Choose the best answer:
Who is going to __________ your children when you’re at work?

 

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 :
Do you quickly pull up any piece of information you need by looking (1)___________ on the Internet? If you do, you might be unfortunately making yourself less intelligent. Instead of having to understand basic bits of information, you have come to (2)___________ on the Internet for all of the things that you want to know. While this may be an easy solution and great convenience to some problems in everyday life, it can never be a solution when a person finds himself or herself in a situation where there is no (3)__________ to the Internet. In the past, one thing that was considered a very important part of (4)__________ either in a car or on foot was the ability to read a map. Today, people instead pull up maps on their smartphones and, using the GPS technology that the phones offer, instantly know where they are on the map. Then, they can simply (5)__________ where they want to go, and they will be instructed how to get there. They can do this in a city, and they can also often do this when they go off onto trails in forests.

 Choose the best answer:
There is a strange symbol ..................... the screen.

Choose the best answer:
The preparations_______by the time the guests_______.

Rewrite sentences without changing the meaning
We were having dinner when suddenly the phone rang.

Choose the best answer:
Teenagers often have their ________ who they admire very much.

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the undelined part that needs correction in each of the following questions:
Early peoples had no need of engineering works to supply their water. Hunters and nomads camped near natural sources of fresh water, and populations were so sparse that pollution of the water supply was not a serious problem. After community life developed and agricultural villages became urban centres, the problem of supplying water became important for inhabitants of a city, as well as for irrigation of the farms surrounding the city. Irrigation works were known in prehistoric times, and before 2000 BC the rulers of Babylonia and Egypt constructed systems of dams and canals to impound the flood waters of the Euphrates and Nile rivers, controlling floods and providing irrigation water throughout the dry season. Such irrigation canals also supplied water for domestic purposes. The first people to consider the sanitation of their water supply were the ancient Romans, who constructed a vast system of aqueducts to bring the clean waters of the Apennine Mountains into the city and built basins and filters along these mains to ensure the
clarity of the water. The construction of such extensive water-supply systems declined when the Roman Empire disintegrated, and for several centuries local springs and wells formed the main source of domestic and industrial water. The invention of the force pump in England in the middle of the 16th century greatly extended the possibilities of development of water-supply systems. In London, the first pumping waterworks was completed in 1562; it pumped river water to a reservoir about 37 m above the level of the River Thames and from the reservoir the water was distributed by gravity, through lead pipes, to buildings in the vicinity. Increased per-capita demand has coincided with water shortages in many countries. Southeast England, for example, receives only 14 per cent of Britain's rainfall, has 30 per cent of its population, and has experienced declining winter rainfall since the 1980s.
In recent years a great deal of interest has been shown in the conversion of seawater to fresh water to provide drinking water for very dry areas, such as the Middle East. Several different processes, including distillation, electrodialysis, reverse osmosis, and direct-freeze evaporation, have been developed for this purpose. Some of these processes have been used in large facilities in the United States. Although these processes are successful, the cost of treating seawater is much higher than that for treating fresh water.

The word “mains” in paragraph 1 could best be replaced by “     ”.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Cholera, a highly infectious disease, has resulted in millions of deaths time after time over centuries. It is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholera, first isolated by Robert Koch in 1883. The organism enters the body through the digestive tract when contaminated food or water is ingested.The bacteria multiply in the digestive tract and establish infection. As they die, they release a potent toxin that leads to severe diarrhea and vomiting. This results in extreme dehydration, muscle cramps, kidney failure, collapse, and sometimes death. If the disease is treated promptly, death is less likely. In many countries, a common source of the organism is raw or poorly cooked seafood taken from contaminated waters. The disease is especially prevalent after a natural disaster or other destruction that results in a lack of fresh water. Sewer systems fail, and waste travels into rivers or streams; piped water is not available so people must take their drinking and cooking water from rivers or streams. Because people frequently develop communities along waterways, the disease can be spread easily from one community to the next community downstream, resulting in serious epidemics
2. According to the passage, cholera is caused by: 

______. We got there far too early.

(377)_________

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
The custom of paying a bride price before marriage is still a well-established part of many African cultures. In paying a bride price, the family of the groom must provide payment to the family of the bride before the marriage is allowed. The bride price can vary greatly from culture to culture in Africa. In the Zulu and Swazi tribes of southern Africa, the bride price often takes the form of cattle. In Western African, kola nuts, shells, and other goods are often used for the payment of the bride price. The actual payment of money sometimes takes place, but the payment of goods is more frequent. The amount of paid in a bride price can also vary. In modern times, the bride price is occasionally quite small and its value is mainly symbolic. However, the bride price can still be quite high, especially among prominent or highly traditional families.There are a number of justifications used to explain the payment of bride price. The first is that the bride price represents an acknowledgement of the expense the bride's family has gone in order to raise her and bring her up as a suitable bride for the groom. It also represents payment for the loss of a family member, since the bride will officially become a member of her husband's family and will leave her own. On a deeper level the bride price represents payment for the fact that the bride will bring children into the family of the groom, thereby increasing the wealth of the family. This concept is reinforced by the fact that the bride price must often be returned if the bride fails to bear children.The payment of the bride price has quite a number of effects on African society. First, the payment of bride price acts to increase the stability of African family structures. Sons are dependent on their fathers and older relatives to help them pay the bride price of their wives, and this generally leads to greater levels of obedience and respect. The negotiations between the two families concerning the bride price allow the parents and other family members to meet and get to know one another before the marriage. Finally, since the bride price must often be repaid in case of divorce, the bride's family often works to make sure that any marital problems are solved quickly. Bride prices also work as a system of wealth distribution in African cultures. Wealthier families can afford to support the marriage of their son, and thus their wealth is transferred to other families.Not all of the effects of bride price are so positive, however. One major disadvantage to the system of bride price is that women are often married to men much older than themselves. In many African cultures, the typical age for marriage amongst women is still quite young, lower than in many cases. Yet few men at this age would have the ability to raise the bride price to marry. Thus there is sometimes a significant age gap between husbands and wives. This cuts short the education of many young women. In addition, the husband, being far older, may die whilst the wife is still relatively young, leaving her with the burden of raising the children alone.
7. According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE?

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 human criterion for perfect vision is 20/20 for reading the standard lines on a Snellen eye chart without a hitch. The score is determined by how well you read lines of letters of different sizes from 20 feet away. But being able to read the bottom line on the eye chart does not approximate perfection as far as other species are concerned. Most birds would consider us very visually handicapped. The hawk, for instance, has such sharp eyes that it can spot a dime on the sidewalk while perched on top of the Empire State Building.
It can make fine visual distinctions because it is blessed with one million cones per square millimeter in its retina. And in water, humans are farsighted, while the kingfisher, swooping down to spear fish, can see well in both the air and water because it is endowed with two foveae - areas of the eye, consisting mostly of cones, that provide visual distinctions. One fovea permits the bird, while in the air, to scan the water below with one eye at a time. This is called monocular vision. Once it hits the water, the other fovea joins in, allowing the kingfisher to focus both eyes, like binoculars, on its prey at the same time.
A frog’s vision is distinguished by its ability to perceive things as a constant motion picture. Known as “bug detectors”, a highly developed set of cells in a frog’s eyes responds mainly to moving objects. So, it is said that a frog sitting in a field of dead bugs wouldn’t see them as food and would starve. The bee has a “compound” eye, which is used for navigation. It has 15,000 facets that divide what it sees into a pattern of dots, or mosaic. With this kind of vision, the bee sees the sun only as a single dot, a constant point of reference. Thus, the eye is a superb navigational instrument that constantly measures the angle of its line of flight in relation to the sun. A bee’s eye also gauges flight speed. And if that is not enough to leave our 20/20 “perfect vision” paling into insignificance, the bee is capable of seeing something we can’t - ultraviolet light.
Thus, what humans consider to be “perfect vision” is in fact rather limited when we look at other species. However, there is still much to be said for the human eye. Of all the mammals, only humans and some primates can enjoy the pleasures of color vision.

According to the passage, why might birds and animals consider humans very visually handicapped?

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
Flying Drones into Danger Zones
A plane is sent deep into the enemy territory with a deadly mission. It is assigned to eliminate several key targets with a precision bombing campaign. This mission won’t be easy, however, as to be successful, the plane will have to avoid enemy rockets and tank fire. There will be no risk to the life of the “pilot” of the plane because he will not be able to aboard the vessel. Instead, he will be thousands of miles away inside a control tower, as he is operating a drone. Drones, which are also called UVAs or unmanned aerial vehicles, marked a major step forward in technology. Inventors have been working on them since the early 1900s. Although some devices were designed back then, they weren’t able to do much more than a standard model airplane. In fact, it was not until a US plane was shot down in 1959 during the Cold War that the US military really got serious about drones. The aim was to save pilots’ lives while flying over hazardous territories. Drones usually fall into two categories. The first type of drones relies on human control from a remote location. The second type of drones is pre­programmed with computer instructions, and it then completes its mission operating autonomously. In addition to protecting pilots’ lives, drones also have several other advantages. They can stay in the air for longer periods of time because there is no concern for eating, sleeping, or rest breaks that pilots typically require. Drones can also be produced cheaper since manufacturers don’t need to value safety precautions as they would for aircraft flown by humans. Despite their usefulness, military drones have been the cause of great criticism over the past decade. There have been cases of British and American drones missing their targets and killing innocent civilians instead. The Brookings Institution released a statistic that for every military leader who is killed by a drone strike, ten civilians die. Some suggest that if human pilots were flying these planes, they wouldn’t have made these errors. Drones don’t always have targets that they must eliminate. The military also employs special surveillance drones that use long-range cameras to gather information about buildings, enemy soldier formations, and other vital information from the ground. In the end, whether people are for or against the use of drones, it appears that they are certain here to stay.
6. Why are some people against drones?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
How men first learnt to invent words is unknown; in other words, the origin of language is a (1)………. . All we really know is that men, unlike animals, somehow invented certain sounds to express thoughts and feelings, actions and things so that they could communicate with each other; and that later they agreed (2)…….. certain signs, called letters, which could be combined to represent those sounds, and which could be written down. These sounds, (3)……… spoken or written in letters, are called words. Great writers are those who not only have great thoughts but also express these thoughts in words that appeal powerfully to our minds and emotions. This charming and telling use of words is what we call literacy type. Above all, the real poet is a master of words. He can (4) ……..his meanings in words which sing like music, and which by their position and association can move men to tears. We should, therefore, learn to choose our words carefully, (5)……… they will make our speech silly and vulgar

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
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 corporate world, they are finding obstacles. Women are still excluded from most executive suites. Charlotte Taylor, a management consultant, has 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 business 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 challenge, there are likely to be many more Sandra Kurtzigs in the years ahead.
5. According to the passage, Charlotte Taylor believes that women in 1970s .

Choose the best answer:
Team sports are sometimes called______ sports.

Marketing your business can be confusing. Newspapers and magazines are ---135--- useful venues for advertising. ---136---, social media platforms have become even more critical marketing outlets. Kate Wei Communications utilizes both traditional outlets and the latest communication platforms. ---137---. In addition to exceptional print services, Kate Wei Communications has the expertise to help you---138--- your online presence. Why wait? Choose our award-winning firm to strengthen your company's image today!

136..................

Choose the best answer:
Smith had a lucky escape. He ___________.

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
Will Shortz: Puzzle Maker.

When you ask a child what they would like to be when they grow up, common responses might include firefighter, pilot, doctor, or athlete. But those jobs don’t capture the attention of all kids. Take Will Shortz, for example. In eighth grade, at the age of 14, Shortz had to write an essay about what he wanted to do with his life. He wrote about his desire to become a puzzle maker – someone who creates games and puzzles, such as sudoku or crossword puzzles. That same year, he sold his first puzzle to the magazine Venture. By the age of 16, Shortz was regularly contributing puzzles to magazines. In college, Shortz found that there was no traditional way to study puzzles or become a puzzle maker. There were no classes offered on puzzles. Fortunately, after becoming bored with his economics studies, Shortz learned that his university offered a special programme that allowed students to suggest and create unique fields of study. After creating and completing two courses on word and math puzzles, Shortz switched his major to enigmatology – the study of puzzles. Shortz and his professors then created new classes that explored all aspects of puzzle-making. He studied the history, construction, and psychology of puzzles, mostly on his own. Because there were no professors of enigmatology, Shortz realized that he probably was the only student at his university to know more about his field than any of his professors. He did well in school, but upon graduating, Shortz did not know how to get a job creating puzzles. For summer work, he joined the magazine Penny Press, where he realized that he could find work as a puzzle editor. Shortz then found a job creating and editing puzzles for Games magazine. This seemed like a dream job because he could create new kinds of puzzles and be surrounded by great puzzle makers. After 15 years at Games, Shortz accepted a position as the editor of The New York Times’ crossword puzzle. When he first joined, the newspaper’s crossword puzzle was seen as very difficult, and few readers could complete it. Shortz made fundamental changes, such as including everyday language in the clues and answers so that many more people could enjoy it. Today, he credited with making the crossword appealing to a wider audience. Some of Shortz’s most famous puzzles have related to the news for that day, such as the name of the winning president on Election Day, and a love-themed puzzle on Valentine’s Day.
5. Why is Penny Press mentioned in the fourth paragraph?

Choose the best answer:
Women/ be/ hard-working/ than/ men/ although/ they/ be/ physically weaker.

____ players are not allowed to interfere with the opponent’s movements unless the player is holding the ball. 

(407)_______

Choose the best answer:
The hotel/ must/ near/ rainforest/ because/ hotel/ offer/ guided tours.