2015年の「今年の単語」は絵文字😂だった。オックスフォードの候補には Brexit もいた

Q1. What is the passage mainly about?

1. AHow to draw a yellow face
2. BAn emoji that won the Word of the Year in 2015
3. CWhy people in the UK stopped using emoji
4. DThe history of the word "Brexit"

2015年の「今年の単語」に絵文字が選ばれた話なので B。

Q2. In the UK, how many of the emoji people used were this face?

1. AOne in two
2. BOne in three
3. COne in five
4. DOne in ten

In the UK, one out of every five emoji that people used was this face. とあるので C。

Q3. In the passage, what does "tears of joy" mean?

1. ATears you cry when you are happy
2. BTears you cry when you are angry
3. CRain on a sunny day
4. DWater in a swimming pool

joy は「喜び」。tears of joy は「うれし涙」なので A。

Q1. Why did Oxford work with SwiftKey?

1. ATo design a new emoji
2. BTo find out which emoji people used most
3. CTo sell more dictionaries
4. DTo count votes about Brexit

to find out which emoji people used most とあるので B。

Q2. How did the use of this emoji in the US change?

1. AIt fell from 17 to 9 percent.
2. BIt rose from 4 to 20 percent.
3. CIt stayed at 17 percent.
4. DIt rose from 9 to 17 percent.

In the US, it rose from 9 to 17 percent. とあるので D。4％から20％はイギリスの数字。

Q3. What can we infer about "Brexit" in 2015?

1. AThe UK had already left the European Union.
2. BIt was the Word of the Year in 2015.
3. CPeople were talking about something that had not happened yet.
4. DOxford refused to put it on the shortlist.

which then meant a possible British exit とあり、翌年に投票が実際に行われたので、2015年の時点ではまだ起きていないことを指していたと分かる。C。

Q1. What is the passage mainly about?

1. AHow SwiftKey designs keyboard apps
2. BWhy Thoreau wrote about potatoes
3. CAn emoji chosen as Word of the Year and whether emoji are really words
4. DThe rules for writing a scientific paper

絵文字が「今年の単語」に選ばれたことと、絵文字が本当に単語なのかという問題を扱っているので C。

Q2. According to Gawne and McCulloch, what are emoji most like?

1. AGestures people make while talking
2. BWords in a dictionary
3. CLetters of the alphabet
4. DPhotographs of real faces

emoji behave less like words and more like the gestures people make while they talk とあるので A。

Q3. What does the writer suggest about the 2019 paper?

1. AIt proved that emoji are words.
2. BIt is useful but leaves room for studies that measure emoji use.
3. CIt was based mainly on large experiments.
4. DIt was written by Oxford's dictionary editors.

Their paper is built on examples, and the authors present it as a starting point for studies that count and measure とあり、量的な研究の余地を残していると分かるので B。