Passage: Indeed, while there are an estimated 400 million bicycles in China, where it has long been the preferred form of transport, rapid economic growth has fueled an explosive expansion in car ownership.

Question: In China, latest economic recession has enabled many people to own a car.

Passage: 'The escalating cost of higher education is causing many to question the value of continuing education beyond high school'.

Question: The cost of a college education has remained steady for several years.

Passage: the bark of the cork oak has a particular cellular structure - with about 40 million cells per cubic centimeter - that technology has never succeeded in replicating.

Question: Scientists have developed a synthetic cork with the same cellular structure as natural cork.

Passage: The ancestors of the Inuit people of Greenland are thought to have lived in Siberia- the vast eastern region of modern Russia- until 7 ,000 or 8,000 years ago. There is evidence that they then travelled by boat into Alaska, setting in the northerly part of North America. From there, some migrated to Greenland around 5,000 years ago, and evidence has been found of their existence around the northern tip of the island.

Question: The north of Greenland was the most attractive area of the island for the earliest settlers.

Passage: Recent discoveries offer some evidence that black holes have a dramatic influence on things around them, emitting powerful gamma ray bursts, absorbing nearby stars, and both stimulating and hindering the growth of new stars.

Question: Black holes can actually help the creation of new stars.

Passage: Cork harvesting is a very specialized profession. No mechanical means of stripping cork bark has been invented, so the job is done by teams of highly skilled workers.

Question: The only way to remove the bark from cork oak trees is by hand.

Passage: Laughter has always struck people as deeply mysterious, perhaps pointless. The writer Arthur Koestler dubbed it the luxury reflex: 'unique in that it serves no apparent biological purpose'.

Question: Arthur Koestler considered laughter biologically important in several ways.

Passage: Tourism has a profound impact both on the world economy, and because of the educative effect of travel and the effects on employment, on society itself.

Question: Tourism has a social impact because it promotes recreation.