Ques:Britain's symbolic red phone boxes have become out of date in the age of the mobile, but villages across the country are stepping in to save them, with creative intelligence. Whether as a place to exhibit art, poetry, or even as a tiny library, hundreds of phone boxes have been given a new life by local communities determined to preserve a typical part of British life. In Waterperry, a small village near Oxford, the 120 residents have filled the phone box next to the old house with a pot of flowers, piles of gardening and cooking magazines, and stuck poems on the walls. They took control of the phone box when telecoms operator BT said it was going to pull it down, an announcement that caused such dissatisfaction that one local woman threatened to chain herself to the box to save it. "I'd have done it, " insisted Kendall Turner. "It would have been heartbreaking for the village. " Local councilor Tricia Hallam, who came up with the idea for the phone box's change, said quite a few people would have joined her, adding, " We couldn't let it go because it's a British symbol." Only three feet by three feet wide, and standing 2.51-meter tall, the phone boxes were designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in 1936 for the 25thanniversary of the reign of King George V. Painted in "Post Office red" to match the post boxes, they were once a typical image of England and the backdrop  to millions of tourist photographs. Eight years ago there were about 17,000 across Britain, but today, in a country where almost everybody has a mobile phone, 58 percent are no longer profitable and ten percent are only used once a month. "On average, maintaining them costs PS800 a year per phone box-about PS44 million annually," said John Lumb, general manager for BT Payphones. What is the color of the British post boxes according to the passage? A) Green B) Red C) Black D) Yellow

Ans:B
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Ques:Warning: reading too much Cinderella  to your daughter may damage her emotional health in later life. A paper to be developed at the international congress of cognitive psychotherapy  in Gothenburg suggests a link between the attitudes of women abused  by their parents and early exposure to the wrong sort of fairy tales. It says girls who identified with Cinderella, Rapunzel  and Beauty in Beauty and the Beast were more likely to stay in destructive relationships as adults. The theory was developed by Susan Darker Smith, a psychotherapist at the University of Derby. She interviewed 67 female abuse survivors and found that 61 put up with severe abuse because they believed they could change their partners with patience, composition and love. The same view was taken by male survivors who had been abused as children. Hardly any of the women in a control group, who had not experienced abuse, thought they could change their partners in this way.     The same view was taken by male survivors who had been abused as children. These women and men said they would leave a relationship rather than put up with abuse from a partner. Ms Darker Smith found the abused women were much more likely to identify with Cinderella and other _ female characters in fairytales, who were later rescued by a stranger prince or hero. Although most girls heard the stories, damage appeared to be done to those who adopted the characters as role models. "They believe if their love is strong enough they can change their parents' behaviors," she said." Overexposure in children to stories that emphasize the transformational qualities of love may make women believe they can change their partners." For example, they might never have understood the obvious flaw in the story of Rapunzel, who remained locked in a high tower until rescued by a knight on a white horse, who broke the door down. "The question," said Ms Darker Smith, "is why she did not break the door down herself." Which of the following statements is true of the women in a control group? A) They don't believe in fairy tales. B) They don't believe in the transformational qualities of love. C) They have also experienced abuse. D) They survived abuse.

Ans:B
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Ques:A story from the Bible tells of old Babylon, where the men decided to build a tower that would touch the sky.But God was unhappy, and he made them speak different languages.They couldn't understand each other, so their dream never came true. Yet the dream remains alive: if all men speak the same language, they can do anything.L.L.Zamenhof from Poland was among the men who this dream.He developed Esperanto between 1877 and 1885. As the most successful man-made world language, it is spoken by over two million people around the world.Last month, the World Esperanto Congress , dealing with language rights, ended in Sweden.The 2004 conference will be held in Beijing.Most Esperanto speakers are in Central and Eastern Europe and in East Asia, particularly Chinese mainland. Esperanto has two advantages.First, it's easy.Each letter has exactly one sound and there are just 16 basic grammar rules.The second advantage is that it belongs to no one country.But Esperanto has only reached a small number of people compared with natural languages widely used around the world-such as English or Chinese.While these languages are deeply connected with their nations and cultures, Esperanto doesn't have this background. Will Esperanto really become a global language? It remains a question. What does the story mainly talk about? A) Advantages and disadvantages of Esperanto. B) Men's dream of sharing the same language. C) The most successful planned language-Esperanto. D) Comparison of Esperanto and other languages like English and Chinese.

Ans:C
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Ques:Everyone's at it, even my neighbors. I thought I might be the only person left in the world who hadn't done an eBay deal. So I decided to try my hand at online auction. Buying for beginners: Sign up on www.eBay.co.uk. Most items (e.g. tables, computers, and books) ready for auction will come with a picture and a short description; others may be marked with "Buy It Now" and have a fixed price. You can buy these right away. If the item is being auctioned, you offer the highest price you are prepared to pay and eBay bids for you.The bid will be increased little by little until it goes beyond your highest bid, then you are emailed and asked if you would like to bid again. Auctions last up to 10 days, and when they finish you get an email telling you whether you have won the item. How to pay: Sellers decide how they would like to be paid and you need to check this before placing a bid as you might not want to post a cheque or postal orders. The easiest way is through PayPal, an online payment system that takes the money away from your credit card. Selling made simple: If you plan to sell on eBay, it helps to include a picture of the item.I followed my friends' advice and put up the items I wanted to sell for a 10-day auction, starting on a Thursday.This way buyers had two weekends to bid. The big things in life: It's easy to post a small item, but furniture is a big part of eBay and this has to be collected or sent by delivery men.Check the ways of delivery before you bid. What is the passage mainly about? A) How to make payment online. B) Ways of making delivery online. C) Advantages of an online auction system. D) How to use an online auction system.

Ans:
D
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