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In the nineteenth century, thousands of poor people struggled to survive in the slums of London. Diseases spread rapidly through the densely populated and unhealthy districts. At one time, over 600 people a week died of cholera, a fatal disease which was then thought to be spread by airborne germs.A young doctor, John Snow, was anxious to help the poor people. He obtained a map of the slums. On it he marked the building where each person had died. He soon noticed that most of the deaths occurred in a roughly circular area. The number of deaths was greatest around the center of the circle and then decreased as the distance from the center of the circle increased.This pattern was confirmed as Snow continued to record fresh deaths on his map.Snow concluded that at the center of the area there must be somebody or something that was causing or spreading cholera. When he went to the district, he saw a pump which brought water up from an open well. This was the sole source of water for people in the area. He examined a sample of the water and saw what it was discolored. He suspected that the water was contaminated, so he took the handle of the pump away, thus stopping people from drinking water from the well.Snow urged the city authorities to investigate the water in the well. At first they were reluctant to spend time and money on something which had not yet proved to be a danger. Snow continued to press for action, and eventually work men dug down to investigate the wall of the well. They found that it was cracked in several places and that raw sewage was seeping into it. The men filled in the well and dug another one where clean water could be obtained. The cholera epidemic slackened and then disappeared.The important point about Dr. Snow’s work was that he proved that cholera could be caught by drinking polluted water. This discovery was vital in attempts to fight the disease and helped to save thousands of lives in later years. It showed health workers what they should look for in campaigns to eliminate the disease and disproved the belief that the germs somehow drifted through the air.1. Snow apparently obtained a map of the slum district in order to ________.2. In Dr. Snow’s time, cholera was ________.3. When Snow first asked city officials to investigate the water in the well they ________.4. After the new well had been dug, the number of deaths from cholera ________.5. Snow took away the handle of the pump because ________.

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Pottery is one of the oldest crafts, which began to be practiced as soon as man learned to control fire, and long before the melting of metals. It enabled him from very early times to make vessels for storing and cooking food, for carrying water, and for burial purposes. Early vessels were shaped by hand and probably “fired” in a big bonfire by covering them over with dried grass and dead branches, which were then set alight.A great advance in pottery followed the invention of the potter’s wheel and the kiln. It is not certainly known where the potter’s wheel was first used, but it is thought that by about 3,500 B.C potters in Central Asia were using some kind of wheel. From there its use spread west and east to Egypt, Crete, China—and then to Ancient Greece and Rome.At first the wheel was nothing more than a small disc, turned on a pivot by hand, but later it was improved by raising it and providing it with a larger circular platform near the ground as well which could be rotated by the potter with his feet. Such a wheel was probably in use in Egypt by about 200 B.C., though this is only conjecture; but it was certainly still in use in Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In the eighteenth century, however, the potter’s wheel was improved so that it could be worked by a treadle, or turned by an assistant. Modern potter’s wheels are power driven.There are three principal ways articles may be made of pottery. They may be simply shaped by hand. They may be thrown on the potter’s wheel and shaped against the spin with the fingers or some scraping tool. Thirdly, the wet clay may be put in a pre-shaped “form” of plaster-of-Paris.After the pots have been made, they are slowly baked in the kiln. This produces chemical changes in the clay which have a hardening effect. The time taken for firing pottery varies with the size of the kiln and the type of clay. It can take anything from 24 hours to as long as 2 weeks.If pottery is to hold water, it must be “glazed”, since clay is porous by nature. Glaze consists of the raw materials of glass, ground together and mixed with water to a creamy consistency. The glaze is sprayed on to the pot which is then heated in the kiln again until it is, in effect, covered with a very thin layer of glass. This seals the pores in the clay and gives us the versatile table and oven dishes we know so well today.1. The early making of pottery ________.2. The first potter’s wheel was invented ________.3. The ancient Greeks and Romans ________.4. The three ways articles can be made of pottery are ________.5. The time taken for firing pottery varies according to ________.

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There are roughly 800 million hungry people in the world today. Approximately 24,000 of them, mostly children, die of hunger and its related causes each day. Few members of the public may know these enormously tragic facts or that the United Nations has set a target to half the number of hungry in the world by 2015. Current data, however, suggests the pace is much too slow. So last week in Rome, UN officials, heads of state and members of the aid community met to consider ways of accelerating the process.I know what it means to be poor and hungry. I grew up in a town where drought, disease and just plain poverty create havoc in the lives of the region’s inhabitants and where the lack of food means very few children reach their full potential. When I was eight, however, all that changed. The UN’s World Food Program began distributing food at the schools and all of a sudden, a life-long burden was lifted from our shoulders. My friends and I no longer worried about being hungry in class and could concentrate on our lessons. And those kids who had left came back; others, who had never been to school, were sent by their parents.School feeding for the 300 million undernourished children in the world would reduce the overall number of hungry by more than one-third. And it would do so among its most vulnerable population. Now there is even more reason to do so. The US Congress has just committed an annual $100 million dollars to an international school meals program for the next 10 years. Other governments should immediately announce their support. With collective commitment, we can rapidly decrease the number of hungry poor in the world while making a solid investment in the individual lives of children and the futures of poor nations.It can become a reality. The highly successful post-war school feeding programs in Europe, the United States, Japan and other countries, helped transform war-torn nations into strong societies and economies in just one generation. The same can be done for the developing world.Through education we can lift people from poverty and help them take advantage of the global economy. School feeding serves as the simple—but essential—component in decreasing malnutrition among poor children and to helping them get an educated start in life.1. The purpose of the meeting held in Rome is ________.2. Why does the author say “I know what it means to be poor and hungry” in Para. 2?3. Which of the following is closest in meaning to the word “undernourished”?4. It can be inferred from Para. 4 that ________.5. Which of the following can serve as the best title for this passage?

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As I ponder whom it might be that I would consider a role model, I realized that there are a lot of people I know personally that I could look to for inspiration. But I am sharing these thoughts with others who most likely do not know my friend or my sister-in-law or the gal I work with. Therefore I think I should write about someone famous. But, it seems that these days there are not a lot of good role models to choose from, at least not from the “typical” choices that we usually think of as role models. I realize celebrities’ private lives should be just that; but when a person is in the limelight perhaps they should use that notoriety for some sort of good.There are some criteria that my role model must possess. First, she must be close to my age. She has to have overcome some obstacle, or maybe better said, did not have her “celebrity” status handed to her. Finally, she must be helping others, haring the blessings she has received with others.I believe that someone who fits those criteria quite well is Oprah Winfrey.Oprah Winfrey’s life has had a very difficult and tumultuous beginning. She was born in 1954 to a poor, unmarried black girl living in the very racially segregated state of Mississippi. For a while, Oprah was raised by her grandmother, after her mother moved north. She eventually went to live with her father in Nashville, after having survived body abuse and the birth and death of baby of her own.Oprah’s rise to fame began in Baltimore, then Chicago, with her hosting morning talk shows, such as A. M. Chicago. She became so popular that in 1986, she launched The Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah began her own production company, Harpo, and obtained control of The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was now in syndication.In 1994, Oprah did something that caught my attention and with which she gained my respect. She decided to break away from the mold of other daytime talk shows and pledged that her show would be free from “tabloid topics”. Her viewers responded slowly, but very positively, and her popularity surged. The Oprah Winfrey Show was now centered on uplifting, meaningful subjects, many of which are aimed towards women.Oprah has used her gaining popularity, in my opinion, to launch many meaningful projects. She launched Oprah’s Book Club in 1996. The Book Club is an on-air reading club intended to get the country excited about literature again. To date, all the book club selections have become instant bestsellers. Oprah’s Angel Network was started in 1997, encouraging people to open their hearts to those in need. This includes a project to collect small change to send students to college and to sponsor Habitat for Humanity programs.Oprah has been able to share her blessings with others while keeping her pledge to focus The Oprah Winfrey Show on subjects that will encourage her viewers. Each week her shows cover such topics as spirituality, wellness, fitness, relationships, steps towards financial freedom and more.Winfrey’s talent for public performance and spontaneity in answering questions helped her win fame. Winfrey talk show has an estimated audience of 14 million daily in the US and millions more in 132 other countries—predominantly women. She is also an accomplished actress and won an Academy Award nomination for her role in The Color Purple.Another reason that I admire Oprah is because she genuinely seems to be “just a regular gal”. Her book, Make the Connection shows how Oprah is like any other woman. The painful revelations she shares about her struggle with weight loss really touched me. Even as she was given an Emmy Award, her thoughts were on how heavy she must look in the dress she was wearing. Once I went to a lecture given by one of Oprah’s favorite authors. As we were sitting before the lecture began, a couple of black women walked in. My friend said, “Oh look, there’s Oprah,” I said, “no it’s not”, she said, “yes it is” and back and forth we went. Well, as it turns out, it was Oprah. She looked just like the rest of us: she did not come in amongst media frenzy as might be expected. When the speaker introduced her, she was almost embarrassed to stand.I feel Oprah is a genuinely nice person, someone who would be a great girlfriend. She has a head on her shoulders and knows where she is going. She has made a name for herself and is not embarrassed by her wealth and knows the importance of sharing the blessings that have been bestowed upon her.1. All of the following are the reasons why the author chose Oprah Winfrey as her role model EXCEPT ________.2. The word “tabloid” in the sixth paragraph probably means ________.3. Oprah’s talk show CANNOT be described as ________.4. The reasons why Oprah became famous include all the following EXCEPT ________.5. A suitable title for the passage would be ________.

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