Choose the letter A, B, C or D to complete the passage below

   It may be that media have made the AI safety debate seem more (1)_______than it really is. After all, fear sells, and articles using out-of-context quotes to (2) _______ imminent doom can generate more clicks than nuanced and balanced ones. (3) _______, two people who only know about each other’s positions from media quotes are likely (4)_______ think they disagree more than they really do. For example, a techno-skeptic who only read about Bill Gates’s position in a British tabloid may mistakenly think Gates believes superintelligence to be imminent. Similarly, someone in the beneficial-AI movement (5) _______ who knows nothing about Andrew Ng’s position except his quote about overpopulation on Mars may mistakenly think he doesn’t care about AI safety, whereas in fact, he does. The crux is simply that because Ng’s timeline estimates are longer, he naturally tends to prioritize short-term AI challenges over long-term ones.

(2).......................

Iron production was revolutionized in the early eighteenth century when coke was first used instead of charcoal for refining iron ore. Previously the poor quality of the iron had restricted its use in architecture to items such as chains and tie bars for supporting arches, vaults, and walls. With the improvement in refining ore, it was now possible  to  make  cast-iron beams, columns, and girders. During the nineteenth century further advances were made, notably Bessemer’s process for converting iron into steel, which made the material more commercially viable.
Iron was rapidly adopted for the  construction  of  bridges,  because  its  strength was far greater  than that of stone or timber, but its use in the architecture of buildings developed more slowly. By 1800 a complete internal iron skeleton for buildings had been developed in industrial architecture replacing traditional timber beams, but it generally remained concealed. Apart from its low cost, the appeal of iron as a building material lay in its strength, its resistance to fire, and its potential to span vast areas. As a result, iron became increasingly popular as a structural material for more traditional styles of architecture during the nineteenth century, but it was invariably concealed.
Significantly, the use  of  exposed  iron  occurred  mainly  in  the  new  building types spawned by the Industrial Revolution: in factories, warehouses, commercial offices, exhibition hall, and railroad stations, where its  practical  advantages  far  outweighed  its  lack of status. Designers of the railroad stations of the new age explored the potential of iron, covering huge areas with spans that surpassed the great vaults of medieval churches and cathedrals. Paxton’s Crystal Palace, designed to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, covered an area of 1.848 feet by 408 feet in prefabricated units of glass set in iron frames. The Paris Exhibition of 1889 included both the widest span and the  greatest height achieved so far with the Halle Des Machines, spanning 362 feet, and the Eiffel Tower 1,000 feet high. However, these achievements were mocked by the artistic elite of Paris as expensive and ugly follies. Iron, despite its structural advantages, had little aesthetic status. The use of an exposed iron structure in the more traditional styles of architecture was slower to develop.

According to the passage, iron was NOT used for beams, columns, and girders prior to the early eighteenth century because  ...........

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

"Quite apart from the economic similarity between present-day automation and the mechanization which has been proceeding for centuries, it must also be stressed that even in the United States automation is by no means the only factor (1)….. people from existing jobs.
 The increasing number of unneeded workers in (2)…. years has been the result of much more simple and old-fashioned influences: farm labourers have been (3)…. out of work by bigger tractors, miners by the cheapness of oil, and railwaymen by better roads.
 It is quite wrong, therefore, to think of automation as some new monster whose arrival (4)…. the existence of employment in the same way that the arrival of myxomatosis threatened the existence of the rabbit. Automation is one (5)….. of technological change, which itself is only one of the several changes (changes in tastes, changes in social patterns, changes in organization) which (6)…. in certain jobs disappearing and certain skills ceasing to be required. And even in America, which has a level of technology and output per (7)…. much in (8)….. of Britain’s, there is no (9)…. that the (10)….  of change is actually speeding up.
 Nevertheless changes in the amount of labour needed to produce a certain output are proceeding fairly rapidly in America - and in other countries - and my proceed more rapidly in future. Indeed it is one of the main objects of economic policy."

1. it must also be stressed that even in the United States automation is by no means the only factor (1)….. people from existing jobs

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Scientists have experimented with a new procedure for alleviating the damage caused by strokes. Strokes are frequently caused by a blood clot lodging in the tree of arteries in the head, choking the flow of blood. Some brain cells die as a direct result of the stroke, but others also die over several hours because the proteins spilling out of the first cells that die trigger a chemical chain reaction that kills the neighboring cells.
The current method of reducing the amount of damage is to give a clot dissolver, known as TPA, as soon as possible. But generally TPA is not given to the patient until he or she reaches the hospital, and it still does not immediately stop the damage.
The new technology, still in the research stage, involves chilling the area or the entire patient. It is already known that when an organ is cooled, damage is slowed. This is why sometimes a person who has fallen into an icy pond is not significantly harmed after being warmed up again. The biggest issue is the method of cooling. It is not feasible to chill the head alone. Doctors have chilled the entire body by wrapping the patient in cold materials, but extreme shivering was a problem.
The new idea is to cool the patient from the inside out. Several companies are studying the use of cold-tipped catheters, inserted into the artery in the groin and threaded up to the inferior vena cava, which is a large vein that supplies blood to the abdomen. The catheter is expected to cool the blood that flows over it, thus allowing cooler blood to reach the area of the stroke damage.
It is not expected that the cooling will be substantial, but even a slight decrease in temperature is thought to be helpful. In effect, the patient is given a kind of forced hypothermia. And doctors believe it is important to keep the patient awake so that they can converse with the patient in order to ascertain mental condition.
Studies continue to determine the most effective and least damaging means of cooling the patient in order to reduce this damage.

According to the passage, all of the following are true except that    .

Choose the word or phrase among A, B, C or D that best fits the blank space in the following passage.

We won't have robot doctors for a long time, (1) ____ the human doctors we have now are beginning to learn on specialized artificial intelligence to help save time.

Google Deep Mind has just announced a partnership with University College London Hospital(UCLH) which will explore (2) ____ artificial intelligence to treat patients with head and neck cancers. The goal is to develop tools to automatically identify cancerous cells for radiology machines.

Currently, radiologists employ a manual process, called image (3) ____, to make CT and MRI scans and use them to create a map of the patient's anatomy with clear guidelines of where to direct the (4) ____.

Avoiding healthy areas of the head and neck requires that map to be extraordinarily detailed; typically it takes four hours to create. Google believes it can do the same job or better in one hour.

Deep Mind, Google's research arm, works primarily in deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence that learns to identify patterns from looking at large amount of data. In this case, DeepMind researchers will (5) ____ access to anonymized radiology scans from up to 700 former UCLH patients, and then feed them into (6) ____ that would process the scans to learn the visual difference between healthy and cancerous tissue.

The partnership will (7) ____ researchers to train their algorithms with highly-specialized, high- quality data, which theoretically will enable the algorithm to (8) ____ at a higher rate of success than if they had been using publicly available scans.

For those concerned about machines making health (9) ____ decisions, UCLH made it clear in a statement to the newspaper Guardian that clinicians will be in complete control of diagnoses and treatment.

DeepMind isn't the first care. Samsung Medison, the South Korean (10) ____ company's medical device arm, recently released an ultrasound machine that uses deep learning to quickly recommend whether breast tissue is cancerous or benign. The machine's algorithm was trained on 9,000 breast tissue scans, and is pending FDA approval in the US.

(10) ____

Interest is the sum charged for borrowing money for a fixed period of time. Principal is the term used for the money that is borrowed, and the rate of interest is the percent per year of the principal charged for its use. Most of the profits for a bank are derived from the interest that they charge for the use of their own or their depositor’s money.
All problems in interest may be solved by using one general equation that may be stated as follows:
Interest = Principal X Rate X Time
Any one of the four quantities – that is, interest, principal, rate, or time – may be found when the other three are known. The time is expressed in years. The rate is expressed as a decimal fraction. Thus, 6 percent interest means six cents charged for the use of $1 of principal borrowed for one year. Although the time may be less than, equal to, or greater than one year, most applications for loans are for periods of less than one year. For purpose of computing interest for short periods, the commercial year or 360 days is commonly used, but when large sums of money are involved, exact interest is computed on the basis of 365 days.

With what topic is this passage primarily concerned?

The attraction of gold is as old as history. Since ancient times, gold has been the object of dreams and obsessions. Western literature is full of characters who kill for gold or hoard it, from King Midas in the ancient Greek myths, to Fagin in Dickens' Oliver Twist. These characters go to evil extremes to get or keep their gold and they get the punishment they deserve. Most people would not be willing to go to such extremes, of course, but they would not question the assumption that gold has lasting value above and beyond any local currency. Societies change over time, customs and currencies evolve, but gold remains. A wedding ring, for example, must be gold, and so should any serious gift of jewelry. In fact, giving and wearing gold is still a mark of prestige in our post-industrial society, though gold is no longer valued as it used to be thousands of years ago.
Why is gold so valuable? True, it is shiny, durable, and rare, but it is far less useful than many other minerals or metals. It is also not like stock in a company, where the value of the stock depends on the performance of the company. Gold, on the contrary, like any currency, is valuable precisely because people believe it is valuable. That is, if people were willing to accept seashells for their labor and could use them to pay for food, fuel, and other commodities, then seashells would become a valuable currency. Thus, the value of gold depends on the collective belief that gold will continue to be valuable. As long as demand for gold remains steady, the price will hold steady; if demand is high, it will continue to increase in value. But if people should someday lose faith in gold, the price of gold could fall sharply.
Another factor that has affected the price of gold has been the increasing difficulty in acquiring it. Today, most of the gold left in the grounds is in microscopic pieces mixed with rock. To get it, miners must dig up tons and tons of rock, and then spray it with chemicals to separate out the gold. For one ounce of gold - a wedding ring, for example - the mine processes about 30 tons of rock. This is already a costly operation. But there are also hidden social and environmental costs. The mining and processing of gold is ruinous to the environment and to the health of people living nearby. Most of these mines are in poor regions where the people have had little voice in whether there should be mines and how the mines should be run. The large multinational mining companies simply bought the land and opened the mines. However, as people and governments begin to realize the extent of the damage caused by the mines, the situation might change.
Indeed, if the mining companies ever have to pay the full environmental and social costs of mining gold, the price of gold is likely to climb yet higher.

According to the passage, what is people’s behavior towards gold?

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In this modern world where closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras are everywhere and smartphones in every pocket, the routine filming of everyday life is becoming pervasive. A number of countries are rolling out body cams for police officers; other public-facing agencies such as schools, councils and hospitals are also experimenting with cameras for their employees. Private citizens are getting in on the act too: cyclists increasingly wear headcams as a deterrent to aggressive drivers. As camera technology gets smaller and cheaper, it isn't hard to envisage a future where we're all filming everything all the time, in every direction.
Would that be a good thing? There are some obvious potential upsides. If people know they are on camera, especially when at work or using public services, they are surely less likely to misbehave. The available evidence suggests that it discourages behaviours such as vandalism. Another upside is that it would be harder to get away with crimes or to evade blame for accidents.
But a world on camera could have subtle negative effects. The deluge of data we pour into the hands of Google, Facebook and others has already proved a mixed blessing. Those companies would no doubt be willing to upload and curate our body-cam data for free, but at what cost to privacy and freedom of choice?
Body-cam data could also create a legal minefield. Disputes over the veracity and interpretation of police footage have already surfaced. Eventually, events not caught on camera could be treated as if they didn't happen. Alternatively, footage could be faked or doctored to dodge blame or incriminate others.
Of course, there's always the argument that if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear. But most people have done something embarrassing, or even illegal, that they regret and would prefer they hadn't been caught on film. People already censor their social media feeds – or avoid doing anything incriminating in public – for fear of damaging their reputation. Would ubiquitous body cams have a further chilling effect on our freedom?
The always-on-camera world could even threaten some of the attributes that make us human. We are natural gossips and backbiters, and while those might not be desirable behaviours, they oil the wheels of our social interactions. Once people assume they are being filmed, they are likely to clam up.
The argument in relation to body-cam ownership is a bit like that for guns: once you go past a critical threshold, almost everyone will feel they need one as an insurance policy. We are nowhere near that point yet – but we should think hard about whether we really want to say "lights, body cam, action." 

According to paragraph 5, why do social media users already act more carefully online?

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Footracing is a popular activity in the United States. It is seen not only as a competitive sport but also as a way to exercise, to enjoy the camaraderie of like–minded people, and to donate money to a good cause. Though serious runners may spend months training to compete, other runners and walkers might not train at all. Those not competing to win might run in an effort to beat their own time or simply to enjoy the fun an exercise. People of all ages. From those of less than one year (who may be pushed in strollers) to those in their eighties, enter into this sport. The races are held on city streets, on college campuses, through parks, and in suburban areas, and they are commonly 5 to 10 kilometers in length.
The largest footrace in the world is the 12 kilometer Bay to Breakers race that is held in San Francisco every spring. This race begins on the east side of the city near San Francisco Bay and ends on the west side at the Pacific Ocean. There may be 80,000 or more people running in this race through the streets and hills of San Francisco. In the front of are the serious runners who compete to win and who might finish in a little as 34 minutes. Behind them are the thousands who take several hours to finish. In the back of the race are those who dress in costumes and come just for fun. One year there was a group of men who dresses like Elvis Presley, and another group consisted of the firefighters who were tired together in a long line and who were carrying a firehose. There was even a bridal party, in which the bride was dressed in a long white gown and the groom wore a tuxedo. The bride and groom threw flowers to bystanders, and they were actually married at some point along the route.

The main purpose of this passage is to     .

Choose the letter A, B, C or D to answer these following questions

According to futurist Ray Kurzweil human civilisation will be unavoidably transformed in the year 2045 by an event that he call The Singularity. He suggests that exponential technological development will lead to the inevitable rise of artificial intelligence (A.I.). Such advanced technology may make humanity insignificant.

Kurzweil says that technologies are double-edged swords and envisions the possibility that an artificial intelligence might decde to put an end to humanity simply because it surpasses human intelligence. Kurzweil does have faith in mankind, however. He suggests that people are wise to accept that technological progress is unavoidable and that such acceptance will make the process of transition easier.

Kurzweil has personal reasons to hope for the coming of The Singularity, because he wants his life to be extended by it. Kurzweil envisions that future medical advances could invent tiny computerised machines, or nanobots, which operate inside the body to enhance the immune system. In addition ne believes that future technology might be able to resurrect his deceased father.

Looking at the state of current technological advances in many fields such as medicine, navigation and communication, Kurzweil's visions may not be unbelievable.The critical issue, however, is whether genuine artificial intelligence can ever be truly realised. Kurzweil suggests that critics of his theories, who believe that the human brain is too complex to duplicate, are underestimating what the exponential growth in technology can eventually accomplish.

How does Kurzweil respond to critics of his theories

Being aware of one's own emotions - recognizing and acknowledging feelings as they happen - is at the very heart of Emotional Intelligence. And this awareness encompasses not only moods but also thoughts about those moods. People who are able to monitor their feelings as they arise are less likely to be ruled by them and are thus better able to manage their emotions.
Managing emotions does not mean suppressing them; nor does it mean giving free rein to every feeling. Psychologist Daniel Goleman, one of several authors who have popularized the notion of Emotional Intelligence, insisted that the goal is balance and that every feeling has value and significance. As Goleman said, "A life without passion would be a dull wasteland of neutrality, cut off and isolated from the richness of life itself." Thus, we manage our emotions by expressing them in an appropriate manner. Emotions can also be managed by engaging in activities that cheer us up, soothe our hurts, or reassure us when we feel anxious.
Clearly, awareness and management of emotions are not independent. For instance, you might think that individuals who seem to experience their feelings more intensely than others would be less able to manage them. However, a critical component of awareness of emotions is the ability to assign meaning to them - to know why we are experiencing a particular feeling or mood. Psychologists have found that, among individuals who experience intense emotions, individual differences in the ability to assign meaning to those feelings predict differences in the ability to manage them. In other words, if two individuals are intensely angry, the one who is better able to understand why he or she is angry will also be better able to manage the anger.
Self-motivation refers to strong emotional self-control, which enables a person to get moving and pursue worthy goals, persist at tasks even when frustrated, and resist the temptation to act on impulse. Resisting impulsive behavior is, according to Goleman, "the root of all emotional self- control."
Of all the attributes of Emotional Intelligence, the ability to postpone immediate gratification and to persist in working toward some greater future gain is most closely related to success - whether one is trying to build a business, get a college degree, or even stay on a diet. One researcher examined whether this trait can predict a child's success in school. The study showed that 4-year-old children who can delay instant gratification in order to advance toward some future goal will be "far superior as students" when they graduate from high school than will 4-year-olds who are not able to resist the impulse to satisfy their immediate wishes.

All of the following are mentioned in paragraph 2 about our emotions EXCEPT..........

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Line Europeans who arrived in the Americas, the first American Indians were immigrants. Because Indians were nomadic hunters and gatherers, they probably arrived in search of new hunting grounds from Asia when they crossed the ice-covered Bering Strait to Alaska. Anthropologists estimate that the entire Indian population north of Mexico was slightly greater than 1,020,000 when the first settlers arrived from Europe. Although Native Americans belonged to one geographic race, their cultures and languages were only marginally similar, and by and large, they had different ways of life. Nomadic migrations required Indians to construct shelters that did not need to be transported, but could be easily erected from the materials found in their new location.
Eastern Woodland Indian tribes lived in bark-covered wigwams that were shaped like cones or domes. The frame for the hut was made of young trees firmly driven into the ground, and then bent overhead to tie together with bark fibers or strings of animal hides. Sheets and slabs of bark were attached to the frame to construct the roof and walls, leaving an opening to serve as a door and to allow smoke to escape. The Iroquois in north eastern regions built longhouses that were more spacious than wigwams because five to a dozen families lived under one roof. During the winter, they plastered clay to the poles of the frame to protect the inhabitants from wind and rain.
Pueblo Indians who lived in the southwest portion of the United States in northern Arizona and New Mexico constructed elaborate housing with several stories and many rooms. Each family unit had only one room, and their ancestors dug shelters in the walls of cliffs and canyons. The ground story of a Pueblo dwelling had no doors or windows in order to prevent enemies from entering. The next level was set back the width of one room, and the row of rooms above it was set back once again, giving their houses the appearance of a terrace Pueblos used ladders to climb to the upper levels and pulled them in when all family members returned for the night.
Indians living in deserts used sandstone and clay as construction materials. Those who lived in the valleys of rivers even made bricks of clay with wood chips to add strength and to prevent the clay from cracking. To make roofs, Pueblos tied logs together to make rafters and laid them across the two outside walls. On top of the rafters, layers of tree branches, sticks, grass, and brush created a solid roof to preclude the water from leaking inside. Pueblo dwellings were dark because windows were often not large enough to allow much light.

The word “marginally” is closest in meaning to

Of all the aspirations which make up the American Dream, perhaps the most prominent is to own one’s own home. Americans are very proud of their homes and spend a great deal of time maintaining their houses and keeping the property in good condition. A man's home is often called his castle, and the hours spent keeping his fortress safe and secure become one of his greatest pleasures.
If a home is in an especially fashionable neighborhood, the owners may consult an interior decorator to give the home a certain coordinated appearance. If there is a large back yard, great care may be spent in having it properly landscaped with exotic trees, shrubs and plants.
It is almost a certainty that you should be the first visitor to an American home, you will be taken on a grand tour of the premises. The owner will take great pride in showing to you the place he calls home. Every closet, every cabinet and closed door will be opened so that you can actually see the extent and value of his home. You will even be taken into the father's den and the mother's sewing room. These are special rooms for the respective man and woman of the house to insure their privacy. They may be off-limits to the rest of the family but, for the visitor they are open to scrutiny and inspection.
It is, of course, considered polite on the tour to comment favorably on each room picking out its most salient, important feature, such as the special view from the window, the vaulted ceiling in the foyer or the exotic choice of wallpaper in the bathroom.
The finished basement is a special cause for pride for the family with its exercise room, video games, carpenter shop and launderette. In most homes it is here that the family entertains itself in the evening while the rest of the house becomes more of a showcase. On your tour you may be reminded of the hours the owners had spent "fixing up the house" so it would be "nice for the kids to bring over their friends". You may even sense a feeling of competition in knowing that they have not only "kept up with the Joneses" but also have far surpassed them.
The tour will terminate after an hour or so somewhere on the back lawn next to the two-car air- conditioned garage where you may be treated to a snack and light refreshment.
Showing off one's home is more than an exercise in vanity. It is a tribute to one's accomplishment. It is a way of saying that a man has been a good provider for his family and that he has realized one of his dreams.

What is the purpose of a finished basement?

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:
Being aware of one's own emotions - recognizing and acknowledging feelings as they happen - is at the very heart of Emotional Intelligence. And this awareness encompasses not only moods but also thoughts about those moods. People who are able to monitor their feelings as they arise are less likely to be ruled by them and are thus better able to manage their emotions.
Managing emotions does not mean suppressing them; nor does it mean giving free rein to every feeling. Psychologist Daniel Goleman, one of several authors who have popularized the notion of Emotional Intelligence, insisted that the goal is balance and that every feeling has value and significance. As Goleman said, "A life without passion would be a dull wasteland of neutrality, cut off and isolated from the richness of life itself." Thus, we manage our emotions by expressing them in an appropriate manner. Emotions can also be managed by engaging in activities that cheer us up, soothe our hurts, or reassure us when we feel anxious.
Clearly, awareness and management of emotions are not independent. For instance, you might think that individuals who seem to experience their feelings more intensely than others would be less able to manage them. However, a critical component of awareness of emotions is the ability to assign meaning to them - to know why we are experiencing a particular feeling or mood. Psychologists have found that, among individuals who experience intense emotions, individual differences in the ability to assign meaning to those feelings predict differences in the ability to manage them. In other words, if two individuals are intensely angry, the one who is better able to understand why he or she is angry will also be better able to manage the anger.
Self-motivation refers to strong emotional self-control, which enables a person to get moving and pursue worthy goals, persist at tasks even when frustrated, and resist the temptation to act on impulse. Resisting impulsive behavior is, according to Goleman, "the root of all emotional self-control."
Of all the attributes of Emotional Intelligence, the ability to postpone immediate gratification and to persist in working toward some greater future gain is most closely related to success - whether one is trying to build a business, get a college degree, or even stay on a diet. One researcher examined whether this trait can predict a child's success in school. The study showed that 4-year-old children who can delay instant gratification in order to advance toward some future goal will be "far superior as students" when they graduate from high school than will 4-year-olds who are not able to resist the impulse to satisfy their immediate wishes.

Which of the following can we infer from paragraph 1?

Since the dawn of time, people have found ways to communicate with one another. Smoke signals and tribal drums were some of the earliest forms of communication. Letters, carried by birds or by humans on foot or on horseback, made it possible for people to communicate larger amounts of information between two places. The telegram and telephone set the stage for more modern means of communication. With the invention of the cellular phone, communication itself has become mobile.
For you, a cell phone is probably just a device that you and your friends use to keep in touch with family and friends, take pictures, play games, or send text message. The definition of a cell phone is more specific: it is a hand- held wireless communication device that sends and receives signals by way of small special areas called cells.
Walkie - talkies, telephones and cell phones are duplex communication devices: They make it possible for two people to talk to each other. Cell phones and walkie- talkies are different from regular phones because they can be used in many different locations. A walkie- talkie is sometimes called a half- duplex communication device because only one person can talk at a time. A cell phone is a full- duplex device because it uses both frequencies at the same time. A walkie-talkie has only one channel. A cell phone has more than a thousand channels. A walkie- talkie can transmit and receive signals across a distance of about a mile. A cell phone can transmit and receive signals over hundreds of miles. In 1973, an electronic company called Motorola hired Martin Cooper to work on wireless communication. Motorola and Bell Laboratories (now AT& T) were in a race to invent the first portable communication device.
Martin Cooper won the race and became the inventor of the cell phone. On April 3, 1973, Cooper made the first cell phone call to his opponent at AT& T while walking down the streets of New York city. People on the sidewalks gazed at cooper in amazement. Cooper's phone was called A Motorola Dyna- Tac. It weighed a whopping 2.5 pounds (as compared to today's cell phones that weigh as little as 3 or 4 ounces)
After the invention of his cell phone, Cooper began thinking of ways to make the cell phone available to the general public. After a decade, Motorola introduced the first cell phone for commercial use. The early cell phone and its service were both expensive. The cell phone itself cost about $ 3, 500. In 1977, AT & T constructed a cell phone system and tried it out in Chicago with over 2, 000 customers. In 1981, a second cellular phone system was started in the Washington,D.C and Baltimore area. It took nearly 37 years for cell phones to become available for general public use. Today, there are more than sixty million cell phone customers with cell phones producing over thirty billion dollars per years.

To whom did Cooper make his first cell phone call?

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Every year about two million people visit Mount Rushmore, were the faces of four U.S presidents were carved in granite by sculptor Gutzon Borglum and his son, the late Lincoln Borglum. The creation of the Mount Rushmore monument Line took 14 years – from 1927 to 1941 – and nearly a million dollars. There were times when money was difficult to come by and many people were jobless. To move more than 400,000 tons of rock, Borglum hired laid-off workers from the closed-down mines in the Black Hills area. He taught these men to dynamite, drill, carve, and finish the granite as they were hanging in midair in his specially devised chairs, which had many safety features. Borglum was proud of the fact that no workers were killed or severely injured during the years of blasting and carving.
During the carving, many changes in original design had to be made to keep the carved heads free of large fissures that were uncovered. However, not all the cracks could be avoided, so Borglum concocted a mixture of granite dust, white lead, and linseed oil to fill them.
Every winter, water from melting snows gets into the fissures and expands as it freezes, making the fissures bigger. Consequently, every autumn maintenance work is done to refill the cracks. The repairers swing out in space over a 500-foot drop and fix the monument with the same mixture that Borglum used to preserve this national monument for future generations.

This passage is mainly about      

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Perhaps better known than the Cullinan Diamond is the Hope Diamond, a valuable and blue gem with a background of more than 300 years as a world traveler.The 112-carat blue stone later became the Hope Diamond was mined in India sometime before the middle of the seventeenth century and was first known to be owned by Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal in memory of his beloved wife. From India, the celebrated blue stone has changed hands often, moving from location to location in distant corners of the world.
In the middle of the seventeenth century, a trader from France named Jean Baptiste Tavernier acquired the large blue diamond, which was rumored to have been illegally removed from a temple Tavemier returned to France with the big blue gem, where the stone was purchased by the Sun King Louis XIV. Louis XIV had it cut down from 112 to 67 carats to make its shape symmetrical and to maximize its sparkle. The newly cut diamond, still huge by any standards, was passed down through the royal family of France, until it arrived in the hands of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
During the French Revolution, Louis XVI and his wife met their fate on the guillotine in 1793, and the big blue diamond disappeared from public sight.
The diamond somehow managed to get from France to England, where banker Henry Hope purchased it from a gem dealer early in the nineteenth century. The huge blue stone was cut into a 45.5-carat oval, and at this point it took on the name by which it is known today. The diamond stayed in the Hope family for around a century, when deep indebtedness brought on by a serious gambling habit on the part of one of Henry Hope's heirs forced the sale of the diamond.
From England, the Hope Diamond may have made its way into the hands of the Sultan of Turkey; whatever route it took to get there, it eventually went on to the United States when American Evelyn Walsh McLean purchased it in 1911. Mrs.
McLean certainly enjoyed showing the diamond off guests in her home were sometimes astounded to notice the huge stone embellishing the neck of Mrs. McLean’s Great Dane as the huge pet trotted around the grounds of her Washington, D.C. home. The Hope Diamond later became the property of jeweler Harry Winston, who presented the stunning 45.5- carat piece to the Smithsonian in 1958. The Hope Diamond is now taking a well-earned rest following its rigorous travel itinerary and is on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where it has been since 1958.

Which country is NOT mentioned in the passage as a place where the Hope Diamond spent some time?

Whales are the largest animals in the world, and the gentlest creatures we know. Although the whale is very huge, it is not hindered at all by its size when it is in the water. Whales have tails that end like flippers. With just a gentle flick, it can propel itself forward. The skin of a whale is so smooth that it does not create any friction that can slow the whale down. A whale’s breathing hole is located on the top of its head, so it can breathe without having to completely push its head out of the water. Whales are protected from the cold seawater by body fat that is called blubber.
Whales live in the ocean but, in terms of behaviours, they are more similar to humans than fish. They live in family groups and they even travel in groups when they have to migrate from cooler to warmer waters. The young stay with their parents for as long as fifteen years. Whales are known not to desert the ill or injured members; instead, they cradle them.
When whales are in danger, there are people who go to great lengths to help them. One such case occurred in 1988, when three young whales were trapped in the sea. It was close to winter and the sea had begun to freeze over. Whales are mammals that require oxygen from the air, so the frozen ice was a great danger to them. All they had then was a tiny hole in the ice for them to breathe through. Volunteers from all over soon turned up to help these creatures. They cut holes in the ice to provide more breathing holes for the whales. These holes would also serve as guides for the whales so that they could swim to warmer waters.

Whales can move easily in water thanks to their .............

Read the following passage and choose among A, B, C or D the correct answer to each of the questions.

FIRST TIME IN THE AIR

When John Mills was going to fly in an aero plane for the first time, he was frightened.

He did not like the idea of being thousands of feet up in the air. "I also didn't like the fact that I wouldn't be in control," says John.

"I'm a terrible passenger in the car. When somebody else is driving, I tell them what to so. It drives everybody crazy."

However John couldn't avoid flying any longer. It was the only way he could visit his grandchildren in Canada.

"I had made up my mind that I was going to do it, I couldn't let my son, his wife and their three children travel all the way here to visit me. It would be so expensive for them and I know Tom's business isn't doing so well at the moment - it would also be tiring for the children - it's a nine-hour flight!" he says.

To get ready for the flight John did lots of reading about aero planes. When he booked his seat, he was told that he would be flying on a Boeing 747, which is better known as a jumbo jet. "I needed to know as much as possible before getting in that plane. I suppose it was a way of making myself feel better. The Boeing 747 is the largest passenger aircraft in the world at the moment. The first one flew on February 9th 1969 in the USA. It can carry up to 524 passengers and 3.400 pieces of luggage. The fuel for aero planes is kept in the wings and the 747 is wings are so big that they can carry enough fuel for an average car to be able to travel 16,000 kilometers a year for 70 years. Isn't that unbelievable? Even though I had discovered all this very interesting information about the jumbo, when I saw it for the first time, just before I was going to travel to Canada, I still couldn't believe that something so enormous was going to get up in the air and fly. I was even more impressed when I saw how big it was inside with hundreds of people!"

The biggest surprise of all for John was the flight itself. "The take-off itself was much smoother than I expected although I was still quite scared until we were in the air. In the end, I managed to relax, enjoy the food and watch one of the movies and the view from the window was spectacular. I even managed to sleep for a while! Of course," continues John, "the best reward of all was when I arrived in Canada and saw my son and his family, particularly my beautiful grandchildren. Suddenly, I felt so silly about all the years when I couldn't even think of getting on a plane. I had let my fear of living stop me from seeing the people I love most in the world. I can visit my son and family as often as I like now!"

Why did John read about aero plane?