Bài tập trắc nghiệm 60 phút Đoạn văn đọc hiểu - Tiếng Anh 12 - Đề số 31

Question 23: The word “they” in the passage refers to___________.         

Of all modern instruments, the violin is apparently one of the simplest. It consist in essence of a hollow, varnished wooden sound box, or resonator, and a long neck covered with a fingerboard, along which four strings are stretched at high tension. The beauty of design, shape, and decoration is no accident, the proportions of the instrument are determined entirely by acoustical considerations. Its simplicity of appearance is deceptive. About 70 parts are involved in the construction of a violin. Its tone and its outstanding range of expressiveness make it an ideal solo instrument. No less important, however, is its role as an orchestral and chamber instrument. In combination with the larger and deeper-sounding members of the same family, the violins form the nucleus of the modem symphony orchestra. The violin has been in existence since about 1550. Its importance as an instrument in its own right dates from the early 1600’s, when it first became standard in Italian opera orchestras. Its stature as an orchestral instrument was raised further when in 1626 Louis XIII of France established at his court the orchestra known as Les vinq-quatre violons du Roy (The King's 24 Violins), which was to become widely famous later in the century. In its early history, the violin had a dull and rather quiet tone resulting from the fact that the strings were thick and were attached to the body of the instrument very loosely. During the eighteenth and nineteenth century exciting technical changes were inspired by such composer-violinists as Vivaldi and Tartini. Their instrumental compositions demanded a fuller, clearer, and more brilliant tone that was produced by using thinner strings and a far higher string tension. Small changes had to be made to the violin's internal structure and to the fingerboard so that they could withstand the extra strain. Accordingly, a higher standard of performance was achieved, in terms of both facility and interpretation. Left-hand technique was considerably elaborated, and new fingering patterns on the fingerboard were developed for very high notes.

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Horace Pippin, as an African-American soldier during World War I, was wounded in his right arm. He discovered, however, that by keeping his right wrist steady with his left hand, he could paint and draw. Pippin was not trained, but his artistic sensitivity and intuitive feel for two-dimensional design and the arrangement of colour and patterns made him one of the finest Primitive artists America has produced. Pippin did a series of paintings on the abolitionist John Brown and one on his war experiences, but he shied away from social issues for the most part and achieved his greatestsuccess with scenes of the people and places of his hometown of West Chester, Pennsylvania. His Domino Players, featuring four women gathered around a wooden table in a simple kitchen setting, is an excellent example of his rural domestic scenes.  

Question: It may be inferred from the passage that Pippin         

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 Choosing a career may be one of the hardest jobs you ever have, and it must be done with care. View a career as an opportunity to do something you love, not simply as a way to earn a living. Investing the time and effort to thoroughly explore your options can mean the difference between finding a stimulating and rewarding career and move from job to unsatisfying job in an attempt to find the right one. Work influences virtually every aspect of your life, from your choice of friends to where you live. Here are just a few of the factors to consider.

 Deciding what matters most to you is essential to making the right decision. You may want to begin by assessing your likes, dislikes, strengths, and weaknesses. Think about the classes, hobbies, and surroundings that you find most appealing. Ask yourself questions, such as "Would you like to travel? Do you want to work with children? Are you more suited to solitary or cooperative work?" There are no right or wrong answers; only you know what is important to you. Determine which job features you require, which ones you would prefer, and which ones you cannot accept. Then rank them in order of importance to you.

 The setting of the job is one factor to take into account. You may not want to sit at a desk all day. If not, there are diversity occupation - building inspector, supervisor, real estate agent - that involve a great deal of time away from the office. Geographical location may be a concern, and employment in some fields is concentrated in certain regions. Advertising job can generally be found only in large cities. On the other hand, many industries such as hospitality, law education, and retail sales are found in all regions of the country.

 If a high salary is important to you, do not judge a career by its starting wages. Many jobs, such as insurance sales, offers relatively low starting salaries; however, pay substantially increases along with your experience, additional training, promotions and commission.

 Don’t rule out any occupation without learning more about it. Some industries evoke positive or negative associations. The traveling life of a flight attendant appears glamorous, while that of a plumber does not. Remember that many jobs are not what they appear to be at first, and may have merits or demerits that are less obvious. Flight attendants must work long, grueling hours without sleeps, whereas plumbers can be as highly paid as some doctors. Another point to consider is that as you get mature, you will likely to develop new interests and skills that may point the way to new opportunities. The choice you make today need not be your final one.

Question 33: In paragraph 4, the author suggests that _______.         

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The changing profile of a city in the United States is apparent in the shifting definitions used by the United States Bureau of the Census. In 1870 the census officially distinguished the nation’s “urban” from its “rural” population for the first time. “Urban population” was defined as persons living in towns of 8,000 inhabitants or more. But after 1900 it meant persons living in incorporated places having 2,500 or more inhabitants.

Then, in 1950 the Census Bureau radically changed its definition of urban to take account of the new vagueness of city boundaries. In addition to persons living in incorporated units of 2,500 or more, the census now included those who lived in unincorporated units of that size, and also all persons living in the densely settled urban fringe, including both incorporated and unincorporated areas located around cities of 50,000 inhabitants or more. Each such unit, conceived as an integrated economic and social unit with a large population nucleus, was named a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA).

Each SMSA would contain at least (a) one central city with 50,000 inhabitants or more or (b) two cities having shared boundaries and constituting, for general economic and social purposes, a single community with a combined population of at least 50,000, the smaller of which must have a population of at least 15,000. Such an area would include the county in which the central city was located, and adjacent counties that were found to be metropolitan in character and economically and socially integrated with the county of the central city.By 1970, about two-thirds of the population of the United States was living in these urbanized areas, and of that figure more than half were living outside the central cities.

While the Census Bureau and the United States government used the term SMSA (by 1969 there were 233 of them), social scientists were also using new terms to describe the elusive, vaguely defined areas reaching out from what used to be simple “towns” and “cities”. A host of terms came into use: “metropolitan regions”, “poly-nucleated population groups”, “conurbations”, “metropolitan clusters”, “megalopolises” and so on.  

Question 33: According to the passage, why did the Census Bureau revise the definition of urban in 1950?         

Read the following andmark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 37 to 43:

 In early civilization, citizens were educated informally, usually within the family unit. Education meant simply learning to live. As civilization became more complex, however, education became more formal, structured, and comprehensive. Initial efforts of the ancient Chinese and Greek societies concentrated solely on the education of males. The post-Babylonian Jews and Plato were exceptions to this pattern. Plato was apparently the first significant advocate of the equality of the sexes. Women, in his ideal state, would have the same rights and duties and the same educational opportunities as men. This aspect of Platonic philosophy, however, had little or no effect on education for many centuries, and the concept of a liberal education for men only, which had been espoused by Aristotle, prevailed.

 In ancient Rome, the availability of an education was radually extended to women, but they were taught separately from men. The early Christians and medieval Europeans continued this trend, and single-sex schools for the privileged through classes prevailed through the Reformation period. Gradually, however, education for women, in a separate but equal basis to that provided for men, was becoming a clear responsibility of society. Martin Luther appealed for civil support of schools for all children. Al the Council of Trent in the 16th century, the Roman Catholic Church encouraged the establishment of free primary schools for children of all classes. The concept of universal primary education, regardless of sex, had been born, but it was still in the realm of the single-sex school.

 In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, co-education became a more widely applied principle of educational philosophy. In Britain, Germany, and the Soviet Union the education of boys and girls in the same classes became an accepted practice. Since World War II, Japan and the Scandinavian countries have also adopted relatively universal co-educational systems. The greatest negative reaction to co-education has been felt in the teaching systems of the Latin countries, where the sexes have usually been separated at both primary and secondary levels, according to local conditions.

 A number of studies have indicated that girls seem to perform better overall and in science in particular. In single-sex classes, during the adolescent years, pressure to conform to stereotypical female gender roles may disadvantage girls in traditionally male subjects, making them reluctant to volunteer for experimental work while taking part in lessons. In Britain, academic league tables point to high standards achieved in girls’ schools. Some educationalists, therefore, suggest segregation of the sexes as a good thing, particularly in certain areas, and a number of schools are experimenting with the idea.  

Question 39: The first to support the equality of the sexes was __________           

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During the 19th century, women in the U.S organized and participated in a large number of reform movements, including movements to reorganize the prison system, improve education, ban the sale of alcohol, and most importantly to free slaves. Some women saw similarities in the social status of women and slaves. Women 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 participate equally with men in anti-slavery 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 the conditions of others. When the Civil war ended in 1865, the 14th, and 15th, Amendments to the Constitution adopted in 1868 and 1870 granted citizenship and suffrage to blacks but not to women. Discouraged but resolved, feminists influenced more and more women to demand the right to vote. In 1869, the Wyoming Territory had yielded to demands by feminists, but eastern states resisted more stubbornly than ever before. A woman's suffrage bill had been presented to every Congress since 1878 but it continually failed to pass until 1920, when the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote.

 Question 35: According to the passage, why did women become active in politics?  

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People used to know more or less how their children would live. Now things are changing so quickly that they don’t even know what their own lives will be like in a few years’ time. What follows is not science fiction. It is how experts see the future. You are daydreaming behind the steering wheel; is it too dangerous? No! That’s no problem because you have it on automatic pilot, and with its hi–tech computers and cameras, your car “know” how to get you home safe and sound. What is for lunch? In the old days you used to stop off to buy a hamburger or a pizza. Now you use your diagnostic machine to find out which foods your body needs. If your body needs more vegetables and less fat, your food–preparation machine makes you a salad. After lunch, you go down the hall to your home office. Here you have everything you need to do your work. Thanks to your information screen and your latest generation computer, you needn’t go to the office anymore. The information screen shows an urgent message from a co-worker in Brazil. You can instantly send back a reply to him and go on to deal with other matters.

Question: Which of the following is NOT true about life in the future?          .  

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Life originated in the early seas less than a billion years after the Earth was formed. Yet another three billion years were to pass before the first plants and animals appeared on the continents. Life’s transition from the sea to the land was perhaps as much of an evolutionary challenge as was the genesis of life. What forms of life were able to make such a drastic change in lifestyle? The traditional view of the first terrestrial organisms is based on megafossils-relatively large specimens of essentially whole plants and animals. Vascular plants, related to modern seed plants and ferns, left the first comprehensive megafossil record. Because of this, it has been commonly assumed that the sequence of terrestrialization reflected the evolution of modern terrestrial ecosystems. In this view, primitive vascular plants first colonized the margins of continental waters, followed by animals that feed on the plants, and lastly by animals that preyed on the plant-eaters. Moreover, the megafossils suggest that terrestrial life appeared and diversified explosively near the boundary between the Silurian and the Devonian periods, a little more than 400 million years ago. Recently, however, paleontologists have been taking a closer look at the sediments below this Silurian-Devonian geological boundary. It turns out that some fossils can be extracted from these sediments by putting the rocks in an acid bath. The technique has uncovered new evidence form sediments that were deposited near the shores of the ancient oceans- plant microfossils and microscopic pieces of small animals. In many instances the specimens are less than one-tenth of a millimeter in diameter. Although they were entombed in the rocks for hundreds of millions of years, many of them fossils consist of the organic remains of the organism. These newly discovered fossils have not only revealed the existence of previously unknown organisms, but have also pushed back these dates for the invasion of land by multicellular organisms. Our views about the nature of the early plant and animal communities are now being revised. And with those revisions come new speculations about the first terrestrial life-forms.

Question: With which of the following conclusions would the author probably agree?  

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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: The word “they” refers to ________.           

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The advent of the Internet may be one of the most important technological developments in recent years. Never before have so many people had access to so many different sources of information. For all of the Internet’s advantages, however, people are currently becoming aware of some of its drawbacks and are looking for creative solutions. Among the current problems, which include a general lack of reliability and numerous security concerns, the most crucial is speed. First of all, the Internet has grown very quickly. In 1990, only a few academics had ever heard of the Internet. In 1996, over 50 million people used it. Every year, the number of people with access to the Internet doubles. The rapid growth has been a problem. The computer systems which run the Internet have not been able to keep up with the demand. Also, sometimes, a request for information must pass through many routing computers before the information can be obtained. A request for information made in Paris might have to go through computers in New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo in order to obtain the required information. Consequently, the service is often slow and unpredictable. Service also tends to be worse when the Internet is busiest - during the business day of the Western Hemisphere - which is also when companies need its service the most. Some people are trying to harness the power of networked computers in such a way as to avoid this problem. In 1995, a group of American universities banded together to form what has come to be known as Internet II. Internet II is a smaller, more specialized system intended for academic use. Since it is more specialized, fewer users are allowed access. Consequently, the time required to receive information has decreased. Businesses are beginning to explore a possible analogue to the Internet II. Many businesses are creating their own “Intranets”. These are systems that can only be used by the members of the same company. In theory, fewer users should translate into a faster system. Intranets are very useful for large national and international companies whose branches need to share information. Another benefit of an Intranet is an increased amount of security. Since only company employees have access to the information on the Intranet, their information is protected from competitors. While there is little doubt that the Internet will eventually be a fast and reliable service, industry and the academic community have taken their own steps toward making more practical global networks.

Question: With which of the following conclusions would the author probably 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 from 43 to 50:

There are a number of natural disasters that can strike across the globe. Two that are frequently linked to one another are earthquakes and tsunamis. Both of them can cause a great amount of devastation when they hit. However, tsunamis are the direct result of earthquakes and cannot happen without them. The Earth has three main parts. They are the crust, the mantle, and the core. The crust is the outer layer of the Earth. It is not a single piece of land. Instead, it is comprised of a number of plates. There are a few enormous plates and many smaller ones. These plates essentially rest upon the mantle, which is fluid. As a result, the plates are in constant – yet slow – motion. The plates may move away from or toward other plates. In some cases, they collide violently with the plates adjoining them. The movement of the plates causes tension in the rock. Over a long time, this tension may build up. When it is released, an earthquake happens.

Tens of thousands of earthquakes happen every year. The vast majority are so small that only scientific instruments can perceive them. Others are powerful enough that people can feel them, yet they cause little harm or damage. More powerful earthquakes, however, can cause buildings, bridges, and other structures to collapse. They may additionally injure and skill thousands of people and might even cause the land to change it appearance.

Since most of the Earth’s surface is water, numerous earthquakes happen beneath the planet’s oceans. Underwater earthquakes cause the seafloor to move. This results in the displacement of water in the ocean. When this occurs, a tsunami may form. This is a wave that forms on the surface and moves in all directions from the place where the earthquake happened. A tsunami moves extremely quickly and can travel thousands of kilometres. As it approaches land, the water near the coast gets sucked out to sea. This causes the tsunamis to increase in height. Minutes later, the tsunami arrives. A large tsunami – one more than ten meters in height – can travel far inland. As it does that, it can flood the land, destroy human settlements, and kill large numbers of people.

Question 43: Which of the following statements does paragraph 1 support?         

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                                                        ACADEMICS AREN’T THE PROBLEM

Studies about how students use their time might shed light on whether they face increased academic and financial pressures compared with earlier eras.

Based on data about how students are spending time, academic or financial pressures don’t seem to be greater now than a generation ago.

The data show that full-time students in all types of colleges study much less now than they did a generation ago - a full 10 hours a week less. Students are also receiving significantly higher grades. So it appears that academic pressures are, in fact, considerably lower than they used to be.

The time-use data don’t suggest that students feel greater financial pressures, either. When the time savings and lower opportunity costs are factored in, college appears less expensive for most students than it was in the 1960s. And though there are now full-time students working to pay while in college, they study less even when paid work choices are held constantly.

In other words, full-time students do not appear to be studying less in order to work more. They appear to be studying less and spending the extra time on leisure activities or fun. It seems hard to imagine that students feeling increased financial pressures would respond by taking more leisure.
   

Based on how students are spending their time then, it doesn’t look as though academic or financial pressures are greater now than a generation ago. The time-use data don’t speak directly to social pressures, and it may well be that these have become more intense lately.

In one recent set of data, students reported spending more than 23 hours per week either socializing with friends or playing on the computer for fun. Social activities, in person or on computer, would seem to have become the major focus of campus life. It is hard to tell what kinds of pressures would be associated with this change.

Question: Students nowadays seem to be studying less and _______.             

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 Birds that feed in flocks commonly retire together into roosts. The reasons for roosting communally are not always obvious, but there are some likely benefits. In winter especially, it is important for birds to keep warm at night and conserve precious food reserves. One way to do this is to find a sheltered roost. Solitary roosters shelter in dense vegetation or enter a cavity - horned larks dig holes in the ground and ptarmigan burrow into snow banks - but the effect of sheltering is magnified by several birds huddling together in the roosts, as wrens, swifts, brown creepers, bluebirds, and anis do. Body contact reduces the surface area exposed to the cold air, so the birds keep each other warm. Two kinglets huddling together were found to reduce their heat losses by a quarter, and three together saved a third of their heat.

 The second possible benefit of communal roosts is that they act as “information centers”. During the day, parties of birds will have spread out to forage over a very large area. When they return in the evening some will have fed well, but others may have found little to eat. Some investigators have observed that when the birds set out again next morning, those birds that did not feed well on the previous day appear to follow those that did. The behavior of common and lesser kestrels may illustrate different feeding behaviors of similar birds with different roosting habits. The common kestrel hunts vertebrate animals in a small, familiar hunting ground, whereas the very similar lesser kestrel feeds on insects over a large area. The common kestrel roosts and hunts alone, but the lesser kestrel roosts and hunts in flocks, possibly so one bird can learn from others where to find insect swarms.

 Finally, there is safety in numbers at communal roosts since there will always be a few birds awake at any given moment to give the alarm. But this increased protection is partially counteracted by the fact that mass roosts attract predators and are especially vulnerable if they are on the ground. Even those in trees can be attacked by birds of prey. The birds on the edge are at greatest risk since predators find it easier to catch small birds perching at the margins of the roost.

Question 36: What does the passage mainly discuss?         

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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: According to the passage, what does a constricted and harsh voice indicate?         

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

One day in 1924, five men who were camping in the Cascade Mountains of Washington saw a group of huge apelike creatures coming out of the woods. They hurried back to their cabin and locked themselves inside. While they were in, the creatures attacked them by throwing rocks against the walls of the cabin.After several hours, these strange hairy giants went back into the woods.

After this incident the men returned to the town and told the people of their adventure. However, only a few people accepted their story. These were the people who remembered hearing tales about footprints of an animal that walked like a human being.

The five men, however, were not the first people to have seen these creatures called Bigfoot. Long before their experience, local Native Americans were certain that a race of apelike animals had been living in the neighboring mountain for centuries. They called these creatures Sasquatch.

In 1958, workmen, who were building a road through the jungles of Northern California often found huge footprints in the earth around their camp.

Then in 1967, Roger Patterson, a man who was interested in finding Bigfoot went into the Northern California jungles with a friend. While riding, they were suddenly thrown off from their horses. Patterson saw a tall apelike animal standing not far away. He managed to shoot seven rolls of film of the hairy creature before the animal disappeared in the hushes. when Patterson's film was shown to the public, not many people believed his story. In another incident, Richard Brown, a music teacher and also an experienced hunter spotted a similar creature. He saw the animal clearly through the telescopic lens of his rifle. He said the creature looked more like a human than an animal.

Later many other people also found deep footprints in the same area. In spite of regular reports of sightings and footprints, most experts still do not believe that Bigfoot really exists.

Question: Who were the first people to have seen these apelike creatures before the five campers?         

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An air pollutant is defined as a compound added directly or indirectly by humans to the atmosphere in such quantities as to affect humans, animals, vegetation, or materials adversely. Air pollution requires a very flexible definition that permits continuous change. When the first air pollution laws were established in England in the fourteenth century, air pollutants were limited to compounds that could be seen or smelled – a far cry from the extensive list of harmful substances known today. As technology has developed and knowledge of health aspects of various chemicals has increased, the list of air pollutants has lengthened. In the future, even water vapor might be considered an air pollutant under certain conditions. Many of more important air pollutants such as sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides, are found in nature. As the Earth developed, the concentrations of these pollutants were altered by various chemical reactions; they became components in biogeochemical cycle. These serve as an air purification scheme by allowing the compounds to move from the air to the water or soil on a global basis, nature's output of these compounds dwarfs that resulting from human activities. However, human production usually occurs in a localized area, such as a city. In this localized regions, human output may be dominant and may temporarily overload the natural purification scheme of the cycle. The result is an increased concentration of noxious chemicals in the air. The concentrations at which the adverse effects appear will be greater than the concentrations that the pollutants would have in the absence of human activities. The actual concentration need not be large for a substance to be a pollutant; in fact the numerical value tells us little until we know how much of an increase this represents over the concentration that would occur naturally in the area. For example, sulfur dioxide has detectable health effects at 0.08 parts per million (ppm), which is about 400 times its natural level. Carbon monoxide, however, as a natural level of 0.1 ppm and is not usually a pollutant until its level reaches about 15 ppm.

Question: The word "these" in the second paragraph is closest in meaning to_______

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It was once believed that being overweight was healthy, but nowadays few people subscribe to this view point. While many people are fighting the battle to reduce weight, studies are being conducted concerning the appetite and how it is controlled by both emotional and biochemical factors. Some of the conclusion of these studies may give insight into how to deal with weight problems. For example, when several hundred people were asked about their eating habits in times of stress, 44 percent said they reacted to stressful situations by eating. Further investigations with both humans and animals indicated that it is not food which relieves tension but rather the act of chewing. A test in which subjects were blindfolded showed that obese people have a keener sense of taste and crave more flavor food than non-obese people. When deprived of the variety and intensity of tastes, obese people are not satisfied and consequently eat more to fulfill this need. Blood samples taken from these people after they were shown a picture of food revealed that overweight people reacted with an increase in blood insulin, a chemical associated with appetite. This did not happen with average-weight people. In another experiment, results showed that certain people have a specific, biologically induced hunger for carbohydrates. Eating carbohydrates raises the level of serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the brain. Enough serotonin produces a sense of satiation, and hunger for carbohydrates subsides. Exercise has been recommended as an important part of a weight-loss program. However, it has been found that mild exercises, such as using stairs in stead of the elevator, is better in the long run than taking on a strenuous program, such as jogging, which many people find difficult to continue over periods of time and which also increase appetite.  

Question: Which of the following exercises might be best for an overweight person to engage in daily ?         

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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 "pounds" in the second paragraph are probably ___________.       

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

 In science, a theory is a reasonable explanation of observed events that are related. A theory often involves an imaginary model that helps scientists picture the way an observed event could be produced. A good example of this is found in the kinetic molecular theory, in which gases are pictured as being made up of many small particles that are in constant motion. 

 A useful theory, in addition to explaining past observation, helps to predict events that have not as yet been observed. After a theory has been publicized, scientists design experiments to test the theory. If observations confirm the scientists' predictions, the theory is supported. If observations do not confirm the predictions, the scientists must search further. There may be a fault in the experiment, or the theory may have to be revised or rejected.

 Science involves imagination and creative thinking as well as collecting information and performing experiments. Facts by themselves are not science. As the mathematician Jules Henri Poincare said: "Science is built with facts just as a house is built with bricks, but a collection of facts cannot be called science any more than a pile of bricks can be called a house." 

 Most scientists start an investigation by finding out what other scientists have learned about a particular problem. After known facts have been gathered, the scientist comes to the part of the investigation that requires considerable imagination. Possible solutions to the problem are formulated. These possible solutions are called hypotheses. In a way, any hypothesis is a leap into the unknown. It extends the scientist's thinking beyond the known facts. The scientist plans experiments, performs calculations, and makes observations to test hypotheses. For without hypotheses, further investigation lacks purpose and direction. When hypotheses are confirmed, they are incorporated into theories. 

Question: In the fourth paragraph, the author implies that imagination is most important to scientists when they _______.         

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:

Dodder is an unusual and unwanted plant that attacks other plants. Except for its flowers, the plant looks like spaghetti noodles. Its almost leafless, thread–like stems hang down atop other plants that dodder needs to stay alive. Dodder does not produce its own food. Instead, it steals it from other plants. It feeds by sucking juices from the plant it is wrapped around, often making its host very weak or even killing it. Dodder can find other plants by their smell. When a dodder seedling starts growing, it follows the scent of plants it prefers, like tomato plants, potato plants, or other farm crops. Unlike most plants that usually grow in the direction of light or warmth, a dodder plant will grow in the direction of, for example, tomato odor––if a tomato happens to be growing nearby. However, a young dodder plant must find a host plant quickly. If it cannot catch a whiff of a potential host within a few days, it will dry up and disappear—even if there is plenty of water around. Once it finds a host, the young dodder plant will attach itself to it and start growing faster. At that point, the dodder plant will drop its root. Dodder is thus a difficult weed to manage and a real headache for farmers. When it does get out of hand, dodder can greatly reduce a farmer’s harvest or even destroy crops completely. Before sowing their produce, farmers in warm parts of the world often check to make sure no unwanted dodder seeds have intermingled with their crop seeds. This is a good way to stop dodder plants from sneaking their way into a crop field.  

Question: The word it refers to __________ .         

Read the following andmark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 22 to 29:

 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 "pounds" in the second paragraph are 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:

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 28: What is the most common way for latchkey children to deal with fears?         

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 "pounds" in the second paragraph are probably ___________.       

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

“Blue Moon” is a term that is used to describe the phenomenon of a second full moon occurring in one month. How could two full moons possibly occur in a single month? It is not nature’s fault; the natural phrases of the moon do not perfectly match up with the Roman calendar. Although still used today, this calendar was devised by Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar over 2000 years ago. While the calendar works well, the method that they used does not match the lunar cycle exactly. Thus, occasionally the moon will go through its “full” phrase twice before the month changes. A “blue moon” is an uncommon event. And it rare occurrence of a eventually led to the usage of the phrase “once in a blue moon”. This phrase was commonly used to indicate an event that could never happen. Over time, the meaning of the phrase changed from something that seldom happens. Today, this phrase is used to indicate extremely rare events, the absurd, or things that never happen.

Question: The word “absurd” in the passage is closet 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:

During the 19th century, women in the U.S organized and participated in a large number of reform movements, including movements to reorganize the prison system, improve education, ban the sale of alcohol, and most importantly to free slaves. Some women saw similarities in the social status of women and slaves. Women 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 participate equally with men in anti-slavery 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 the conditions of others. When the Civil war ended in 1865, the 14th, and 15th, Amendments to the Constitution adopted in 1868 and 1870 granted citizenship and suffrage to blacks but not to women. Discouraged but resolved, feminists influenced more and more women to demand the right to vote. In 1869, the Wyoming Territory had yielded to demands by feminists, but eastern states resisted more stubbornly than ever before. A woman's suffrage bill had been presented to every Congress since 1878 but it continually failed to pass until 1920, when the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote.

Question 39: What is the topic of the passage?         

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Most forms of property are concrete and tangible, such as houses, cars, furniture or anything else that is included in one’s possessions. Other forms of property can be intangible and copyright deals with intangible forms of property. Copyright is a legal protection extended to authors of creative works, for example, books, magazine articles, maps, films, plays, television shows, software, paintings, photographs, music, choreography in dance and all other forms of intellectual or artistic property. Although the purpose of artistic property is usually public use and enjoyment, copyright establishes the ownership of the creator. When a person buys a copyrighted magazine, it belongs to this individual as a tangible object. However, the authors of the magazine articles own the research and the writing that went into creating the articles. The right to make and sell or give away copies of books or articles belongs to the authors, publishers, or other individuals or organizations that hold the copyright. To copy an entire book or a part of it, permission must be received from the copyright owner, who will most likely expect to be paid. Copyright law distinguishes between different types of intellectual property. Music may be played by anyone after it is published. However, if it is performed for profit, the performers need to pay a fee, called a royalty. A similar principle applies to performances of songs and plays. On the other hand, names, ideas, and book titles are accepted. Ideas do not become copyrighted property until they are published in a book, a painting or a musical work. Almost all artistic work created before the 20th century is not copyrighted because it was created before the copyright law was passed. The two common ways of infringing upon the copyright are plagiarism and piracy. Plagiarizing the work of another person means passing it off as one’s own. The word plagiarism is derived from the Latin plagiarus, which means “abductor”. Piracy may be an act of one person, but, in many cases, it is a joint effort of several people who reproduce copyrighted material and sell it for profit without paying royalties to the creator. Technological innovations have made piracy easy and anyone can duplicate a motion picture on videotape, a computer program, or a book. Video cassette recorders can be used by practically anyone to copy movies and television programs, and copying software has become almost as easy as copying a book. Large companies zealously monitor their copyrights for slogans, advertisements, and brand names, protected by a trademark.

Question: The purpose of copyright law is most comparable with the purpose of which of the following?         

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It is commonly believed 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 difference between schooling and education implied by this remark is important. Education is much more open-ended and all-inclusive than schooling. Education knows no limits. It can take place anywhere, whether in the shower or on the job, whether in the kitchen or on a tractor. It includes both the formal learning that takes place in school and the whole universe of informal learning. The agent (doer) of education can vary from respected grandparents to the people arguing about politics on the radio, from a child to a famous 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 receive 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 a necessary 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 about the same time, take the assigned seats, are taught by an adult, use similar textbooks, do homework, take exams, and so on. The pieces of reality that are to be learned, whether they are the alphabet or an understanding of the workings of governments, have been limited by the subjects 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 society or what the newest filmmakers are experimenting with. There are clear and undoubted conditions surrounding the formalized process of schooling.

Question 25: The word "they" in the last paragraph refers 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:

The penny press, which emerged in the United States during the 1830's, was a powerful agent of mass communication. These newspapers were little dailies, generally four pages in length, written for the mass taste. They differed from the staid, formal presentation of the conservative press, with its emphasis on political and literary topics. The new papers were brief and cheap, emphasizing sensational reports of police courts and juicy scandals as well as human interest stories. Twentieth-century journalism was already foreshadowed in the penny press of the 1830's. The New York Sun, founded in 1833, was the first successful penny paper, and it was followed two years later by the New York Herald, published by James Gordon Bennett. Not long after, Horace Greeley issued the New York Tribune, which was destined to become the most influential paper in America. Greeley gave space to the issues that deeply touched the American people before the Civil War-abolitionism, temperance, free homesteads, Utopian cooperative settlements, and the problems of labor. The weekly edition of the Tribune, with 100,000 subscribers, had a remarkable influence in rural areas, especially in Western communities. Americans were reputed to be the most avid readers of periodicals in the world. An English observer enviously calculated that, in 1829, the number of newspapers circulated in Great Britain was enough to reach only one out of every thirty-six inhabitants weekly; Pennsylvania in that same year had a newspaper circulation which reached one out of every four inhabitants weekly. Statistics seemed to justify the common belief that Americans were devoted to periodicals. Newspapers in the United States increased from 1,200 in 1833 to 3,000 by the early 1860's, on the eve of the Civil War. This far exceeded the number and circulation of newspapers in England and France.

Question 36: What does the author mean by the statement “Twentieth-century journalism was foreshadowed by the penny press of the 1930’s” in paragraph 1?         

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

How can a plant kill?

People kill. Animals kill. Animals and people kill for food, or they kill their enemies. People and animals can move around and find something to kill. They can run away from an enemy. They can kill it if it is necessary.

Many kinds of animals eat plants. The plants cannot run away from their enemies. Some plants make poison. If an animal eats part of the plant, it gets sick or dies. Animals learn to stay away from these plants. There are many kinds of plants that make poison. Most of them grow in the desert or in the tropics.

Today farmers use many kinds of poison on their farms. Most of these poisons come from petroleum, but petroleum is expensive. Scientists collect poisonous plants and study them. Maybe farmers can use cheap poison from plants instead of expensive poison from petroleum.

Question: Poison from plants is………….than poison from petroleum.         

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 many people who live in cities, parks are an important part of the landscape. They provide a place for people to relax and play sports, as well as a refuge from the often harsh environment of a city. What people often overlook is that parks also provide considerable environmental benefits.

 One benefit of parks is that plants absorb carbon dioxide - a key pollutant - and emit oxygen, which humans need to breathe. According to one study, an acre of trees can absorb the same amount of carbon dioxide that a typical car emits in 11,000 miles of driving. Parks also make cities cooler. Scientists have long noted what is called the Urban Heat Island Effect: building materials such as metal, concrete, and asphalt absorb much more of the sun’s heat and release it much more quickly than organic surfaces like trees and grass. Because city landscapes contain so much of these building materials, cities are usually warmer than surrounding rural areas. Parks and other green spaces help to mitigate the Urban Heat Island Effect.

 Unfortunately, many cities cannot easily create more parks because most land is already being used for buildings, roads, parking lots, and other essential parts of the urban environment. However, cities could benefit from many of the positive effects of parks by encouraging citizens to create another type of green space: rooftop gardens. While most people would not think of starting a garden on their roof, human beings have been planting gardens on rooftops for thousands of years. Some rooftop gardens are very complex and require complicated engineering, but others are simple container gardens that anyone can create with the investment of a few hundred dollars and a few hours of work. 

 Rooftop gardens provide many of the same benefits as other urban park and garden spaces, but without taking up the much - needed land. Like parks, rooftop gardens help to replace carbon dioxide in the air with nourishing oxygen. They also help to lessen the Urban Heat Island Effect, which can save people money. In the summer, rooftop gardens prevent buildings from absorbing heat from the sun, which can significantly reduce cooling bills. In the winter, gardens help hold in the heat that materials like brick and concrete radiate so quickly, leading to savings on heating bills. Rooftop vegetable and herb gardens can also provide fresh food for city dwellers, saving them money and making their diets healthier. Rooftop gardens are not only something everyone can enjoy, they are also a smart environmental investment.

Question 36: Based on its use in paragraph 2, it can be inferred that mitigate belongs to which of the following word groups?     

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 44: In the passage, “that” refers 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 that follow.

In the primary school, a child is in a comparatively simple setting and most of the time forms and relationships with one familiar teacher. On entering secondary school, a new world opens up and frequently it is a much more difficult world. The pupil soon learns to be less free in the way he speaks to teachers and even to his fellow pupils. He begins to lose radually the free and easy ways of the primary school, for he senses the need for a more cautious approach in the secondary school where there are older pupils. Secondary staff and pupils suffer from the pressures of academic work and seem to have less time to stop and talk. Teachers with specialist roles may see hundreds of children in a week, and a pupil may be able to form relationships with very few of the staff. He has to decide which adults are approachable; good schools will make clear to every young person from the first year what guidance and personal help is available - but whether the reality of life in the institution actually encourages requests for help is another matter. Adults often forget what a confusing picture school can offer to a child. He sees a great deal of movement, a great number of people - often rather frightening-looking people - and realizes that an increasing number of choices and decisions have to be made. As he progresses through the school the confusion may become less but the choices and decisions required will increase. The school will rightly expect the pupil to take the first steps to obtain the help he needs, for this is the pattern of adult of life for which he has to be prepared but all the time the opportunities for personal and group advice must be presented in a way which makes them easy to understand and within easy reach of pupils. 

Question: Who do the pupils make relationship with?         

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 many people who live in cities, parks are an important part of the landscape. They provide a place for people to relax and play sports, as well as a refuge from the often harsh environment of a city. What people often overlook is that parks also provide considerable environmental benefits.

 One benefit of parks is that plants absorb carbon dioxide - a key pollutant - and emit oxygen, which humans need to breathe. According to one study, an acre of trees can absorb the same amount of carbon dioxide that a typical car emits in 11,000 miles of driving. Parks also make cities cooler. Scientists have long noted what is called the Urban Heat Island Effect: building materials such as metal, concrete, and asphalt absorb much more of the sun’s heat and release it much more quickly than organic surfaces like trees and grass. Because city landscapes contain so much of these building materials, cities are usually warmer than surrounding rural areas. Parks and other green spaces help to mitigate the Urban Heat Island Effect.

 Unfortunately, many cities cannot easily create more parks because most land is already being used for buildings, roads, parking lots, and other essential parts of the urban environment. However, cities could benefit from many of the positive effects of parks by encouraging citizens to create another type of green space: rooftop gardens. While most people would not think of starting a garden on their roof, human beings have been planting gardens on rooftops for thousands of years. Some rooftop gardens are very complex and require complicated engineering, but others are simple container gardens that anyone can create with the investment of a few hundred dollars and a few hours of work. 

 Rooftop gardens provide many of the same benefits as other urban park and garden spaces, but without taking up the much - needed land. Like parks, rooftop gardens help to replace carbon dioxide in the air with nourishing oxygen. They also help to lessen the Urban Heat Island Effect, which can save people money. In the summer, rooftop gardens prevent buildings from absorbing heat from the sun, which can significantly reduce cooling bills. In the winter, gardens help hold in the heat that materials like brick and concrete radiate so quickly, leading to savings on heating bills. Rooftop vegetable and herb gardens can also provide fresh food for city dwellers, saving them money and making their diets healthier. Rooftop gardens are not only something everyone can enjoy, they are also a smart environmental investment.

Question 41: The author’s tone in the passage is best described 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:

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 8: The phrase “those forms” refers to all of the following EXCEPT _______     

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

“Blue Moon” is a term that is used to describe the phenomenon of a second full moon occurring in one month. How could two full moons possibly occur in a single month? It is not nature’s fault; the natural phrases of the moon do not perfectly match up with the Roman calendar. Although still used today, this calendar was devised by Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar over 2000 years ago. While the calendar works well, the method that they used does not match the lunar cycle exactly. Thus, occasionally the moon will go through its “full” phrase twice before the month changes. A “blue moon” is an uncommon event. And it rare occurrence of a eventually led to the usage of the phrase “once in a blue moon”. This phrase was commonly used to indicate an event that could never happen. Over time, the meaning of the phrase changed from something that seldom happens. Today, this phrase is used to indicate extremely rare events, the absurd, or things that never happen.

Question: Why doesn’t our calendar match the lunar cycle exactly?         

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

There is a strange paradox to the success of the Asian education model. On the one hand, class sizes are huge by Western standards with between 30 and 40 students per class, in countries like Japan and Korea. On the other hand, school children in developed Asian economies rank among the highest in the world for academic achievement in the areas of science and mathematics, especially on standardised tests. Meanwhile, British secondary school students fail to shine in conditions most educational researchers would say are far more likely to help them succeed. Classroom management seems to be easier in places like Korea, and perhaps lessons are more effective as a direct consequence. After all, we are only too aware of the decline in discipline standards in our own school: belligerent and disrespectful students appear to be the norm these days. Teachers in Britain seem powerless to control what happens anymore. Surely this situation cannot create a very effective learning environment, so perhaps the number of students is far less relevant than is the manner in which they conduct themselves. But there are other factors to consider, too. There is the home environment. The traditional family unit still remains relatively intact in Korea. Few children come from broken homes, so there is a sense of security, safety and trust both at home and at school. In Britain meanwhile, one in every two marriages fails and divorce rates are sky high. Perhaps children struggle to cope with unstable family conditions and their only way to express their frustration is by misbehaving at school. But while the Japanese, Korean and Asian models generally do seem to produce excellent results, the statistics don’t tell the whole truth. You see, behind those great maths and science scores, there is a quite remarkable work ethic. Asian students tend to put their education before literally everything else. They do very few extracurricular activities and devote far more time to their studies than their British peers. There has been a lot of attention and praise given to these Asian models and their “impressive” statistics of late. And without question, some of this praise is justified, but it seems to be a case of two extremes in operation here. At one end, there is the discipline and unbelievably hard work ethic of the Asian students – success in education before all else. At the other end, British students at times appear careless and extremely undisciplined by comparison, but at least they do have the free time to enjoy their youth and explore their interests. Is either system better outright? Or is it perhaps about time we stopped comparing and started trying to combine the best bits of both, so that we can finally offer our students a balanced, worthwhile education?   

Question: British secondary school students_______.         

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:

Simply being bilingual doesn’t qualify someone to interpret. Interpreting is not only a mechanical process of converting one sentence in language A into the same sentence in language B. Rather, it’s a complex art in which thoughts and idioms that have no obvious counterparts from tongue to tongue or words that have several meanings must be quickly transformed in such a way that the message is clearly and accurately expressed to the listener.         At one international conference, an American speaker said, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sows ear”, which meant nothing to the Spanish audience. The interpretation was, “A monkey in a silk dress is still a monkey” -an idiom the Spanish understood and that expressed the same idea. There are 2 kinds of interpreters, simultaneous and consecutive. The former, sitting in a separated booth, usually at a large multilingual conference, speaks to listeners wearing headphones, interpreting what a foreign language speaker says actually a sentence behind. Consecutive interpreters are the ones most international negotiations use. They are employed for smaller meetings without sound booths and headphones. Consecutive interpretation also requires two-person teams. A foreign speaker says his piece while the interpreter, using a special shorthand, takes notes and during a pause, tells the client what was said.

Question 50: What is a difference mentioned between a simultaneous interpreter and a consecutive interpreter?         

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

One day in 1924, five men who were camping in the Cascade Mountains of Washington saw a group of huge apelike creatures coming out of the woods. They hurried back to their cabin and locked themselves inside. While they were in, the creatures attacked them by throwing rocks against the walls of the cabin.After several hours, these strange hairy giants went back into the woods.

After this incident the men returned to the town and told the people of their adventure. However, only a few people accepted their story. These were the people who remembered hearing tales about footprints of an animal that walked like a human being.

The five men, however, were not the first people to have seen these creatures called Bigfoot. Long before their experience, local Native Americans were certain that a race of apelike animals had been living in the neighboring mountain for centuries. They called these creatures Sasquatch.

In 1958, workmen, who were building a road through the jungles of Northern California often found huge footprints in the earth around their camp.

Then in 1967, Roger Patterson, a man who was interested in finding Bigfoot went into the Northern California jungles with a friend. While riding, they were suddenly thrown off from their horses. Patterson saw a tall apelike animal standing not far away. He managed to shoot seven rolls of film of the hairy creature before the animal disappeared in the hushes. when Patterson's film was shown to the public, not many people believed his story. In another incident, Richard Brown, a music teacher and also an experienced hunter spotted a similar creature. He saw the animal clearly through the telescopic lens of his rifle. He said the creature looked more like a human than an animal.

Later many other people also found deep footprints in the same area. In spite of regular reports of sightings and footprints, most experts still do not believe that Bigfoot really exists.

Question: Did the town people believe the story of the five men about their meeting with Bigfoot?         

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

“Blue Moon” is a term that is used to describe the phenomenon of a second full moon occurring in one month. How could two full moons possibly occur in a single month? It is not nature’s fault; the natural phrases of the moon do not perfectly match up with the Roman calendar. Although still used today, this calendar was devised by Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar over 2000 years ago. While the calendar works well, the method that they used does not match the lunar cycle exactly. Thus, occasionally the moon will go through its “full” phrase twice before the month changes. A “blue moon” is an uncommon event. And it rare occurrence of a eventually led to the usage of the phrase “once in a blue moon”. This phrase was commonly used to indicate an event that could never happen. Over time, the meaning of the phrase changed from something that seldom happens. Today, this phrase is used to indicate extremely rare events, the absurd, or things that never happen.

Question: Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?         

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:

 Although speech is the most advanced form of communication, there are many ways of communicating without using speech. Signals, signs, symbols, and gestures may be found in every known culture. The basic function of signal is to impinge upon the environment in such a way that it attracts attention, as, for example, the dots and dashes of a telegraph circuit. Coded to refer to speech, the potential for communication is very great. Less adaptable to the codification of words, signs also contain meaning in and of themselves. A stop sign or a barber pole conveys meaning quickly and conveniently.  Symbols are more difficult to describe than either signals or signs because of their intricate relationship with the receiver’s cultural perceptions. In some cultures, applauding in a theater provides performers with an auditory symbol of approval. Gestures such as waving and handshaking also communicate certain cultural messages. Although signals, signs, symbols, and gestures are very useful, they do have a major disadvantage in communication. They usually do not allow ideas to be shared without the sender being directly adjacent to the receiver. Without an exchange of ideas, interaction comes to a halt. As a result, means of communication intended to be used for long distances and extended periods must be based upon speech. To radio, television, and the telephone, one must add fax, paging systems, electronic mail, and the Internet, and no one doubts but that there are more means of communication on the horizon.

Question 36: Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?