free for students: 2014

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Listening Comprehension exercises

Answer Sheet for Solve it 24 and 25

Answer Sheet for Solve it 24 :

Answer Sheet for Solve it 25:

Answer sheet for solve it 21, 22 and 23

Solve it 21:

Solve it 22:

Solve it 23:

Answer sheet of Solve it 18, 19 and 20

Answer sheet solve it 18:

Solve it 19:

Solve it 20

Monday 8 December 2014

Answer sheet of Solve it 15 & 17

Answer sheet of solve it

Solve it 15:

Solve it 17:

ANSWER SHEET OF SOLVE IT 12, 13 AND 14

ANSWER SHEET

SOLVE IT 12:

SOLVE IT 13:

SOLVE IT 14:

answer sheet of solve it 8, 9, 10 and 11

SOLVE IT 8:

SOLVE IT 9:

SOLVE IT 10:

SOLVE IT 11:

Thursday 4 December 2014

Read the passage and answer the questions : -

Everyone told Julien he looked just like his father. The same steady hazel eyes, the same big ears sticking out on either side of his face. “Oh my goodness!” people would say with a gasp. “Aren’t you a spitting image of your dad!” When his cello teacher met his father, he said, “What a bold lineage you share.” Julien liked that way of putting it, that he didn’t just look like his father, but that he and his father shared something more special.
So when Julien’s father began training for a marathon, Julien found himself wanting to run as well. He was in sixth grade, and the cross-country team was holding tryouts in a few weeks. He wanted to give it his best shot. His father said, “That’s a great idea, son. Running is not only great exercise for the body, but for the mind, too. When I go for a run, I feel free from all the things I have to do for the rest of the day. I don’t think about work, or chores. Any worries I have, I leave at the start line, and they only climb back into my head when I’ve finished my run, by which time, I’m so pumped after my run that they no longer feel like worries.”
“Is that how you’re able to run such long races, Dad?” Julien asked. He was becoming nervous about having to run for so long without stopping.
“It’s not a race,” his father explained. “It’s about starting strong, and finishing strong. Here, why don’t you and I go for a run every morning before school? Just around the neighborhood. We’ll build up your stamina, and we’ll also build up your mental energy to get through a run without feeling anxious about it.”
Julien approved of his father’s idea, and the next morning he was up bright and early to go for a run, wearing Converses that laced all the way from his toes to his ankle. His father shook his head. “You need shoes that you’ve tested out, not just any old shoes!” he explained. “Today after school, we’ll go to the running store and get you a great pair of sneakers. It’s really important to listen to your body, test it out, and get the perfect pair of shoes to complement your running form.”
All through the school day, Julien couldn’t stop thinking about shoes and running form. His father took great pride in those things, and he would, too.
At the store, Julien was amazed to see what all he had to do before he could buy a pair of shoes. It wasn’t as simple as knowing his shoe size. No, the sales representative ran Julien through a battery of tests. Her name was Zoe. First, she made him walk up and down the store, barefoot, and observed him carefully. Then, she had Julien step onto a treadmill. It was the first time Julien had stood on a treadmill before. He looked at his father, big hazel eyes meeting big hazel eyes.
“Don’t worry about a thing, champ,” Zoe said. “This is the easy part.”
She turned on the treadmill and told Julien to walk on it as if he were walking down the street. Zoe was right, Julien thought, this is easy. Zoe sped up the treadmill a little and Julien had to walk more quickly to keep up. She sped it up even more, and added an uphill climb, and Julien began jogging. It was still easy; he wasn’t breathing hard yet, and knew he could go faster.
“Wow,” Zoe said to Julien and his father. “We’ve got a marathon runner here.”
“My dad’s the marathon runner,” Julien said in between breaths.
“Well, I can tell that you’re going to be great at long distance, too,” Zoe said with a smile. “You pronate, which means that your put more stress on the insides of your feet when you run. It’s
totally normal, don’t worry. And now we can find you the perfect pair of shoes to keep your feet strong, and your arches supported, while you run.”
“My son, the pro,” Julien’s father said, patting him on the back when Julien got off the treadmill. Father, son and Zoe spent thirty minutes trying on different pairs of shoes, a rainbow of colors, a series of brands, and settled on a pair of blue sneakers.
“We’ve done the research,” Julien’s father said on the drive back home. “Now you’re ready to train!”
And Julien agreed, wiggling his toes inside his brand new shoes—the same color and brand as his father’s.

1. What do Julien and his father start doing together?

A Julien and his father start playing the cello together.
B Julien and his father start doing chores together.
C Julien and his father start driving together.
D Julien and his father start running together.

2. Julien and his father solve a problem by getting a pair of blue sneakers. What is the problem?

A Julien does not have a great pair of sneakers for running.
B Julien does not know how to run on a treadmill.
C Julien is having trouble concentrating at school.
D Julien does not have enough money to buy his own cello.

3. Julien and his father have a lot in common. What evidence from the story supports this statement?

A Julien is nervous about running for a long time without stopping.
B When Julien goes to the store, the sales representative has him run on a treadmill.
C Julien spends thirty minutes trying on different pairs of shoes at the store.
D Julien and his father have hazel eyes and are interested in running.

4. Why does Zoe say, “We’ve got a marathon runner here” when Julien is on the treadmill?

A Zoe wants Julien to buy a pair of blue sneakers.
B Zoe sees that Julien is good at running.
C Zoe has gotten Julien confused with his father.
D Zoe wants Julien to walk barefoot up and down the store.

5. What is a theme of this story?

A the difference between starting strong and finishing strong
B the differences between a husband and a wife
C the similarities between playing the cello and running
D the similarities between a father and his son

6. Read the following sentences: “So when Julien’s father began training for a marathon,
Julien found himself wanting to run as well.” What does “marathon” mean in the sentence above?

A an activity someone has to do
B a cooking contest
C a very long run
D a television show

7. Julien and his father have a lot in common; _______, their shoes are the same color and brand.

A even though
B after
C for instance
D in summary

solve it 24

Read the passage and answer the questions :-

Maria was very excited: her parents were finally going to buy her a cell phone. Most of her friends had already been given a cell phone and were able to talk all the time, even when they weren’t in school. Their parents mostly got them for “emergencies.” All of Maria’sfriends were very careful with their phones and didn’t like to let other people (even Maria) play games orsend text messages on their personal phones. Maria’s parentsrelied on Maria’sfriendsif they needed to get in touch with Maria and to make sure she got home all right afterschool if they were still at work. Maria and her parents went to the electronics store one Saturday to pick out the phone. There were so many options to choose from: phones that flipped open, big chunky ones that looked very old, rectangular phones with touch screens, square phones with buttons, heavy phones that had touch screens and buttons. Maria picked out one of the rectangular touch screen phones and immediately began to play with it, wondering at how it all worked, sliding her thumb from side to side to lock it.
When she got home, she immediately called her best friend Jennifer. “I got the phone!” she said. “What’s your cell phone number?”
After inputting the number into the contacts list, Maria sent Jennifer a text message: “Look now we can text.” It took a few moments for the message to go through. Once it did, and the two girls started talking via text message, Maria began to think about what was happening. How did the words that she typed into the keypad on her phone show up in the same exact way on Jennifer’s phone? Jennifer lived almost five whole miles from Maria (they had counted the exact distance one summer). How did the words travel so far and so quickly?

Once Maria thought of these questions, so many others popped up in her head. For example, Maria’s mom sent so many emails to Maria’s grandmother, who lived in Florida. Mom attached pictures of Maria to most of the emails she sent to Grandma, since Maria didn’t get to see Grandma very often. There was so much to think about with the pictures! First, how did the pictures get onto the computer from the camera in the first place? Second, how were the pictures able to be attached to the email? Lastly, how did each picture—with all the parts of Maria and whatever background Maria was standing in front of—go from the New York email to the Florida email? Maria knew all about using the different USB ports and clicking the right buttons to attach pictures, but now she wondered about how the data was actually sent from the camera to the computer to the email, and then from Mom’s email to Grandma’s email.
Maria decided to ask her parents about it later. It was all very confusing, especially when Maria thought back to the time period she was learning about in school, the late 1700s, when America was becoming the United States. For example, if the settlers had cell phones and computers and GPS, Paul Revere would not have needed to go horseback riding all over the colonies telling people that the British were coming. He could have just called someone in Boston to let him know what was going on.
Then Maria thought about making phone calls. When she was little, she and her cousins had made “telephones” out of empty tin cans and string. The vibrations of their voices had carried through the cans and onto the string so that the other person could hear the words from the other end of the line. But cell phones and telephones did not have any string attached to them—and you could call people hundreds of miles away and hear them perfectly. She called her cousins in Mexico all the time! How did they hear the words she said in New York if their phones weren’t connected? Sometimes she had to leave voice messages for her cousins, if they weren’t able to come to the phone. That was also a strange thing: how did the words she said in one moment into a voice mailbox get saved until her cousins were ready to listen?

Maria knew that telephones and cell phones and computers were considered “high tech devices” that you had to buy in special stores. But how did they do what they did? How did they convert the words she said and the pictures her mom sent (Maria knew this stuff was called data) into the appropriate form that they were supposed to be in? This was definitely something to ask her dad.

1. What does the author describe in the story?

A how the main character uses text messaging on her cell phone to deal with an emergency at school
B how getting a cell phone changes the way the main character feels about her grandmother
C how one computer is able to send words and pictures to another computer far away
D how the main character gets a cell phone and then asks herself a series of questions

2. Maria has questions about how phones, email, and computers work. What sentences from he passage support this statement?

A “Maria was very excited: her parents were finally going to buy her a cell phone.Most of her friends had already been given a cell phone and were able to talk all the time, even when they weren’t in school.”
B “After inputting the number into the contacts list, Maria sent Jennifer a text message: ‘Look now we can text.’ It took a few moments for the message to go through.”
C “Then Maria thought about making phone calls. When she was little, she and her cousins had made ‘telephones’ out of empty tin cans and string.”
D “Maria knew that telephones and cell phones and computers were considered ‘high tech devices’ that you had to buy in special stores. But how did they do what they did?”

3. What can be concluded about the string telephones Maria used when she was little and the phones without string she uses to call her cousins in Mexico?

A The string telephones and the phones Maria uses to call her cousins in Mexico work are made out of the same materials.
B Both the string telephones and the phones Maria uses to call her cousins in Mexico can be used to send text messages.
C The string telephones and the phones Maria uses to call her cousins in Mexico work for different reasons.
D Maria likes using string telephones more than she likes using the phones without string to call her cousins in Mexico.

4.. What is this passage mainly about?
A a girl who asks herself questions about how phones, email, and computers work
B a girl who gets a cell phone and likes sending text messages more than calling people with it
C a computer that a family uses to send each other pictures because not all of them live in the same place
D a computer that could have helped Paul Revere warn colonists about the British if it been around in the 1700s

5. Read the following sentences: “Then Maria thought about making phone calls. When she was little, she and her cousins had made ‘telephones’ out of empty tin cans and string.” Why does the author put the word “telephones” in quotation marks?

A to tell the reader that Maria is saying the word out loud to herself
B to let the reader know that the string telephones were not real telephones
C to convince the reader that telephones made out of tin cans and string are better than other telephones
D to show the reader how important the string telephones were to Maria as a child

6. Maria asks questions about different “high tech devices,” _______ cell phones and
computers.

A such as
B finally
C instead
D in the end

solve it 23

Read the passage and answer the questions : -

A boy can have a lot of fun on an aircraft carrier. Harvey had been waiting for this trip for months, ever since his dad first asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday, and now that it was finally here he could hardly contain his excitement. He didn’t even know where to start. There were plenty of planes to look at—fighter jets from the United States and Great Britain and France and Japan and Israel and everywhere else—but on a ship the size of the U.S.S.
Thompson, there is much more to do than look at planes. For one thing, there’s a space shuttle. When NASA stopped using the great big shuttles to fly astronauts into space, the government sent one of them to live on the Thompson. It was the biggest attraction on board the aircraft carrier, but it also had the biggest line, and Harvey did not have time to wait. There was too much to see!
“What do you think, Dad?” he asked. “Should we start on the deck?”
“Sure,” said Harvey’s dad. “The program said they have a Spitfire on display this summer.”
A Spitfire is an old British plane from World War II. It has a propeller, rounded wings and just one seat. Harvey knew all about Spitfires. Harvey knew all about planes. “Orrrrrrrrr,” said Harvey, consulting the map of the ship, “we could go look around the engine room. The engines on the Thompson are about as big as engines can get.”
“Sure. That sounds like a blast.”
“Wait wait wait! If we go to the armory, we can look at the machines they used to load the big guns.”
“Okay, let’s go to the armory.”
“Ooh! Or maybe we should go to the bridge. We can see the whole ship from there!”
“I’ve got an idea. Let’s start with the galley.”
“The mess hall! Are you crazy, dad? Why would we go to some boring old cafeteria when there are all these rooms and planes?” His dad started laughing, and Harvey realized he had been kidding. Nobody wanted to visit the mess hall.
“We can see it all, kiddo. We've got plenty of time.”
Two hours later, Harvey and his father had been all over the great big ship. They had seen the deck, the armory, the engine room and everything else. They went onto the bridge, and climbed all the way up the conning tower. From there, they could see all the way down the river, to the cruise ships and freighters pulling in and out of the bay.
“Those cruise ships are pretty big,” said Harvey’s dad.
“Pfft,” said Harvey. “Not as big as the Thompson. And I bet they don’t even have a Spitfire.”
The Spitfire was the highlight. Its machine guns were still attached, though of course they didn't have any ammunition in them. As he looked at the seventy‐year‐old airplane, Harvey
realized it was as old as his grandfather. It wasn't hard to imagine himself sitting in the cockpit,
flying over the English countryside, with nothing above him but bright, blue sky.
“That,” he informed his father, “is a pretty cool plane. Now where do we go?”
“I have bad news.”
“Oh no. What?”
“Look at the map. We’ve seen it all. There’s only one place left to go.”
“Oh, crud,” said Harvey. “The mess hall.”

Harvey and his dad walked silently down the massive halls of the great ship, dreading the boredom of the mess hall. Harvey had seen cafeterias before. He ate in one every day. The food was the same in every cafeteria on land and at sea. What was the point in seeing where sailors fixed their tater tots?
“Oh well,” he said as they turned into the mess.
“If our only option is to leave the Thompson, I guess we can spend a few minutes looking at...the biggest cafeteria I’ve ever seen!” It was gigantic, a great long hall filled with gleaming tables, all decorated in a cowboy theme. On one end was the window to the kitchen, which Harvey raced to see. How could they have possibly made enough food for this many people?
“Wow, dad!” he shouted. “Look at that pot! It’s the size of Mom’s car!”
“That’s the biggest pot I’ve ever seen,” said Dad, undeniably impressed.
“I wonder how many potatoes you could fit in there,” said Harvey.
“About 600 pounds,” said a voice behind them. A wrinkled old man stood, looking through the glass at the gleaming kitchen equipment.
“Who are you?” asked Harvey.
“Ship’s cook, third class, Rex Phillips,” he said.
“Nice to meet you,” said Harvey’s dad. “Did you serve on the Thompson?”
“I did,” said Rex. “Right here. I can tell you, we didn’t always keep it so clean.”
“Do you...do you want to tell us about it?” asked Harvey.
The old man’s eyes lit up, and he smiled as he began to speak. He worked at a hamburger stand before he joined the Navy, he said, and when it came time for assignments aboard the ship, he was assigned to work in the galley.
“Mostly it was peeling potatoes,” he said. “I got so I could peel a potato inside of ten seconds, toss it in that pot, and move on to the next one. When we were going good, we could serve up to 10,000 meals a day.”
When he finished telling them about life in the galley, Rex took Harvey and his father back through the ship, telling them all sorts of things that they hadn’t learned on their tour. By the time he finished, Harvey knew everything there was to know about the U.S.S. Thompson. It was a perfect birthday. Not only did he get to go on an aircraft carrier—he got to tour it twice!

1. What is the U.S.S. Thompson?

A a type of ship known as an aircraft carrier
B a type of airplane with a propeller and rounded wings
C a type of pot that can hold about 600 pounds of potatoes
D a type of engine so big that it needs its own room

2. Where does this story take place?

A in the English countryside
B at an old hamburger stand
C inside a fighter jet from World War II
D on board the U.S.S. Thompson

3. There is a lot to look at on the U.S.S. Thompson.What evidence from the story supports this statement?

A Harvey expects the mess hall on the U.S.S. Thompson to be a boring old cafeteria.
B The U.S.S. Thompson has planes, a space shuttle, and an armory on board.
C The machine guns attached to the Spitfire do not have any ammunition in them.
D Rex Phillips worked at a hamburger stand before he joined the Navy.

4. How do Harvey’s feelings about the galley change when he visits it?

A He becomes more afraid of it.
B He becomes less afraid of it.
C He becomes more interested in it.
D He becomes less interested in it.

5. What is this story mainly about?

A the shuttles that NASA once used to fly astronauts into space
B fighter jets from the United States, Great Britain, and France
C a boy who visits an aircraft carrier with his father
D a cook who can peel a potato in fewer than ten seconds

6. What does “tour” mean in the sentence above?

A to travel around somewhere
B to get lost in a new place
C to fly in a plane for the first time
D to move something from one place to another

7. Harvey is not interested in the galley at first; _______ he becomes more interested in it.

A for example
B especially
C particularly
D later on

solve it 22

Read the passage and answer the questions : -

Kurt closed the door of his mother’s car with great excitement. Today was the day he was finally going to be on a plane. For the first time in his life, he was going to actually soar through the skies and see the clouds from all the angles he had imagined since he was little. “Are you excited my boy?” said Kurt’s mother, Val, from the front of the car.
“I can’t believe today’s the day!” said Kurt.
“Believe it!” responded Kurt’s older brother Joachim as he lifted his head from his mobile phone for just a second to speak to Kurt.

The car ride felt like forever, but that’s because Kurt could not wait to get to the airport and see this adventure through. It felt like they were stuck in traffic for hours and all the cars were moving slowly just to drive Kurt crazy. But actually they arrived at the airport in just a few minutes.
Val parked their car in the underground parking lot and found a steel trolley to load the suitcases and the hatbox she always took with her on a journey. Joachim never helped with anything, so Kurt knew he was the best man for the job. He helped his mother load the trolley neatly and pushed it towards the terminal building proudly.

It was bigger than Kurt thought it would be. It was a massive building filled with hundreds of people looking around and rushing to get to wherever they were going. He immediately felt the rush of energy as he walked towards the check-in desk.

He watched as Val took out their passports and gave them to the friendly lady on the other side of the desk. His mother asked Joachim to help lift the bags onto the scale so that they could get weighed and checked in. But he wasn’t listening. Kurt gloated as he lifted the bags and put them on the designated scale. The check-in lady was overly friendly and appreciative of his help. He loved the feeling.

Val was handed some tickets and off they went to security. After what felt like a long wait in line, the security officer asked Kurt to empty his pockets and put his bag through the big X-ray scanner. Kurt had never done this before and felt a little nervous. It was such a big and scary machine that started beeping loudly as the elderly woman in front of him walked through. Kurt started to feel more confident now as he walked through the machine. Not a beep. He waited for his family to come through security as he grabbed his bag. Suddenly, he saw the plane through the massive glass windows. It was huge! And it looked much bigger than what it looked like in his dreams.

Kurt ran down the ramp towards the gate. After a few minutes, the plane was ready for boarding. Everyone lined up and showed their tickets. Walking on a ramp down towards the plane, Kurt nearly tripped from all the excitement. And then he arrived, he was one foot away from the plane and finally feeling like a grown up who would fly all over the globe.

The air steward took his ticket and showed him down the aisle to his seat. Kurt ran ahead of his mother and brother and immediately sat down in his seat, buckling his seat belt. With his eyes firmly on the wing of the plane, he was waiting for everyone to sit down so that he could feel that weightlessness that everyone talks about at school when a plane takes off.

The plane started to move, and reversed slightly. Moving like a giant metal bird, the plane taxied towards the runway. Kurt clenched his mother’s hand. The plane started to speed up, faster than Kurt has ever gone in his life in any car or boat. And then, as if by magic, the plane lifted off the ground. And Kurt knew this would be the first of many adventures that started this way.

1. What is Kurt doing for the first time in his life?

A traveling
B driving
C going on a trip with his mom and brother
D flying on a plane

2. What critical event happens at the end of the story?

A Kurt walks on a ramp towards the plane and nearly trips from all the excitement.
B Kurt goes through security at the airport for the first time.
C The plane lifts off the ground and Kurt experiences flying in a plane for the first time.
D Kurt, Val, and Joachim drive to the airport.

3. What evidence from the text suggests that Kurt may have been looking forward to being on a plane for a while?

A Kurt had dreams about planes.
B Kurt clenches his mother’s hand when the plane taxies toward the runway.
C Kurt ran ahead of his mother and brother towards the plane.
D Kurt helped to lift the bags on the designated scale at the check-in desk.

4. Which statement best describes Kurt and Joachim?

A Neither Kurt nor Joachim are excited and eager about the trip.
B Kurt is very eager and respectful. Joachim is distant and not interested.
C Both Kurt and Joachim are very excited about the trip.
D Kurt is not eager and respectful. Joachim is helpful and excited.

5. What is this story mainly about?

A what airports are like
B Kurt’s relationship with Joachim
C Kurt’s experience on his first plane trip
D how large airplanes are

6. What does the phrase “see this adventure through” most nearly mean?

A look at the adventure from a distance
B complete the adventure
C look at the adventure through a window
D cancel the adventure

7. __________ the plane taxied towards the runway, Kurt clenched his mother’s hand.

A Therefore
B However
C So
D As

solve it 21

Read the passage and answer the question : -

All of our energy comes from the sun, which is our nearest star. The sun sends out huge amounts of energy through its rays every day. We call this energy solar energy or radiant energy. Without the sun, life on earth would not exist, since our planet would be totally frozen.
We use this solar energy in many different ways. The sunlight lets us see and warms us.
Plants use the light from the sun to grow. They store it as chemical energy. This process is called photosynthesis. The energy is stored in their roots, fruits, and leaves. This energy feeds every living thing on the earth. When humans and animals eat plants, and the food made from plants, we store the energy in our bodies, in our muscles and in our brain cells. We use this energy for everything we do. We use energy when we sing a song, think a thought, tell a joke, climb a ladder, make a pizza, or run a race. Everything needs energy!

Just as humans store energy in their bodies, the earth stores the sun’s energy too. The sun’s energy is stored in coal, natural gas, water and wind. Coal, oil, and natural gas are known as fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels were formed over millions of years ago when the remains and fossils of prehistoric plants and animals sank to the bottom of swamps and oceans. These animal and plant remains were slowly covered and crushed by layers of rock, mud, sand, and water. The pressure of all those layers caused the plants and animals to break down and change into coal, oil and natural gas.

We use the energy in these fossil fuels to make electricity. We use electricity in many different ways. We light and heat our homes, schools and businesses using electricity, and to run computers, refrigerators, washing machines, and air conditioners. Our cars and planes run on gasoline, which comes from oil. As of the year 2013, most of the energy we use comes from fossil fuels.

However, fossil fuels are known as non-renewable sources of energy. They cannot be used over and over again. This means that one day they will run out! Luckily, there are some renewable energy sources we can use, that we can keep using. Unlike non-renewable fossil fuels, they will not run out.

Three forms of renewable fuels are; solar (coming from the sun) energy, water energy and wind energy. Solar energy can be caught through solar cells and solar panels. People put solar panels on the top of houses to help capture the sun’s energy and transform it into heat and electricity. Water is also used to produce electricity. Dams capture the energy of falling water and turn it into electricity. Wind is a third form of renewable energy. Wind turbines can capture the energy of the moving air and turn it into electricity. All these renewable energy sources are essential for us because they will not run out, so we need to get better and better at using them.

1. Where does all of our energy come from?

A renewable sources
B fossil fuels
C the moon
D the sun

2. How does the author describe renewable energy sources?

A energy sources that will not run out
B energy sources that are too expensive to become popular
C energy sources that are boring and not scientifically interesting
D energy sources that can only be found in limited amounts

3. Most of the energy we use comes from fossil fuels. However, fossil fuels are known as non-renewable sources of energy, so one day they will run out. Based on this information, which types of energy sources should humans rely on in the future?

A non-renewable energy sources
B fossil fuels
C renewable energy sources
D chemical energy sources

4. Based on the evidence in the passage, how can the sun best be described?

A crucial for life on earth
B an important mythological object
C a developing black hole
D the biggest star in the universe

5. What is this passage mostly about?

A how long it takes for light from the sun to reach the earth
B the importance of energy for human life and where energy comes from
C different types of non-renewable sources of energy
D how fossil fuels were formed

6. As used in the passage, what does the word “non-renewable” mean?

A coming from water
B wasteful
C going to run out
D easily generated

7. Non-renewable energy sources will eventually run out. __________________, renewable energy sources will not run out and we can keep using them.

A For example
B Because
C On the other hand
D Therefore

solve it 20

Read the passage and answer the questions: -

Scientists say lightning strikes the surface of Earth about 100 times each second. Thunderstorms are
most frequent during the spring and summer. Experts1 warn people to be especially aware of the
dangers of lightning during those seasons.
Lightning is the flash of light that occurs when electricity moves between clouds or between a
cloud and the ground. The huge spark of electricity is like the tiny kind you get when you run a comb
through your hair or scuff your feet on a carpet— only much stronger.

A lightning bolt that crackles through the air can reach a temperature of 60,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
That is about five times hotter than the sun! The intense heat from lightning causes the surrounding
air to expand, resulting in the loud sound known as thunder.

Thunder is nature's warning to head indoors. As meteorologist Ron Holle from Tucson, Arizona told Weekly Reader, "When thunder roars, go indoors." A meteorologist is a scientist who studies weather. Holle also recommends following the 30-30 rule. If you hear thunder fewer than 30 seconds after you see lightning, head indoors—the storm is only about 6 miles away. After the storm ends, wait 30 minutes before going outside. To determine how far away lightning is, count the seconds between the flash and the thunder. Every 10 seconds equals 2 miles.

Lightning strikes the ground in the United States about 25 million times each year! Although getting hit by lightning is unlikely, it is important to stay safe. In the United States, about 60 people are killed
each year by lightning. To stay safe, follow the golden rule—head for cover. "There is no place
outside that is safe from lightning," Holle said firmly. "There are two safe places—inside a [permanent 2] building or a metal-topped vehicle."

Lightning expert Ron Holle shared the with Weekly Reader: Find shelter in a building or a metal-topped vehicle (not a convertible), and close the windows.If you're caught outdoors, stay away from open spaces, and avoid standing near tall objects, such as trees. Avoid using electrical equipment, such as computers, TVs, and phones. (Cell phones are safe to use.) Stay away from sinks and showers. Lightning can travel through water pipes. Wait 30 minutes after the last sound of thunder or flash of lightning before going outside.

1. What is the golden rule of lightning safety?

A Don’t stand under trees.
B Avoid using electronics.
C Stay away from open spaces.
D Head for cover.

2. What does the author describe at the end of the passage?
A how to stay safe from lightning
B how lightning is created
C how thunder is created
D what a meteorologist is

3. The time between a lightning strike and thunder indicates the distance of the storm. What evidence from the passage supports this conclusion?

A “Thunder is nature’s warning to head indoors.”
B “Count the seconds between the flash and the thunder. Every 10 seconds equals 2 miles.”
C “Wait 30 minutes after the last sound of thunder or flash of lightning before going outside.”
D “If you hear thunder fewer than 30 seconds after you see lightning, head indoors.”

4. “Find shelter in a building or a metal-topped vehicle (not a convertible), and close the windows.”
Based on this safety tip, what can you conclude about the safety of cars during lightning?

A All cars, regardless of type, will protect you from lightning.
B Cars are less safe than buildings during lightning.
C The rubber tires of a car protect you from lightning.
D The metal roof of a car protects you from lightning.

5. What is this passage mostly about?

A why lightning storms are dangerous
B the relationship between thunder and lightning
C facts about lightning and safety tips
D how meteorologists study the weather

6. Read the following sentence: “The intense heat from lightning causes the surrounding air to expand, resulting in the loud sound known as thunder.” What does the word “resulting” mean?

A to make a quiet noise
B to become smaller
C to allow someone to do something
D to cause something to happen

7. It is important to stay safe during thunderstorms, _________ it is unlikely that you will be struck by lightning during your lifetime.

A in summary
B even though
C moreover
D initially

solve it 19

Read the apssage and answer the questions :-

Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the man the Guinness Book of World Records has named "The World's Greatest Living Explorer," is certainly no stranger to cold. In 1982, he was one of the first people ever to go around the world from pole to pole. In 1980 and again in 1993, he crossed the entire Antarctic
alone! In 2000 he was attempting to walk to the North Pole, a 520-mile journey, on his own, in a record-breaking 80 days. He was doing it both for the challenge and to raise money for cancer research. He had supplies, clothes, maps, and sleds; but there was one thing he hadn't counted on. As
he pulled his two heavy sleds behind him, one of them unexpectedly broke through some thin ice. It quickly began to sink. Knowing that he couldn't last out in this frozen wilderness without it, Fiennes reached into the water with his left hand and pulled the sled back out.
Within a minute Fiennes' hand was frozen and completely useless. He knew that he only had a matter of minutes before his core temperature (the temperature of his major organs) would begin to fall. Disappointed, Fiennes knew he had only one real choice. He had to turn around and go back. This
was no small chore either. The return trip to base camp was 12 hours long. By the time he got there, his temperature was dangerously low, and he was in trouble. He radioed for help and was flown to Ottawa for medical attention. In his own words, "It was a very, very close run thing."

The two main dangers of winter are frostbite and hypothermia. When you are outside in winter weather, they are the ones to watch out for. They can attack while you are sledding, skiing, skating or just shoveling out the driveway.

Hypothermia is known as the "Killer of the Unprepared." If you are out in the cold for too long, and you aren't properly protected, your core body temperature will begin to go down. If your clothes or shoes are wet, this is especially dangerous. Wet clothes can make you lose heat 200 times faster
than if your clothes are dry. If conditions are right, hypothermia can happen even when the temperature is above freezing. The first sign to watch out for is shivering. Your blood begins to cool, and this means you will begin to lose control of your arms and legs. Your brain won't get the oxygen it needs. You will become clumsy and unable to think straight. You will feel tired, and if your temperature goes low enough, you can faint. If you begin to shiver, get into a warm area to start bringing your body temperature back to normal. Change into dry clothing if your clothes
are damp or wet.

Frostbite is something quite different. It is not usually caused by how long you have been out in the cold, but by how much of your skin is exposed. Ice crystals can form on your skin and in the tissues underneath without you even knowing it. Your hands, feet, nose, ears, and cheeks are the most likely to get frostbitten. The blood vessels in these parts can get smaller, cutting off the supply of blood you need to keep warm. You may feel a tingling feeling in them, or even some pain. Another person may notice a very white or gray spot on your skin if you've been frostbitten. Your skin will feel soft and cold. Frostbite needs immediate attention. Don't wait! Get to a warm place and put on warm, dry clothing. Drink warm liquids. Check your skin. Get medical help if it is hard, blue, blotchy, or blistered.

The best way to protect yourself from a case of hypothermia or frostbite is by doing some simple things. Here are the basics for staying safe in winter weather:
 Dress in layers. Wear loose-fitting, lightweight clothes in three or four layers. You can take a layer or two off if you begin to overheat outside. Wool is the best fabric. It is dryer and warmer than others.
 Always wear a hat or cap. Between 20 and 50 percent of your body heat is lost through your head.
 Wear sunglasses and sun block to protect your eyes and skin. They aren't just for summertime.
 Wear lip balm to protect yourself from chapped lips.
 Wear mittens rather than gloves. They are warmer.
 Know the signs of frostbite and hypothermia and watch for them. Respond right away if you suspect either one.
 Watch the weather report carefully. Check out the wind chill factor (see chart), and talk to your parents about how safe it is to be outside.
 Learn first aid or take a first aid class in how to respond to frostbite and hypothermia.

Winter is a wonderful season. Nothing beats spending a couple of hours sledding with friends and then building a snowman before heading in for a cup of hot chocolate. Just make sure that you are staying safe while you are out there having fun!

Sometimes the weather report can be confusing. Many of the terms sound similar. Here are some common terms and their definitions: Winter Storm Watch: A storm is likely. Winter Storm Warning: The storm is entering the area or is already here.
Blizzard Warning: A combination of snow and wind will create limited visibility, drifting snow, and dangerous wind chills. Winter Weather Advisory: Conditions from recent winter weather can be hazardous (especially for drivers). Frost/Freeze Warning: The temperature will dip below freezing. Ice Storm Warning: There will be dangerous accumulations of ice.Heavy Snow Warning: There will be more than 4 inches in 12 hours or 6 inches in 24 hours.

1. Which of the following body parts is frostbite LEAST likely to strike?

A tongue
B nose
C ears
D cheeks

2. Which term best describes a storm with dangerous accumulations of ice?

A a blizzard
B a winter storm
C an ice storm
D a freeze

3. Based on the article’s description of what happened to Sir Ranulph Fiennes after his left hand got wet, what did he probably experience?

A fever
B frostbite
C a heart attack
D hypothermia

4. Based on the text, the word exposed means?

A wet
B dry
C covered
D unprotected

5. The primary purpose of this article is

A to persuade people to play it safe and stay inside during cold weather
B to explain two winter dangers and how to guard against them
C to celebrate the bravery and accomplishments of Sir Ranulph Fiennes
D to inform the reader about terms commonly used in winter weather reports

6. You can safely enjoy winter activities like sledding _______ you take the proper precautions.

A unless
B until
C although
D if

solve it 18

Read the passage and answer the questions : -

Imagine you are building a new house but you are not using any new material. A house like this would use construction material like wood, glass and metal from other places. By using old material, you are reusing and recycling material that already exists. This house would be really different from houses built with new construction material but it would be just as comfortable. If you build your house like this, you are building a house that is friendly to the environment, or ecofriendly.

To reuse material is to find a new place and use for material no one uses anymore. These other places could be old houses being torn down, construction sites and recycling centers like junkyards and scrap yards. It can be as simple as buying a used bathtub and putting it in the new house. Or it can be more complicated, like using the metal from old umbrellas to make lighting fixtures. Using your
imagination you can recycle a lot of different things for different uses.

Houses are torn down every day. Find a house before it’s torn down and get whatever wood you can for the frame of your new house. You could reuse doors and floors from this old house. Even if the house is already torn down, maybe there are many pieces of broken mirrors. You could glue them together to make a different, yet pretty mirror.

If you live near a beach, you can find driftwood and use it for decoration or the railing of your porch. If you live near farms, you can reuse an old grain silo. A tall grain silo gives you a second floor! If you live near a shipping port, you may find old shipping containers that can make a great existing structure. They already come with four walls and a ceiling. You can then find wooden shipping crates to lay a new floor inside your shipping container.

You can stack old tires from a junkyard to make a wall. Another wall could be made out of used glass bottles. A wall made of glass bottles lets light pass through and can be very pretty. Other walls can be made out of scrap metal found in scrap yards. They would be shiny and look very different from your tire and glass wall. Can you imagine your eco-friendly house yet? Make sure you think about what
kind of house you want and plan it well. Find the right type and amount of construction material. Also, make sure your construction material is clean and safe for reuse. If you don’t plan your house well, you may feel like your house looks more like trash than like your new home!

1. What does it mean to reuse material?

A throw away old material
B use new material that is built from scratch
C find a new place and use for material that is already being used
D find a new place and use for material no one uses anymore

2. What does the author describe in the passage?

A different ways old material can be used to build a new house
B different ways new material can be used to build a new house
C how new houses can be designed
D how construction sites and recycling centers are organized

3. Different structures can be used to build a house, such as a grain silo or an old shipping container. Based on this evidence, what conclusion can be made?

A Shipping containers should only be used to build a house if no other structures can be found.
B Recycled houses don’t have to be built from scratch using old materials.
C Recycled houses can’t be built by using old materials only.
D The material for a recycled house has to come from a shipping port.

4. Why is a recycled house eco-friendly?

A because a recycled house limits the amount of old material used to build the house
B because a recycled house limits the amount of new material used to build the house
C because a recycled house is most likely surrounded by trees
D because a recycled house provides new uses for old shipping containers

5. What is the passage mainly about?

A the role of junkyards in society today
B popular construction materials used to build houses
C different ways a house can be built with recycled materials
D the environmental benefits of building recycled houses

6. As used in the passage, what does the word “structure” most nearly mean?

A something made of parts connected together in an ordered way
B something that does not have any organization or order
C something that can only be found near a shipping port
D a material used to build walls and ceilings

7. Recycled houses take advantage of recycled and reused materials __________ tires, glass bottles, old mirrors, and more.

A certainly
B however
C previously
D such as

Wednesday 3 December 2014

solve it 17

Read the passage and answer the questions : -

I’m a hard‐nosed reporter. I ask all the tough questions. I intimidate crooks. I warm over the coldest sources. I get the impossible interviews. My stories are gripping, and to my editor’s delight, I always file them on time. My name is Oliver Acton, and I’m a fourth‐grade journalist with the Mars Hill Elementary school paper. It all started back in the second grade. Mom used to read the newspaper out loud at the breakfast table, all the stories that weren't too sad or scary, so I could learn something about the world before I went to school to learn other things. Sometimes I got so into listening that I forgot about my cereal. Some of the stories were big, about things happening in places really far away, like Egypt or Ohio. Other times the stories were about my hometown, depending on what section Mom read from.
I’d always ask who wrote the story when Mom finished reading one.
“A reporter,” she’d say, and I’d ask again.
“I know but who was it?”
And she’d squint her eyes and make a joke like she couldn't read the name, and then she’d tell me it was George Limerick or Sharon Newry or Sidney Alexander or Blaine Whiting. And I wondered who those people were and how they got their jobs. And I decided to write my own stories. At first I didn't really know what I was doing. I just made up lots of fake news. I wrote in crayon on white paper and drew lines for columns, and when I showed it to my mom, she laughed and said “how cute.” When I got mad at her for saying my newspaper was “cute,” she explained to me that news was true, and that I needed to write about real things.

That was back in the second grade. I've practiced a lot since then, and I know how to find stories instead of making them up. I can spell better, too. When I started out, I was just writing little things at home—about the bird that met its demise at the teeth of my cat, Jasper, or the tragedy of the flowers: when every single one of Mom’s paper‐white bulbs got washed out in a storm. (Mom stood in the mud when the rain stopped, crying.) When I turned eight, I started writing articles during class, usually about something that happened at recess, like the amazing game‐winning home run Karen Madison made during a kickball game, when she was always the last person picked to be on teams because she’s tiny and really quiet. My teacher caught me doing it instead of classwork one afternoon and sent me to the principal’s office, but I didn't get in trouble there.
“Oliver, you've got talent,” Dr. Reed told me. “And better yet, you've found something you really like to do.”

“Yes Ma’am, I do really like to tell stories, but I like telling real ones.”
“And that’s great, Oliver. I want you to do that. You just can’t do it in class when you’re supposed to be paying attention to the lessons at hand.” She cleared her throat, and reached for a stack of papers on her windowsill. “But I want you to keep writing. And I think you’d be perfect for this.”
That’s when I found out that my school had a newspaper.
“It’s mostly written for and put together by the fifth graders,” Dr. Reed said, “but I think you’d be a welcome new voice.”
And that was that. I left the office without so much as detention! I was eight years old and a brand‐new reporter.
I started with small stories. A lot of the time, I just wrote what my editor, the fifth‐grade English teacher, assigned me. That meant I interviewed a lot of kids about band concerts, soccer games, and art shows. It wasn't until this year, in the fourth grade, that I got my big breaking story.

From the Mars Hill Elementary Gazette, week of October 21‐25:

The playground is a noisy place. Everyone is doing something, and most of those things make sounds. Balls hit the ground with a hollow thud; kids yell and laugh; the swings squeak like mice; and whenever people kick gravel, it hits the slide with a PING PING PING! On Thursday, October 17th, a different sound hit the playground of Mars Hill Elementary.
A splash and a scream came from the duck pond just outside the baseball diamond. Darren Fitch, a fourth‐grader, who was playing kickball, missed his pitch. “I turned to look and see who screamed.” His teammates yelled at him for getting a strike, but he knew something was wrong.
It was Kami Phillips, a second‐grader. She had fallen into the water. There is fencing all around the pond, but a recent thunderstorm knocked a heavy branch into the fence which broke a section. “I didn’t see her fall in, but I heard her yell, and then I saw her splashing,” said Darren.
And then everyone went running. Soon, the pond was surrounded by students. They were all shouting and trying to figure out how to help Kami. “She was yelling for help, but I think we all knew better than to jump in, too,” said fifth‐grader, Ann Berkowitz.
But Kami couldn’t swim, and she needed someone to get her, and fast. That’s when recess officer, Ms. Belfast, came running. The third‐grade teacher has recess duty every Tuesday and Thursday, keeping an eye on all the kids to make sure no one gets hurt. She got to do her job to the extreme on Thursday.

“Ms. Belfast just ran up, dove in, and swam over to Kami,” said Ann. “It was awesome!” In a moment, both Kami and Ms. Belfast were sitting on the side of the pond, and sirens in the distance got louder. An ambulance showed up, and a rescue crew took it from there, wrapping Kami in a blanket.
“I really want to thank Ms. Belfast!” Kami said, in a thank‐you note her mom brought to the school the next day. It seems Mars Hill has a hero.

1. Who is Oliver Acton?

A a journalist at a television network
B a reporter for the school paper
C a famous journalist for the New York Times
D a talented boy in the second grade

2. A key moment in the story is when Oliver is sent to the principal’s office for writing articles during class. What is the result of this?

A Oliver keeps writing articles in class instead of paying attention.
B Oliver gets detention for not paying attention in class.
C Oliver gives up on writing and becoming a journalist.
D The principal tells Oliver to join the school newspaper.

3. In order to become a better reporter, Oliver practices writing a lot of articles. What evidence from the passage best supports this conclusion?

A “I’m a hard-nosed reporter. I ask all the tough questions. I intimidate crooks. I warm over the coldest sources. I get the impossible interviews.”
B “That was back in the second grade. I’ve practiced a lot since then, and I know how to find stories instead of making them up. I can spell better, too.”
C “I wrote in crayon on white paper and drew lines for columns, and when I showed it to my mom, she laughed and said ‘how cute.’”
D “And that’s great, Oliver. I want you to do that. You just can’t do it in class when you’re supposed to be paying attention to the lessons at hand.”

4. How can Oliver best be described?

A talented but lazy
B athletic and busy
C curious and inquisitive
D intelligent and friendly

5. What is this story mostly about?

A Oliver Acton wants to become a reporter and joins the school paper.
B Oliver Acton sees Kami Phillips fall in the lake and he helps save her.
C Oliver Acton has been interested in newspaper reporters since second grade.
D Oliver Acton does not pay attention in class and gets sent to the principal

6. As used in this sentence, what does the word “demise” most nearly mean?

A birth
B father
C song
D death

solve it 15

Read the passage and answer the questions :-

Alex awoke under a pile of his own dirty clothes. As always, the process was slow. According to Alex’s mother, Alex was “just not a morning person.” According to his father, it just took him a little while to “start up his engine,” like their car did during the wintertime.

Alex could smell eggs and cheese being transformed into omelets downstairs. He let the smell carry him out of bed and down to the table, where his father plopped down a huge plate of food, just for him.
This new diet, one packed with protein, was supposed to help Alex do better in school. Because for as long as he could remember, Alex had been like the kind of car that ran and ran and never stopped, once it was finally warmed up ‐‐ especially after a big bowl of sugary cereal. Which was a problem when it came to school. Alex hated school. He felt imprisoned at a desk for eight hours a day, fighting the unbearable urge to burst into action and buzz around the room. Alex felt much like he did
when he was driving with his Uncle Nate. Uncle Nate had a bright‐yellow V8 convertible and liked to tear around town in it with his favorite nephew. Whenever they pulled up next to another car at a red light, Uncle Nate would make the engine roar in order to make Alex laugh. “RRRRrrrrRRRR!” growled the engine, as if it hated being kept in place when all it wanted to do was just go. “RRRRrrrrrRRRR!” Alex would sometimes growl to himself when he felt restless, imagining himself as a little car with a big engine, parked at a stoplight.

“RRRRrrrrRRRR!” he growled now to himself at the breakfast table, imagining his engine filling up with good fuel and beginning to warm up. Though it startled his parents sometimes, they didn’t mind him sitting there and growling. Because before, he didn’t just stay parked in his seat like he was now. Before he started trying to sit still more often, he would just go, like his uncle’s car did when the light
finally turned green. He would race off to school so fast that he’d leave his homework behind, or race home from school so fast that he forgot to take his books. He’d even race around during the middle of school assemblies or tests. And usually, he’d run into someone else along the way. Sometimes, he would knock something over, like a building made of blocks that his classmates had created in the corner.
“Not again, Alex!” someone would always yell.
Lately, Alex had been realizing that that his unstoppable engine was also making life harder for him, not just other people.
For example, his teachers had begun to seat him away from other students, in the front of the room, where he couldn’t goof off. Playmates he’d had since preschool had begun to avoid him. His parents understood how hard it was for him to control his engine. Yet they were beginning to worry about what would happen to him later in life. Could he handle high school?
Get into college? Have a job one day?
Finally, Alex’s teacher, Ms. Jackson, had invited his parents to a “behavior conference” where they talked about how hard it was for Alex to stay parked. They all agreed that something needed to change. They needed to think of some ideas to help Alex. First, Alex suggested that maybe they send him to a country with no schools, so he wouldn’t have to sit down so much. His parents smiled, but said that this idea probably would not work.
Then, Alex’s parents looked online. They saw articles that said that it might help him to eat less sugar. Sugar made him “bounce off the walls,” according to his parents, so they switched his breakfast to eggs.
Next, his teacher got him a squishy ball to hold in class. She had seen some other teachers use this with their students. She said that sometimes, having something to play with or doodle on could actually help some kids stay focused. After that, they met with the school counselor, whose job it was to think of good ideas to help kids who were having problems in school. The counselor suggested that Alex be given two sets of books, one for home and one for school. If his engine revved up after school and he took off without them, he wouldn’t fail to do his homework.
Finally, his parents took Alex to see a doctor. Dr. Kagan said she had met a lot of kids like Alex before. She wasn’t surprised to hear that he was having trouble staying put. It was just the way he was wired, she said. Kids like him were just born with a brain and a body that were all engine and no brakes, and it took time for them to learn to slow down. In fact, said the doctor, some scientists even thought that you could rewire your insides to act differently if you practiced good habits over and over on the outside, like a mechanic working on his own car to make it run better.
Dr. Kagan also told him that if he was really having big problems, she could give him some special medicine to help them put on the brakes. Alex had never known this was possible. However, she said, he would have to take a test to be sure that he needed the medicine. And because his parents, his teacher and his counselor were all trying such good ideas with him, they needed to give him time to see if he could make it work. As they left the doctor’s office, Dr. Kagan gave him one last piece of advice.
“Remember, driving isn’t just about getting to where you’re going as fast as you can,” said the doctor. “It’s also a good time to notice the scenery, listen to music, and talk to your friends. If you aren’t going slowly enough to do that, you’re going to miss the best things in life.” Over the next few weeks, Alex practiced slowing himself down. Instead of saying
“RRRrrrrRRRRR!” all the time, he thought about the sound of brakes, slowing down the speed of a bicycle or a car (“Skreek!”). As he continued to put on his imaginary brakes, rather than getting up each period to knock over blocks, he was also noticing that other people’s actions were changing too.
Teachers spoke more softly to him, because they could see he was listening. Girls let him stand next to them in line, because they weren’t afraid he’d knock them over like the blocks. His mom didn’t yell at him so much, because he wasn’t losing his homework each day. Maybe there’s still hope for me, Alex thought, shoveling the rest of his fuel‐‐er, eggs‐‐ into his mouth. Maybe school will feel fun for me one day.
Alex still had his doubts, but he slipped on his backpack anyway, and headed for the bus, trailing crumpled up homework papers behind him in his wake, and growling “RRrrrrrRRRRrrrr!” all the way down the street.

1. What is Alex’s new, protein-packed diet supposed to do?

A give Alex more energy to work
B help Alex do better in school
C help Alex remember his books
D help Alex to build muscles

2. What main problem does Alex face?

A He has trouble sitting still.
B He has trouble reading.
C He has trouble making friends.
D He has trouble eating sugar.

3. Alex’s behavior causes problems for the people around him. What evidence from the passage supports this conclusion?

A Sometimes Alex races off to school and leaves his homework at home.
B Sometimes Alex races home from school and forgets his books.
C Alex’s teachers sit him in front of the class so he can’t goof off.
D When Alex races around school, he usually runs into people.

4. Why does Alex have trouble sitting still at school?

A because he eats too many sugary foods
B because that is just how his brain is wired
C because he likes to misbehave and cause trouble
D because he is not as smart as other students

5. What is this passage mostly about?

A Alex is hyper when he eats sugary cereal, so now he eats eggs.
B Alex meets with his teacher and his parents to discuss his behavior.
C Alex has trouble sitting still, but is making some progress.
D Alex likes driving with his Uncle Nate in his V8 convertible.

slove it 14

Read the passage and answer the questions:-

Conner stared at his grandmother. "Grandma, I'm not Patrick. My name is Conner." Conner's grandmother raised her eyebrows and said, "I know my own children. You're Patrick." "Okay, Grandma, I'm Patrick," he said. Conner turned away. Boy, was Grandma acting weird, he thought. Lately she kept calling him Patrick--that was his dad's name, not his. Why did she do that? It was as if she didn't know him at all. Tears welled up in his eyes.
Yesterday he had told her several times that he wasn't Patrick. He had thought she was playing games with him. But she became angry and yelled at him after the fourth or fifth time that he insisted he was Conner. He cried yesterday too.
Conner's grandmother wasn't playing games with Conner at all. She really did think he was his father, Patrick, when he was a boy. Grandma mixes things up in her mind. She can't help it. She has Alzheimer's (AHLZ-hi-merz) disease, or AD. If you have an elderly grandparent or friend, you have
probably heard of this disease. Some call it the disease of forgetfulness. Everyone forgets something from time to time. That's pretty normal. You might forget to turn in your homework. Your father might not remember to buy milk and bread on his way home from work. And as people age, they
may forget more things--like a birthday, or whether they took their medicine.

The Alzheimer's Disease Education and Referral Center (ADEAR) says that with Alzheimer's, the forgetting is about things that are part of everyday life. You might not notice the symptoms of AD at first. The early symptoms are mild and usually develop slowly. Only later, when a person starts saying and doing things that seem very different from before, are the symptoms noticeable. A person can forget how to get dressed. He or she might not remember how to get home from the grocery store that is visited once a week. Like Conner's grandmother, a person may not recognize loved ones at all. This is why Alzheimer's has also been called a mind-robbing disease.

Alzheimer's disease is mostly a disease of old age. As people age--into their seventies and eighties--their chances of having AD go up. Children never get it. And one person cannot catch it from someone else.
Alzheimer's does occur in people younger than 60 or 65, but this is rare. Tracy Mobley was diagnosed when she was 38 years old. "My husband began to notice that I was forgetting a lot of things, such as recent conversations or decisions that we had made." One day, Tracy didn't recognize her own dog. She watched the dog for 10 minutes and then asked her son whose dog it was. "Mom, that's Daisy!" he replied. According to ADEAR, Alzheimer's in people younger than 60 may be inherited.

There are several disorders that cause forgetfulness. Alzheimer's is one of them. The disorders cause brain cells to be destroyed. When brain cells are lost, dementia (dih-MEN-shuh) is the result. Bleeding or blood clots in the brain can also cause this damage. In AD, the damage is caused by deposits in the brain that keep the cells from working properly. The symptoms of dementia, besides forgetfulness, are
• problems with reasoning, such as having trouble balancing a checkbook
• poor judgment, such as driving a car incorrectly
• becoming lost in the neighborhood or other familiar places
• having trouble finding the right word or making sense when speaking
• not being able to get dressed or bathe without help.

There are several treatments for Alzheimer's. Research is ongoing to find more and better treatments too. So far, Alzheimer's cannot be stopped or cured. Drugs and other treatments can help slow down the development of Alzheimer's or help people with it function better. Some of those medicines can help control some symptoms that AD causes, like not being able to sleep, wandering around the house or away from home, nervous excitement, anxiety, and depression.
Lately, research has looked into other treatments. They include anti inflammatory drugs, vitamin E, and statins--cholesterol-lowering medicines. Experts say that an important "treatment" for people with Alzheimer's disease is behavior that keeps the mind active. Reading, learning new things, and staying active with social groups can help.
Caring for a person who needs help with everyday living takes a lot of time and energy. If a grandparent or another person with Alzheimer's lives with you, your parents may not have much time to spend with you. This can cause a mix of unpleasant feelings. These feelings are normal. You may experience any or all of the following: sadness, anger or frustration, fear, and even resentment.

You can cope by letting your parents know how you feel. If you are angry because Grandma acts differently, learn what you can about AD and how it is affecting her. If you resent her for the time your parents spend taking care of her, ask how you can help out. If she lives with you or near you, you can do little things together. And you can help your parents with some of the household work. Then they may have more time to spend with you.
Tracy Mobley's 9-year-old son keeps an eye out for his mother. If Tracy is very tired and her symptoms are worse, he lets his dad or his grandmother know so that they can help. Alzheimer's is a devastating disease. Coping with an Alzheimer's patient will take understanding and patience on your part. Remember that.

There are still many things that you can do together with your grandparent or other loved one who has Alzheimer's. Here are a few of them--check off the ones that you would like to do.
• Listen to music
• Paint pictures
• String beads
• Rake leaves
• Brush or comb one another's hair
• Fold laundry
• Look at family photos
• Make a memory book
• Take a walk
• Toss a ball
• Put a puzzle together
• Blow bubbles
There are many more things that you can do together. Your loved one will enjoy doing the activity and love being with you, even if he or she can't always show it.

1. According to the list in the passage, what is one activity you can do when spending time with someone who has Alzheimer’s?

A listen to music
B play cards
C talk on the phone
D play video games

2. Which of the following is NOT an effect of Alzheimer’s disease?
A poor judgment
B getting lost
C having trouble finding the right word or struggling to speak
D having problems seeing things that are far away

3. Based on the passage, it is likely that

A caring for someone with Alzheimer’s is easy
B Alzheimer’s generally happens in children
C dealing with Alzheimer’s can be challenging
D there is nothing you can do with someone with Alzheimer’s

4. Read the following sentence: “There are several disorders that cause forgetfulness.” As described in the passage, disorders are

A things that are messy
B health problems
C confusing directions
D orders from a doctor

5. What is the central focus of this passage?

A Alzheimer’s disease and how it affects a family
B the causes of Alzheimer’s disease
C what to talk about with your grandparents
D ways to help your parents out around the house

6. There are a lot of things people with Alzheimer’s cannot do anymore, ______ they can still listen to music and paint pictures.

A but
B because
C before
D after

solve it 13

Read the passage and answer the questions;-

Have you ever seen a baseball stadium with a hill in it? In Nashville, Tennessee, there used to be a ballpark called Sulphur Dell. It was one of the strangest ballparks in history. In most ballparks, the right field fence is about 330 feet from home plate. In Sulphur Dell, it was only 262 feet—which made it very easy to hit home runs, if you hit the ball to just the right spot. That's pretty odd, but not half as weird as the hill in the outfield. It sloped up in front of the right field fence, until it got to about twenty‐two feet high!
Skip Nipper, a historian who wrote about Sulphur Dell in his book Baseball in Nashville, calls the stadium "quirky." He likes to tell a story about a player named Phil Weintraub, who had some trouble with the outfield hill in 1934.
"A hard line drive came his way," says Nipper, "and he ran down the hill and reached down to catch the ball and missed it. It went between his legs. He turned around, went up the hill to catch it, and once again it went between his legs. When he finally got it, he threw it over the third baseman's head."
In baseball, when a player makes a mistake, he's charged with an "error." It's pretty bad if a player makes more than one error in a game, but on that play, Phil Weintraub made three!

A lot of great players came through Sulphur Dell, including Bill Dickey, Honus Wagner, and the sultan of swat himself: Babe Ruth. When Ruth came to town, the whole city was excited. The state Senate even made a special resolution, allowing them to leave the Capitol early so they could all go to the game. Back then, you couldn't watch players on TV, and they didn't want to miss their chance to see Babe Ruth. Ruth was in the outfield when he played there in 1934, Nipper says, and "almost broke one of his legs" running on it. But even though the ballplayers didn't like hills, the people of Nashville loved their ballpark. They called it "the Dell." Nipper started going to games at the Dell when he was a child. His father would take him, and so would his grandfather. "My dad would take me and my cousin or my brother," he says, "and we would sit on the first base side, so we could see that right field hill. And my grandfather would not let us go to the concession stand until the seventh‐inning stretch. He wanted us to watch the game." One of the greatest games ever played at the Dell was on July 11, 1916. A pitcher named Tom Rogers was on the mound for the Tennessee Volunteers. They called him Shotgun Rogers, because he threw the ball so fast. That night, he pitched better than he ever had. He did something that's only happened a few dozen times in all of baseball history: he threw a perfect game. That means that, in nine innings of play, nobody on the opposing team got a hit. Nobody got a walk. Nobody even got to first base!

By 1963, the old ballpark wasn't so popular anymore. Teams stopped playing baseball there, and eventually tore it down. But in 1978, a new team came to town: the Nashville Sounds. They built themselves a brand new ballpark called Greer Stadium. A lot of famous players have played there:
Don Mattingly, Ryan Braun, Rick Ankiel—even Michael Jordan, when he was playing baseball. Sulphur Dell had been around for almost 100 years when they tore it down. Greer Stadium probably won't last that long. The city is now building a brand new ballpark for the Sounds. The new ballpark will be located right beside the state Capitol, on a spot of land called Sulphur Dell. Where does Skip Nipper think they should build the new stadium? He doesn't care. "I'm a baseball fan," he says. "I'm going to go wherever they play.”

1. What was Sulphur Dell?

A a baseball
B a historian
C a ballpark
D a meeting place for state senators

2. What does this passage describe?

A This passage describes the career of baseball stars like Babe Ruth, Don Mattingly,and Ryan Braun.
B This passage describes a strange old ballpark and some of the things that happened there.
C This passage describes the reasons that some people want to build a new ballpark next to the
state Capitol in Tennessee.
D This passage describes the different players on the Nashville Sounds.

3. Sulphur Dell was eventually torn down _________ it had once been popular and loved by baseball fans.

A although
B because
C before
D especially

4. Based on the information in the passage, how did baseball fans feel about Sulphur Dell?

A Baseball fans hated Sulphur Dell and almost never went to games there.
B Baseball fans loved Sulphur Dell and were excited about going to games there.
C Baseball fans did not care much about Sulphur Dell one way or the other.
D Baseball fans did not like Sulphur Dell at first but started liking it more in the 1960s.

5. What is this passage mainly about?

A what watching a baseball game at Sulphur Dell was like for Skip Nipper
B what it means for a pitcher to throw a perfect game
C what made Sulphur Dell a strange and special ballpark
D how the right field fence in Sulphur Dell made it easy to hit home runs

6. What does the word “ballpark” mean?

A a hill in the outfield of a baseball stadium
B a fence that is about 310 feet from home plate
C a baseball game in which no player gets a hit
D a place where baseball is played

solve it 12

Read the passage and answer the questions:-

A group of fourth graders witnessed firsthand proof that one person's junk is another person's treasure. Weekly Reader joined the students on their recent visit to the Garbage Museum in Stratford, Connecticut, where a giant, multicolored dinosaur molded out of garbage towered
above them.
Trash-o-saurus was sculpted out of a ton of trash! That is equal to 2,000 pounds of garbage—the amount of trash each person, on average, throws away each year. Philadelphia artist Leo Sewell
scoured city dumps and created Trash-o-saurus out of old junk, from false teeth and license plates to toys, tires, and tennis rackets. "I think the dinosaur is one of the coolest things I've ever seen," said
fourth grader Jahkwe Aquart from Park City Magnet School in Bridgeport, Connecticut. His classmate Julie Pham, 9, agreed. "Instead of throwing away our garbage, we can reuse it."

That is exactly the point. "The museum shows what happens to our trash, how we can reduce our trash, and what we can do instead of throwing our trash away," said museum director Sotoria Montanari.

Garbage Trail

Today, Americans create more garbage than ever before. In the early 1900s, most items were packed in containers that could be used again. Now, most of the food we buy, from cereal to milk, comes in
boxes and cartons that can be thrown away. So what happens to trash after it is tossed out? Some trash ends up in landfills. In a landfill, garbage gets buried between layers of soil. Because many states are running out of room for landfills, more and more garbage goes to waste-to-energy (or resource-recovery) plants. At these plants, garbage is burned and converted into electricity that people use to power their lights, TVs, and video games.

The Three R's

Garbage is a form of solid waste. The Garbage Museum and its recycling plant, which are run by the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority, provide visitors with ideas to cut down on solid waste. One way is to reduce, or make less, trash—by throwing away fewer napkins when you eat, for instance.
Another way is to reuse, or find new uses for, old items. Paper bags, for example, can be reused to make book covers or wrap gifts. People also help decrease their solid wastes when they recycle. Recycling refers to putting old objects, such as glass, plastic bottles, newspapers, and aluminum cans through a special process so they can be used again.

Recycling has many benefits. Did you know that recycled plastic softdrink bottles can be made into park benches, carpeting, and backpacks? The more people recycle, the less garbage ends up in
landfills or waste-to-energy plants.
Recycling also helps protect natural resources, or materials from Earth. To make an aluminum can from scratch, for example, the metal needs to be mined from the ground. That process harms the land and pollutes the air and water. Making aluminum cans from recycled cans uses 95 percent less energy and protects Earth's natural resources. In fact, the energy saved each year from recycled cans could light
Washington, D.C., for nearly four years! As part of their visit, the fourth graders got a look at the museum's recycling center. Here, they discovered that one bale, or bundle, of recycled newspapers can save 17 trees! The message seems to have stuck with 9-year-old Arron Smith. "When you recycle, you save trees and animals' homes."

1. The author wrote this

a. to get towns to expand their recycling centers.
b. to get the reader to reuse, reduce and recycle.
c. to explain the problems with recycling.
d. to invite the reader to the Garbage Museum.

2. The following is an example of reduce:

a. bringing newspapers to a recycling center.
b. using plastic bags as small garbage bags.
c. using less water when you shower.
d. all of the above.

3. The following is an example of reuse:

a. use fewer napkins when you eat.
b. use less water when you brush your teeth.
c. bring cans back to a recycling center.
d. wash zip top bags after use so they can be used again.

4. People make more trash now than before. This is because

a. food has more packaging.
b. there are more people now than in the early 1900s.
c. there are more stores.
d. landfills are bigger

Tuesday 2 December 2014

solve it 11

Read the passage and answer the questions:-

Alexander Graham Bell was in his laboratory, working on a device that would allow people to talk to one another through wires, even when they were not in the same room, or even the same city. Today, we take for granted that we can communicate in real time with people around the corner and around the globe. But in the 1870’s, when Bell was experimenting with his new project, such an idea was like a fantasy.
On March 10, 1876, that fantasy came to life. It is unclear what exactly unfolded that day, but one story says that while working on his voice transmitter, Bell accidentally knocked over a bottle of transmitting fluid, burning his skin. Instinctively, he called out to his assistant, Thomas Watson, to come help: “Mr. Watson. Come here. I want to see you.”

Watson heard those words and was startled. They had come crackling across the earpiece of what the two inventors had labeled the telephone. The experiment was successful. It was the first telephone call. Alexander Graham Bell’s interest in communications devices traced back to his childhood in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was born on March 3, 1847 to a father who was an expert in speech production and a mother who was a gifted pianist despite being profoundly deaf. The perseverance and success of his mother in the face of such adversity taught young Alexander that problems were surmountable and that he could help people to overcome them.
From a young age, Alexander’s curiosity propelled him to find solutions to problems.When he was 12 years old, he came up with his first invention. While playing in a grain mill with a friend, he was frustrated by the lengthy time it took to remove the husk from the wheat grain. He went home, thought about it, and created a gadget that used rotating paddles and nail brushes to strip the husk off the grain. It was the first of dozens of varied devices that Bell would invent.
Bell’s curiosity and ingenuity were nurtured by his grandfather, a teacher of speech and elocution. When Bell was 15 years old, he went to live with and care for his grandfather, who was aging and ailing. The two grew very close, and the grandfather encouraged Alexander to pursue his inventive streak.
In 1870, the Bell family’s life changed rather abruptly when they moved to Canada. Bell’s two older brothers had died of tuberculosis, and Alexander’s health had been failing, too. His parents were convinced that America would be a healthier environment and moved, first to Ontario, Canada, then to Boston. Bell thrived. His health improved. Eventually, he began to tutor deaf students in Boston.
The parents of two of his students were excited by Bell’s idea to invent a device that transmitted multiple signals over a single wire. One of the parents learned, however, that another inventor, Elisha Gray, was working on a very similar project at the same time. To encourage Bell and to help rush his work along, the parent hired an electrician by the name of Thomas Watson to be Bell’s assistant. He hoped that between Bell’s clever ideas and Watson’s practical skills, the two men would succeed quickly. However, instead of focusing on a multiple‐signal transmission device, Bell and Watson focused much of their time on a device to transmit the human voice over wires. To protect their experiment, Bell and Watson’s voice‐ transmitting device was registered with the United States patent office. Their patent was well timed: Gray attempted to file for his own “telephone” the very same day, but he was turned away because the idea was already protected and owned by Bell and his supporters.

On that March morning in 1876, Bell’s dream was achieved when the words “Mr.Watson. Come here. I want to see you” traveled from the room Bell was in to the room Watson was in across telephone wires. The two men took their incredible telephone device on the road, demonstrating its proficiency in city after city. The year after his telephone came to life, Bell married Mabel Hubbard, one of the deaf students whose fathers supported Bell’s dream of inventing the telephone.
Bell was challenged dozens of times in lawsuits by people trying to discredit his patent, especially by other inventors who claimed to have invented the telephone before him. He won every time. Bell created the Bell Telephone Company, and in the first 10 years of its existence, telephone ownership in the United States grew to more than 150,000 people. Bell improved the device over the years. For example, he added a microphone that amplified the voice. He also went on to invent and patent many other devices that would have pleased his mother because of the way they helped people to solve problems. When Bell died on August 2, 1922 in Nova Scotia, Canada, the entire telephone system was shut down for one minute in tribute to the man who revolutionized communications.

1. How did Alexander Graham Bell revolutionize communications?

A He invented the telephone.
B He invented the hearing aid.
C He invented the grain mill.
D He invented the television.

2. What does the author describe in the passage?

A how Bell’s mother overcame her difficulties
B why Bell chose to tutor deaf students
C how the telephone was invented
D the rules of the United States patent system

3. Bell and Watson were not expecting the telephone to work the day that the first telephone call was made. What evidence from the text supports this conclusion?

A “But in the 1870’s, when Bell was experimenting with his new project, such an idea was like a fantasy.”
B “Watson heard those words and was startled. They had come crackling across the earpiece of what the two inventors had labeled the telephone.”
C “Alexander Graham Bell was in his laboratory, working on a device that would allow people to talk to one another across wires, even when they were not in the same room.”

D “It is unclear what exactly unfolded that day, but one story says that while working on his voice transmitter, Bell accidentally knocked over a bottle of transmitting fluid, burning his skin.”

4. If Bell had not invented the telephone, what would probably have happened?

A Someone else would have registered a similar device with the United States patent office.
B The modern telephone would not have been invented for another hundred years.
C Mabel Hubbard would have married Watson instead of Bell.
D The parents of Bell’s deaf students would have hired someone to replace Watson as Bell’s assistant.

5. What is this passage mostly about?

A the life of Thomas Watson, Alexander Graham Bell’s assistant
B the challenges faced by deaf people
C the invention of the telephone
D Alexander Graham Bell’s childhood in England

6. Read the following sentence: “The perseverance and success of his mother in the face of such adversity taught young Alexander that problems were surmountable and that he could help people to overcome them.”What does “surmountable” mean?

A able to be solved
B able to be warmed up
C able to fly
D able to survive underwater

7.Elisha Gray attempted to file a patent for his telephone design; _______, the idea had already been patented.

A moreover
B as a result
C however
D later on