Question: Close relationships, thought to help communication by giving speakers a common context, are actually more likely to make  _ when strangers are involved, a new study suggests. Because close colleagues and friends already share so much common knowledge that they often use short, ambiguous  messages which can lead to misunderstandings. "People are so used to talking with those with whom they already share a great deal of information that, when they have something really new to share, they often present it in a way that they assume the person already knows it." says study-team member Boaz Keysar. Keysar and his graduate student, Shall Wu, trained 40 pairs of undergraduate students to memorize made-up names and descriptions of strange shapes. In each pair, the "director" had to communicate the identity of one of the 24 shapes. The partner had to use the information to choose the correct shape from a set of three images on a computer monitor. Half of the partners studied only the first six shapes, while the others learned the first 18 shapes. The directors, who had memorized all the shapes, were aware of their partners' knowledge levels of the shapes. In the pairs with the most shared knowledge, the directors were more likely to rattle off  shape names, compared with pairs with little knowledge overlap , in which the directors were more likely to describe the actual shapes. Not surprisingly, participants with more shared knowledge were twice as likely to ask for clarification as those with less overlap. Language itself can be confusing. "The reason all this is happening at all is that language in general is ambiguous," said Keysar. He recalls an ambiguous billboard near a stadium holding a Rolling Stones concert that night. The billboard read, "Avoid LSD tonight." (:LSD"") Hmmm? "It was about Lake Shore Drive, and I'm sure the writer of the sign didn't realize he was being ambiguous," Keysar said. "Even though miscommunication can lead to missed meetings or deadlines, people are often unaware when their language is... It can be inferred from the example of the billboard that   _  . A) most people know what LSD usually refers to B) local people would not misunderstand the meaning of LSD C) the writer of the sign means to play jokes on those attending the concert D) people sometimes ignore the limitation of shared knowledge
Answer: D

Question: Some wonderfully creative uses of X-rays have been in the world of art.But the most impressive one is to uncover what has been covered up.Details unfolded by an X-ray of a painting can ' t be seen any other way.For example, in the past, paintings were often repaired if small pieces of paint fell off the canvas  . These repairs cannot be seen just by looking at the painting.It takes an X-ray to discover where the repairs have been made. An X-ray of a painting is one of the best ways to tell if it was created by a famous painter or if it is a forgery .If there is a question as to whether an old master has painted a certain painting or not, X-rays are made and compared to those of paintings that are known to be original.If the brushstrokes   , for example, are shown to be totally different than in other work done by a certain artist, then the painting is proved to be a fake copy. Since modern paints are usually made from different materials than paints of hundreds of years ago, the image they leave on an X-ray film looks different.This is another way X-rays can be used to spot a forgery.A modem artist will try to make a forgery look hundreds of years old by painting dirty varnish on it or by using artificial means to get the varnish to look cracked.To the naked eye the forgery may look old, but when a careful study of the X-ray image is made, the _ is obvious. It was common many years ago for an artist to finish a painting, decide it wasn't any good, and paint a completely different picture on top of it.Or artists would paint over others' work --it was their version of recycling.Taking an X-ray is the only way to find out if there is a picture underneath the picture you see with your eyes.Sometimes museums will be more interested in the painting beneath than the one on top, and will restore the older one by having the top layer painstakingly removed. What is the main purpose of the article? A) To provide information to police who are looking for stolen art. B) To persuade art dealers to check for fake copies before selling art. C) To explain how modern technology can be applied in unique ways. D) To help artists restore damaged artwork to its original appearance.
Answer: C

Question: As a young adult, Noah Webster was a teacher. At this time, the colonies were fighting for independence from Britain. Yet the books that American children used in school all came from Britain. The books were all about British people and British places. Webster wanted books that would mean more to American children. So he wrote three books that used American examples -- a grammar book, a spelling book, and a reader. These books were very popular, and millions of them were sold. Webster was interested in changing the spellings of words. He wanted words to be spelled the way they were pronounced. For example, he thought the word "head" should be spelled "hed", and the word "laugh" should be spelled "laf". People liked Webster's suggestions. However, few words were actually changed. One group of words that were changed were words in which an unpronounced "u" followed an "o". That is why Americans write "color" and "labor", and the British write "colour" and "labour". With the money he made from his books, Webster was able to write. It was the first American English dictionary, published in 1828. Webster's dictionary had over 70000 words and gave the meaning and origin of each. To this day, Webster's work is the example that most dictionaries of American English follow. The last sentence of this passage means   _  . A) most dictionaries in the world are the copies of Webster's B) most dictionaries in American English have the characteristics of Webster's C) most American people followed Webster's advice on writing D) Webster's dictionary is the only one used in the United States
Answer:
D