One morning, a blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said, "I am blind. Please help me." There were only a few coins in the hat. A man was walking by. He took out a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote something on it. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by could see the new words. Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Are you the one who changed my sign this morning? May I know what you wrote?" The man said, "I only wrote the truth, I said what you said but in a different way." What he had written was, "Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it." Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was a blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind. It reminded you to be thankful for what you have. When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1,000 reasons to smile. Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear. The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling. What is the main idea of the text? A) We should help those who are in trouble. B) We should value what we have in life. C) We should respect people with disabilities. D) We should use a wise way when helping others
B


(Question)
I used to think of myself as a person learned in books, but my bookshelves told a different story. Apart from a few Indian novels and an Australian book, my literature collection only consisted of British and American titles. Worse still, I couldn't ever found anything in translation. My reading was limited to stories by English-speaking authors. So, at the start of 2012, I set myself the challenge of trying to read a book from every country in a year to find out what I was missing. With no idea where to get those books, I was unlikely to find publications from nearly 200 nations on the shelves of my local bookshop, so I decided to ask the readers all over the world for help. I created a blog called A Year of Reading the World and put out an appeal for suggestions of titles that I could read in English. The response was amazing. People all over the world were getting in touch with me, offering ideas and book lists. Some posted me books from their home countries. In addition, several writers, like Turkmenistan's Ak Welsapar and Panama's Juan David Morgan, sent me unpublished translations of their novels, giving me a rare opportunity to read works unavailable in Britain. Even with such an extraordinary team of bibliophiles  behind me, however, sourcing books was no easy task. With translations making up only around 4.5 per cent of literary works published in the UK, getting English versions of stories was tricky. One by one, the books from the countries on the list filled my heart with laughter, love, anger, hope and fear. Lands that had once seemed exotic and remote became close and familiar to me. At its best, I learned, reading makes the world real. It was not easy to find the books mainly because   _  . A) the readers were unwilling to offer help B) there were too few translations in the UK C) the author had no time and no chance to do it D) the writers didn't want to publish their books
(Answer)
B


Ques: Fencing or Not Wildlife fences are constructed for a variety of reasons including to prevent the spread of diseases, to protect wildlife from poachers , and to help manage small populations of threatened species. Human-wildlife conflict is another common reason for building fences. Wildlife can damage valuable farm animals and crops. Some species carry diseases of agricultural concern, and a few threaten human lives. At the same time, people kill wild animals for food, trade, or to defend lives or property, and human activities destroy wildlife habitat . Separating people and wildlife by fencing can appear to be a _ beneficial way to avoid such harmful effects. But in a paper in the journal Science, published recently, some scientists argue that fencing should only be used if worse comes to worst. According to the scientists, although fencing can have conservation benefits, it also has costs. When areas of wildlife habitat are changed into islands, the resulting small and isolated populations tend towards extinction, and the resulting loss of larger-bodied species can affect interactions between species in ways that cause further local extinctions. Therefore, scientists are asking that conservationists carefully weigh up the biodiversity costs and benefits of new and existing fences. In addition to fences' ecosystem-wide impact, the scientists don't think they always achieve their specific aims. Construction of fences to reduce human-wildlife conflict has been successful in some places but the challenges of appropriate fence design, location, construction, and protection mean that fences often fail to deliver the anticipated benefits. In some places, fences also provide poachers with a ready supply of wire for making traps. A variety of alternative approaches, including better caring for farm animals, community-based crop-guarding, insurance and wildlife-sensitive land-use planning are suggested to reduce conflicts between people and wildlife without the need for fencing. Some projects working with local... According to the scientists, what will fencing influence  _  ? A) Land building. B) Species diversity. C) Human population. D) Wildlife's body size.
Ans: B


Imagine looking for your lost dog. You step into a cave . But instead of the dog, you find beautiful cave paintings. You see paintings of horses, deer, and bison that are drawn in black, brown, red and yellow. Your first question would probably be "Who did this?" This is what happened to four French boys in 1940. They found the Lascaux caves. The paintings the boys discovered in those caves are 17,000 years old. They were drawn by the ancient people called Cro-Magnons. Cro-Magnons looked much like people of today. They used tools, such as fishing nets. But their art was extremely good. The main cave at Lascaux is called the Great Hall of Bulls, which has a picture of bulls and horses in many colors. The largest animal is 18 feet long. There are smaller animals, such as bison, stags  and a bear. There is also a strange spotted two-horned   animal. To the left of the main cave are the most famous paintings that are the drawings of multicolored animals. One painting is called Little Horses. On the ceiling are horses and cows. The most unusual sight may be in the Shaft of the Dead Man where there is a thinoceros  , a carefully drawn dead man, a wounded bison and a bird. Why did Cro-Magnon artists do these beautiful drawings on cave walls? Did the drawings call upon some magical power? Did the Cro-Magnon people hope that the drawings would bring good luck? There is one thing the paintings seem to tell us. The Cro- Magnons were interested in the world. They looked at beauty and they understood it. Most of the drawings in the caves are about   _  . A) boys B) tools C) dead men D) animals

D