Choose the best answer:
You like history, so Viet Nam National Museum of History is a _____ place.

 

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
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.
4. It can be inferred from the passage that, before the Bayliss and Starling experiments, most people believed that chemical integration occurred only ________ .

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Allowing adolescents to make more of their own choices was found to be the most common strategy used to encourage independence. Many parents also reported that they are pushing their teenager by no longer doing certain things for them. Regardless of their effort, one quarter of parents surveyed still believe they are the main barrier to their teen’s independence because they are failing to hand over more responsibility. “As children become teenagers, the role of parents shifts to helping them gain the knowledge and experience they will need for being independent adults,” explained poll codirector Sarah Clark. “This process of transitioning from childhood to adulthood includes everything from preparing for work and financial responsibility, to taking care of one’s health and well-being. Our poll suggests that parents aren’t letting go of the reins as often as they could be to help teens successfully make that transition.” The new survey from the University of Michigan involved nearly 900 parents with at least one teenager between the ages of 14 and 18. Overall, 60 percent of the respondents attributed their child’s lack of independence to characteristics such as not being mature or knowledgeable enough to take on more responsibility. By contrast, 25 percent of parents admitted that it is faster and less of a hassle to do things themselves. “It is clear that parents recognize tension in helping teens move toward independence, and they agree that valuable learning experiences often result from a poor decision,” said Clark. “Some parents justify taking control over certain responsibilities because they don’t believe their teen is ‘mature enough.’ Parents need to carve out more time for supporting teens in their transition to adulthood.”  
6. The word “hassle” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ______

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
A new study shows that urbanization shifts this seasonal cue in nuanced ways, with cities in cold climates triggering earlier spring plant growth and cities in warm climates delaying it. The study also found that the urban heat island effect, the phenomenon in which cities are warmer than their surroundings, is not the only culprit behind the shift, suggesting that other aspects of urbanization, such as pollution, changes in humidity and fertilizer runoff, may also influence plants’ seasonal patterns.  Researchers analyzed millions of observations of 136 plant species across the U.S. and Europe to study how regional temperature and the local density of people-a proxy for urbanization—affect when plants sprout leaves and blossoms. Their results revealed a complex story: Separately, warmer temperatures and higher population density each spurred earlier springs. A 3.6-degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature bumped up plants’ production of leaves and flowers by about five and six days, respectively. A fourfold increase in human population density advanced flowering and leaf production dates by about three days. But the team found that when these two factors worked together, local temperature had an outsized influence. In cold regions—areas with an average November-to-May temperature of about 18 degrees-plants produced leaves and flowers about 20 days earlier in locations with about 26,000 people per square mile, compared with equally frigid wildland. When an area’s average November-to-May temperature jumped to 68, however, leaves and flowers appeared four and six days later, respectively, in locations with about 26,000 people per square mile, compared with equally balmy wildland. In New York, for example, plants are likely sprouting leaves about 9.5 days earlier and blossoms eight days earlier than uninhabited regions with the same temperature. Jacksonville, in contrast, is likely pushing leaf production later by about one day and flowers by about half a day, with leaves appearing two days later and flowers a day later in Houston.  Even after accounting for urban heat islands, the team’s models revealed cities significantly affect plants’ springtime growth. “Not only are there other things going on, but they actually matter quite a lot,” said study co-author Brian Stucky, Florida Museum research scientist. Plants may not be the only organisms affected by seasonal shifts, he added. “Seasons are such a big part of our lives. We define our world around seasonal things. Those rhythms are what we think of as the normal way the world works.” 
7. Which of the following statements is 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 word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 26 to 30.
In the year 1900, the world was in the midst of a machine revolution. (26) _____ electrical power became more ubiquitous, tasks once done by hand were now completed quickly and efficiently by machine. Sewing machines replaced needle and thread. Tractors replaced hoes. Typewriters replaced pens. Automobiles replaced horse-drawn carriages.
A hundred years later, in the year 2000, machines were again pushing the boundaries of (27) _____ was possible. Humans could now work in space, thanks to the International Space Station. We were finding out the composition of life thanks to the DNA sequencer. Computers and the world wide web changed the way we learn, read, communicate, or start political revolutions.
So what will be the game-changing machines in the year 2100? How will they (28) _____ our lives better, cleaner, safer, more efficient, and (29) _____ exciting?
We asked over three dozen experts, scientists, engineers, futurists, and organizations in five different disciplines, including climate change, military, infrastructure, transportation, and space exploration, about how the machines of 2100 will change humanity. The (30) _____ we got back were thought-provoking, hopeful and, at times, apocalyptic.

Question 29: ......................

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Next time your boss asks you to work late and miss your band rehearsal or board game night, point them to a new study in the Journal of Vocational Behavior. Researchers have found that spending more time on a hobby can boost people’s confidence in their ability to perform their job well. Ciara Kelly at Sheffield University and colleagues recruited 129 hobbyists — from amateur climbers to improv comedians — to look at how the time spent on their hobbies shaped their work life. To begin with, the team measured the seriousness of each participant’s hobby, asking them to rate their agreement with statements like “I regularly train for this activity”, and also assessed how similar the demands of their job and hobby were. Then, each month for seven months, participants recorded how many hours they had dedicated to their activity, and completed a scale measuring their belief in their ability to effectively do their job, or their “self-efficacy”, in which they rated themselves on statements like “At work I am able to successfully overcome many challenges”.  The researchers found that when participants spent longer than normal doing their leisure activity, their belief in their ability to perform their job increased. But this was only the case when they had a serious hobby that was dissimilar to their job, or when their hobby was similar to their work but they only did it casually. When their hobby was both serious and similar to their job, then spending more time on it actually had a detrimental effect, decreasing their self-efficacy. Why might that be? To maintain a serious hobby, people need to invest significant psychological resources, so if the activity has the same kinds of demands as their work, they may be left drained and unable to perform as well at their job. But if their hobby is quite different from their career, it may not interfere in the same way but instead help them develop other knowledge and skills that can boost their confidence at work. Of course, the data don’t provide conclusive evidence about the direction of the effect. Still, the results suggest that companies may want to encourage employees to pursue interests outside of work, as long as those activities differ from their day-to-day tasks. And they also may give pause to those who dream of packing it all in and turning their hobby into a career.  
5. According to paragraph 3, what do the results suggest from the subjects’ behaviours?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Deforestation is the clearing, destroying, or otherwise removal of trees through  deliberate, natural or accidental means. It can occur in any area densely populated by trees and other plant life, but the majority of it is currently happening in the Amazon rainforest. The loss of trees and other vegetation can cause climate change, desertification, soil erosion, fewer crops, flooding, increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and a host of problems for indigenous people.  Deforestation occurs for a number of reasons, including: farming, mostly cattle due to its quick turn around; and logging for materials and development. It has been happening for thousands of years, arguably since man began converting from hunter/gatherer to agricultural based societies, and required larger, unobstructed tracks of land to accommodate cattle, crops, and housing. It was only after the onset of the modern era that it became an epidemic.  One of the most dangerous and unsettling effects of deforestation is the loss of animal and plant species due to their loss of habitat; not only do we lose those known to us, but also those unknown, potentially an even greater loss. Seventy percent of Earth’s land animals and plants live in forests, and many cannot survive the deforestation that destroys their homes. The trees of the rainforest that provide shelter for some species also provide the canopy that regulates the temperature, a necessity for many others. Its removal through deforestation would allow a more drastic temperature variation from day to night, much like a desert, which could prove fatal for current inhabitants. In addition to the loss of habitat, the lack of trees also allows a greater amount of greenhouse gases to be released into the atmosphere. Presently, the tropical rainforests of South America are responsible for 20% of Earth’s oxygen and they are disappearing at a rate of 4 hectares a decade. If these rates are not stopped and reversed, the consequences will become even more severe.  The trees also help control the level of water in the atmosphere by helping to regulate the water cycle. With fewer trees left, due to deforestation, there is less water in the air to be returned to the soil. In turn, this causes dryer soil and the inability to grow crops, an ironic twist when considered against the fact that 80% of deforestation comes from small-scale agriculture and cattle ranching.  Further effects of deforestation include soil erosion and coastal flooding. In addition to their previously mentioned roles, trees also function to retain water and topsoil, which provides the rich nutrients to sustain additional forest life. Without them, the soil erodes and washes away, causing farmers to move on and perpetuate the cycle. The barren land which is left behind in the wake of these unsustainable agricultural practices is then more susceptible to flooding, specifically in coastal regions. Coastal vegetation lessens the impact of waves and winds associated with a storm surge. Without this vegetation, coastal villages are susceptible to damaging floods.
2. The word “indigenous” in the first paragraph probably means _________

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Many adults in America and increasing numbers elsewhere take part in mentoring schemes. A mentor is an adult who provides support and friendship to a young person. There are numerous different (1)_____ of mentoring: passing on skills, sharing experiences, offering guidance. Sometimes the most helpful thing to do is just listen. Mentoring is open to anybody - no particular (2) _____ experience is required, just a desire to make a difference to the life of a young person who needs help. This may seem a difficult thing at first, but many people find they have a real talent for it.  The support of a mentor can play an important part in a child’s development and can often make up (3) _____ a lack of guidance in a young person’s life. It can also improve young people’s attitudes towards society and build up their confidence in dealing with life’s challenges. For the mentor, it can be incredibly rewarding to know that they have had a significant influence on a child and helped to give the best possible (4) _____ in life. Indeed, it is not only adults who are capable of taking on this role. There is now an increasing (5) _____ for teenagers to mentor young children, for example by helping them with reading or other school work

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D)
Since 2015, the annual Women in the Workplace benchmarking report has covered over 600 of the largest U.S. companies employing more than 20 million people, and has individually surveyed more than a quarter-million employees. That research base shows us how better sponsorship and improved training to counter unconscious bias can speed our progress to gender equality. And it reveals the changes that have—and haven’t—happened over the past few years. There are some bright spots. In 2019, nearly 90% of respondent companies say that gender equality is a top priority. Almost half report having at least three women on their leadership team And greater openness to flexible working is allowing many more women— and men—to work remotely. But some areas are proving stubbornly difficult to improve. Most strikingly, it’s much harder for women than men to achieve their first promotion. Indeed, for every 100 men who step up from an entry level position to a management role, only 78 women—and just 52 black women—will receive the same promotion. Over five years, that gap adds up to a difference of one million promoted women, with lasting repercussions further along the talent funnel: only 1 in 5 C-suite members are women, and only 1 in 25 are women of color. Moving up the ladder, the 21% figure for women in the C-suite is also less encouraging than it seems. Women are much more likely to have a staff role—chief human resources officer, general counsel, or CFO—while men take more of the line roles, running the largest business units with their own P&L lines. It’s rare for any leader in a staff role to be promoted to CEO.  
4. The word “it” in paragraph 3 refers to _______

BODY LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
The body language people use often communicates more about their feelings than the words they are saying. We use body movements, hand gestures, facial expressions, and changes in our voice to communicate with each other. Although some body language is universal, many gestures are culturally specific and may mean different things in different countries. 
If you want to give someone the nod in Bulgaria, you have to nod your head to say no and shake it to say yes – the exact opposite of what we do! In Belgium, pointing with your index finger or snapping your fingers at someone is very rude. 
In France, you shouldn't rest your feet on tables or chairs. Speaking to someone with your hands in your pockets will only make matters worse. In the Middle East, you should never show the soles of your feet or shoes to others as it will be seen as a grave insult. When eating, only use your right hand because they use their left hands when going to the bathroom. 
In Bangladesh, the 'thumbs-up' is a rude sign. In Myanmar, people greet each other by clapping, and in India, whistling in public is considered rude.
In Japan, you should not blow your nose in public, but you can burp at the end of a meal to show that you have enjoyed it. The 'OK' sign (thumb and index finger forming a circle) means 'everything is good' in the West, but in China it means nothing or zero. In Japan, it means money, and in the Middle East, it is a rude gesture.

In the Middle East, people do not use their left hands for eating because they use their left hands________.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
If you want to make your school green, think beyond your classrooms. Here are some  suggestions that are all easy and simple to follow, and can make a big difference in reducing your carbon footprint and creating a (1)__________ community.  One of the places where both teachers and students often spend some of their time is the library. An eco-friendly reading space is likely to create a favorable impression (2)________ library users, and bring some significant educational benefits. For example, you can install energy-saving products like fans instead of air-conditioners which consume a lot of energy. You can also use biodegradable dust cloths or old T-shirts to clean the environment. In addition, to (3)________ public awareness, allocate a clearly visible space on the noticeboard for everyday green tips like ‘Let others reuse your book’.  Sporty students may prefer to spend more time in the swimming pool than in the library.  Therefore, keeping this place safe and green will also help to raise their environmental awareness. Remember that (4)__________ pool water may cause red eyes and itchy skin to some people if they spend much time in the pool. An ideal alternative would be a salt-water pool, which can be naturally clean and economical. In case warm water is required, think of solar heating to save the environment as one pool with gas or electric heater may emit tons of carbon dioxide each year.  Finally, focus on the school gym, (5)_________ is perhaps the most interactive and exciting place for all school staff. Think of installing low-flow taps and showers to save gallons of water per minute and energy-saving lights to cut the cost of electricity. Moreover, make sure that the airflow pathways are clear and free of mould, mildew and other allergens

Rewrite the sentence:
London/ city/ the/ historic/ is/ of/ buildings.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
New technology helped cities grow. Elevated trains carried passengers over (1) ____ streets. In 1887, the first electric streetcar system opened in Richmond, Virginia. Ten years later, the nation’s first electric subway trains began running beneath the streets of Boston. Public transportation gave (2) ____ to suburbs, living areas on the outskirts of a city. People no longer had to live in cities to work in cities. Steel bridges also accelerated suburban growth. The Brooklyn Bridge, completed in 1883, (3) ____ the city center in Manhattan to outlying Brooklyn. As a result, New York City was able to spread out to house its growing population. Cities began to expand upward as well as outward. In 1885, architects in Chicago constructed the first 10-story building. People called it a “skyscraper” because its top seemed to touch the sky. By 1900, (4) ____ skyscrapers up to 30 stories high towered over cities. Electric elevators whisked office workers to the upper floors. As cities grew outward from their old downtown sections, living patterns changed. Many cities took on a similar shape. Poor families crowded (5) ____ the oldest sections at the city’s center. Middle-class people lived farther out in row houses or new apartment buildings. The rich built fine homes on the outskirts of the city

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Leisure reading, also known as recreational reading, pleasure reading, free voluntary reading, and independent reading, is independent, self-selected reading of a continuous text for a wide range of personal and social (1)__________. It can take place in and out of school, at any time. Readers (2)__________from a wide range of extended texts, including but not exclusive to narrative fiction, nonfiction, picture books, e-books, magazines, social media, blogs, websites, newspapers, comic books, and graphic novels. Leisure reading is (3)_______intrinsically or socially motivated and a pleasurable activity for the reader. Students’ home environment, where parents/caregivers encourage reading and model their enjoyment of reading, has a substantial (4)___________impact on children’s performance in reading. In classrooms, leisure reading often takes place during times designated as SSR (sustained silent reading), DEAR (drop everything and read), LTR (love to read), or POWER (providing opportunities with everyday reading), which are the most common terms for classroom leisure reading. It may take place (5) _____individual classrooms or be part of a school-wide activity

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D)
Men have always played critical roles in the women’s movement. But there is still a long way to go because despite all the progress made, men still dominate positions of power. And, as a string of recent harassment scandals has shown, the behaviour of some men has had profound effects on women’s careers, their success and their lives. The good news, as we mark International Women’s Day, is that many men are acknowledging the importance of playing their part to make gender equality a reality. A new study by Ipsos Mori has found that while a third of British men think they are being expected to do too much to support women’s equality, far more – half – do not. In fact, three in five men in Britain agree that gender equality won’t be achieved unless they also take action to support women’s rights. Despite attempts in some quarters to paint gender equality as a zero-sum game, there are plenty of win-win propositions for these men to advocate. Better parental leave for fathers would be a good start. Government policy needs to catch up with this new reality, and the evidence is clear that, unless paternity leave is non-transferable and well paid, uptake will be low. Sweden and Norway show us that the introduction of the “daddy quota” – the period of parental leave reserved specifically for fathers – has a positive effect on male take-up of parental leave, and then on men’s long-term involvement in household work and childcare. This reaps economic dividends, as women’s talents are no longer lost to the labour force, and having an involved father has a positive effect on children’s wellbeing. Globally, three-quarters (72%) agree that employers should make it easier for men to combine childcare with work. Businesses need not fear: research links flexible working to increased productivity, as better work-life balance leads to happier, more effective workers. Women gain from having flexible partners, too. A study of German couples found that having a partner who works flexibly boosted the wages of men and women, with the effect most pronounced for mothers. Conversely, women whose partners work very long hours are significantly more likely to quit the labour force – taking their talent and experience with them
5. The word “pronounced” in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to _______

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:
A fold culture is small, isolated, cohesive, conservative, nearly self-sufficient group that is homogeneous in custom and race, with a strong family or clan structure and highly developed rituals. Order is maintained through sanctions based in the religion or family, and interpersonal relationships are strong. Tradition is paramount, and change comes infrequently and slowly. There is relatively little division of labor into specialized duties. Rather, each person is expected to perform a great variety of tasks, though duties may differ between the sexes. Most goods are handmade, and a subsistence economy prevails. Individualism is weakly developed in folk cultures, as are social classes. Unaltered folk cultures no longer exist in industrialized countries such as the United States and Canada. Perhaps the nearest modern equivalent in Anglo-America is the Amish, a German American farming sect that largely renounces the products and labor saving devices of the industrial age. In Amish areas, horse-drawn buggies till serve as a local transportation device, and the faithful are not permitted to own automobiles. The Amish's central religious concept of Demut, “humility”, clearly reflects the weakness of individualism and social class so typical of folk cultures, and there is a corresponding strength of Amish group identity. Rarely do the Amish marry outside their sect. The religion, a variety of the Mennonite faith, provides the principal mechanism for maintaining order.
By contrast, a popular culture is a large heterogeneous group, often highly individualistic and constantly changing. Relationships tend to be impersonal, and a pronounced division of labor exists, leading to the establishment of many specialized professions. Secular institutions, of control such as the police and army take the place of religion and family in maintaining order, and a money-based economy prevails. Because of these contrasts, “popular” may be viewed as clearly different from “folk”. The popular is replacing the folk in industrialized countries and in many developing nations, Folk- made objects give way to their popular equivalent, usually because the popular item is more quickly or cheaply produced, is easier or time saving to use, or lends more prestige to the owner.

The word “prevails” is closest in meaning to     .

Choose the best answer:
How many/ picture/ there/ wall?

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

Long before boats became important in recreation, they were valuable to people for many essential tasks, included transportation and fishing

Read the passage carefully and choose the correct answer.

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.

Human beings ________.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
It was at this time, 1876–1877, that a new invention called the telephone emerged. It is not easy to determine who the inventor was. Both Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray submitted independent patent applications concerning telephones to the patent office in Washington on February 14, 1876. Bell, in Boston at the time, was represented by his lawyers and had no idea that the application had been submitted. Gray’s application arrived at the patent office a few hours before Bell’s, but Bell’s lawyers insisted on paying the application fee immediately; as a result, the heavily burdened office registered Bell’s application first. Bell’s patent was approved and officially registered on March 7, and three days later the famous call is said to have been made when Bell’s summons to his assistant confirmed that the invention worked. Alexander Graham Bell, one year younger than Lars Magnus Ericsson, had been born in Edinburgh. Bell’s interest in telephony came through his mother, who was deaf, and his father, Alexander Melville Bell, who was a teacher of elocution, famous for the phonetic transcription system he had developed to help the deaf learn to speak. The Bell family migrated to Canada in 1870; two years later Alexander Melville Bell was offered a teaching post at a school for the deaf in Boston in the United States, but he successfully recommended his son for the post instead. Father and son were at this time working together to try to discover whether sound could be made visible for the deaf with the help of telegraphy.  But many others had already been pursuing the idea of telephony for years. A resolution of the US House of Representatives in June 2002 claimed that Bell had nefariously acquired and exploited an apparatus, the “teletrophono”, invented by Antonio Meucci long before Bell and Gray. One damaging piece of evidence for Bell was that Meucci’s material had disappeared without trace from the very laboratory at which Bell was carrying out his experiments. In the 1880s, proceedings initiated by the American government charged Bell with “fraudulent and dishonest conduct” and claimed that his patent should be revoked. These proceeding were discontinued after Meucci’s death in 1889 and the expiry of Bell’s patent in 1893. A later investigation, published by A. Edward Evenson in 2000, claims that Bell’s attorneys acquired technical details from Gray’s attorneys that are said to have been added to Bell’s patent after it had been submitted. The whole saga has elements reminiscent of a thriller. One salient fact was that Bell saw no need to take out patents for the telephone in the Nordic countries. This meant that anyone anywhere there was free to manufacture and sell telephones. Bell presented the telephone before a large audience for the first time at the World Exhibition in Philadelphia in June 1876. In the audience was the physicist William Thomson, who in August that year presented Bell’s telephone to the British Association in Glasgow. In Sweden, on September 30 that year, Dagens Nyheter became the first newspaper to refer to “the speaking telegraph”, an apparatus that “plainly and clearly conveyed the words uttered at one end of the telegraph line to the other”. The first version of Bell’s telephone, as it was described in the patent application, was not suitable for practical purposes. Only after “a relatively thorough reconstruction”, to quote Hemming Johansson, could a telephone be designed for large-scale production. The Bell Telephone Company began operating on July 11, 1877. In the same month, the first useable Bell telephone arrived in Europe to be presented in Plymouth to the British Association by the chief engineer of the General Post Office, William H. Preece, in the presence of Bell himself  
2. According to paragraph 1, Bell’s application was registered first because _____

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Hardly a week goes by without some advance in technology that would have seemed  incredible 50 years ago. And we can expect the rate of change to accelerate rather than slow down within our lifetime. The developments in technology are bound to have a dramatic effect on the future of work. By 2010, new technology will have revolutionized communications. People will be transmitting messages down telephone lines that previously would have been sent by post. Not only postmen but also clerks and secretaries will vanish in a paper-free society. All the routine tasks they perform. will be carried on a tiny silicon chip so that they will be as obsolete as the horse and cart after the invention of the motor car. one change will make thousands, if not millions, redundant.  Even people in traditional professions, where expert knowledge has been the key, are unlikely to escape the effects of new technology. Instead of going to a solicitor, you might go to a computer which is programmed with all the most up-to-date legal information. Doctors, too, will find that an electronic competitor will be able to carry out a much quicker and more accurate diagnosis and recommend more efficient courses of treatment. In education, teachers will be largely replaced by teaching machines far more knowledgeable than any human being. Most learning will take place in the home via video conferencing. Children will still go to school though, until another place is created where they can make friends and develop social skills.  What can we do to avoid the threat of unemployment? We shouldn’t hide our heads in the sand. Unions will try to stop change but they will be fighting a losing battle. People should get computer literate as this just might save them from professional extinction. After all, there will be a few jobs left in law, education and medicine for those few individuals who are capable of writing and programming the software of the future. Strangely enough, there will still be jobs like rubbish collection and cleaning as it is tough to programme tasks which are largely unpredictable.
4. Which is NOT one of the writer’s predictions?