September 2012 2nd grade exam

23.

Maybe you inherited some bonds from a beloved grandmother, or your best friend tipped you off to a certain mutual fund. Maybe your new job offer includes “attractive stock options” and you’re wondering just how attractive they are. But when you open the financial section of the newspaper, it looks about as familiar as an alien language from another planet. What do these words ― bear market, bull market and Dow Jones ― mean? Here is a special lecture for beginners that breaks the codes and provides quite a few examples that can be seen in the influential daily economic newspapers. The lecture explains the difficult economic vocabulary plainly. Once you take this online course 30 minutes per day for one week, reading the financial pages will be much easier.

 

24.

As globalization marches forward, the world gets smaller and smaller and collaboration technology gets better and better. Yet only a handful of these advancements like international conference calls, IP phones, and video chats allow people to speak rather than to write. Now, more information is exchanged via text than ever before, making it extremely important that you can communicate effectively in writing. If you plan on participating in this knowledge economy, which grows more and more important with each passing day, you will need to learn how to write fairly well. You don’t have to be Shakespeare, but you do need to know how to express yourself properly in written form. This is because not only is writing an important academic skill, but it is also an important skill that translates into any career field.

 

25.

The sociobiologist E. O. Wilson, from his studies of ants, showed how it was often an evolutionary advantage for a single animal to die to protect its relatives, since they too shared the same genes. Moreover, it was also sometimes an advantage for an individual animal not to have offspring directly, but instead to devote its life to taking care of siblings or cousins, which again shared the same genes. In this way, ultimately, that animal’s own genes would survive and be passed on. In ant societies, self-sacrificing behavior could sometimes become an evolutionary advantage. Ants attack their enemies by biting, stinging, often injecting or spraying chemicals, which helps to protect their societies. Survival of the fittest didn’t necessarily mean the biggest and strongest, but the one which was best able to make sure that its genes were passed on.

 

26.

It seems that new members to our reading club have decided that it is a place where extreme political views can be expressed openly. The original reason for setting up the club was to encourage a social gathering where we could discuss new and old books, and make suggestions as to the meaning behind the words. It seems that, at recent meetings though, people have spent more time discussing what is happening in the political environment rather than what is happening between the covers of the books. Political discussions are all very well in the right place, but it is just that the reading club is not the place where politics should interfere with the purpose of the meeting. This issue should be brought to everyone’s attention. Otherwise, I feel that the reading group may no longer function as it should and once did.

 

27. Climate change might hit us in the most important place of all ―the dinner plate. Why do we care about climate change? There are many environmental problems caused by climate change, but they might not be as important as the impact that it might have on the most vital function of any species: feeding itself. Since the human population broke the 7 billion mark late last year, feeding the growing population is the greatest challenge to humanity. That’s why the threat that climate change could mess with agriculture is so scary. In last week’s Science, an international group of leading investigators published an open letter urging policymakers to ensure that agriculture becomes a more vital part of global action against climate change. “Global agriculture must produce more food to feed a growing population,” they write. “Yet scientific assessments point to climate change as a growing threat to agricultural yields and food security.”

 

28. You’ve just found the perfect house in the perfect neighborhood. Of course you’re excited, but “Don’t bite off more than you can chew.” No matter how much you want that house, if you don’t bring in enough income compared with your expenses, you are going to stress yourself out over paying your bills every month. To understand just what you can afford, you need to first figure out your housing expenses, such as your monthly mortgage payment, property taxes and so on. These combined housing expenses should not be more than 28 percent of your gross income. You then need to figure out all of your other debts such as car loans, credit card debt and student loans. Your total debt-to-income ratio should not exceed 36 percent. So, if you have a heavy debt load in other areas, you might have to adjust your mortgage down to compensate.

 

29. Keep your hands off the goods. That’s the conclusion of a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. Authors Joann Peck and Suzanne B Shu cite a report that warned holiday shoppers to be cautious of retailers who encourage them to hold objects and imagine the objects as their own when shopping. They find that merely touching an object increases the feelings of ownership a person has for the object. This, in turn, results in a person being willing to pay more for most objects that they touch versus objects that they cannot touch. The research may help explain the link between touch and impulse purchasing. The authors explain, “Encouraging touch in a retail store may increase the feelings of perceived ownership and influence the amount a customer is willing to pay for a product.”

 

30. Ask anyone on the street if earthworms are good for ecosystems and you will undoubtedly receive a resounding “YES!” When asked why, they may say something like “earthworms mix and enrich the soil.” It is a basic ecological concept that we may have learned as early as kindergarten. However, recent research on invasion of these seemingly benevolent creatures into previously earthworm-free hardwood forests of the Great Lakes Region has seriously challenged that belief. Researchers at the University of Minnesota have documented dramatic changes in native hardwood forest ecosystems when exotic earthworms invade. These changes include losses of native understory plant species and tree seedlings, changes in soil structure and declines in nutrient availability. There is also fascinating evidence emerging that the changes caused by exotic earthworms may lead to a series of other changes in the forest that affect small mammal, bird and amphibian populations. These results suggest that exotic earthworms may threaten the stability of the ecosystem.

 

31. Every person has his or her own phobias or fears. Most fears are harmless, but, if they actually stop you from having fun and becoming successful, you should start learning how to stop being scared. In this way, you can make yourself braver, and be able to live a more relaxed life. Here is a tip. You can overcome your phobias effectively if you gradually make yourself less sensitive to what scares you. For example, if you are frightened of roaches, it is a good idea to start staring at pictures of roaches and watch movies that show you some roaches. Next, you can try sweeping dead roaches off your floor, and then eventually look at one or two crawling cockroaches first before actually stepping on them or killing them. This process is more effective for ‘objects and animal fears’ rather than fear of failure or being afraid of rejection.

 

32.

An animal’s hunting behavior is innate and further refined through learning. Each species has a characteristic strategy. For example, wolves and jackals are chasing predators; they run after their prey in packs until the victim gets tired, then they surround the exhausted prey while several pack members attack it simultaneously. Wolves coordinate their hunting through body movements, ear positioning, and vocalization, and the leader of the group has the privilege of eating first. Cats are, in contrast, sneaky hunters. Whether they are small cats or large lions, felines approach their prey with quiet steps and then suddenly attack, using their claws to bring their victim down. A bite to the throat or back of the neck usually kills the victim.

 

33. Even if you expect the majority of your readers to understand your native language, you may be tempted to use English when writing about research work. Usually researchers all over the world know English and use it a lot, and often the relevant terminology is more well-known in English than in your own language. Thus, to maximize the number of interested people that can understand your text, you often select English even if a great number of your readers have the same native language as you. Alternatively, you might write your texts both in your native language and in English, and this reduces the work needed for writing your document and possibly maintaining it. The maintenance problem is especially important for documents on the Web ― the information system where one crucial feature is the ability to keep things really up-to-date. Consequently, the use of English in essentially national environments tends to grow.

 

34. There’s a lot of evidence that strong communities have less crime and survive disasters better. Here’s an example: the environmentalist film maker Judith Helfand is making a film about a massive heat wave in Chicago in 1995 that killed about six hundred people. She explains that the victims had one thing in common: they were socially isolated. They didn’t have friends or family or trusted neighbors to notice that they hadn’t been out of their house lately, or to check that their air conditioners were working well. In fact, three-quarters of Americans don’t know their neighbors. Judith argues that the best way to prevent deaths from future heat waves is not having a policy of handing out discount air conditioner coupons, but providing community-building activities that strengthen social ties throughout the year.

 

35. This bar chart demonstrates the percentage of Americans over the age of 12 who used various digital devices in 2001 and 2011. The device which showed the least difference between the two years was television, with an increase of only 2%. However, from 2001 to 2011, the use of online video more than doubled. No one used the smartphone in 2001, but in 2011 this device rapidly grew to have more than two thirds of Americans over 12 using it. The radio was the only device that showed a minus growth, decreasing from 93% to 87%. Users of broadband Internet more than tripled, starting from 20% in 2001 to 74% in 2011.

 

36. The basking shark is the second largest fish, surpassed only by the whale shark. A grown-up basking shark usually has a length between 8 and 10 meters and weighs about 4 tons. In spite of its size, basking sharks are not aggressive and generally harmless to people. The basking shark has a worldwide distribution and characteristically migrates with the seasons. During the summer, they feed on plankton near the surface in more coastal waters. In the winter months, rather than spending time near the surface, basking sharks spend more time in deeper water. So they are very rarely seen during the winter. The basking shark reproduces slowly. It becomes fertile at the age of four and a pregnancy lasts for about two years, resulting in not more than six “baby-sharks,” each measuring about 1.5 meters in length.

 

37. The environmental benefits of recycling are obvious. But focusing on the wrong end of the issue can point our efforts in the wrong direction. At a recycling conference, I learned about the Recycle Bank, a program that weighs residents’ recycling bins and awards people points for heavier bins. That means the neighbor who buys cases of single-serving bottled water gets points over the one who installed a filter and drinks tap water in reusable containers! Similar ridiculous situations are happening any place where people are measuring progress by an increase in recycling rather than a decrease in waste. Programs like this give recycling a bad name by encouraging more consumption and more waste. They support the generation of disposable products.

 

38. If you’ve ever driven by a wind farm, you may have noticed that the turbines most likely have three blades. Not two, not four, but three. There are a few reasons behind that. If you have too many blades on a wind turbine, each blade as it moves through the air leaves a whirlpool behind it. If these whirlpools interfere with one another, that can cause problems with efficiency. However, if you have a turbine with two blades, it can’t capture as much energy from the wind as a three-blade turbine can. It also suffers from a dynamic imbalance; the two blades may receive higher wind speeds at the top than the bottom. This causes a vibration problem and vibrations in wind turbines are undesirable. Therefore, we come to the three-blade wind turbines, which solve all the problems mentioned above.

 

39. Critical reading is a way of reading that will allow you to take a deeper look at literature. It’s an acquired skill that you will develop with some knowledge and experience. You may hear certain people referred to as being well-read, which implies that they have read many different books and other forms of literature. But there’s a difference between being well-read and knowing how to read well. In other words, it’s not quantity but quality that counts. To read critically means to read analytically, which means to question and to think about the written material in front of you. When you question something, it usually leads to finding answers, and these answers will give you insight into the author’s intentions.

 

40. For most of us, the pain of losing a dollar is far more powerful than the pleasure of winning a dollar. Marketing and advertising executives follow this principle. A study of insurance policies, for instance, found that consumers switch companies twice as often when their carrier raises rates, as opposed to when the competition decreases its rate by the same amount. In everyday life, people make poor choices when they try to avoid loss. Many home owners looking to sell their houses right now would rather keep them on the market for an extra year than drop the price to $5,000 less than they paid, even though keeping the home for an extra year will surely cost them more than $5,000. The idea of a loss was just too painful for them. In contrast, home owners facing a gain on a house often sold too early and for too little. The gain didn’t matter as much as long as there wasn’t a loss.

 

People tend to let the fear of loss overpower rational decision-making, which causes them to be worse off.