Choose the best answer:
We need to learn how to cook, wash the clothes at home. It’s _________.

 

Choose the best answer:
We are going to have a picnic despite the rain.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the following questions:
The ruined temples of Angkor are perhaps one of the most impressive Seven Wonders of the World. Located in modern day Cambodia near Lake Tonle Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Asia, Angkor was the seat of power for the Khmer Empire for the ninth to the fifteenth century. The ruins of Angkor are documented as some of the most impressive ones in the world, rivaling the pyramids of Giza in Egypt. Why this mighty civilization died out is a question that archaeologists are now only beginning to ponder. The answer, it turns out, may be linked with the availability of fresh water.
One possible explanation for the downfall of the Khmer Empire has to do with the inhabitant’s irrigation system. The temples and palaces of Angkor were constructed around a series of artificial reservoirs and canals which were annually flooded to capacity by the Mekong River. Once filled, they were used to irrigate the surrounding paddies and farmland during the course of the year. Farmers were completely dependent on the water for their crucial rice crop. Without consistent irrigation, the farmers would have been unable to maintain functional crop production.
Scientists speculate that toward the end of the Khmer Empire the hydraulic system of the reservoirs and canals broke down. The construction of hundreds of sandstone temples and palaces required an enormous amount of physical labor. In addition, as the capital of Khmer Empire, Angkor contained upwards of one hundred thousand people who resided in and around Angkor. In order to feed so many people, the local farmers were driven to grow food more quickly and more efficiently. After centuries of continual use, the irrigation system was pushed beyond its capacity. Soil erosion, nutrient depletion, and loss of water led to decrease in the food supply. With the less food available, the people of Angkor slowly began to migrate to other parts of Cambodia, thus leaving the marvelous city of Angkor to be swallowed by the jungle. Therefore, it is speculated that the Khmer Empire may have fallen victim to its own decrepit infrastructure.

According to the passage, Lake Tonle Sap in Cambodia     .

Most Americans still get married at some point in their lives, but even that group is shrinking. Among current generations of adult American - starting with those bom in 1920s - more than 90 percent have married or will marry at some point in their lives. However, based on recent patterns of marriage and mortality, demographers calculate that a growing share of the younger generations are postponing marriage for so long that an unprecedented number will never marry at all.

More Americans are living together outside of marriage. Divorced and widowed people are waiting longer to remarry. An increasing number of single women are raising children. Put these trends together with our increasing life expectancy, and the result is inevitable. Americans are spending a record low proportion of their adult lives married.

Married rates for unmarried men and women have dropped from their post-195Os high to record lows. Part of this fall is due to the change in the age at which people first marry. The median age at first marriage is the age by which half the men or women who will ever marry have done so. It fell almost continuously from the time it was first measured, in 1890, at 22.0 years for women and 26.1 for men, to a low of 20.3 for women and 22.6 for men between 1947 and 1962. Since then, it has risen at a rapid pace, to a record high for 23.8 for women and 26.2 for men in 1994.

The length of time between marriages is also increasing, and more divorced people are choosing not to remarry. In 1990, divorced men had waited an average of 3.8 years before remarrying, and divorced women had waited an average of 3.5 years, an increase of more than one year over the average interval in 1970.

Data on cohabitation and unmarried childbearing suggest that marriage is becoming less relevant to Americans. 2.8 million of the nation's households are unmarried couples, and one-third of them are caring for children, according to the Census Bureau

The word "rapid" in paragraph 3 could be best replaced by ________

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:
As a result of the recent oil crisis, 9.9 million of California’s 15 million motorists were subjected to an odd – even plan of gas rationing. The governor signed a bill forcing motorists with license plates ending in odd numbers to buy gas only on odd – numbered days, and those ending in even numbers on even – numbered days. Those whose plates were all letters or specially printed had to follow the odd – numbered plan.
Exceptions were made only for emergencies and out – of – state – drivers. Those who could not get gas were forced to walk, bike, or skate to work.
This plan was expected to eliminate the long lines at many service stations. Those who tried to purchase more than twenty gallons of gas or tried to fill a more than half filled tank would be fined and possibly imprisoned.

The gas rationing plan was not binding on     

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Can a performance go viral? Ben Platt’s should. As the title character in Dear Evan Hansen, the new musical from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, he offers acting so precise yet so painfully lucid that it should overwhelm the operating systems by which most contemporary musicals operate. Platt’s gestures, his expressions, his phrasing, even his vocal range – which is impressive but tends to thin out toward the top notes – all combine to communicate the fretfulness, uncertainty and timorous goodness that define his character. He plays Evan, a friendless high school senior terrified of life, the universe, everything. His harried single mother, Heidi, (Rachel Bay Jones) tells him, “You can’t succeed if you never try.” Evan nods, but you can that he believes more strongly in the corollary: “If you don’t try, you can’t fail.” A therapist has instructed him to write pep-talk letters to himself. On the first day of school, one of them falls into the hands of Connor Murphy (Mike Faist), another outcast with drug problems and a look a peer describes as “school shooter chic”. When Connor kills himself, his parents find the letter and mistakenly believe that Evan was a friend to their son. At first this attention panics Evan, but he soon accepts the role and even briefly becomes an internet sensation. Often he is tempted to tell Connor’s family the truth, but he fears disappointing them and sacrificing his newfound confidence Watching Dear Evan Hansen, one often thinks of Next to Normal, another Second Stage show about a mentally distressed protagonist. But with its tuneful pop score and teenage protagonist, Dear Evan Hansen is a gentler affair, even as it takes occasional pains not to oversentimentalize the material. When Evan presents a surprisingly rosy picture of her brother, his sister Zoe (Laura Dreyfuss) sings, “Don’t say it wasn’t true/ That you were not the monster/ That I knew.” Near the play’s end, Platt positively glistens with sweat and spit and tears. Yet one never has the sense of an actor deliberately winding himself up to deliver a visceral performance. There’s obvious care taken in the way he offers Evan’s cringing smile, his swallowed laugh, his habit of pulling at his clothes as though searching for someone to hold onto. But all of these details feel lived, organic, unrehearsed. And Platt’s ability to convey emotion through song is simply superb and often deeply heartrending.  
5. The word “rosy” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to _______

Chooose the best answer:
The flight had to be delayed___ the bad weather.

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Stories about how people (1)__________ know when they are being watched have  been going around for years. However, few made have been made to investigate the phenomenon scientifically. Now, with the completion of the largest ever study of the socalled staring effect, there is impressive evidence that this is a recognizable and (2) _______ sixth sense. The study involved hundreds of children. For the experiments, they sat with their eyes covered and with their backs to other children, who were told to either stare at them or look away. The results consistently showed that the children who could not see were able to (3) _______ when they were being stared at. In a total of 18,000 trials carried out worldwide, the children correctly sensed when they were being watched almost 70% of the time. The experiment was repeated with the added precaution of putting the children who were being watched outside the room, (4) _______ from the starters by the windows. The results, though less impressive, were more or less the same. Dr. Sheldrake, the biologist who designed the study, believes that the results are (5) _______ enough to find out through further experiments precisely how the staring effect might actually come about.

Each sentence has a mistake. Findit by chosing A B C or D

 Part of the sunlight that strikes the Earth is reflected into the sky, and a rest is absorbed by the ground.

Choose the best answer:
If you ………………… to me, you wouldn’t have got so much trouble.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
In 2000, Honda created a walking robot after two decades of developing humanoid  robots. Currently, it is displayed in Miraikan museum in the Japanese capital city of Tokyo. At 1.3 meters tall, with a shiny white helmet instead of a face, Asimo (whose name  comes from English initials or words Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) is the world’s cleverest robot. He can walk, talk and carry out (1) _____ complicated jobs. His latest challenge has been to direct the (2) _____ of a full orchestra in a performance of the tune “The Impossible Dream”.  Using both hands, Asimo led the musicians confidently and (3) _____ to make them slow down for a strong finish. He ended the piece with a powerful, long note before turning to the audience. Asimo’s realistic movements were based on (4) _____ of the orchestra’s director, who had filmed himself playing the same piece six months (5) _____. Asimo was then ‘taught’ by his programmers to copy the movements on the film. Fortunately, Asimo’s battery runs out after 20 minutes, so the orchestra’s regular director need not worry about Asimo taking over his job!

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There are many strange superstitions in the world. The most common one is related to black cats, (1) ____ are the source of hundreds of unlucky superstitions. It’s a sign of bad luck if they walk in front of you or you step on their tails. They even bring bad luck into a house if they sneeze inside! This superstition dates (2) ____ to the Middle Ages when they became associated with witches and evil spirits. Another common superstition is about walking under a ladder. A more (3) ____ explanation can be traced back to ancient Egypt. The early Egyptians believed that the shape of the Pyramids had a special power. It was considered very bad luck to break the “power” of this shape and that’s exactly what walking under a ladder would do! In addition, in Roman times, people (4) ____ the habit of looking at themselves in pools of water. Some believed that these reflections were in fact “glimpses of the soul”. Any disruption to the water in the pool would bring bad luck to the person looking in it. This superstition lives (5)_________the fear of bad luck from breaking a mirror

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Bagpipe music played, wreaths were sent and Amazing Grace was sung. A  black shroud was laid upon a makeshift urn. It was a funeral, of course, for which such displays of respect are common. But in this case, the people living in a small Nova Scotia community had gathered to pay their respects not to a person who had died, but to a post office.  The grief might have been hard for outsiders to understand, but not for those living in Head of St. Margaret’s Bay, N.S., where the post office run by Verna Dunlop was a big part of their small, tight-knit community. The post office, which had been located in the back of Dunlop’s home, was not just a utilitarian service kiosk where residents had to go to pick up their mail. According to locals, it was also a community hub where people gathered to catch up on the town gossip, or to enjoy a cup of the coffee the postmaster had been brewing for them. “It’s really the centre of the village,” said one woman, explaining what the post office meant to the people living there.  There had been a post office located in Head of St. Margaret’s Bay since before Confederation. And local residents spent months fighting to keep the one they had. But Canada Post made the decision to close it, as it was losing money. It was replacing the post office with sets of newly installed super mailboxes.  Many people in town weren’t convinced the coming changes were for the better. “We do not want those super mailboxes. We want to have a community life,” he said. At the mock funeral, Dunlop choked up as she said she hoped “this is going to stop,” alluding to the fact that it wasn’t just Head of St. Margaret’s Bay that was losing its post office. “We hope that the way of life that we’re used to we can keep,” she added. Canada Post had closed 40 such rural post offices that year and had long-term plans to close more than 5,000 of them across the country. “Just as Verna Dunlop’s post office came to symbolize for these people the best qualities of rural life, so does its passing remind them of the steady erosion of that way of life,” said Evans.
3. The word “makeshift” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _______

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Although experts agree that traditional meetings are essential for making certain decisions and developing strategy, many employees view them as one of the most unnecessary parts of the workday. The result is not only hundreds of billions of wasted dollars, but the worsening of what psychologists call “meeting recovery syndrome”: time spent cooling off and regaining focus after a useless meeting.  It’s isn’t anything novel that workers feel fatigued after a meeting, but only in recent decades have scientists deemed the condition worthy of further investigation. Meeting recovery syndrome (MRS) is most easily understood as a slow replenishment of our limited mental resources. When an employee sits through an ineffective meeting their brain power is essentially being drained away, says Joseph A. Allen, a professor at the University of Utah. If they last too long, fail to engage employees or turn into lectures with little to no personal interactions, meetings will significantly diminish employees’ psychological stamina. Taking time to recover a must, but doing so comes at the expense of productivity.  As humans, when we transition from one task to another – such as from sitting in a meeting to doing normal work – it takes an effortful cognitive switch. We must make a big mental effort to stop the previous task and then expend significant mental energy to move on to the other. Some can bounce back from horrible meetings rather quickly, while others carry their fatigue until the end of the workday. It’s even worse when a worker has several meetings that are separated by only 30 minutes.  While no counter-MRS measures have been tested, Allen says one trick that might work is for employees to identify things or locations that quickly change their mood from negative to positive. As simple as it sounds, finding a personal happy place, going there and then coming straight back to work might be the key to reducing recovery time. Another solution is to ask ourselves if our meetings are even necessary in the first place. If all that’s on the agenda is a quickly catch-up, or some non-urgent information sharing, it may better for managers to send an e-mail to his or her subordinates instead. Most important, however, if for organizations to awaken to the concept of meetings being flexible, says Allen. We have to get rid of the acceptance of meetings as sites of pain, when they should be places of gain.” Allen says. 
6. In which case should managers only send e-mails to their employees?

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In 1959 Xerox created the first plain paper copy machine. It was one of the most  successful products ever. The company name Xerox grew into a verb that means “to copy,” as in “Bob, can you Xerox this for me?” Around 50 years later, the same thing happened to Google. Their company name grew into a verb that means “to do an internet search.” Now everyone and their grandma knows what it means to Google it.  Unlike Xerox, Google wasn’t the first company to invent their product, not by a long shot. Lycos released their search engine in 1993. Yahoo! came out in 1994. AltaVista began serving results in 1995. Google did not come out until years later, in 1998. Though a few years difference may not seem like much, this is a major head start in the fast moving world of tech. So how did Google do it? How did they overtake their competitors who had such huge leads in time and money? Maybe one good idea made all the difference.  There are millions and millions of sites on the internet. How does a search engine know which ones are relevant to your search? This is a question that great minds have been working on for decades. To understand how Google changed the game, you need to know how search engines worked in 1998. Back then most websites looked at the words in your query. They counted how many times those words appeared on each page. Then they might return pages where the words in your query appeared the most. This system did not work well and people often had to click through pages and pages of results to find what they wanted.  Google was the first search engine that began considering links. Links are those blue underlined words that take you to other pages when you click on them. Larry Page, cofounder of Google, believed that meaningful data could be drawn from how those links connect. Page figured that websites with many links pointing at them were more important than those that had few. He was right. Google’s search results were much better than their rivals. They would soon become the world’s most used search engine.  It wasn’t just the great search results that led to Google becoming so wellliked. It also had to do with the way that they presented their product. Most of the other search engines were cluttered. Their home pages were filled with everything from news stories to stock quotes. But Google’s homepage was, and still is, clean. There’s nothing on it but the logo, the search box, and a few links. It almost appears empty. In fact, when they were first testing it, users would wait at the home page and not do anything. When asked why, they said that they were, “waiting for the rest of the page to load.” People couldn’t imagine such a clean and open page as being complete. But the fresh design grew on people once they got used to it. 
8. The word ’it’ in the last paragraph refers to ____

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Herman Melville, an American author best known today for his novel Moby Dick, was actually more popular during his lifetime for some of his other works. He traveled extensively and used the knowledge gained during his travels as the basis for his early novels. In 1837, at the age of eighteen, Melville signed as a cabin boy on a merchant ship that was to sail from his Massachusetts home to Liverpool, England. His experiences on this trip served as a basis for the novel Redburn (1849). In 1841, Melville set out on a whaling ship headed for the South Seas. After jumping ship in Tahiti, he wandered around the islands of Tahiti and Moorea.This South Sea island sojourn was a backdrop to the novel Omoo (1847). After three years awayfrom home, Melville joined up with a U.S. naval frigate that was returning to the eastern United States around Cape Horn. The novel White Jacket (1850) describes this lengthy voyage as a navy seaman. With the publication of these early adventure novels, Melville developed a strong and loyal following among readers eager for his tales of exotic places and situations. However, in 1851, with the publication of Moby Dick, Melville's popularity started to diminish. Moby Dick, on one level the saga of the hunt for the great white whale, was also a heavily symbolic allegory of the heroic struggle of humanity against the universe. The public was not ready for Melville's literary metamorphosis from romantic adventure to philosophical symbolism. It is ironic that the novel that served to diminish Melville's popularity during his lifetime is the one for which he is best known today.
10. The passage would most likely be assigned reading in a course on.

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In fact, two out of three working Americans are not (1)______ in their work,  according to a Gallup survey. People who send résumés and go to interviews think that they care only about salaries and (2)______. These are important, yes, but they are not enough. To identify a satisfying job, people should be thinking about office morale and doing work that is interesting and fun.  To demonstrate this point, my colleague Kaitlin Woolley and I asked a large group of employees what made them like their present jobs, along with what factors would (3)_____ them to like future jobs.  Unsurprisingly, we found that promotions and raises were important for people both in their current job and in applying for future jobs. What was interesting, (4)______, was that the majority cared a lot about present benefits (such as doing something interesting with people they like) in their current job, but they expected not to care very much about those things in their future jobs. When envisioning themselves in the future, they predicted that they would almost solely be driven by delayed benefits like salaries.  Why are people (5)______ aware that present benefits are important in their current job, and yet expect not to care about those benefits in the future? Why, for example, does a student who cannot sit through a boring two-hour lecture think she would be satisfied by a boring but well-paying job?

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Once restricted to luxury or super-tech buildings, home automation is proving to be an increasingly fundamental and affordable addition to architectural projects. The idea is to connect devices, which in turn connect and talk through a centralized control unit, accessible by computers, tablets, and mobile phones. For example, home automation users can turn the lights on or off at specific times each day, adjust the heater or air conditioner to turn on a few minutes before they arrive home. In addition to these immediate effects, monitoring applications can also provide accurate home information by generating detailed reports on equipment that could be working better or spending less. That is, in addition to smartphones and personal computers, appliances and sensors are able to identify patterns, process information, and perform tasks both through commands and automatically. Although it sounds like a science fiction script, these are technologies that are not so far from us.  Artificial intelligence can be used to automate threat detection and perhaps more proactively alert us if something looks wrong, such as heat sensors and video cameras setting off alarms and calling firefighters in the event of a short circuit. Through facial recognition algorithms on social media, the system itself can tell if someone outside your circle of acquaintances is trying to access your space and send a message to your mobile phone. This type of technology can improve the efficiency of security systems and reduce false alarms. Automation can be useful for people with disabilities and for the elderly. People with Parkinson’s disease or other motor diseases can trigger switches without touching them, and motion sensors can trigger safety lights automatically. Blood pressure sensors and blood sugar levels can be incorporated into these systems, providing peace of mind to close relatives. The ability to automate repetitive housekeeping can free time for more important things. For example, an internet-connected refrigerator can check for missing items and make purchases online. It is important to mention that these systems must be highly protected, as a single attempt to break into this centralized system can lead to the invasion of privacy and the loss of valuable confidential information. Still, most people who have experienced life in an automated space will likely be uncomfortable returning to traditional systems  
4. According to paragraph 3, how can the smart house system identify the visitors of one’s place?

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NASA is developing the capabilities needed to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s – goals outlined in the bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 2010 and in the U.S. National Space Policy, also issued in 2010. Mars is a rich destination for scientific discovery and robotic and human exploration as we expand our presence into the solar system. Its formation and evolution are comparable to Earth, helping us learn more about our own planet’s history and future. Mars had conditions suitable for life in its past. Future exploration could uncover evidence of life, answering one of the fundamental mysteries of the cosmos: Does life exist beyond Earth? While robotic explorers have studied Mars for more than 40 years, NASA’s path for the human exploration of Mars begins in low-Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station. Astronauts on the orbiting laboratory are helping us prove many of the technologies and communications systems needed for human missions to deep space, including Mars. The space station also advances our understanding of how the body changes in space and how to protect astronaut health. Our next step is deep space, where NASA will send a robotic mission to capture and redirect an asteroid to orbit the moon. Astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft will explore the asteroid in the 2020s, returning to Earth with samples. This experience in human spaceflight beyond low-Earth orbit will help NASA test new systems and capabilities, such as Solar Electric Propulsion, which we’ll need to send cargo as part of human missions to Mars. Beginning in FY 2018, NASA’s powerful Space Launch System rocket will enable these “proving ground” missions to test new capabilities. Human missions to Mars will rely on Orion and an evolved version of SLS that will be the most powerful launch vehicle ever flown. A fleet of robotic spacecraft and rovers already are on and around Mars, dramatically increasing our knowledge about the Red Planet and paving the way for future human explorers. The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover measured radiation on the way to Mars and is sending back radiation data from the surface. This data will help us plan how to protect the astronauts who will explore Mars. Future missions like the Mars 2020 rover, seeking signs of past life, also will demonstrate new technologies that could help astronauts survive on Mars. Engineers and scientists around the U.S. are working hard to develop the technologies astronauts will use to one day live and work on Mars, and safely return home from the next giant leap for humanity. NASA also is a leader in a Global Exploration Roadmap, working with international partners and the U.S. commercial space industry on a coordinated expansion of human presence into the solar system, with human missions to the surface of Mars as the driving goal.  
2. The word "comparable" in paragraph 2 mostly means ______

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Taking piano lessons and solving math puzzles on a computer significantly improve specific math skills of elementary schoolchildren, according to a new study. The results, (1)______ were published in the journal Neurological Research, are the latest in a series that links musical training to the development of higher brain functions. Researchers worked with 135 second-grade students at a school in Los Angeles after (2)______ a pilot study with 102 students. Children that were given four months of piano training as well as time playing (3)______ newly designed computer software scored 27 percent higher on math and fraction tests than other children. Piano instruction is thought to enhance the brain's "hard wiring" for spatial-temporal reasoning, or the ability to visualise and transform objects in space and time, says Professor Gordon Shaw, who led the study. At the same time, the computer game allows children to solve geometric and math puzzles that boost their ability to (4)______ shapes in their mind. The findings are significant (5)______ a grasp of proportional math and fractions is a prerequisite to math at higher levels, and children who do not master these areas of math cannot understand more advanced math that is critical to high-tech fields.

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The British are particular about timings and being late is frowned upon, but being on  time is a complicated matter because in some situations, being a few minutes early on others means being exactly on time and in some instances, it is completely acceptable to arrive 10 minutes to a few hours later than the stated time. This can be a minefield for someone who is new to the UK, so here are some basics rules that will help you get your timings right whatever the situation.  In formal meetings, such as job interviews, you should arrive at least five minutes before your meeting. This will give you time to compose yourself before your big meeting. In the UK, arriving late for a formal meeting is seen as unprofessional and will reflect badly on you. If you are running late, ring your host to let them know you will be late. On arrival, apologize sincerely and offer a reason for your lateness, such as you got lost or the train was delayed. It will help you redeem yourself. However, if you are late because you set off later than you should have, it’s wise to keep that to yourself! With appointments such as visits to the doctor or dentist, the time you are given for your appointment isn’t necessarily the time you will be seen. It is not uncommon you may have to wait between 15-30 minutes before you are seen by a doctor and that can be much longer if it is a hospital appointment. Nevertheless, you should arrive at least five minutes before your appointment and it is recommended you take a drink and something to read.  When you start a new job, you are given your typical working hours. For example, if you are expected to start at 9am, it is not acceptable to arrive after this time. Most employers make an exception if you are late once in a while. If you have an appointment, you need to seek permission from your employer to arrive later on that day. Being late consistently will land you in trouble and you can be sacked from your job if after three warnings you are still late.  There is an unsaid rule that you can be a few minutes late for a lecture or seminar once in a while. When you are late, you should enter quietly and find a seat at the back of the room. At the end of lecture or seminar, you should offer your apology to the lecturer. If you have been invited to a dinner party, you should arrive exactly on time as the host will have planned when they will serve the food. You will find that your host will serve their guests a pre-dinner drink, so that gives you a bit of wiggle room, but if you are running later than 10 minutes, you should ring your host and let them know how late you might be. That way they can decide whether to go ahead and serve the other guests. When you arrive you should offer the host and the other guests your apology for being late. 
4. Which of the appointments are often later than expected time?