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In __________ time, farmers use buffalo-drawn cart to take food home.

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Alexander Hamilton was born on January 11, 1755 or 1757 in the West Indies. Due to his mother’s lack of marital status, Hamilton was not seen as a legitimate child and was thus denied access to church schools. When his mother died he was adopted by a merchant in Nevis, where he worked as a clerk. During his time in Nevis, Hamilton continued to write; one of his essays impressed the community leaders so much that they worked together and collected funds to send Hamilton to the colonies. Hamilton served in the revolutionary war, during which time he worked his way through battles and earned himself a place aiding General Washington. After the war, Hamilton was elected into the Congress of the Confederation. He was dissatisfied with the decentralized government that was set up and the inability to raise money from the states to pay the soldiers. Hamilton was involved in the Constitution Convention but did not fully agree with the document; despite his disagreements, he promoted the document because he believed it was a vast improvement over the Articles of Confederation. He pushed the ratification of the Constitution, teaming up with John Jay and James Madison to write the Federalist papers, which were often cited when pushing for the Constitution’s ratification. Alexander Hamilton was appointed as the country’s first Secretary of The Treasury on September 11, 1789. During his time as Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton helped write economic policies, develop the funding of state debts, establish the national bank, create a national currency, a system of tariffs, and a peaceful trade relationship with Britain. After his time in politics finished, Alexander Hamilton went back to New York to practice law. He died in a duel with Aaron Burr in Weehawken, New Jersey on July 12, 1804  
3. The word “elected” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ______

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A new report by the Pew Research Center has provided more documentation on the growing popularity of audiobooks. In a survey of 1,502 American adults conducted from January 8 to February 7 this year, Pew found that 20% of adults listened to an audiobook in the 12 months prior to the period in which the survey was conducted. In 2011, only 11% of them said they listened to an audiobook. The strongest gains have come since 2016—the dawning of the digital audiobooks age. The percentage of adults listening to audiobooks rose six percentage points between 2016 and the 2019 survey, after rising only three percentage points between 2011 and 2016. According to Pew, since 2018, college students and adults with household incomes over $75,000 are the two groups who have adopted listening to audiobooks the quickest. The Pew survey also found that while listening to audiobooks has risen steadily since the 2016 survey, reading e-books had declined. Twenty-eight percent of adults reported reading an e-book in 2016—double the number who listen to audiobooks that year. By the most recent survey, ebooks had only a 5% edge over audiobook usage. Overall, the Pew survey found a gradual reduction in the percentage of Americans who are reading. In 2011, 79% of those surveyed said they had read a book in the previous 12 months, a number that fell to 72% in early 2019. Print remained by far the book format of choice, with 65% or adults surveyed reporting that had read a print book within the last year, down from 71% in 2011. The percentage of adult who read a book in any format fell from 79% in 2011 to 72% in 2019.  
5. According to paragraph 4, what is the general trend of people’s reading behaviours?

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Kissing under sprigs of mistletoe is a well-known holiday tradition, but this little plant’s history as a symbolic herb dates back thousands of years. Many ancient cultures prized mistletoe for its healing properties. The plant’s romantic overtones most likely started with the Celtic Druids of the 1st century A.D. Because mistletoe could blossom even during the frozen winter, the Druids came to view it as a sacred symbol of vivacity, and they administered it to humans and animals alike in the hope of restoring fertility. Another famous chapter in mistletoe folklore comes from Norse mythology. As the story goes, when the god Odin’s son Baldur was prophesied to die, his mother Frigg, the goddess of love, went to all the animals and plants of the natural world to secure an oath that they would not harm him. But Frigg neglected to consult with the unassuming mistletoe, so the scheming god Loki made an arrow from the plant and saw that it was used to kill the otherwise invincible Baldur. According to one sunnier version of the myth, the gods were able to resurrect Baldur from the dead. Delighted, Frigg then declared mistletoe a symbol of love and vowed to plant a kiss on all those who passed beneath it. Mistletoe’s associations with fertility and vitality continued through the Middle Ages, and by the 18th century it had become widely incorporated into Christmas celebrations. Just how it made the jump from sacred herb to holiday decoration remains up for debate, but the kissing tradition appears to have first caught on among servants in England before spreading to the middle classes. As part of the early custom, men were allowed to steal a kiss from any woman caught standing under the mistletoe, and refusing was viewed as bad luck.  
5. According to paragraph 3, which statement is correct about the mistletoe tradition?

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Did you accuse Nam of ............... a plate? Well, I saw him ............... it off the table with his elbow.

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A question I was asked about the readiness for independence (or lack thereof) during the last stage of adolescence (ages 18 - 23) was this: “How can parents teach independence?” From what I’ve seen, there are at least four components to this training: responsibility, accountability, work, and self-help. And this instruction can start as soon as (1) ____ begins, (usually between ages 9 and 13) if not before. Young people who learn independence can often say: “I (2) ____ my freedom by acting responsibly (I did what was right even when it was hard to do),” “I was held (3) ____ for my bad choices and paid for my mistakes (I faced my consequences),” “I worked to get a lot of what I wanted (it wasn’t all handed to me),” “I developed the resourcefulness to help myself (4) ____ with difficulty (I met my problems head on).” Young people who seem to get stuck in their dependent ways often have parents who, with the most loving motivation, undermine the growth of independence. They give freedom without demanding evidence of responsibility. “If you really want to do it, that’s enough for us to say okay.” They rescue from or ignore bad choices without (5) ____ on accountability. “You didn’t know any better so we’ll overlook what you did.” They provide whatever is wanted without having the child work for any of it. “We’ll just get it for you.” They weaken with so much help when difficulties arise that the capacity for self-help is disabled. “We’ll fix what you did and take care of it

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Human beings are plagued by all kinds of diseases and millions of people die from them. Many of these diseases such as diabetes, polio, whooping cough and diphtheria can be fatal and in the past, people used to die from them. However, with modern technology and a lot of research, scientists and doctors have come up with various ways to cure these diseases, and consequently, many lives are saved. In doing the medical research, doctors have come face to face with many problems. One such problem is the opposition that comes from animal activists. They are against the inhuman treatment of animals. They argue that in conducting their medical research, doctors put animals through a very painful process and this should be stopped. According to the fiercest animal activists, nothing justifies the use of animals in medical experiments, even if lives might be saved. To get their message across, animal activists are even willing to resort to the use of violence. Many animal protection groups, like the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), have broken into laboratories illegally to ‘rescue’ animals. They take away whatever animals they can find and free them. These people also make their case by threatening the researchers. They vandalize medical equipment, and in the most serious cases, they even . In stealing the animals, the activists are actually hindering the progress of medicine. In many cases, the animals were part of research for the cure for various diseases and visual defects in babies. Cures for problems that people face, therefore, come slower and in the waiting period, more people die. Researchers have come up with many cures in the process of working with animals and on animals. Organ transplants are so common today, but we forget that they became only  possible after they were tested on animals. Doctors were able to come up with a cure for river blindness, a disease that affects millions of people in South America and Africa. These are only a few examples, and there are many more. In spite of what animal activists think, most researchers do not treat animals cruelly. In fact, mistreated animals which are in agony will affect the quality of research so that results obtained are not really reliable. Thus, researchers do try to treat animals as well as possible. In the long run, animal activists can cause serious damage to the future of medicine. With their persistent campaigning, much of the public supports their cause. People with AIDS or cancer need doctors to do research to save their lives, and often it is a case where animal research is crucial before any cure can be found  
2. According to paragraph 3, animal activists may resort to brute force ____

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My mom is a pretty talented pianist. She reads music very well and loves to play  Chopin and various other classical artists. One of my earliest memories involves sitting under her piano bench while she played. It gave her a lot of joy and a lot of personal pride, I think. I trust that she naturally wanted those things for me when she enrolled me in piano lessons when I was about seven years old.  I hated them. I was scared of my teacher. I hated practicing. I hated the songs I was being forced to learn. I hated reading music. I was a young kid, and there were other things I wanted to do instead. It just didn’t interest me, and no amount of begging and pleading on my mother’s part could get me to enjoy practicing. One thing in particular that she used to say as she was begging me to practice was, “One day, when you’re older, you will cherish the ability to sit down and play.” Nevertheless, after a couple years of once-a-week torture, she finally allowed me to quit.  Years went by. I switched schools when I was 11 years old, got a new best friend, and got interested in music. This was a critical turning point. My best friend loved the band Bush and lots of other alternative bands of the ‘90s, and listening to them unlocked a whole new sonic world for me. I fell in love, fell completely and totally in love, with rock music.  My friend taught me the form for a power chord on her acoustic guitar. If you know how to play a power chord, you can play or at least convincingly fake pretty much every single rock song in the world. It was like someone had given me my first hit of a powerful opiate.  I spent hours practicing in my room. Hours sounding out my favourite songs. More hours playing along with those songs in front of my mirror, pretending I was Scott Weiland, Dolores O’Riordan, Chris Cornell, or my personal favourite Louise Post (of Veruca Salt). I unlocked a talent within myself that had gone obscenely undiscovered and undeveloped when I was a young child banging my head against a piano keyboard, trying and failing to read a piece of music - I could play the guitar by ear. I just hadn’t had the time to figure that out because my mom was trying so hard to get me to do something that did not come naturally to me and that I had no desire to do.
3. How many piano lessons per week did the writer have?

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:
In the USA, the UK and many other countries, a lot of babies were born in the “baby boom” of the late 1940s and 1950s; after that the birth-rate fell. Baby boomers have now retired, or are approaching retirement, and this is causing headaches for many organizations: there are not enough people to succeed their top managers when they retire.
Does your organization have key staff who can’t easily be replaced? A CEO or financial director, perhaps, or a technical expert with knowledge that nobody else in the organization has. If your answer is “yes”, what will happen when they retire, or leave for another company? Will you wait until the last moment before looking for someone to replace them? Or is your organization thinking about likely future changes now, as it should be, and making plans, so that there is likely to be someone ready to replace the person leaving? If the answer is that you are planning ahead, your organization is carrying out succession planning.
Succession planning means looking inside the organization for “high-fliers” - current staff members with the potential to fill key positions - and planning the training, responsibilities and promotion they need, to make them ready when a senior vacancy occurs - which may not be for several years. The company benefits by being able to make an internal promotion when a key person leaves, and in the meantime it benefits by developing the skills of its high-fliers and encouraging them to stay. And the high-fliers benefit, because they achieve their full potential, a career is planned for them within the organization, and they can look forward to a senior post in time.
The training program planned for the high-fliers will help them to develop the leadership skills they need for more senior roles, skills such as planning long-term strategies. A career path is also planned, so that each high-flier moves into a number of different positions over a few years, to gain the experience and know ledge they need.
Sometimes a staff member is chosen as a potential successor to a particular senior manager, but a better method is for organizations to select a number of high-fliers, and prepare them for a range of senior roles. An organization can’t be certain when a particular senior manager will leave. Having a group of people being prepared fee top positions makes it easier to replace someone who leaves unexpectedly, and also means that there are other people available if a high-flier leaves the company.

According to the 2nd paragraph, which of the following is NOT stated about key staff?

Find synonym:
Land erosion is mainly caused by widespread deforestation.

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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.
3. As mentioned in paragraph 2, which of the following species returned to the water least completely?

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Researchers have found out that the size of an animal is important when it comes to extinction. Scientists have determined that the biggest and the smallest animals are more (1) ________ risk of dying out than medium-sized animals. Heavy animals are mostly endangered by hunting and poaching while the smallest creatures may die out (2)_______their living area is being polluted. Among the most endangered animals are elephants, lions and rhinos. Public awareness is large and campaigns to save such animals have been around for a long time. It is the smallest (3) __________ that get the least attention. Especially fish and frogs are in danger of dying out. The species that are most at risk have a weight of over 1 kilogram. They are in danger of being (4)__________ because we need food, skin and other items. According to the study, animals that are (5) __________ extinct affect large ecosystems, like forests, deserts and oceans

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NASA continues to plan a flight to Mars. The technological challenge is immense, first  of all, because it will be very difficult to carry tons of material for the construction of a habitat. This is why NASA is looking for alternative solutions, such as the possibility of growing structures out of fungi to become our future homes in the stars. The concept of these “houses” is based on three distinct layers. The first is made of ice. It must protect people from radiation, but also provide the resources necessary for the second layer. This is made of photosynthesizing microbes or cyanobacteria, which produce oxygen for astronauts and nutrients for the final layer of mycelia. That last layer of mycelia is what organically grows into a sturdy home, first activated to grow in a contained environment and then baked to kill the lifeforms.  Researchers have already experimented with creating objects using mycelia. A team from Stanford and Brown universities grew a stool as part of a myco-architecture project at NASA’s Ames research center in 2018. After two weeks of growth, the stool looked like something that would have been long forgotten in a refrigerator. It was then baked that leads to a clean and functional piece of furniture. From the point of view of space conquest, mushrooms could also be used to filter water for future explorers and extract minerals. Once these prototypes are designed for other worlds, we can bring them back to ours. Building this kind of housing could reduce the huge carbon footprint of the construction industry. This research project is still in its infancy, but it shows us how scientists are able to broaden horizons, and it’s exciting.
1. Which best serves as the title for the passage?

rewrite the sentence:
I haven't got used to Indian food although I have lived here for three months.

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Is cake a socially awkward person’s reward for having made it through the birthday celebration ritual? Well, not exactly. And actually celebrating the anniversary of one’s birth has not always been the done thing either. What if I told you that having your birthday celebrated is the closest you are getting to be a god(dess)? The first “birthday” celebration goes back to the Egyptians who, each year, would rejoice on the anniversary of the pharaoh’s coronation day. The reason being that you were not really born until you were made into a pharaoh, i.e., after you were transformed into a God. From there, the Greeks contributed to bringing a moon-shaped cake and candles to celebrate the lunar goddess, Artemis, to represent the radiance of the moon and her beauty. But still, what about the cake? We have to thank the Germans for introducing the contemporary birthday celebrations, which included a cake. They started the ‘kinderfeste’, where children were honoured with a celebration on their birthday, especially when it came to the first birthday. Kids also had candles on their cake; one for each year they had been alive, plus one, symbolising the chance of making it through the coming year. Fortunately, we now live at a time where birthday cakes come in various shapes, colours and flavours to please different preferences and dietary requirements, as it is very difficult to imagine a birthday party without a sweet and yummy, treat. Conversely, cake eating is less and less reserved to birthdays only, and personally I really like being able to enjoy a piece of cake whenever I feel like it outside birthday parties. Still, there is something even more special about a birthday cake; it is also about sharing special moments with loved ones
1. Which best serves as the title for the passage? 

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Generation gap refers to a vast difference in cultural norms between a younger generation and their elders. It’s a distressing thing for the phenomenon (1) ____ occurs around the world. The (2) ____ of communication, different views on certain problems and different attitudes towards life may cause the generation gap or even widen it. First, one of the major factors for this misunderstanding between two generations is that parents and children lack communication. Young people (3) ____ reveal their feelings to their parents, and often complain that their parents are out of (4) ____ with modern days, that they are dominant, that they do not trust their children to deal with crises, and that they talk too much about certain problems. So when young people meet some problems, they would rather (5) ____ to their classmates or their friends for help. The lack of communication widens the generation gap Another factor is that parents and their children see almost everything from different (6) ____. Take choosing career as an example. Parents generally believe it is their responsibility to plan the career for their children. Some hope their children will (7) ____ professions that will bring them greatest prestige and economic benefits. Some hope children will have a stable job with a regular income. But the youth may think they should be free to (8) ____ their own decisions as to their future career. Young people explain that true success is not a matter of money or position, instead, it is a matter of self-fulfillment. Finally, with the change of the world over decades, the attitude of the young has altered too. There are differences in (9) ____ matters as musical tastes, fashions, drug use, sex and politics between the young people and their elders. Nowadays long hair on young males is viewed as fashion by the young, but it is frequently considered a shocking act of rebellion against (10) ____ norms by parents

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The campfire ………………… if it ………………… last night.

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Adolescence is the period ________ child and young adulthood

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For 150 years scientists have tried to determine the solar constant, the amount of solar energy that reaches the Earth. Yet, even in the most cloud-free regions of the planet, the solar constant cannot be measured precisely. Gas molecules and dust particles in the atmosphere absorb and scatter sunlight and prevent some wavelengths of the light from ever reaching the ground. With the advent of satellites, however, scientists have finally been able to measure the Sun's output without being impeded by the Earth's atmosphere. Solar Max, a satellite from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), has been measuring the Sun's output since February 1980. Although a malfunction in the satellite's control system limited its observation for a few years, the satellite was repaired in orbit by astronauts from the space shuttle in 1984. Max's observations indicate that the solar constant is not really constant after all. The satellite's instruments have detected frequent, small variations in the Sun's energy output, generally amounting to no more than 0.05 percent of the Sun's mean energy output and lasting from a few weeks. Scientists believe these fluctuations coincide with the appearance and disappearance of large groups of sunspots on the Sun's disk. Sunspots are relatively dark regions on the Sun's surface that have strong magnetic fields and a temperature about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the rest of the Sun's surface. Particularly large fluctuations in the solar constant have coincided with sightings of large sunspot group. In 1980, for example, Solar Max's instrument, registered a 0.3percent drop in the solar energy reaching the Earth. At that time a sunspot group covered about 0.6 percent of the solar disk, an area 20 times larger than the Earth's surface. Long-term variations in the solar constant are more difficult to determine. Although Solar Max's data have indicated a slow and steady decline in the Sun's output, some scientists have thought that the satellite's aging detectors might have become less sensitive over the years, thus falsely indicating a drop in the solar constant. This possibility was dismissed, however, by comparing Solar Max's observations with data from a similar instrument operating on NASA's Nimbus 7 weather satellite since 1978.
9. The phrase "This possibility" in the last paragraph refers to the likelihood that the: 

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Families can function well if everyone is able to communicate their needs and wants to communicate with each other in a respectful way. This can be hard if you are feeling frustrated, angry, hurt or sad. Sometimes it can be better to wait until intense feelings have (1)_____ , so that you can more calmly communicate what is going on for you and what you need and want. You may not always get what you want straight away and you might have to be patient and/ or learn the (2)______of negotiation and compromise. Learning to negotiate is a great way to (3)_____things out so everyone come out winning. For example, you might agree to help with chores around the house so you can go to the movies. It’s important to stick to your side of the agreement - this builds trust and respect. Talking things (4)_______can be really helpful, particularly if you are worried about your family relationships. It’s important to identify someone in your family who you feel is understanding and supportive. This could be a parent, brother, sister, cousin, aunty, uncle, a grandparent or a (5) ______family friend.

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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 across the world, killing over 25 million people only in six months. Such terrible outbreaks of a diseases are called pandemics. Pandemics happen when a disease changes in a way that our bodies are not prepared to fiht. In 1918, a new type of fl virus appeared. Our bodies had no way to fiht 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 pandemics 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 disease that they fear could become pandemics. For example, in 2002, and 2003, doctors carefully watched SARS. Their health warming may have prevented SARS from becoming a pandemic.
9. The word "monitor" in the passage is closest in meaning to: