Read the following passage then choose the best answer to each question below.
Since its foundation, the city of Venice has sunk deeper and deeper into the muddy lagoon bed. Its inhabitants reacted to this by simply piling one floor on top of the other just to keep the level. Up to six floors per house can be found today. Unfortunately, the situation has deteriorated dramatically since the 1930s. In less than 30 years, Venice sank more than it did before during two centuries. Although the reasons are complex, there is one cause in common: human beings. First, the industry of Mestre and Marghera used the groundwater of the lagoon, leading to a rapid sinking of the city. Second, chlorine and nitrogen wastes as well as wastewater from the major cities have attacked the petrified oak trees and slowly dissolved them. Global warming also causes more and more flooding, which is a further burden for the city.
Up to now, there have been numerous projects for the protection of the lagoon, which are more or less effective. The GENESIS (gigantic electronic control dams at the entrance to the lagoon) project will regulate flooding in the city in the future, while other conservation projects have tried to eliminate industry in the lagoon – with limited success so far. To make matters worse, the population of Venice is shrinking. More and more Venetians are moving to Mestre. Venice is increasingly left to the tourists and greedy traders, but whether it is beneficial to the preservation of Venice remains to be seen.
What is the passage mainly about?
According to the passage, all of the following are the reasons to the rapid sinking of the city EXCEPT ______.
The word ''them'' in paragraph 3 refers to ______.
The GENESIS project ______.
The word “shrinking” in paragraph 4 mostly means ______.
Read the following passage and choose the correct answer to each of the questions underneath.
Everyday, every channel of the mass media considers it its duty to remind people of how much damage computer games can cause to children and adults. The increasing number of games with violent scenes socks the society and makes it very aware of them. It is already common knowledge that violent games cause violence in people. This fact is not even doubted by the majority of people. The opinion that the game is the cause of violence, and the act of violence by itself is a consequence can be often heard. Can real-life violence exist in the reality of a game?
Games originally are entertainment. Contemporary games are very realistic, and for this reason, they are a source of great experience for the player and develop the imagination. Games are entertainment and even more than that. A study of the New York University claims that the player preferring active games gets an improvement of some types of brain activity related to the processing of visual information. The violent “gaming” experience may not be the cause of violent behavior in reality. None of the playing experience will become the priority in making important decisions concerning problems in real life. What if a person gets so much excited with some game scenes that he becomes violent in reality? Then, it proves that such games cause people to become violent. Those who do not participate in this type of activity usually draw the conclusion of the presence of violence in the game world.
However, nobody will ever hear this kind of statement from those who know the rules of the game and understand that it is just a virtual world. A psychologically healthy person will never confuse or connect these two different worlds. A game may potentially give the opportunity to “destroy the obstacles”, but it is more about personal choice whether to do it or not. This leads us to the conclusion that violence is not a consequence but the cause. People who are originally prone to violence may get irritated by games and engage in violence in the real world. In this case, violence in games is a simple trigger for the violent nature of the player.