Bài tập trắc nghiệm 45 phút Đoạn văn đọc hiểu - Tiếng Anh 12 - Đề số 27

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:

By the mid-nineteenth century, the term "icebox" had entered the American language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet of ordinary citizens in the United States. The ice trade grew with the growth of cities. Ice was used in hotels, taverns, and hospitals, and by some forward-looking city dealers in fresh meat, fresh fish, and butter. After the Civil War (1860-1865), as ice was used to refrigerate freight cars, it also came into household use. Even before 1880, half the ice sold in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that sold in Boston and Chicago, went to families for their own use. This had become possible because a new household convenience, the icebox, a precursor of the modern refrigerator, had been invented. Making an efficient icebox was not as easy as we might now suppose. In the early nineteenth century, the knowledge of the physics of heat, which was essential to a science of refrigeration, was rudimentary. The common-sense notion that the best icebox was one that prevented the ice from melting was of course mistaken, for it was the melting of the ice that performed the cooling. Nevertheless, early efforts to economize ice included wrapping the ice in blankets, which kept the ice from doing its job. Not until near the end of the nineteenth century did inventors achieve the nice balance of insulation and circulation needed for an efficient icebox. But as early as 1803, an ingenious Maryland farmer, Thomas Moore, had been on the right track. He owned a farm about twenty miles outside the city of Washington, for which the village of Georgetown was the market center. When he used an icebox of his own design to transport his butter to market, he found that customers would pass up the rapidly melting stuff in the tubs of his competitors to pay a premium price for his butter, still fresh and hard in neat, one-pound bricks. One advantage of his icebox, Moore explained, was that farmers would no longer have to travel to market at night in order to keep their produce cool.  

Question: The author describes Thomas Moore as having been "on the right track" to indicate that ______________.         

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

Harvard University, today recognized as part of the top echelon of the world's universities, came from very inauspicious and humble beginning.

This oldest of American universities was founded in 1636, just sixteen years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. Included in the Puritan emigrants to the Massachusetts colony during this period were more than 100 graduates of England's prestigious Oxford and Cambridge universities, and these universities graduates in the New Word were determined that their sons would have the same educational opportunities that they themselves had had. Because of this support in the colony for an institution of higher learning, the General Court of Massachusetts appropriated 400 pounds for a college in October of 1636 and early the following year decided on a parcel of land for the school; this land was in an area called Newetowne, which was later renamed Cambridge after its English cousin and is the site of the present-day university.

When a young minister named John Harvard, who came from the neighboring town of Charlestowne, died from tuberculosis in 1638, he willed half of his estate of 1,700 pounds to the fledgling college. In spite of the fact that only half of the bequest was actually paid, the General Court named the college after the minister in appreciation for what he had done. The amount of the bequest may not have been large, particularly by today's standard, but it was more than the General Court had found it necessary to appropriate in order to open the college.

Henry Dunster was appointed the first president of Harvard in 1640, and it should be noted that in addition to serving as president, he was also the entire faculty, with an entering freshmen class of four students. Although the staff did expand somewhat, for the first century of its existence the entire teaching staff consisted of the president and three or four tutors.

Question: The passage indicates that Harvard is ____________.        

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:

For more than six million American children, coming home after school means coming back to an empty house. Some deal with the situation by watching TV. Some may hide. But all of them have something in common. They spend part of each day alone. They are called “latchkey children”. They are children who look after themselves while their parents work. And their bad condition has become a subject of concern. Lynette Long was one principal of an elementary school. She said, “We had a school rule against wearing jewelry. A lot of kids had chains around their necks with keys attached. I was constantly telling them to put the keys inside shirts. There were so many keys, it never came to my mind what they meant. Slowly, she learned that they were house keys. She and her husband began talking to the children who had keys. They learned of the effect working couples and single parents were having on their children. Fear was the biggest problem faced by children at home alone. One in three latchkey children the Longs talked to reported being frightened. Many had nightmares and were worried about their own safety. The most common way latchkey children deal with their fears is by hiding. They made hide in a shower stall, under a bed or in a closet. The second is TV. They often turn the volume up. It’s hard to get statistics on latchkey children, the Longs have learned. Most parents are slow to admit that they leave their children alone.

Question 21: What is the topic of the passage?         

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

The issue of equality for women in British society first attracted national attention in the early 20th century, when the suffragettes won for women the right to vote. In the 1960s feminism became the subject of intense debate when the women’s liberation movement encouraged women to reject their traditional supporting role and to demand equal status and equal rights with men in areas such as employment and pay. Since then, the gender gap between the sexes has been reduced. The Equal Pay Act of 1970, for instance, made it illegal for women to be paid less than men for doing the same work, and in 1975 the Sex Discrimination Act aimed to prevent either sex having an unfair advantage when applying for jobs. In the same year the Equal Opportunities Commission was set up to help people claim their rights to equal treatment and to publish research and statistics to show where improvements in opportunities for women need to be made. Women now have much better employment opportunities, though they still tend to get less well-paid jobs than men, and very few are appointed to top jobs in industry. In the US the movement that is often called the “first wave of feminism” began in the mid 1800s. Susan B. Anthony worked for the right to vote, Margaret Sanger wanted to provide women with the means of contraception so that they could decide whether or not to have children, and Elizabeth Blackwell, who had to fight for the chance to become a doctor, wanted women to have greater opportunities to study. Many feminists were interested in other social issues. The second wave of feminism began in the 1960s. Women like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem became associated with the fight to get equal rights and opportunities for women under the law. An important issue was the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which was intended to change the Constitution. Although the ERA was not passed, there was progress in other areas. It became illegal for employers, schools, clubs, etc. to discriminate against women. But women still find it hard to advance beyond a certain point in their careers, the so-called glass ceiling that prevents them from having high-level jobs. Many women also face the problem of the second shift, i.e. the household chores. In the 1980s, feminism became less popular in the US and there was less interest in solving the remaining problems, such as the fact that most women still earn much less than men. Although there is still discrimination, the principle that it should not exist is widely accepted.

Question: Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage?         

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 "it" in the third paragraph refers to _______.           

Question 43: According to paragraph 1, which of the following is true of the young Clara Barton? 

Clara Barton became known as “The Angel of the Battlefield” during the American Civil War. Born in Oxford, Massachusetts in 1821, Clara Barton’s interest in helping soldiers on the battlefield began when she was told army stories from her father. Another event that influenced her decision to help soldiers was an accident her brother had. His injuries were cared for by Barton for 2 years. At the time, she was only 11 years old. Barton began teaching school at the age of 15. She taught for 18 years before she moved to Washington, D.C. in 1854. The civil war broke out 6 years later. Immediately, Barton started war service by helping the soldiers with their needs. At the battle of Bull Run, Clara Barton received permission from the government to take care of the sick and hurt. Barton did this with great empathy and kindness. She acknowledged each soldier as a person. Her endurance and courage on the battlefield were admired by many. When the war ended in 1865, she used 4 years of her life to assist the government in searching for soldiers who were missing during the war. The search for missing soldiers and years of hard work made her feeble physically. In 1869, her doctors recommended a trip to Europe for a rest. While she was on vacation, she became involved with the International Red Cross, an organization set up by the Geneva Convention in 1864. Clara Barton realized that the Red Cross would be a big help to the United States. After she returned to the United States, she worked very hard to create an American Red Cross. She talked to government leaders and let American people know about the Red Cross. In 1881, the National Society of the Red Cross was finally established with its headquarters in Washington, D.C. Clara Barton managed its activities for 23 years. Barton never let her age stop her from helping people. At the age of 79, she helped flood victims in Galveston, Texas. Barton finally resigned from the Red Cross in 1904. She was 92 years old and had truly earned her titled “The Angel of the Battlefield”.    

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 from 18 to 25:

 The three phases of human memory are the sensory memory, the short-term memory, and the long-term memory. This devision of the memory into phases is based on the length of time of the memory.

 Sensory memory is instantaneous memory. It is an image or memory that enters your mind only for a short period of time; it comes and goes in under a second. The memory will not last longer than that unless the information enters the short-term memory.

 Information can be held in the short-term memory for about twenty seconds or as long as you are actively using it. If you repeat a fact to yourself, that fact will stay in your short-term memory as long as you keep repeating it. Once you stop repeating it, either it is forgotten or it moves into long term memory.

 Long-term memory is the huge memory tank that can hold ideas and images for years and years. Information can be added to your long-term memory when you actively try to put it there through memorization or when an idea or image enters your mind on its own.

Question 25: It can be inferred from the passage that if a person remembers a piece of information for two days, this is probably________  

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:

It is hard to get any agreement on the precise meaning of the term "social class". In everyday life, people tend to have a different approach to those they consider their equals from which they assume with people they consider higher or lower than themselves in social scale. The criteria we use to "place" a new acquaintance, however, are a complex mixture of factors. Dress, way of speaking, area of residence in a given city or province, education and manners all play a part. In ancient civilizations, the Sumerian, for example, which flourished in the lower Euphrates valley from 2000 to 5000 B.C. social differences were based on birth, status or rank, rather than on wealth. Four main classes were recognized. These were the rulers, the priestly administrators, the freemen (such as craftsmen, merchants or farmers) and the slaves. In Greece, after the sixth-century B.C., there was a growing conflict between the peasants and the aristocrats, and a gradual decrease in the power of the aristocracy when a kind of "middle class" of traders and skilled workers grew up. The population of Athens, for example, was divided into three main classes which were politically and legally distinct. About one-third of the total population were slaves, who did not count politically at all, a fact often forgotten by those who praise Athens as the nursery of democracy. The next main group consisted of resident foreigners, the, "metics" who were freemen, though they too were allowed no share in political life. The third group was the powerful body of "citizens”, who were themselves divided into sub-classes. The medieval feudal system, which flourished in Europe from the ninth to the thirteenth century, gave rise to a comparatively simple system based on birth. Under the King , there were two main classes–lords and “vassals”, the latter with many subdivisions. In the later Middle Ages, however, the development of a money economy and the growth of cities and trade led to the rise of another class, the "burghers" or city merchants and mayors. These were the  predecessors of the modern middle classes. Gradually high office and occupation assumed importance in determining social position, as it became more and more possible for a person born to one station in life to move to another. This change affected the towns more than the country areas, where remnants  of feudalism lasted much longer.

Question 41: The word "remnants" in the third paragraph is most likely to correspond to ________.         

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 from 41 to 50:

Until recently, most American entrepreneurs were men. Discrimination against women in business, the demands of caring for families, and lack of business training had kept the number of women entrepreneurs small. Now, however, businesses owned by women account for more than $40 billion in annual revenues, and this figure is likely to continue rising throughout the 1990s. As Carolyn Doppelt Gray, an official of the Small Business Administration, has noted, "The 1970s was the decade of women entering management, and the 1980s turned out to be the decade of the woman entrepreneur". What are some of the factors behind this trend? For one thing, as more women earn advanced degrees in business and enter the corporateworld, they are finding obstacles. Women are still excluded from most executive suites. Charlotte Taylor, a management consultant, had noted, "In the 1970s women believed if they got an MBA and worked hard they could become chairman of the board. Now they've found out that isn't going to happen, so they go out on their own". In the past, most women entrepreneurs worked in "women's" fields: cosmetics and clothing, for example. But this is changing. Consider ASK Computer Systems, a $22-million-a-year computer software business. It was founded in 1973 by Sandra Kurtzig, who was then a housewife with degrees in math and engineering. When Kurtzig founded the business, her first product was software that let weekly newspapers keep tabs on their newspaper carriers and her office was a bedroom at home, with a shoebox under the bed to hold the company's cash. After she succeeded with the newspaper software system, she hired several bright computer-science graduates to develop additional programs. When these were marketed and sold, ASK began to grow. It now has 200 employees, and Sandra Kurtzig owns $66.9 million of stock. Of course, many women who start their own businesses fail, just as men often do. They still face hurdles in the business world, especially problems in raising money; the banking and finance world is still dominated by men, and old attitudes die hard. Most businesses owned by women are still quite small. But the situation is changing; there are likely to be many more Sandra Kurtzigs in the years ahead.  

Question 48: The word “hurdles” in the passage can be best replaced by _________.           

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 from 36 to 42:

 Perhaps it was his own lack of adequate schooling that inspired Horace Mann to work so hard for the important reforms in education that he accomplished. While he was still a boy, his father and older brother died, and he became responsible for supporting his family. Like most of the children in his town, he attended school only two or three months a year. Later, with the help of several teachers, he was able to study law and became a member of the Massachusetts bar, but he never forgot those early struggles. While serving in Massachusetts legislature, he signed a historic education bill that set up a state board of education. Without regret, he gave up his successful legal practice and political career to become the first secretary of the board. There he exercised an enormous influence during the critical period of reconstruction that brought into existence the American graded elementary school as substitute for the older distinct school system. Under his leadership, the curriculum was restructured, the school year was increased to a minimum of six months, and mandatory schooling was extended to age sixteen. Other important reforms included the establishment of state normal schools for teacher training, institutes for in-service teacher education, and lyceums for adult education. He was also instrument in improving salaries for teachers and creating school libraries. Mann’s ideas about school reform were developed and distributed in twelve annual reports to the state of Massachusetts that he wrote during his tenure as secretary of education. Considered quite radical at the time, the Massachusetts reforms later served as a model for the nation. Mann was recognized as the father of public education. Question 39: The word “regret” in line 7 could best be replaced by    

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

In 776 BC the first Olympic Games were held at the foot of Mount Olympus to honor the Greek’s chief, Zeus. The Greeks emphasized physical fitness and strength in their education of youth. Therefore, contests in running, jumping, discus and javelin throwing, boxing, and horse and chariot racing were held individual cities, and the winners completed every four years at Mount Olympus. Winners were greatly honored by having olive wreaths placed on their heads and having poems sung about their deeds. Originally these were held as games of friendship, and any wars in progress were halted to allow the games to take place. The Greeks attached so much importance to these games that they calculated time in four–year cycle called “Olympiads” dating from 776 BC.  

Question: Why were the Olympic Games held?         

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

Many of the most damaging and life-threaling types of weather-torrential rains, severe thunderstorms, and tornadoes-begin quickly, strike suddenly, and dissipate rapidly, devastating small regions while leaving neighboring areas untouched. One such event, a tornado, struck the northeastern section of Edmonton, Alberta, in July 1987. Total damages from the tornado exceeded $250 million, the highest ever for any Canadian storm. Conventional computer models of the atmosphere have limited value in predicting short-live local storms like the Edmonton tornado, because the available weather data are generally not detailed enough to allow computers to discern the subtle atmospheric changes that precede these storms. In most nations, for example, weather balloon observations are taken just once every twelve hours at locations typically separated by hundreds of miles. With such limited data, conventional forecasting models do a much better job predicting general weather conditions over large regions than they do forecasting specific local events. Until recently, the observation-intensive approach needed for accurate, very short range forecasts, or “Nowcasts”, was not feasible. The cost of equipping and operating many thousands of conventional weather stations was prohibitively high, and the difficulties involved in rapidly collecting and processing the raw weather data from such a network were insurmountable. Fortunately, scientific and technological advances have overcome most of these problems. Radar systems, automated weather instruments, and satellites are all capable of making detailed, nearly continuous observation over large regions at a relatively low cost. Communications satellites can transmit data around the world cheaply and instantaneously, and modern computers can quickly compile and analyzing this large volume of weather information. Meteorologists and computer scientists now work together to design computer programs and video equipment capable of transforming raw weather data into words, symbols, and vivid graphic displays that forecasters can interpret easily and quickly. As meteorologists have begun using these new technologies in weather forecasting offices, Nowcasting is becoming a reality.  

Question: With which of the following statements is the author most likely to agree?         

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 that follow.

BASKETBALL

Although he created the game of basketball at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, Dr. James A. Naismith was a Canadian. Working as a physical education instructor at the International YMCA, now Springfield College, Dr. Naismith noticed a lack of interest in exercise among students during the wintertime. The new England winters were fierce, and the students balked at participating in outdoor activities. Naismith determined a fast-moving game that could be played indoors would fill a void after the baseball and football seasons had ended. First, he attempted to adapt outdoor games such as soccer and rugby to indoor play, but he soon found them unsuitable for confined areas. Finally, he determined that he would have to invent a game. In December of 1891, Dr. Naismith hung two old peach baskets at either end of the gymnasium at the school, and, using a soccer ball and nine players on each side, organized the first basketball game. The early rules allowed three points for each basket and made running with the ball violation. Every time a goal was made, someone had to climb a ladder to retrieve the ball. Nevertheless, the game became popular. In less than a year, basketball was being played in both the United States and Canada. Five years later, a championship tournament was staged in New York City, which was won by the Brooklyn Central YMCA. The teams had already been reduced to seven players, and five became standard in 1897 season. When basketball was introduced as a demonstration sport in the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Luis, it quickly spread throughout the world. In 1906, a metal hoop was used for the first time to replace the basket, but the name basketball has remained.  

Question: What does this passage mainly discuss?             

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 below:

 Most people can remember a phone number for up to thirty seconds. When this short amount of time elapses, however, the numbers are erased from the memory. How did the information get there in the first place? Information that makes its way to the short term memory (STM) does so via the sensory storage area. The brain has a filter which only allows stimuli that is of immediate interest to pass on to the STM, also known as the working memory.

 There is much debate about the capacity and duration of the short term memory. The most accepted theory comes from George A. Miller, a cognitive psychologist who suggested that humans can remember approximately seven chunks of information. A chunk is defined as a meaningful unit of information, such as a word or name rather than just a letter or number. Modern theorists suggest that one can increase the capacity of the short term memory by chunking, or classifying similar information together. By organizing information, one can optimize the STM, and improve the chances of a memory being passed on to long term storage.

 When making a conscious effort to memorize something, such as information for an exam, many people engage in "rote rehearsal". By repeating something over and over again, one is able to keep a memory alive. Unfortunately, this type of memory maintenance only succeeds if there are no interruptions. As soon as a person stops rehearsing the information, it has the tendency to disappear. When a pen and paper are not handy, people often attempt to remember a phone number by repeating it aloud. If the doorbell rings or the dog barks to come in before a person has the opportunity to make a phone call, he will likely forget the number instantly. Therefore, rote rehearsal is not an efficient way to pass information from the short term to long term memory. A better way is to practice "elaborate rehearsal". This involves assigning semantic meaning to a piece of information so that it can be filed along with other pre-existing long term memories.

 Encoding information semantically also makes it more retrievable. Retrieving information can be done by recognition or recall. Humans can easily recall memories that are stored in the long term memory and used often; however, if a memory seems to be forgotten, it may eventually be retrieved by prompting. The more cues a person is given (such as pictures), the more likely a memory can be retrieved. This is why multiple choice tests are often used for subjects that require a lot of memorization.

Question 30: The word “elapses” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _______.         

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 below:

 In the world today, particularly in the two most industrialized areas, North America and Europe recycling is big news. People are talking about it, practicing it, and discovering new ways to be sensitive to the environment. Recycling means finding ways to use products a second time. The motto of the recycling movement is “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”.

 The first step is to reduce garbage. In stores, a shopper has to buy products in blister packs boxes and expensive plastic wrappings. A hamburger from a fast food restaurant comes in lots of packaging: usually paper, a box, and a bag. All that packaging is wasted resources. People should try to buy things that are wrapped simply, and to reuse cups and utensils. Another way to reduce waste is to buy high-quality products. When low quality appliances break, many customers throw them away and buy new ones-a loss of more resources and more energy. For example, if a customer buys a high-quality appliance that can be easily repaired, the manufacturer receives an important message. In the same way, if a customer chooses a product with less packaging, that customer sends an important message to the manufacturers. To reduce garbage, the throwaway must stop.

 The second step is to reuse. It is better to buy juices and soft drinks in returnable bottles. After customers empty the bottles, they return them to the store. The manufacturers of the drinks collect the bottles, wash them and then fill them again. The energy that is necessary to make new bottles is saved. In some parts of the world returning bottles for money is a common practice. In those places, the garbage dumps have relatively little glass and plastic from throwaway bottles.

 The third step is being environmentally sensitive is to recycle. Spent motor oil can be cleaned and used again. Aluminum cans are expensive to make. It takes the same amount of energy to make one aluminum can as it does to run a color TV set for three hours. When people collect and recycle aluminum (for new cans), they help save one of the world’s precious resources.

Question 41: What best describes the process of reuse?         

Question 37: Man can hardly understand why many animals live their whole life in the desert, as________.         

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:

 The time when humans crossed the Arctic land bridge from Siberia to Alaska seems remote to us today, but actually represents a late stage in prehistory of humans, an era when polished stone implements and bows and arrows were already being used and dogs had already been domesticated.

 When these early migrants arrived in North America, they found woods and plains dominated by three types of American mammoths. Those elephants were distinguished from today’s elephants mainly by their thick, shaggy coats and their huge, upward-curving tusks. They had arrived on the continent hundreds of thousands of years before their human followers. The wooly mammoth in the North, the Columbian mammoth in middle North America, and the imperial mammoth of the South together with their distant cousins the mastodons, dominated the land. Here, as in the Old World, there is evidence that humans hunted these elephants, as shown by numerous spear points found with mammoth remains.

 Then, at the end of the Ice Age, when the last glaciers had retreated, there was a relatively sudden and widespread extinction of elephants. In the New World, both mammoths and mastodons disappeared. In the Old World, only Indian and African elephants survived.

 Why did the huge, seemingly successful mammoths disappear? Were humans connected with their extinction? Perhaps, but at the time, although they were hunters, humans were still widely scattered and not very numerous. It is difficult to see how they could have prevailed over the mammoth to such an extent.

Question: Which of the following could best substitute for the word “remains” in paragraph 2?         

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:

Psychologists who work on motivation research a wide range of human traits and physiological characteristics that include the effects of hunger, reward, and punishment, as well as desires for power, tangible achievement, social acceptance, belongingness, self-esteem, and self-actualization. A plethora of hypotheses developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have the goal of identifying causes of an organism’s behavior that can be both conscious and unconscious. The hierarchical organization of human needs is a theoretical model, originally established by an American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, in 1954. The needs located at the bottom of the pyramid are the essentials of physiological survival that encompass oxygen, water, nutrition, rest and avoidance of pain. Maslow’s theory, grounded in research, also stipulated that these are variable and, at least to some extent, may explain, for example, food gratification. The second tier is rooted in the human need for safety, stability and protection.

In the human life cycle, the needs for belonging are manifested in the desires to marry, have a family, belong in a community or among similarly minded people. In part, the need to belong can also show up in a search for particular types of occupations or careers. The next level of the hierarchy in effect deals with two substrata, where the first presumes the need for status, prestige, recognition, appreciation, and dominance, and the higher division includes a conglomeration of emotionally centered traits that pivot on competence, confidence, mastery, achievement, independence, and freedom.

The top tier is different from all others, and Maslow referred to it as growth motivation and self-actualization. At the highest level, individuals seek to realize and put to use their creativity, talent, leadership, curiosity and understanding. At this level people can reach their full potentials and accurately perceive and accept reality, seek privacy and depth in personal relationships, resist enculturation, and develop social interests, compassion, and humanity. In many cases, self-actualizers do not lead ordinary lives, choose growth over safety, and cultivate peak experiences that leave their mark and change one for the better.

Question 40: It can be inferred from the passage that in modern-day terms, the second layer of needs can be reflected in people’s desire for _______.         

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:

It's called 42 - the name taken from the answer to the meaning of life, from the science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 42 was founded by French technology billionaire Xavier Niel, whose backing means there are no tuition fees and accommodation is free. Mr Niel and his co-founders come from the world of technology and start-ups, and they are trying to do to education what Facebook did to communication and Airbnb to accommodation. Students at 42 are given a choice of projects that they might be set in a job as a software engineer - perhaps to design a website or a computer game. They complete a project using resources freely available on the Internet and by seeking help from their fellow students, who work alongside them in a large open-plan room full of computers. Another student will then be randomly assigned to mark their work. The founders claim this method of learning makes up for shortcomings in the traditional education system, which they say encourages students to be passive recipients of knowledge. "Peer-to-peer learning develops students with the confidence to search for solutions by themselves, often in quite creative and ingenious ways." Like in computer games, the students are asked to design and they go up a level by completing a project. They graduate when they reach level 21, which usually takes three to five years. And at the end, there is a certificate but no formal degree. Recent graduates are now working at companies including IBM, Amazon, and Tesla, as well as starting their own firms. "The feedback we have had from employers is that our graduates are more apt to go off and find out information for themselves, rather than asking their supervisors what to do next," says Brittany Bir, chief operating officer of 42 in California and a graduate of its sister school in Paris. Ms Bir says 42's graduates will be better able to work with others and discuss and defend their ideas - an important skill in the “real world” of work. "This is particularly important in computer programming, where individuals are notorious for lacking certain human skills." she says. But could 42's model of teacherless learning work in mainstream universities? Brittany Bir admits 42's methods do not suit all students. "It suits individuals who are very disciplined and self-motivated, and who are not scared by having the freedom to work at their own pace." she says.

Question 46: What do 42’s graduates receive on completion of their course?         

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 from 43 to 50:

 Psychologist have debated a long time about whether a child’s upbringing can give it the ability to do outstandingly well. Some think that it is impossible to develop genius and say that it is simply something a person is born with. Others, however , argue that the potential for great achievement can be develop. The truth lies somewhere between these two extremes. It seems very obvious that being born with the right qualities from gifted parents will increase a child’s ability to do well. However, this ability will be fully realized only with the right upbringing and opportunities. As one psychologist says, “ To have a fast car, you need both a good engine and fuel.’’ Scientists have recently assessed intelligence, achievement, and ability in 50 sets of identical twins that were separated shortly birth and brought up by different parents. They found that achievement was based on intelligence, and later influenced by the child’s environment. One case involving very intelligent twins was quoted. One of the twins received a normal upbringing, and performed well. The other twin, however, was brought up by extremely supportive parents and given every possible opportunity to develop its abilities. That twin, thought starting out with the same degree of intelligence as the other, performed even better. This case reflects the general principle of intelligence and ability. The more favorable the environment, the more a child’s intelligence and ability are developed. However, there is no link between intelligence and socioeconomic level of a child’s family. In other words, it does not matter how poor or how rich a family is , as this does not affect the intelligence. Gifted people can not be created by supportive parents, but they can be developed by them. One professor of music said that outstanding musicians usually started two or three years earlier than ordinary performers, often because their parents had recognized their ability. These musicians then needed at least ten years’ hard work and training in order to reach the level they were capable of attaining. People who want to have very gifted children are given the following advice: Marry an intelligent person. Allow children to follow their own interests rather than the interests of the parents. Start a child’s education early but avoid pushing the child too hard. Encourage children to play; for example, playing with musical instrument is essential for a child who wants to become an outstanding musician.

Question 48: The writer advises that gifted children should be allowed to follow________.         

Since the dawn of time, people have found ways to communicate with one another. Smoke signals and tribal drums were some of the earliest forms of communication. Letters, carried by birds or by humans on foot or on horseback, made it possible for people to communicate larger amounts of information between two places. The telegram and telephone set the stage for more modern means of communication. With the invention of the cellular phone, communication itself has become mobile. For you, a cell phone is probably just a device that you and your friends use to keep in touch with family and friends, take pictures, play games, or send text message. The definition of a cell phone is more specific: it is a hand-held wireless communication device that sends and receives signals by way of small special areas called cells. Walkie - talkies, telephones and cell phones are duplex communication devices: They make it possible for two people to talk to each other. Cell phones and walkie-talkies are different from regular phones because they can be used in many different locations. A walkie-talkie is sometimes called a half-duplex communication device because only one person can talk at a time. A cell phone is a full-duplex device because it uses both frequencies at the same time. A walkie-talkie has only one channel. A cell phone has more than a thousand channels. A walkie- talkie can transmit and receive signals across a distance of about a mile. A cell phone can transmit and receive signals over hundreds of miles. In 1973, an electronic company called Motorola hired Martin Cooper to work on wireless communication. Motorola and Bell Laboratories (now AT& T) were in a race to invent the first portable communication device. Martin Cooper won the race and became the inventor of the cell phone. On April 3,1973, Cooper made the first cell phone call to his opponent at AT&T while walking down the streets of New York city. People on the sidewalks gazed at Cooper in amazement. Cooper's phone was called A Motorola Dyna-Tac. It weighed a whopping 2.5 pounds (as compared to today's cell phones that weigh as little as 3 or 4 ounces) After the invention of his cell phone, Cooper began thinking of ways to make the cell phone available to the general public. After a decade, Motorola introduced the first cell phone for commercial use. The early cell phone and its service were both expensive. The cell phone itself cost about $3, 500. In 1977, AT&T constructed a cell phone system and tried it out in Chicago with over 2,000 customers. In 1981, a second cellular phone system was started in the Washington, D.C and Baltimore area. It took nearly 37 years for cell phones to become available for general public use. Today, there are more than sixty million cell phone customers with cell phones producing over thirty billion dollars per years. To whom did Cooper make his first cell phone call?         

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:

If we believe that clothing has to do with covering the body, and costume with the choice of a particular form of garment for a particular use, then we can say that clothing depend primarily on such physical conditions as climate, health, and textile manufacture, whereas costume reflect social factors such as religious beliefs, aesthetics, personal status, and the wish to be distinguished from or to emulate our fellows.

The ancient Greeks and the Chinese believed that we first covered our bodies for some physical reason such as protecting ourselves from the weather elements. Ethnologists and psychologists have invoked psychological reasons: modesty in the case of ancients, and taboo, magical influence and the desire to please for the moderns.

In early history, costume must have fulfilled a function beyond that of simple utility, perhaps through some magical significance, investing primitive man with the attributes of other creatures. Ornaments identified the wearer with animals, gods, heroes or other men. This identification remains symbolic in more sophisticated societies. We should bear in mind that the theater has its distant origins in sacred performances, and in all period children at play have worn disguises, so as to adapt gradually to adult life.

Costume helped inspire fear or impose authority. For a chieftain, costume embodied attributes expressing his power, while a warrior’s costume enhanced his physical superiority and suggested he was superhuman. In more recent times, professional or administrative costume has been devised to distinguish the wearer and express personal or delegated authority; this purpose is seen clearly in the judge’s robes and the police officer’s uniform. Costume denotes power, and since power is usually equated with wealth, costume came to be an expression of social caste and material prosperity. Military uniform denotes rank and is intended to intimidate, to protect the body and to express membership in a group. At the bottom of the scale, there are such compulsory costumes as the convict’s uniform. Finally, costume can possess a religious significance that combines various elements: an actual or symbolic identification with a god, the desire to express this in earthly life, and the desire to enhance the wearer’s position of respect.

Question 16: It can be inferred from paragraph 3 that_________          

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 question from 36 to 43:

 A number of factors related to the voice reveal the personality of the speaker. The first is the broad area of communication, which includes imparting information by use of language, communicating with a group or an individual and specialized communication through performance. A person conveys thoughts and ideas through choice of words, by a tone of voice that is pleasant or unpleasant, gentle or harsh, by the rhythm that is inherent within the language itself, and by speech rhythms that are flowing and regular or uneven and hesitant, and finally, by the pitch and melody of the utterance. When speaking before a group, a person's tone may indicate uncertainty or fright, confidence or calm. At interpersonal levels, the tone may reflect ideas and feelings over and above the words chosen, or may belie them. Here the participant’s tone can consciously or unconsciously reflect intuitive sympathy or antipathy, lack of concern or interest, fatigue, anxiety, enthusiasm or excitement, all of which are usually discernible by the acute listener. Public performance is a manner of communication that is highly specialized with its own techniques for obtaining effects by voice and/ or gesture. The motivation derived from the text, and in the case of singing, the music, in combination with the performer's skills, personality, and ability to create empathy will determine the success of artistic, political, or pedagogic communication. Second, the voice gives psychological clues to a person's self-image, perception of others, and emotional health. Self-image can be indicated by a tone of voice that is confident, pretentious, shy, aggressive, outgoing, or exuberant, to name only a few personality traits. Also the sound may give a clue to the facade or mask of that person, for example, a shy person hiding behind an overconfident front. How a speaker perceives the listener's receptiveness, interest, or sympathy in any given conversation can drastically alter the tone of presentation, by encouraging or discouraging the speaker. Emotional health is evidenced in the voice by free and melodic sounds of the happy, by constricted and harsh sound of the angry, and by dull and lethargic qualities of the depressed.  

Question: The word "drastically" in line 21 is closest in meaning to_____        

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: When were women allowed to vote throghout the US?