(Question)
(2013*II,B)In 1947 a group of famous people from the art world headed by an Austrian conductor decided to hold an international festival of music,dance and theatre in Edinburgh.The idea was to reunite Europe after the Second World War. It quickly attracted famous names such as Alec Guinness,Richard Burton,Dame Margot Fonteyn and Marlene Dietrich as well as the big symphony orchestras .It became a fixed event every August and now attracts 400,000 people yearly. At the same time,the "Fringe" appeared as a challenge to the official festival.Eight theatre groups turned up uninvited in 1947,in the belief that everyone should have the right to perform,and they did so in a public house disused for years. Soon,groups of students firstly from Edinburgh University,and later from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge,Durham and Birmingham were making the journey to the Scottish capital each summer to perform theatre by littleknown writers of plays in small church halls to the people of Edinburgh. Today the"Fringe",once less recognized,has far outgrown the festival with around 1,500 performances of theatre,music and dance on every one of the 21 days it lasts.And yet as early as 1959,with only 19 theatre groups performing,some said it was getting too big. A paid administrator was first employed only in 1971,and today there are eight administrators working all year round and the number rises to 150 during August itself.In 2004 there were 200 places housing 1,695 shows by over 600 different groups from 50 different countries.More than 1.25 million tickets were sold. Why did some uninvited theatre groups come to Edinburgh in 1947? A) They owned a public house there. B) They came to take up a challenge. C) They thought they were also famous. D) They wanted to take part in the festival.
(Answer)
D


(Question)
History Has Arrived Nine-year-old Barack Obama was looking through magazines. But the African-American boy was shocked by a series of photos. The pictures were of a black man who destroyed his skin with chemicals that promised to make him white. For the first time, the boy began to doubt who he was. "I stood in front of the mirror and wondered if something was wrong with me,"Obama said. However, now the boy who used to struggle with his identity doesn't see it as a problem any more, but an advantage for his career. Obama made history by being elected as the first black president of US. He defeated John Ma Cain in a landslide victory. Obama's story started in opposite corners of the world. His white mother was born in the heartland of the US. His black father grew up in a tiny village in Kenya. They met during in Hawaii, but his father left the family when Obama was just two years old and his mother moved to Indonesia. At 10, Obama moved back to live with his white grandparents in Hawaii where his sense that he didn't belong grew. At his class a white boy asked Obama if his father ate people. Out of embarrassment ,Obama lied to his classmates that his father was a prince. "I kept asking who I was and I ended up trying drugs and drinking,"Obama recalled. Things came to change after the young man made friends with those with a similar background at college. Their experiences back in Africa helped Obama to finally face up to his African origin. He worked hard to become a star at Harvard Law School and the third black senator in US history.  At the beginning of his campaign for the White House, few people viewed Obama favorably. Many doubted his unusual background, which left him neither black enough nor white enough. But Obama turned his pain of growing up into a tool to make Americans believe:"There is not a black America, an Asian America. There's the United States of America." Barack Obama's victory is"a historic vicotory that promised changes and overcame centuries of prejudice ."His success realised Martin... What does the title"History Has Arrived"probably mean? A) Barack Obama eventually defeated his white opponent, John MaCain in a landslide victory. B) Barack Obama's victory has given blacks and other minorities a true national role model. C) Barack Obama has become the first African-American President, overcoming centuries of prejudice. D) Through his great efforts, Barack Obama became the third black senator in the US history.
(Answer)
C


(Question)
You might not know it, but there is something wonderful at your fingertips. You can make people happier, healthier and more hard-working just by touching their arms or holding their hands. Doctors say that body contact is a kind of medicine that can work wonders. When people are touched, the quantity of hemoglobin  -a type of matter that produces the red color in blood increases greatly. This results in more oxygen reaching every part of the body and the whole body benefits. In experiments, bottle-fed baby monkeys were separated from their mothers for the first ten days of life. They became sad and negative. Studies showed the monkeys were more probable to become ill than other babies that were allowed to stay with their mothers. Human babies react in much the same way. Some years ago, a scientist noticed that some well-fed babies in a clean nursery became weak. Yet babies in another nursery were growing healthily, even though they ate less well and were not kept as clean. The reason, he concluded, was that they often had touches from nurses. Experiments show that most people like being touched. And nearly all doctors believe touch helps to reduce patients' fear of treatment. Of course there is time when a touch is not welcome. But even if we don't like being touched, a smile can make us feel better. Smiling increases blood flow and starts the production of "happy brain" chemicals. So let's have a big smile and don't forget to keep in touch. Which of the following is NOT true? A) Everyone knows that body contact can make people happier. B) People may work harder because of body contact. C) Your fingertips can do something. D) People may not understand the importance of touching.
(Answer)

A