Choose the best answer:
What is the ____________ invention of the past hundred years?

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

In my experience, freshmen today are different from those I knew when I started as a counselor and professor 25 years ago. College has always been demanding both academically and socially. But students now are less mature and often not ready for the responsibility of being in college.

It is really too easy to point the finger at parents who protect their children from life’s obstacle. Parents, who handle every difficulty and every other responsibility for their children writing admission essays to picking college courses, certainly may contribute to their children’s lack of coping strategies. But we can look even more broadly to the social trends of today.

How many people do you know who are on medication to prevent anxiety or depression? The number of students who arrive at college already medicated for unwanted emotions has increased dramatically in the past 10 years. We, as a society, don’t want to “feel” anything unpleasant and we certainly don’t want our children to “suffer”.

The resulting problem is that by not experiencing negative emotions, one does not learn the necessary skills to tolerate and negotiate adversity. As a psychologist, I am well aware of the fact that some individuals suffer from depression and anxiety and can benefit from treatment, but I question the growing number of medicated adolescents today.

Our world is more stressful in general because of the current economic and political realities, but I don’t believe that the college experience itself is more intense today than that of the past 10 years. What I do think is that many students are often not prepared to be young “adults” with all the responsibilities of life.

What does this mean for college faculty and staff? We are required to assist in the basic parenting of these students – the student who complains that the professor didn’t remind her of the due date for an assignment that was clearly listed on the syllabus and the student who cheats on an assignment in spite of careful instructions about plagiarism.

As college professors, we have to explain what it means to be an independent college student before we can even begin to teach. As parents and teachers we should expect young people to meet challenges. To encourage them in this direction, we have to step back and let them fail and pick themselves up and move forward. This approach needs to begin at an early age so that college can actually be a passage to independent adulthood.

Which of the following is NOT TRUE according to the passage?

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
Newspapers can be traced back to 16th century Venice. In 1566, handwritten news sheets - called 'avis' or ‘gazette' – filled with information on wars and politics in Europe were distributed weekly in Venice. Similar news sheets soon started to appear in other European countries. By 1615, Germany and Austria were publishing weeklies. And in 1621, the first news sheets appeared in England.
At first, these news sheets only printed news which came from outside the country in which they were printed. Discussion of local or national issues was avoided. Europe’s governments did not tolerate anything negative being said about them as it could lead to national unrest.
Such censorship slowed the development of newspapers. Nevertheless, a belief in the importance of a 'free press’ slowly began to take hold in Europe. England was among the first countries to escape government control of the press. This occurred during the reign of King Charles I in the 17th century, when, during a period of breakdown in the king's authority, people began to publish what they wanted.
Eventually, free press had the right to criticize government and voice other ideas freely. In the middle of the 18th century, Sweden became the first country to make press freedom a part of its law.
In the 19th century, the newspaper industry was transformed by the invention of the telegraph. The telegraph was a communication system that allowed messages to be sent over long distances in a matter of minutes. It wasn’t long before newspapers became society's primary means of spreading and receiving information. In 1880, the first photographs appeared in newspapers and, by the end of the century, all the basic technical tools for the modern newspaper were in place.
The story of newspapers in the 20th century was one of adaptation to changing consumer and media markets. The invention of radio, TV, and later the Internet, repeatedly drove newspapers to re-invent themselves. Also, during the 20th century, mass-market advertising increased profitability for newspapers. This attracted large, publicly-owned corporations who began buying newspapers from the descendants of company founders.
Over the years, people have periodically predicted the extinction of newspapers. In fact, every time a new media has come into being, dire predictions have been made for existing forms (e.g. television was supposed to have replaced radio, radio was supposed to have replaced newspapers). Yet history has repeatedly shown that new media do not replace existing media. Instead, what happens is that media consumption grows, which creates the necessary space for the new media to become a part of the media landscape.
According to the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), each day more than 1.5 billion people around the world read a newspaper. The WAN has also estimated the total annual worth of the global newspaper industry and put it at just under 180 billion USD. Such statistics suggest the newspaper industry is healthier than at any other time in its history. Indeed, if the industry proves itself as capable of adapting to change as it has done in the past, it is unlikely that newspapers will be disappearing from newsstands anytime soon.

The first news sheet     .

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
Translators and interpreters for tech jobs of the future are expected to be one of the fastest growing occupations in the nation, according to a just released survey by Vietnamworks. Almost all positions for programmers, application developers, database and network administrators, engineers, designers, architects, scientists, technicians, and tech support will require bilingual or multilingual fluency. In just the last two years the demand for tech professionals with foreign language skills has increased more than two and one-half fold, said the survey, and the uptick shows no signs of abating anytime soon. Roughly 400,000 jobs are expected to open for interpreters (who focus on spoken language) and translators (who focus on written language) in the tech segment, between 2017 and 2020, says Tran Anh Tuan. Tuan, who works for the Centre for Forecasting Manpower Needs and Labour Market Information in Ho Chi Minh City doesn't include other industries in his prediction,
which are also recruiting ferociously for more people with these same language skills.
While that claim might seem a bit overblown (and amounts to little more than a guess by Tuan), it is clear that innovative technologies like robotics, 3D printing, drones, artificial intelligence   and virtual reality will create major upheavals in all sorts of labor markets, not just technology over     the next few years. In the last month alone, most every job posted on employment websites throughout Vietnam included the word bilingual. Far higher salaries go to people who work in high    tech positions and can speak a foreign language such as English in addition to Vietnamese, says Tran Quang Anh from the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology.
Unfortunately, the surveys show that most graduating Vietnamese students are unable to do more than understand a few basic phrases of foreign languages, and practically none of them  can speak any foreign language coherently, The good paying jobs with high salaries and benefits are only available to translators and interpreters who specialize in high tech jobs, says Anh. But it's    not just English— graduates are needed with fluency in middle eastern languages like  Arabic, Farsi and Pashto (Afghani) as well as German, Japanese and Korean to name just a few. Spanish is  also in high demand in Vietnam, primarily because it is the second most common language in the US after English.
A recent tech expo in Hanoi sponsored by Vietnamworks and the Navigos Group attracted nearly 4,000 young tech graduates and recruiters from 14 leading companies looking to fill job  vacancies with skilled bilingual workers. The job applicants were young and industrious, said the recruiters. However, missing were candidates with the requisite language skills and most lacked  basic 'soft skills' such as written and verbal communication abilities to effectively communicate  even in their native Vietnamese language.
Notably, the recruiters said they considered language abilities and soft skills just as, if not more important, than academic ability. Yet virtually all the prospective academically qualified employees lacked even the most basic of interpersonal communication abilities.

According to the passage, interpreters and translators are described as the jobs that

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
A number of factors related to the voice reveal the personality of the speaker. The first is the broad area of communication, which includes imparting information by use of language, communicating with a group or an individual and specialized communication through performance. Aperson conveys thoughts and ideas through choice of words, by a tone of voice that is pleasant or unpleasant, gentle or harsh, by the rhythm that is inherent within the language itself, and by speech rhythms that are flowing and regular or uneven and hesitant, and finally, by the pitch and melody of the utterance. When speaking before a group, a person’s tone may indicate uncertainty or fright, confidence or calm. At interpersonal levels, the tone may reflect ideas and feelings over and above the words chosen, or may believe them.Here the participant’s tone can consciously or unconsciously reflect intuitive sympathy or antipathy, lack of concern or interest, fatigue, anxiety, enthusiasm or excitement, all of which are usually discernible by the acute listener. Public performance is a manner of communication that is highly specialized with its own techniques for obtaining effects by voice and /or gesture. The motivation derived from the text, and in the case of singing, the music, in combination with the performer’s skills, personality, and ability to create empathy will determine the success of artistic, political, or pedagogic communication. Second, the voice gives psychological clues to a person’s self-image, perception of others, and emotional health. Self- image can be indicated by a tone of voice that is confident, pretentious, shy, aggressive, outgoing, or exuberant, to name only a few personality traits. Also the sound may give a clue to the facade or mask of that person, for example, a shy person hiding behind an overconfident front. How a speaker perceives the listener’s receptiveness, interest, or sympathy in any given conversation can drastically alter the tone of presentation, by encouraging or discouraging the speaker. Emotional health is evidenced in the voice by free and melodic sounds of the happy, by constricted and harsh sound of the angry, and by dull and lethargic qualities of the depressed.

What does the passage mainly discuss?

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
On March 15, Dunes View Middle School held a contest for school bands. Student bands tried  out for the opportunity to perform at the school picnic, which will be held at the end of June. The winner of the contest was the band called Four Square. "We're very proud that we won the contest  and are excited to perform at the picnic," says Peter Zandt, who plays the guitar in the band. "And     since we hope to perform someday at other local places, like restaurants and parks, this will be  a  great first step."
The contest was the creation of music teacher Mr. Lopez and drama teacher Ms. Cho. The two thought of the idea while discussing recent years' school picnics. "The picnic is one of the biggest events of the year, but it has become a bit formulaic ," said Ms. Cho. "The activities are the same every year. We thought that a performance by a student band would make the school picnic more interesting and fun." Mr. Lopez, Ms. Cho, and three other teachers judged the contest, which took place  in the gym. Eight student bands signed up to audition. The bands varied in their musical forms: there  were several rock bands, a folk band, and even a jazz band. "I'm disappointed that my band didn't win,  but I think the judges made the right choice," says student Marisol Varga, a member of the folk trio called The Bell Girls. "Four Square is really excellent."
To see if the bands could present a wide range of musical skills, the teachers asked them  each to prepare two songs: one song with original words, and another in which students played instrumental music only. The judges finally chose the band Four Square as the winner of the contest. Four Square is a rock band with an unusual twist: it includes a violin player! The members of Four Square write their own songs and practice three times a week after school. Students and teachers agreed that the band competition was a big success. All are  looking forward  to the school picnic in June.

According to the article, what does the band Four Square hope to do in the future?

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
Because the low latitudes of the Earth, the areas near the equator, receive more heat than the latitudes near the poles, and because the nature of heat is to expand and move, heat is transported from the tropics to the middle and high latitudes. Some of this heat is moved by winds and some by ocean currents, and some gets stored in the atmosphere in the form of latent heat. The term “latent heat” refers to the energy that has to be used to convert liquid water to water vapor. We know that if we warm a pan of water on a stove, it will evaporate, or turn into vapor, faster than if it is allowed to sit at room temperature. We also know that if we hang wet clothes outside in the summertime, they will dry faster than in winter, when the temperature is lower. The energy used in both cases to change liquid water to water vapor is supplied by heat - supplied by the stove in the first case and by the Sun in the latter case. This energy is not lost. It is stored as vapor in the atmosphere as latent heat. Eventually, the water stored as vapor in the atmosphere will condense to liquid again, and the energy will be released to the atmosphere.
In the atmosphere, a large portion of the Sun’s incoming energy is used to evaporate water, primarily in the tropical oceans. Scientists have tried to quantify this proportion of the Sun’s energy. By analyzing temperature, water vapor, and wind data around the globe, they have estimated the quantity to be about 90 watts per square meter, or nearly 30 percent of the Sun’s energy. Once this latent heat is stored within the atmosphere, it can be transported, primarily to higher latitudes, by prevailing, large - scale winds. Or it can be transported vertically to higher levels in the atmosphere, where it forms clouds and subsequent storms, which then release the energy back to the atmosphere.

The word “marked” in the first paragraph is closest in meaning to     .

We appreciate your feedback regarding Medusa Airways’ flight 859, which was scheduled to depart at 9:35 A.M. on 19 February. We are sorry that this flight ---139---. We have decided to compensate you for the---140---. We have refunded the unused portion of your ticket, valued at $410. Also, we will reimburse the $200 you paid in hotel charges resulting  ---141---  the disruption.---142---. 

141...................

 Choose the option  A, B, C or D that best fits the blank space in the following passage:

"At last it is here: tomorrow is the exam day. There is no more homework to do, you have done lots of (1)…..  and you have had plenty of useful practice with past papers. You have finished the (2)…. . So what should you do now? Probably the least advisable course of (3)…. would be to carry on studying late into the night, trying (4)….. to learn things you should have learned long .ago and (5)…. in the morning with an awful headache.
 A far better idea is to practise, (6)….. a singer or a musician does, what you already knew. In order not to feel (7)…. the next day, go to bed early and get up at your usual (8)….. . You may be a little bit (8)….. but that is probably just a (10)…… of your determination to do will in the exam."

3. Probably the least advisable course of (3)…. would be to carry on studying late into the night, 

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
Newspapers can be traced back to 16th century Venice. In 1566, handwritten news sheets - called 'avis' or ‘gazette' – filled with information on wars and politics in Europe were distributed weekly in Venice. Similar news sheets soon started to appear in other European countries. By 1615, Germany and Austria were publishing weeklies. And in 1621, the first news sheets appeared in England.
At first, these news sheets only printed news which came from outside the country in which they were printed. Discussion of local or national issues was avoided. Europe’s governments did not tolerate anything negative being said about them as it could lead to national unrest.
Such censorship slowed the development of newspapers. Nevertheless, a belief in the importance of a 'free press’ slowly began to take hold in Europe. England was among the first countries to escape government control of the press. This occurred during the reign of King Charles I in the 17th century, when, during a period of breakdown in the king's authority, people began to publish what they wanted.
Eventually, free press had the right to criticize government and voice other ideas freely. In the middle of the 18th century, Sweden became the first country to make press freedom a part of its law.
In the 19th century, the newspaper industry was transformed by the invention of the telegraph. The telegraph was a communication system that allowed messages to be sent over long distances in a matter of minutes. It wasn’t long before newspapers became society's primary means of spreading and receiving information. In 1880, the first photographs appeared in newspapers and, by the end of the century, all the basic technical tools for the modern newspaper were in place.
The story of newspapers in the 20th century was one of adaptation to changing consumer and media markets. The invention of radio, TV, and later the Internet, repeatedly drove newspapers to re-invent themselves. Also, during the 20th century, mass-market advertising increased profitability for newspapers. This attracted large, publicly-owned corporations who began buying newspapers from the descendants of company founders.
Over the years, people have periodically predicted the extinction of newspapers. In fact, every time a new media has come into being, dire predictions have been made for existing forms (e.g. television was supposed to have replaced radio, radio was supposed to have replaced newspapers). Yet history has repeatedly shown that new media do not replace existing media. Instead, what happens is that media consumption grows, which creates the necessary space for the new media to become a part of the media landscape.
According to the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), each day more than 1.5 billion people around the world read a newspaper. The WAN has also estimated the total annual worth of the global newspaper industry and put it at just under 180 billion USD. Such statistics suggest the newspaper industry is healthier than at any other time in its history. Indeed, if the industry proves itself as capable of adapting to change as it has done in the past, it is unlikely that newspapers will be disappearing from newsstands anytime soon.

In paragraph 3, we learn that     .

Read the passage and choose the best option A, B, C, D to complete it.

Full Moon festival, also known as Mid-Autumn Festival or ‘Tet Trung Thu’ in Vietnamese is held (1) _________ the 14th and 15th of the August lunar month. This is an (2) _________ harvest festival celebrated not only in Vietnam (3) ________ in other wet rice countries in Asia such as China, Taiwan, Hongkong, Japan, and Korea. The Full Moon festival offers leisure time for family members to come back home, organize and participate in a wide range of activities including children carrying paper lanterns, lion dances, ….

In fact, there aren’t (4) _______ important customs you must follow but it is good to find wonderful places to visit during this period. Mid-Autumn festival is best enjoyed in Hoi An by strolling down and admiring (5) ______ paper lanterns floating the Thu Bong Riverside. If you base in Hanoi, it is (6) _______ recommended to go to Thang Long Royal Citadel, My Dinh National Stadium, and Hoan Kiem Lake to enjoy a festive atmosphere of fun, safety, and peace.
6.If you base in Hanoi, it is (6) _______ recommended to go to Thang Long Royal Citadel, My Dinh National Stadium, and Hoan Kiem Lake to enjoy a festive atmosphere of fun, safety, and peace.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
In the early 1800s, to reach the jump-off point for the West, a family from the East of the United States could either buy a steamboat passage to Missouri for themselves, their wagons and their livestock or, as happened more often, simply pile everything into a wagon, hitch up a team, and begin their overland trek right in their front yard.
Along the macadamized roads and turnpikes east of the Missouri River, travel was comparatively fast, camping easy, and supplies plentiful. Then, in one river town or another, the neophyte emigrants would pause to lay in provisions. For outfitting purposes, the town of Independence had been preeminent ever since 1827, but the rising momentum of pioneer emigration had produced some rival jump-off points. Westport and Fort Leavenworth flourished a few miles upriver. St. Joseph had sprung up 55 miles to the northwest; in fact, emigrants who went to Missouri by riverboat could save four days on the trail by staying on the paddle wheelers to St. Joe before striking overland.
At whatever jump-off point they chose, the emigrants studied guide books and directions, asked questions of others as green as themselves, and made their final decision about outfitting. They had various, sometimes conflicting, options. For example, either pack animals or two -wheel carts or wagons could be used for the overland crossing. A family man usually chose the wagon. It was the costliest and slowest of the three, but it provided space and shelter for children and for a wife who likely as not was pregnant. Everybody knew that a top-heavy covered wagon might blow over in a prairie wind or be overturned by mountain rocks, that it might mire in river mud or sink to its hubs in desert sand, but maybe if those things happened on this trip, they would happen to someone else. Anyway, most pioneers, with their farm background, were used to wagons.

All of the following features of the covered wagon made it unattractive to the emigrants EXCEPT     .

Read the following passage and mark the letter A,B,C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word for each of the blanks
                           Swim, Cycle, and Run
For athletes who like to (1).............. a variety of endurance sports in a single race, triathlons are a great fit. These competitions (2)......... running, cycling, and swimming into one race, and they take place one after the other in a single continuous timed race. Athletes who participate must be in top physical form and have the skills needed to complete each portion of the race.
 Training for triathlons means the athletes have to become proficient not only in the sport required in each stage, but they also have to become familiar with what (3).............  from one to the other does to their bodies. Many inexperienced triathletes are surprised to (4)............... hard it can be to switch from swimming to cycling to running, and how tired their muscles can suddenly feel. One thing all triathletes can agree (5).................is that no one ever told them that running a triathlon would be easy.

(3)..............................

On Friday, April 14, the city hall’s electricity is scheduled to be shut down at 7 A.M. and restored at 6 P.M. The building ---131--- for the day. During the power outage, the emergency lighting system will be upgraded. ---132---, all circuit panels will be replaced to bring them into compliance with current safety codes.---133--- exiting city hall offices on Thursday, please disconnect all desktop computers, wireless servers, and other computer-related equipment. Furthermore, employees are asked to remove any personal contents from the kitchenette.---134---.Please direct questions or concerns to the director of building maintenance.

133...........................

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
Around 365 B.C. in ancient Greece, the great teacher Plato told a story about a place called Atlantis. Plato described Atlantis as a continent in the Atlantic Ocean. He said it had been the home of a powerful people who were destroyed when the continent was swallowed by the sea.
Ever since Plato’s time, people have wondered if the story about Atlantis was really true. Was there ever such a place as Atlantis? During the Middle Ages, many people believed in the legend of Atlantis. Some men even made voyages to find the “lost continent”. Later, most people believed Atlantis to be just a myth. Scientists could find no evidence to show that such a place had ever existed.
Ideas change in time, however, for now some scientists think that Atlantis might have been a real place. A Greek professor has offered a new theory. He says that Atlantis was not a continent in the Atlantic Ocean but an island called Thera in the Aegean Sea. The professor says that 3,500 years ago much of Thera collapsed into the sea when a volcano erupted. He thinks that before the explosion Thera had been the home of a people called Minoans. The Minoans were sea traders who ruled the Aegean Sea from 2,000
B.C. to 1,250 B.C.
Scientist who have come to investigate Thera have found an ancient city buried beneath volcanic ash and stone. It appears that the people who lived in the city had an advanced civilization. They were probably Minoans.
Is Thera the “lost continent” of Atlantis? No one may ever know for certain. Atlantis may remain a riddle without an answer.

The word in paragraph 3 that means “fell down” is .

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
Did you ever watch a video on the Internet? Maybe you used YouTube. YouTube is a Website where people can share their video. Today, YouTube is an important part of the Internet. However, that wasn’t always true.
YouTube started with a young man named Jawed Karim and two friends. One day, Karim was on the Internet. He wanted information about the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia. He found news stories about it, but he couldn't find any videos. This gave Karin an idea. He wanted to help people put video on the Internet. Karim told his friends about this idea. Together, they created a company - YouTube.
YouTube become a global success. Millions of people around the world Visited the Website. It was clear to Google, another Internet company, that YouTube had a lot of value. Google made a deal. It bought YouTube for $1.65 billion. As a result, YouTube investors and its employees made a lot of money. The three friends who started YouTube were very big investors. Therefore, they made an enormous amount of money.
Karim became very rich, and he continued to work toward his PhD. There was something else he wanted to do. He wanted to help young people go into business. He used money and experience to start a new company called Youniversity Ventures. This company helps young people who have good business ideas. It gives them advice and money to start Internet businesses. Milo is one business that students started with the help of Youniversity Ventures.
Milo is a shopping Website. It helps people find products in stores near their homes. Another example is AirBoB. This Web site helps people find for video conferences. People in different places can use this site to have business meetings.
Karim has some advice for students who want to start business. First, find a successful company. Do a lot of research about the company and the top people in the company. There, copy the way they do things. For students who wants to start Interner business, Karim is probably a very good example to copy. 

What does Youniversity Ventures do?

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.
                   The texting pigeons
Not everybody recognizes the benefits of new developments in communnicatons technology. Indeed, some people fear that text messaging may actually be having a negative (11).....on your people’s communication and language skills, especially when we hear that primary school children may be at rick of becoming addicted to the habit. So widespread has texting become, however, that even pigeons have started doing it. (12)........ , in this case, it’s difficult to view the results as anything but positive.
Twenty of the birds are about to take to the skies with the task of measuring air pollution, each (13)................with sensor equipment and a mobile phone. The readings made by the sensors will be automatically converted into text messages and beamed to the Internet – (14)...............they will appear on a dedicated ‘pigeon blog’. The birds will also each have a GPS receiver and a camera to capture aerial photos, and researchers are building a tiny ‘pigeon kit’ containing all these gadgets. Each bird will carry these in a miniature backpack, (15)............ , that is, from the camera, which will hang around its neck.
 The data the pigeons text will be displayed in the form of an interactive map, which will provide local residents with up-to-the-minute information on thir local air quality.
(12)....................

Choose the correct answer  A, B, C or D to the blank space in the following passage:

"If you want to (1)…… your best in an exam, you should be relaxed and so one of the best things to do is to take regular (2)….. even if they are only for a few minutes. During revision time, you (3)….. take some time off to go for a walk or play your (4)…..  sport. It is a mistake to (5)….. up all physical activity. Exercise can (6)…. you to relax. You should (7)….  at least twenty minutes doing something different every day. Parents don’t like it when their teenage children spend (8)…..  on the phone, but, in fact, (9)…. to a friend is very good for you; parents think that children are (10)…. time and money; but research says talking to friends gives you a chance to relax, and this will make the time you spend studying more effective."

6. Exercise can (6)…. you to relax.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
One of the most important battles of the American Civil War occurred around the small town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, from July 1 to July 3, 1863. What began as a search for shoes by the Confederate Army quickly escalated into a major battle. As the Confederate soldiers sought new shoes, they unexpectedly encountered Union cavalry stationed west of the town at Willoughby Run, and the battle began. After much fighting and heavy casualties on both sides, the Confederates pushed the Union forces back through the town of Gettysburg, where they regrouped south of the town along the high ground near a cemetery.
Confederate General Robert E. Lee ordered General R.S. Ewell to seize the high ground from the battle - weary Union soldiers "if practical." Ewell hesitated in the attack, giving the Union troops a chance to establish a stronghold along Cemetery Ridge and then bring in reinforcements with artillery. By the time Lee realized Ewell had not attacked, the opportunity had vanished. Other failures by the Confederates included the generals' opposition to the attack plans and a lack of information about Union defense. This combination of errors allowed the Union forces to win a critical victory in the Civil War. By the end, a total of 160,000 men were involved in this fierce and bloody battle.

What is the main idea of the passage?

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.
The (1)........... of the earth is caused by exhaust gas from automobile engines, factories and power  stations. Carbon dioxide goes up into the atmosphere, and it forms a kind of factories that keeps or rather allows the sunshine in but stop the earth’s heart (2).........  getting out. It works like a greenhouse, that’s why we call it the Greenhouse Effect.
Because of this effect, the earth is getting warmer all the time. This (3).........    in temperature will  cause big changes to the world's climate. The sea level will rise, the ice covering the poles will melt and cause the sea level to rise.
The second problem is the (4)......... of the ozone layer. Certain chemicals float up to the sky and react with the ozone layer, and they make holes in it. Because of these holes the ultraviolet rays can shine directly to the earth. Many people are now starting to suffer from skin cancer.
The sulfurous smoke from factories and power stations mixes with rain clouds and gets blown by the wind and then falls as acid rain (5)......... destroys lakes and forests.
These three problems threaten our environment at the end of the twentieth century. Unless we do something about them quickly, we, human race, may disappear from the face of the earth.
(3)...........................

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks
We can (29)............ other people in many different ways. We can talk and write, and we can send messages with our hands and faces. There is also the phone (including the mobile!), the fax, and e-mail. Television, film, painting, and photography can also communicate ideas.
Animals have ways of exchanging information, too. Bees dance and tell other bees where (30)................. food. Elephants make sounds that humans can’t hear. Whales sing songs. Monkeys use their faces to show anger and love. But this is nothing (31)............._ to what people can do. We have language - about 6,000 languages, in fact. We can write poetry, tell jokes, make promises, explain, persuade, tell the truth, or tell lies. And we have a sense of past and future, not just present.
Radio, film, and television (32)......... a huge influence on society in the last hundred years. And now we have the Internet, which is infinite. But what is this doing to this? We can give and get a lot of information very quickly. But there is (33)........... information that it is difficult to know what is important and what isn’t. Modem media is changing our world every minute of every day.
(31)................................