An old man went to a doctor to ask some questions about his wife’s hearing. He was worried that she was going deaf( 聋 的 ), as she seemed to be having a hard time hearing the old man ________. The doctor asked him to have a ________ to find out how bad her hearing was.

“Stand far behind her and ask her a question. If she doesn’t answer, move a little ________ and ask again. Keep doing this until you can find out how far away she can hear ________.” The doctor   said, “ ________ she can’t hear you until you are quite close, she might have a hearing problem.” The old man was so ________ to finally solve(解决) the problem.

In the evening, the old man ________ his home. He saw his wife was cooking dinner. While standing about 15 meters behind her, he asked, “What’s for dinner, dear?” But his wife didn’t answer.

Then he stood about 10 meters ________ her. He asked her again, but she ________ did not answer. He did the same thing for ________ two times. But he got no answer again. At last, the distance is only 1 meter. He asked at the top of his voice.

His wife answered angrily, “Why did you ask me so many times? I told you that we’re having noodles for dinner!”

More and more people choose paid study rooms with cute tables and chairs, green plants, pretty walls and quiet computer keyboards. To build a friendly learning environment, some rooms have low light to help people focus on（专注于）their work. Some places have sunrooms and learners can enjoy beautiful nature from large windows. The workers will tell people to keep quiet in the study areas.

“We hope to offer a perfect learning place to people who want to study.” said Wang Yi, founder（创始人）of a 24-hour paid study room. “Over the past six months, the number of people coming was much bigger than we first thought, so we are now looking for new places.”

Feng Jia comes to the paid study room every day to prepare for exams. “There are not enough seats in public libraries. Also, there are many people talking or walking around.” he said. At home, it is even harder to focus because of phones, snacks and pets.

While many people welcome the paid study rooms, others are afraid that these rooms will replace libraries. Xu Qiang, director of the Shanghai Library’s reader service centre believes that public libraries and paid study rooms are satisfying the different needs of people. “People come to public libraries for the large number of books, while they go to the study rooms for the learning environment.” said Xu.