Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D)
Anna Gomez is a successful TV sports presenter, but most people still think of her as the famous women’s ice-skating champion who won several important competitions when she was younger. “As a child, my dream was actually to become a ballet dancer – I didn’t own any skates until I was nine, and didn’t become really keen on skating until I was fourteen,” says Anna. She went on to university, where, despite ice-skating almost all the time, she left with an excellent degree. “I felt I owed it to my parents. They supported me through university, and expected me to do well there – I didn’t feel I could disappoint them.” In a sport where most stars become famous as teenagers, Anna was unusual in being in her twenties before she won any major titles. “When I was younger, I got very angry at competitions, shouting at judges if I disagreed with them. That made me unpopular, especially with other skaters. My technique was just as good as theirs and I had a very encouraging coach at the time. The problem was in my head – I just didn’t think I had what it takes to be a champion. That changed as I won more competitions, and I was performing at my best by the age of twenty-five.” Anna retired from professional ice-skating five years later, having accomplished great success during that period. “It was a difficult decision. As you get near the end of your career, people always ask when you’re going to stop. At the time, I wasn’t sure that I was actually ready to give up. But, looking back, I’m glad I stopped when I did. You shouldn’t think too much about the past – just move on to the next thing.”  
5. What of the following is true about Anna?

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Scientists hope that this new drug will be a major breakthrough in the fight against AIDS.

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The United States has had approximately a thousand lights as well as light towers,  range lights, and pier head lights. Michigan has the most lights of any state with over 150 past and present lights. Most of the lights in the United States have been built and maintained by the Coast Guard. As navigation has declined and as public interest in them has increased, the Coast Guard has been handing over ownership to other parties. The first navigational lights in the New World were probably lanterns hung at harbor entrances. The first lighthouse was put up by the Massachusetts Bay Colony In 1766 on Little Brewster Island at the entrance to Boston Harbor. Paid for and maintained by light dues levied on ships, the original beacon was blown up in 1776. By then there were only a dozen or so true lighthouses in the colonies. Little over a century later, there were 700 lighthouses.  The first eight erected on the West Coast in the 1850’s featured the same basic New England design: a Cape Cod dwelling with the tower rising from the center or standing close by. In New England and elsewhere, though, lighthouses reflected a variety of architectural styles. Since most stations in the Northeast were built on rocky eminences, enormous towers were not the rule. Some were made of stone and brick, others of wood or metal. Some stood on pilings or stilts: some were fastened to rock with iron rods. Farther south, from Maryland through the Florida Keys, the coast was low and sandy. It was often necessary to build tall towers there - massive structures like the majestic Cape Hatteras, North Carolina lighthouse, which was lit in 1870. At 190 feet, it is the tallest brick lighthouse in the country. Notwithstanding differences in appearance and construction, most American lighthouses shared several features: a light, living quarters, and sometimes a bell (or, later, a foghorn). They also had something else in common: a keeper and, usually, the keeper’s family. The keeper’s essential task was trimming the lantern Nick in order to maintain a steady bright flame. The earliest keepers came from every walk of life-they were seamen. Farmers, mechanics, rough mill hands-and appointments were often handed out by local customs commissioners as political plums. After the administration of lighthouses was taken over in 1852 by the United States Lighthouse 803rd, an agency of the Treasury Department, the keeper corps gradually became highly professional.  
8. Where in the passage does the author tell how light houses in the Northeast were fastened to the surrounding rock?

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Every day, he _________ his buffalo to his plot of land.

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There're many problems which are unavoidable when living in an extended family.

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New data from Akamai, an internet delivery and cloud services company, has exposed that the video game industry remains a growing threat vector for security breaches. Hackers have targeted 12 billion credential stuffing attacks against game websites within a 17-month period The rise and success of credential stuffing attacks is a result of people continuing to reuse the same passwords across multiple accounts. Google identified that 59% of online users reuse passwords. When a data breach happens, user credentials are exposed and can subsequently be found on the internet and the dark web. Cybercriminals use a bot with a list of exposed credentials against a website to gain access to an account on that site. The reason that gaming is subject to so many breaches is twofold; No. 1, most video game companies use low-friction authentication measures because increasing friction drives customer attrition and results in a loss of revenue. The second issue is that from a consumer perspective, gaming is seen as having a low financial risk and, as a result, gamers tend to use less secure passwords. Adding to these challenges is the fact that game developers are pressured to deliver more products at a faster pace, meaning there are more bugs and security issues for cybercriminals to exploit. This has created a perfect storm in the video game industry upon which hackers are all too eager to capitalize.   A significant number of gamers are young — elementary, middle, and high schoolaged — who are less security-conscious and more trusting of people they meet online. To them, privacy is a learned behavior leaving them open to exploitation. They may need to be taught best practices to safeguard their accounts and understand the risks of using weak passwords linked to the games they play. Providing a seamless online experience is paramount in the digital age and, as a result, many organizations balk at implementing robust security procedures for fear of alienating customers. The challenge for the video game industry is to find a balance between increased security without frustrating its players. One notable exception is Microsoft, which has deployed vigorous security measures with Xbox in line with the rest of its business. Without a fundamental change in approach from both gamers and the industry overall, the escalation of this problem shows no signs of slowing down.  
6. Which of the following statements is TRUE, according to the passage?

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On April 3, 1972, a man came out of the Hilton hotel in Manhattan and started walking down the street. He stopped, (1)______ his hand with a strange object in it, put it to his ear and started to talk into it. This was the beginning of mobile phone (2)_______, more than 30 years ago. That man was Motorola’s project manager, Martin Cooper, who was (3)______ his 34th birthday that day. The strange object was the first mobile phone, which was nicknamed “the shoe” because of its unusual (4)_______. Mr. Cooper had gone to New York to introduce the new phone. The first call he made was to his rival, Joe Engel at AT&T’s research centre. Engel was responsible for the development of the radiophones for cars. “I called him and said that I was talking on a real mobile phone (5)_____ I was holding in my hand,” said Cooper. “I don’t remember what he said in reply, but I’m sure he wasn’t happy.” The quality of the call was very good, because although New York had only one base station at that time, it was being used by only one user – Martin Cooper.

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Orbis is an organization which helps blind people of everywhere. It has built an eye  hospital inside an airplane and (1)___________ it all over the world with an international medical team. Samantha Graham, a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl from England, went with the plane to Mongolia. Samantha tells the story of the Eukhtuul, a young Mongolian girl.  ‘Last year, when Eukhtuul was walking home from school, she was attacked by boys with sticks and her eyes were (2) _________ damaged. Dr. Duffey, an Orbis doctor, said that without an operation she would never see again. I thought about all the things I (3)________ that she couldn’t, things like reading schoolbooks, watching television, seeing friends, and I realized how lucky I am.’  ‘The Orbis team agreed to operate (4) ________ Eukhtuul and I was allowed to watch, together with some Mongolian medical students. I prayed the operation would be successful. The next day I waited nervously with Eukhtuul while Dr. Duffey removed her bandages. “In six months your sight will be back to (5)__________,” he said. Eukhtuul smiled, her mother cried, and I had to wipe away some tears, too!’  Now Eukhtuul wants to study hard to become a doctor. Her whole future has changed thanks to a simple operation. We should all think more about how much our sight means to us

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:
There has been much debate over the past few decades concerning fears that automation will lead to robots replacing human workers on a massive scale.
The increasing use of robotics, computers and artificial intelligence is a reality, but its full implications are far from cut and dried. Some forecasts present the future in a utopian way, claiming that robots will take over the tedious heavy work thus freeing up human time and potential, allowing for more creativity and innovation. At the other end of spectrum are those who foresee an employment apocalypse, predicting that almost fifty percent of all American jobs could vanish within the next few decades. Former Microsoft chairman Bill Gates states that in 20 years robots could be in place in a number of job categories, particularly those at lower end of the scale in terms of skills.
The bottom line is that while the future is always uncertain, robots are a fixture of our society, which is not going to disappear. As with the Industrial Revolution, where machines were utilized in many tasks in place of manual laborers and social upheaval followed, the Digital Revolution is likely to place robots in various jobs. In spite of that, many of today’s jobs were not in existence before the Industrial Revolution, such as those of programmers, engineers and data scientists. This leads other experts to criticize this alarmist approach of robot scare-mongering, which is invariably compared to the 19th-century “Luddites”. This group was textile workers who feared being displaced by machines and resorted to violence, burning down factories and destroying industrial equipment – their rejection of inevitable progress has come to symbolize mindless ignorance.
Needless to say, exactly what new kinds of jobs might exist in the future is difficult to envision at present. Therefore, the crux of the issue is not whether jobs will be lost, but whether the creation of new vacancies will outpace the ever-increasing number of losses and what skills will be required in the future.
It is clearly not all doom and gloom, as demand for employees with skills in data analysis, coding, computer science, artificial intelligence and human-machine interface is rising and will continue to do so. Furthermore, the demand for skills in jobs where humans surpass computers, such as those involving  care, creativity and innovative craftmanship, are likely to increase considerably. Ultimately, the key lies in the adaptation of the workforces, through appropriate education and training, to keep pace with our world’s technological progress.

What is the modern-day view of the Luddites?

The National Automobile Show in New York has been one of the top auto shows in the United States since 1900. On November 3 of that year, about 8,000 people looked over the "horseless carriages." It was the opening day and the first opportunity for the automobile industry to show off its wares to a large crowd; however, the black-tie audience treated the occasion more as a social affair than as a sales extravaganza. It was also on the first day of this show that William McKinley became the first U.S. president to ride in a car.
The automobile was not invented in the United States. That distinction belongs to Germany. Nikolaus Otto built the first practical internal-combustion engine there in 1876. Then, German engineer Karl Benz built what are regarded as the first modern automobiles in the mid-1880s. But the United States pioneered the merchandising of the automobile. The auto show proved to be an effective means of getting the public excited about automotive products.

By happenstance, the number of people at the first New York show equaled the entire car population of the United States at that time. In 1900,10 million bicycles and an unknown number of horse-drawn carriages provided the prime means of personal transportation. Only about 4,000 cars were assembled in the United States in 1900, and only a quarter of those were gasoline powered. The rest ran on steam or electricity.

After viewing the cars made by forty car makers, the show's audience favored electric cars because they were quiet. The risk of a boiler explosion turned people away from steamers, and the gasoline-powered cars produced smelly fumes. The Duryea Motor Wagon Company, which launched the American auto industry in 1895, offered a fragrant additive designed to mask the smells of the naphtha that it burned. Many of the 1900 models were cumbersome—the Gasmobile, the Franklin, and the Orient, for example, steered with a tiller like a boat instead of with a steering wheel. None of them was equipped with an automatic starter.

These early model cars were practically handmade and were not very dependable. They were basically toys of the well-to-do. In fact, Woodrow Wilson, then a professor at Princeton University and later President of the United States, predicted that automobiles would cause conflict between the wealthy and the poor. However, among the exhibitors at the 1900 show was a young engineer named Henry Ford. But before the end of the decade, he would revolutionize the automobile industry with his Model T Ford. The Model T, first produced in 1909, featured a standardized design and a streamlined method of production—the assembly line. Its lower costs made it available to the mass market.

Cars at the 1900 show ranged in price from $1,000 to $1,500, or roughly $14,000 to $21,000 in today's prices. By 1913, the Model T was selling for less than $300, and soon the price would drop even further. "I will build cars for the multitudes," Ford said, and he kept his promise

It is clear from the passage that the early cars  ________ .   

Of the six outer planets, Mars, commonly called the red planet, is the closest to Earth. Mars, 4,200 miles in diameter and 55 percent of the size of Earth, is 34,600,000 miles from Earth, and 141,000,000 miles from the Sun. It takes this planet, along with its two moons, Phobos and Deimos, 1.88 years to circle the Sun, compared to 365 days for the Earth.

For many years, Mars had been thought of as the planet with the man-made canals, supposedly discovered by an Italian astronomer, Schiaparelli, in 1877. With the United States spacecraft Viking I's landing on Mars in 1976, the man-made canal theory was proven to be only a myth.

Viking I, after landing on the soil of Mars, performed many scientific experiments and took numerous pictures. The pictures showed that the red color of the planet is due to the reddish, rocky Martian soil. No biological life was found, though it had been speculated by many scientists. The Viking also monitored many weather changes including violent dust storms. Some water vapor, polar ice, and permafrost (frost below the surface) were found, indicating that at one time there were significant quantities of water on this distant planet. Evidence collected by the spacecraft shows some present volcanic action, though the volcanoes are believed to be dormant, if not extinct.

Schiaparelli came from_________________ .

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Facebook users spend an average of more than 15 hours a month on the social  networking site. While there are plenty who caution against such intensive use — and there are a number of studies detailing the harm Facebook could potentially cause — there also are lots of reports extolling the site’s virtues. As the social media giant prepares for its upcoming initial public offering, here are some ways Facebook just might be good for you.  Spending time on Facebook can help people relax, slow down their heart rate and decrease stress levels, according to researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Milan. In a study published earlier this year, researchers studied 30 students and found that a natural high was sparked when they were on the social media network that led to the relaxed heart rates and lower levels of stress and tension. In the study, the students were monitored in three situations: looking at panoramic landscapes, performing complicated mathematical equations and using Facebook. While the first situation was the most relaxing to students and the math problems were the most stressful, the time on Facebook uncovered high levels of attractiveness and arousal. The findings support the researchers’ hypothesis that Facebook’s success, as well as that of other social media networks, correlates to the specific positive mental and physical state users experience.  While many may argue that social media networks only distract employees, research shows the opposite may be true. Research from Keas.com found that a 10-minute Facebook break makes employees happier, healthier and more productive. The study examined workers in three groups: one that was allowed no breaks, one that was allowed to do anything but use the Internet and one that was allowed 10 minutes to use the Internet and Facebook. The Facebook group was found to be 16 percent more productive than the group that was not allowed to use the Internet and nearly 40 percent more productive than the group that was allowed no breaks. “Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf on the Internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher net total concentration for a day’s work, and as a result, increased productivity,” said Brent Coker of the department of management and marketing at the University of Melbourne in Australia.  Facebook is also in the business of matchmaking. Research shows that nearly 60 percent of singles will friend someone new on Facebook after meeting them in person. If they like what they see, 25 percent are likely to contact their new love interest via Facebook. Once the courting is over, nearly 40 percent of those social networking adults will update their relationship status on Facebook, with just 24 percent telling their friends first. Facebook use between couples will continue through the dating process, the research shows. Throughout the day, 79 percent of couples said they send partners Facebook messages or chat on the social network. In addition, more than 60 percent would post romantic messages on their significant other’s Facebook wall. When the relationship ends, more than half of those surveyed immediately update their status to single, which automatically sends out a notification to their friend list to start the dating cycle over again
2. The word “sparked” in the second paragraph probably means ____________

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Geothermal energy is the heat from the Earth. It’s clean and sustainable. Resources of geothermal energy range from the shallow ground to hot water and hot rock found a few miles beneath the Earth’s surface, and down even deeper to the extremely high temperatures of molten rock called mác-ma. Almost everywhere, the shallow ground or upper 10 feet of the Earth’s surface maintains a nearly constant temperature between 50° and 60°F (10° and 16°C). Geothermal heat pumps can tap into this resource to heat and cool buildings. A geothermal heat pump system consists of a heat pump, an air delivery system (ductwork), and a heat exchanger-a system of pipes buried in the shallow ground near the building. In the winter, the heat pump removes heat from the heat exchanger and pumps it into the indoor air delivery system. In the summer, the process is reversed, and the heat pump moves heat from the indoor air into the heat exchanger. The heat removed from the indoor air during the summer can also be used to provide a free source of hot water. In the United States, most geothermal reservoirs of hot water are located in the western states, Alaska, and Hawaii. Wells can be drilled into underground reservoirs for the generation of electricity. Some geothermal power plants use the steam from a reservoir to power a turbine/generator, while others use the hot water to boil a working fluid that vaporizes and then turns a turbine. Hot water near the surface of Earth can be used directly for heat. Direct-use applications include heating buildings, growing plants in greenhouses, drying crops, heating water at fish farms, and several industrial processes such as pasteurizing milk. Hot dry rock resources occur at depths of 3 to 5 miles everywhere beneath the Earth’s surface and at lesser depths in certain areas. Access to these resources involves injecting cold water down one well, circulating it through hot fractured rock, and drawing off the heated water from another well. Currently, there are no commercial applications of this technology. Existing technology also does not yet allow recovery of heat directly from mác-ma, the very deep and most powerful resource of geothermal energy 
1. What does the passage mainly discuss?

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Environmentalists often fear that tourists will trample all over sensitive natural resource areas, but tourism may bring the needed and only economic incentives to help drive conservation, said Bynum Boley. Ecotourism and natural resource conservation already have a mutually beneficial relationship that is ideal for creating a sustainable partnership. “Ecotourism destinations benefit in the form of enhanced tourism competitiveness from the protection of quality natural resources,” he said. "Meanwhile, the conservation of these natural resources is increasingly valued since these pristine natural resources are the foundation of the ecotourism industry and the driver of all economic benefits associated with ecotourism." Tourism is a $7.6 trillion global industry, provides 277 million jobs and is a primary income source for 20 of the world’s 48 least-developed countries. It also subsidizes environmental protection and helps protect, conserve and value cultural resources that might otherwise be undervalued by the host community, Boley said. In the newpaper, Boley and coauthor Gary Green said that despite past tension between the tourism industry and environmentalists, the two should team up as allies to fight off increasing conversion of land away from its natural state. Ecotourists not only provide a boost to the economy in such places, they can also motivate landowners into keeping the environment in its natural state instead of converting it into something unsustainable. They could also influence the public perception of conservation, Boley explained, which does not often favor environmental protection. “The public has become increasing less prone to respond to environmental messages,” he said. “Economic messages are needed in order to attract the public’s interest.” Too often, Boley and Green said, unique natural resource areas are converted into urban, suburban and agricultural developments without considering their ecotourism potential. In addition to the lost ecotourism revenue, there are a host of negative environmental consequences such as biodiversity loss, water and food shortages and the land being unable to mitigate the effects of climate change. These areas are not valued for their unique attributes or the valuable natural resources they provide, Green said, “so we lose them.” Tourists have historically been seen as having a negative impact on the environment. Critics complain that they violate fragile and threatened natural environments while contributing to greenhouse gases from the increased number of flights to these exotic and often remote locales. While these criticisms are justified, Boley and Green said responsible programs promote education of ecological conservation and environmental sustainability, fostering a greater understanding and appreciation of these exotic areas  
4. The word “perception” can be replaced by ______

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A large number of jellyfish are _________ stake due to overhunting.

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Normally a student must attend a certain number of courses in order to graduate, and each course which he attends gives him a credit which he may count towards a degree. In many American universities the total work for a degree consists of thirty-six courses each lasting for one semester. A typical course consists of three classes per week for fifteen weeks; while attending a university a student will probably attend four or five courses during each semester. Normally a student would expect to take four years attending two semesters each year. It is possible to spread the period of work for the degree over a longer period. It is also possible for a student to move between one university and another during his degree course, though this is not in fact done as a regular practice. For every course that he follows a student is given a grade, which is recorded, and the record is available for the student to show to prospective employers. All this imposes a constant pressure and strain of work, but in spite of this some students still find time for great activity in student affairs. Elections to positions in student organizations arouse much enthusiasm. The effective work of maintaining discipline is usually performed by students who advise the academic authorities. Any student who is thought to have broken the rules, for example, by cheating has to appear before a student court. With the enormous numbers of students, the operation of the system does involve a certain amount of activity. A student who has held one of these positions of authority is much respected and it will be of benefit to him later in his career.
Normally a student would at least attend ____ classes each week.
3. American university students are usually under pressure of work because ____

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Ms. Black and Ms. White are talking about Mr. Brown’s upcoming retirement.

Ms. Black: “Mr. Brown is going to retire next month.”

Ms. White: “ _______________”.

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New data from Akamai, an internet delivery and cloud services company, has exposed that the video game industry remains a growing threat vector for security breaches. Hackers have targeted 12 billion credential stuffing attacks against game websites within a 17-month period The rise and success of credential stuffing attacks is a result of people continuing to reuse the same passwords across multiple accounts. Google identified that 59% of online users reuse passwords. When a data breach happens, user credentials are exposed and can subsequently be found on the internet and the dark web. Cybercriminals use a bot with a list of exposed credentials against a website to gain access to an account on that site. The reason that gaming is subject to so many breaches is twofold; No. 1, most video game companies use low-friction authentication measures because increasing friction drives customer attrition and results in a loss of revenue. The second issue is that from a consumer perspective, gaming is seen as having a low financial risk and, as a result, gamers tend to use less secure passwords. Adding to these challenges is the fact that game developers are pressured to deliver more products at a faster pace, meaning there are more bugs and security issues for cybercriminals to exploit. This has created a perfect storm in the video game industry upon which hackers are all too eager to capitalize.   A significant number of gamers are young — elementary, middle, and high schoolaged — who are less security-conscious and more trusting of people they meet online. To them, privacy is a learned behavior leaving them open to exploitation. They may need to be taught best practices to safeguard their accounts and understand the risks of using weak passwords linked to the games they play. Providing a seamless online experience is paramount in the digital age and, as a result, many organizations balk at implementing robust security procedures for fear of alienating customers. The challenge for the video game industry is to find a balance between increased security without frustrating its players. One notable exception is Microsoft, which has deployed vigorous security measures with Xbox in line with the rest of its business. Without a fundamental change in approach from both gamers and the industry overall, the escalation of this problem shows no signs of slowing down.  
1. Which best serves as the title for the passage?

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Many people believe the glare from snow causes snow-blindness. Yet, dark glasses or not, they find themselves suffering from headaches and watering eyes, and even snowblindness, when exposed to several hours of “snow light”. The United States Army has now determined that the glare from snow does not cause snow-blindness in troops in a snow-covered country. Rather, a man’s eyes frequently find nothing to focus on in a broad expanse of a snow-covered area. So his gaze continually shifts and jumps back and forth over the entire landscape in search of something to look at. Finding nothing, hour after hour, the eyes never stop searching and the eyeballs become sore and the eye muscles ache. Nature balances this annoyance by producing more and more liquid which covers the eyeballs. The liquid covers the eyeballs in increasing quantity until vision blurs. And the result is total, even though temporary, snow-blindness. Experiments led the Army to a simple method of overcoming this problem. Scouts ahead of a main body of troops are trained to shake snow from evergreen bushes, creating a dotted line as they cross completely snow-covered landscape. Even the scouts themselves throw lightweight, dark-colored objects ahead on which they too can focus. The men following can then see something. Their gaze is arrested. Their eyes focus on a bush and having found something to see, stop searching through the snow-blanketed landscape. By focusing their attention on one object at a time, the men can cross the snow without becoming hopelessly snow-blind or lost: In this way the problem of crossing a solid white area is overcome
3. According to the passage, snow-blindness may be avoided by ____

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All living things require energy to do the work necessary for survival and  reproduction. But what is energy? Energy is simply the ability to do work, (1) ____ work is  done when a force moves an object. Let’s consider your own needs for a moment. You need energy to turn on and turn off your computer. You need energy to (2) ____ of bed in the morning. And, yes, you need energy to reproduce. So where does energy come from and how do we use it? On Earth, energy ultimately comes from the sun. Plants use the sun’s energy to make sugar. Organisms, in turn, use sugar as a (3) ____ of energy to do work.  Plants use energy from sunlight to make sugar and oxygen from carbon dioxide and water. The process by which carbon dioxide and water are (4) ____ to sugar and oxygen using sunlight is referred to as photosynthesis. This is an endergonic reaction, meaning energy is required by the reaction. Specifically, energy is required to put the carbon dioxide and the water molecules together to form sugar. Sun (5) ____ the energy needed to drive photosynthesis, and some of the energy used to make the sugar is stored in the sugar molecule

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Scientists believe that something very serious is happening to the Earth. It is becoming warmer. Scientists predict that there will be major changes in the climate during the 21st century. Coastal waters will have higher temperatures. This will have a serious effect on agriculture. Farmers will have trouble producing good crops. In warm regions, the weather will be too dry. The amount of water could decrease by 50 per cent. This would cause a large decrease in agricultural production. World temperatures could increase from 1.5 to 5.6 degrees Celsius by the middle of the 21st century. And the increase in temperature could be even greater in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. A rise in temperature could cause the great ice sheets to melt, which, in turn would raise the level of oceans by one to two meters. Many coastal cities would be underwater. Why is all this happening? The Earth and its atmosphere are kept warm by the Sun. The atmosphere lets most of the light from the Sun pass through to warm the Earth. The Earth is warmer by the sunlight and sends heat energy back into the atmosphere. Much of this energy escapes from the Earth’s atmosphere. However, some of it remains. Gases such as carbon dioxide, ozone and water vapor absorb this energy and create more heat. Then, this heat is sent back down to Earth, and the Earth becomes warmer. Recently, however, an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is causing serious problems. Too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere prevents heat energy from escaping. Too much heat is sent back down to the Earth, and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continues to increase. When oil, gas, and coal burn, they create large amounts of carbon dioxide. The destruction of rain forests that absorb carbon dioxide also helps to increase the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Some scientists believe that the amount of carbon dioxide in the air will double by the late 2000s. Scientists call this warming of the Earth and its atmosphere “the greenhouse effect”. A greenhouse, made of glass and plastic, is a special place where plants are grown. The sunlight passes through the glass or plastic and warms the air inside. The heat inside escapes very slowly, so the greenhouse remains very warm. This is exactly what is happening on the Earth. Another reason why the Earth is growing warmer is because of the amount of ozone in our atmosphere. Ozone is a form of oxygen. In the upper atmosphere, very far from the Earth, a layer of ozone helps to protect the Earth from 95 percent of the harmful light that comes from the sun. If your skin receives too much of this light, you would develop skin cancer. We need the ozone layer to protect ourselves. But the ozone layer is in trouble. Scientists have observed that the ozone layer is becoming thin, and above Antarctica there is a hole. This allows too much of the sun’s dangerous light into our atmosphere and makes the Earth warmer. Scientists say we must start making changes and planning now. We need to continue to do research, so we can predict what will happen in the future. We must burn less coal, oil, and gas. Other scientists believe that the problem is not so serious. They think that the Earth is growing warmer naturally, that we don’t need to worry about it now, and that we should just get ready for life in the warmer climate. Most scientists agree that the causes of the world’s climate are very complicated. They say that we must continue to measure the amount of carbon dioxide and ozone in the atmosphere. Scientists also encourage people to learn about the changes that are occurring in the world and how we can all help protect our atmosphere  
1. Which of the following will be one of the consequences of a warmer earth?