Find synonym:
Life expectancy for both men and women has improved greatly in the past twenty years.

 

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the undelined part that needs correction in each of the following questions:
Four West Indian geckos, with human assistance, have recently entered the United States. The yellowheaded gecko, the ashy gecko, the reef gecko, and the ocellated gecko are presently inhabiting the tropical areas of the Keys and the tip of southern Florida. The Mediterranean gecko also arrived along the Gulf coast some time ago, via the West Indies. The only other geckos in the United States live in the Southwest. In extreme southern California, the leaf-gingered gecko lives

in dry, rocky country and scampers over boulders at night, hiding by day in crevices. It has a slender, tapered tail and stalks insects by raising itself high on its legs, cocking its head, and twitching its tail nervously before leaping on its prey. In courtship, the tail is also waved by the male as he approaches the female.
Although most lizards are excellent climbers, the geckos are able to walk on smooth surfaces with the help of unique clinging devices under the toes. Also, the undersides of most geckos have pads of large scales, each of which bear microscopic hairs with hundreds of branches having minute, blunt ends that press against the surface that the gecko is on, enabling the gecko to cling to almost any surface. Like other lizards, geckos have the ability to shed their tails if attacked by an enemy. They stump heels and a new tail is grown in approximately the same shape as the original. Unlike most lizards, most geckos have no moveable eyelids. The nocturnal geckos have vertical pupils, which contract in bright light. All geckos, except several New Zealand species, lay eggs. The eggs have a tough, white shell and are laid under stones, behind window shutters or under bark.

The author’s main purpose is to...

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Mohammed BK, who aims to connect Somalis in Bristol with their heritage, has been  confirmed for the Somali Week Festival, in 2020. Mohammed BK has been named as “cultural ambassador” for the Somali community. Ayan Mohamoud who is UK’s Somaliland Ambassador told the BBC he will now become a fixed part of the annual festivities. She said: “Young people who don’t speak Somali at all have memorised his music word-for-word and that is something that has never been done before by any Somali artist. He has been touring the country promoting citizenship and cultural unity throughout his career.”  Susan Elmi, 25, has been a fan of Mohammed BK for many years. She said: "In the Somali culture many people communicated their emotions and thoughts through songs and poetry and this is going back centuries. This man is bringing that back and making the younger generation question and explore our rich legacy. I think it’s just what the Somali Diaspora needs to say well connected to the identity.”  Mohammed BK also promotes education and advises young people to “use their time and resources wisely here in the UK because that is something their parents sacrificed fleeing from their homeland”. He added: “I thought to myself if I have that much influence on thousands and thousands of young people from my community, I need to put my platform to good use in encouraging them to do good and seek opportunities”. Festival fan Ameira Hassan, 45, said: “It’s a huge thing for our kids to take part in their history and culture. It’s important to us because they are learning a lot. Twenty years ago we never used to have anything like this in the UK and our kids never had any knowledge of the Somali culture.” 
2. According to paragraph 1, what is correct about the singer Mohammed BK?

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In today’s fast-paced industry, learning will most likely involve seeking new skills in ways that challenge the norm. But thankfully, there is a promise for such lifelong learning online - the promise that will save your time and money while helping you earn more of both. Provided you have access to a decent computer and the Internet, the barrier to getting started is probably lower than it ever has been. And with those things in place, it is a matter of finding the content you wish to learn. So, to help others who may be looking to maximize their own learning efforts, I have listed some quick tips below. First, set achievable goals. When you start learning, it is a good idea to set goals about what you want to learn or what you might do with your newly acquired knowledge. It might be landing that new job, building a tangible product, or impressing your current management. The goals may vary in size and complexity, but do revisit these goals throughout your learning process. Within a couple weeks, ask yourself: “Am I getting closer to my goal?” or “Am I learning the skills necessary to reach my goals?”. If you are not, then you may need to look elsewhere. Second, learn with others. By yourself, learning anything has a high propensity to become frustrating. Try teaming up with friends or colleagues. They can often be your best resource for maintaining motivation while you learn. Third, make it a habit. Online habits often include scrolling through social media or watching videos on YouTube. If you have the downtime for such activities, then you could spend that downtime learning something. And why not learn something? If you do, then you will have plenty more to talk about on social media anyways. So, make learning your new online habit by making a commitment to learn something new each day. 
2. What does the word “both” in paragraph 1 refer to?

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Parents in most cases want the best for their children, and to ensure this, they are  pushed to actively engage in their children’s lives, to ensure that they are making the right choices. Some parents, however, go to the extent of wanting to have the upper hand even when it comes to taking major decisions, such as choosing a career.  Local comedian and actor, Michael Sengazi, was obliged by his parents to pursue a career in law, a path he followed when he joined University of Kigali, but deep down he knew this wasn’t his dream career. This is why after graduating he chose to follow his passion —comedy. His parents failed to understand how a qualified lawyer could decide to go for comedy because they didn’t see it as a ‘well-paying job’. He had a challenge of convincing them to bless his journey. “So, I asked them to give me one year to try and see if comedy would work out for me. I worked hard and my parents realised that I could achieve big things, and they gave me the freedom to pursue the career.”  Bienvenue Muragwa, a career consultant at The Southern New Hampshire University based in Rwanda, says that parents are only allowed to guide the child during the career guidance process, but not take the final decision. “Parents are not allowed to choose or take the final decision for their children as the performance of the student is the assessing parameter of the career to be pursued,” he explains.  Shalom Azabe, a graduate in general counselling at Kampala Christian University, says in most African countries, not only Rwanda, children are overly dependent on their parents, yet this shouldn’t be the case. She recommends picking a leaf from westerners who endeavour to learn their children’s interests, something she says aides them in career guidance for the child. “Normally, a child starts to demonstrate a choice in career at 14 years of age. This is when parents need to sit down and make analysis that would help them guide their child in choosing the fitting option to undertake. This is in fact considered as overprotection as parents want to exercise their authority on their kids unwillingly, yet this affects them psychologically, and when the kid later on fails, they encounter a regret of pursuing studies that were not their choice in the first place,” Azabe said.
5. According to paragraph 4, what action helps parents to provide better career advices for children?

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You’ll be able to purchase high-quality emotions online. Emotion-sharing experiences  are the latest fad in 2045. Imagine your friend at Glastonbury can post a photo on Instagram and with it comes bundled a faint twinkling of what she was feeling right there in that moment, so you too can share emotionally in her social experience.  Recently, techniques for direct brain stimulation, like opt genetics, have made it possible to not only read but also write information into single neurons. At the moment data transfer rates are still very slow, the best we can do is a few bits per second, but this could well increase to kilobits or maybe reach broadband speeds by 2045. This means the range of human perception could expand beyond its current design limitations. One could foresee a new and extraordinary world where there is a virtual marketplace for trading high quality emotions – where artists looking for a particularly high strength brew of melancholy, or actors needing to channel regret or compassion for their next play, could purchase emotions online.  Our cities will be made from living, dynamic materials that respond to the environment. In 30 years, tall buildings made of glass and twisted steel will be seen as relics from a bygone era, in the same way we think now of 1970s concrete tower blocks: ugly, outdated and unfit for contemporary purpose. The urban environment of 2045 blends architecture with living materials that are mouldable, adaptable, responsive and disposable.  Entirely new synthetic life forms, or biological machines, made of engineered living cells from bacteria, fungi and algae will grow and evolve with the changing needs of a building’s inhabitants. They breathe in pollutants, clean wastewater, and use sunlight to make useful chemicals, energy, heat and vibrant vertical gardens. We will start to see a convergence between biology and technology, to the point where there is no longer a perceptible difference between the two. Today, synthetic biology labs are looking at the full diversity of what nature has to offer and using this to mix, match and edit genomes to design synthetic life forms. Right now, this field is just getting started and the science of synthetic biology is going to be tougher than most will admit.  We will use invisibility cloaks to “disappear” ugly objects. Invisibility has forever been a tantalizing prospect. The key to cloaking lies in the way the electromagnetic spectrum  (including visible light) interacts with objects. The human eye picks up electromagnetic radiation that falls and scatters from objects and we perceive this as light. In recent decades, scientists figured out using mathematics that it might just be possible to imagine a new class of artificial materials made of intricate tiny features with light bending properties. They named them metamaterials.  Using nanotechnology engineering, scientists have since shown cloaking actually works – in principle at least, for a narrow range of colours and only from certain viewing angles. The future applications of cloaking are highly uncertain and will likely be determined by the fads and social contagion of the time. They may be used in everything from novelty gimmicks to making unsightly construction sites and power stations seemingly ‘disappear’.   
4. The word “They” in the third paragraph refers to ______

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Belgium is a very old country, with a fascinating mixture of old customs and modern  laws. Belgium weddings may be performed as a civil ceremony or as a religious ceremony. Traditionally, when a couple in Belgium wishes to announce their marriage, the  wedding invitations are printed on two sheets of paper, one from the bride’s family and one sheet from the groom’s family. These wedding invitations symbolize the union of the two families and the partnership of the new union.  An ancient Belgium custom that is designed to unite the two families calls for the bride to stop as she walks up the aisle and to hand her mother a single flower. The two then embrace. Then, during the recessional, the bride and groom walk to the groom’s mother and the new bride hands her new mother-in-law a single flower and the two of them embrace, symbolizing the bride’s acceptance of her new mother.  One of the most important and enduring traditions of the Belgium wedding is for the bride to carry a specially embroidered handkerchief that has her name embroidered on it. After the wedding this handkerchief is framed and hung on the wall in a place of honor.  When the next female member of the bride’s family is to be wed, the handkerchief is removed from its frame, the new bride’s name is embroidered onto it, and it is passed down. The wedding handkerchief is passed from generation to generation, and is considered an important family heirloom. During the wedding mass, the bride and the groom are enthroned in two large chairs placed near the altar, symbolizing that on this day and in this place they are the king and the queen. At the conclusion of the ceremony, the groom slips the wedding ring onto the third finger of his bride’s left hand. The ring, being an endless circle, symbolizes never-ending love, and the third finger of the left hand is believed to hold the vein that travels to the heart, symbolizing love. At the conclusion of the ceremony, the bride and groom share their first kiss as husband and wife. The kiss is considered a symbolic act of sharing each other’s spirit as the couple each breathes in a portion of their new mate’s soul.  The bridesmaids traditionally take up a collection of coins and as the bride and groom exit the church, the bridesmaids toss the coins to the poor outside the church. Giving gifts of money to the poor helps to insure prosperity for the new bride and groom.  Following the wedding the bride and groom are off on their honeymoon. In ancient times the honeymoon, which was celebrated by the drinking of mead, or honey wine, would last 28 days, one complete cycle of the moon. This was to make sure that the bride’s family did not try to steal their daughter back from her new husband. 
4. It can be inferred from the passage that the wedding handkerchief ___________

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Culture has a strong influence on non–verbal communication. Even the simple act of looking someone in the eye is not at all that simple. In the USA, Americans are (1) ______ to look directly at people when speaking to them. It shows interest in what they are saying and is thought to carry a (2) ______ of honesty. Meanwhile, in Japan and Korea, people avoid long periods of eye contact. It is considered more polite to look to the side during a conversation. The Lebanese, (3) ______, stand close together and look intensely into each other's eyes. The action shows sincerity and gives people a better sense of what their counterparts want. Given such differences with even the most common expressions, people (4) ______ travel or work abroad have a real need to learn the other culture's body language. People tend to be unaware of the messages they are sending to others. So, it is (5) ______ to consider your own body language before dealing with people from other cultures. Knowing about the body language of friends, clients, and colleagues can be very helpful in improving understanding and avoiding miscommunication.

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The cities in the United States have been the most visible sponsors and beneficiaries  of projects that place art in public places. They have shown exceptional imagination in applying the diverse forms of contemporary art to a wide variety of purposes. The activities observed in a number of “pioneer” cities sponsoring art in public places - a broadening exploration of public sites, an increasing awareness among both sponsors and the public of the varieties of contemporary artistic practice, and a growing public enthusiasm - are increasingly characteristic of cities across the country. With many cities now undergoing renewed development, opportunities are continuously emerging for the inclusion or art in new or renewed public environments, including buildings, plazas, parks, and transportation facilities. The result of these activities is a group of artworks that reflect the diversity of contemporary art and the varying character and goals of the sponsoring communities.  In sculpture, the projects range from a cartoonlike Mermaid in Miami Beach by Roy Lichtenstein to a small forest planted in New York City by Alan Sonfist. The use of murals followed quickly upon the use of sculpture and has brought to public sites the work of artists as different as the realist Thomas Hart Benton and the Pop artist Robert Rauschenberg. The specialized requirements of particular urban situations have further expanded the use of art in public places: in Memphis, sculptor Richard Hunt has created a monument to Martin Luther King, Jr., who was slain there; in New York, Dan Flavin and Bill Brand have contributed neon and animation works to the enhancement of mass transit facilities. And in numerous cities, art is being raised as a symbol of the commitment to revitalize urban areas.  By continuing to sponsor projects involving a growing body of art in public places, cities will certainly enlarge the situations in which the public encounters and grows familiar with the various forms of contemporary art. Indeed, cities are providing artists with an opportunity to communicate with a new and broader audience. Artists are recognizing the distinction between public and private spaces, and taking that into account when executing their public commissions. They are working in new, often more durable media, and on an unaccustomed scale.
5. It can be inferred from the passage that the city of Memphis sponsored a work by Richard Hunt because the city authorities believed that ____.

Find mistake:
Humans now have to suffer the effects of global warming due to having treat the environment irresponsibly

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It’s probably the most painstaking, heart wrenching, and stress inducing test of dedication a marriage can face. But the reward at the end is pretty sweet. At the annual Wife Carrying World Championships in Sonkajärvi, Finland, male competitors race around a track hauling their female partners on their backs. Winner takes home his wife’s weight in beer. It’s no ordinary racetrack, either. Competitors must wade through a neck-deep pool of water, climb over hurdles, and run through pits of sand before crossing the finish line. While some participants don crazy costumes for the pre-race, the actual event is pretty straightlaced. Wives must weigh at least 49 kilograms (108 pounds). Any woman lighter than that is required to carry a heavy rucksack until she reaches this minimum. A participant who drops his wife will be penalized 15 seconds. But there is one catch: contestants don’t have to carry their own wives. A friend’s wife, stranger’s wife, or even a random grandmother will do – as long as she’s over 17. Contestants flock from 47 countries across the globe to show their stuff in this epic display of brute strength. This year, Finnish couple Taisto Miettinen and Kristiina Haapanen captured the title for the fourth consecutive year. The 46-year-old lawyer and his wife completed the 235-meter course in one minute and four seconds. Like any dedicated athlete, Miettinen reported that he’d been training for a while. “In last autumn, I started running in the track, one hundred, two hundred and four hundred meters,” Miettinen said in a post-race interview. He also practiced the course in ski boots to build leg strength. The competition, which began in 1992, is supposedly rooted in the legend of Ronkainen the Robber — a hardnosed gang leader who hazed potential members by making them lug sacks of grain or live pigs over a similar course. He and his comrades also made a habit of stealing women from neighboring villages as a nod to this practice, many men “steal” friends’ wives for the competition. If you want to compete but can’t make it to Finland, there’s a North American version of the contest held in October at Sunday River Resort in Maine. With 100-plus pounds of brewski on the line, you might want to tell your significant other to start shaping up.
2. The word “hauling” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to ______

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Improving girls’ educational levels has been demonstrated to have clear impacts on the health and economic future of young women, which in turn improves the prospects of their entire community. The infant mortality rate of babies whose mothers have received primary education is half that of children whose mothers are illiterate. In the poorest countries of the world, 50% of girls do not attend secondary school. Yet, research shows that every extra year of school for girls increases their lifetime income by 15%. Improving female education, and thus the earning potential of women, improves the standard of living for their own children, as women invest more of their income in their families than men do. Yet, many barriers to education for girls remain. In some African countries, such as Burkina Faso, girls are unlikely to attend school for such basic reasons as a lack of private latrine facilities for girls. Higher attendance rates of high schools and university education among women, particularly in developing countries, have helped them make inroads to professional careers with better-paying salaries and wages. Education increases a woman’s (and her partner and the family’s) level of health and health awareness. Furthering women’s levels of education and advanced training also tends to lead to later ages of initiation of sexual activity and first intercourse, later age at first marriage, and later age at first childbirth, as well as an increased likelihood to remain single, have no children, or have no formal marriage and alternatively, have increasing levels of long-term partnerships. It can lead to higher rates of barrier and chemical contraceptive use (and a lower level of sexually transmitted infections among women and their partners and children), and can increase the level of resources available to women who divorce or are in a situation of domestic violence. It has been shown, in addition, to increase women’s communication with their partners and their employers, and to improve rates of civic participation such as voting or the holding of office.
1. It is stated in the first paragraph that: 

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Stage and film acting both involve performances in front of an audience. There are fundamental differences between the two. When you act for the stage, you are performing in front of a live audience. That means that your voice and your body movements must be clear even to those seated at the back row. Film acting, on the other hand, requires no voice projection. This is because you are performing in front of the camera. Although a film actor still needs to put the right expression to pull off a role realistically, overdoing movement or being overly expressive actually works against him in film acting because this can be construed as overacting. Controlled and small gestures are the requirements when acting for film. Another difference between stage acting and film acting is the material that is used. Theater involves doing well-known plays time and time again. As such, directors, producers and even avid theater-goers know the plays by heart. Some would even know every line and have developed expectations on how it should be delivered. When a line is not correctly said or the action delivered is not what is expected, an actor can be criticized severely. This is not an issue with film acting because the script is freshly-written. There are basically no expectations on how a role is supposed to be played. Putting the character to life becomes your responsibility and casting directors often choose talents based on their ability to give an authentic and believable performance. The fact that stage acting is done in real time also differentiates it from film acting. The scenes are done in sequence, often building up to a climax. This means that stage actors can’t afford to make mistakes. They have to memorize their lines well or risk forgetting in the middle of the performance. Stage actors must also exhibit quick thinking in case something unexpected happens on stage. Film acting is not done in front of a live audience. Although actors are encouraged to perform the scene perfectly on the first take because of budgetary considerations, a scene can always be redone in case the director is not satisfied with it. When an actor forgets his lines, there is always a script that can be referred back to without causing any damage to the outcome of the movie.
3. According to paragraph 2, what is the mentioned requirement for stage acting?

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English teenagers are to receive compulsory cooking lessons in schools. The idea is to encourage healthy eating to fight the country’s increasing obesity rate. It’s feared that basic cooking and food preparation skills are being lost as parents turn to pre-prepared convenience foods. Cooking was once regarded as an important part of education in England – even if it was mainly aimed at girls. In recent decades cooking has progressively become a minor activity in schools. In many cases the schools themselves have given up cooking meals in kitchens in the schools. But the rising level of obesity has led to a rethink about the food that children are given and the skills they should be taught. “What I want is to teach young people how to do basic, simple recipes like a tomato sauce, a bolognaise, a simple curry, a stir-fry – which they can use now at home and then in their later life”, said Ed Balls, the minister responsible for schools. The new lessons are due to start in September, but some school without kitchens will be given longer to adapt. There is also likely to be a shortage of teachers with the right skills, since the trend has been to teach food technology rather than practical cooking. Also the compulsory lessons for hands on cooking will only be one hour a week for one term. But the well-known cookery writer, Pru Leith, believes it will be worth it. “If we’d done this thirty years ago we might not have the crisis we have got now about obesity and lack of knowledge about food and so on. Every child should know how to cook, not just so that they’ll be healthy, but because it’s a life skill which a real pleasure”. The renewed interest in cooking is primarily a response to the level obesity in Britain which is among the highest in Europe, and according to government figures half of all Britons will be obese in 25 years if current trends are not stopped  
5. In what way will cooking lessons benefit the students?

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

Exceeding speed limits and fail to wear safety bells are two common causes of automobile death

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The costs and benefits of global warming will vary greatly from area to area. For (1)_________ climate change, the balance can be difficult to assess. But the larger the change in climate, (2)__________ more negative the consequences will become. Global warming will probably make life harder, not easier, for most people This is mainly because we have already built enormous infrastructure based on the climate we now have. People in some temperate zones may (3)______ from milder winters, more abundant rainfall, and expanding crop production zones. But people in other areas will suffer from increased heat waves, coastal erosion, rising sea level more erratic rainfall, and droughts. The crops, natural vegetation, and (4) ________ and wild animals (including seafood) that sustain people in a given area may be unable to adapt to local or regional changes in climate. The ranges of diseases and insect pests that are limited by temperature may expand, if other environmental conditions are also favorable. In its summary report on the impacts of climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated, “(5)________ as a whole, the range of published evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time.”

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Before the mid-nineteenth century, people in the United States ate most foods only in season. Drying, smoking, and salting could preserve meat for a short time, but the availability of fresh meat, like that of fresh milk, was very limited; there was no way to prevent spoilage. But in 1810 a French inventor named Nicolas Appert developed the cooking-and-sealing process of canning. And in the 1850’s an American named Gail Borden developed a means of condensing and preserving milk. Canned goods and condensed milk became more common during the 1860’s, but supplies remained low because cans had to be made by hand. By 1880, however, inventors had fashioned stamping and soldering machines that mass- produced cans from tinplate. Suddenly all kinds of food could be preserved and bought at all times of the year. Other trends and inventions had also helped make it possible for Americans to vary their daily diets. Growing urban populations created demand that encouraged fruit and vegetable farmers to raise more produce. Railroad refrigerator cars enabled growers and meat packers to ship perishables great distances and to preserve them for longer periods. Thus, by the 1890’s, northern city dwellers could enjoy southern and western strawberries, grapes, and tomatoes, previously available for a month at most, for up to six months of the year. In addition, increased use of iceboxes enabled families to store perishables. An easy means of producing ice commercially had been invented in the 1870’s, and by 1900 the nation had more than two thousand commercial ice plants, most of which made home deliveries. The icebox became a fixture in most homes and remained so until the mechanized refrigerator replaced it in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Almost everyone now had a more diversified diet. Some people continued to eat mainly foods that were heavy in starches or carbohydrates, and not everyone could afford meat. Nevertheless, many families could take advantage of previously unavailable fruits, vegetables, and dairy products to achieve more varied fare.
6. The word “them” in paragraph 2 refers to: 

Choose the best answer:
Why/ lot of/ people/ watch television/ every day?

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Birds are even more disrupted by their noisy neighbours than had been thought  previously, researchers have found. And human activities could be preventing birds from reproducing and even developing normal social behaviour and keeping the peace.  A study by Queen’s University Belfast found that when European robins were subjected to human produced noises their behaviour changed. Background noise appeared to mask the communication of crucial information between birds. While aggressive communication is common and birds respond to it, interference through noise can lead to the birds mistaking the signals.  Birds can end up in situations all too familiar to humans. “The birds receive incomplete information on their opponent’s intent and do not appropriately adjust their response,” explained Arnott. “Where song is disguised by background noise, in some cases the male ends up fighting more vigorously than he should, but at other times gives in too easily.”Arnott said the purpose of birdsong was twofold – to attract mates and defend territory. Birds already face an array of human-made dangers, from pesticides and intensive farming to shooting and poisoning. But noise had often been overlooked, the paper in Biology Letters found. A spokesperson for the RSPB said: “Everyone is becoming increasingly concerned that nature is in crisis in the UK, with one in 10 of our wildlife species at threat of extinction. Many of our birds’ populations are already facing a serious crisis as a result of habitat loss, climate change and other human activities. This report is a good reminder that the way we live and our lifestyle has an impact on our natural world, and that we need to protect our natural world if we want to let nature sing.”  For birds, the extra burden of noise pollution adds to extraordinary decline in species, including among once common birds, in recent decades due to such activities as agricultural practice and pesticide use. In the experiment the team used playbacks of robin song to stimulate responses from birds who were territory holders. Simple or complex songs were used in either the presence or absence of noise. The researchers found that song complexity  was used as a signal of aggressive intent; birds demonstrated higher aggressive intent towards complex rather than simple song. This process was disrupted by the presence of added noise.
8. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

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In 1988, a year before the Soviet Union collapsed, the 13th National Congress of the  Communist Party of Vietnam adopted a resolution to have “more friends and fewer enemies”. So it was not surprising when Vietnam expressed interest in joining ASEAN as early as 1992, or when it did in fact join in July 1995.   Vietnam’s membership of the grouping integrated its security with the whole of Southeast Asia and created a favourable environment for economic development. This, in turn, raised Vietnam’s global image, leading to increased cooperation with multiple players in the region and greater bargaining clout with super powers like the United States and China. As an ASEAN member, Vietnam has worked hard to secure peace and reconciliation among Southeast Asian nations, which were once deeply divided by war. Vietnam was the first Indochinese country to join ASEAN, and its move helped end confrontation between the Indochinese bloc and ASEAN. Vietnam has also helped ASEAN partner with non-regional players.  Vietnam also led efforts within ASEAN to ensure regional security. Soon after becoming a member, Vietnam signed the Treaty on the Southeast Asian Nuclear-WeaponFree Zone and was one of the founding members of the ASEAN Regional Forum. But the most proactive steps by Hanoi towards regional stability have revolved around disputes in the South China Sea. A direct claimant in the dispute, Vietnam, along with the Philippines, has made constant efforts to put the South China Sea on ASEAN’s agenda, ensuring conflict is dealt with in a constructive way. Vietnam has shown constant support for the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, ASEAN’s Six-Point Principles on the East Sea, and the soon-to-be-concluded Code of Conduct of Parties in the East Sea. Vietnam calls for the settlement of disputes by peaceful means on the basis of international law and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea — including through regulations on respecting exclusive economic zones and the continental shelf of coastal countries. Vietnam has remained committed to ASEAN since it joined in 1995 and Vietnam is beginning to integrate further with the global community, and  cooperation with ASEAN will always be an important pillar in its foreign policy. But Vietnam’s interest in ASEAN is not
limited to security issues. Its leadership also drives efforts toward an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). 
8. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

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Kids can be creatures of habit. Much like how they can watch the same movie over and over, some kids will stick to one author or genre of book that they’ve fallen in love with. But does it matter if they’re always reading the same type of book? After all, isn’t their love of reading in itself enough? Reading builds their imagination, develops their critical thinking skills, and improves their communication skills, amongst many other benefits. Well, while a love of reading of any sort is to be nurtured, when a child only reads the same author or type of book, their growth and the benefits they gain may not be as broad if they were to explore more types of books. Coaxing them to open up to reading other genres can be a big advantage for them in the long term. They will get exposed to different types of characters and lifestyles when they read a wider range of writing. For example, their favourite fantasy novels may spark their imagination, but true tales of life halfway around the world can trigger interest in traveling and foster understanding of other cultures. It helps them develop a broad perspective on the world around them. Their vocabulary will benefit, too, if they read a wide selection of books. Think of the words and the sentence structure used in a vampire book and how they will differ significantly from those in a suspense novel. They will have to sound out words, and it’ll be helpful to have a dictionary handy. With each new word encountered in the broad range of reading materials they’re consuming, their vocabulary grows. Reading a variety of books will also help your child grow their love of reading and it’ll fuel their motivation to read more and more. They once only adored one author, who has  a limited number of books written, discovering new authors or types of books expands their choice of reading material; they’ll never run out of books to add to their reading list! Consider, too, the value of specific types of books for very young readers. Ones that teach the alphabet help them learn that letters come together to form the words in books. Poetry with rhyming words will help develop a child’s phonemic awareness, which is the ability to hear, identify and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words. Folktales and nursery rhymes are beloved and cherished. Surely there are ones that bring you right back to your childhood, and they tend to be shared from one generation to the next - your child’s favourite will likely be ones they teach their children when they grow up and have kids of their own!
3. The phrase “coaxing” in paragraph 2 mostly means ______