Plan on traveling around the USA this summer. If you need help in arranging the trip, or want ideas about where to go and what to do, there are a number of outstanding websites that can make your American dream come true. http://byways. org The National Scenic Byways Program covers l50 memorable roads. Some are natural routes, such as Route l along the California coast. Others focus on history(such as Route 6) or man-made attractions (the Las Vegas Trip). For each, you are provided with a map, told the route's length and how long is allowed, and given detailed suggestions on sights and stop-offs. www. oyster. com This is the best website for reviews of hotels in US cities and resorts. The reviews are impressively thorough--covering locations, rooms, cleanliness, food and so on. Importantly, these are not promotional photos by the hotels, but more honest and revealing ones taken by inspectors. Search facilities are excellent. From the 243 hotels reviewed in the New York, you can narrow down what you are looking for by locations, facilities and styles, or just pick out a selection of the best. www. 101usaholidays. co. uk This is the latest offering that features l01 holiday ideas to the USA. It's an impressively diverse selection, ranging from touring in the footsteps of Martin Luther King to a golfing break in Arizona and a cycling and wine--tasting trip in California's Napa Valley. Narrow down what you are looking for--whether by price, region, theme and who will be traveling--and then just the photos of the relevant holidays remain on view. It's a really clever design. www. mousesavers. com Walt Disney World in California can make dreams come true, but the price is not affordable for the majority of people. So turn to long established Mousesavers. com, dedicated to giving big discounts on tickets, hotels and dining at Walt Disney World. The website also offers general money--saving tips, suggestions for cheap and free stuff and brief coverage of other Florida and California theme parks. If you are going to the USA for the man-made attractions, you can drive along  _  . A) Route l B) Route 6 C) the Las Vegas Trip D) the California coast
C


(Question)
While success is surely sweeter than failure, it seems failure is a far better teacher, and organizations that fail spectacularly often flourish more in the long run, according to a new study by Vinit Desai, assistant professor of management at the University of Colorado Denver Business School. Researchers have found that people missing their goals perform much better in the long run. That is because they gain more knowledge from their failures than their successes and the lessons are more likely to stay longer in their minds. "We found that the knowledge gained from success was often fleeting while knowledge from failure stuck around for years," said professor Desai, who led the study. "But companies often ignore failure. Managers may fire people or turn over the whole workforce while they should treat the failure as a learning opportunity." Prof Desai compared the flights of the space shuttle Atlantis and the Challenger. During the 2002 Atlantis flight, a piece of insulation   broke off and damaged the left solid rocket booster   but didn't influence the program. There was little investigation. The Challenger was launched next and another piece of insulation broke off. This time the shuttle and its seven-person crew were destroyed. The disaster led to a major investigation resulting in 29 changes to prevent future disasters. The difference in response in the two cases came down to this: Atlantis was considered a success and the Challenger a failure. "Despite crowded skies, airlines are extremely reliable," he said. "The number of failures is extremely small. And past researches have shown that older airlines, those with more experience in failure, have a lower number of accidents." Prof Desai doesn't recommend finding out failure in order to learn. Instead, he advises organizations to analyze small failures to collect useful information rather than wait for major failures. Fewer accidents happen to older airlines in that   _  . A) their planes couldn't fly high in the sky B) they gained much from experience in failure C) their planes were often checked by the experts D) they were unpopular among passengers
(Answer)
B


Ques: Many blind people use guide dogs to help them get safely from place to place and to warn them of danger. But what can blind people do if they are allergic  to dogs or just don't like them? For these people, they can turn to the Guide Horse Foundation. Janet and Don Burleson founded  the organization in 1999. They began training miniature horses to help guide blind people. Miniature horses look just like common horses, only much smaller. They are generally less than 34 inches tall. Cuddles was the foundation's first guide horse in full service. She became 45-year-old Dan Shaw's helper. Shaw has an eye disease and his sight is very poor. One night, while filling out a form to get a guide dog, Shaw heard a news story on TV about people training horses to guide the blind. Shaw loves horses and wanted a guide animal that would live a long time. So he applied ,and a year later, Cuddles and Shaw began training as a team. On a trip to New York, Cuddles helped Shaw safely visit many places of interest .They even traveled on a boat and on the subway system. Shaw says that he is very lucky to have Cuddles. He believes that Cuddles has changed his life for the better by giving him the chance to do things himself and making him feel much more confident about himself. The Guide Horse Foundation   _  . A) was set up by one person B) has different kinds of horses C) trains horses to guide blind people D) has a history of several hundred years
Ans: C


Ques:San Francisco's Chinatown is the biggest and oldest in the country. It's the third most visited tourist destination in the city. It's also the city's most densely populated neighbor- hood. So why are. businesses in Chinatown struggling? In this week's paper, I outline some of the reasons for why Chinatown's crowded streets and busy shops might be declining. Underneath the surface, Chinatown is falling. And the city, local organizations and businesses are trying to figure out what they can do to turn things around. While numbers of people visit Chinatown, they don't stay long and they don't spend a lot of money.  And beyond annual festivals,1ike Chinese New Years,  this month's Moon Festival and last month's Sunday Streets - which drew about 15,000 t0 20.000 people - the neighborhood has a hard time attracting locals. Can you remember the last. time you went to Chinatown ?If you can't, You're not alone. Locals told me that Chinatown doesn't have much to offer them - that the stores are all the same. There are some good eating joints, people said, but they don't know how to find them. Some people even told me that they sometimes go to extreme measures to avoid the neighborhood altogether. But when asked if the-v would like to see Chinatown gone, the answer was always a strong no. Locals are hopeful that things will get better and traffic will increase when the Central Subway is complete. But chat's not for another five years. at least. And if' new shops or restaurants don't make their way into Chinatown. the same problem of attracting locals will exist. Not that Chinatown's going to die. The dragon still has some fire in its belly. And many people are rooting for positive change. The question is, how does Chinatown change without losing the very importance of what makes it unique? It can be inferred from the passage    _   . A) the Central Subway is under construction B) Chinatown has to make way for subway C) many restaurants have been closed down D) the locals hope Chinatown will be extinct

Ans:
A