Read the letter and answer the following questions.
Dear Students,
I invite you to explore Phillips Exeter Academy through this website - www.exeter.edu. Browse through the different offerings of Exeter - from the many cultural events hosted on campus, to the hundreds of courses we offer, and on to the involved and experienced faculty. See what the lives of students are like.
Whether it's English or mathematics, at Exeter we call all our classes Harkness classes and our teachers Harkness teachers. Harkness identifies a table you will find at the center of every class both literally and figuratively. Harkness tables are oval and seat a dozen students and a teacher, but they are much more than a place to sit. At the Harkness table classmates learn by discussing their thoughts and ideas rather than just by taking notes. Teachers are participants in the discussion, guiding students in significant ways without lecturing.
On this website, we've tried to make it easy for you to find what you need. For new or prospective students, look at the Admissions, Academics, and Student Life sections of the site. For parents, check the information under the Parent "gateway" located at the top of the page - this gateway provides you with a short list of items of interest to you. We'll keep this page updated with items we know concern parents. For current students, look everywhere - this website is about you and your Exeter experience.
I invite you to let us know what you think of the website. In true Harkness learning fashion, we're always listening, always looking for the questions that get us to the really important answers.
You can contact me directly via e-mail or phone: 603-777-3401.
Principal Thomas E. Hassan
What is the purpose of the letter?
The word "involved" is closest in meaning to _____.
What can NOT be inferred about the Harkness tables?
What can be inferred about the Parent "gateway"?
Read the letter and answer the following questions.
Dear Judy,
I'm very happy to hear that you started to save money yourself at such a young age. You are the smartest child I've ever met. I'd like to share with you my views about saving.
You will meet people who will urge you to spend your money freely; they will tell you, "You can't take it with you!" As you get older, you will probably have friends who eat at expensive restaurants every night, buy the latest things or fashion trends, and spend vacations at fancy beach resorts. You must avoid the trap of spending money willy-nilly simply because you can. Not only is this a road to financial ruin, but it can cause you to forget what's important in life.
I am not saying that you should never travel or buy anything nice. I am merely suggesting that you should think wisely about whether the thing you are planning to do or buy is really worthwhile or whether its benefits will be, at best, fleeting.
Happily, you already have five piggy banks, and you love putting money into them. Please continue to save. Those who save and invest wisely will face fewer financial problems throughout their life.
Anyway, I'm really proud of you. I hope you can keep doing this. Please do tell me whatever you want to know, I'll try my best to answer.
Love,
Grandpa
Why did Grandpa write the letter?
What does Grandpa mention about Judy's friends?
The word "willy-nilly" is closest in meaning to _____.
According to Grandpa, what should Judy consider when planning to spend money on something?
Read the story and answer the following questions.
One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport.
We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the black car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy; and I mean, he was really friendly.
So I asked, "Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!" This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call "the Law of the Garbage Truck."
He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.
The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so "love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don't."
Which title best expresses the main idea of the story?
The word "hopped" is closest in meaning to_____.
Why does the author mention "Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on"?
The word "They" in the story refers to _____.
What does the author suggest by telling the story?
Read the article and answer the following questions.
The owner of five baby meerkats whose mother died in childbirth has given the animals a cuddly toy as a replacement.
"We bought the toy to try and ease the trauma for them and try and make things as natural as possible. We put it in with them and they just snuggled up to it like it was their mother," said the owner. "To recreate the warmth that their mom would have given off, we also found a small hot water bottle we got to the right temperature."
He added: "They now assume that the toy is their mom and they are acting completely normally around it. Of course every hour we have to feed them milk ourselves, but we use miniature bottles which recreate how they would get it from mom."
"We even give it to them near the toy so they can't tell the difference between it and their mother - it's a really good result."
"At around six weeks old, we are going to wean them away from their cuddly mom, as would happen in real life. That's when we can hopefully put them back in with their dad."
What could be the best title for the text?
The word "replacement" in paragraph 1 refers to _____.
The word "trauma" in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to _____.
According to the text, how did they recreate the warmth of the meerkat mother?
What can you infer about the reaction of the baby meerkats when they got their toy mother?
According to the text, how do they feed the baby meerkats milk?
What will happen when the babies are six weeks old according to the text?
Read the text and answer the following questions.
By the mid-nineteenth century, the term "icebox" had entered the American language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet of ordinary citizens in the United States. The ice trade grew with the growth of cities. Ice was used in hotels, restaurants, and hospitals. After the Civil War (1861-1865), ice came into household use. Till 1880, half the ice sold in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that sold in Boston and Chicago, went to families for their own use. This had become possible because the icebox, a precursor of the modern refrigerator, had been invented.
Making an efficient icebox was not as easy as we might now suppose. In the early nineteenth century, people only had some basic knowledge of the physics of heat, which is very important to the science of refrigeration. Many people thought that the best icebox was the one that prevented the ice from melting. Of course, this is wrong, for it is the melting of the ice that can cool things. Nevertheless, people used different ways to keep ice from melting too fast, for example, wrapping the ice in blankets. At the end of the nineteenth century, inventors finally found a balance between saving the ice from melting too quickly and transporting them at the same time.
But as early as 1803, a clever Maryland farmer, Thomas Moore, had been on the right track. He owned a farm about twenty miles outside the city of Washington, for which the village of Georgetown was the market center. When he used an icebox of his own design to transport his butter to the market, he found that customers would pay the highest price for his butter, still fresh and hard. One advantage of his icebox, Moore explained, was that farmers would no longer have to travel to markets at night in order to keep their product cool.
According to the text, when did the word "icebox" become part of the language of the United States?
How much ice was used for household purposes in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore before 1880?
According to the text, which of the following was an obstacle to the development of the icebox?
The word "precursor" in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _____.
According to the information in the second paragraph, an ideal icebox would _____.
The author describes Thomas Moore as having been "on the right track" in the last paragraph to indicate that _____.
According to the passage, Moore's icebox allowed him to _____.
The "product" in the last paragraph could include _____.
What does the text mainly discuss?
Read the article and answer the following questions.
To improve science and mathematics education for American children, the White House is recruiting Elmo and Big Bird, video game programmers, and thousands of scientists.
President Obama announced on November 24 a campaign to encourage companies and nonprofit groups to spend money, time and volunteer effort encouraging students, especially in middle and high school, to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM education).
"You know the success we seek is not going to be attained by government alone," Mr. Obama said kicking off the initiatives. "It depends on the dedication of students and parents, and the commitment of private citizens, organizations, and companies. It depends on all of us."
Mr. Obama, accompanied by students and a robot that scooped up and tossed rocks, also announced an annual science fair at the White House.
"If you win the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) championship, you come to the White House," he said. "Well, if you're a young person and you've produced the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too."
The campaign, called Educate to Innovate, focuses mainly on activities outside the classroom. For example, Discovery Communications has promised to use two hours of the afternoon schedule on its Science Channel cable network for commercial-free programming geared toward middle school students.
What is the main topic of the text?
The word "recruiting" in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _____.
What age group of students is the campaign primarily focused on encouraging to pursue STEM education?
What can be inferred regarding President Obama's approach to improving science and mathematics education?
According to the text, which of the following is NOT true about NCAA?
The word "recognized" in paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to _____.
Why is Discovery Communications mentioned in the passage?
Read the text and answer the following questions.
We have known for a long time that flowers of different plants open and close at different times of day. This is so familiar that there seems to be no need to ask the reason for it. Yet no one really understands why flowers open and close at particular times. The process is not as simple as we might think, as recent experiments have shown. In one study, flowers were kept in constant darkness. We might expect that the flowers, without any information about the time of day, did not open as they normally do. In fact, they continued to open at their usual time. This suggests that they have some mysterious way of knowing the time. Their sense of time does not depend on information from the outside world; it is, so to speak, inside them, a kind of "inner clock".
This discovery may not seem to be very important. However, it was later found that not just plants but also animals - including man - have this "inner clock" which controls the working of their bodies and influences their activities. Men, then, are also influenced by this mysterious power. Whether we wish it or not, it affects such things in our life as our need for sleep and our need for food.
In the past, this did not matter very much because people lived in natural conditions. In the modern world, things are different; now there are spacemen, airplane pilots, and, in ordinary life, a lot of people who have to work at night. It would be very useful, then, to know more about the "inner clock". Such ordinary things as flowers might help us understand more about ourselves.
The word "constant" in the first paragraph is closest in meaning to _____.
The word "This" in the first paragraph refers to _____.
What can be inferred about the flowers if they are kept in constant darkness?
The recent experiment showed that _____.
Further study of the "inner clock" will be useful because _____.
What have the mysterious power of knowing time without information from the outside world?