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The advantages of this plan ________ its disadvantages.

 

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Without regular supplies of some hormones our capacity to behave would be seriously impaired; without others we would soon die. Tiny amounts of some hormones can modify our moods and our action, our inclination to eat or drink, our aggressiveness or submissiveness, and our reproductive and parental behavior. And hormones do more than influence adult behavior; early in life they help to determine the development of bodily form and may even determine an individual’s behavioral capacities. Later in life the changing outputs of some endocrine glands and the body’s changing sensitivity to some hormones are essential aspects of the phenomena of aging. Communication within the body and the consequent integration of behavior were considered the exclusive province of the nervous system up to the beginning of the present century. The emergence of endocrinology as a separate discipline can probably be traced to the experiments of Bayliss and Starling on the hormone secretion. This substance is secreted from cells in the intestinal walls when food enters the stomach; it travels through the bloodstream and stimulates the pancreas to liberate pancreatic juice, which aids in digestion. By showing that special cells secrete chemical agents that are conveyed by the bloodstream and regulate distant target organs or tissues, Bayliss and Starling demonstrated that chemical integration can occur without participation of the nervous system. William Bayliss and Ernest Henry Starling, two British physiologists, discovered and introduced the word hormone. In 1979, The Bayliss and Starling Society was founded as a forum for research scientists with specific interest in the chemistry, physiology and function of central and autonomic peptides. The Society also offered the travelling fellowship award for members who wanted to attend national and international academic conferences. Sometimes, the Society help schools to organize science fairs for secondary students and give them incentives to fall for related subjects. The term “hormone” was first used with reference to secretion. Starling derived the term from the Greek hormone, meaning “to excited or set in motion.” The term “endocrine” was introduced shortly thereafter, “Endocrine” is used to refer to glands that secrete products into the bloodstream. The term “endocrine” contrasts with “exocrine” which is applied to glands that secrete their products through ducts to the site of action. Examples of exocrine glands are the tear glands, the sweat glands, and the pancreas, which secretes pancreatic juice through a duct into intestine. Exocrine glands are also called duct glands, while endocrine glands are called ductless.
6. According to the passage, another term for exocrine lands is ________

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Fairy tales are the stories that adults, especially parents, tell young children. In view of their name, it is surprising that hardly any of them are actually about fairies. (33) ________ most fairy tales have happy endings, the stories usually deal with very frightening situations - children abandoned in the forest, terrifying giants, cruel stepmothers. However, despite being scared when they are told the stories, children will often ask to hear them over and over again. Many psychologists believe that what fairy tales do, in addition to (35) ________ children's imagination, is to show that there are problems in the world and they can be overcome. Just like adults, children have fears and worries: theirs are of things such as abandonment, loss, injuries, witches. Fairy tales present real problems in a fantasy form (36) ________ children are able to understand. This, it is claimed, allow them to (37) ________ their fears and to realise, if ever in their unconscious mind, that no matter how difficult the circumstances, there are always ways of coping

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Knowing what to expect from your destination will make all aspects of planning an adventure trip easier, as well as helping you to get the most out of the experience. Research will help you pick the best places to go but you’ll also learn what you need to pack. What health and safety (1) __________ to take, and what cultural (and sometimes political) issues you should be aware of. Climate and seasonal pricing are important factors in your decision about when to go. (2) ______ for adventure travel, bad weather or weather you’re not prepared for can ruin the trip. While you can’t predict the (3) __________ weather in advance, you can learn about climate trends ahead of time when doing your destination research. Seasonal popularity and pricing should also be considered if you intend to keep away from peak-season crowd and prices. While some research is absolutely essential, don’t plan every moment of your trip in advance. Over-planning tends to make us less (4) __________ to take part in the spontaneous events that are part of any sort of adventure travel. It’s really important to (5)_________ a big reserve of excitement and energy ready for the unexpected adventures

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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  
4. The word “it” in paragraph 2 refers to _____

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_____ the cold weather, we kept the fire burning all day.

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Formerly babies ............... of whooping cough.

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More than a decade ago the UK investigative journalist Nick Davies published Flat Earth News, an exposé of how the mass media had abdicated its responsibility to the truth. Newsroom pressure to publish more stories, faster than their competitors had, Davies argued, led to journalists becoming mere “churnalists”. Shocking as Davies’ revelations seemed in 2008, they seem pretty tame by today’s standards, writes Ben Lorica, Chief Data Scientist at O’Reilly. We now live in a post-truth world of Fake News and “alternative facts”; where activists don’t just seek to manipulate the news agenda with PR but now use advanced technology to fake images and footage. A particularly troubling aspect of these ‘”deepfake” videos is their use of artificial intelligence to fabricate people saying or doing things with almost undetectable accuracy. The result is that publishers risk running completely erroneous stories – as inaccurate as stating that the world is flat – with little or any ability to check their source material and confirm whether it is genuine. The rise of unchecked fakery has serious implications for our liberal democracy and our ability to understand what’s truly going on in the world. The technology to manipulate imagery has come a long way since Stalin had people airbrushed out of history. Creating convincing yet fake digital content no longer requires advanced skills or a well-resourced (mis)information bureau. Anyone with a degree of technical proficiency can create content that will fool even the experts. Take the faked footage of Nancy Pelosi earlier this year, which was doctored to make her look incoherent and was viewed two and a half million times before Facebook took it down. This story shows how social media is giving new life to the old aphorism that “a lie can go halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its boots on”. The propagation of lies and misinformation is immeasurably enhanced by platforms like Twitter and Facebook that enable virality. What’s more, the incentives for creating fake content now favour malicious actors, with clear economic and political advantages for disseminating false footage. Put simply, the more shocking or extreme the content, the more people will share it and the longer they will stay on the platform. Meanwhile, counterfeiters can manipulate the very tools being developed to detect and mitigate deepfak content, just as the security industry inadvertently supplies software that can be misused for cybercrime.
6. The word “disseminating” in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to _______

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Last week, China declared “mission accomplished” after landing a spacecraft, Chang’e-4, on the far side of the Moon. It was a remarkable endeavour. As the far side of the Moon never faces the Earth, mission control cannot communicate directly with the spacecraft, but only via an orbiting satellite. The terrain is more broken and cratered than the near side, so landing a craft is that much more difficult. Even Nasa was impressed: “a first for humanity and an impressive accomplishment!”. Yet mixed with admiration was trepidation. China, a latecomer to the space race, is now beginning to threaten the supremacy of America and Russia. But then Russia and America have long played their space exploration programmes for propaganda purposes. From the beginning, the space race was intimately bound up with the needs of the cold war. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first human craft to orbit the Earth. Four years later, Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. Eight years later, on 21 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to tread on the Moon. Their journey may have been fuelled in part by cold war desperation, but it was also an extraordinary triumph of knowledge and will, an act of the technological sublime. Once America was satisfied that the Soviet Union had been put in its place, space exploration became politically less important. As America downgraded its space ambitions, Chinese aspirations took flight. In 1992, the Chinese government approved the Shenzhou manned spaceflight programme. Eleven years later, Yang Liwei became the first Chinese astronaut in space. Fears about Chinese ambitions have been heightened by the changing context of the space race. During the cold war, America feared the Soviet Union, but was determined to thwart Moscow’s aims. Today, American apprehension stems from the worry that China’s emergence as the dominant global force cannot be checked, nor Beijing’s brutal despotism challenged. As liberal democracy frays in the west and authoritarian capitalism becomes entrenched in the east, self-doubt shapes US attitudes to China. Space exploration has long been fuelled by a mixture of humanistic dreams, technological leaps and tawdry politics. The Chang’e-4 mission is no different. How the space race will play out over the next decade, and what role China will adopt in global politics, remains uncertain. In the meantime, let us celebrate our new perspective of the dark side of the Moon.
7. The following sentences are true, EXCEPT _______

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I_______ in the lounge for ten minutes.

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Communication in general is process of sending and receiving messages that enables humans to share knowledge, attitudes, and skills. Although we usually identify communication with speech, communication is composed of two dimensions - verbal and nonverbal.

Nonverbal communication has been defined as communication without words. It includes apparent behaviors such as facial expressions, eyes, touching, tone of voice, as well as less obvious messages such as dress, posture and spatial distance between two or more people.

Activity or inactivity, words or silence all have message value: they influence others and these others, in turn, respond to these communications and thus they are communicating.

Commonly, nonverbal communication is learned shortly after birth and practiced and refined throughout a person's lifetime. Children first learn nonverbal expressions by watching and imitating, much as they learn verbal skills.

Young children know far more than they can verbalize and are generally more adept at reading nonverbal cues than adults are because of their limited verbal skills and their recent reliance on the nonverbal to communicate. As children develop verbal skills, nonverbal channels of communication do not cease to exist although become entwined in the total communication process.

Which is not included in nonverbal communication?

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In 1988, a year before the Soviet Union collapsed, the 13th National Congress of the  Communist Party of Vietnam adopted a resolution to have “more friends and fewer enemies”. So it was not surprising when Vietnam expressed interest in joining ASEAN as early as 1992, or when it did in fact join in July 1995.   Vietnam’s membership of the grouping integrated its security with the whole of Southeast Asia and created a favourable environment for economic development. This, in turn, raised Vietnam’s global image, leading to increased cooperation with multiple players in the region and greater bargaining clout with super powers like the United States and China. As an ASEAN member, Vietnam has worked hard to secure peace and reconciliation among Southeast Asian nations, which were once deeply divided by war. Vietnam was the first Indochinese country to join ASEAN, and its move helped end confrontation between the Indochinese bloc and ASEAN. Vietnam has also helped ASEAN partner with non-regional players.  Vietnam also led efforts within ASEAN to ensure regional security. Soon after becoming a member, Vietnam signed the Treaty on the Southeast Asian Nuclear-WeaponFree Zone and was one of the founding members of the ASEAN Regional Forum. But the most proactive steps by Hanoi towards regional stability have revolved around disputes in the South China Sea. A direct claimant in the dispute, Vietnam, along with the Philippines, has made constant efforts to put the South China Sea on ASEAN’s agenda, ensuring conflict is dealt with in a constructive way. Vietnam has shown constant support for the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, ASEAN’s Six-Point Principles on the East Sea, and the soon-to-be-concluded Code of Conduct of Parties in the East Sea. Vietnam calls for the settlement of disputes by peaceful means on the basis of international law and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea — including through regulations on respecting exclusive economic zones and the continental shelf of coastal countries. Vietnam has remained committed to ASEAN since it joined in 1995 and Vietnam is beginning to integrate further with the global community, and  cooperation with ASEAN will always be an important pillar in its foreign policy. But Vietnam’s interest in ASEAN is not
limited to security issues. Its leadership also drives efforts toward an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). 
7. What will the next paragraph of the passage possibly discuss?

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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.
6. The word "detected" in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to: 

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The Internet is very much like television, in which it takes time away from other pursuits, provides entertainment and information, but in no way can compare with the warm, personal experience of reading a good book. This is not the only reason why the Internet will never replace books, for books provide the in-depth knowledge of a subject that sitting in front of a computer monitor cannot provide. We can download text from an Internet source, but the aesthetic quality of sheets of downloaded text leave much to be desired. A welldesigned book enhances the reading experience. The book is still the most compact and inexpensive means of conveying a dense amount of knowledge in a convenient package. The easy portability of the book is what makes it the most user-friendly format for knowledge ever invented. The idea that one can carry in one’s pocket a play by Shakespeare, a novel by Charles Dickens or Tom Clancy, Plato’s Dialogues, or the Bible in a small paperback edition is mind-boggling. We take such uncommon convenience for granted, not realizing that the book itself has undergone quite an evolution since the production of the Gutenberg Bible in 1455 and Shakespeare’s First Folio in 1623, just three years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth to colonize the New World. Not only has the art and craft of printing and book manufacturing been greatly improved over the centuries, but the great variety of subject matter now available in books is astounding, to say the least. In fact, the Internet requires the constant input of authors and their books to provide it with the information that makes it a useful tool for exploration and learning.  Another important reason why the Internet will never replace books is because those who wish to become writers want to see their works permanently published as books - something you can hold, see, feel, skim through, and read at one’s leisure without the need for an electric current apart from a lamp. The writer may use a word processor instead of a typewriter or a pen and pad, but the finished product must eventually end up as a book if it is to have value to the reading public. The writer may use the Internet in the course of researching a subject just as he may use a library for that purpose, but the end product will still be a book.
7. According to the passage, which sentence is NOT true about books?

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An important point to remember if you like spending time out in the open air is that the human head doesn’t work very well outdoors if it becomes too hot, cold or wet. That’s why a hat is a good investment, whenever you are planning to go out and about. Surprisingly, a single waterproof hat with a brim will do the (34)______ adequately in most conditions. In cold climates, the problem is that the head is (35)______ heat all the time. As much as fifty to sixty per cent of your body’s heat is lost through the head and neck, (36)______ on which scientist you believe. Clearly this heat loss needs to be prevented, but it’s important to remember that hats don’t actually keep you warm, they simply stop heat escaping. Just as important is the need to protect your neck from the effects of bright sunlight, and the brim of your hat will do this. If you prefer a baseball cap, (37)______ buying one that has a drop down ‘tail’ at the back to stop your neck getting sunburnt. And in wet weather (38)______, hats are often more practical than pooling up the hood of your waterproof coat because when you turn your head, the hat goes with you, whereas the hood usually does not.

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In all the debate about conservation of natural landscapes, we must not forget that the 19th century also saw the development of interest in the cultural past. Although archaeology was around 100 years old at this point, at least in the Old World, it was largely an exercise in treasure hunting - digging up the treasures of the past as curiosities for museums or for the private collections of those who funded the dig. Changes in attitudes and law throughout the 19th century meant that monuments and artefacts were becoming part of the study of the past, no longer merely trinkets and curiosities, but indicators of a culture’s development and identity. Modern archaeology would not arrive until the 20th century and the concept of an archaeological landscape is younger still. The first laws to protect and conserve cultural heritage came into place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the developed countries. In the US, the first such law was the Antiquities Act in 1906 which gave the office of president the power to set aside areas of land as protected cultural assets, known as “National Monuments”. This law was in place until 1979 when it was replaced with the Archaeological Resources Protection Act but several other laws came into place before then that  required archaeologists to label and give proper contexts to monuments and artefacts. There was also a global movement to protect by law and provide resources and funds for monuments that were nationally important, but also those deemed significant to human civilization as a whole. Founded in 1945, has many responsibilities, one of the most important as far as archaeological conservation is concerned is the World Heritage List. The list began in 1975 as a recognition of globally important sites. The first 12 added on that first day included: L’Anse Aux Meadows in Canada, The Galapagos Islands, Quito in Ecuador, Krakow, and Mesa Verde National Park in the US. Today, there are over 1,000 cultural monuments and natural landscapes on this list. In the 21st century, it is common for countries to have laws in place to protect monuments, sites, and landscapes of cultural or historical importance and governmentestablished charities or government departments assigned to their management, upkeep or conservation. The threats to them and their conservation go beyond the issues of the 19th century (plunder and theft)
3. The word “indicators” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to _______.

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Can you tell me your daily _________?

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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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When you volunteer, it might be one of the best ways to gain hands-on experience for  a future career. And giving a (1) ________________ hand to a community won’t just result in great networking opportunities but the experience can also be a great addition to your skill set and CV. With each new volunteering job comes training with a different (2) ________________ of skills. These skills might seem basic and unhelpful while training but can become a great benefit soon. If you develop new abilities, it’ll help set you (3) _______________ in the job market. It can also make you more productive and successful. Volunteering broadens your experience and exposure to life. And it won’t just help you make a difference in a community, it’ll (4) _________ help you on a personal level. Are you planning on becoming a nurse or doctor? Volunteer at your local hospital. Are you following a career in environmental science? Find a (5)______________________ restoration programme. This is the perfect opportunity to gain essential leadership experience that all employers want to see

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All the different plants and animals in a natural community are in a state of balance. This balance is achieved by the plants and animals interacting (1) _______ each other and with their non-living surroundings. An example of a natural community is a woodland, and a woodland is usually dominated by a particular species of plant, such as the oak tree in an oak wood. The oak tree in this example is therefore called the dominant species but there are also many other types of plants, from brambles, bushes, and small trees to mosses, lichens and algae (2) __________ on tree trunks and rocks. The plants of a community are the producers: they use carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen to build up their tissues using energy in the form of sunlight. The plant tissues form food for the plant-eating animals (herbivores) (3) _______ are in turn eaten by flesh-eating animals (carnivores). Thus, plants produce the basic food supply for all the animals of a community. The animals themselves are the consumers, and are either herbivores or carnivores. Examples of herbivores in a woodland community are rabbits, deer, mice and snails, and insects such as aphids and caterpillars. The herbivores are sometimes eaten by the carnivores. Woodland carnivores are of all sizes, from insects such as beetles and lacewings to animals such as owls, shrews and foxes. Some carnivores feed on herbivores, some feed on the smaller carnivores, (4) _______ some feed on both: a tawny owl will eat beetles and shrews as well as voles and mice. These food relationships between the different members of the community are known as food chains or food (5) ______. All food chains start with plants. The links of the chain are formed by the herbivores that eat the plants and the carnivores that feed on the herbivores. There are more organisms at the base of the food chain than at the top; for example, there are many more green plants than carnivores in a community

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Laura said that when she ............... to school, she saw an accident.