Ambient divers are, unlike divers who go underwater in submersible vehicles of pressure resistant suits, exposed to the pressure and temperature of the surrounding ambient water. Of all types of diving, the oldest and simplest is free diving. Free divers may use no equipment at all, but most use a face mask, foot fins, and a snorkel. Under the surface, free divers must hold their breath. Most free divers can only descend 30 to 40 feet, but some skilled divers can go as deep as 100 feet.
Scuba diving provides greater range than free diving. The word scuba stands for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. Scuba divers wear metal tanks with compressed air or other breathing gases. When using open-circuit equipment, a scuba diver simply breathes air form the tank through a hose and releases the exhaled air into the water. A closed-circuit breathing device, also called a rebreather, filters out carbon dioxide and other harmful gases and automatically adds oxygen. This enables the diver to breathe the same air over and over. In surface-supplied diving, divers wear helmets and waterproof canvas suits. Today, sophiticated plastic helmets have replaced the heavy copper helmets used in the past.These divers get their air from a hose connected to compressors on a boat. Surface-supplied divers can go deeper than any other type of ambient diver.
When using closed-circuit devices, divers .............
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Lời giải:
Báo saiKhi sử dụng thiết bị lặn, thợ lặn:
A thở ra không khí trong nước
B nín thở
C hít thở nhiều lần
D nhận không khí từ bề mặt
Câu hỏi liên quan
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MOBILE PHONES: ARE THEY ABOUT TO TRANSFORM OUR LIVES?
We love them so much that some of us sleep with them under the pillow, yet we are increasingly concerned that we cannot escape their electronic reach. We use them to convey our most intimate secrets, yet we worry that they are a threat to our privacy. We rely on them more than the Internet to cope with modern life, yet many of us don’t believe advertisements saying we need more advanced services. Sweeping aside the doubts that many people feel about the benefits of new third generation phones and fears over the health effects of phone masts, a recent report claims that the long-term effects of new mobile technologies will be entirely positive so long as the public can be convinced to make use of them. Research about users of mobile phones reveals that the mobile has already moved beyond being a mere practical communications tool to become the backbone of modern social life, from love affairs to friendship to work.
The close relationship between user and phone is most pronounced among teenagers, the report says, who regard their mobiles as an expression of their identity. This is partly because mobiles are seen as being beyond the control of parents. But the researchers suggest that another reason may be that mobiles, especially text messaging, were seen as a way of overcoming shyness. The impact of phones, however, has been local rather than global, supporting existing friendship and networks, rather than opening users to a new broader community. Even the language of texting in one area can be incomprehensible to anybody from another area.
Among the most important benefits of using mobile phones, the report claims, will be a vastly improved mobile infrastructure, providing gains throughout the economy, and the provision of a more sophisticated location-based services for users. The report calls on government to put more effort into the delivery of services by mobile phone, with suggestion including public transport and traffic information and doctors’ text messages to remind patients of appointments. There are many possibilities. At a recent trade fair in Sweden, a mobile navigation product was launched. When the user enters a destination, a route is automatically downloaded to their mobile and presented by voices, pictures and maps as they drive. In future, these devices will also be able to plan around congestion and road works in real time. Third generation phones will also allow for remote monitoring of patients by doctors. In Britain, scientists are developing an asthma management solution using mobiles to detect early signs of an attack.
Mobile phones can be used in education. A group of teachers in Britain use third generation phones to provide fast internet service to children who live beyond the reach of terrestrial broadband services and can have no access to online information. ‘As the new generation of mobile technologies takes off, the social potential will vastly increase,’ the report argues.What is the connection between social life and mobile phones?
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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:
Most of the fastening devices used in clothing today, like the shoelace, the button, and the safely pin. have existed in some form in various cultures for thousands of years. But the zipper was the brainchild of one American inventor, namely Whitcomb Judson of Chicago. At the end of the 19th century. Judson was already a successful inventor, with a dozen patents to his credit for mechanical items such as improvements to motors and railroad braking system.
He then turned his mind to create a replacement for the lengthy shoelaces which were then used in both men’s and women's boots. On August 29th 1893, he won another patent, for what he called the case “locker”. Though the model was somewhat clumsy, and frequently jammed, it did work: in fact, Judson and his business associate Lewis Walker had sewn the device into their own boots. Although Judson displayed his clasp–locker at the World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893, the public largely ignored it. The company founded by Judson and Walker, Universal Fastener, despite further refinements, never really succeeded in marketing the device.
The earliest zip fasteners were being used in the clothing industry by 1905, but it was only in 1913, after a Swedish–American engineer, Gideon Sundbach, had remodeled Judson's fastener into a more streamlined and reliable form, that the zipper was a success. The US Army applied zippers to the clothing and equipment of the troops of World War I. By the late 1920s, zippers could be found in all kinds of clothing, footwear, and carrying cases; by the mid–1930s, zippers had even been embraced by the fashion industry.
The term “zipper" was coined as onomatopoeia (resembling the sound it makes) by B.F. Goodrich whose company started marketing rubber shoes featuring the fastener in 1923. Regrettably. Whitcomb Judson died in 1909, and never heard the term, or saw the success by which his invention would become popular.According to the passage, by the late 1920s zippers could be found in all of the following industries EXCEPT .
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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.
There are many different metaphors used to describe culture. My favorite one is the iceberg. I think, it demonstrates so vividly what can happen to us if we believe only in the visible and ignore or underestimate the invisible part. The hidden part of our culture is that part which we know instinctively because we absorbed it from childhood on. It's handed down to us from generation to generation. We could also say, it's the "thinking" and "feeling" part of culture: habits, assumptions, attitudes, desires, values, tastes, etc.
Now, if we are in a new culture, our customary evaluations and interpretations are likely not to be on target because we see everything through our own cultural glasses. Imagine yourself in a new city trying to get around with a map from your own hometown. It wouldn't take long for you to get lost and completely frustrated! When we experience an encounter in the new culture that puzzles us, the most common reaction is to judge it through our own cultural glasses.
I want to propose an alternate approach to our initial gut reaction. Instead of immediately and instinctively judging a situation through our own glasses, we might first just pause and notice what is happening and then realize that this is a cultural learning situation. Remember the iceberg metaphor! The new culture becomes your mirror that shows you a hidden part of your own culture. What an opportunity for personal growth and new insight! You can compare two different approaches, that of the new culture and of your own culture. This gives you a choice. Now you can decide what fits best for you or even take the best from both sides.According to paragraph 2, what is the most common reaction when experiencing cultural differences?
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Read the following passage and choose A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the following blanks.
There are many sources of pollution in our modern world. At present, the most severe sources are acid rain, car exhaust fumes and oil spills.
Factory chimneys give (1) ........................ smoke that contains sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. These gases combine with the moisture in the atmosphere to (2) ........................ sulfuric acid and nitric acid. When it rains, these acids dissolve in the rain and turn it acidic. Acid rain is thought to be the worst pollution problem of all. It has (3)........................ aquatic life by turning many lake into lifeless bodies of water. In these areas, there is no limestone in the rocks to neutralize the acid rain naturally. One remedy is to pump limestone into the acidic lakes. (4)........................ , it is not possible to do this on a large enough scale to save all the lakes.
Car exhaust fumes contain carbon monoxide and lead which are highly poisonous. In big cities, the exhaust fumes build (5)........................ and pose a health hazard to human beings.
Pollution of the sea by oil threatens marine life. Much of the oil comes from ships that clean their fuel tanks while at sea. Offshore oil wells also discharge vast amounts of oil into the sea. Pollution of the sea can also be caused by oil spills. An oil spill may occur as a result of accidents involving oil tankers.It has (3)........................ aquatic life by turning many lake into lifeless bodies of water
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Robots are useful for exploring and working in space. In particular, many robots have been sent to explore Mars. Such robots have usually looked like a box with wheels. Though these robots are useful, by their very nature they are unreliable, extremely expensive, and they break easily. Also, they cannot do very many tasks. Because of these problems, scientists have been developing a new and unusual kind of robot. These new robots move like snakes, so they have been given the name "snakebots."
The way a snake is shaped lets it get into very small spaces, like cracks in rocks. It can also push its way below the ground or climb up different kinds of objects, like high rocks and trees. Such abilities account for the usefulness of a robot designed like a snake. A snakebot would be able to do these things, too, making it much more effective than regular robots with wheels, which easily get stuck or fall over. Since they can carry tools, snakebots would be able to work in space, as well. They could, for example, help repair the International Space Station.
But how can such a robot shape be made? A snakebot is built like a Chain made of about thirty parts, or modules. Each module is basically the same in that they all have a small computer and a wheel to aid movement. The large computer in the "head” of the snake makes all of the modules in a snakebot work together.
The modular design of the snakebot has many advantages. If one module fails, another can be added easily. Snakebot modules can also carry different kinds of tools, as well as cameras. Since each module is actually a robot in itself, one module can work apart from the rest if necessary. That is, all the modules can separate and move on their own, and then later, reconnect back into a larger robot.
Researchers are also trying to develop snakebots made of a special kind of plastic that can change its shape using electricity, almost like animal muscles. Snakebots made with this plastic will be very strong and hard to break.
Overall, the snakebot design is much simpler than that of common robots. Thus, snakebots will be much less expensive to build. For example, a robot recently sent to Mars cost over a hundred million dollars, whereas snakebots can cost as little as a few hundred dollars. With their versatility and affordability, snakebots seem to be the wave of the future, at least as far as space robots are concerned.What does the word “they” in the second paragraph refer to ?
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Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.
Have you ever had the feeling that people older than you are hard to understand? Or, have you felt like people from younger generations just don't get it? Maybe you find it easier to connect with people (1) __________ are closer to your age than those who are older or younger than you. You can probably thank the generation gap for these feelings.
There are (2) ________six generations living in the United States: the Greatest Generation, Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z. Each generation has its own unique set of characteristics and norms. (3)________, the Greatest Generation (born 1901-1924) is known for its patriotism, hard workers, and loyalty to institutions. The Millennials (born 1980-2000) are (4) ____ by their dependence on technology, detachment from traditional institutions, optimism, and open-mindedness. It is no wonder that many people from different generations have a hard time understanding each other.
Generation gap refers to differences in actions, beliefs, interests, and opinions that exist between (5) ________ from different generations. So, what causes these differences?(1).............
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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:
In the United States in the early 1800's, individual state governments had more effect on the economy than did the federal government. States chartered manufacturing, banking, mining, and transportation firms and participated in the construction of various internal improvements such as canals, turnpikes, and railroads. The states encouraged internal improvements in two distinct ways; first, by actually establishing state companies to build such improvement; second, by providing part of the capital for mixed public-private companies setting out to make a profit.
In the early nineteenth century, state governments also engaged in a surprisingly large amount of direct regulatory activity, including extensive licensing and inspection programs. Licensing targets reflected both similarities in and differences between the economy of the nineteenth century and that of today: in the nineteenth century, state regulation through licensing fell especially on peddlers, innkeepers, and retail merchants of various kinds. The perishable commodities of trade generally came under state inspection, and such important frontier staples as lumber and gunpowder were also subject to state control. Finally, state governments experimented with direct labor and business regulation designed to help the individual laborer or consumer, including setting maximum limits on hours of work and restrictions on price-fixing by businesses.
Although the states dominated economic activity during this period, the federal government was not inactive. Its goals were the facilitation of western settlement and the development of native industries. Toward these ends the federal government pursued several courses of action. It established a national bank to stabilize banking activities in the country and, in part, to provide a supply of relatively easy money to the frontier, where it was greatly needed for settlement. It permitted access to public western lands on increasingly easy terms, culminating in the Homestead Act of 1862, by which title to land could be claimed on the basis of residence alone. Finally, it set up a system of tariffs that was basically protectionist in effect, although maneuvering for position by various regional interests produced frequent changes in tariff rates throughout the nineteenth century.The regulatory activities of state governments included all of the following EXCEPT
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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
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 included the county in which the central city is located, and adjacent counties that are 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,” “polynucleated population groups”, “conurbations,” “metropolitan clusters,” “megalopolises,” and so on.Prior to 1900, how many inhabitants would a town have to have before being defined as urban?
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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.
In the early 1800s, less than 3% of the world's population lived in cities; today, more than half of the global population is urban and by 2050, the proportion will rise to three quarters. There are thousands of small and medium-sized cities along with more than 30 megacities and sprawling, networked metropolitan areas with 15 million residents or more. Yet despite these massive transformations in how people live and interact, our international affairs are still largely dictated by national states, not cities.
Cities are beginning to flex their muscles on the international stage. They are already displacing nation states as the central nodes of the global economy, generating close to 80% of global GDP. Cities like New York and Tokyo are bigger in GDP terms than many G-20 countries. Metropolitan regions and special economic zones are linking global cities through transnational supply chains. A growing number of mega-regions, such as those linking cities in Mexico and the U.S., transcend borders. In the process, cities are collectively forging common regional plans, trading partnerships, and infrastructure corridors.
The spectacular rise of cities did not happen by accident. Cities channel creativity, connect human capital, and when well governed, they drive growth. That many cities and their residents are rolling up their sleeves and getting things done - where nations have failed - are grounds for optimism. In the future, we hope that it is our proximate, accountable, and empowered city leaders who will define our fates.Would the following sentence best be placed at the end of which paragraph? This is neither fair nor rational.
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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 Trump campaign ran on bringing jobs back to American shores, although mechanization has been the biggest reason for manufacturing jobs’ disappearance. Similar losses have led to populist movements in several other countries. But instead of a pro-job growth future, economists across the board predict further losses as AI, robotics, and other technologies continue to be ushered in. What is up for debate is how quickly this is likely to occur.
Now, an expert at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania is ringing the alarm bells. According to Art Bilger, venture capitalist and board member at the business school, all the developed nations on earth will see job loss rates of up to 47% within the next 25 years, according to a recent Oxford study. “No government is prepared,” The Economist reports. These include blue and white collar jobs. So far, the loss has been restricted to the blue collar variety, particularly in manufacturing.
To combat “structural unemployment” and the terrible blow, it is bound to deal the American people, Bilger has formed a nonprofit called Working Nation, whose mission it is to warn the public and to help make plans to safeguard them from this worrisome trend. Not only is the entire concept of employment about to change in a dramatic fashion, the trend is irreversible. The venture capitalist called on corporations, academia, government, and nonprofits to cooperate in modernizing our workforce.
To be clear, mechanization has always cost us jobs. The mechanical loom, for instance, put weavers out of business. But it also created jobs. Mechanics had to keep the machines going, machinists had to make parts for them, and workers had to attend to them, and so on. A lot of times those in one profession could pivot to another. At the beginning of the 20th century, for instance, automobiles were putting blacksmiths out of business. Who needed horseshoes anymore? But they soon became mechanics. And who was better suited?
Not so with this new trend. Unemployment today is significant in most developed nations and it’s only going to get worse. By 2034, just a few decades, mid-level jobs will be by and large obsolete. So far the benefits have only gone to the ultra-wealthy, the top 1%. This coming technological revolution is set to wipe out what looks to be the entire middle class. Not only will computers be able to perform tasks more cheaply than people, they’ll be more efficient too.
Accountants, doctors, lawyers, teachers, bureaucrats, and financial analysts beware: your jobs are not safe. According to The Economist, computers will be able to analyze and compare reams of data to make financial decisions or medical ones. There will be less of a chance of fraud or misdiagnosis, and the process will be more efficient. Not only are these folks in trouble, such a trend is likely to freeze salaries for those who remain employed, while income gaps only increase in size. You can imagine what this will do to politics and social stability.It can be inferred from paragraph 2 that “blue and white collar jobs” are related to ____________.
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Choose the letter A, B, C or D to complete the passage below
In 1973, when the tiger appeared to (1)______ facing extinction, the World Wide Fund for Nature and (2) _____Indian Government agreed to set up “Operation Tiger”- a campaign (3) ______ save this threatened creature. They started by creating nine special parks so that tigers could live in safety. The first was at Ranthambhore, a region (4) _____ was quickly turning into a desert as too much of the grass was being eaten by the local people’s cattle. At the time there (5) ______ just fourteen tigers left there. The government had to clear twelve small villages, which mean moving nearly 1,000 people and 10,000 cattle so the land could be handed back to nature.
(3).......................
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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:
Most sources of illumination generate light over an appreciable period, and indeed if an object is lit for a very brief time (1ess that 1/25 second), the human eye will not react in time to see the object. A photographic emulsion - that is, a light-sensitive coating on photographic film, paper, or glass - will, however, record much shorter bursts of light. A photographic flash can therefore be used to capture high- speed movement on film as well as to correct deficiencies of the normal surrounding lighting. Photoflash is now generated electronically, but the earliest form, first used in 1864, was a paper bag containing magnesium wire and some oxygen-rich substance, such as potassium chlorate. When the bag was ignited, the metal burned with an intense flash. A contemporary observer reported that "this quite unsafe device seems to have done nothing worse that engulf the room in dense smoke and lead to pictures of dubious quality and odd poses.”
The evolution of the photoflash was slow, flashbulbs, containing fine wire made of a metal, such as magnesium or aluminum, capable of being ignited in an atmosphere of pure oxygen at low pressure, were introduced only in the 1920's. In the earliest type, the metal was separated from the oxygen by a thin glass bulb. The flash was fired by piercing the bulb and allowing the oxygen to come into contact with the metal, which ignited spontaneously. Later bulbs were fired by an electric battery, which heated the wire by passing a small current through it. Other combinations, such as the pairing of oxygen difluoride with zirconium, have also been used. In each case enough energy is given out to heat the oxidizable metal momentarily to a white hot emission of visible light. The smoke particles are so small that they cool rapidly; but since they are white, they contribute to the brilliance by reflecting the light from their still glowing neighbors. A slightly bigger form of the metal will burn for a longer time.According to the passage, an advantage of using a photoflash is that it .
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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:
More often than not, you can't just "order up a job" by responding to an online posting and have it delivered in one or two days as if you were buying whatever your heart desires on Amazon. Even as employers are hiring at a higher rate than they have in the last several years, it can often take months to work your way through the job search process. If you are a new graduate yet to receive a job offer, if you recently moved to a new locale with your spouse or partner or if you are unemployed for any other reason, you may find success in your job search by spending time volunteering at a nonprofit organization.
Both the nonprofit and for-profit worlds need people with many of the same talents. The best volunteer jobs for you to consider are ones where the experience you acquire will be applicable in the "for-pay" position you want to attain. It's often the case that once you display your passion for the organization and its mission, and have demonstrated your abilities, you'll earn strong consideration when a paying position opens up that can benefit from your talents. Even if you don't have a path to employment at the place you volunteer, by highlighting your volunteer experience on your resume, you can demonstrate that you haven't been wasting your time away staying at home watching the grass grow.
There are a few strategies you might adopt when considering at which organization you'll want to volunteer. You' ll probably want to make a priority of volunteering to do what you've already done, or want to do, in the for-profit sector. Alternatively, however, it might make sense to volunteer to do something where you can turn an area of professional weakness into a new strength. Remember, as well, that nonprofit organizations maintain strong relationships with their corporate sponsors, and you might look for a volunteer position that would enable you to be that nexus point between the two. And, especially if you are recently out of school, you should look for positions that let you learn about an occupation, a field of interest or an industry.
As you try to determine what you want to volunteer to do, and where you want to do it, make three lists: your marketable skills, the roles you seek and the kinds of charitable organizations you would want to support. For example, perhaps your skills cluster around accounting, marketing or event planning. Think about how these might come in handy for organizations that need financial help figuring out how to brand the organization to attract other volunteers or donors or run anything from charitable golf tournaments to gala dinners.According to the first passage, the following should spend time volunteering at a nonprofit organization, EXCEPT _ .
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Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.
The (1) _________over vending machines in schools is not new. For a long time, regional governments and public schools have been deliberating on whether or not it is a good idea to have vending machines in schools. In America, (2) ______, only one state has banned these machines in its public schools. Around the country, however, most state schools have different rules about how many and how often vending machines should be accessible to students. Although some people believe that having these drink and snack machines in schools is a good idea, others (3)_________ that there are many disadvantages, too.
Doctors and other health workers, for instance, suggest that the main disadvantage of having vending machines in schools is based on health and (4)________. They cite statistics that show school – aged children have poorly balanced diets, often due to eating too much fast food. If vending machines are introduced to schools, children will have yet another option for eating unhealthy foods. In a survey of vending machines sales across the country, it was found that sweet drinks like colas and sugary snacks like candy bars were the biggest sellers. Sugary foods and drinks commonly cause obesity in consumers. Opponents of vending machines in schools worry that we are teaching children to be obese. (5)__________the problem of childhood obesity, it is plausible to say that children’s health problems will only get worse if vending machines are followed in schools.
(1)..................
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Charles Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1902 but was raised on a farm in Minnesota, where his father was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1907. From then on, he spent his boyhood alternately in Washington, D.C. Detroit, and Little Falls, Minnesota. Because Lindbergh exhibited exceptional mechanical talent, in 1921 he was admitted to the University of Wisconsing to study engineering. However, the young man was seeking more challenging endeavors, and two years later he became a stunt pilot who performed feats at county fairs and public assemblies. This unusual and dangerous undertaking paid off handsomely in the sense that it allowed him to gain a diverse and well–rounded experience in aeronautics. He particularly delighted in what he called “wing–walking” and parachute jumping.
After a year of training as a military cadet, Lindbergh completed his program at the Brooks and Kelly airfields at the top of his class and earned the rank of captain.
Robertson Aircraft Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri, offered him employment as a mail pilot to run the routes between St. Louis and Chicago, and Lindbergh retained his position with the company until 1927. During this period, he set out to win the Raymond B. Orteig prize of $25,000 to be awarded to the first pilot to fly nonstop from New York to Paris. This ambition would irreversibly change his life and accord him a prominent place in the history of aviation.
Embarking on the greatest adventure of his time, Lindbergh left Roosevelt Field at 7:52 A.M. on May 20, 1927, and landed at Le Bourget Field at 5:24 P.M. the next day. Fearing that he would be unknown when he arrived, Lindbergh carried letters of introduction to dignitaries in Paris, but when his plane came to a stop, he was overwhelmed by tremendous welcoming crowds. He was decorated in France, Great Britain, and Belgium, and President Coolidge sent a specially designated cruiser, the Memphis, to bring him back, His accomplishments in aeronautics brought him more medals and awards than had ever been received by any other person in private life.The word “undertaking ” refers to…
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Carnegie Hall, the famous concert hall in New York City, has again undergone a restoration. While this is not the first, it is certainly the most extensive in the building’s history. As a result of this new restoration, Carnegie Hall once again has the quality of sound that it had when it was first built.
Carnegie Hall owes its existence to Andrew Carnegie, the wealthy owner of a steel company in the late 1800s. The hall was finished in 1891 and quickly gained a reputation as an excellent performing arts hall where accomplished musicians gained fame. Despite its reputation, however, the concert hall suffered from several detrimental renovations over the years. During the Great Depression, when fewer people could afford to attend performances, the directors sold part of the building to commercial businesses. As a result, a coffee shop was opened in one corner of the building, for which the builders replaced the brick and terra cotta walls with windowpanes. A renovation in 1946 seriously damaged the acoustical quality of the hall when the makers of the film Carnegie Hall cut a gaping hole in the dome of the ceiling to allow for lights and air vents. The hole was later covered with short curtains and a fake ceiling, but the hall never sounded the same afterwards.
In 1960, the violinist Isaac Stern became involved in restoring the hall after a group of real estate developers unveiled plans to demolish Carnegie Hall and build a high-rise office building on the site. This threat spurred Stern to rally public support for Carnegie Hall and encourage the City of New York to buy the property. The movement was successful, and the concert hall is now owned by the city. In the current restoration, builders tested each new material for its sound qualities, and they replaced the hole in the ceiling with a dome. The builders also restored the outer walls to their original appearance and closed the coffee shop. Carnegie has never sounded better, and its prospects for the future have never looked more promising.This passage is mainly about .........
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Read the following passage and mark the letter Ay B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.
Why do some people take revenge on others? Why aren’t we able to sort out our problems without seeking to get (1).....with those who have hurt us? Apparently, we are (2)...... experiencing a deeply rooted part of human nature. Our desire for revenge comes from the brain’s limbic system, the most primitive part of the brain and one that we share with all animals. (3)...., when someone confronts us, we often prefer attacking verbally or physically rather than try to work out a solution together.
However, unlike animals, we also possess a highly evolved cerebral cortex which allows us to plan and analyse – and this can make revenge more than just a(n) (4)......... reaction. A person who feels they have been wronged may even enjoy planning a creative and appropriate act of revenge. Some people suggest that taking revenge can be seen as a positive move, allowing you to work through your negative emotions. However, it can also be dangerous, and you may risk finding yourself in a situation (5) ......rapidly gets out of hand.
(2)........................ -
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Women often complain that the men in their lives are not romantic enough. But men sometimes have trouble expressing their feelings, often resorting to cheesy Hallmark cards or pricey bejeweled baubles to do the job for them. But there is a far better way to be romantic and it doesn't involve spending a fortune or even opening your mouth.
In the days before courting consisted of hanging out and getting drinks, courting was a formal and dignified endeavor. Symbols were used to express feelings and thoughts deemed too special for mere words. During the Victorian Era, a whole romantic language developed around the giving and receiving of flowers. Everything from the type and size of the flower to the way it was held or presented conveyed layers of meaning and communicated a gentleman's feelings and intentions. Each bouquet contained a secret message for a lady to eagerly interpret and endlessly dissect.
These days giving flowers has become a somewhat ho-hum cliché. Resurrecting this Victorian tradition will infuse the gesture with new life and romance and bring back some of the subtly, mystery, and fun of courtship. Your lady will swoon that you put far more thought into your selection of flowers than grabbing a bouquet out of the case at Wal-Mart. You'll come off as a real gentleman and a hopeless romantic. It can become an amazing tradition you'll both enjoy. Seriously, women eat this stuff up.
Of course, even women nowadays have forgotten the meanings of flowers. So buy your lady a flower dictionary. And keep a copy for yourself (it's important that you both use the same reference, as the meanings were never set in stone and can sometimes vary from book to book). Then, each time you present her with a bouquet, she can search the volume to find what secret messages you have embedded in the flowers.The word "dignified" in paragraph 2 mostly means _.
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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 quest for sustainable sources of energy study the energy has led humans to study the energy potential of the sun and the wind, as well as the immense power created by dammed rivers. The oceans, too, represent an impressive source of potential energy. For example, it has been estimated that the oceans could provide nearly 3,000 times the energy generated by hydroelectric dams such as the Hoover Dam. Yet, this source remains quite difficult to exploit.
But this challenge has not prevented scientists from trying. Within the last few decades, several technologies that can transform the ocean’s immense forces into usable electricity have been invented and introduced. Some focus on capturing the power of the changing tides, while others rely on thermal energy created by oceans in certain tropical regions. However, the most common and easiest-to-develop technologies are those designed to harness the power inherent in the ocean’s waves.
There are several methods by which ocean-wave energy can be collected. All of them work because the movement of the water that the waves induce creates storable energy by directly or indirectly driving a power generator. In one such technology, the changing water levels in the ocean that are produced by waves lift a long floating tube comprised of many sections connected by hinges. As the sections move up and down with the water, they pump a special fluid through the tube that can be used to drive a generator. Another technique works on a similar principle, only the floating object rocks back and forth with the motion of the water instead of up and down. A third method of collecting wave energy relies on the rising water from the waves to compress air in a partially submerged chamber. As the waves rush into the chamber, they push the air out through a narrow tunnel. Located inside this tunnel is a turbine connected to a power generator. The movement of the air turns the turbine, which feeds energy into the generator.
The drawback to each of these concepts is that the they make it necessary to have many pieces of machinery linked together. This presents a problem because the larger the device, the more vulnerable it is to damage from hazardous ocean environments, and the more likely it is to interfere with otherwise unspoiled coastal scenery. Also, these methods demand the construction of site-specific machines that take into consideration average local wave heights and sea conditions. Such a requirement can be quite cost-prohibitive, because engineers must create unique power generation mechanism for each site. In other words, the ability to get power from waves differ from region to region.
Japan, Norway, and the UK have attempted to generate energy by capturing the power of ocean waves. In northern Scotland, the first power plan to use wave power, OSPREY ( Ocean Swell Powered Renewable Energy ), began operating in 1995. It followed the principle of the third method described above : waves entering a partially submerged chamber pushed air into turbines to generate electricity. The electricity was then transmitted to power collectors in the shore via underwater cables. Unfortunately, the OSPREY plant was destroyed in a large storm, highlighting an unavoidable difficulty associated with this kind of power generation.
The potential benefits of wave-based energy are hard to ignore. Once the proper machinery is produced and installed, the energy is free. Maintenance cost are small, and the equipment does not pose any threats of environmental pollution. And best of all, the amounts of energy produced are enormous.
However, these theoretical advantages have yet to be fully realized. In many cases, a lack of government funding has inhibited the technologies from advancing. For example, despite the relative abundance of propo -
The ocean bottom - a region nearly 2.5 times greater than the total land area of Earth - is a vast frontier that even today is largely unexplored and uncharted. Until about a century ago, the deep-ocean floor was completely inaccessible, hidden beneath waters averaging over 3,600 meters deep. Totally without light and subjected to intense pressures hundreds of times greater than at the Earth’s surface, the deep-ocean bottom is a hostile environment to humans, in some ways as forbidding and remote as the void of outer space.
Although researchers have taken samples of deep-ocean rocks and sediments for over a century, the first detailed global investigation of the ocean bottom did not actually start until 1968, with the beginning of the National Science Foundation’s Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP). Using techniques first developed for the offshore oil and gas industry, the DSDP’s drill ship, the Glomar Challenger, was able to maintain a steady position on the ocean’s surface and drill in very deep waters, extracting samples of sediments and rock from the ocean floor.
The Glomar Challenger completed 96 voyages in a 15-year research program that ended in November 1983. During this time, the vessel logged 600,000 kilometers and took almost 20,000 core samples of seabed sediments and rocks at 624 drilling sites around the world.. The Glomar Challenger’s core samples have allowed geologists to reconstruct what the planet looked like hundreds of millions of years ago and to calculate what it will probably look like millions of years in the future. Today, largely on the strength of evidence gathered during the Glomar Challenger’s voyages, nearly all earth scientists agree on the theories of plate tectonics and continental drift that explain many of the geological processes that shape the Earth.
The cores of sediment drilled by the Glomar Challenger have also yielded information critical to understanding the world’s past climates. Deep-ocean sediments provide a climatic record stretching back hundreds of millions of years, because they are largely isolated from the mechanical erosion and the intense chemical and biological activity that rapidly destroy much land-based evidence of past climates. This record has already provided insights into the patterns and causes of past climatic change - information that may be used to predict future climates.Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as being a result of the Deep Sea Drilling Project?