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Before the 1500’s, the western plains of North America were dominated by farmers. One group, the Mandans, lived in the upper Missouri River country, primarily in present – day North Dakota. They had large villages of houses built close together. The tight arrangement enabled the Mandans to protect themselves more easily from the attacks of others who might seek to obtain some of the food these highly capable farmers stored from one year to the next.

The women had primary responsibility for the fields. They had to exercise considerable skill to produce the desired results, for their northern location meant fleeting growing seasons. Winter often lingered; autumn could be ushered in by severe frost. For good measure, during the spring and summer, drought, heat, hail, grasshoppers, and other frustrations might await the wary grower.

Under such conditions, Mandan women had to grow maize capable of weathering adversity. They began as early as it appeared feasible to do so in the spring, clearing the land, using fire to clear stubble from the fields and then planting. From this point until the first green corn could be harvested, the crop required labor and vigilance.

Harvesting proceeded in two stages. In August the Mandans picked a smaller amount of the crop before it had matured fully. This green corn was boiled, dried and shelled, with some of the maize slated for immediate consumption and the rest stored in animal – skin bags. Later in the fall, the people picked the rest of the corn. They saved the best of the harvest for seeds or for trade, with the remainder eaten right away or stored for alter use in underground reserves. With appropriate banking of the extra food, the Mandans protected themselves against the disaster of crop failure and accompany hunger.

The woman planted another staple, squash, about the first of June, and harvested it near the time of the green corn harvest. After they picked it, they sliced it, dried it, and strung the slices before they stored them. Once again, they saved the seeds from the best of the year’s crop. The Mandans also grew sunflowers and tobacco; the latter was the particular task of the older men.

Why does the author believe that the Mandans were skilled farmers?

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Dry salt lakes _________ 70 kilometers long and 15 kilometers wide lie _________ long dunes  __________  crests 20 meters high

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Have they __________ the "No Smoking" sign?

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Nobody is helping me, so I can’t finish my science project on time.

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It is time the government helped the unemployment to find some jobs.

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He acted in an extremely__________ manner, which made him very unpopular.

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The access __________ education and the change  __________ economic status have given women more freedom.

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I had no idea Clark spoke French until we went to Bordeaux

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Daisy: “What an attractive hair style you have got, Mary!” - Mary: “_______”

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One of the things I hate is noisy children.

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Although they taste nearly the same, both Sprite and Mountain Dew are two separate citrus – flavoured soft drinks made by different companies.

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 ______ his brother, Mike is active and friendly

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When the car was invented, I don’t think anyone could have predicted______it would change the world.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions

At 7 pm on a dark, cold November evening, thousands of people are making their way across a vast car park. They're not here to see a film, or the ballet, or even the circus. They are all here for what is, bizarrely, a global phenomenon: they are here to see Holiday on Ice. Given that most people don’t seem to be acquainted with anyone who's ever been, the show's statistics are extraordinary: nearly 300 million people have seen Holiday on Ice since it began in 1943; it is the most popular live entertainment in the world.

But what does the production involve? And why are so many people prepared to spend their lives travelling round Europe in caravans in order to appear in it? It can't be glamorous, and it's undoubtedly hard work. The backstage atmosphere is an odd mix of gym class and workplace. A curtained-off section at the back of the arena is laughably referred to as the girls' dressing room, but is more accurately described as a corridor, with beige, cracked walls and cheap temporary tables set up along the length of it. Each girl has a small area littered with pots of orange make-up, tubes of mascara and long false eyelashes.

As a place to work, it must rank pretty low down the scale: the area round the ice-rink is grey and mucky with rows of dirty blue and brown plastic seating and red carpet tiles. It's an unimpressive picture, but the show itself is an unquestionably vast, polished global enterprise: the lights come from a firm in Texas, the people who make the audio system are in California, but Montreal supplies the smoke effects; former British Olympic skater Robin Cousins is now creative director for the company and conducts a vast master class to make sure they're ready for the show's next performance.

The next day, as the music blares out from the sound system, the case start to go through their routines under Cousins' direction. Cousins says, 'The aim is to make sure they're all still getting to exactly the right place on the ice at the right time - largely because the banks of lights in the ceiling are set to those places, and if the skaters are all half a metre out they'll be illuminating empty ice. Our challenge, ' he continues, 'is to produce something they can sell in a number of countries at the same time. My theory is that you take those things that people want to see and you give it to them, but not in the way they expect to see it. You try to twist it. And you have to find music that is challenging to the skaters, because they have to do it every night.'

It may be a job which he took to pay the rent, but you can’t doubt his enthusiasm. 'They only place you'll see certain skating moves is an ice show,' he says, 'because you're not allowed to do them in competition. It's not in the rules. So the ice show word has things to offer which the competitive world just doesn't. Cousins knows what he's talking about because he skated for the show himself when he stopped competing - he was financially unable to retire. He learnt the hard way that you can't put on an Olympic performance every night. I'd be thinking, these people have paid their money, now do your stuff, and I suddenly thought, "I really can't cope. I'm not enjoying it".' The solution, he realized, was to give 75 per cent every night, rather than striving for the sort of twice-a-year excellence which won him medals.

To be honest, for those of us whose only experience of ice-skating is watching top-class Olympic skaters, some of the movements can look a bit amateurish, but then, who are we to judge? Equally, it's impossible not to be swept up in the whole thing; well, you'd have to try pretty hard not to enjoy it.

The word blares out in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to

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Dick: “Sorry, Brian is not here.” - Peter: “_________” 

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that is CLOSEST in meaning to each of the following questions

People who are unhappy sometimes try to compensate by eating too much.