During the Victorian period, ordinary people started going on holidays to the seaside for the first time.    When a woman entered a room, it was considered rude for a man to offer his seat to her because the cushion  might still be warm.   People thought that you could digest food better in the dark, so the dining room was often located in the basement.   It was considered improper to look into someone's bedroom, so most bedrooms were on the second or third floor.   People went to great lengths to hide their water closets from view. In some homes, they were behind a curtain or screen, in a separate part of the house or even outside.   A lot of men used macassar oil to slick back their hair. In order to stop this grease from sticking to the furniture, pieces of material called antimacassars were placed over the backs of chairs.   For a lady, to show her ankles was considered taboo . ks5u   Many people kept a hedgehog  in the basement so it could eat insects.   When Queen Victoria came to the power in 1837, most people lived in villages and worked on the land. There was no electricity (gas lamps or candles were used for light) and most people walked or traveled by boat, train and horse. However, by the end of her reign  in 1901, the majority of the population lived in towns and worked in offices, shops and factories, and there was piped water, gas and even electricity. According to the passage, we can learn that in Victorian time   _  . A) only the rich went on holidays to the seaside. B) dining rooms were often located on the second or third floor to avoid being looked into. C) it was improper for a lady to show her ankles. D) hedgehogs were usually kept in the basement as pets.
C
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"Long time no see" is a very interesting sentence. When I first read this sentence from an American friend's email, I laughed. I thought it was a perfect example of Chinglish. Obviously, it is a word-by-word literal translation of the Chinese greetings with a ruled English grammar and structure! Later on, my friend told me that it is a standard American greeting. I was too thrilled to believe her. Her words could not convince me at all. So I did a research on google.com. To my surprise, there are over 60 thousand web pages containing "Long time no see." This sentence has been widely used in emails, letters, newspapers, movies, books, or any other possible places. Though it is sort of informal, it is part of the language that Americans use daily. Ironically, if you type this phrase in Microsoft Word, the software will tell you that the grammar needs to be corrected. Nobody knows the origin of this Chinglish sentence. Some people believe that it came from Charlie Chan's movies. In the 1930s, Hollywood moviemakers successfully created a world wide famous Chinese detective named "Charlie Chan" on wide screens. Detective Chan likes to teach Americans some Chinese wisdom by quoting Confucius. "Long time no see" was his trademark. Soon after Charlie Chan, "Long time no see" became a popular phrase in the real world with thanks to the popularity of these movies. Some scholars refer to America as a huge pot of stew. All kinds of culture are mixed in the stew together, and they change the color and taste of each other. American Chinese, though a minority ethnic  group in the United States, is also contributing some changes to the stew! Language is usually the first thing to be influenced in the mixed stew. You can have some other examples than adoptions from Chinese, such as pizza from Italian, susi from Japanese, and deja vu from French etc. There is a long list! Americans do not just simply borrow something from others. They will modify it and make it their own, so you would not be surprised to find a tofu and peanut... The main idea of the passage is that   _  . A) some Chinese expressions are introduced into English B) you'll not be surprised at a tofu in a restaurant in America C) some American expressions can be used in China D) American English keep being enriched from different cultures
D
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Soaring divorce rates around the globe are  _ the environment ,American researchers suggested in a study released Monday . Michigan State University researcher Jianguo "Jack "Liu and his assistant Eunice Yu said the increasing  number of divorces leads to more households with fewer people and greater consumption of water and energy .They said housing units require space ,construction materials and fuel to heat and cool ,regardless of the number of inhabitants . For example ,in the United States in 2005, divorced households consumed an extra 73 billion kilowatt hours of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water ,An additional 38 million extra rooms required heating and lighting that same year due to divorced households . "A married household actually uses resources more efficiently than a divorced household ", Liu said ,He said that in cohabitating households ,people will watch the same television ,share the  air conditioning and heat and use the same refrigerator ,all things that use energy at a regularly stable rate regardless of the number of uses . Liu said he was not condemning divorce ," Some people really need to get divorces "He said cohabitation ---- whether by a family ,friends or even in a commune ------ was simply a more environmentally friendly option ,Additionally ,the researchers noted that trends other than divorce are also changing family living structures ,such as the end of multiple generations of a family sharing a home and people remaining single longer . "People's first reaction to this research is surprise ,and then it seems simple ":Liu said in a release " But a lot of things become simple after research is done .Our challenges were to connect the dots and quantify their relationships People have been talking about how to protect the environment and combat climate change ,but divorce is an overlooked factor that needs to be considered . " He said the increasing energy demands caused by divorce should be considered by governments when they are creating environmental policies . According to the passage ,what's the attitude of Mr. Liu towards divorce ? A) Critical B) Indifferent C) Objective D) Unclear
C
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How important can a fifteen-year-old boy's work be? Well, Louis Braille's work changed the world. Born in a small town near Paris in 1809, shortly after his third birthday Louis blinded himself in one eye while playing with a sharp pointed tool in his father's workshop. He soon lost the sight in his other eye when the infection  spread. He wanted to go to school, but in his small town there was no school for him. At that time, blind people did not get any school education. Braille went to Paris to study, but there were few books for the blind. Louis knew that books were the key to learning. He struggled with ideas for three years. Finally, at fifteen, he invented an alphabet made with raised dots . Blind people could "read" by feeling the patterns of the dots. Being able to read Braille allows blind children to learn together with the sighted at school, and go on to get jobs. It allows people who lose their eyesight to continue to read, learn and get information. Braille got blind as a result of   _  . A) an illness B) an accident C) a party D) a fired

B
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