ext messages via cell phone. he does it at home, at school and at work. he often prefers texting over talking on his cell phone.

in the last two years, text messages — which cell carriers generally limit to 160 characters — have become a rage among teenagers, who embrace the technology as yet another way to escape a boring class or stay in touch with friends.

but text-messaging, or texting for short, has a downside. it can be expensive. many high school and college students accustomed to sending unlimited instant messages on their computers do not adapt easily to text messaging’s pay-per-message format, and end up with unexpectedly high bills when they get involved in keypad conversations that involve hundreds, even thousands, of messages a month. the results are angry confrontations with parents, long-term payment plans and the loss of cell phone privileges.

text-messaging has flourished for years in europe and asia, where it is immensely popular among young people. in the united states, activity was limited until 2002, when a breakthrough in the wireless market allowed short text messages to be sent among customers of the major cellular carriers. previously, customers could send messages only to those who used the same carrier.

the service, known as s.m.s. (for short message service), has since taken off. according to a recent report americans sent 2.5 billion text messages a month in mid-2004, triple the number sent in mid-2002.

teenagers are clearly driving the trend. “younger people do text messaging a lot more than older folks,” said mr. nogee. “they’re more used to it from instant messaging on the computer, from growing up with it. older people would rather call up and talk.”

11. the word “texter” (line 1, para 1) mainly refers to .

a. people who only call up and talk on cell phones

b. people who not only “tezting”, but also call up on cell phones

c. people who never call up but only send messages on cell phones

d.people who do a lot more messaging than calling with a cell phone

12. why are teenagers so addicted to text-messaging?

a) texting is much cheaper than making calls

b) texting is regarded as another way of escape a boring class or stay in touch with friends

c) texting on a cell phone allows unlimited characters

d) texting has flourished for many years in europe and asia

13. one downside of text-messaging is .

a) it may be expensive if one are not so familiar with its paying format

b) it may be a waste of time

c) one may become less talkative on the phone

d) it usually has a limitation of 160 characters

14. which of the following version is not true according to the article?

a) younger people are more used to instant messaging on a computer than older folks.

b) statistics has shown that text message business has proliferated over the past three years.

c) u.s’s s.m.s business in mid-2004 is four times larger than in mid-2002.

d) one of the punishment parents give to carelessly use of texting is kids may lose cell phone privileges.

15. the word “rage” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to .

a) anger b) fashion c) trend d) phenomenon

passage two

questions 16 to 20 are based on the following passage.

more than 100 colleges in beijing enrolled fewer than 40,000 students in total this year, 10,000 less than last year, according to the beijing star daily. in 2002, they attracted 80,000 students in total.

the head of a private college in the capital told the newspaper that the cost of educating a student at one of these establishments was about 30,000 yuan a year. he said a college needed to enrol 2,000 students a year to make ends meet. but in beijing, they had enrolled fewer than 400 on average this year.

“some private colleges will go bankrupt in the coming years if the number of enrolments continues to drop,” the head was quoted as saying.

wei honglin , head of the beijing education consulting and complaint centre, said private colleges had suffered huge losses during the sars outbreak last year.

education experts said private colleges were becoming less attractive to students because of rising unemployment among graduates. they said high school graduates, especially those from less-developed areas, were reluctant to pay money and spend years on private college education when there was no guarantee of a job.

for many private college students, graduation is often a guarantee of unemployment because they are less popular with employers than graduates from well-known public colleges and universities.

an expansion of public colleges and universities since 1999 has also made it difficult for pr