Chọn từ có trọng âm chính khác với các từ còn lại: association, original, stability, accelerate

Read the passage carefully and choose the correct answer. 

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN was established on 8 August 1967 in Bangkok by the five original Member Countries, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Brunei joined on 8 January 1984, Vietnam on 28 July 1995, Lao PDR and Myanmar on 23 July 1997, and Cambodia on 30 April 1999. The ASEAN Declaration states that the aims and purposes of the Association are: to accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region and to promote regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law in the relationship among countries in the region and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter.
In 2003, the ASEAN Leaders resolved that an ASEAN Community shall be established comprising three pillars, namely, ASEAN Security Community, ASEAN Economic Community and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community.
The ASEAN Vision 2020, adopted by the ASEAN Leaders on the 30th Anniversary of ASEAN, agreed on a shared vision of ASEAN as a concert of Southeast Asian nations, outward looking, living in peace, stability and prosperity, bonded together in partnership in dynamic development and in a community of caring societies. ASEAN Member Countries have adopted the following fundamental principles in their relations with one another, as contained in the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC):
• mutual respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity, and national identity of all nations;
• the right of every State to lead its national existence free from external interference, subversion or coercion;
• non-interference in the internal affairs of one another;
• settlement of differences or disputes by peaceful manner;
• renunciation of the threat or use of force; and
• effective cooperation among themselves

According to the text, which nation is the last member to join The Association of Southeast Asian Nations up to now........

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 from 31 to 35.
Graphic novels, as the name suggests, are books written and illustrated in the style of a comic book. Adults may feel that graphic novels do not help children become good readers. They believe that this  type of  reading material  somehow prevents  "real"   reading. (31) , many quality graphic novels are now being seen as a method of storytelling on the same level as novels, films or audiobooks. Many librarians and teachers are now accepting graphic novels as proper literature for children as they (32) young people and motivate them to read. This has been especially true with children who are not (33) to read, especially boys.
Language learners are also motivated by graphic novels because the pictures provide clues to the meaning of the words. Therefore, they   will (34) new vocabulary more quickly. Many teachers have reported great success when they used graphic novels with their students, especially in the areas of English, social studies and art. The idea that graphic novels are too simple to be regarded as serious reading is no longer valid. Reading them can, undoubtedly, help students develop the skills (35) are necessary to read more challenging works.
(32).................

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, almost nothing was written about    the contributions of women during the colonial period and the early history of the newly formed United States. Lacking the right to vote and absent from the seats of power, women were not considered an important force in history. Anne Bradstreet wrote some significant poetry in the seventeenth century, Mercy Otis Warren produced the host contemporary    history of the American Revolution, and Abigail Adams penned Important letters showing    she exercised great political Influence over her husband, John, tiie second President of the United States. But little or no notice was taken of these contributions. During those centuries, women remained Invisible In history  books.
Throughout the nineteenth century, this lack of visibility  continued,  despite  the  efforts of female authors writing about women, These writers, like most of their male counterparts, were amateur historians. Their writings were celebratory in  nature,  and  they were uncritical in their selection and use of  sources.
During the nineteenth century, however, certain feminists showed a keen sense of history by keeping records of activities in which women were engaged. National, regional,    and local women's organizations compiled accounts of  their  doings.  Personal  correspondence, newspaper clippings, and souvenirs were saved and stored. These sources  from the core of the two greatest collections of women’s history In the United States one at   the Elizabeth and Arthur Schleslnger Library at Radcliffe College, and the other the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College. Such sources have provided valuable materials for later Generations of historians.
Despite the gathering of more information about ordinary women during  the  nineteenth Century, most of the writing about women conformed to  the  "great  women"  theory of History, just as much of mainstream American  history  concentrated  on  "great  men," To demonstrate that women were making significant contributions to American life, female authors singled out women leaders and wrote biographies, or else important women produced their autobiographies. Most of these leaders were Involved in public life  as  reformers, activists working for women's right to vote, or authors,  and  were  not  representative at all of the great of ordinary woman. The lives of ordinary people continued, generally, to be untold in the American histories being   published.

In the first paragraph, Bradstreet, Warren, and Adams are mentioned to show that ................

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

Born on June 30, 1985 in Baltimore, Maryland, to Fred and Debbie Phelps, the youngest of three children, Michael Phelps and his sisters grew up in the neighbourhood of Rodger Forge. His father, Fred, a former all-rounded athlete, was a state trooper and his mother Debbie was a middle-school principal. When Phelps's parents divorced in 1994, he and his siblings lived with their mother, with whom Michael grew very close. Even at the age of 7, Phelps was still a little scared to put his head under water, so his instructors allowed him to float around on his back. Not surprisingly, despite the fact that later he is very good at butterfly swimming, the first stroke he mastered was not the easily-practised breaststroke but the backstroke.

At the age of 15, Phelps became the youngest American male swimmer to compete at an Olympic Games in 68 years. While he didn't win any medals at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, he would soon become a major force in competitive swimming.

In the spring of 2001, Phelps set the world record in the 200-meter butterfly, becoming the youngest male swimmer in history at the age of 15 years and 9 months. At the 2001 World Championships in Japan, he then broke his own record with a time of 1:54:58, earning his first international medal. In 2002, Phelps continued to establish several records including the 100-meter butterfly and the 200-meter individual medley. The following year, at the same event, he broke his own world record in the 400-meter individual medley with a time of 4:09.09.

After the London Olympics in 2012, Phelps announced he was retiring from his sport. However, at the 2016 Olympic Games, he came out of retirement and returned to professional competition. This was also the event in which he won one silver and five gold medals, becoming the oldest individual gold medalist in Olympic swimming history, as well as the first swimmer to win four consecutive golds in the same event, the 200 meter individual medley.

Phelps's father used to be a comprehensive ____.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer for each blank.

What is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and what is its purpose? The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a multilateral organization which was (26) _____ to give Southeast Asian states a forum to communicate (27) _____ each other. Since the region had a long colonial past and a history of endemic warfare, there has never been much peaceful and constructive (28) _____ between kings, presidents and other officials. A neutral forum was, (29) _____, a very useful development for all of those countries.ASEAN was formed as a result of the Bangkok (30) _____ of 1967 and initially had five members: Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, (31) _____ Philippines and Singapore. Brunei (32) _____ joined in 1984 after it had won independence from Britain. Vietnam became the seventh member of the group, officially joining in 1995. (33) _____ several years of negotiation, Myanmar and Laos joined in 1997 and the final member of the ten, Cambodia, joined in 1999. The only (34) _______state in Southeast Asia which is not a member of ASEAN is now East Timor. It is still (35) _____ vulnerable and fragile to be able to participate for the foreseeable future.

(30) _____

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:
Humans are bringing about another global-scale change in the atmosphere: the increase in what are called greenhouse gases. Like glass in a greenhouse, these gases admit the Sun's light but tend to reflect back downward the heat that is radiated from the ground below, trapping heat in the Earth's atmosphere. This process is known as the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide is the most significant of these gases – there is 25 percent more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today than there was a century ago, the result of our burning coal and fuels derived from oil. Methane, nitrous oxide, and CFCs are greenhouse gases as well.
Scientists predict that increases in these gases in the atmosphere will make the Earth a warmer place. They expect a global rise in average temperature somewhere between 1.0 and 3.5 degrees Celsius in the next century. Average temperatures have in fact been rising and the years from 1987 to 1997 were the warmest years on record. Some scientists are reluctant to say that global warming has actually begun because climate naturally varies from year to year and decade to decade, and it takes many years of records to be sure of a fundamental change. There is little disagreement, though, that global warming is looming.
Global warming will have different effects in different regions. A warmed world is expected to have more extreme weather, with more rain during wet periods, longer droughts, and more powerful storms. Although the effects of future climate changes are unknown, some predict that exaggerated weather conditions may translate into better agricultural yields in areas such as the western United States, where temperature and rainfall are expected to increase, while dramatic decreases in rainfall may lead to severe droughts and plunging agricultural yields in parts of Africa, for example.
Warmer temperatures are expected to partially melt the polar ice caps, leading to a projected sea level rise of 50 centimeters by the year 2050. A sea level rise of this magnitude would flood coastal cities, force people to abandon low-lying islands, and completely inundate coastal wetlands. Diseases like malaria, which at present are primarily found in the tropics, may become more common in the regions of the globe between the tropics and the polar regions, called the temperate zones. For many of the world's plant species, and for animal species that are not easily able to shift their territories as their habitat grows warmer, climate change may bring extinction.

The word "plunging" in paragraph 3 probably means  ...................

PANDEMIC DISEASES
Diseases are a natural part of life on earth. If there were  no diseases,  the population would grow too quickly, and there would not be enough food or other resources, so in a way, diseases are natural ways of keeping the Earth in balance. But sometimes  they  spread  very  quickly and kill large numbers of people. For example, in 1918, an outbreak of the flu spread  across the world, killing over 25 million people in only six months. Such terrible outbreaks of a disease are called pandemics.
Pandemics happen when a disease changes in a way that our bodies are not prepared to fight.  In 1918, a new type of flu virus appeared. Our bodies had no way to fight this new flu virus, and    so it spread very quickly and killed large numbers of people. While there have  been  many  different pandemic diseases throughout history, all of them have a new thing in    common.
First, all pandemic diseases spread from one person to another very   easily.
Second, while they may kill many people, they generally do not kill people very quickly. A good example of this would be the Marburg virus. The Marburg virus is an extremely infectious disease. In addition, it is deadly. About 70 -80% of all people who  get the Marburg virus  died  from the disease. However, the Marburg virus has not become  a pandemic  because most people die within three days of getting the disease. This means that the virus does not have enough time    to spread a large number of people. The flu virus of 1918, on the other hand, generally took about   a week to ten days to kill its victims, so it had more time to   spread.
While we may never be able to completely stop pandemics, we  can  make  them  less  common. Doctors carefully monitor new diseases that they fear could become pandemics. For example, in 2002, and 2003, doctors carefully watched SARS. Their health warnings may have prevented SARS from becoming a  pandemic.

Which of the following is mentioned as a common feature of all pandemic diseases?

Ranked as the number one beverage consumed worldwide, tea takes the lead over coffee in both popularity and production with more than 5 million metric tons of tea produced annually. Although much of this tea is consumed in Asia, European and African countries, the United  States drinks it fair share. According to estimates by the Tea Council of the United States, tea is enjoyed by no less than half of the U.S population on any given day. Black tea or green tea - iced, spiced, or instant - tea drinking has spurred a billion - dollar business with major tea produces in Africa and South America and throughout Asia.
Tea is made from the leaves of an evergreen plant, Camellia sinensis, which grows tall and lush in tropical regions. On tea plantation, the plant is kept trimmed to approximately four feet high, and as new buds called flush appear, they are plucked off by hand. Even in today's world of modern agricultural machinery, hand harvesting continues to be preferred method. Ideally, only the top two leaves and bud should be picked. This new growth produces the highest quality tea.
After being harvested, tea leaves are laid out on long drying racks, called withering racks, for 18 to 20 hours. During this process, the tea softens and becomes limp. Next, depending on the type of the tea being produced, the leaves may be crushed or chopped to release flavor, and then steamed to retain their green color, and the fermentation process is skipped. Producing black teas requires fermentation during which the tea leaves begin to darken. After fermentation, black tea is dried in vats to produce its rich brown or black color.
No one knows when or how tea became popular, but legend has it that tea as a beverage was discovered in 2737 B.C. by Emperor Shen Nung of China when leaves from Camellia dropped into his drinking water as it was boiling over a fire. As the story goes, Emperor Shen Nung drank the resulting liquid and proclaimed that the drink to be most nourishing and refreshing. Though this account cannot be documented, it is thought that tea drinking probably originated in China and spread to other parts of Asia, then to Europe, and ultimately to America colonies around 1650.
With about half of the caffeine content as coffee, tea is often chosen by those who want to reduce, but not necessarily eliminate their caffeine intake. Some people find that tea is less acidic than coffee and therefore easier on the stomach. Others have become interested in tea drinking since the National Cancer Institute published its findings on the antioxidant properties of tea. But whether tea is enjoyed for its perceived health benefits, its flavor, or as a social drink, teacups continue to be filled daily with the world's most popular beverage.

Where in the passage does the author mention research conducted on the beneficial effects of tea drinking?

Fill in each numbered blank with one suitable word or phrase.

ASEAN Handicraft Promotion and Development Association (AHPADA) was established as a result of a Workshop on Handicraft for Export which was (1) _____ by the Royal Thai Government in February 1981 in Bangkok. AHPADA was formed as a forum for both the government and private sectors that are concerned with meeting and complementing each other in the promotion and development of handicrafts (2) _____. AHPADA is affiliated to the ASEAN and the World Craft Council. The (3) _____ members were Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia. Singapore and Brunei join in a little (4) _____. Cambodia, Lao, Myanmar and Vietnam joined in September 1999.AHPADA's objectives are: To take common approach to develop and promote the marketing of crafts (5) _____ and outside the ASEAN Region. To operate as a main point of promotion of ASEAN handicrafts and raw (6) _____ required-for production, trade fairs and exhibitions. To strengthen and improve the status of craftspeople. To create employment opportunities especially in the rural areas. To (7) _____ traditional craft skills within the context of conservation of cultural heritage. To educate and create awareness and appreciation of the authentic handicrafts of ASEAN Countries. And to build up an archive of ASEAN CRAFT information.

With the recent economic downturn in (8) _____ ASEAN Countries, AHPADA's objectives are more relevant than they have ever been before. Most producers are among the rural areas and (9) _____ majority of them are very small entrepreneurs. AHPADA works at both national level through the national focal points and at the international level through the Board of AHPADA and the Regional Secretariat which is permanently based in Bangkok, Thailand. (10) _____ 1981 AHPADA has been able to act as a catalyst and initiators in the promotion and development of ASEAN CRAFTS through seminars, workshops and exhibitions, often in partnership with several multinational and international organizations.

(8) _____

Aging is the process of growing old. It occurs eventually in every living thing provided, of course, that an illness or accident does not kill it prematurely. The most familiar outward signs of aging may be seen in old people, such as the graying of the hair and the wrinkling of the skin. Signs of aging in a pot dog or cat include loss of playfulness and energy, a decline in hearing and eyesight, or even a slight graying of the coat. Plants age too, but the signs are much harder to detect.

Most body parts grow bigger and stronger, and function more efficiently during childhood. They reach their peak at the time of maturity, or early adulthood. After that, they begin to decline. Bones, for example, gradually become lighter and more brittle. In the aged, the joints between the bones also become rigid and more inflexible. This can make moving very painful.

All the major organs of the body show signs of aging. The brain, for example, works less efficiently, and even gets smaller in size. Thinking processes of all sorts are slowed  down. Old people often have trouble in remembering recent events.

One of the most serious changes of old ago occurs in the arteries, the blood vessels that lead from the heart. They become thickened and constricted, allowing less blood to flow to  the rest of body. This condition accounts, directly or indirectly, for many of the diseases of the aged. It may, for example, result In heart attack.

Aging is not a uniform process. Different parts of the body wear out at different rates. There are great differences among people in their rate of aging. Even the cells of the body differ in the way they age. The majority of cells are capable of reproducing themselves many times during the course of a lifetime. Nerve cells and muscle fibers can never be replaced  once they wear out.

Gerontologists - scientists who study the process of aging - believe this wearing out of the body is controlled by a built-in biological time-clock. They are trying to discover how this clock works so that they can slow down the process. This could give man a longer life and a great number of productive years

What does the word "it" in line 2 refers to?

Commuting is the practice of travelling a long distance to a town or city to work each day, and then travelling home again in the evening. The word commuting comes from commutation ticket, a US rail ticket for repeated journeys, called a season ticket in Britain. Regular travellers are called commuters.
The US has many commuters. A few, mostly on the East Coast commute by train or subway, but most depend on the car. Some leave home very early to avoid the traffic jams, and sleep in their cars until their office opens. Many people accept a long trip to work so that they can live in quiet "bedroom communities" away from the city, but another reason is 'white flight'. In the 1960s most cities began to desegregate their schools, so that there were no longer separate schools  for  white and black children. Many white families did not want to send their children to desegregated schools, so they moved to the suburbs, which have their own schools, and where, for various reasons, few black people live.
Millions of people in Britain commute by car or train. Some spend two or three hours a day travelling, so that they and their families can live in suburbia or in the countryside. Cities are surrounded by commuter belts. Part of the commuter belt around London is called the stock broker belt because it contains houses where rich business people live. Some places are becoming dormitory towns, because people sleep there but take little part in local activities.
Most commuters travel to and from work at the same time, causing the morning and evening rush hours, when buses and trains are crowded and there are traffic jams on the roads. Commuters on trains rarely talk to each other and spend their journey reading, sleeping or using their mobile phones, though this is not popular with other passengers. Increasing numbers of people now work at home some days of the week, linked to their offices by computer, a practice called telecommuting.
Cities in both Britain and the US are trying to reduce the number of cars conning into town each day. Some companies encourage car pooling (called car sharing in Britain), an arrangement for people who live and work near each other to travel together. Some Us cities have a public service that helps such people to contact each other, and traffic lanes are reserved for car-pool vehicles. But cars and petrol/gas are cheap in the US, and many people prefer to drive alone because it gives them more freedom. In Britain many cities have park-and-rids schemes, car parks on the edge of the city from which buses take drivers into the centre.

It can be inferred from the passage that dormitory towns in Britain are places where people   ...............

We live in a world of tired, sleep deprived people. In his book Counting Sheep, Paul Martin - a behavioural biologist - describes a society which is just too busy to sleep and which does not give sleeping the importance it deserves. Modern society has invented reasons not to sleep. We are now a 24/7 society where shops and services must be available all hours. We spend longer hours at work than we used to, and more time getting to work.
Mobile phones and email allow us to stay in touch round the clock and late-night TV and the Internet tempt us away from our beds. When we need more time for work or pleasure, the easy solution is to sleep less. The average adult sleeps only 6.2 hours a night during the week, whereas research shows that most people need eight or even eight and a half to feel at their best. Nowadays, many people have got used to sleeping less than they need and they live in an almost permanent state of'sleep debt'.
Until the invention of the electric light in 1879 our daily cycle of sleep used to depend on the hours of daylight. People would get up with the sun and go to bed at nightfall. But nowadays our hours of sleep are mainly determined by our working hours (or our social life) and most people are woken up artificially by an alarm clock. During the day caffeine, the world's most popular drug, helps to keep us awake. 75% of the world's population habitually consume caffeine, which up to a point masks the symptoms of sleep deprivation.
What does a chronic lack of sleep do to us? As well as making us irritable and unhappy as humans, it also reduces our motivation and ability to work. This has serious Implications for society in general. Doctors, for example, are often chronically sleep deprived, especially when they are on'night call',  and may got less than three hours'sleep. Lack of sleep can seriously  impair their mood, judgment, and ability to take decisions. Tired engineers, in the early hours of the morning, made a series of mistakes with catastrophic results. On our roads and motorways lack of sleep kills thousands of people every year. Tests show that a tired driver can be just as dangerous as a drunken driver. However, driving when drunk is against the law but driving when exhausted isn't As Paul Martin says, it is very ironic that we admire people who function on very little sleep instead of criticizing them for being irresponsible, Our world would be a much safer, happier place if everyone, whatever their job, slept eight hours a night

Which of the following would the writer of the passage approve of?

We live in a world of tired, sleep deprived people. In his book Counting Sheep, Paul Martin - a behavioural biologist - describes a society which is just too busy to sleep and which does not give sleeping the importance it deserves. Modern society has invented reasons not to sleep. We are now a 24/7 society where shops and services must be available all hours. We spend longer hours at work than we used to, and more time getting to work.
Mobile phones and email allow us to stay in touch round the clock and late-night TV and the Internet tempt us away from our beds. When we need more time for work or pleasure, the easy solution is to sleep less. The average adult sleeps only 6.2 hours a night during the week, whereas research shows that most people need eight or even eight and a half to feel at their best. Nowadays, many people have got used to sleeping less than they need and they live in an almost permanent state of'sleep debt'.
Until the invention of the electric light in 1879 our daily cycle of sleep used to depend on the hours of daylight. People would get up with the sun and go to bed at nightfall. But nowadays our hours of sleep are mainly determined by our working hours (or our social life) and most people are woken up artificially by an alarm clock. During the day caffeine, the world's most popular drug, helps to keep us awake. 75% of the world's population habitually consume caffeine, which up to a point masks the symptoms of sleep deprivation.
What does a chronic lack of sleep do to us? As well as making us irritable and unhappy as humans, it also reduces our motivation and ability to work. This has serious Implications for society in general. Doctors, for example, are often chronically sleep deprived, especially when they are on'night call',  and may got less than three hours'sleep. Lack of sleep can seriously  impair their mood, judgment, and ability to take decisions. Tired engineers, in the early hours of the morning, made a series of mistakes with catastrophic results. On our roads and motorways lack of sleep kills thousands of people every year. Tests show that a tired driver can be just as dangerous as a drunken driver. However, driving when drunk is against the law but driving when exhausted isn't As Paul Martin says, it is very ironic that we admire people who function on very little sleep instead of criticizing them for being irresponsible, Our world would be a much safer, happier place if everyone, whatever their job, slept eight hours a night

According to the third paragraph, which of the following statements  is  NOT TRUE?

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 roost, 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 roost 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

Which of the following is a disadvantage of communal roosts that is mentioned in the passage?

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
Most weddings in Japan start with a religious ceremony in which usually only family members attend. Afterwards, a banquet is customarily held to which many people, including friends and colleagues, are invited. To celebrate the happy occasion, guests give the bride and groom goshuugi – gift money in special envelopes. Goshuugi from friends is usually 20,000 yen or 30,000 yen.
A typical Japanese wedding party starts when the bride and groom enter the banquet hall together, and take their seats on a slightly raised platform facing their guests. Invited guests are seated closer to the bride and groom, with family and relatives seated further in back. The bride's and groom's bosses usually give congratulatory speeches then their friends sing in celebration. Other wedding highlights include a candle ceremony where the couple holds a candle while greeting their guests at each table, and the cutting of the wedding cake. Afterwards, the bride and groom thank their parents with a speech, then leave to end the party.
In the past, dishes that supposedly brought good fortune, such as prawns and sea breams, were served in abundance. So much of the food was ordered that guests ended up taking the surplus home. Today, the majority of the weddings serve just enough for everyone. Additionally, before leaving, guests would traditionally receive souvenir gifts called hikidemono.
Many wedding ceremonies take place at wedding halls or hotels. Rough estimates show that it costs about 3 million yen to host a wedding party for 80 guests. During Japan's economic bubble, overseas weddings and flamboyant receptions with special effects, such as smoke machines and having the bride and groom fly in on gondolas, were very popular. But these days, couples choose to tie the knot in various ways, from not having any ceremony to having a modest affair, or still going all out.

According to paragraph 2, which of the following do the bride and groom do at their wedding party?

Learning means acquiring knowledge or developing the ability to perform new behaviors. It is common to think of learning as something that takes place in school, but much of human learning occurs outside the classroom, and people continue to learn throughout their lives.
Even before they enter school, young children learn to walk, to talk, and to use their hands to manipulate toys, food, and other objects. They use all of their senses to learn about the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells in their environments. They learn how to interact with their parents, siblings, friends, and other people important to their world. When they enter school, children learn basic academic subjects such as reading, writing, and mathematics. They also continue to learn a great deal outside the classroom. They learn which behaviors are likely to be rewarded and which are likely to be punished. They learn social skills for interacting with other children. After they finish school, people must learn to adapt to the many major changes that affect their lives, such as getting married, raising children, and finding and keeping a job.
Because learning continues throughout our lives and affects almost everything we do, the study of learning is important in many different fields. Teachers need to understand the best ways to educate children. Psychologists, social workers, criminologists, and other human- service workers need to understand how certain experiences change people's behaviors.
Employers, politicians, and advertisers make use of the principles of teaming to influence the behavior of workers, voters, and consumers.
Learning is closely related to memory, which is the storage of information in the brain.
Psychologists who study memory are interested in how the brain stores knowledge, where this storage takes place, and how the brain later retrieves knowledge when we need it. In contrast, psychologists who study learning are more interested in behavior and how behavior changes as a result of a person's experiences.
There are many forms of learning, ranging from simple to complex. Simple forms of learning involve a single stimulus. A stimulus is anything perceptible to the senses, such as a sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste. In a form of learning known as classical conditioning, people learn to associate two stimuli that occur in sequence, such as lightning followed by thunder. In operant conditioning, people learn by forming an association between a behavior and its consequences (reward or punishment). People and animals can also learn by observation - that is, by watching others perform behaviors. More complex forms of learning include learning languages, concepts, and motor skills

Which of the following can be inferred about the learning process from the passage?

PANDEMIC DISEASES
Diseases are a natural part of life on earth. If there were  no diseases,  the population would grow too quickly, and there would not be enough food or other resources, so in a way, diseases are natural ways of keeping the Earth in balance. But sometimes  they  spread  very  quickly and kill large numbers of people. For example, in 1918, an outbreak of the flu spread  across the world, killing over 25 million people in only six months. Such terrible outbreaks of a disease are called pandemics.
Pandemics happen when a disease changes in a way that our bodies are not prepared to fight.  In 1918, a new type of flu virus appeared. Our bodies had no way to fight this new flu virus, and    so it spread very quickly and killed large numbers of people. While there have  been  many  different pandemic diseases throughout history, all of them have a new thing in    common.
First, all pandemic diseases spread from one person to another very   easily.
Second, while they may kill many people, they generally do not kill people very quickly. A good example of this would be the Marburg virus. The Marburg virus is an extremely infectious disease. In addition, it is deadly. About 70 -80% of all people who  get the Marburg virus  died  from the disease. However, the Marburg virus has not become  a pandemic  because most people die within three days of getting the disease. This means that the virus does not have enough time    to spread a large number of people. The flu virus of 1918, on the other hand, generally took about   a week to ten days to kill its victims, so it had more time to   spread.
While we may never be able to completely stop pandemics, we  can  make  them  less  common. Doctors carefully monitor new diseases that they fear could become pandemics. For example, in 2002, and 2003, doctors carefully watched SARS. Their health warnings may have prevented SARS from becoming a  pandemic.

This passage is mainly about   ................

Choose the option among A, B, c or D that best answers the question about the passage:

"Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand (or “Land of the Free”), is a country in Southeast Asia. The country was an absolute monarchy from 1782 until 1932, when rebels seized power in a coup and established a constitutional monarchy. Since then, Thailand has come under the rule of many governments, both civil and military. The country was known as Siam until 1939 (when it was renamed Thailand), and again for a few years in the late 1940s. In 1949 the name Thailand was adopted a second time.
 Central Thailand is dominated by a large fertile plain, formed by the country’s chief river, the Chao Phraya, and its tributaries. Much of the country’s rice and other crops are grown in this region. Bangkok, located on the Chao Phraya near the Gulf of Thailand, is Thailand’s Capital and largest city.
 Thai people form the large majority of Thailand’s population, and most of them practise Theravada Buddhism. Other ethnic groups within the population include Chinese, Malays, and indigenous hill peoples, such as the Hmong and Karen. Thailand is known for its highly refined classical music and dance and for a wide range of folk arts. Traditionally based on agriculture, Thailand’s economy began developing rapidly in the 1980s.
 The Thai have always been an agricultural people of the 1owland valleys and intermontane basins, where they cultivated wet rice with the use of water buffalo and harvested a wide range of fish and shellfish from the rivers and the sea. These occupations were often supplemented, especially in the north and northeast, by the collection of forest Products, ranging from timber, such as teak and bamboo, to foods stored for consumption during the dry season. In the northern mountain valleys, Tai-speaking peoples developed an intricate System of small-scale irrigation, called muang fai. The eventual move to the great Central plain necessitated the development of canals for transportation and, from the late-19th century onwards, of much larger irrigation and flood-control Systems. Small nuclear families occupied villages, comprising a wat and wooden houses on stilts. The pattern of life was governed above all by the seasonal rhythm of the monsoons and by a series of important religious festivals. Many of these festivals were closely associated with fertility and the arrival and ending of the rains."

2. Thailand has followed the constitutional monarchy since ……

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

Born on June 30, 1985 in Baltimore, Maryland, to Fred and Debbie Phelps, the youngest of three children, Michael Phelps and his sisters grew up in the neighbourhood of Rodger Forge. His father, Fred, a former all-rounded athlete, was a state trooper and his mother Debbie was a middle-school principal. When Phelps's parents divorced in 1994, he and his siblings lived with their mother, with whom Michael grew very close. Even at the age of 7, Phelps was still a little scared to put his head under water, so his instructors allowed him to float around on his back. Not surprisingly, despite the fact that later he is very good at butterfly swimming, the first stroke he mastered was not the easily-practised breaststroke but the backstroke.

At the age of 15, Phelps became the youngest American male swimmer to compete at an Olympic Games in 68 years. While he didn't win any medals at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, he would soon become a major force in competitive swimming.

In the spring of 2001, Phelps set the world record in the 200-meter butterfly, becoming the youngest male swimmer in history at the age of 15 years and 9 months. At the 2001 World Championships in Japan, he then broke his own record with a time of 1:54:58, earning his first international medal. In 2002, Phelps continued to establish several records including the 100-meter butterfly and the 200-meter individual medley. The following year, at the same event, he broke his own world record in the 400-meter individual medley with a time of 4:09.09.

After the London Olympics in 2012, Phelps announced he was retiring from his sport. However, at the 2016 Olympic Games, he came out of retirement and returned to professional competition. This was also the event in which he won one silver and five gold medals, becoming the oldest individual gold medalist in Olympic swimming history, as well as the first swimmer to win four consecutive golds in the same event, the 200 meter individual medley.

He didn't win any medals at the Olympics of ____

Although most universities in the United States are on a semester system, which offers classes in the fall and spring, some schools observe a quarter system comprised of fall, winter, spring, and summer quarters. The academic year, September to June, is divided into three quarters of eleven weeks each beginning in September, January, and March: the summer quarter, June to August, is composed of shorter sessions of vary length.There are several advantages and disadvantages to the quarter system. On the plus side, students who wish to complete their degrees in less than the customary four years may take advantage of the opportunity to study year round by enrolling in all four quarters. In addition, although most students begin their programs in the fall quarter, they may enter at the beginning of any other quarters. Finally, since the physical facilities are kept in operation year round, the resources are used effectively to serve the greatest number of students. But there are several disadvantages as well. Many faculty complain that eleven-week term is simply not enough for them to cover the material required by most college coursed. Students also find it difficult to complete the assignments in such a short period of time.In order to combine the advantages of the quarter system with those of the semester system some colleges and universities have instituted a three-term trimester system. In fourteen weeks, faculty and students have more time to cover material and finish course requirements, but the additional term provides options for admission during the year and accelerates the degree programs for those students who wish to graduate early.

The word “instituted” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to______.