Gardening is the art of growing plants with the goal of crafting a purposeful landscape. Residential gardening most often takes place in or about a residence, in a space referred to as the garden. Although a garden typically is located on the land near a residence, it may also be located in a roof, in an atrium, on a balcony, in a window-box, or on a patio or vivarium..

Gardening also takes place in non-residential green areas, such as parks, public or semi-public gardens amusement and theme parks, along transportation corridors, and around tourist attractions and hotels. In these situations, a staff of gardeners or groundskeepers maintains the gardens.

Indoor gardening is concerned with the growing of houseplants within a residence or building, in a conservatory, or in a greenhouse. Indoor gardens are sometimes incorporated as part of air conditioning or heating systems.

Water gardening is concerned with growing plants adapted to pools and ponds. Bog gardens are also considered a type of water garden. These all require special conditions and considerations. A simple water garden may consist solely of a tub containing the water and plant.

Where is a garden usually located ?

Rearrange the sentences to make meaningful sentences 

who/ Could/ invented/ tell/ the/ you/ me/ light/ bulb?

  Centuries ago, man discovered that removing moisture from food helped to preserve it, and that the easiest way to do this was to expose the food to sun and wind. In this way the North American Indians produced pemmican (dried meat ground into powder and made into cakes), the Scandinavians made stockfish and the Arabs dried dates and apricots.

      All foods contain water - cabbage and other leaf vegetables contain as much as 93% water, potatoes and other root vegetables 80%, lean meat 75% and fish anything from 80% to 60% depending on how fatty it is. If this water is removed, the activity of the bacteria which cause food to go bad is checked.

The phrase “do this” in the first paragraph mostly means ______.

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.

   Sound moves form its source to the ear by wavelike fluctuations in air pressure, something like the crests and troughs of ocean waves. Once way to keep from hearing sound is to use ear plugs. Another way is to cancel out the sound with anti-sound. Using a noisemarker controlled by a microprocessor, engineers have produced sound waves that are half a wavelength out of phase with those of the noise to be quieted-each crest is matched to a trough, and vice versa. Once the researchers have recorded the offending sound, a microprocessor calculates the amplitude and wavelength of sound that will cancel out the crests and troughs of noise. It then produces an electric current that is amplified and fed to a loudspeaker, which produces antisound and wipes out the noise. If the anti-sound goes out of synchronization, a microphone picks up the leftover sound and sends it back to the microprocessor, which changes the phase of the anti- sound just enough to cause complete silence.

   The research team has concentrated on eliminating low-frequency noise from ship engines, which causes fatigue that can impair the efficiency and alertness of the crew, and may mask the warning sounds of alarm and fog signals.

The researcher mentioned in the passage are concerned about unwanted noise because it can_________.

Read the passage carefully and choose the correct answer.

Traditions, saying, beliefs, language, and values are just a few things that make up our culture. Culture is the framework in which families are structured. It shapes our expectations and ideals. Culture plays a part in the meaning of marriage and our roles as husbands, wives, children, and parents.

Understanding cultural differences and similarities related to marriage are important. Culture affects the roles that spouses take within marriages, the age at marriage and number of children a couple has, the meaning of divorce, cohabitation and non-marital childbearing, and the way parents raise children. Understanding how relationships and marriages vary across cultural contexts, and how they are similar, we will be able to identify the unique ways that marriages and family life affect people of various cultures. As a result, we will be able to help families and sustain happy marriages.

A cross-cultural marriage or similar love relationship can be extremely exciting. The cultural background, visits to the other country, the language of the country and learning to speak it, the different habits and ways of doing and saying things that people from other cultures have, are. all very exciting indeed. What of the disadvantages of a cross-cultural marriage or love relationship with someone from another country or cultural background? No matter how much you love your husband or wife, no matter how high your level of cross-cultural awareness, cross-cultural communication, and respect for differences. Misunderstanding seems to be unavoidable.

The passage is about _________.

Rearrange the sentences to make meaningful sentences

An/ ways/ actress's/ unlike/ that/ life/ of/ is/ other/ in/ many/ women.

University Entrance Examination is very important in Vietnamese students. High school graduates have to take it and get high results to be admitted to universities. The pressure on the candidates remains very high despite the measures that have been taken to reduce the heat around these exams, since securing a place in a state university is considered a major step towards a successful career for young people, especially those from rural areas or disadvantaged families. In the year 2004, it was estimated that nearly 1 million Vietnamese students took the University Entrance Examination, but on average only 1 out of 5 candidates succeeded. Normally, candidates take 3 exam subjects, and each lasts; 180 minutes for the fixed group of subjects they choose. There are 4 fixed groups of subjects: Group A: Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry; Group B: Mathematics, Biology, and Chemistry; Group C: Literature, History, and Geography; Group D: Literature, Foreign Language, and Mathematics.

In addition to universities, there are community colleges, art and technology institutes; professional secondary schools, and vocational schools which offer degrees or certificates from a-few-month to 2-year courses.

According to Vietnam's Ministry of Education and Training, there are currently 23 non-public universities, accounting for 11% of the total number of universities. These non-public universities are currently training 119,464 students, or 11.7% of the total number of students. The government is planning to increase the number of non-public universities to 30% by 2007.

 University Entrance Examination in Vietnamese is very _______.

Having a best friend to confide in can bring a positive effect on our emotional health. An evening out with the closest friend may be the best guarantee of a good time. In fact, our best friend can prevent us from developing serious psychological problems such as depression and anxiety.

Best friendship evolves with time - we cannot go out and pick our best friend. We become friends with people who share common interests – at school or through hobbies, for example.

Best friends have usually known each other for years and stuck together through good and bad times. If you haven't got one, perhaps you are being too distant from people, or focusing too much on your work.

Which of the following sentences is not mentioned?

Last year I went to Nepal for three months to work in a hospital. I think it's important to see as much of a country as you can, but it is difficult to travel around Nepal. The hospital let me have a few days’ holiday, so I decided to go into the jungle and I asked a Nepalese guide, Kamal Rai, to go with me.

We started preparing for the trip at six in the morning, and left camp with two elephants carrying our equipment. It was hot but Kamal made me wear shoes and trousers to protect me from snakes. In the jungle there was a lot of wildlife, but we were trying to find big cats, especially tigers. We climbed onto the elephants' backs to get better view, but it is unusual to find tigers in the afternoon because they sleep in the heat of the day.

Then, in the distance, we saw a tiger, and Kamal told me to be very quiet. We crept nearer and found a dead deer, still bleeding. This was the tiger's lunch! Suddenly I started to feel very frightened.

We heard the tiger a second before we saw it. It jumped out like a flash of lightning, five hundred kilos plus and four meters long. I looked into its eyes and face, and saw right down the animal's throat. It grabbed Kamal's leg between its teeth, but I managed to pull Kamal away. One of our elephants ran at the tiger and made it go back into the grass, so we quickly escaped to let the tiger eat its lunch. That night it was impossible to sleep!

The writer started to feel frightened when ________

 Orchids are unique in having the most highly developed of all blossoms, in which the usual male and female reproductive organs are fused in a single structure called the column. The column is designed so that a single pollination will fertilize hundreds of thousands, and in some cases millions, of seeds, so microscopic and light they are easily carried by the breeze. Surrounding the column are three sepals and three petals, sometimes easily recognizable as such, often distorted into gorgeous, weird, but always functional shapes. The most noticeable of the petals is called the labellum, or lip. It is often dramatically marked as an unmistakable landing strip to attract the specific insect the orchid has chosen as its pollinator. To lure their pollinators from afar, orchids use appropriately intriguing shapes, colors, and scents. At least 50 different aromatic compounds have been analyzed in the orchid family, each blended to attract one, or at most a few, species of insects or birds. Some orchids even change their scents to interest different insects at different times.

   Once the right insect has been attracted, some orchids present all sorts of one-way obstacle courses to make sure it does not leave until pollen has been accurately placed or removed. By such ingenious adaptations to specific pollinators, orchids have avoided the hazards of rampant crossbreeding in the wild, assuring the survival of species as discrete identities. At the same time they have made themselves irresistible to collectors.

What does the passage mainly discuss?

 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.

William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), who wrote under the pseudonym of O. Henry, was born in North Carolina. His only formal education was to attend his Aunt Lina’s school until the age of fifteen, where he developed his lifelong love of books. By 1881 he was a licensed pharmacist. However, within a year, on the recommendation of a medical colleague of his Father’s, Porter moved to La Salle County in Texas for two years herding sheep. During this time, Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary was his constant companion, and Porter gained a knowledge of ranch life that he later incorporated into many of his short stories. He then moved to Austin for three years, and during this time the first recorded use of his pseudonym appeared, allegedly derived from his habit of calling “Oh, Henry” to a family cat. In 1887, Porter married Athol Estes. He worked as a draftsman, then as a bank teller for the First National Bank.

In 1894 Porter founded his own humor weekly, the “Rolling Stone”, a venture that failed within a year, and later wrote a column for the Houston Daily Post. In the meantime, the First National Bank was examined, and the subsequent indictment of 1886 stated that Porter had embezzled funds. Porter then fled to New Orleans, and later to Honduras, leaving his wife and child in Austin. He returned in 1897 because of his wife’s continued ill-health, however she died six months later. Then, in 1898 Porter was found guilty and sentenced to five years imprisonment in Ohio. At the age of thirty five, he entered prison as a defeated man; he had lost his job, his home, his wife, and finally his freedom. He emerged from prison three years later, reborn as O. Henry, the pseudonym he now used to hide his true identity. He wrote at least twelve stories in jail, and after re-gaining his freedom, went to New York City, where he published more than 300 stories and gained fame as America’s favorite short Story writer. Porter married again in 1907, but after months of poor health, he died in New York City at the age of forty-eight in 1910. O. Henry’s stories have been translated all over the world.

According to the passage, Porter’s Father was ______.

Last week I went to visit Atlantic College, an excellent private college in Wales. Unusually, it gives people much needed experience of life outside the classroom, as well as the opportunity to study for their exams. The students, who are aged between 16 and 18 and come from all over the word, spend the morning studying. In the afternoon they go out and do a really useful activity, such as helping on the farm, looking after people with learning difficulties, or checking for pollution in rivers.

One of the great things about Atlantic College students is that they come from many different social backgrounds and countries. As few can afford the fees of £20,000 over two years, grants are available.

A quarter of students are British, and many of those can only attend because they receive government help.

“I really admire the college for trying to encourage international understanding among young people", as Barbara Molenkamp, a student from the Netherlands, said. ''You learn to live with people and respect them, even the ones you don't like. During the summer holidays my mother couldn't believe how much less I argued with my sister."

To sum up, Atlantic College gives its students an excellent education, using methods which really seem to work.

What is the writer's opinion of Atlantic College?

Herman Melville, an American author best known today for his novel Moby Dick, was actually more popular during his lifetime for some of his other works. He traveled extensively and used the knowledge gained during his travels as the basis for his early novels. In 1837, at the age of eighteen, Melville signed as a cabin boy on a merchant ship that was to sail from his Massachusetts home to Liverpool, England. His experiences on this trip served as a basis for the novel Redburn (1849). In 1841 Melville set out on a whaling ship headed for the South Seas. After jumping ship in Tahiti, he wandered around the islands of Tahiti and Moorea. This South Sea island sojourn was a backdrop to the novel Omoo (1847). After three years away from home, Melville joined up with a U.S. naval frigate that was returning to the eastern United States around Cape Horn. The novel White-Jacket (1850) describes this lengthy voyage as a navy seaman. With the publication of these early adventure novels, Melville developed a strong and loyal following among readers eager for his tales of exotic places and situations. However, in 1851, with the publication of Moby Dick, Melville's popularity started to diminish. Moby Dick, on one level the saga of the hunt for the great white whale, was also a heavily symbolic allegory of the heroic struggle of man against the universe. The public was not ready for Melville's literary metamorphosis from romantic adventure to philosophical symbolism. It is ironic that the novel that served to diminish Melville's popularity during his lifetime is the one for which he is best known today.

The passage implies that Melville stayed in Tahiti because____________.

The Blackening of the Bride: Scotland

The bride and groom are slathered from head ____________ (6) toe in every disgusting substance their friends can get their hands on. Curdled milk, rotten eggs, spoiled curry, fish sauces, mud, flour, sausages, every nasty thing you can imagine. As if that weren’t enough, the couple is then paraded about, with well-wishers making ____________ (7) much noise as possible. Depending on the region, sometimes it’s just the bride or groom alone ____________ (8) is the victim of this particular pre-wedding tradition

(8)_______

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, co-education became a more widely applied principle of educational philosophy. In Britain, Germany, and the Soviet Union the education of boys and girls in the same classes became an accepted practice. Since World War II, Japan and the Scandinavian countries have also adopted relatively universal co-educational systems. The greatest negative reaction to coeducation has been felt in the teaching systems of the Latin countries, where the sexes have usually been separated at both primary and secondary levels, according to local conditions.

   A number of studies have indicated that girls seem to perform better overall and in science in particular in single-sex classes: during the adolescent years, pressure to conform to stereotypical female gender roles may disadvantage girls in traditionally male subjects, making them reluctant to volunteer for experimental work while taking part in lessons. In Britain, academic league tables point to high standards achieved in girls' schools. Some educationalists therefore suggest segregation of the sexes as a good thing, particularly in certain areas, and a number of schools are experimenting with the idea.

When education first reached women, they were ______

Rearrange the sentences to make meaningful sentences

 At/ moment/ the, we/ a/ reading/ novel/ are.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to fill in the blanks.

In the United States, volunteering is (36)______as a good way to give children a sense of community responsibility and to bring the family together. Volunteerism is (37)______across the United States today because people are trying to put more emphasis on family togetherness, and they are looking (38)______ways to help young people have a feeling of hope and satisfaction. It is (39)______that volunteering helps children discover their talents, develop their skills, and learn about (40)______and problem-solving.

Question 37.....................

One day in 1924, five men who were camping in the Cascade Mountains of Washington saw a group of huge apelike creatures coming out of the woods. They hurried back to their cabin and locked themselves inside. While they were in, the creatures attacked them by throwing rocks against the walls of the cabin.

   After several hours, these strange hairy giants went back into the woods. After this incident the men returned to the town and told the people of their adventure. However, only a few people accepted their story. These were the people who remembered hearing tales about footprints of an animal that walked like a human being.

The five men, however, were not the first people to have seen these creatures called Bigfoot. Long before their experience, local Native Americans were certain that a race of apelike animals had been living in the neighboring mountain for centuries. They called these creatures Sasquatch.

   In 1958, workmen, who were building a road through the jungles of Northern California often found huge footprints in the earth around their camp.

 The word neighboring would BEST be replaced with

It is often said that books are always good friends … (6)… reading is an active mental process. … (7)… TV, books make you use your brain. By reading, you think more and become smarter. Reading improves concentration and focus. Reading books takes brain power. It requires you to focus … (8)… what you are reading for long periods. Unlike magazines, Internet posts or e-Mails that might contain small …(9)… of information. Books tell the whole story". Since you must concentrate in order to read, you will get better at concentration. Many studies show if you do not use your memory; you lose it. Reading helps you …(10)… your memory muscles. Reading requires remembering details, facts and figures and in literature, plot lines, themes and characters.

(10)__________

The Amazon rainforest is home to more than a third of all the world's species of plants, birds and animals. Twenty per cent of all the birds in the world live in the rainforest. Scientists have discovered thousands of types of plants and animals that can only be found there. There are thousands - probably millions more that we haven't discovered yet. There are at least 2.5 million species of insects there. Imagine what would happen if they all lost their home? It couldn't happen, could it? Unfortunately, it's happening right now. Yet, the rainforest is big. But it's getting smaller. The problem is that people are cutting down the trees, mainly to make room for cows. These provide meat and make money for their owners. This process of cutting down trees is called ‘deforestation'.

The good news is that it is slowing down. In 2004, for example, more than 27,000 square kilometres were cut down. That's an area bigger than Wales. In 2006, because of all the campaigns to save rainforest, it dropped to just over 13,000 square kilometres. The bad news is that it's not enough. Scientists predict that by 2030, the rainforest will have become smaller by 40%. It's possible that by the end of the 21st century, the rainforest will have completely disappeared. With deforestation, thousands of the animals, birds, fish and plants that live in the Amazon rainforest lose their home, their natural habitat. Some of them move to other areas, but most of them die. Many species have already become extinct, and many more will if deforestation continues. That will change the balance of life in the rainforest and could cause enormous problems to the region's ecosystem.

In paragraph 1, the word "room” is closest in meaning to ____.

Last week I went to visit Atlantic College, an excellent private college in Wales. Unusually, it gives people much needed experience of life outside the classroom, as well as the opportunity to study for their exams. The students, who are aged between 16 and 18 and come from all over the word, spend the morning studying. In the afternoon they go out and do a really useful activity, such as helping on the farm, looking after people with learning difficulties, or checking for pollution in rivers.

One of the great things about Atlantic College students is that they come from many different social backgrounds and countries. As few can afford the fees of £20,000 over two years, grants are available.

A quarter of students are British, and many of those can only attend because they receive government help.

“I really admire the college for trying to encourage international understanding among young people", as Barbara Molenkamp, a student from the Netherlands, said. ''You learn to live with people and respect them, even the ones you don't like. During the summer holidays my mother couldn't believe how much less I argued with my sister."

To sum up, Atlantic College gives its students an excellent education, using methods which really seem to work.

What is the writer trying to do in the text?