Quite different from storm surges are the giant sea waves called tsunamis, which derive their name from the Japanese expression for “high water in a harbor.” These waves are also referred to by the general public as tidal waves, although they have relatively little to do with tides.
Scientists often referred to them as seismic sea waves, far more appropriate in that they do result from undersea seismic activity.
Tsunamis are caused when the sea bottom suddenly moves, during an underwater earthquake or volcano for example, and the water above the moving earth is suddenly displaced. This sudden shift of water sets off a series of waves. These waves can travel great distances at speeds close to 700 kilometers per hour. In the open ocean, tsunamis have little noticeable amplitude, often no more than one or two meters. It is when they hit the shallow waters near the coast that they increase in height, possibly up to 40 meters.
Tsunamis often occur in the Pacific because the Pacific is an area of heavy seismic activity.
Two areas of the Pacific well accustomed to the threat of tsunamis are Japan and Hawaii. Because the seismic activity that causes tsunamis in Japan often occurs on the ocean bottom quite close to the islands, the tsunamis that hit Japan often come with little warning and can, therefore, prove disastrous. Most of the tsunamis that hit the Hawaiian Islands, however, originate thousands of miles away near the coast of Alaska, so these tsunamis have a much greater distance to travel and the inhabitants of Hawaii generally have time for warning of their imminent arrival.
Tsunamis are certainly not limited to Japan and Hawaii. In 1755, Europe experienced a calamitous tsunami, when movement along the fault lines near the Azores caused a massive tsunami to sweep onto the Portuguese coast and flood the heavily populated area around Lisbon. The greatest tsunami on record occurred on the other side of the world in 1883 when the Krakatoa volcano underwent a massive explosion, sending waves more than 30 meters high onto nearby Indonesian islands; the tsunami from this volcano actually traveled around the world and was witnessed as far away as the English Channel.

The paragraph preceding this passage most probably discusses  ............

Before the 1500’s, the Western plains of North America were dominated by farmers. One group, the Mandans, lived in the upper Missouri River country, primarily in present-day North Dakota. They had large villages of houses built close together. The tight arrangement enabled the Mandans to protect themselves more easily from the attacks of others who might seek to obtain some of the food these highly capable farmers stored from one year to the next.
The women had primary responsibility for the fields. They had to exercise considerable skill to produce the desired results, for their northern location meant fleeting growing seasons. Winter often lingered; autumn could be ushered in by severe frost. During the spring and summer, drought, heat, hail, grasshoppers, and other frustrations might await the wary grower.
Under such conditions, Mandan women had to grow maize capable of weathering adversity. They began as early as it appeared feasible to do so in the spring, clearing the land, using fire to clear stubble from the fields and then planting. From this point until the first green corn could be harvested, the crop required labor and vigilance. Harvesting proceeded in two stages. In August the Mandans picked a smaller amount of the crop before it had matured fully. This green corn was boiled, dried, and shelled, with some of the maize slated for immediate consumption and the rest stored in animal-skin bags. Later in the fall, the people picked the rest of the corn. They saved the best of the harvest for seeds or for trade, with the remainder eaten right away or stored for later use in underground reserves. With appropriate banking of the extra food, the Mandans protected themselves against the disaster of crop failure and accompanying hunger.
The women planted another staple, squash, about the first of June, and harvested it near the time of the green corn harvest. After they picked it, they sliced it, dried it, and strung the slices before they stored them. Once again, they saved the seed from the best of the year`s crop. The Mandans also grew sunflowers and tobacco; the latter was the particular task of the older men.

The Mandans built their houses close together in order to .........

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word for each of the blanks.
The traditional definition of literacy is considered to be the ability to read and write, or the ability to use language to read, write, listen, and speak. In modern contexts, the word refers to reading 4 and writing at a level (1)......... for communication, or at a level that lets one understand and communicate ideas in a literate society so as to take (2)....... in that society. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has drafted the following definition: “Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning to enable an individual to achieve his or her goals, to develop his, or her knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in the wider society.”
Many policy analysts consider literacy rates a crucial measure of a region’s human capital. This claim is made on the (3)........ that literate people can be trained less expensively than illiterate people, generally have a higher socio-economic status and enjoy better health and employment prospects. Policy makers also argue that literacy increases job opportunities and access to higher education. In Kerala, India, for example, female and child mortality rates declined (4)......... in the 1960s, when girls who were educated in the education reforms after 1948 began to raise families. Recent researchers, (5)........., argue that correlations such as, the one listed above may have more to do with the effect of schooling rather than literacy in general.
(5)..............................

The protozoans, minute, aquatic creatures each of which consists of a single cell of protoplasm, constitute a classification of the most primitive forms of animal life. They are fantastically diverse, but three major groups may be identified on the basis of their motility. The Mastigophora have one or more long tails, which they use to project themselves forward. The Ciliata, which use the same basic means for locomotion as the Mastigophora, have a larger number of short tails. The Sarcodina, which include amoebae, float or row themselves about on their crusted bodies.
In addition to their form of movement, several other features discriminate among the three groups of protozoans. For example, at least two nuclei per cell have been identified in the Ciliata, usually a large nucleus that regulates growth but decomposes during reproduction, and a smaller one that contains the genetic code necessary to generate the large nucleus.
Protozoans are considered animals because, unlike pigmented plants to which some protozoans are otherwise almost identical, they do not live on simple organic compounds. Their cell demonstrates all of the major characteristics of the cells of higher animals.
Many species of protozoans collect into colonies, physically connected to each other and responding uniformly to outside stimulate. Current research into this phenomenon, along with investigations carried out with advanced microscopes may necessitate a redefinition of what constitutes protozoans, even calling into question the basic premise that they have only one cell. Nevertheless, with the current data available, almost 40,000 species of protozoans have been identified. No doubt, as the technology improves our methods of observation, better models of classification will be proposed.

What is protoplasm?

The election of Andrew Jackson to the presidency in 1928 marked the political ascendancy of the “common man” in American politics. Whereas all previous presidents had been Easterners from well-to-do families, Jackson was a self-made man of modest wealth from the West. Born in 1767, Jackson fought in the American Revolution, in which many of his relatives died.
Afterwards, he studied law and moved to the Western District of North California. When that territory became the state of Tennessee, Jackson was elected the state’s first congressman. His name became a household word during the war of 1812, when, as a U.S Army major general, he led troops against the Creek Indians in the Mississippi Territory and later defeated the British at New Orleans.
After his presidential inauguration, Jackson rode on horseback to the White House to attend a private party. Crowds of well-wishers suddenly appeared at the reception and nearly destroyed the White House as they tried to glimpse the new president. The common man had made a dramatic entrance onto the national political scene.
Jackson’s two terms moved American society toward truer democracy. Many states abandoned property requirements for voting. Elected officials began to act more truly as representatives of the people than as their leaders. As president of the common man, Jackson waged a war against the Bank of the United States, vetoing the bill that re-chartered the institution, declaring it a dangerous monopoly that profited the wealthy few.
Although he had built his reputation as an Indian fighter during the War of 1812, Jackson was not an Indian hater. He adopted what was at the time considered an enlightened solution to the Indian problem-removal. Many tribes submitted peacefully to being moved to the West. Others were marched by force to the Indian Territory, under brutal conditions, along what the Cherokees called the Trail of Tears.
One of Andrew Jackson’s most enduring legacies was the Democratic Party, which under him became a highly organized political party. In opposition to the Democrats were the Whigs, a party that attracted supporters of the Bank of the United States and opposed the tyranny of the man called “King Andrew”. A less specific but more basic legacy is the populist philosophy of politics that still bears the name “Jacksonian Democracy.”

According to the passage, why did Jackson oppose the Bank of the United States?

The election of Andrew Jackson to the presidency in 1928 marked the political ascendancy of the “common man” in American politics. Whereas all previous presidents had been Easterners from well-to-do families, Jackson was a self-made man of modest wealth from the West. Born in 1767, Jackson fought in the American Revolution, in which many of his relatives died.
Afterwards, he studied law and moved to the Western District of North California. When that territory became the state of Tennessee, Jackson was elected the state’s first congressman. His name became a household word during the war of 1812, when, as a U.S Army major general, he led troops against the Creek Indians in the Mississippi Territory and later defeated the British at New Orleans.
After his presidential inauguration, Jackson rode on horseback to the White House to attend a private party. Crowds of well-wishers suddenly appeared at the reception and nearly destroyed the White House as they tried to glimpse the new president. The common man had made a dramatic entrance onto the national political scene.
Jackson’s two terms moved American society toward truer democracy. Many states abandoned property requirements for voting. Elected officials began to act more truly as representatives of the people than as their leaders. As president of the common man, Jackson waged a war against the Bank of the United States, vetoing the bill that re-chartered the institution, declaring it a dangerous monopoly that profited the wealthy few.
Although he had built his reputation as an Indian fighter during the War of 1812, Jackson was not an Indian hater. He adopted what was at the time considered an enlightened solution to the Indian problem-removal. Many tribes submitted peacefully to being moved to the West. Others were marched by force to the Indian Territory, under brutal conditions, along what the Cherokees called the Trail of Tears.
One of Andrew Jackson’s most enduring legacies was the Democratic Party, which under him became a highly organized political party. In opposition to the Democrats were the Whigs, a party that attracted supporters of the Bank of the United States and opposed the tyranny of the man called “King Andrew”. A less specific but more basic legacy is the populist philosophy of politics that still bears the name “Jacksonian Democracy.”

The word “brutal” in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to .............

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
“ 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 .”

What is the main idea of the passage ?

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

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

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:
Political and economic reforms launched in 1986 have transformed the country from one of the poorest in the world, with per capita income around US $100, to lower middle income status within a quarter of a century with per capita income of around US $2,100 by the end of 2015.
Vietnam’s per capita GDP growth since 1990 has been among the fastest in the world, averaging 5.5 percent a year since 1990, and 6.4 percent per year in the 2000s. Vietnam’s economy continued to strengthen in 2015, with estimated GDP growth rate of 6.7 percent for the whole year.
The Vietnamese population is also better educated and has a higher life expectancy than most countries with a similar per capita income. The maternal mortality ratio has dropped below the upper-middle- income country average, while under-five mortality rate has fallen by half, to a rate slightly above that average. Access to basic infrastructure has also improved substantially. Electricity is now available to almost all households, up from less than half in 1993. Access to clean water and modem sanitation has risen from less than 50 percent of all households to more than 75 percent.
Vietnam’s Socio-Economic Development Strategy (SEDS) 2011-2020 gives attention to structural reforms, environmental sustainability, social equity, and emerging issues of macroeconomic stability. It defines three "breakthrough areas": promoting human resources/skills development (particularly skills for modem industry and innovation), improving market institutions, and infrastructure development.
In addition, the five-year Socio-Economic Development Plan 2011-2015 focused on three critical restructuring areas - the banking sector, state-owned enterprises and public investment - that are needed to achieve these objectives. The recent draft of the SEDP 2016-2020 acknowledges the slow progress of the reform priorities of the SEDP 2011-2015.
With agriculture still accounting for almost half the labour force, and with significantly lower labour productivity than in the industry and services sectors, future gains from structural transformation could be substantial. The transformation from state to private ownership of the economy is even less advanced. The state also wields too much influence in allocating land and capital, giving rise to heavy economy wide inefficiencies. So, adjusting the role of the state to support a competitive private sector-led market economy remains a major opportunity. This will be important for enhancing productivity growth which has been stagnating for a long time.

What was Vietnam’s per capita GDP growth rate in 2015?

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:
Sir Anthony Van Dyck, one of the world’s greatest masters of portraiture, was born in Antwerp and was the seventh of twelve children. His affluent father apprenticed him to a painter when he was just a little over ten. Having become a member of the Antwerp Guild of painters before he was nineteen, he worked in the studio of Peter Paul Rubens for several years. In Italy, Van Dyck studied the great Venetian masters and painted flattering portraits of gorgeous ladies and haughty nobles in gilded velvet robes with lace and pearls. While he was sought after by the aristocracy for his acclaimed loose brushwork, his engravings and etchings also evinced his outstanding talent. Upon his return to Antwerp in 1628, he was influenced by Rubens’s interpretation of the artistic form and produced numerous religious paintings while holding an appointment as the court painter. During his tenure, he proved that his use of color, his sensitive elegance, and his remarkable insight were unexcelled.
His fame preceded him to England, where he was invited by King Charles I. After years of faithful service, he was knighted in recognition of his achievements in painting countless portraits of the king, the queen, the royal children, and the titled nobility of England.
However, Van Dyck’s greatest piece is one of his religious works, a true masterpiece displayed in the Antwerp gallery. This group scene exhibits his artful polish in painting the folds of fabric, the delicacy of human skin, landscape, and other externals, and puts him above other accomplished contemporary masters. Although Charles paid Van Dyck a salary and granted him a pension, the painter’s extravagant life-style and penchant for luxuries led him into debt, and he died without means.

What are the reasons given for Van Dyck’s financial decline?

Choose the best answer: 
It is often considered that the schoolyard is where bullies go to make other kids a miserable school life, but a new study suggests that classrooms are another popular place.
    The study, presented recently at the American Public Health Association’s yearly meeting in Philadelphia, is based on the results of the research from more than 10,000 middle school students who answered questions online.
    Of those researched, 43% said they’d been physically bullied within the last month. A bit more than half said they had been laughed at in an unfriendly way, and half reported being called hurtful names. About one third said groups had excluded them to hurt their feelings. 28% said their belongings had been taken or broken; 21% said someone had threatened to hurt them. According to the results, two-thirds of the students said they had been bullied in more than one way over the previous month.
 The study authors mentioned that 8% of the students who answered said they had missed school at least once during the school year because of fear of being bullied, 25% said they had taken other actions, such as missing recess, not going to the bathroom or lunch, missing classes, or staying away from some area of the school to escape from experiencing a bully. Bullies did too much to the school life.
Question 28. Bullies can happen in the following places EXCEPT_________.

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.
Loneliness is a curious thing. Most of us can remember feeling most lonely when we were not in fact alone at all, but when we were surrounded by people. Everyone has experienced, at some time, that utter sense of isolation that comes over you when you are at a party, in a room full of happy laughing people, or in an audience at a theatre or a lecture. It suddenly seems to you as if everybody knows everybody else, everybody is sure of himself, everybody knows what is going on; everybody, that is, except you. This feeling of loneliness which can overcome you when are in a crowd is very difficult to get rid of. People living alone - divorced, widowed or single people - are advised to tackle their loneliness by joining a club or society, by going out and meeting people. Does this really help? And what do you do if you are already surrounded by people? There are no easy solutions. Your first day at work, or at a new school or university, is a typical situation in which you are likely to feel lonely. You feel lonely because you feel left out of things. You feel that everybody else is full of confidence and knows what to do, but you are adrift and helpless. The fact of the matter is that, in order to survive, we all put on a show of self-confidence to hide our uncertainties and doubts. So it is wrong to assume that you are alone. In a big city it is particularly easy to get the feeling that everybody except you is leading a full, rich, busy life. Everybody is going somewhere, and you tend to assume that they are going somewhere nice and interesting, where they can find life and fulfilment. You are also going somewhere, and there is no reason at all to believe that your destination is any less, or, for that matter, any more exciting than the next man's. The trouble is that you may not be able to hide the fact that you are lonely, and the miserable look on your face might well put people off. After all, if you are at a party you are not likely to try to strike up a conversation with a person who has a gloomy expression on his face and his lips turned down at the comers. So trying to look reasonably cheerful is a good starting point in combating loneliness, even if you are choking inside. The next thing to avoid is finding yourself in a group where in fact you are a stranger, that is, in the sort of group where all the other people already know each other. There is a natural tendency for people to stick together, to form 'cliques'. You will do yourself no good by trying to establish yourself in a group which has so far managed to do very well without you. Groups generally resent intrusion, not because they dislike you personally, but because they have already had to work quite hard to turn the group into the functioning unit. To include you means having to go over a lot of ground again, so that you can learn their language, as it was, and get involved in their conversation at their level. Of course if you can offer something the group needs, such as expert information, you can get in quickly. In fact the surest way of getting to know others is to have an interest in common with them. There is no guarantee that you will then like each other, but at least part of your life will be taken up with sharing experiences with others. It is much better than always feeling alone. If all this seems to be a rather pessimistic view of life, you have to accept the fact that we are all alone when it comes down to it. When the most loving couple in the world kiss and say goodnight, as soon as the husband falls asleep, the wife realizes that she is alone, that her partner is as far away as if he were on another planet. But it is no cause for despair: there is always tomorrow.

The reason that people who have formed a group resent intrusion is that they......................

Increasing numbers of parents in the U.S. are choosing to teach their children at home. In fact, the U.S. Department of Education has estimated that in 1999, about 850,000 children were being homeschooled. Some educational experts say that the real number is double this estimate, and the ranks of homeschooled children seem to be growing at the average rate of about eleven percent every year.
At one time, there was a theory accounting for homeschooling: it was traditionally used for students who could not attend school because of behavioral or learning difficulties. Today, however, more parents are taking on the responsibility of educating their own children at home due to their dissatisfaction with the educational system. Many parents are unhappy about class size, as well as problems inside the classroom. Teacher shortages and lack of funding mean that, in many schools, one teacher is responsible for thirty or forty students. The children are, therefore, deprived of the attention they need. Escalating classroom violence has also motivated some parents to remove their children from school.
Although there have been a lot of arguments for and against it, homeschooling in the U.S. has become a multi-million dollar industry, and it is growing bigger and bigger. There are now plenty of websites, support groups, and conventions that help parents protect their rights and enable them to learn more about educating their children. Though once it was the only choice for troubled children, homeschooling today is an accepted alternative to an educational system that many believe is failing.

The attitude of the author towards homeschooling can be best described as ............

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.
           How the Internet Is Changing Our Language
There are words that we say today that 70 years ago weren’t even in (1)....... . If a person were to remark  to a 1950s businessman, “Go and check this website out on the Internet and get back to me via Facebook,” the businessman would have no clue as to what had just been said. We know exactly what the words mean, though, so they (2)....... perfect sense to us.
The problem that people are encountering today is the same as the 1950s businessman would have encountered - he would have  come (3).....a word that would mean nothing because he lived in a world where Internet technology is changing and progressing today at an even faster (4)........, and this is creating changes in the way we communicate. Our words are different, and even our means of (5)........those words across are different as well. Forget about a 60-plus year difference; we speak much differently than we did even 10 or 20 years ago.
(3).........................
 

In addition to the great ridges and volcanic chains, the oceans conceal another form of undersea mountains: the strange guyot, or flat-topped seamount. No marine geologist even suspected the existence of these isolated mountains until they were discovered by geologist Harry H. Hess in 1946.
He was serving at the time as naval officer on a ship equipped with a fathometer. Hess named these truncated peaks for the nineteenth-century Swiss-born geologist Arnold Guyot, who had served on the faculty of Princeton University for thirty years. Since then, hundreds of guyots have been discovered in every ocean but the Arctic. Like offshore canyons, guyots present a challenge to oceanographic theory. They are believed to be extinct volcanoes. Their flat tops indicate that they once stood above or just below the surface, where the action of waves leveled off their peaks. Yet today, by definition, their summits are at least 600 feet below the surface, and some are as deep as 8,200 feet. Most lie between 3,200 feet and 6,500 feet. Their tops are not really flat but slope upward to a low pinnacle at the center. Dredging from the tops of guyots has recovered basalt and coral rubble, and that would be expected from the eroded tops of what were once islands. Some of this material is over 80 million years old. Geologists think the drowning of the guyots involved two processes: The great weight of the volcanic mountains depressed the sea floor beneath them, and the level of the sea rose a number of times, especially when the last Ice Age ended, some 8,000 to 11,000 years ago.

According to the passage, which of the following two processes were involved in the submersion of guyots?

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
Welcome to the Netherlands, a tiny country that only extends, at its broadest, 312 km north to  south, and 264 km east to west - (1) ......... the land area increases slightly each year as a result of continuous land reclamation and drainage. With a lot of heart and much to offer, ‘Holland,’ as it is (2).......known to most of us abroad - a name stemming from its once most prominent provinces - has more  going  on  per  kilometer  than  most  countries,  and  more  English-speaking  natives.  You’ll  be impressed by its (3).....cities and charmed by its countryside and villages, full of contrasts. From the exciting variety on offer, you could choose a romantic canal boat tour in Amsterdam, a Royal Tour by coach in The Hague, or a hydrofoil tour around the biggest harbour in the world - Rotterdam. In season you could visit the dazzling bulb fields, enjoy a full day on a boat, or take a bike tour through the pancake-flat countryside spiced with windmills. The possibilities are countless and the nationwide tourist office is on hand to give you information and help you (4)...... reservations.  You’ll  have (5)........language problems here, as the Dutch are true linguists and English is spoken here almost universally.
(3)...........................

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.
Loneliness is a curious thing. Most of us can remember feeling most lonely when we were not in fact alone at all, but when we were surrounded by people. Everyone has experienced, at some time, that utter sense of isolation that comes over you when you are at a party, in a room full of happy laughing people, or in an audience at a theatre or a lecture. It suddenly seems to you as if everybody knows everybody else, everybody is sure of himself, everybody knows what is going on; everybody, that is, except you. This feeling of loneliness which can overcome you when are in a crowd is very difficult to get rid of. People living alone - divorced, widowed or single people - are advised to tackle their loneliness by joining a club or society, by going out and meeting people. Does this really help? And what do you do if you are already surrounded by people? There are no easy solutions. Your first day at work, or at a new school or university, is a typical situation in which you are likely to feel lonely. You feel lonely because you feel left out of things. You feel that everybody else is full of confidence and knows what to do, but you are adrift and helpless. The fact of the matter is that, in order to survive, we all put on a show of self-confidence to hide our uncertainties and doubts. So it is wrong to assume that you are alone. In a big city it is particularly easy to get the feeling that everybody except you is leading a full, rich, busy life. Everybody is going somewhere, and you tend to assume that they are going somewhere nice and interesting, where they can find life and fulfilment. You are also going somewhere, and there is no reason at all to believe that your destination is any less, or, for that matter, any more exciting than the next man's. The trouble is that you may not be able to hide the fact that you are lonely, and the miserable look on your face might well put people off. After all, if you are at a party you are not likely to try to strike up a conversation with a person who has a gloomy expression on his face and his lips turned down at the comers. So trying to look reasonably cheerful is a good starting point in combating loneliness, even if you are choking inside. The next thing to avoid is finding yourself in a group where in fact you are a stranger, that is, in the sort of group where all the other people already know each other. There is a natural tendency for people to stick together, to form 'cliques'. You will do yourself no good by trying to establish yourself in a group which has so far managed to do very well without you. Groups generally resent intrusion, not because they dislike you personally, but because they have already had to work quite hard to turn the group into the functioning unit. To include you means having to go over a lot of ground again, so that you can learn their language, as it was, and get involved in their conversation at their level. Of course if you can offer something the group needs, such as expert information, you can get in quickly. In fact the surest way of getting to know others is to have an interest in common with them. There is no guarantee that you will then like each other, but at least part of your life will be taken up with sharing experiences with others. It is much better than always feeling alone. If all this seems to be a rather pessimistic view of life, you have to accept the fact that we are all alone when it comes down to it. When the most loving couple in the world kiss and say goodnight, as soon as the husband falls asleep, the wife realizes that she is alone, that her partner is as far away as if he were on another planet. But it is no cause for despair: there is always tomorrow.

In order to join an established group you would need to be able to....................

Choose the word which is stresses differently from the rest: hospital, inflation, policy, constantly

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:
Washington was the first city in history to be created solely for the purpose of governance. Following the Revolution, members of Congress had hotly debated the question of a permanent home for themselves and for those departments – the Treasury, the Patent Office and so on – which even the sketchiest of central governments would feel obliged to establish. In 1790, largely in order to put an end to congressional bickering, George Washington was charged with selecting a site for the newly designated federal district. Not much to anyone’s surprise but to the disappointment of many he chose a tract of land on the banks of the Potomac River, a few miles upstream from his beloved plantation Mount Vernon.
The District of Columbia was taken in part from Virginia and in part from Maryland. At the time it was laid out, its hundred square miles consisted of gently rolling hills, some under cultivation and the rest heavily wooded, with a number of creeks and much swampy land along the Potomac. There is now a section of Washington that is commonly referred to as Foggy Bottom; that section bore the same nickname a hundred and eighty years ago.
Two ports cities, Alexandria and Georgetown, flourished within sight of the new capital and gave it access by ship to the most important cities of the infant nation – Charleston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Newport, Salem and Portsmouth – and also to the far-off ports of England and the Continent.

The word “hotly” in paragraph 1 is closet in meaning to     .

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
Reality television is genre of television programming which, (it is claimed), presents unscripted dramatic or humorous situation, documents actual events, and features ordinary rather than professional actors. It could be described as a form of artificial or “heightened” documentary. Although the genre has existed in some form or another since the early years of television, the current explosion of popularity dates from around 2000.
Reality television covers a wide range of television programming formats, from game or quiz shows which resemble the frantic, often demeaning programmes produced in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s (a modem example is Gaki no Tsukai), to surveillance- or voyeurism- focused productions such as Big Brother.
Critics say that the term “reality television” is somewhat of a misnomer and that such shows frequently portray a modifies and highly influenced form of reality, with participants put in exotic location or abnormal situations, sometimes coached to act in certain ways by off-screen handlers, and with events on screen manipulated through editing and other post-production techniques.
Part of reality television’s appeal is due to its ability to place ordinary people in extraordinary situations. For example, on the ABC show, The Bachelor, an eligible male dates a dozen women simultaneously, traveling on extraordinary dates to scenic locales. Reality television also has the potential to turn its participants into national celebrities, outwardly in talent and performance programs such as Pop Idol, though frequently Survivor and Big Brother participants also reach some degree of celebrity.
Some commentators have said that the name “reality television” is an inaccurate description for several styles of program included in the genre. In competition- based programs such as Big Brother and Survivor, and other special-living-environment shows like The Real World, the producers design the format of the show and control the day-to-day activities and the environment, creating a completely fabricated world in which the competition plays out. Producers specifically select the participants, and use carefully designed scenarios, challenges, events, and settings to encourage particular behaviours and conflicts. Mark Burnett, creator of Survivor and other reality shows, has agreed with this assessment, and avoids the word “reality” to describe his shows; he has said, “I tell good stories. It really is not reality TV. It really is unscripted drama.”

Producers choose the participants ..................