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Aldous Huxley was a most unfortunate man. When he died in 1963 he must have expired in the confident belief that the event would be given wide coverage in the press the next day. After all, his career had not been without distinction. Where he made his big mistake was in dying on the same day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. As a result Huxley got about three column inches at the bottom of page 27.In the same way the death of Victor Farris has gone widely unnoticed because he foolishly shuffled off this mortal coil at the same time as Mr. Konstantin Cherenkov. Now, as you all know, Victor Farris was the chap who invented the paper clip, the paper milk carton too. And paper clips and milk cartons will be in use long after everyone has forgotten the name of the comrade who came between Andropov and whatever this new bloke is called.The same goes for the inventor of the supermarket trolley who died in Switzerland a few months ago. Fell off his trolley, so to speak. For all I know, he may be a household name in his own canton and they are putting up a statue of home wheeling his trolley, and are going to commemorate him on one of those ever-so-tasteful Swiss postage stamps we used to collect when we were younger and wiser, but I doubt if his name will be remembered outside the borders of his small country. Personally I forgot it within minutes of reading of his decease.Not that it matters. Somehow it is hard to imagine things like paper clips and supermarket trolleys having had a named inventor. It’s like discovering that at a particular moment of history a particular person invented the spoon, or the chair, or socks. One assumes that these everyday objects just happened, or evolved through natural selection.It isn’t necessarily so. I read only the other day that Richard Li invented the handkerchief. Almost everything else was invented either by Leonardo da Vinci (scissors, bicycles, helicopters, and probably spoons, socks and the Rubik cube as well) or by Benjamin Franklin (lightning-conductor, rocking-chair, bifocals) or else by Joseph Stalin (television).It’s quite possible that Leonardo or Benjamin Franklin or Stalin also invented the supermarket trolley. Certainly it has been invented more than once. Hardly was Herr Edelweiss (or whatever the Swiss chap was called) in his grave than news came of the death of Sylvan N. Goodman at the age of 86. Sylvan also invented the supermarket trolley or, as the Los Angeles Times report calls it, the shopping cart.Be that as it may, Herr Edelweiss or Sylvan Goodman, or both, did a grand job and made supermarket shopping far less hellish than it would otherwise be. The next step will be to get the trolleys out of the shops and into the streets. You could put an engine in the front and call it a car. Or give it big wheels and a canopy and call it a pram. The possibilities are endless.1. It can be inferred from the passage that Herr Edelweiss _____.2. The author writes this article in order to illustrate that _____.3. Who probably invented spoons?4. By stating that Leonardo da Vinci invented helicopters, the author means _____.5. What can be inferred about Aldous Huxley?

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We know very little about pain and what we don’t know makes it hut all the more. Indeed, no form of illiteracy in the United States is so widespread or costly as ignorance about pain what it is, what causes it, how to deal with it without panic. Almost everyone can rattle off names of at least a dozen drugs that can deaden pain from every conceivable cause all the way from headaches to hemorrhoids.There is far less knowledge about the fact that about 90 percent of pain is self-limiting, that it is not always an indication of poor health, and that, most frequently, it is the result of tension, stress, worry, idleness, boredom, frustration, suppressed rage, insufficient sleep, overeating, poorly balanced diet, smoking, excessive drinking, inadequate exercise, stale air, or any of the other abuses encountered by the human body in modern society.The most ignored fact of all about pain is that the best way to eliminate it is to eliminate the abuse. Instead, many people reach almost instinctively for the painkillers—aspirins, barbiturates, codeines, tranquilizers, sleeping pills, and dozens of other analgesics or desensitizing drugs.Most doctors are profoundly troubled over the extent to which the medical profession today is taking on the trappings of a pain-killing industry. Their offices are overloaded with people who are morbidly but mistakenly convinced that something dreadful is about to happen to them. It is all too evident that the campaign to get people to run for a doctor at the first sign of pain has boomeranged. Physicians find it difficult to give adequate attention to patients genuinely in need of expert diagnosis and treatment because their time is soaked up by people who have nothing wrong with them except a temporary indisposition or a psychogenic ache.Patients tend to feel indignant, and insulted if the physician tells them he can find no organic cause for the pain. They tend to interpret the term “psychogenic” to mean that they are complaining of nonexistent symptoms. They need to be educated about the fact that many cases of pain have no underlying physical cause but are the result, as mentioned earlier, of tension, stress, or hostile factors in the general environment. Sometimes a pain may be a manifestation of “conversion hysteria”, the name given by Jean Charcot to physical symptoms that have their origins in emotional disturbances.Obviously, it is folly for an individual to ignore symptoms that could be a warning of a potentially serious illness. Some people are so terrified of getting bad news from a doctor that they allow their malaise to worsen, sometimes past the point of no return. Total neglect is not the answer to hypochondria. They only answer has to be increased education about the way the human body works, so that more people will be able to steer an intelligent course between promiscuous pill popping and irresponsible disregard of genuine symptoms.Of all forms of pain, none is more important for the individual to understand than the “threshold” variety. Almost everyone has a telltale ache that is triggered whenever tension or fatigue reaches a certain point, it can take the form of a migraine type headache or a squeezing pain deep in the abdomen or cramps or even pain in the joints. The individual who has learned how to make the correlation between such threshold pains and their cause doesn’t panic when they occur, he or she does something about relieving the stress and tension.If the pain persists despite the absence of apparent symptoms, the individual will telephone the doctor.1. What does the sentence “It is all too evident…” (Paragraph 4) mean?2. a hypochondria is someone who _____.3. It can be concluded from the passage that _____.4. They author wrote this article to_____.5. What does the word “telltale” (Paragraph 7) mean?

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When one looks back upon the fifteen hundred years that are the life span of the English language, he should be able to notice a number of significant truths. The history of our language has always been a history of constant change—at times a slow, almost imperceptible change, at other times a violent collision between two languages. Our language has always been a living growing organism, it has never been static. Another significant truth that emerges from such a study is that language at all times has been the possession not of one class or group but of many. At one extreme it has been the property of the common, ignorant folk, who have used it in the daily business of their living, much as they have used their animals or the kitchen pots and pans. At the other extreme it has been the treasure of those who have respected it as an instrument and a sign of civilization, and who have struggled by writing it down to give it some permanence, order, dignity, and if possible, a little beauty.As we consider our changing language, we should note here two developments that are of special and immediate importance to us. One is that since the time of the Anglo-Saxons there has been an almost complete reversal of the different devices for showing the relationship of words in a sentence. Anglo-Saxon (old English) was a language of many inflections. Modern English has few infections. We must now depend largely on word order and function words to convey the meanings that the older language did by means of changes in the forms of words. Function words, you should understand, are words such as prepositions, conjunctions, and a few others that are used primarily to show relationships among other words, a few inflections, however, have survived. And when some word inflections come into conflict with word order, there may be trouble for the users of the language, as we shall see later when we turn our attention to such matters as WHO or WHOM and Me or I. The second fact we must consider is that as language itself changes, our attitudes toward language forms change also. The eighteenth century, for example, produced from various sources a tendency to fix the language into patterns not always set in and grew, until at the present time there is a strong tendency to restudy and re-evaluate language practices in terms of the ways in which people speak and write.1. In contrast to the earlier linguists, modern linguists tend to _____.2. Choose the appropriate meaning for the word “inflection” used in paragraph 2.3. Which of the following statements is NOT mentioned in the passage?4. The author of these paragraphs is probably a (an) _____.5. Which of the following can be best used as the title of the passage?

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I am afraid to sleep. I have been afraid to sleep for the last few weeks. I am so tired that, finally, I do sleep, but only for a few minutes. It is not a bad dream that wakes me; it is the reality I took with me into sleep. I try to think of something else. Immediately the woman in the marketplace comes into my mind.I was on my way to dinner last night when I saw her. She was selling skirts. She moved with the same ease and loveliness I often saw in the women of Laos. Her long black hair was as shiny as the black silk of the skirts she was selling. In her hair, she wore three silk ribbons, blue, green, and white. They reminded me of my childhood and how my girlfriends and I used to spend hours braiding ribbons into our hair. I don’t know the word for “ribbons”, so I put my hand to my own hair and, with three fingers against my head; I looked at her ribbons and said “Beautiful.” She lowered her eyes and said nothing. I wasn’t sure if she understood me (I don’t speak Laotian very well).I looked back down at the skirts. They had designs in them: squares and triangles and circles of pink and green silk. They were very pretty. I decided to buy one of those skirts, and I began to bargain with her over the price. It is the custom to bargain in Asia. In Laos bargaining is done in soft voices and easy moves with the sort of quiet peacefulness.She smiled, more with her eyes than with her lips. She was pleased by the few words I was able to say in her language, although they were mostly numbers, and she saw that I understood something about the soft playfulness of bargaining. We shook our heads in disagreement over the price; then, immediately, we made another offer and then another shake of the head. She was so pleased that unexpectedly, she accepted the last offer I made. But it was too soon. The price was too low. She was being too generous and wouldn’t make enough money. I moved quickly and picked up two more skirts and paid for all three at the price set; that way I was able to pay her three times as much before she had a chance to lower the price for the larger purchase. She smiled openly then, and, for the first time in months, my spirit lifted. I almost felt happy.The feeling stayed with me while she wrapped the skirts in a newspaper and handed them to me. When I left, though, the feeling left, too. It was as though it stayed behind in marketplace. I left tears in my throat. I wanted to cry. I didn’t, of course.I have learned to defend myself against what is hard; without knowing, I have also learned to defend myself against what is soft and what should be easy.I get up, light a candle and want to look at the skirts. They are still in the newspaper that the woman wrapped them in. I remove the paper, and raise the skirts up to look at them again before I pack them. Something falls to floor. I reach down and feel something cool in my hand. I move close to the candlelight to see what I have. There are five long silk ribbons in my hand, all different colors. The woman in the marketplace! She has given these ribbons to me!There is no defense against a generous spirit, and this time I cry, and very hard, as if I could make up for all the months that I didn’t cry.1. Which of the following in NOT correct?2. The writer assumed that the woman accepted the last offer mainly because woman _____.3. Why did the writer finally decide to buy three skirts?4. When did the writer left the marketplace, she wanted to cry, but did not because _____.5. Why did the writer cry eventually when she looked at the skirts again?

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Social circumstances in Early Modern England mostly served to repress women’s voices. Patriarchal culture and institutions constructed them as chaste, silent, obedient, and subordinate. At the beginning of 17th century, the ideology of patriarchy, political absolutism, and gender hierarchy were reaffirmed powerfully by King James in The Trew Law of Free Monarchie and the Basilikon Doron; by that ideology the absolute power of God the supreme patriarch was seen to be imaged in the absolute monarch of the state and in the husband and father of a family. Accordingly, a woman’s subjection, first to her father and then to her husband, imaged the subjection of English people to their monarch, and of all Christians to God. Also, the period saw an outpouring of repressive or overtly misogynist sermons, tracts, and plays, detailing women’s physical and mental defects, spiritual evils, rebelliousness, shrewishness, and natural inferiority to men. Yet some social and cultural conditions served to empower women. During the Elizabethan era (1558-1603) the culture was dominated by a powerful Queen, who provided an impressive female example though she left scant cultural space for other women. Elizabethan women writers began to produce original texts but were occupied chiefly with translation. In the 17th century, however, various circumstances enabled women to write original texts in some numbers. For one thing, some counterweight to patriarchy was provided by female communities—mothers and daughters, extended kinship networks, close female friends, the separate court of Queen Anne (King James’ consort) and her often oppositional masques and political activities. For another, most of these women had a reasonably good education (modern languages, history, literature, religion, music, occasionally Latin) and some apparently found in romances and histories more expansive terms for imagining women’s lives. Also, representation of vigorous and rebellious female characters in literature and especially on the stage no doubt helped to undermine any monolithic social construct of women’s nature and role. Most important, perhaps, was the radical potential inherent in the Protestant insistence on every Christian’s immediate relationship with God and primary responsibility to follow his or her individual conscience. There is plenty of support in St Paul’s epistles and elsewhere in the Bible for patriarchy and a wife’s subjection to her husband, but some texts (notably Galatians 3: 28) inscribe a very different politics, promoting women’s spiritual equality: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Jesus Christ.” Such texts encouraged some women to claim the support of God the supreme patriarch against the various earthly patriarchs who claimed to stand toward them in his stead.There is also the gap or slippage between ideology and common experience. English women throughout the 17th century exercised a good deal of actual power; as managers of estates in their husbands’ absences at court or on military and diplomatic missions; as members of guilds; as wives and mothers who sometimes dominated their men by sheer force of personality or outright defiance. Their power reached its apex during the English Civil War and Interregnum (1640-60) as the execution of the King and the attendant disruption of social hierarchies led many women to seize new roles—as preachers, as prophetesses, as deputies for exiled royalist husbands, as writers of religious and political tracts.1. What is the best title for this passage?2. What did the Queen Elizabeth do for the women in culture?3. Which of the following is not mentioned as a reason to enable women to original texts?4. What did the religion do for the women?5. What does the word “apex” mean in the last paragraph?

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Over the past several decades, the U. S., Canada, and Europe have received a great deal of media and even research attention over unusual phenomena and unsolved mysteries. These include UFOs as well as sightings and encounters with “nonhuman creatures such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster. Only recently has Latin America begun to receive some attention as well. Although the mysteries of the Aztec, Mayan, and Inca civilizations have been known for centuries, now the public is also becoming aware of unusual, paranormal phenomena in countries such as Peru. The Nazca “lines” of Peru were discovered in the 1930s. These lines are deeply carved into a flat, stony plain, and form about 300 intricate pictures of animals such as birds, a monkey, and a lizard. Seen at ground level, the designs are a jumbled senseless mess. The images are so large that they can only be viewed at a height of 1, 000 feel—meaning from an aircraft. Yet there were no aircraft in 300 B. C, when it is judged the designs were made. Nor were there then, or are there now, any nearby mountain ranges from which to view them. So how and why did the native people of Nazca create these marvelous designs? One answer appeared in 1969, when the German researcher and writer Erich von Daniken proposed that the lines were drawn by extraterrestrials as runways for their aircraft. The scientific community did not take long to scoff at and abandon von Daniken’s theory. Over the years several other theories have been put forth, but none has been accepted by the scientific community.Today there is a new and heightened interest in the Nazca lines. It is direct result of the creation of the Internet. Currently there are over 60 sites dedicated to this mystery from Latin America past, and even respected scientists have joined the discussion through e-mail and chat rooms.Will the Internet help explain these unsolved mysteries? Perhaps it is a step in the right direction.1. Which of the following statements is INCORRECT?2. According to the passage, the Nazca lines were found _____.3. We can infer from the passage that the higher the lines are seen, the _____ the images they present.4. There has been increasing interest in the Nazca lines mainly because of _____.5. The author is _____ about the role of the Internet in solving mysteries.

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