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

"Cambodia, country in Southeast Asia, also known (1)…… Kâmpuchéa. More than a thousand years ago, Cambodia was the center of the Khmer (Cambodian) kingdom of Angkor, a great empire (2)……  dominated Southeast Asia for 600 years. A monarchy since ancient (3)…… , Cambodia was a French protectorate from 1863 to 1953. A republic replaced the monarchy in 1970, and in 1975 a Communist regime known as the Khmer Rouge (4)…. power, naming the country Democratic Kâmpuchéa. The Khmer Rouge’s brutal repression and radical socialist (5) ……  devastated Cambodia’s society and economy. In 1979 anti-Khmer Rouge Communist forces from Vietnam and Cambodia overthrew the Khmer Rouge and established a more moderate socialist State. In 1993 a new constitution restored the (6) …... Cambodia’s official name is the Kingdom of Cambodia.
 Cambodia is (7)….. . on the northeast by Laos, on the east and southeast by Vietnam, on the west and northwest by Thailand, and on the southwest by the Gulf of Thailand (Siam). The country’s Capital and largest city is Phnom Penh. Cambodia’s Principal lake, the Tônlé Sap (Great Lake), is the largest in Southeast Asia. From the northwest, the Tônlé Sap drains (8)…..  the Mekong via the Tônlé Sab River, (9)…… the Mekong at Phnom Penh. Each year during the monsoon season (approximately May to October), the waters of the Mekong (10)….. and reverse the flow of the Tônlé Sab. The lake then expands dramatically, flooding the provinces along its banks."

1. Cambodia, country in Southeast Asia, also known (1)…… Kâmpuchéa.

Read the passage and choose the best answers. 
Brunei is one of the smallest countries in the world. Its population is only 25,000 and most of them live in Bandar Seri Begawan (the capital city with the longest name in the world. It is also the richest country in Asia and maybe the richest country in the world because it has a lot of oil and natural gas which it exports to Japan. Every week huge tankers carry oil and gas from the oil-fields of Brunei to Japan. The head of the state in Brunei is Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah. He is the richest man in the world. He has two wives and each lives in their own beautiful palace. The first wife lives in the biggest palace in the world which has 200 rooms. The Sultan has more than 200 cars and he also has hundreds of horses.

According to the passage, Sultan, the head of the state in Brunei ______________.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, almost nothing was written about    the contributions of women during the colonial period and the early history of the newly formed United States. Lacking the right to vote and absent from the seats of power, women were not considered an important force in history. Anne Bradstreet wrote some significant poetry in the seventeenth century, Mercy Otis Warren produced the host contemporary    history of the American Revolution, and Abigail Adams penned Important letters showing    she exercised great political Influence over her husband, John, tiie second President of the United States. But little or no notice was taken of these contributions. During those centuries, women remained Invisible In history  books.
Throughout the nineteenth century, this lack of visibility  continued,  despite  the  efforts of female authors writing about women, These writers, like most of their male counterparts, were amateur historians. Their writings were celebratory in  nature,  and  they were uncritical in their selection and use of  sources.
During the nineteenth century, however, certain feminists showed a keen sense of history by keeping records of activities in which women were engaged. National, regional,    and local women's organizations compiled accounts of  their  doings.  Personal  correspondence, newspaper clippings, and souvenirs were saved and stored. These sources  from the core of the two greatest collections of women’s history In the United States one at   the Elizabeth and Arthur Schleslnger Library at Radcliffe College, and the other the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College. Such sources have provided valuable materials for later Generations of historians.
Despite the gathering of more information about ordinary women during  the  nineteenth Century, most of the writing about women conformed to  the  "great  women"  theory of History, just as much of mainstream American  history  concentrated  on  "great  men," To demonstrate that women were making significant contributions to American life, female authors singled out women leaders and wrote biographies, or else important women produced their autobiographies. Most of these leaders were Involved in public life  as  reformers, activists working for women's right to vote, or authors,  and  were  not  representative at all of the great of ordinary woman. The lives of ordinary people continued, generally, to be untold in the American histories being   published.

The word "celebratory" In the 2 nt paragraph means that the writings referred to ........................

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

The increase in urbanization causes different problems. Air and water pollution are amongst the major issue we have to tackle.

In the first place, cars, factories and burning waste emit dangerous gases that change the air quality in our cities and pose threats to our health. Dangerous gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides cause respiratory diseases, for instant, bronchitis and asthma. Those are also proved to have long-term effects on the environment.

Furthermore, with the increased population, it becomes difficult to manage the waste generated in cities. Most of the waste is discharged or dumped into rivers or onto streets. The waste pollutes water and makes it unfit for human consumption. Subsequently, it becomes more and more difficult for city dwellers to get clean water. Some cities in Africa are unable to provide adequate water supply because most of the water is lost in pipe leakages. In fact, most city dwellers in developing countries are forced to boil their water or to buy bottled water, which is very expensive.

There are several actions that could be taken to eradicate the problems described above. Firstly, a simple solution would be joining community efforts to address problems affecting your city. Ask your parents, friends and relatives to join in as well. These efforts might include clean-up campaigns, recycling projects and a signature campaign to ask the government to do something about the situation. A second measure would be encouraging your teacher to talk about these problems and to discuss how young people can help to solve them. Finally, writing to local organizations working on these issues for ideas on how you can contribute to solve them.

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

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

Born on June 30, 1985 in Baltimore, Maryland, to Fred and Debbie Phelps, the youngest of three children, Michael Phelps and his sisters grew up in the neighbourhood of Rodger Forge. His father, Fred, a former all-rounded athlete, was a state trooper and his mother Debbie was a middle-school principal. When Phelps's parents divorced in 1994, he and his siblings lived with their mother, with whom Michael grew very close. Even at the age of 7, Phelps was still a little scared to put his head under water, so his instructors allowed him to float around on his back. Not surprisingly, despite the fact that later he is very good at butterfly swimming, the first stroke he mastered was not the easily-practised breaststroke but the backstroke.

At the age of 15, Phelps became the youngest American male swimmer to compete at an Olympic Games in 68 years. While he didn't win any medals at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, he would soon become a major force in competitive swimming.

In the spring of 2001, Phelps set the world record in the 200-meter butterfly, becoming the youngest male swimmer in history at the age of 15 years and 9 months. At the 2001 World Championships in Japan, he then broke his own record with a time of 1:54:58, earning his first international medal. In 2002, Phelps continued to establish several records including the 100-meter butterfly and the 200-meter individual medley. The following year, at the same event, he broke his own world record in the 400-meter individual medley with a time of 4:09.09.

After the London Olympics in 2012, Phelps announced he was retiring from his sport. However, at the 2016 Olympic Games, he came out of retirement and returned to professional competition. This was also the event in which he won one silver and five gold medals, becoming the oldest individual gold medalist in Olympic swimming history, as well as the first swimmer to win four consecutive golds in the same event, the 200 meter individual medley.

The word consecutive in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ____.

Brown bears are found in Alaska and western Canada. They are first cousins of the grizzly, each belonging to the species Ursus arctos. The chief difference in them is size, as brown bears on the average are slightly larger. A full-grown male may weigh 1,500 pounds and stand 9 to 10 feet tall. Like bears everywhere they are creatures of habit that tread the same trails year after year. Brown bears have three gaits: an even, deliberate one that takes them over rough or boggy ground at a steady clip, a quick shuffle, and a fast gallop. They are not only surprisingly fast, but also, for such huge beasts, amazingly inclines. Fishing the streams in summer, they pounce on swift-moving salmon and snatch them with almost simultaneous movements of their paws and mouths. Brown bears are excellent swimmers and love to loll and wallow in the water on warm days. They are also curious and playful. Most manifest a fear of humans, but Alaskans prefer not to test these creatures and usually carry noisemakers of some kind to warn the bears of their presence.

It is most probable that if a brown bear came across a human it would________

We live in a world of tired, sleep deprived people. In his book Counting Sheep, Paul Martin - a behavioural biologist - describes a society which is just too busy to sleep and which does not give sleeping the importance it deserves. Modern society has invented reasons not to sleep. We are now a 24/7 society where shops and services must be available all hours. We spend longer hours at work than we used to, and more time getting to work.
Mobile phones and email allow us to stay in touch round the clock and late-night TV and the Internet tempt us away from our beds. When we need more time for work or pleasure, the easy solution is to sleep less. The average adult sleeps only 6.2 hours a night during the week, whereas research shows that most people need eight or even eight and a half to feel at their best. Nowadays, many people have got used to sleeping less than they need and they live in an almost permanent state of'sleep debt'.
Until the invention of the electric light in 1879 our daily cycle of sleep used to depend on the hours of daylight. People would get up with the sun and go to bed at nightfall. But nowadays our hours of sleep are mainly determined by our working hours (or our social life) and most people are woken up artificially by an alarm clock. During the day caffeine, the world's most popular drug, helps to keep us awake. 75% of the world's population habitually consume caffeine, which up to a point masks the symptoms of sleep deprivation.
What does a chronic lack of sleep do to us? As well as making us irritable and unhappy as humans, it also reduces our motivation and ability to work. This has serious Implications for society in general. Doctors, for example, are often chronically sleep deprived, especially when they are on'night call',  and may got less than three hours'sleep. Lack of sleep can seriously  impair their mood, judgment, and ability to take decisions. Tired engineers, in the early hours of the morning, made a series of mistakes with catastrophic results. On our roads and motorways lack of sleep kills thousands of people every year. Tests show that a tired driver can be just as dangerous as a drunken driver. However, driving when drunk is against the law but driving when exhausted isn't As Paul Martin says, it is very ironic that we admire people who function on very little sleep instead of criticizing them for being irresponsible, Our world would be a much safer, happier place if everyone, whatever their job, slept eight hours a night

According to the third paragraph, which of the following statements  is  NOT TRUE?

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.

Nowadays, everybody knows Apples and (26) ____ everybody knows that the company was founded by Steve Jobs, an American inventor and entrepreneur. He is widely recognized as a pioneer in the field of microcomputer revolution. He helped design the first Macintosh computer, transformed a small computer graphics company into Pixar, the company behind Toy Story and The Monster Inc.

His countercultural lifestyle and philosophy was a product of the time and place of his (27) ____. Jobs was adopted and raised in San Francisco Bay Area during the 1960s. In 1972, Jobs attended Reed College from which he (28) ____ in next to no time. Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 in order to sell Apple I personal computer. At that moment, he might hardly imagine that only a year later the company tasted impressive victory with Apple II, one of the first highly successful mass-produced personal computers. (29) ____, in 1985, following a long power struggle, Jobs was forced out of Apple. After leaving Apple, Jobs took a few of its members with him to found NeXT, a computer development company which was then bought by Apple. The purchase allowed Jobs to become the company's CEO once again.

Steve Jobs died in 2011 after battling with pancreatic cancer (30) ____ nearly a decade. Millions first learned of Jobs’ death on a device which had been invented by himself.

28. ..................

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, almost nothing was written about    the contributions of women during the colonial period and the early history of the newly formed United States. Lacking the right to vote and absent from the seats of power, women were not considered an important force in history. Anne Bradstreet wrote some significant poetry in the seventeenth century, Mercy Otis Warren produced the host contemporary    history of the American Revolution, and Abigail Adams penned Important letters showing    she exercised great political Influence over her husband, John, tiie second President of the United States. But little or no notice was taken of these contributions. During those centuries, women remained Invisible In history  books.
Throughout the nineteenth century, this lack of visibility  continued,  despite  the  efforts of female authors writing about women, These writers, like most of their male counterparts, were amateur historians. Their writings were celebratory in  nature,  and  they were uncritical in their selection and use of  sources.
During the nineteenth century, however, certain feminists showed a keen sense of history by keeping records of activities in which women were engaged. National, regional,    and local women's organizations compiled accounts of  their  doings.  Personal  correspondence, newspaper clippings, and souvenirs were saved and stored. These sources  from the core of the two greatest collections of women’s history In the United States one at   the Elizabeth and Arthur Schleslnger Library at Radcliffe College, and the other the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College. Such sources have provided valuable materials for later Generations of historians.
Despite the gathering of more information about ordinary women during  the  nineteenth Century, most of the writing about women conformed to  the  "great  women"  theory of History, just as much of mainstream American  history  concentrated  on  "great  men," To demonstrate that women were making significant contributions to American life, female authors singled out women leaders and wrote biographies, or else important women produced their autobiographies. Most of these leaders were Involved in public life  as  reformers, activists working for women's right to vote, or authors,  and  were  not  representative at all of the great of ordinary woman. The lives of ordinary people continued, generally, to be untold in the American histories being   published.

In the fast paragraph, the author mentions all of the following as possible roles of nineteenth-century "great  women" EXCEPT  ................

Read the following passage, then choose the correct answer to questions 31 - 35.
Smoking causes lung cancer, which is the number one cancer among men. Ninety percent of the people who get lung cancer die. Smoking is also the leading cause of mouth cancer, tongue cancer, and throat cancer. Many smokers have heart disease arid pneumonia. Smoking causes one million early deaths in the world every year.
Smokers not only harm themselves but also harm others. Smokers breathe smoke out into the air. They breathe it out on their children and their wives or husbands. Children whose parents smoke have more breathing and lung problems than other children. Women who are married to smokers are more likely to have lung cancer than those married to non- smokers.
We are all aware that smoking is bad. So why do people smoke?

The number one cancer among men is _________.

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

Born on June 30, 1985 in Baltimore, Maryland, to Fred and Debbie Phelps, the youngest of three children, Michael Phelps and his sisters grew up in the neighbourhood of Rodger Forge. His father, Fred, a former all-rounded athlete, was a state trooper and his mother Debbie was a middle-school principal. When Phelps's parents divorced in 1994, he and his siblings lived with their mother, with whom Michael grew very close. Even at the age of 7, Phelps was still a little scared to put his head under water, so his instructors allowed him to float around on his back. Not surprisingly, despite the fact that later he is very good at butterfly swimming, the first stroke he mastered was not the easily-practised breaststroke but the backstroke.

At the age of 15, Phelps became the youngest American male swimmer to compete at an Olympic Games in 68 years. While he didn't win any medals at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, he would soon become a major force in competitive swimming.

In the spring of 2001, Phelps set the world record in the 200-meter butterfly, becoming the youngest male swimmer in history at the age of 15 years and 9 months. At the 2001 World Championships in Japan, he then broke his own record with a time of 1:54:58, earning his first international medal. In 2002, Phelps continued to establish several records including the 100-meter butterfly and the 200-meter individual medley. The following year, at the same event, he broke his own world record in the 400-meter individual medley with a time of 4:09.09.

After the London Olympics in 2012, Phelps announced he was retiring from his sport. However, at the 2016 Olympic Games, he came out of retirement and returned to professional competition. This was also the event in which he won one silver and five gold medals, becoming the oldest individual gold medalist in Olympic swimming history, as well as the first swimmer to win four consecutive golds in the same event, the 200 meter individual medley.

The first style of swimming Phelps was good at is ____.

Aging is the process of growing old. It occurs eventually in every living thing provided, of course, that an illness or accident does not kill it prematurely. The most familiar outward signs of aging may be seen in old people, such as the graying of the hair and the wrinkling of the skin. Signs of aging in a pot dog or cat include loss of playfulness and energy, a decline in hearing and eyesight, or even a slight graying of the coat. Plants age too, but the signs are much harder to detect.
Most body parts grow bigger and stronger, and function more efficiently during childhood. They reach their peak at the time of maturity, or early adulthood. After that, they begin to decline. Bones, for example, gradually become lighter and more brittle. In the aged, the joints between the bones also become rigid and more inflexible. This can make moving very painful.
All the major organs of the body show signs of aging. The brain, for example, works less efficiently, and even gets smaller in size. Thinking processes of all sorts are slowed  down. Old people often have trouble in remembering recent events.
One of the most serious changes of old ago occurs in the arteries, the blood vessels that lead from the heart. They become thickened and constricted, allowing less blood to flow to  the rest of body. This condition accounts, directly or indirectly, for many of the diseases of the aged. It may, for example, result In heart attack.
Aging is not a uniform process. Different parts of the body wear out at different rates. There are great differences among people in their rate of aging. Even the cells of the body differ in the way they age. The majority of cells are capable of reproducing themselves many times during the course of a lifetime. Nerve cells and muscle fibers can never be replaced  once they wear out.
Gerontologists - scientists who study the process of aging - believe this wearing out of the body is controlled by a built-in biological time-clock. They are trying to discover how this clock works so that they can slow down the process. This could give man a longer life and a great number of productive years.

When does the human body begin to lose vigor and the ability to function efficiently?

Read the following passage, then choose the correct answer to questions 26 - 30.
Jeans are very popular with (26)_________ people all over the world. Some people say that jeans are the “uniform” of youth. But they haven’t always been popular. The story of jeans (27)_________ almost two hundred years ago. People in Genoa, Italy made pants. The cloth made in Genoa was (28)_________ “jeanos”. The pants were called “jeans”. In 1850, a salesman in California began selling pants made of canvas. His name was Levi Strauss. Because they were so strong, “Levi’s pants” became (29)_________ with gold miners, fanners and cowboys. Six years later Levis began making his pants with blue cotton cloth called denim. Soon after, factory (30)_________ in the US and Europe began wearing jeans. Young people usually didn’t wear them.
(28)......................

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.

   Experts in climatology and other scientists are becoming extremely concerned about the changes to our climate which are taking place. Admittedly, climate changes have occurred on our planet before. For example, there have been several ice ages or glacial periods. These climatic changes, however, were different from the modern ones in that they occurred gradually and, as far as we know, naturally. The changes currently being monitored are said to be the result not of natural causes, but of human activity. Furthermore, the rate of change is becoming alarmingly rapid.

   The major problem is that the planet appears to be warming up. According to some experts, this warming process, known as global warming, is occurring at a rate unprecedented in the last 10,000 years. The implications for the planet are very serious. Rising global temperatures could give rise to such ecological disasters as extremely high increases in the incidence of flooding and of droughts. These in turn could have a harmful effect on agriculture.

   It is thought that this unusual warming of the Earth has been caused by so-called greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, being emitted into the atmosphere by car engines and modern industrial processes, for example. Such gases not only add to the pollution of the atmosphere, but also create a greenhouse effect, by which the heat of the sun is trapped. This leads to the warming up of the planet.

   Politicians are also concerned about climate change and there are now regular summits on the subject, attended by representatives from around 180 of the world’s industrialized countries. Of these summits, the most important took place in Kyotoin Japanin 1997. There it was agreed that the most industrialized countries would try to reduce the volume of greenhouse gas emissions and were given targets for this reduction of emissions.

   It was also suggested that more forests should be planted to create so-called sinks to absorb greenhouse gases. At least part of the problem of rapid climate change has been caused by too drastic deforestation. Sadly, the targets are not being met. Even more sadly, global warnings about climate changes are often still being regarded as scaremongering.

The word “alarmingly” in paragraph 2 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 questions.

   Many flowering plants woo insect pollinators and gently direct them to their most fertile blossoms by changing the color of individual flowers from day to day. Through color cues, the plant signals to the insect that it would be better off visiting one flower on its bush than another. The particular hue tells the pollinator that the flower is full of far more pollen than are neighboring blooms. That nectar-rich flower also happens to be fertile and ready to disperse its pollen or to receive pollen the insect has picked up from another flower. Plants do not have to spend precious resources maintaining reservoirs of nectar in all their flowers. Thus, the color-coded communication system benefits both plants and insects.

   For example, on the lantana plant, a flower starts out on the first day as yellow, when it is rich with pollen and nectar. Influenced by an as-yet-unidentified environmental signal, the flower changes color by triggering the production of the pigment anthromyacin. It turns orange on the second day and red on the third. By the third day, it has no pollen to offer insects and is no longer fertile. On any given lantana bush, only 10 to 15 per cent of the blossoms are likely to be yellow and fertile. But in tests measuring the responsiveness of butterflies, it was discovered that the insects visited the yellow flowers at least 100 times more than would be expected from haphazard visitation. Experiments with paper flowers and painted flowers demonstrated that the butterflies were responding to color cues rather than, say, the scent of the nectar.

   In other types of plants, blossoms change from white to red, others from yellow to red, and so on. These color changes have been observed in some 74 families of plants.

Which of the following describes the sequence of color changes that lantana blossom undergo?

ASEAN bodies in addressing global and regional concerns such as food security, __________and disaster management.  

The issue of equality for women in British society first attracted national attention in the early 20th century, when the suffragettes won for women the right to vote. In the 1960s feminism became the subject of intense debate when the women's liberation movement encouraged women to reject their traditional supporting role and to demand equal status and equal rights with men in areas such as employment and pay.
Since then, the gender gap between the sexes has been reduced. The Equal Pay Act of 1970, for instance, made it illegal for women to be paid less than men for doing the same work, and in 1975 the Sex Discrimination Act aimed to prevent either sex having an unfair advantage when applying for jobs. In the same year the Equal Opportunities Commission was set up to help people claim their rights to equal treatment and to publish research and statistics to show where improvements in opportunities for women need to be made. Women now have much better employment opportunities, though they still tend to get less well-paid jobs than men, and very few are appointed to top jobs in industry.
In the US the movement that is often called the "first wave of feminism' began in the mid 1800s. Susan B. Anthony worked for the right to vote, Margaret Sanger wanted to provide women with the means of contraception so that they could decide whether or not to have children, and Elizabeth Blackwell, who had to fight for the chance to become a doctor, wanted women to have greater opportunities to study. Many feminists were interested in other social issues.
The second wave of feminism began in the 1960s. Women like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem became associated with the fight to get equal rights and opportunities for women under the law. An important issue was the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which was intended to change the Constitution. Although the ERA was not passed, there was progress in other areas. It became illegal for employers, schools, clubs, etc. to discriminate against women. But women still find it hard to advance beyond a certain point in their careers, the so-called glass ceiling that prevents them from having high-level jobs. Many women also face the problem of the second shift, i.e. the household chores.
In the 1980s, feminism became less popular in the us and there was less interest in solving the remaining problems, such as the fact that most women still earn much less than men.
Although there is still discrimination, the principle that it should not exist is widely accepted.

Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

The issue of equality for women in British society first attracted national attention in the early 20th century, when the suffragettes won for women the right to vote. In the 1960s feminism became the subject of intense debate when the women's liberation movement encouraged women to reject their traditional supporting role and to demand equal status and equal rights with men in areas such as employment and pay.
Since then, the gender gap between the sexes has been reduced. The Equal Pay Act of 1970, for instance, made it illegal for women to be paid less than men for doing the same work, and in 1975 the Sex Discrimination Act aimed to prevent either sex having an unfair advantage when applying for jobs. In the same year the Equal Opportunities Commission was set up to help people claim their rights to equal treatment and to publish research and statistics to show where improvements in opportunities for women need to be made. Women now have much better employment opportunities, though they still tend to get less well-paid jobs than men, and very few are appointed to top jobs in industry.
In the US the movement that is often called the "first wave of feminism' began in the mid 1800s. Susan B. Anthony worked for the right to vote, Margaret Sanger wanted to provide women with the means of contraception so that they could decide whether or not to have children, and Elizabeth Blackwell, who had to fight for the chance to become a doctor, wanted women to have greater opportunities to study. Many feminists were interested in other social issues.
The second wave of feminism began in the 1960s. Women like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem became associated with the fight to get equal rights and opportunities for women under the law. An important issue was the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which was intended to change the Constitution. Although the ERA was not passed, there was progress in other areas. It became illegal for employers, schools, clubs, etc. to discriminate against women. But women still find it hard to advance beyond a certain point in their careers, the so-called glass ceiling that prevents them from having high-level jobs. Many women also face the problem of the second shift, i.e. the household chores.
In the 1980s, feminism became less popular in the us and there was less interest in solving the remaining problems, such as the fact that most women still earn much less than men.
Although there is still discrimination, the principle that it should not exist is widely accepted.

The phrase "gender gap" in paragraph 2 refers to   .....................

Very few people, groups, or governments oppose globalization in its entirety. Instead,  critics of globalization believe aspects of the way globalization operates should be changed. The debate over globalization is about what the best rules are for governing the global economy so that its advantages can grow while its problems can be solved.
On one side of this debate are those who stress the benefits of removing barriers to international trade and investment, allowing capital to be allocated more efficiently and giving consumers greater freedom of choice. With free-market globalization, investment funds can move unimpeded from the rich countries to the developing countries. Consumers can benefit from cheaper products because reduced taxes make goods produced at low cost from faraway places cheaper to buy. Producers of goods gain by selling to a wider market. More competition keeps sellers on their toes and allows ideas and new technology to spread and benefit others.
On the other side of the debate are critics who see neo-liberal policies as producing greater poverty, inequality, social conflict, cultural destruction, and environmental damage. They say that the most developed nations - the United States, Germany, and Japan - succeeded not because of free trade but because of protectionism and subsidies. They argue that the more recently successful economies of South Korea, Taiwan, and China all had strong state-led development strategies that did not follow neo-liberalism. These critics think that government encouragement of "infant industries"' that is, industries that are just beginning to develop - enables a country to become internationally competitive.
Furthermore, those who criticize the Washington Consensus suggest that the inflow and outflow of money from speculative investors must be limited to prevent bubbles. These bubbles are characterized by the rapid inflow of foreign funds that bid up domestic stock markets and property values. When the economy cannot sustain such expectations, the bubbles burst as investors panic and pull their money out of the country.
Protests by what is called the anti-globalization movement are seldom directed against globalization itself but rather against abuses that harm the rights of workers and the environment. The question raised by nongovernmental organizations and protesters at WTO and IMF gatherings is whether globalization will result in a rise of living standards or a race to the bottom as competition takes the form of lowering living standards and undermining environmental regulations.
One of the key problems of the 21st century will be determining to what extent markets should be regulated to promote fair competition, honest dealing, and fair distribution of public goods on a global scale.

The word "undermining" in the passage mostly means "     ".

The idea of life in outer space has been talked about for a long time. Some scientists say that life development on Earth was far too unlikely for it to have happened anywhere else. Things had to be perfect for us to make it on this planet. Other scientists say that space is too big. Stars and other planets are far too numerous for there to be no other life in the universe.
For many years, there have been reports of visitors from other planets. People all around the world have claimed to see alien spaceships or even aliens themselves. There have been glimpses of these so-called UFOs (unidentified flying objects) flying through the air and they have even been captured on video. Some Americans believe that the U.S. Army found an alien spaceship crashed in the desert and then lied to the press about it. Although these sightings may be true, scientists have not found significant evidence that aliens exist.
If you go out into the countryside on a clear night and look up, you can see thousands of stars. Those stars make up a tiny part of our unniverse. There are more stars, planets, and galaxies than we can count. Even the smartest scientists can’t even come close to defining how big space is. The number of possible stars and planets out there is bigger than our ability to count. If we are really on the only planet that can sustain life, then we are very special in a universe full of amazing things.

The word “numerous” in bold in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to ____

Read the passage carefully and choose the correct answer. 
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN was established on 8 August 1967 in Bangkok by the five original Member Countries, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Brunei joined on 8 January 1984, Vietnam on 28 July 1995, Lao PDR and Myanmar on 23 July 1997, and Cambodia on 30 April 1999. The ASEAN Declaration states that the aims and purposes of the Association are: to accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region and to promote regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law in the relationship among countries in the region and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter.
In 2003, the ASEAN Leaders resolved that an ASEAN Community shall be established comprising three pillars, namely, ASEAN Security Community, ASEAN Economic Community and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community.
The ASEAN Vision 2020, adopted by the ASEAN Leaders on the 30th Anniversary of ASEAN, agreed on a shared vision of ASEAN as a concert of Southeast Asian nations, outward looking, living in peace, stability and prosperity, bonded together in partnership in dynamic development and in a community of caring societies. ASEAN Member Countries have adopted the following fundamental principles in their relations with one another, as contained in the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC):
• mutual respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity, and national identity of all nations;
• the right of every State to lead its national existence free from external interference, subversion or coercion;
• non-interference in the internal affairs of one another;
• settlement of differences or disputes by peaceful manner;
• renunciation of the threat or use of force; and
• effective cooperation among themselves

The Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia _______.