Ques: Happiness is contagious  , as researchers reported on Thursday. People with the most social connections -- spouses, friends, neighbors and relatives -- were also the happiest, the data showed. "Each additional happy person makes you happier," Christakis said. "Imagine that I am connected to you and you are connected to others and others are connected to still others. It is this fabric of humanity, like an American patch quilt." Each person sits on a different colored patch. "Imagine that these patches are happy and unhappy patches. Your happiness depends on what is going on in the patch around you," Christakis said. "It is not just happy people connecting with happy people, which they do. Above and beyond, there is this contagious process going on." And happiness is more contagious than unhappiness, they discovered. "If a social contact is happy, it increases the likelihood that you are happy by 15 percent, " Fowler said. "A friend of a friend, or the friend of a spouse or a sibling  , if they are happy, increases your chances by 10 percent," he added. A happy third degree friend -- the friend of a friend of a friend -- increases a person's chances of being happy by 6 percent. "But every extra unhappy friend increases the likelihood that you'll be unhappy by 7 percent," Fowler said. The finding is interesting and it is useful, too, Fowler said. "Among other benefits, happiness has been shown to have an important effect on reduced mortality  , pain reduction, and improved cardiac   function. So better understanding of how happiness spreads can help us learn how to develop a healthier society," he said. The study also fits in with other data suggested in 1984 that having $ 5,000 extra increased a person's chances of becoming happier by about 2 percent. "A happy friend is worth about $ 20,000," Christakis said. Which of the following will increase your chances of becoming happier most? A) Being in a party with a happy atmosphere. B) A happy experience of your brother or your parents. C) A happy trip to a foreign country of your friends. D) Happiness of your friend's friend.
Ans: A

Ques: The word "sport" first meant something that people did in their free time. Later it often meant hunting wild animals and birds. About a hundred years ago the word was first used for organized games. This is the usual meaning of the word today. People spend a lot of their spare time playing football, basketball, tennis and many other sports. Such people play because they want to. A few people are paid for the sport they play. These people are called professional sportsmen. They may be sportsmen for only a few years, but during that time the best ones can earn a lot of money. For example, a professional footballer in England earns more than 30,000 dollars a year. The stars earn a lot more. International golf and tennis champions can make more than 500,000 dollars a year. Of course, only a few sportsmen can earn as much money as that. Perhaps the most surprising thing about sportsmen and money is that the stars can earn more money from advertising than from sports. An advertisement for sports equipment does not simply say "Buy our things". It says "Buy the same shirt and shoes as ...". Famous sportsmen can even advertise things like watches and food. They allow the companies to use their names or a photograph of them and they are paid for this. Sport is no longer just something for people's spare time. According to the passage, an international golf champion can make   _   in a year. A) more than 500,000 dollars B) more than 30,000 dollars C) 500,000 dollars D) 30,000 dollars
Ans: A

Ques: My 3-year-old son and I lived a very hard life because I had been out of work since two years ago. Being poor is a terrible feeling when your 3-year-old finishes his meal and says: "Can I have some more bread and jam   please, Mummy?" And you break down in tears, because you don't know how to tell him that there is no more food. With PS6, I went to the supermarket, picked up some food and started to cook at home. It was time for me to make a change and get back on my feet. I began to write a series of articles for the website named Hunger Hurt in July 2011. A few months later, local food bank gave me some help-- with some free vegetables every month, which made my life a little easier. I began to write recipes , posting them on my blog. To my surprise, families, students and those poor people told me how much it helped to see healthy recipes made from affordable supermarket vegetables. My Life took unexpected turns. I was invited to give a speech on food , interviewed for an Oxfam report on food banks and asked to write a cookery book. When I got the money from the book, for the first night in almost two years, I went to bed without worrying. Now, I have a well-paid job and a beautiful home, and I'll never forget the days when I worked hard for a good life. The writer started to cook because   _  . A) the food at the supermarket was unhealthy B) she had to feed themselves in a cheap way C) she was advised to do so by someone D) her son preferred home-cooked food
Ans: B

Ques: Speed-reading is a necessary skill in the Internet age.We skim over articles, e-mails and WeChat to try to grasp key words and the essential meaning of a certain text.Surrounded with information from our electronic devices, it would be impossible to cope if we read word by word, line by line.But a new trend calls on people to unplug and enjoy reading slowly, listing benefits beyond the intelligent stimulation. A recent story from The Wall Street Journal reported on a book club in Wellington, New Zealand, where members meet in a cafe and turn off their smartphones.They sink into cozy chairs and read in silence for an hour. Unlike traditional book clubs, the point of the slow reading club isn't exchanging ideas about a certain book, but to get away from electronic devices and read in a quiet, relaxed environment. According to the Journal, the Wellington book club is just one example of a movement started by book lovers who miss the old-fashioned way of reading before the Internet and smartphones. Slow readers, such as The Atlantic's Maura Kelly, say a regular reading habit sharpens the mind, improves concentration, reduces stress levels and deepens the ability to sympathize. Another study published last year in Science showed that reading novels helps people understand other's mental states and beliefs, a fundamental skill in building relationships. Yet technology has made us less attentive readers. Screens have changed our reading patterns from the straight and information.left-to-right sequence to a wild skimming and skipping pattern as we hunt for important words and information. Reading text punctuated with links leads to weaker comprehension than reading plain text. The Internet may have made us stupider, says Patrick Kingsley from The Guardian. Because of the Internet, he says, we have become very good at collecting a wide range of interesting news, but we are also gradually forgetting how to sit back, reflect, and relate all these facts to each other. Slow reading means a return to an uninterrupted,... What's the best title for the passage? A) Benefit of Reading Clubs. B) Return of Slow Reading. C) Reading of the Internet Age. D) Influence of Speed Reading.
Ans:
B