Bài tập trắc nghiệm 15 phút Đoạn văn đọc hiểu - Tiếng Anh 12 - Đề số 11

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the following questions:       

During the 19th century, women in the United States organized and participated in a large number of reform movements, including movements to reorganize the prison system, improve education, ban the sale of alcohol, grant rights to people who were denied them, and, most importantly, free slaves. Some women saw similarities in the social status of women and slaves. Woman like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone were feminists and abolitionists who supported the rights of both women and blacks. A number of male abolitionists, including William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, also supported the rights of women to speak and to participate equally with men in antislavery activities. Probably more than any other movement, abolitionism offered women a previously denied entry into politics. They became involved primarily in order to better their living conditions and improve the conditions of others.     

When the civil war ended in 1865, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution adopted in 1868 and 1870 granted citizenship and suffrage to blacks but not to women. Discouraged but resolved, feminists worked tirelessly to influence more and more women to demand the right to vote. In 1869, the Wyoming Territory had yielded to demands by feminists, but the states on the East Coast resisted more stubbornly than before. A women’s suffrage bill had been presented to every Congress since 1878, but it continually failed to pass until 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment granted women the right to vote.  

Question: The word “ban” in the line 2 most nearly means to____.         

Read the following passage and mark the letters A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions: 

This rapid transcontinental settlement and these new urban industrial circumstances of the last half of the 19th century were accompanied by the development of national literature of great abundance and variety. New themes, new forms, new subjects, new regions, new authors, new audiences all emerged in the literature of this half century.

As a result, at the onset of World War I, the spirit and substance of American literature had evolved remarkably, just as its center of production had shifted from Boston to New York in the late 1880s and the sources of its energy to Chicago and the Midwest. No longer was it produced, at least in its popular forms, in the main by solemn, typically moralistic men from New England and the Old South; no longer were polite, well-dressed, grammatically correct, middle-class young people the only central characters in its narratives; no longer were these narratives to be set in exotic places and remote times; no longer, indeed, were fiction, poetry, drama, and formal history the chief acceptable forms of literary expression; no longer, finally, was literature read primarily by young, middle class women.

In sum, American literature in these years fulfilled in considerable measure the condition Walt Whitman called for in 1867 in describing Leaves of Grass: it treats, he said of his own major work, each state and region as peers "and expands from them, and includes the world ... connecting an American citizen with the citizens of all nations." At the same time, these years saw the emergence of what has been designated "the literature of argument," powerful works in sociology, philosophy, psychology, many of them impelled by the spirit of exposure and reform. Just as America learned to play a role in this half century as an autonomous international political, economic, and military power, so did its literature establish itself as a producer of major works.

Question: The author uses the word “indeed” in the second paragraph for what purpose?  

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:

Ranked as the number one beverage consumed worldwide, tea takes the lead over coffee in both popularity and production with more than 5 million metric tons of tea produced annually. Although much of this tea is consumed in Asian, European and African countries, the United States drinks its fair share. According to estimates by the Tea Council of the United States, tea is enjoyed by no less than half of the U.S. population on any given day. Black tea or green tea - iced, spiced, or instant - tea drinking has spurred a billion-dollar business with major tea producers in Africa and South America and throughout Asia.

Tea is made from the leaves of an evergreen plant, Camellia sinensis, which grows tall and lush in tropical regions. On tea plantation, the plant is kept trimmed to approximately four feet high and as new buds called flush appear, they are plucked off by hand. Even in today’s world of modern agricultural machinery, hand harvesting continues to be the preferred method. Ideally, only the top two leaves and a bud should be picked. This new growth produces the highest quality tea.

After being harvested, tea leaves are laid out on long drying racks, called withering racks, for 18 to 20 hours. During this process, the tea softens and becomes limp. Next, depending on the type of tea being produced, the leaves may be crushed or chopped to release flavor, and then fermented under controlled conditions of heat and humidity. For green tea, the whole leaves are often steamed to retain their green color, and the fermentation process is skipped. Producing black teas requires fermentation during which the tea leaves begin to darken. After fermentation, black tea is dried in vats to produce its rich brown or black color.

No one knows when or how tea became popular, but legend has it that tea as a beverage, was discovered in 2737 B.C. by Emperor Shen Nung of China when leaves from a Camellia dropped into his drinking water as it was boiling over a fire. As the story goes, Emperor Shen Nung drank the resulting liquid and proclaimed the drink to be most nourishing and refreshing. Though this account cannot be documented, it is thought that tea drinking probably originated in China and spread to other parts of Asia, then to Europe, and ultimately to America colonies around 1650.

With about half the caffeine content as coffee, tea is often chosen by those who want to reduce, but not necessarily eliminate their caffeine intake. Some people find that tea is less acidic than coffee and therefore easier on the stomach. Others have become interested in tea drinking since the National Cancer Institute published its findings on the antioxidant properties of tea. But whether tea is enjoyed for its perceived health benefits, its flavor, or as a social drink, teacups continue to be filled daily with the world’s most popular beverage.

Question 41: The word “eliminate” in paragraph 5 could be best replaced by which of the following word?         

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:

These days, photography is considered an art form. However, people did not always feel this way. It took one of the greatest photographers of all time to change public opinion about photography: Ansel Adams. Ansel Adams claimed that he knew his destiny when he first visited Yosemite, a national park, at the age of fourteen. Until then, the focus of his life had always been music; he had long dreamed of being a concert pianist, a career that would have required him to live an urban lifestyle. Instead, Adams found himself drawn to Yosemite and to other natural settings. Over time his love of photography became more influential than that of music. Contrary to the popular belief of the time, he believed photography to be an art form and often exhibited it as art. Due to his love of nature, Adams became devoted to the conservation of and access to wilderness. He believed that the American people needed to experience nature in all its glory. Adams felt that the experience of nature was a spiritual one, a view evidenced by many of his photographs.

Question 33: According to the passage, photography has come to be recognized as an art form since _______.         

Question 41: The passage supports which of the following conclusions? 

It is commonly believed in the United States that school is where people go to get an education. Nevertheless, it has been said that today children interrupt their education to go to school. The distinction between schooling and education implied by this remark is important. Education is much more open-ended and all-inclusive than schooling. Education knows no bounds. It can take place anywhere, whether in the shower or on the job, whether in a kitchen or on a tractor. It includes both the formal learning that takes place in schools and the whole universe of informal learning. The agents of education can range from a revered grandparent to the people debating politics on the radio, from a child to a distinguished scientist. Whereas schooling has a certain predictability, education quite often produces surprises. A chance conversation with a stranger may lead a person to discover how little is known of other religions. People are engaged in education from infancy on. Education, then, is a very broad, inclusive term. It is a lifelong process, a process that starts long before the start of school, and one that should be an integral part of one's entire life. Schooling, on the other hand, is a specific, formalized process, whose general pattern varies little from one setting to the next. Throughout a country, children arrive at school at approximately the same time, take assigned seats, are taught by an adult, use similar textbooks, do homework, take exams, and so on. The slices of reality that are to be learned, whether they are the alphabet or an understanding of the workings of government, have usually been limited by the boundaries of the subject being taught. For example, high school students know that they are not likely to find out in their classes the truth about political problems in their communities or what the newest filmmakers are experimenting with. There are definite conditions surrounding the formalized process of schooling.                  

Read the following passage and mark the letters A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:

Scientists do not yet thoroughly understand just how the body of an individual becomes sensitive to a substance that is harmless or even wholesome for the average person. Milk, wheat, and egg, for example, rank among the most healthful and widely used foods. Yet these foods can cause persons sensitive to them to suffer greatly. At first, the body of the individual is not harmed by coming into contact with the substance. After a varying interval of time, usually longer than a few weeks, the body becomes sensitive to it, and an allergy has begun to develop. Sometimes it's hard to figure out if you have a food allergy, since it can show up so many different ways. Your symptoms could be caused by many other problems. You may have rashes, hives, joint pains, mimicking arthritis, headaches, irritability, or depression. The most common food allergies are to milk, eggs, seafood, wheat, nuts, seeds, chocolate, oranges, and tomatoes. Many of these allergies will not develop if these foods are not fed to an infant until her or his intestines mature at around seven months. Breast milk also tends to be protective. Migraines can be set off by foods containing tyramine, phenathylamine, monosodium glutamate, or sodium nitrate. Common foods which contain these are chocolate, aged cheeses, sour cream, red wine, pickled herring, chicken livers, avocados, ripe bananas, cured meats, many Oriental and prepared foods (read the labels!). Some people have been successful in treating their migraines with supplements of B-vitamins, particularly B6 and niacin. Children who are hyperactive may benefit from eliminating food additives, especially colorings, and foods high in salicylates from their diets. A few of these are almonds, green peppers, peaches, tea, grapes. This is the diet made popular by Benjamin Feingold, who has written the book “Why your Child is Hyperactive”. Other researchers have had mixed results when testing whether the diet is effective.

Question 42: The author states that the reason that infants need to avoid certain foods related to allergies has to do with the infant's______________.    

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:

 Esperanto is what is called a planned, or artificial language. It was created more than a century ago by Polish eye doctor Ludwik Lazar Zamenhof. Zamenhof believed that a common language would help to alleviate some of the misunderstandings among cultures.

 In Zamenhof’s first attempt at a universal language, he tried to create a language that was as uncomplicated as possible. This first language included words such as ab, ac, eb, be and ce. This did not result in a workable language in that these monosyllabic, though short, were not easy to understand or to retain.

 Next, Zamenhof tried a different way of constructing a simplified language. He made the words in his language sound like words that people already knew, but he simplified the grammar tremendously. One example of how he simplified the language can be seen in the suffixes: all nouns in this language end in -o, as in the noun amiko, which means “friend”, and all adjectives end in -a, as in the adjective bela, which means “pretty". Another example of the simplified language can be seen in the prefix mal-, which makes a word opposite in meaning, the word malamiko therefore means “enemy”, and the word malbela therefore means “ugly” in Zamenhof’s language.

 In 1887, Zamenhof wrote a description of this language and published it. He used a pen name, Dr. Esperanto, when signing the book. He selected the name Esperanto because this word means “a person who hopes” in his language. Esperanto clubs began popping up throughout Europe, and by 1950, Esperanto had spread from Europe to America and Asia.

 In 1905, the First World Congress of Esperanto took place in France, with approximately 700 attendees from 20 different countries. Congresses were held annually for nine years, and 4,000 attendees were registered for the Tenth World Esperanto Congress scheduled for 1914, when World War I erupted and forced its cancellation.

 Esperanto has had its ups and downs in the period since World War I. Today, years after it was introduced, it is estimated that perhaps a quarter of a million people are fluent in it. This may seem like a large number, but it is really quite small when compared with the billion English speakers and billion Mandarin Chinese speakers in today’s world. Current advocates would like to see its use grow considerably and are taking steps to try to make this happen.

Question: The expression “ups and downs” is closest in meaning to ________.         

Mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the following questions:

The increase in international business and in foreign investment has created a need for executives with knowledge of foreign language and skills in cross-cultural communication. Americans, however, have not been well trained in either area and, consequently, have not enjoyed the same level in negotiation in an international arena as have their foreign counterparts.          

Negotiating is the process of communicating back and forth for the purpose of reaching an agreement. Involves persuasion and compromise, but in order to participate in either one, the negotiators must understand the ways in which people are persuaded and how compromise is reached within the culture of negotiation.          

In many international negotiations business abroad, Americans are perceived as wealthy and impersonal. It often appears to the foreign negotiator that Americans represents a large multimillion–dollar corporation that can afford to pay the price without bargaining further. The American negotiator’s role became that of and impersonal purveyor of information and cash, the image that succeeds only in underming the negotiation.          

In studies of American negotiators abroad, several traits have been identified that may serve to confirm that stereotypical perception, while subverting the negotiator’s position. Two traits in particular that cause cross-cultural misunderstanding are directness and impatience on that part of Amarican negotiator. Furthermore, American negotiators often insist on realizing short-term goals. Foreign negotiators, on the other hand, may value the relationship established between negotiators and may be willing to invest time in it for long-term benefits. In order to solidify the relationship, they may opt for indirect interactions without regard for the time involved in getting to know the other negotiator.         

Clearly, perceptions and differences in values affect the outcomes of negotiation and the success of negotiators. For Americans to play a more effective role in international business negotiations, they must put forth more effort to improve cross-cultural understanding.

Question: What’s the author main point?         

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:

Since water is the basis of life, composing the greater part of the tissues of all living things, the crucial problem of desert animals is to survive in a world where sources of flowing water are rare. And since man’s inexorable necessity is to absorb large quantities of water at frequent intervals, he can scarcely comprehend that many creatures of the desert pass their entire lives without a single drop. Uncompromising as it is, the dessert has not eliminated life but only those forms unable to withstand its desiccating effects. No moist-skinned, water–loving animals can exist there. Few large animals are found: the giants of the North America desert are the deer, the coyote, and the bobcat. Since desert country is open, it holds more swift–footed, running, and leaping creatures than the tangled forest. Its populations are largely nocturnal, silent, filled with reticence, and ruled by stealth. Yet they are not emaciated. Having adapted to their austere environment, they are as healthy as animals anywhere in the world. The secret of their adjustment lies in a combination of behavior and physiology. None could survive if, like mad dogs and Englishmen, they went out in the midday sun; many would die in a matter of minutes. So most of them pass the burning hours asleep in cool, humid burrows underneath the ground, emerging to hunt only by night. The surface of the sun–baked desert averages around 150 degrees, but 18 inches down the temperature is only 60 degrees. (Source:-Reading Challenge 2‖, Casey Malarcher & Andrea Janzen, Compass Publishing).

Question 9: The author states that one characteristic of animals that live in the desert is that they _____.             

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answers:

All mammals feed their young. Beluga whale mothers, for example, nurse their calves for some twenty months, until they are about to give birth again and their young are able to find their own food. The behavior of feeding of the young is built into the reproductive system. It is a nonelective part of parental care and the defining feature of a mammal, the most important thing that mammals - whether marsupials, platypuses, spiny anteaters, or placental mammals - have in common.

For animals other than mammals, then, feeding is not intrinsic to parental care. Animals add it to their reproductive strategies to give them an edge in their lifelong quest for descendants. The most vulnerable moment in any animal's life is when it first finds itself completely on its own, when it must forage and fend for itself. Feeding postpones that moment until a young animal has grown to such a size that it is better able to cope. Young that are fed by their parents become nutritionally independent at a much greater fraction of their full adult size. And in the meantime those young are shielded against the vagaries of fluctuating of difficult-to-find supplies. Once a species does take the step of feeding its young, the young become totally dependent on the extra effort. If both parents are removed, the young generally do not survive.

Question: The word "shielded" in the last paragraph is closest in meaning to _______.