Ques: Although the US is so big and its people have so many different racial backgrounds, it is in some ways less varied than Europe.The English language is used almost everywhere in its American form.The American way of speaking has developed independently of English and is on the whole closer to what can be heard in Ireland. Another example of uniformity is in habits and ways of living.From Boston to Los Angeles it is as far as from France to Central Asia, and from east to west there are five time zones; but everywhere people get up and go to bed at about the same time, eat the same kind of food, buy in the same kind of shops, work and rest at the same time of the day and have the same pattern of holidays. _ there is less difference between rich people and ordinary people or between town and country, than in any single European nation. Although far more food is produced than the present population needs, America is actually an urban society.Less than a tenth of the people are engaged in   agriculture and most of the rest live in or around towns large and small.Here the traditional picture is changing; most Americans do not live in small towns any more.Half the population now live in some thirty metropolitan   areas. The fact that the United States has always been a single economic unit has contributed to uniformity.Modern industry favors large organization, and it is no accident that the world's biggest commercial firms are American.The people can choose between the products of competing manufacturers   but the products are all much alike. In describing the uniformity in the U.S.the author does not mention that the American people  _  . A) get up and go to work at the same time B) spend their holidays in the same pattern C) buy and eat the same kind of food D) have more or less the same income
Ans: D

Ques: Wealth starts with a goal saving a dollar at a time. Call it the piggy bank strategy . There are lessons in that time-honored coin-saving container. Any huge task seems easier when reduced to baby steps. I f you wished to climb a 12,000-foot mountain, and could do it a day at a time, you would only have to climb 33 feet daily to reach the top in a year. If you want to take a really nice trip in 10 years for a special occasion, to collect the $15,000 cost, you have to save $3.93 a day. If you drop that into a piggy bank and then once a year put $1,434 in a savings account at 1% interest rate after-tax, you will have your trip money. When I was a child, my parents gave me a piggy bank to teach me that, if I wanted something, I should save money to buy it. We associate piggy banks with children, but in many countries, the little containers are also popular with adults. Europeans see a piggy bank as a sign of good fortune and wealth. Around the world, many believe a gift of a piggy bank on New Year's Day brings good luck and financial success. Ah, but you have to put _ in it. Why is a pig used as a symbol of saving? Why not an elephant bank, which is bigger and holds more coins? In the Middle Ages, before modern banking and credit instruments, people saved money at home, a few coins at a time dropped into a jar or dish. Potters  made these inexpensive containers from an orange-colored clay  called "pygg," and folks saved coins in pygg jars.The Middle English word for pig was "pigge". While the Saxons pronounced pygg, referring to the clay, as "pug", eventually the two words changed into the same pronunciation, sounding the "i" as in pig or piggy. As the word became less associated with the orange clay and more with the animal, a clever potter fashioned a pygg jar in the shape of a pig, delighting children and adults. The piggy bank was born. Originally you had to break the bank to get to the money, bringing in a sense of seriousness into savings. While piggy banks teach children the wisdom of saving, adults often... The piggy ban originally was   _  . A) a potter's instrument B) a cheap clay container C) an animal-shaped dish D) a pig-like toy for children
Ans: B

Ques: Even bird brains can get to know an entire continent ----- but it takes them a year of migration to do so, suggests a Princeton research team.    The scientists have shown that migration adult sparrows can find their way to their winter nesting grounds even after being thrown off course by thousands of miles.    The team first brought 30 sparrows to Princeton from northern Washington State, where the birds had been in the process of migrating southward from their summer breeding grounds inprefix = st1 /Alaska. Half the birds were juveniles  of about three months in age that had never migrated before, while the other half were adults that had made the round trip to their wintering site in the south-western United States at least once.    After the birds were released, they attempted to resume  their migration, but both age group grew disoriented  quickly.    "All the birds scattered  at first," Wikelski said. "It was clear that they were turned around for a couple of days. But while the adults eventually realized they had to head southwest, the younger birds resumed flying straight southward as though they were still in Washington."    "The adults," said team member Richard Holland, "recovered their bearings because they possess something the younger birds do not, which is an internal map."    "These birds need two things to know where they are and migrate effectively: a 'map' and a 'compass'," saidHolland, a postdoctoral research associate in Wikelski's lab. "What we've found is that juveniles use their compass, but the adults also use their map."    Hollandsaid, "The birds do not lose the compass as they age, but somehow develop the map, eventually applying both tools to keep on track during migratory flights. Scientists already have determined that the compass is based on the sun or the magnetic field, but where the map comes from remains a mystery----one that the team will be exploring in coming years." Where did the 30 sparrows spend their summer? A) Princeton B) Washington C) Alaska D) In the southwesternUnited States
Ans:
C