Q: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Retail therapy has long been considered as a good way to let off stress. Now, US scientists have discovered not only does retail therapy exist,but that it could be caused by an individual's fear of sudden death. Researchers found materialistic people thought terrorism and war more stressful than others. Psychologists believe the rise of materialism around the world and its treatment effect on extreme stress might be a response to fear of death caused by acts of terrorism, disease and natural disasters. The scientists from Michigan State University said people with possession obsessions often have lower self-esteem than others so are more likely to shop as the result of severe psychological suffering. Ayalla Ruvio,a business professor studying people's shopping habits while rockets fell in Israel, said, "When the going gets tough, the materialistic people go shopping. This stress spending is likely to produce even greater stress and lower well-being. Essentially, materialism appears to make bad events even worse. Dr Ruvio led a two-part study of Israeli citizens living in a town that came under extreme rocket attacks for about six months in 2007. She compared 139 residents of the southern town with 170 from another town that was not under attack to see how their symptoms of post-traumatic stress and shopping habits varied. Dr Ruvio found that, when faced with a deadly threat, those who are highly materialistic suffered much higher levels of stress,while their tendency to shop was increased. Dr Ruvio said, "The relationship between materialism and stress may be more harmful than commonly thought." The second stage of their research surveyed 855 Americans about their materialistic nature and fear of death. They found shopping was used to relieve feelings of stress and anxiety about death but this was in response to fear of a variety of life-threatening events like car accidents, criminal attacks and natural disasters. Question: What's the result about Dr Ruvio's research? Options: A: Impulsive spending does good to people's health. B: Shopping can't lower one's stress as it is expected. C: Faced with great stress, people feel hopeless for life. D: Faced with threat,people's wish to shop will decrease.
A: B


Q: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: One morning there was a massage on the answering machine from an angry customer, complaining about her lack of service----service that had been stopped because her check had bounced.   As it is my job to handle payments received, it was my duty to collect the check. As is often the case when a check bounces, I soon found that this woman's phone number was no longer in service. A check of the caller L.D told us the call had come from the manager's office of the apartment building where our customer lived. We left a message with the manager and within the hour our call was returned. I told our customer gently, sympathetically that a check she had written had been returned for lack of funds. I told her I always want to let people know about returned checks quickly because the huge fees the bank charge can cause more checks to be returned and more fees to be charged. I told her I hope she could contact the bank and get things straightened out before her problem got worse. I also told her, gently once more, that I hated to add to her problem but she would owe us a fee because the bank charges us a fee when a check is returned.   She told me she had difficulties because of being on a fixed income and being in poor health. She told me she had no children but had raised several that belonged to her husband and after living with him thirty years he had left her for another woman.   Finally, after she had promised to pay, I told her not only do I care about her situation, but she taught me something. When a person is angry, there may be reasons you don't know about. If you don't react with anger, you may learn what the real problem is and may in some way be able to help, if only with a little sympathy. Question: What can we learn from the passage? Options: A: The woman's husband passed away and left several children for her B: The woman had to pay the check as well as a fee for the returned check C: The author will help the woman overcome her difficulties by paying for her D: The check written by the woman had been returned because of the wrong number
A: B


Q: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Argentina in the late nineteenth century was an exciting place.Around 1870,it was experiencing an economic boom,and the capital,Buenos Aires,attracted many people.Farmers,as well as a flood of foreigners from Spain and Italy,came to Buenos Aires seeking jobs.These jobs didn't pay well,and the people felt lonely and disappointed with their new life in the city.As the unhappy newcomers mixed together in the poor parts of the city,the dance known as the tango came into being. At the beginning the tango was a dance of the lower classes.It was danced in the bars and streets.At that time there were many fewer women than men,so if a man didn't want to be left out,his only choice was to dance with another man so that he could attract the attention of the few available women.Gradually,the dance spread into the upper classes of Argentinean society and became more respectable. In Europe at this time,strong interest in dance from around the world was beginning.This interest in international dance was especially evident in Paris.Every kind of dance from ballet to belly dancing could be found on the stages of the Paris theaters.After tango dancers from Argentina arrived in Europe,they began to draw the interest of the public as they performed their exciting dance in cafes.Though not everyone approved of the new dance,saying it was a little too shocking,the dance did find enough supporters to make it popular. The popularity of the tango continued to grow in many other parts of the world.Soldiers who returned to the United States from World War I brought the tango to North America.It reached Japan in 1926,and in 2003 the Argentinean embassy in Seoul hired a local tango dancer to act as a kind of dance ambassador,and promote tango dancing throughout South Korea. Question: Which of the following is true about the tango? Options: A: It was created by foreigners from Spain and Italy. B: People of the upper classes loved the tango most. C: It was often danced by two males in the beginning. D: A dancer in Seoul became the Argentinean ambassador.
