yet bank shares rose and the changes enhance what one lobby group politely calls "the use of judgment by management."
European ministers instantly demanded that the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) do likewise. The IASB says it does not want to act without overall planning, but the pressure to fold when it completes it reconstruction of rules later this year is strong. Charlie McCreevy, a European commissioner, warned the IASB that it did "not live in a political vacuum" but "in the real word" and that Europe could yet develop different rules.
It was banks that were on the wrong planet, with accounts that vastly overvalued assets. Today they argue that market prices overstate losses, because they largely reflect the temporary illiquidity of markets, not the likely extent of bad debts. The truth will not be known for years. But bank's shares trade below their book value, suggesting that investors are skeptical. And dead markets partly reflect the paralysis of banks which will not sell assets for fear of booking losses, yet are reluctant to buy all those supposed bargains.
To get the system working again, losses must be recognized and dealt with. America's new plan to buy up toxic assets will not work unless banks mark assets to levels which buyers find attractive. Successful markets require independent and even combative standard-setters. The FASB and IASB have been exactly that, cleaning up rules on stock options and pensions, for example, against hostility from special interests. But by giving in to critics now they are inviting pressure to make more concessions. | 2379.txt | 2 |
[
"satisfaction.",
"skepticism.",
"objectiveness",
"sympathy"
]
| The author's attitude towards standard-setters is one of | Bankers have been blaming themselves for their troubles in public. Behind the scenes, they have been taking aim at someone else: the accounting standard-setters. Their rules, moan the banks, have forced them to report enormous losses, and it's just not fair. These rules say they must value some assets at the price a third party would pay, not the price managers and regulators would like them to fetch.
Unfortunately, banks' lobbying now seems to be working. The details may be unknowable, but the independence of standard-setters, essential to the proper functioning of capital markets, is being compromised. And, unless banks carry toxic assets at prices that attract buyers, reviving the banking system will be difficult.
After a bruising encounter with Congress, America's Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rushed through rule changes. These gave banks more freedom to use models to value illiquid assets and more flexibility in recognizing losses on long-term assets in their income statement. Bob Herz, the FASB's chairman, cried out against those who "question our motives." Yet bank shares rose and the changes enhance what one lobby group politely calls "the use of judgment by management."
European ministers instantly demanded that the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) do likewise. The IASB says it does not want to act without overall planning, but the pressure to fold when it completes it reconstruction of rules later this year is strong. Charlie McCreevy, a European commissioner, warned the IASB that it did "not live in a political vacuum" but "in the real word" and that Europe could yet develop different rules.
It was banks that were on the wrong planet, with accounts that vastly overvalued assets. Today they argue that market prices overstate losses, because they largely reflect the temporary illiquidity of markets, not the likely extent of bad debts. The truth will not be known for years. But bank's shares trade below their book value, suggesting that investors are skeptical. And dead markets partly reflect the paralysis of banks which will not sell assets for fear of booking losses, yet are reluctant to buy all those supposed bargains.
To get the system working again, losses must be recognized and dealt with. America's new plan to buy up toxic assets will not work unless banks mark assets to levels which buyers find attractive. Successful markets require independent and even combative standard-setters. The FASB and IASB have been exactly that, cleaning up rules on stock options and pensions, for example, against hostility from special interests. But by giving in to critics now they are inviting pressure to make more concessions. | 2379.txt | 3 |
[
"They provide news and entertainment for the public.",
"They have started the iMedia revolution.",
"They have helped ordinary people control media.",
"They choose what to listen to or watch by themselves."
]
| Which of the following is the characteristic of the new breed of people according to the passage ? | Terry Wolfisch Cole may seem like an ordinary 40-year-old mom, but her neighbors know the truth: She's one of the "Pod People." At the supermarket she wanders the aisles in a self-contained bubble, thanks to her iPod digital music player. Through those little white ear buds, Wolfisch Cole listens to a playlist mixed by her favorite disc presenter-herself.
At home, when the kids are tucked away, Wolfisch Cole often escapes to another solo media pod- but in this one, she's transmitting instead of just receiving. On her computer web log, or "blog", she types an online journal chronicling daily news of her life, then shares it all with the Web.
Wolfisch Cole-who also gets her daily news customized off the Internet and whose digital video recorder (DVR)scans through the television wasteland to find and record shows that suit her tastes-is part of a new breed of people who are filtering, shaping and even creating media for themselves. They are increasingly turning their backs on the established system of mass media that has provided news and entertainment for the past half-century. They've joined the exploding "iMedia" revolution, putting the power of media in the hands of ordinary people.
The tools of the movement consist of a bubbling stew of new technologies that include iPods, blogs, podcasts, DVRs, customized online newspapers, and satellite radio.
Devotees of iMedia run the gamut from the 89-year-old New York grandmother, known as Bubby, who has taken up blogging to share her worldly advice, to 11-year-old Dylan Verdi of Texas, who has started broadcasting her own homemade TV show or "vlog', for video web log. In between are countless iMedia enthusiasts like Rogier van Bakel, 44, of Maine, who blogs at night, reads a Web- customized news page in the morning, travels with his fully loaded iPod and comes home to watch whatever the DVR has chosen for him.
If the old media model was broadcasting, this new phenomenon might" be called ego-casting, says Christine Rosen, a fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center. The term fits, she says, because the trend is all about me-me-media -" the idea is to get exactly what you want, when and where you want it."
Rosen and others trace the beginnings of the iMedia revolution to the invention of the TV remote, which marked the first subtle shift of media control away from broadcasters and into the hands of the average couch potato. It enabled viewers to vote with their thumbs-making it easier to abandon dull programs and avoid commercials. With the proliferation of cable TV channels in the late 1980s followed by the mid-1990s arrival of the Internet, controlling media input wasn't just a luxury. "Control has become a necessity," says Bill Rose, "Without it, there's no way to sort through all the options that are becoming available." | 880.txt | 3 |
[
"They are either very old or very young.",
"They consist of people of all ages.",
"They are located in New York, Texas and Maine.",
"They share the same interests."
]
| What can be learned about the devotees of iMedia from the passage? | Terry Wolfisch Cole may seem like an ordinary 40-year-old mom, but her neighbors know the truth: She's one of the "Pod People." At the supermarket she wanders the aisles in a self-contained bubble, thanks to her iPod digital music player. Through those little white ear buds, Wolfisch Cole listens to a playlist mixed by her favorite disc presenter-herself.
At home, when the kids are tucked away, Wolfisch Cole often escapes to another solo media pod- but in this one, she's transmitting instead of just receiving. On her computer web log, or "blog", she types an online journal chronicling daily news of her life, then shares it all with the Web.
Wolfisch Cole-who also gets her daily news customized off the Internet and whose digital video recorder (DVR)scans through the television wasteland to find and record shows that suit her tastes-is part of a new breed of people who are filtering, shaping and even creating media for themselves. They are increasingly turning their backs on the established system of mass media that has provided news and entertainment for the past half-century. They've joined the exploding "iMedia" revolution, putting the power of media in the hands of ordinary people.
The tools of the movement consist of a bubbling stew of new technologies that include iPods, blogs, podcasts, DVRs, customized online newspapers, and satellite radio.
Devotees of iMedia run the gamut from the 89-year-old New York grandmother, known as Bubby, who has taken up blogging to share her worldly advice, to 11-year-old Dylan Verdi of Texas, who has started broadcasting her own homemade TV show or "vlog', for video web log. In between are countless iMedia enthusiasts like Rogier van Bakel, 44, of Maine, who blogs at night, reads a Web- customized news page in the morning, travels with his fully loaded iPod and comes home to watch whatever the DVR has chosen for him.
If the old media model was broadcasting, this new phenomenon might" be called ego-casting, says Christine Rosen, a fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center. The term fits, she says, because the trend is all about me-me-media -" the idea is to get exactly what you want, when and where you want it."
Rosen and others trace the beginnings of the iMedia revolution to the invention of the TV remote, which marked the first subtle shift of media control away from broadcasters and into the hands of the average couch potato. It enabled viewers to vote with their thumbs-making it easier to abandon dull programs and avoid commercials. With the proliferation of cable TV channels in the late 1980s followed by the mid-1990s arrival of the Internet, controlling media input wasn't just a luxury. "Control has become a necessity," says Bill Rose, "Without it, there's no way to sort through all the options that are becoming available." | 880.txt | 1 |
[
"people show themselves in the media",
"people get their needs for media met",
"people can watch whatever they like",
"it is the invention of an individual"
]
| According to the passage, Christine Rosen calls the iMedia revolution ego-casting because _ | Terry Wolfisch Cole may seem like an ordinary 40-year-old mom, but her neighbors know the truth: She's one of the "Pod People." At the supermarket she wanders the aisles in a self-contained bubble, thanks to her iPod digital music player. Through those little white ear buds, Wolfisch Cole listens to a playlist mixed by her favorite disc presenter-herself.
At home, when the kids are tucked away, Wolfisch Cole often escapes to another solo media pod- but in this one, she's transmitting instead of just receiving. On her computer web log, or "blog", she types an online journal chronicling daily news of her life, then shares it all with the Web.
Wolfisch Cole-who also gets her daily news customized off the Internet and whose digital video recorder (DVR)scans through the television wasteland to find and record shows that suit her tastes-is part of a new breed of people who are filtering, shaping and even creating media for themselves. They are increasingly turning their backs on the established system of mass media that has provided news and entertainment for the past half-century. They've joined the exploding "iMedia" revolution, putting the power of media in the hands of ordinary people.
The tools of the movement consist of a bubbling stew of new technologies that include iPods, blogs, podcasts, DVRs, customized online newspapers, and satellite radio.
Devotees of iMedia run the gamut from the 89-year-old New York grandmother, known as Bubby, who has taken up blogging to share her worldly advice, to 11-year-old Dylan Verdi of Texas, who has started broadcasting her own homemade TV show or "vlog', for video web log. In between are countless iMedia enthusiasts like Rogier van Bakel, 44, of Maine, who blogs at night, reads a Web- customized news page in the morning, travels with his fully loaded iPod and comes home to watch whatever the DVR has chosen for him.
If the old media model was broadcasting, this new phenomenon might" be called ego-casting, says Christine Rosen, a fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center. The term fits, she says, because the trend is all about me-me-media -" the idea is to get exactly what you want, when and where you want it."
Rosen and others trace the beginnings of the iMedia revolution to the invention of the TV remote, which marked the first subtle shift of media control away from broadcasters and into the hands of the average couch potato. It enabled viewers to vote with their thumbs-making it easier to abandon dull programs and avoid commercials. With the proliferation of cable TV channels in the late 1980s followed by the mid-1990s arrival of the Internet, controlling media input wasn't just a luxury. "Control has become a necessity," says Bill Rose, "Without it, there's no way to sort through all the options that are becoming available." | 880.txt | 1 |
[
"Because it enabled ordinary people to control media to some extent.",
"Because it made more cable TV channels available to people.",
"Because it led to the invention of Internet in the 1990s.",
"Because it made life easier for couch potatoes."
]
| Why was the invention of the TV remote important according to the passage? | Terry Wolfisch Cole may seem like an ordinary 40-year-old mom, but her neighbors know the truth: She's one of the "Pod People." At the supermarket she wanders the aisles in a self-contained bubble, thanks to her iPod digital music player. Through those little white ear buds, Wolfisch Cole listens to a playlist mixed by her favorite disc presenter-herself.
At home, when the kids are tucked away, Wolfisch Cole often escapes to another solo media pod- but in this one, she's transmitting instead of just receiving. On her computer web log, or "blog", she types an online journal chronicling daily news of her life, then shares it all with the Web.
Wolfisch Cole-who also gets her daily news customized off the Internet and whose digital video recorder (DVR)scans through the television wasteland to find and record shows that suit her tastes-is part of a new breed of people who are filtering, shaping and even creating media for themselves. They are increasingly turning their backs on the established system of mass media that has provided news and entertainment for the past half-century. They've joined the exploding "iMedia" revolution, putting the power of media in the hands of ordinary people.
The tools of the movement consist of a bubbling stew of new technologies that include iPods, blogs, podcasts, DVRs, customized online newspapers, and satellite radio.
Devotees of iMedia run the gamut from the 89-year-old New York grandmother, known as Bubby, who has taken up blogging to share her worldly advice, to 11-year-old Dylan Verdi of Texas, who has started broadcasting her own homemade TV show or "vlog', for video web log. In between are countless iMedia enthusiasts like Rogier van Bakel, 44, of Maine, who blogs at night, reads a Web- customized news page in the morning, travels with his fully loaded iPod and comes home to watch whatever the DVR has chosen for him.
If the old media model was broadcasting, this new phenomenon might" be called ego-casting, says Christine Rosen, a fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center. The term fits, she says, because the trend is all about me-me-media -" the idea is to get exactly what you want, when and where you want it."
Rosen and others trace the beginnings of the iMedia revolution to the invention of the TV remote, which marked the first subtle shift of media control away from broadcasters and into the hands of the average couch potato. It enabled viewers to vote with their thumbs-making it easier to abandon dull programs and avoid commercials. With the proliferation of cable TV channels in the late 1980s followed by the mid-1990s arrival of the Internet, controlling media input wasn't just a luxury. "Control has become a necessity," says Bill Rose, "Without it, there's no way to sort through all the options that are becoming available." | 880.txt | 0 |
[
"believes both of the stories",
"doesn't believe a word of the stories",
"is not sure whether the stories are true",
"is telling the stories just for fun"
]
| The author _ . | There are stories about two U.S. presidents，AndrewJackson and Martin Van Buren，which attempt toexplain the American English term OK.We don'tknow if either story is true，but they are bothinteresting. The first explanation is based on thefact that President Jackson had very littleeducation.In fact，he had difficulty reading andwriting.When important papers came to Jackson，he tried to read them and then had hisassistants explain what they said.If he approved of a paper.he would write"all correct"on it.Theproblem was that he didn't know how to spell.So what he really wrote was"ol korekt".After awhile，he shortened that term to "OK".
The second explanation is based on the place where President Van Buren wasborn，Kinderhook，New York.Van Bnren's friends organized a club to help him becomePresident They caned the club the Old Kinderhook Club，and anyone who supported Van Burenwas called "OK". | 2392.txt | 2 |
[
"couldn't draw up any documents at all",
"didn't like to read important papers by himself",
"often had his assistants sign documents for him",
"wasn't good at reading，writing or spelling"
]
| According to the passage，President Jackson _ . | There are stories about two U.S. presidents，AndrewJackson and Martin Van Buren，which attempt toexplain the American English term OK.We don'tknow if either story is true，but they are bothinteresting. The first explanation is based on thefact that President Jackson had very littleeducation.In fact，he had difficulty reading andwriting.When important papers came to Jackson，he tried to read them and then had hisassistants explain what they said.If he approved of a paper.he would write"all correct"on it.Theproblem was that he didn't know how to spell.So what he really wrote was"ol korekt".After awhile，he shortened that term to "OK".
The second explanation is based on the place where President Van Buren wasborn，Kinderhook，New York.Van Bnren's friends organized a club to help him becomePresident They caned the club the Old Kinderhook Club，and anyone who supported Van Burenwas called "OK". | 2392.txt | 3 |
[
"was approved of by President Jackson",
"was the title of some Official documents",
"was first used by President Jackson",
"was an old way to spell\"all correct''"
]
| According to the first story, the term "OK" _ . | There are stories about two U.S. presidents，AndrewJackson and Martin Van Buren，which attempt toexplain the American English term OK.We don'tknow if either story is true，but they are bothinteresting. The first explanation is based on thefact that President Jackson had very littleeducation.In fact，he had difficulty reading andwriting.When important papers came to Jackson，he tried to read them and then had hisassistants explain what they said.If he approved of a paper.he would write"all correct"on it.Theproblem was that he didn't know how to spell.So what he really wrote was"ol korekt".After awhile，he shortened that term to "OK".
The second explanation is based on the place where President Van Buren wasborn，Kinderhook，New York.Van Bnren's friends organized a club to help him becomePresident They caned the club the Old Kinderhook Club，and anyone who supported Van Burenwas called "OK". | 2392.txt | 2 |
[
"was the short way to say \"old Kinderhook Club\"",
"meant the place where President Van Buren was born",
"was the name of Van Buren's club",
"was used to call Van Buren's supporters in the election"
]
| According to the second story，the term "OK" _ . | There are stories about two U.S. presidents，AndrewJackson and Martin Van Buren，which attempt toexplain the American English term OK.We don'tknow if either story is true，but they are bothinteresting. The first explanation is based on thefact that President Jackson had very littleeducation.In fact，he had difficulty reading andwriting.When important papers came to Jackson，he tried to read them and then had hisassistants explain what they said.If he approved of a paper.he would write"all correct"on it.Theproblem was that he didn't know how to spell.So what he really wrote was"ol korekt".After awhile，he shortened that term to "OK".
The second explanation is based on the place where President Van Buren wasborn，Kinderhook，New York.Van Bnren's friends organized a club to help him becomePresident They caned the club the Old Kinderhook Club，and anyone who supported Van Burenwas called "OK". | 2392.txt | 3 |
[
"by Van Buren",
"in a presidential election",
"to organize the Old Kinderhook Club",
"by the members of the \"Old Kinderhook Club\""
]
| According to the second story.the term"OK"was first used _ . | There are stories about two U.S. presidents，AndrewJackson and Martin Van Buren，which attempt toexplain the American English term OK.We don'tknow if either story is true，but they are bothinteresting. The first explanation is based on thefact that President Jackson had very littleeducation.In fact，he had difficulty reading andwriting.When important papers came to Jackson，he tried to read them and then had hisassistants explain what they said.If he approved of a paper.he would write"all correct"on it.Theproblem was that he didn't know how to spell.So what he really wrote was"ol korekt".After awhile，he shortened that term to "OK".
The second explanation is based on the place where President Van Buren wasborn，Kinderhook，New York.Van Bnren's friends organized a club to help him becomePresident They caned the club the Old Kinderhook Club，and anyone who supported Van Burenwas called "OK". | 2392.txt | 1 |
[
"to direct kids to build solar collectors",
"to train young scientists for city planning",
"to develop children's problem-solving abilities",
"to help young architects know more about designing"
]
| The Program is designed _ . | "My kids really understand solar and earth-heat energy," says a second-grade teacher in Saugus, California. "Some of them are building solar collectors for their energy course. " These young scientists are part of City Building Educational Program (CBEP), a particular program for kindergarten through twelfth grade that uses the stages of city planning to teach basic reading, writing and math skills, and more.
The children don't just plan any city. They map and analyze the housing, energy, and transportation requirements of their own district and foretell its needs in 100 years. With the aid of an architect ( ) who visits the classroom once a week, they invent new ways to meet these needs and build models of their creations. " Designing buildings of the future gives children a lot of freedom," says the teacher who developed this program. "They are able to use their own rich imagination and inventions without fear of blame, because there are no wrong answers in a future context. In fact, as the class enters the final model-building stage of the program, an elected ‘ official' and ‘ planning group' make all the design decisions for the model city, and the teacher steps back and becomes an adviser. "
CBEP is a set of activities, games and imitations that teach the basic steps necessary for problem-solving: observing, analyzing, working out possible answers, and judging them based on the children's own standards. | 3250.txt | 2 |
[
"to find out kids' creative ideas",
"to discuss with the teacher",
"to give children lectures",
"to help kids with their program"
]
| An architect pays a weekly visit to the classroom _ . | "My kids really understand solar and earth-heat energy," says a second-grade teacher in Saugus, California. "Some of them are building solar collectors for their energy course. " These young scientists are part of City Building Educational Program (CBEP), a particular program for kindergarten through twelfth grade that uses the stages of city planning to teach basic reading, writing and math skills, and more.
The children don't just plan any city. They map and analyze the housing, energy, and transportation requirements of their own district and foretell its needs in 100 years. With the aid of an architect ( ) who visits the classroom once a week, they invent new ways to meet these needs and build models of their creations. " Designing buildings of the future gives children a lot of freedom," says the teacher who developed this program. "They are able to use their own rich imagination and inventions without fear of blame, because there are no wrong answers in a future context. In fact, as the class enters the final model-building stage of the program, an elected ‘ official' and ‘ planning group' make all the design decisions for the model city, and the teacher steps back and becomes an adviser. "
CBEP is a set of activities, games and imitations that teach the basic steps necessary for problem-solving: observing, analyzing, working out possible answers, and judging them based on the children's own standards. | 3250.txt | 3 |
[
"An official.",
"An architect.",
"A teacher.",
"A scientist."
]
| Who is the designer of the program? | "My kids really understand solar and earth-heat energy," says a second-grade teacher in Saugus, California. "Some of them are building solar collectors for their energy course. " These young scientists are part of City Building Educational Program (CBEP), a particular program for kindergarten through twelfth grade that uses the stages of city planning to teach basic reading, writing and math skills, and more.
The children don't just plan any city. They map and analyze the housing, energy, and transportation requirements of their own district and foretell its needs in 100 years. With the aid of an architect ( ) who visits the classroom once a week, they invent new ways to meet these needs and build models of their creations. " Designing buildings of the future gives children a lot of freedom," says the teacher who developed this program. "They are able to use their own rich imagination and inventions without fear of blame, because there are no wrong answers in a future context. In fact, as the class enters the final model-building stage of the program, an elected ‘ official' and ‘ planning group' make all the design decisions for the model city, and the teacher steps back and becomes an adviser. "
CBEP is a set of activities, games and imitations that teach the basic steps necessary for problem-solving: observing, analyzing, working out possible answers, and judging them based on the children's own standards. | 3250.txt | 2 |
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