Noncredit Reading
Do you ever tell a lie? Most people don’t say yes to that question, but most of us lie every day. We tell lies for many reasons.

First, we lie to make others feel good. A woman asks her husband, “Does my hair look OK?” The husband doesn’t like it, but he says something nice. He says, “You look great!” Why? He wants his wife to be happy. He doesn’t want to hurt her feelings.

Second, we lie so others don’t get angry. A child breaks a plate. His mother asks, “Who broke the plate?” The boy says, “I didn’t do it.” Why? The child did something wrong. He is afraid of the punishment. He tells a lie so he doesn’t get in trouble.

Level 1 Reading
Today is March 17th. About two and a half months ago, I said "Happy New Year!" to many of my friends. Slightly more than a month ago, I said the same thing to some other friends. In about four days, I'll give the same wishes to yet another group of friends. I'll do the same thing in July and also in September.

"How can that be?" you might be thinking.

The answer to this question depends on the calendar you use. Five common world calendars celebrate New year at five different times: The Western/international calendar celebrates on January 1st. The Chinese calendar, used in China, Korea, and a few other places, rings in the New Year sometime in late January or February. The traditional Persian calendar, used in Iran, puts the New Year on March 21st. The Islamic calendar New Year falls on a different day of the Western calendar each year, because the calendar is based on the moon. The Eastern Orthodox Church calendar and the Jewish calendar are also based on the moon, but their New Years are usually in September.

Whenever you celebrate the New Year, I hope you have a happy one!

Level 2 Reading
One of the most popular kinds of car in the United States is not really a car at all. It is a combination of a car and a truck. It is called a sports utility vehicle, or SUV. The market for SUVs continues to grow. About 22% of all cars and trucks sold in America are SUVs. One reason may be that the SUV seems like a vehicle that can do many different things. Brock Yates of Car & Driver Magazine says that parents like SUVs because they have a lot of space to transport children and food. Many Americans like the feeling they get from driving an SUV. The vehicles are larger than other cars on the road. This gives many drivers a feeling of safety.

Yet, the size of SUVs is a concern. SUVs use more fuel than passenger cars. SUVs also produce more pollution than passenger cars do. SUVs create large amounts of carbon dioxide, a gas that causes climate change. One study found that an SUV will release about two times as much carbon dioxide as a car over the life of the vehicle.

Critics say SUVs also produce more substances like carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides. These gases form polluted air, or smog. There is also evidence that SUVs are not as safe as many people believe. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration compared SUVs and normal cars in deadly accidents. Its study found that car passengers died in 80% of deadly accidents between cars and SUVs. Other studies showed that SUVs can turn over more easily than cars. The vehicles do not have the same safety requirements as passenger cars.

Level 3 Reading
Every year, Sweden publishes everyone's income tax returns. So do Finland and Norway. And nobody really cares. By contrast, U.S. law prohibits releasing anybody's tax information. Imagine the howl if the IRS put tax returns online, so co-workers, neighbors and mothers-in-law could see what someone earns. That happened in Italy earlier this year, when the outgoing government of prime minister Romano Prodi briefly posted taxpayers' incomes on the Internet, and newspapers picked up the list.

Two weeks ago, Sweden published the tax returns of ordinary wage-earners. In November or December, Swedes can see how much high-rollers made — with their income from dividends and other investments — plus how much they paid in taxes for 2007. Sweden's policy of making tax returns public — as in Finland and Norway — stems from a tradition of open records and transparency in government, except in cases of national security and some aspects of criminal investigations. "The right of public access to documents is laid down in the constitution," Graner says of Sweden's practice since the 18th century.

Making the data public demonstrates the Scandinavian belief that nobody is better than anyone else, says Veera Heinonen, spokeswoman for the Finish Embassy in London. "Finland is a very egalitarian country, and it's a very high-tax society, so it provides checks and balances," Heinonen says. She says people's earnings can be a good source of gossip. Is anybody embarrassed? "Well, maybe some chief executives," she says.

Level 4 Reading
Almost a century ago, the United States decided to make high school nearly universal. Around the same time, much of Europe decided that universal high school was a waste. Not everybody, European intellectuals argued, should go to high school. It’s clear who made the right decision. The educated American masses helped create the American century, as the economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz have written. The new ranks of high school graduates made factories more efficient and new industries possible. Today, we are having an updated version of the same debate. Television, newspapers and blogs are filled with the case against college for the masses: It saddles students with debt; it does not guarantee a good job; it isn’t necessary for many jobs. Not everybody, the skeptics say, should go to college.

The argument has the lure of counter intuition and does have grains of truth. Too many teenagers aren’t ready to do college-level work. Ultimately, though, the case against mass education is no better than it was a century ago. The evidence is overwhelming that college is a better investment for most graduates than in the past. A new study even shows that a bachelor’s degree pays off for jobs that don’t require one: secretaries, plumbers and cashiers. And, beyond money, education seems to make people happier and healthier. “Sending more young Americans to college is not a panacea,” says David Autor, an M.I.T. economist who studies the labor market. “Not sending them to college would be a disaster.”

The most unfortunate part of the case against college is that it encourages children, parents and schools to aim low. For those families on the fence — often deciding whether a student will be the first to attend — the skepticism becomes one more reason to stop at high school. Only about 33 percent of young adults get a four-year degree today, while another 10 percent receive a two-year degree.