(AB) make (AC) superstitious (AD) gathered (AE) previous (BC) villagers (BD) combination(BE) unusual (CD) heal (CE) around (DE) impossible (ABC) evident (ABD) advanced

  There are many legends about how human babies are taken care of and raised by wild animals. In Cambodia, tourists and locals have __16__ to see Oeun Sambat. This young boy has a very __17__ friend: a four-meter long female python named “Chamreun”. The snake’s name means “lucky”, which seems to be what the __18__ people in the village believe the boy to be. Prophets have told the boy’s family that he was probably the son of a dragon in his __19__ life, which explains his good relationship with the giant snake. They believe that by the age of seven, the boy will be able to __20__ the sick. His parents say that ever since he could crawl __21__, he has spent a lot of time playing with his python friend. The boy’s parents are happy about the odd __22__ of their child and the snake and don’t mind the boy sleeping in the enormous coil of the snake’s body. It is __23__ to separate the two. To the __24__, separating them is undesirable because they hope that as the boy grows, they will be able to __25__ use of his “magical powers”. At the age of three, Oeun Sambat has become well-known as “The Python Boy”

Despite being fairly large and having an extremely broad range, the spotted salamander is actually pretty hard to, well, spot. 

They can reach 9 inches (23 centimeters) in length and are prevalent in mature deciduous forests from eastern Canada throughout the eastern and mid-western United States. But these secretive salamanders spend almost their entire lives hiding under rocks or logs or in the burrows of other forest animals. 

They will populate upland forests and mountainous regions, but are most common in moist, low-lying forests near floodplains. 

They emerge from their subterranean hiding spots only at night to feed and during spring mating. They will actually travel long distances over land after a heavy rain to mate and lay their eggs in vernal pools and ponds.

 Visually striking, these stout salamanders are bluish-black with two irregular rows of yellow or orange spots extending from head to tail. Like many other salamanders, they secrete a noxious, milky toxin from glands on their backs and tails to dissuade predators. Their diet includes insects, worms, slugs, spiders, and millipedes. 

Spotted salamanders' numbers are generally stable throughout their range, but they are very sensitive to changes in their ecology, and rising water acidity in certain habitats is negatively affecting their population. The pet trade and habitat loss also take a toll.

   A. If sheer numbers provide any proof, America’s universities and colleges are the envy of the world. While fully 60% of all U.S. high school graduates attend college at some point in their life, just 30% of the comparable German population, 28% of the French, 20% of the British and 37% of the Japanese proceed beyond high school. German students who survive the Abitur or Britons who pass their A levels may still

 not qualify for a top university at home, but find American universities far more welcoming. Some U.S. schools acknowledge the rigor of European secondary training and will give up to a year’s credit to foreigners who have passed their high school exams.

    Many foreign students are attracted not only to the academic programs at a particular U.S. college but also to the larger community, which affords the chance to soak up the surrounding culture. Few foreign universities put much emphasis on the cozy communal life that characterizes American campuses: from clubs and sports teams to student publications and theatrical societies. Foreign students also come in search of choices. America’s menu of options—research universities, state institutions, private liberal-arts schools, community colleges, religious institutions, military academies—is unrivaled. While students overseas usually must demonstrate expertise in a single field, most American universities insist that students sample natural and social sciences, languages and literature before choosing a field of concentration.

   entration. Such opposing philosophies grow out of different traditions and power structures. In Europe and Japan universities are answerable only to a Ministry of Education, which sets academic standards and distributes money. While centralization ensures that all students are equipped with roughly the same resources and perform at roughly the same level, it also discourages experimentation. U.S. colleges, on the other hand, are so responsive to cultural currents that they are often on the cutting edge of social change.

   In some respects, the independent spirit of the American university that foreigners admire comes down to dollars and cents. All U.S. colleges, private and public alike, must fight vigorously to stay alive. They compete not only for students but also for faculty and research grants. Such competition, though draining and distracting, can stimulate creativity and force administrators to remain attentive to student needs. In other words, U.S. students pay for their education, and demand a commensurate value for what they—or their parents—pay. Most universities abroad have state funding, but that luxury has a steep price: universities have less opportunity to develop distinctive personalities and define their own missions. On the other hand, these state-funded universities suffer less from the financial crisis, which

will definitely impact the quality of education in American colleges.

Have you ever stood at the bus stop watching hundreds of cars go by and wondered just how many of those cars are 

headed to the same place you want to go? Wouldn’t it be great if you could just stick out your thumb and get a quick ride rather 

than waiting 10 minutes for the old bus? 

 Imagine if, instead of congested lanes of large cars with one person on board, we had a stream of traffic picking up and 

setting down passengers to help them get to their destination , a truly “rapid transit” service in action on every street. __28__ Or 

are you turned off instantly by the modern day stigma associated with “hitchhiking”? 

 Hitching a ride used to be quite socially acceptable. Nowadays (at least in the “civilized” west) somebody sticking out 

their thumb on the side of the road is seen as a much less than desirable passenger. Equally, were youto decide to try your hand 

for ride, you might not be all that comfortable with the first person who stops for you. __29__

It doesn't matter whether it's hydrogen, batteries or gasoline under the hood, if it’s two tons of metal carrying one person, 

then it is grossly inefficient. __30__   In our morefrugal future, we’re going to need to make better use of those spare seats. 

        Dolphins use sound to detect the size, shape, and speed of objects hundreds of yards away. Fascinating and complex, the dolphin's natural sonar, called echolocation, is so precise it can determine the difference between a golf ball and a ping-pong ball based solely on density. Although humans have researched these intelligent marine mammals for decades, much of their acoustical world remains a mystery. 

         26  Sound waves travel 4.5 times faster in water than they do in the air. Dolphins use this to their advantage, in ways that would make a superhero envious. Using nasal sacs in their heads, dolphins send out rapid clicks that pass through their bulbous forehead, or “melon.”  27  The sound wave speeds through the water, bounces off the object under investigation, and is reflected back to the dolphin. Fat-filled cavities in the dolphin's lower jaw receive this information and auditory nerves conduct it to the middle ear and brain, where an acoustic picture is created. 

        Scientists say that dolphins may also use clicking to communicate with one another.  28   A mother dolphin may whistle to her newborn for days, apparently to imprint a signature whistle upon her baby that will enable it to recognize her. It is believed that dolphins use whistles to identify one another and possibly for other functions, such as communicating strategic alerts while hunting in a group, but scientists have yet to crack the code.  29  

        Since the 1960s, American military scientists have studied dolphins, and have trained them to perform such tasks as attaching explosives and eavesdropping devices to enemy ships or submarines.  30  In 2003, dolphins were deployed for the first time in a real war situation to probe the seafloor for mines near the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr. 

        Efforts to replicate dolphin echolocation continue to fall short, as humans have yet to achieve the complexity and precision that 50 million years of evolution has bestowed upon dolphins. Perhaps if scientists could understand dolphin-speak, they’d have more luck, but for now the true nature of dolphin communication remains mysterious.