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."
2. The increasing number of unneeded workers in (2)…. years has been the result of much more simple and old-fashioned influences:
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Câu hỏi liên quan
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Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
In 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."What does the passage mainly discuss?
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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:
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.The pronoun "it" in the passage refers to
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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:
You might be surprised to know that bicycles have existed for less than two hundred years. Though the earliest comes from a sketch said to be from 1534 and attributed to Gian Giacomo, there are several early but unverified claims for the invention of the modem bicycle. No one is sure who invented this popular two- wheeled machine, but it was probably either the German Karl von Drais, in 1817, or the American W K Clarkson, in 1819. The early models didn't look much like the bicycles of today. The front wheel was much bigger than the back one, and also there weren't any pedals - riders had to move themselves forward by pushing their feet against the ground. Pedals finally arrived in the 1840s, and in 1879 an Englishman named Henry Lawson had the idea of connecting them to the back wheel with a chain. Gears, which made things much easier for those cycling uphill, first appeared in the 1890s.
There are now approximately one billion bicycles in the world - more than twice the total number of cars - and they are the main form of transport in some developing countries. They have to compete with cars on the streets of all the world’s cities, and the two forms of transport don't always mix well. In London in 2005, for example, over 300 cyclists were either killed or seriously injured in accidents involving cars. Even though bicycles are much more environmentally friendly than cars, most governments don't do much to encourage people to ride rather than drive. In China, which is famous for having a huge number of bicycles (about 200 million), the authorities in the city of Shanghai even banned cycling for a while in 2003.
Cycling is on the rise is the United Kingdom, and the number of annual journeys made by bike in London has increased 50% over the last five years. Experts say there is a mixture of reasons for this boom: concerns about the environment, the desire to keep fit, and also the fact that cycling is often not only cheaper but also quicker than travelling by car.
However, although one in three British adults owns a bicycle, they still don't use them nearly as much as they could. Bikes are used for a mere 2% of journeys in the UK, while the figure for the Netherlands is an impressive 27%.
Cycling is becoming more popular as a competitive sport, and the most famous race is of course the three-week Tour de France, which takes place every July. American Lance Armstrong won it every year from 1999 to 2005 - one of the greatest individual sporting achievements of all time.Which can be the best title for the passage?
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Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
In the late 1960’s, many people in North America turned their attention to environmental problems and new steel-and-glass skyscrapers were widely criticized. Ecologists pointed out that a cluster of tall buildings in a city often overburdens public transportation and parking lot capacities.
Skyscrapers are also lavish consumers, and waster, of electric power. In one recent year, the addition of 17 million square feet of skyscraper office space in New York City raised the peak daily demand for electricity by 120,-000 kilowatts- enough to supply the entire city of Albany, New York, for a day.
Glass-walled skyscrapers can be especially wasteful. The heat loss (or gain) through a wall of half-inch plate glass is more than ten times that through a typical masonry wall filled with insulation board. To lessen the strain on heating and air- conditioning equipment, builders of skyscrapers have begun to use double glazed panels of glass, and reflective glasses coated with silver or gold mirror films that reduce glare as well as heat gain. However, mirror-walled skyscrapers raise the temperature of the surrounding air and affect neighboring buildings.
Skyscrapers put a severe strain on a city’s sanitation facilities, too. If fully occupied, the two World Trade Center towers in New York City would alone generate 2.25 million gallons of raw sewage each year-as much as a city the size of Stamford, Connecticut, which has a population of more than 109,000.
Skyscrapers also interfere with television reception, block bird flyways, and obstruct air traffic. In Boston, in the late 1960’s some people even feared that shadows from skyscrapers would kill the grass on Boston Common.
Still, people continue to build skyscrapers for all the reasons that they have always built them – personal ambition, civic pride, and the desire of owners to have the largest possible amount of rentable space.The main purpose of the passage is to
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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 meant by "keep up with the Joneses"?
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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:
Genetic modification of foods is not a new practice. It has been practiced for thousands of years under the name of "selective breeding". Animals and plants were chosen because they had traits that humans found useful. Some animals were larger and stronger than others, or they yielded more food, or they had some other trait that humans valued. Therefore, they were bred because of those traits. Individuals with those traits were brought together and allowed to breed in the hope that their offspring would have the same traits in greater measure.
Much the same thing was done with plants. To produce bigger or sweeter fruit, or grow more grain per unit of land, strains of plants were combined and recombined to produce hybrids, or crossbreeds that had the desired traits in the right combinations. All the while, however, biologists wondered: is there a more direct and versatile way to change the traits of plants and animals? Could we rewrite, so to speak, the heredity of organisms to make them serve our needs better?
In the 20th century, genetic modification made such changes possible at last. Now, it was possible to alter the genetic code without using the slow and uncertain process of selective breeding. It even became possible to blend plants and animals genetically: to insert animal genes into plants, for example, in order to give the plants a certain trait they ordinarily would lack, such as resistance to freezing. The result was a tremendous potential to change the very nature of biology.What is the passage mainly about?
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The work of women has been economically vital since prehistory, although their contributions have varied according to the structure, needs, customs, and attitudes of society.
In prehistoric times, women and men participated almost equally in hunting and gathering activities to obtain food. With the development of agricultural communities, women’s work revolved more around the home. As urban centres developed, women sold or traded goods in the marketplace.
From ancient to modern times, four generalizations can be made about women's paid work. Women have worked because of economic necessity; poor women in particular worked outside the home whether they were unmarried or married, and especially if their husbands were unable to sustain the family solely through their own work. Women’s indentured work has often been similar to their work at home. Women have maintained the primary responsibility for raising children, regardless of their paid work. Women have historically been paid less than men and have been allocated lower- status work
Some major changes are now occurring in industrial nations, including the steadily increasing proportion of women in the labor force; decreasing family responsibilities (due to both smaller family size and technological innovation in the home); higher levels of education for women; and more middle and upper-income women working for pay or for job satisfaction. Statistically, they have not yet achieved parity of pay or senior appointments in the workplace in any nation.
Artisans working in their own homes not infrequently used the labor of their families. This custom was so prevalent during the Middle Ages, craft guilds of the period, including some that otherwise excluded women, often admitted to membership the widows of guild members, providing they met professional requirements. Dressmaking and lacemaking guilds were composed exclusively of women.
Gradually, the guilds were replaced by the putting-out system, whereby tools and materials were distributed to workers by merchants; the workers then produced articles on a piecework basis in their homes. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, as the Industrial Revolution developed, the putting-out system slowly declined. Goods that had been produced by hand in the home were manufactured by machine under the factory system. Women competed more with men for some jobs, but were concentrated primarily in textile mills and clothing factories. Manufacturers often favored women employees because of relevant skills and lower wages, and also because early trade union organization tended to occur first among men. Employees in sweatshops were also preponderantly women. The result was to institutionalize systems of low pay, poor working conditions, long hours, and other abuses, which along with child labor presented some of the worst examples of worker exploitation in early industrial capitalism. Minimum wage legislation and other protective laws, when introduced, concentrated particularly on the alleviation of these abuses of working women.
Women workers in business and the professions, the so-called white-collar occupations, suffered less from poor conditions of work and exploitative labor, but were denied equality of pay and opportunity. The growing use of the typewriter and the telephone after the 1870s created two new employment niches for women, as typists and telephonists, but in both fields the result was again to institutionalize a permanent category of low-paid, low-status women’s work.What women have done for the economic development have changed over time due to.................
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Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
A gesture is an action that sends a message from one person to another without using words. We use gestures to communicate with others. There are some gestures that have completely different meaning depending on when and where they are used.
When an American wants to show that something is OK. or good, he raises his hand and makes a circle with his thumb and foreigners. The circle sign has only one meaning for him. He might be surprised to learn that in other countries it can mean something different. In Japan, for instance, it is the gesture for money. In France, it means 'zero' or 'worthless'. Such differences can lead to all kinds of misunderstanding when foreigners meet. But why is it that the same gesture has so many different meanings?
When some people want to show that something is exact or precise, they make a sign to show that they are holding something between the tips of their thumb and forefinger. Many people from all over the world do this when they want to make a specific point as they are speaking. People later started using this signal to mean 'exactly right' or 'perfect'. This was how the famous OK was bom.
In Japan, money means coins and coins are around. Therefore, making a round hand sign came to represent money. It is simple as that. The French sign for 'nothing' or 'worthless' also has a simple origin. This time the circle doesn't represent a coin, but nought. Nought equals zero, zero equals nothing, nothing equals worthless.When does an American raise his hand and make a circle sign?
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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 of the world’s cities lie under a permanent blanket of smog. People are concerned about global warming, and fuel prices just keep going up and up. It’s no surprise therefore, that in recent years, car manufacturers have been put under pressure to invent a vehicle that is both cheaper to run and better for the environment. Finally, after much trial and error, it seems as though they might be making progress, and the future of the car industry is beginning to look a little “greener”.
One of the first ideas which car manufacturers tried was to replace engines which run on fossil fuels with electric motors. Unfortunately, these vehices had several drawbacks and they didn’t sell very well. The problems were that the batteries of these electric cars ran out very quickly and took a long time to recharge. Also, the replacement energy parts were very expensive.
However, the idea of electric cars has not been scrapped altogether. Car manufacturers have improved the concept so that environmentally friendly cars can now be efficient and economical as well. This is where the hybrid car, which has both an electric motor and a traditional petrol engine, comes in. The electric motor never needs to be recharged and it is much better for the planet than a traditional car.
In a hybrid car, the engine is controlled by a computer which determines whether the car runs on petrol, electricity, or both. When the car needs maximum power, for example, if it is accelerating or climbing a steep hill, it uses all of its resources, whereas at steady speeds it runs only on petrol. When slowing down or braking, the electric motor recharges its batteries.
Hybrid cars are better for the environment because the electric motor can help out whenever it is needed and they have a much smaller engine than a traditional car. Also, hybrid cars on the market are made using materials such as aluminium and carbon fibre, which makes them extremely light. Both of these factors mean that they use far less petrol than normal cars, so they produce less pollution.
Of course, hybrid cars aren’t perfect; they still run on fossil fuel and so pollute the environment to some extent. However, they may be the first step along the road to cleaner, “greener” cars. Car manufacturers are already working on vehicles which run on hydrogen. The only emission from these cars is harmless water vapor. These are still some way in the future, though, as designers need to think of cheap and safe ways of producing, transporting and storing hydrogen, but at last, it looks like we might be heading in the right direction.The word “drawbacks” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to “ ”.
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It was the first photograph that I had ever seen, and it fascinated me. I can remember holding it at every angle in order to catch the flickering light from the oil lamp on the dresser. The man in the photograph was unsmiling, but his eyes were kind. I had never met him, but I felt that I knew him. One evening when I was looking at the photograph, as I always did before I went to sleep, I noticed a shadow across the man’s thin face. I moved the photograph so that the shadow lay perfectly around his hollow cheecks. How different he looked!
That night I could not sleep, thinking about the letter that I would write. First, I would tell him that I was eleven years old, and that if he had a little girl my age, she could write to me instead of him. I knew that he was a very busy man. Then I would explain to him the real purpose of my letter. I would tell him how wonderful he looked with the shadow that I had seen across his photograph, and I would most carefully suggest that he grow whiskers.
Four months later when I met him at the train station near my home in Westfield, New York, he was wearing a full beard. He was so much taller than I had imagined from my tiny photograph.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I have no speech to make and no time to make it in. I appear before you that I may see you and that you may see me.” Then he picked me right up and kissed me on both cheeks. The whiskers scratched. “Do you think I look better, my little friend?” he asked me.
My name is Grace Bedell, and the man in the photograph was Abraham Lincoln.The little girl could not sleep because she was ...............
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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:
“ Calcite- containing dust particles blow into the air and combine with nitric acid in polluted air from factories to form an entirely new particle – calcium nitrate , ” said Alexander Laskin, a senior research scientist at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington .These nitrates have optical and chemical properties that are completely different from those of the originally dry dust particles . Due to this, climate models need to be updated to reflect this chemistry. Calcite dust is common in arid areas such as Israel, where scientists collected particles for analysis.
Working from a mountaintop, the team collected dust that had blown in from the northern shores of Egypt, Sinai,and southern Israel. The particles had combined with air containing pollutants that came from Cairo.They analyzed nearly 2,00 individual particles and observed the physical and chemical changes at the W.R Wiley Environmental Sciences Laboratory.
A key change in the properties of the newly formed nitrate particles is that they begin to absorb water and retain the moisture .These wet particles can scatter and absorb sunlight-presenting climate modelers, who need to know where the energy is going , a new wild card to deal with . Companion studies of dust samples from the Sahara and the Saudi coast and loess from China show that the higher the calcium in the mineral , the more reactive they are in with nitric acid .And once the particle is changed , it stays that way.
“When dust storms kick up these particles and they enter polluted areas , the particles change ,” Laskin said . “To what extent this is happening globally, as more of the world becomes industrialized , we don’t know . But now we have the laboratory and field evidence that shows it is definitely happening . The story is much more complicated than anybody thought .”Why do climate models need to be updated to reflect the chemistry of calcium nitrate ?
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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.
Interpreting the feelings of other people is not always easy, as we all know, and we (1)....... as much on what they seem to be telling us, as on the actual words they say. Facial expression and tone of voice are obvious ways of showing our (2)...... to something, and it may well be that we unconsciously express views that we are trying to hide. The art of being (3)....... lies in picking up these signals, realizing what the other person is trying to say, and acting so that they are not embarrassed in any way. Body movements, in general, may also indicate feelings, and interviewers often pay particular attention to the way a candidate for a job walks into the room and sits down. However, it is not difficult to present the right kind of appearance, while what many employers want to know relates to the candidate’s character traits, and (4)..... stability. This raises the awkward question of whether job candidates should be asked to complete psychological tests, and the further problem of whether such tests actually produce (5).........results. For many people, being asked to take part in such a test would be an objectionable intrusion into their private lives.
(2).........................
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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.
Becoming a teacher demands not only knowledge in an academic field but also a personal commitment to lifelong learning, and enthusiasm for sharing knowledge with other people. To become one of those noble educators in the USA, one has to satisfy several basic requirements.
First and foremost, it is a prerequisite to have bachelor's degree in education. In the event that a candidate already has a bachelor's degree in another field, a teacher preparation program is needed. But that is not all. Almost every school in the USA understands that real classroom teaching experience is a vital part of a teacher's training. Before taking over a class, a person typically needs to complete a training program, including working as a supervised student teacher.
People who want to become university teachers need master's degrees. Getting a master's degree is a necessity, but if it is gained too early, there may be concerns that the candidate lacks the real-world experience to go with it. In fact, very few schools want to hire novices with little or no classroom experience and even if they are accepted, they are usually ill-paid. One wise solution to the issue is for future post graduates to start working as teachers before going on to gain their master's degree.
Besides knowledge and experience, certain personal qualities are also required. A teacher should be positive, prepared, focused, and most importantly, patient. Being a teacher involves being aware of the fact that learning sometimes be hard work, even for the most motivated students. Also, teaching can at times be tiring and frustrating, so teaching candidates have to practice being patient with themselves. In short, as in other careers, teaching requires a combination of qualifications, experience, and personal qualities. Teaching candidates meeting mandatory requirements are always in demand in the USA.
The word “vital” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to______
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Fill in each numbered blank with one suitable word or phrase.
In 1986 Vietnam (1)_____ a political and economic innovation campaign (Doi Moi) that introduced reforms intended to facilitate the transition from a centralized economy to a “socialist-oriented market economy”. Doi Moi combined government planning with free-market incentives. The program abolished agricultural (2) _____, removed price controls on agricultural goods, and enabled farmers to sell their goods in the marketplace. It encouraged the establishment of private businesses and foreign investment, including foreign-owned (3) _____.
By the late 1990s, the success of the business and agricultural (4) _____ ushered in under Doi Moi was evident. More than 30,000 private businesses had been (5) _____, and the economy was growing at an annual rate of more than 7 percent. From the early 1990s to 2005, poverty (6) _____ from about 50 percent to 29 percent of the population. However, progress varied geographically, with most prosperity concentrated in urban areas, (7) _____ in and around Ho Chi Minh City. In general, rural areas also made progress, as rural households (8) _____ in poverty declined from 66 percent of the total in 1993 to 36 percent in 2002. (9) _____ contrast, concentrations of poverty remained in (10) _____ rural areas, particularly the northwest, north-central coast, and central highlands. Government control of the economy and a nonconvertible currency have protected Vietnam from what could have been a more severe impact resulting from the East Asian financial crisis in 1997.
(9)_____
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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:
It is often the case with folktales that they develop from actual happenings but in their development lose much of their factual base; the story of Pocahontas quite possibly fits into this category of folktale. This princess of the Powhatan tribe was firmly established in the lore of early America and has been made even more famous by the Disney film based on the folktale that arose from her life. She was a real-life person, but the actual story of her life most probably different considerably from the folktale and the movie based on the folktale. Powhatan, the chief of a confederacy of tribes in Virginia, had several daughters, none of whom was actually named Pocahontas. The nickname means “playful one,” and several of Powhatan’s daughters were called Pocahontas. The daughter of Powhatan who became the subject of the folktale was named Matoaka. What has been verified about Matoaka, or Pocahontas as she has come to be known, is that she did marry an Englishman and that she did spend time in England before she died there at a young age. In the spring of 1613, a young Pocahontas was captured by the English and taken into Jamestown. There she was treated with courtesy as the daughter of chief Powhatan. While Pocahontas was at Jamestown, English gentlemen John Rolfe fell in love with her and asked her to marry. Both the governor of the Jamestown colony and Pocahontas’s father Powhatan approved the marriage as a means of securing peace between Powhatan’s tribe and the English at Jamestown. In 1616, Pocahontas accompanied her new husband to England, where she was royally received. Shortly before her planned return to Virginia in 1617, she contracted an illness and died rather suddenly.
A major part of the folktale of Pocahontas that is unverified concerns her love for English Captain John Smith is the period of time before her capture by the British and her rescue of him from almost certain death. Captain John Smith was indeed at the colony of Jamestown and was acquainted with Powhatan and his daughters, he even described meeting them in 1612 journal. However, the story of his rescue by the young maiden did not appear in his writing until 1624, well after Pocahontas had aroused widespread interest in England by her marriage to an English gentlemen and her visit to England. It is the discrepancy in dates that has caused some historians to doubt the veracity of the tale. However, other historians do argue quite persuasively that this incident did truly take place.aThe pronoun “he” in the third paragraph refers to .
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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.
MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR TIME
These days we are under pressure to increase the amount of work we can achieve in the shortest time. The pace of life threatens to leave many of us behind, and (1)........ of this pressure we spend time looking for short-cuts in our working lives. However, these time-saving measures may actually cause more problems than they solve.
Some organisations seem to expect staff to work more than the usual eight hours, without recognising the fact that tiredness causes people to make silly mistakes and leads to (2)......... working practices. Try setting clear (3)......... in your everyday work, however, you must be careful that these are not unrealistic and can be achieved within the working day. We tend to (4)......... people who can multi-task because we think they are working hard – but do all the electronic gadgets they use increase their efficiency in the long run? Instead, they may distract them from the task in hand and cause a loss of concentration. Maybe (5)........... with every email or mobile phone call immediately is not the best use of anyone’s time. To sum up, my advice is to keep everything simple, and prioritise tasks - you will become happier at work – and so will your boss!
(1)...............................
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All mammals feed their young. Beluga whale mothers, for example, nurse their calves for some twenty months, until they are about to give birth again and their young are able to find their own food. The behavior of feeding of the young is built into the reproductive system. It is a nonselective part of parental care and the defining feature of a mammal, the most important thing that mammals-- whether marsupials, platypuses, spiny anteaters, or placental mammals -- have in common.
But not all animal parents, even those that tend their offspring to the point of hatching or birth, feed their young. Most egg-guarding fish do not, for the simple reason that their young are so much smaller than the parents and eat food that is also much smaller than the food eaten by adults. In reptiles, the crocodile mother protects her young after they have hatched and takes them down to the water, where they will find food, but she does not actually feed them. Few insects feed their young after hatching, but some make other arrangement, provisioning their cells and nests with caterpillars and spiders that they have paralyzed with their venom and stored in a state of suspended animation so that their larvae might have a supply of fresh food when they hatch.
For animals other than mammals, then, feeding is not intrinsic to parental care. Animals add it to their reproductive strategies to give them an edge in their lifelong quest for descendants. The most vulnerable moment in any animal's life is when it first finds itself completely on its own, when it must forage and fend for itself. Feeding postpones that moment until a young animal has grown to such a size that it is better able to cope. Young that are fed by their parents become nutritionally independent at a much greater fraction of their full adult size. And in the meantime those young are shielded against the vagaries of fluctuating of difficult-to-find supplies. Once a species does take the step of feeding its young, the young become totally dependent on the extra effort. If both parents are removed, the young generally do not survive.According to the passage, how do some insects make sure their young have food?
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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.According to paragraph 5, children might be more successful in school if they can resist impulses because they can ...........
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There are many theories about the beginning of drama in ancient Greek. The one most widely accepted today is based on the assumption that drama evolved from ritual. The argument for this view goes as follows. In the beginning human beings viewed the natural forces of the world, even the seasonal changes, as unpredictable, and they sought, through various means, to control these unknown and feared powers. Those measures which appeared to bring the desired results were then retained and repeated until they hardened into fixed rituals. Eventually stories arose which explained or veiled the mysteries of the rites. As time passed some rituals were abandoned, but the stories, later called myths, persisted and provided material for art and drama.
Those who believed that drama evolved out of ritual also argue that those rites contained the seed of theatre because music, dance, masks, and costumes were almost always used. Furthermore, a suitable site had to be provided for performances, and when the entire community did not participate, a clear division was usually made between the “acting area” and “auditorium”. In addition, there were performers, and since considerable importance was attached to avoiding mistakes in the enactment of rites. Religious leaders usually assumed that task. Wearing masks and costumes, they often impersonated other people, animals, or supernatural beings, and mimed the desired effect- success in hunt or battle, the coming rain, the revival of the Sun-as an actor might. Eventually such dramatic representations were separated from religious activities.
Another theory traces the theatre’s origin from the human interest in storytelling. According to this view, tales (about the hunt, war, or other feats) are gradually elaborated, at first through the use of impersonation, action, and dialogue by a narrator and then through the assumption of each of the roles by a different person. A closely related theory traces theatre to those dances that are primarily rhythmical and gymnastic or that are imitations of animal movements and sound.The word “they” in line 13 refers to .............
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Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
In 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."It is stated in paragraph 4 that unrecorded events .