Choose the best answer:
I enjoy _________ to classical music in my free time.

 

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D)
Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world. (1) ____, at the current time, 1 in 5 women and girls between the ages of 15-49 have reported experiencing physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner within a 12-month period and 49 countries currently have no laws (2) ____ women from domestic violence. Progress is occurring regarding harmful practices such as child marriage and FGM (Female Genital Mutilation), which has declined by 30% in the past decade, but there is still much work to be (3) ____ to completely eliminate such practices. Providing women and girls with equal (4) ____ to education, health care, decent work, and representation in political and economic decision-making processes will fuel sustainable economies and benefit societies and humanity at large. Implementing new legal frameworks regarding female equality in the workplace and the eradication of harmful practices (5) ____ at women is crucial to ending the gender-based discrimination prevalent in many countries around the world

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
With exams approaching, you should be thinking about how to get better at time management and organize your days so you can strike the right balance between home, work and university life. You should also try and eat some brain food - and no, we don’t mean crisps and energy drinks! By taking the time to arrange your priorities, you can give yourself the best chance of staying on track and being organized during the exam period, which in turn can help reduce stress levels, something that can be the difference between success and failure at university. Take a look at our top time management tips, so that you can do your best at university and also find moments to relax and even earn some money on the side. First and foremost, allow time for planning to avoid repetition. Taking the time to research, plan and think about your work is crucial for good time management. Allow yourself the time to process new information and plan how you are going to use it, as this can help you to avoid having to re-read and repeat any research. One way of effectively planning before researching is to make a list of everything you want to find out, so that you can make notes below each subheading as you go Secondly, avoid procrastination and distraction. One way to avoid procrastination is to think about the different places you have been when studying - where were you the most focused? Where were you most distracted? Is there anything you can do to make studying actually somewhat enjoyable? Remember, what works for one person might not necessarily work for you. For some, studying with friends can limit their productivity. But for others, studying in groups can help to increase motivation and avoid procrastination. Next, exercise to clear your head in between study sessions. Believe it or not, exercise works in the same way sleep does. It can focus your state of mind, helping you to clear your head and boost your brain power in between study sessions. If you’re new to exercise, aim to fit in a 10-minute run here and there, steadily increasing the amount you do as you go on. Finally, ask yourself the question, “Has your organization been effective?” Constantly reviewing and reassessing your schedule can help you to recognize whether you need to make any changes in order to help you complete any university tasks and also have time to relax and spend time with friends and family.  
3. What is NOT mentioned as a benefit of following these tips?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
If you go back far enough, everything lived in the sea. At various points in evolutionary history, enterprising individuals within many different animal groups moved out onto the land, sometimes even to the most parched deserts, taking their own private seawater with them in blood and cellular fluids. In addition to the reptiles, birds, mammals and insects which we see all around us, other groups that have succeeded out of water include scorpions, snails, crustaceans such as woodlice and land crabs, millipedes and centipedes, spiders and various worms. And we mustn’t forget the plants, without whose prior invasion of the land, none of the other migrations could have happened. Moving from water to land involved a major redesign of every aspect of life, including breathing and reproduction. Nevertheless, a good number of thoroughgoing land animals later turned around, abandoned their hard-earned terrestrial re-tooling, and returned to the water again. Seals have only gone part way back. They show us what the intermediates might have been like, on the way to extreme cases such as whales and dugongs. Whales (including the small whales we call dolphins) and dugongs, with their close cousins, the manatees, ceased to be land creatures altogether and reverted to the full marine habits of their remote ancestors. They don’t even come ashore to breed. They do, however, still breathe air, having never developed anything equivalent to the gills of their earlier marine incarnation. Turtles went back to the sea a very long time ago and, like all vertebrate returnees to the water, they breathe air. However, they are, in one respect, less fully given back to the water than whales or dugongs, for turtles still lay their eggs on beaches. There is evidence that all modern turtles are descended from a terrestrial ancestor which lived before most of the dinosaurs. There are two key fossils called Proganochelys quenstedti and Palaeochersis talampayensis dating from early dinosaur times, which appear to be close to the ancestry of all modern turtles and tortoise. You might wonder how we can tell whether fossil animals lived in land or in water, especially if only fragments are found. Sometimes it’s obvious. Ichthyosaurs were reptilian contemporaries of he dinosaurs, with
fins and streamlined bodies. The fossils look like dolphins and they surely lived like dolphins, in the water. With turtles it is a little less obvious. One way to tell is by measuring the bones of their forelimbs.
2. According to the first paragraph, reptiles, birds, mammals and insects __________

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
The concept of exotic holidays is not new. Cruises and other travel packages to tropical locations have long been popular and are more (1) ____ now than ever. The wealthy have gone on trips to exotic places since the 19th century, but now ordinary people have enough money for this kind of holiday. Holidaymakers are increasingly interested in doing something different and want more exciting (2) ____. A number of tour companies have responded with a new range of options, including African safaris. Going on a safari is a totally (3) ____ form of holiday. Accompanied by a safari guide, groups travel into the African wilderness to experience close up the thrill of the wild. Being so close to the animals is an once-in-a-lifetime experience. (4) ____ species, which are rarely seen outside the zoo, provide a great (5) ____

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Scientists believe that something very serious is happening to the Earth. It is becoming warmer. Scientists predict that there will be major changes in the climate during the 21st century. Coastal waters will have higher temperatures. This will have a serious effect on agriculture. Farmers will have trouble producing good crops. In warm regions, the weather will be too dry. The amount of water could decrease by 50 per cent. This would cause a large decrease in agricultural production. World temperatures could increase from 1.5 to 5.6 degrees Celsius by the middle of the 21st century. And the increase in temperature could be even greater in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. A rise in temperature could cause the great ice sheets to melt, which, in turn would raise the level of oceans by one to two meters. Many coastal cities would be underwater. Why is all this happening? The Earth and its atmosphere are kept warm by the Sun. The atmosphere lets most of the light from the Sun pass through to warm the Earth. The Earth is warmer by the sunlight and sends heat energy back into the atmosphere. Much of this energy escapes from the Earth’s atmosphere. However, some of it remains. Gases such as carbon dioxide, ozone and water vapor absorb this energy and create more heat. Then, this heat is sent back down to Earth, and the Earth becomes warmer. Recently, however, an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is causing serious problems. Too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere prevents heat energy from escaping. Too much heat is sent back down to the Earth, and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continues to increase. When oil, gas, and coal burn, they create large amounts of carbon dioxide. The destruction of rain forests that absorb carbon dioxide also helps to increase the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Some scientists believe that the amount of carbon dioxide in the air will double by the late 2000s. Scientists call this warming of the Earth and its atmosphere “the greenhouse effect”. A greenhouse, made of glass and plastic, is a special place where plants are grown. The sunlight passes through the glass or plastic and warms the air inside. The heat inside escapes very slowly, so the greenhouse remains very warm. This is exactly what is happening on the Earth. Another reason why the Earth is growing warmer is because of the amount of ozone in our atmosphere. Ozone is a form of oxygen. In the upper atmosphere, very far from the Earth, a layer of ozone helps to protect the Earth from 95 percent of the harmful light that comes from the sun. If your skin receives too much of this light, you would develop skin cancer. We need the ozone layer to protect ourselves. But the ozone layer is in trouble. Scientists have observed that the ozone layer is becoming thin, and above Antarctica there is a hole. This allows too much of the sun’s dangerous light into our atmosphere and makes the Earth warmer. Scientists say we must start making changes and planning now. We need to continue to do research, so we can predict what will happen in the future. We must burn less coal, oil, and gas. Other scientists believe that the problem is not so serious. They think that the Earth is growing warmer naturally, that we don’t need to worry about it now, and that we should just get ready for life in the warmer climate. Most scientists agree that the causes of the world’s climate are very complicated. They say that we must continue to measure the amount of carbon dioxide and ozone in the atmosphere. Scientists also encourage people to learn about the changes that are occurring in the world and how we can all help protect our atmosphere  
3. The melting of the polar ice sheets will probably lead to ____

Choose the best answer:
This drink isn't beneficial for health. You ____ drink it too much.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Every summer, when the results of university entrance exam come out, many newspaper stories are published about students who are top-scorers across the country. Most portray students as hard-working, studious, smart and, generally, from low-income families. They are often considered heroes or heroines by their families, communes, villages and communities. And they symbolise the efforts made to lift them, and their relatives, out of poverty. The students are often too poor to attend any extra-classes, which make their achievements more illustrious and more newsworthy. While everyone should applaud the students for their admirable efforts, putting too much emphasis on success generates some difficult questions. If other students look up to them as models, of course it’s great. However, in a way, it contributes to society’s attitude that getting into university is the only way to succeed. For those who fail, their lives are over. It should be noted that about 1.3 million high school students take part in the annual university entrance exams and only about 300,000 of them pass. What’s about the hundreds of thousands who fail? Should we demand more stories about those who fail the exam but succeed in life or about those who quit university education at some level and do something else unconventional? “I personally think that it’s not about you scoring top in an entrance exam or get even into Harvard. It’s about what you do for the rest of your life,” said Tran Nguyen Le Van, 29. He is the founder of a website, vexere.com, that passengers can use to book bus tickets online and receive tickets via SMS. His business also arranges online tickets via mobile phones and email. Van dropped out of his MBA at the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona in the United States. His story has caught the attention of many newspapers and he believes more coverage should be given to the youngsters who can be role-models in the start-up community. Getting into university, even with honours, is just the beginning. "We applaud them and their efforts and obviously that can give them motivation to do better in life. However, success requires more than just scores," Van said. Van once told a newspaper that his inspiration also came from among the world’s most famous drop-outs, such as Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook or Bill Gates who also dropped out of Harvard University. Alarming statistics about unemployment continues to plague us. As many as 162,000 people with some kind of degree cannot find work, according to Labour Ministry’s statistics this month. An emphasis on getting into university does not inspire students who want to try alternative options. At the same time, the Ministry of Education and Training is still pondering on how to reform our exam system, which emphasises theories, but offers little to develop critical thinking or practice. Vu Thi Phuong Anh, former head of the Centre for Education Testing and Quality Assessment at Viet Nam National University in HCM City said the media should also monitor student successes after graduation. She agreed there were many success stories about young people, but added that it was imbalanced if students taking unconventional paths were not also encouraged. Viet Nam is, more than ever, in desperate need of those who think outside the box. Time for us to recognise talent, no matter where it comes from or how.
8. What can be inferred from the passage?

Dirty Britain

Before the grass has thickened on the roadside verges and leaves have started growing on the trees is a perfect time to look around and see just how dirty Britain has become. The pavements are stained with chewing gum that has been spat out and the gutters are full of discarded fast food cartons. Years ago I remember travelling abroad and being saddened by the plastic bags, discarded bottles and soiled nappies at the edge of every road. Nowadays, Britain seems to look at least as bad. What has gone wrong?

The problem is that the rubbish created by our increasingly mobile lives lasts a lot longer than before. If it is not cleared up and properly thrown away, it stays in the undergrowth for years; a semi-permanent reminder of what a tatty little country we have now.

Firstly, it is estimated that 10 billion plastic bags have been given to shoppers. These will take anything from 100 to 1,000 years to rot. However, it is not as if there is no solution to this. A few years ago, the Irish government introduced a tax on non-recyclable carrier bags and in three months reduced their use by 90%. When he was a minister, Michael Meacher attempted to introduce a similar arrangement in Britain. The plastics industry protested, of course. However, they need not have bothered; the idea was killed before it could draw breath, leaving supermarkets free to give away plastic bags.

What is clearly necessary right now is some sort of combined initiative, both individual and collective, before it is too late. The alternative is to continue sliding downhill until we have a country that looks like a vast municipal rubbish tip. We may well be at the tipping point. Yet we know that people respond to their environment. If things around them are clean and tidy, people behave cleanly and tidily. If they are surrounded by squalor, they behave squalidly. Now, much of Britain looks pretty squalid. What will it look like in five years?

For the writer, the problem is that _______.

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:
Sunlight is solar energy. Sunlight is needed for growing plants that you eat to get energy. Sunlight is also used to make clean electricity. Burning fossil fuels to make electricity pollutes our atmosphere and rivers. Fossil fuels are expensive and limited sources of energy. Nuclear fission is used to create enormous amount of heat and electricity. However, nuclear fission forms dangerous radioactive waste.
Sunlight offers many ways to get energy. A window can allow warm sunlight into your room. Solar water-heating systems can use sunlight to warm the water for your home, swimming pool

and school. Sunlight also warms the Earth and causes wind. Electricity can be made by wind generators.
Photovoltaic, or PV system use a type of material that converts sunlight into electricity. PV systems can power your air conditioner or a satellite like the International Space Station. PV systems are also used to run a calculator, recharge cell phone, or even power lightweight cars.
Sunlight is also changed into electricity by concentrating solar power or CSP systems. CSP systems have mirrors that focus the sunlight. The concentrated sunlight turns water into steam which turns a turbine that is connected to an electric generator. A CSP system usually uses sunlight to make steam. CSP power plants can store large amount of heat. The stored heat is used to make electricity at night. During cloud days, many CSP plants can also burn natural gas to provide the heat that is used to turn water into steam.
Sunlight provides the energy needed to grow plants and make large amount of environmentally friendly heat and electricity. Solar energy can provide power today and for a long time in the future.

This article is mainly about      

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Don’t look now, but artificial intelligence is watching you. Artificial intelligence has tremendous power to enhance spying, and both authoritarian governments and democracies are adopting the technology as a tool of political and social control. Data collected from apps and websites already help optimize ads and social feeds. The same data can also reveal someone’s personal life and political leanings to the authorities. The trend is advancing thanks to smartphones, smart cameras, and more advanced AI. An algorithm developed at Stanford in 2017 claimed to tell from a photograph whether a person is gay. Accurate or not, such a tool creates a new opportunity for persecution. “Take this type of technology, feed it to a citywide CCTV surveillance system, and go to a place like Saudi Arabia where being gay is considered a crime,” says Lisa Talia Moretti, a digital sociologist. “Suddenly you’re pulling people off the street and arresting them because you’re gay, because the computer said so.”  No country has embraced facial recognition and AI surveillance as keenly as China. The AI industry there has flourished thanks to fierce competition and unrivaled access to personal data, and the rise of AI is enabling tighter government control of information, speech, and freedoms. In some Chinese cities, facial recognition is used to catch criminals in surveillance footage, and to publicly shame those who commit minor offenses. Most troubling, AI is being used in Xinjiang, a province in Western China, to persecute Muslims. Even if China’s AI capabilities are exaggerated, the AI boom there is having a chilling effect on personal freedom, says Ian Bremmer, an expert on global political risk and founder of the Eurasia Group. “You just need a government that is starting to get that capacity and make it known, and have a few people that are sort of strung up as examples, and suddenly everyone is scared,” he says. This might feel like a distant reality, but similar tools are being developed and used in the West. Just ask Glenn Rodriguez, who faced judgment from an algorithm when seeking parole from prison in the US. Despite 10 years of good behavior, Rodriguez saw how an algorithm called COMPAS, designed to predict inmates’ likelihood of reoffending, would be biased against him. And even though the parole board went against the computer program’s  
3. The word “persecution” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to _______

Rewrite the sentence:
We have advised you on how to cut down your energy use. We remember that.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
The White House, the official home of the United State President, was not built in time for George Washington to live in it. It was begun in 1792 and was ready for its inhabitants, President and Mrs. John Adams, who moved in on November 1, 1800. When the Adams moved in, the White House was not yet complete, and the Adams suffered many inconveniences; for example, the main staircase was incomplete, which hindered movement from floor to floor, and the future laundry yard was merely a pool of mud, so wet laundry was hung in the unfinished East Room to dry. Thomas Jefferson, the third president, improved the comfort of the White House in many respects and added new architectural features such as the terraces on the east and west ends. When the British forces burned the White House on August 24, 1818, President Madison was forced to leave. All the remained after the fire was the exterior walls, the interior was completely destroyed. It was not until December of 1817 that the following president, James Monroe was able to move into a rebuilt residence. Since then, the White House has continued to be modified but has been continuously occupied by each succeeding US president.
10. The paragraph following the passage most likely discusses.:

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
The temperature of the earth is rising at nearly twice the rate it was 50 years ago. This rapid rate and pattern of warming, scientists have concluded, cannot be explained by natural cycles alone. The only way to explain the pattern is to include the effect of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted by humans. To come to a conclusion on climate change, the United Nations formed a group of scientists called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. The IPCC meets every few years to review the latest scientific findings and write a report summarizing all that is known about global warming. Each report represents a consensus, or agreement, among hundreds of leading scientists. One of the first things the IPCC learned is that there are several greenhouse gases responsible for warming, and humans emit them in a variety of ways. Most come from the combustion of fossil fuels in cars, factories and electricity production. The gas responsible for the most warming is carbon dioxide, also called CO2. Other contributors include methane released from landfills and agriculture, especially from the digestive systems of grazing animals, nitrous oxide from fertilizers, gases used for refrigeration and industrial processes, and the loss of forests that would otherwise store CO2. Different greenhouse gases have very different heat-trapping abilities. Some of them can even trap more heat than CO2. A molecule of methane produces more than 20 times the warming of a molecule of CO2. Nitrous oxide is 300 times more powerful than CO2. Other gases, such as chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which have been banned in much of the world because they also degrade the ozone layer, have heat-trapping potential thousands of times greater than CO2. But because their concentrations are much lower than CO2, none of these gases adds as much warmth to the atmosphere as CO2 does. In order to understand the effects of all the gases together, scientists tend to talk about all greenhouse gases in terms of the equivalent amount of CO2. Since 1990, yearly emissions have gone up by about 6 billion metric tons of “carbon dioxide equivalent” worldwide, more than a 20 percent increase.  
6. The word “which” in paragraph 5 refers to which of the following?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Many people believe the glare from snow causes snow-blindness. Yet, dark glasses or not, they find themselves suffering from headaches and watering eyes, and even snowblindness, when exposed to several hours of “snow light”. The United States Army has now determined that the glare from snow does not cause snow-blindness in troops in a snow-covered country. Rather, a man’s eyes frequently find nothing to focus on in a broad expanse of a snow-covered area. So his gaze continually shifts and jumps back and forth over the entire landscape in search of something to look at. Finding nothing, hour after hour, the eyes never stop searching and the eyeballs become sore and the eye muscles ache. Nature balances this annoyance by producing more and more liquid which covers the eyeballs. The liquid covers the eyeballs in increasing quantity until vision blurs. And the result is total, even though temporary, snow-blindness. Experiments led the Army to a simple method of overcoming this problem. Scouts ahead of a main body of troops are trained to shake snow from evergreen bushes, creating a dotted line as they cross completely snow-covered landscape. Even the scouts themselves throw lightweight, dark-colored objects ahead on which they too can focus. The men following can then see something. Their gaze is arrested. Their eyes focus on a bush and having found something to see, stop searching through the snow-blanketed landscape. By focusing their attention on one object at a time, the men can cross the snow without becoming hopelessly snow-blind or lost: In this way the problem of crossing a solid white area is overcome
1. To prevent headaches, watering eyes and blindness caused by the glare from snow, dark glasses are ____

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:
These days, most people in Britain and the US do not wear very formal clothes. But sometimes it is important to wear the right thing.
Many British people don't think about clothes very much. They just like to be comfortable. When they go out to enjoy themselves, they can wear almost anything. At theatres, cinemas and concerts you can put on what you like from elegant suits and dresses to jeans and sweaters. Anything goes, as long as you look clean and tidy.

But in Britain, as well as in the US, men in offices usually wear suits and ties, and women wear dresses or skirts (not trousers). Doctors, lawyers and business people wear quite formal clothes. And in some hotels and restaurants men have to wear ties and women wear smart dresses.
In many years, Americans are more relaxed than British people, but they are more careful with their clothes. At home, or on holiday, most Americans wear informal or sporty clothes. But when they go out in the evening, they like to look elegant. In good hotels and restaurants, men have to wear jackets and ties, and women wear pretty clothes and smart hairstyles.
It is difficult to say exactly what people wear informal or formal in Britain and the US, because everyone is different. If you are not sure what to wear, watch what other people do and then do the same. You'll feel more relaxed if you don't look too different from everyone else.

If you are in a foreign country, the best way the writer suggests to you is to wear 

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Advances in mobile technology and social networking websites mean we spend more time online than ever before. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world by population (The Economist, 2010). It is (1) ______ not surprising that so many psychologists, sociologists, and others are eager to give their thoughts on how this is impacting negatively on our society. The biggest criticism levelled at social networking is that young people are losing their offline friends to online friends (2) ______ are unable to provide the same deep connection and emotional support. However, a lot of research shows these criticisms are generally (3) ______. Allen et al. (2010) discovered that it is socially adjusted adolescents who are more likely to have a networking profile than those who are not. One study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (2009) found that people are not (4) ______ offline friends with online companions but are using them to support their offline relationships. The study also found that social networks allow us to have discussions with a much more diverse set of people than in the real world, so we share knowledge with people from a wide (4) ______ of backgrounds.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Although television was first regarded by many as “radio with pictures,” public reaction to the arrival of TV was strikingly different from that afforded the advent of radio. Radio in its early days was perceived as a technological wonder rather than a medium of cultural significance. The public quickly adjusted to radio broadcasting and either enjoyed its many programs or turned them off. Television, however, prompted a tendency to criticize and evaluate rather than a simple on-off response. One aspect of early television that can never be recaptured is the combined sense of astonishment and glamour that greeted the medium during its infancy. At the midpoint of the 20th century, the public was properly agog about being able to see and hear actual events that were happening across town or hundreds of miles away. Relatively few people had sets in their homes, but popular fascination with TV was so pronounced that crowds would gather on the sidewalks in front of stores that displayed a working television set or two. The same thing happened in the typical tavern, where a set behind the bar virtually guaranteed a full house. Sports events that might attract a crowd of 30,000 or 40,000 suddenly, with the addition of TV cameras, had audiences numbering in the millions. By the end of television’s first decade, it was widely believed to have greater influence on American culture than parents, schools, churches, and government-institutions that had been until then the dominant influences on popular conduct. All were superseded by this one cultural juggernaut. The 1950s was a time of remarkable achievement in television, but this was not the case for the entire medium. American viewers old enough to remember TV in the ’50s may fondly recall the shows of Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, and Lucille Ball, but such high-quality programs were the exception; most of television during its formative years could be aptly described, as it was by one Broadway playwright, as “amateurs playing at home movies.” The underlying problem was not a shortage of talented writers, producers, and performers; there were plenty, but they were already busily involved on the Broadway stage and in vaudeville, radio, and motion pictures. Consequently, television drew chiefly on a talent pool of individuals who had not achieved success in the more popular media and on the young and inexperienced who were years from reaching their potential. Nevertheless, the new medium ultimately proved so fascinating a technical novelty that in the early stages of its development the quality of its content seemed almost not to matter. Fortunately, the dearth of talent was short-lived. Although it would take at least another decade before areas such as news and sports coverage approached their potential, more than enough excellence in the categories of comedy and drama emerged in the 1950s to deserve the attention of discriminating viewers. They are the most fondly remembered of the Golden Age genres for both emotional and intellectual reasons. Live TV drama was, in essence, the legitimate theatre’s contribution to the new medium; such shows were regarded as “prestige” events and were afforded respect accordingly. The comedies of the era are remembered for the same reason that comedy itself endures: human suffering and the everelusive pursuit of happiness render laughter a necessary palliative, and people therefore have a particular fondness for those who amuse them  
8. The passage can probably extracted from which of the following?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Pollutants in the air aren’t always visible and come from many different sources. Smog hanging over cities is the most familiar and obvious form of air pollution. But there are different kinds of pollution - some visible, some invisible - that contribute to global warming. Generally any substance that people introduce into the atmosphere that has damaging effects on living things and the environment is considered air pollution. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is the main pollutant that is warming Earth. Though living things emit carbon dioxide when they breathe, carbon dioxide is widely considered to be a pollutant when associated with cars, planes, power plants, and other human activities that involve the burning of fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas. In the past 150 years, such activities have pumped enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to raise its levels higher than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years. Other greenhouse gases include methane - which comes from such sources as swamps and gas emitted by livestock - and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were used in refrigerants and aerosol propellants until they were banned because of their deteriorating effect on Earth’s ozone layer. Another pollutant associated with climate change is sulfur dioxide, a component of smog. Sulfur dioxide and closely related chemicals are known primarily as a cause of acid rain. But they also reflect light when released in the atmosphere, which keeps sunlight out and causes Earth to cool. Volcanic eruptions can spew massive amounts of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, sometimes causing cooling that lasts for years. In fact, volcanoes used to be the main source of atmospheric sulfur dioxide; today people are. Industrialized countries have worked to reduce levels of sulfur dioxide, smog, and smoke in order to improve people’s health. But a result, not predicted until recently, is that the lower sulfur dioxide levels may actually make global warming worse. Just as sulfur dioxide from volcanoes can cool the planet by blocking sunlight, cutting the amount of the compound in the atmosphere lets more sunlight through, warming the Earth. This effect is exaggerated when elevated levels of other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap the additional heat.
7. What is the word "exaggerated" in the last sentence closest in meaning to?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Naval architects never claim that a ship is unsinkable, but the sinking of the passenger-and-car ferry Estonia in the Baltic surely (1) ____ have never happened. It was well designed and carefully maintained. It carried the proper number of lifeboats. It had been (2) ____ inspected the day of its fatal voyage. Yet hours later, the Estonia rolled over and sank in a cold, stormy night. It went down so quickly that most of those on board, caught in their dark, flooding cabins, had no chance to save themselves: Of those who (3) ____ scramble overboard, only 139 survived. The rest died of hypothermia before the rescuers could pluck them from the cold sea. The final death (4) ____ amounted to 912 souls. However, there were an unpleasant number of questions about why the Estonia sank and why so many (5) ____ were men in the prime of life, while most of the dead were women, children and the elderly.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Sophia is a humanoid robot developed by Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics. She has been designed to learn and adapt to human behavior and work with humans, and has been interviewed around the world. In October 2017, she became a Saudi Arabian citizen, the first robot to receive citizenship of a country. According to herself, Sophia was activated on April 19, 2015. She is modeled after actress Audrey Hepbum,and is known for her human-like appearance and behavior compared to previous robotic variants. According to manufacturer, David Hanson, Sophia has artificial intelligence, visual data processing and facial recognition. Sophia also imitates human gestures and facial expressions and is able to answer certain questions and to make simple conversations on predefined topics (e.g. on the weather). The robot uses voice recognition technology from Alphabet Inc. (parent company of Google) and is designed to get smarter over time. Sophia’s intelligence software is designed by SingularityNET. The AI program analyses conversations and extracts data that allows her to improve responses in the future. It is conceptually similar to the computer program ELIZA, which was one of the first attempts at simulating a human conversation. Hanson designed Sophia to be a suitable companion for the elderly at nursing homes, or to help crowds at large events or parks. He hopes that she can ultimately interact with other humans sufficiently to gain social skills. Sophia has been interviewed in the same manner as a human, striking up conversations with hosts. Some replies have been nonsensical, while others have been impressive, such as lengthy discussions with Charlie Rose on 60 Minutes. In a piece for CNBC, when the interviewer expressed concerns about robot behavior, Sophia joked that he had “been reading too much Elon Musk, and watching too many Hollywood movies”. Musk tweeted that Sophia could watch The Godfather and suggested “What’s the worst that could happen?”. On October 11, 2017, Sophia was introduced to the United Nations with a brief conversation with the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Amina J. Mohammed. On October 25, at the Future Investment Summit in Riyadh, she was granted Saudi Arabian citizenship, becoming the first robot ever to have a nationality. This attracted controversy as some commentators wondered if this implied that Sophia could vote or marry, or whether a deliberate system shutdown could be considered murder. Social media users used Sophia’s citizenship to criticize Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. 
2. Paragraph 2 mainly discusses_________