Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
NASA continues to plan a flight to Mars. The technological challenge is immense, first  of all, because it will be very difficult to carry tons of material for the construction of a habitat. This is why NASA is looking for alternative solutions, such as the possibility of growing structures out of fungi to become our future homes in the stars. The concept of these “houses” is based on three distinct layers. The first is made of ice. It must protect people from radiation, but also provide the resources necessary for the second layer. This is made of photosynthesizing microbes or cyanobacteria, which produce oxygen for astronauts and nutrients for the final layer of mycelia. That last layer of mycelia is what organically grows into a sturdy home, first activated to grow in a contained environment and then baked to kill the lifeforms.  Researchers have already experimented with creating objects using mycelia. A team from Stanford and Brown universities grew a stool as part of a myco-architecture project at NASA’s Ames research center in 2018. After two weeks of growth, the stool looked like something that would have been long forgotten in a refrigerator. It was then baked that leads to a clean and functional piece of furniture. From the point of view of space conquest, mushrooms could also be used to filter water for future explorers and extract minerals. Once these prototypes are designed for other worlds, we can bring them back to ours. Building this kind of housing could reduce the huge carbon footprint of the construction industry. This research project is still in its infancy, but it shows us how scientists are able to broaden horizons, and it’s exciting.
4. The word “It” in paragraph 2 refers to _______

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Once restricted to luxury or super-tech buildings, home automation is proving to be an increasingly fundamental and affordable addition to architectural projects. The idea is to connect devices, which in turn connect and talk through a centralized control unit, accessible by computers, tablets, and mobile phones. For example, home automation users can turn the lights on or off at specific times each day, adjust the heater or air conditioner to turn on a few minutes before they arrive home. In addition to these immediate effects, monitoring applications can also provide accurate home information by generating detailed reports on equipment that could be working better or spending less. That is, in addition to smartphones and personal computers, appliances and sensors are able to identify patterns, process information, and perform tasks both through commands and automatically. Although it sounds like a science fiction script, these are technologies that are not so far from us.  Artificial intelligence can be used to automate threat detection and perhaps more proactively alert us if something looks wrong, such as heat sensors and video cameras setting off alarms and calling firefighters in the event of a short circuit. Through facial recognition algorithms on social media, the system itself can tell if someone outside your circle of acquaintances is trying to access your space and send a message to your mobile phone. This type of technology can improve the efficiency of security systems and reduce false alarms. Automation can be useful for people with disabilities and for the elderly. People with Parkinson’s disease or other motor diseases can trigger switches without touching them, and motion sensors can trigger safety lights automatically. Blood pressure sensors and blood sugar levels can be incorporated into these systems, providing peace of mind to close relatives. The ability to automate repetitive housekeeping can free time for more important things. For example, an internet-connected refrigerator can check for missing items and make purchases online. It is important to mention that these systems must be highly protected, as a single attempt to break into this centralized system can lead to the invasion of privacy and the loss of valuable confidential information. Still, most people who have experienced life in an automated space will likely be uncomfortable returning to traditional systems  
2. According to paragraph 2, which is NOT the advantage of home automation?

Choose the word or phrase  A, B, C or D that best fits the blank space in the following passage:

"Face-to-face conversation is a two-way process: you speak to me, I reply to you and so on. Two-way (1)….. depends on having a coding System that is understood by both (2)….. and receiver, and an agreed convention about (3)…. the beginning and end of the (4)… . In speech, the coding System is the language like English or Spanish; the convention that one person speaks at a time may seem too obvious to (5)…. . In fact, the (6)…..that people use in conversations and meetings are often non- verbal. For example, lowering the pitch of voice may mean the end of a sentence; a Sharp intake of breath may signal the desire to (7)….. , catching the chairman’s (8)…. may indicate the desire to speak in a formal setting like a (9)….. , a clenched fist may indicate anger. When these (10)….. signals are not possible, more formal signals may be needed."

7. For example, lowering the pitch of voice may mean the end of a sentence; a Sharp intake of breath may signal the desire to (7)….. , 

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
If you go back far enough, everything lived in the sea. At various points in evolutionary history, enterprising individuals within many different animal groups moved out onto the land, sometimes even to the most parched deserts, taking their own private seawater with them in blood and cellular fluids. In addition to the reptiles, birds, mammals and insects which we see all around us, other groups that have succeeded out of water include scorpions, snails, crustaceans such as woodlice and land crabs, millipedes and centipedes, spiders and various worms. And we mustn’t forget the plants, without whose prior invasion of the land, none of the other migrations could have happened. Moving from water to land involved a major redesign of every aspect of life, including breathing and reproduction. Nevertheless, a good number of thoroughgoing land animals later turned around, abandoned their hard-earned terrestrial re-tooling, and returned to the water again. Seals have only gone part way back. They show us what the intermediates might have been like, on the way to extreme cases such as whales and dugongs. Whales (including the small whales we call dolphins) and dugongs, with their close cousins, the manatees, ceased to be land creatures altogether and reverted to the full marine habits of their remote ancestors. They don’t even come ashore to breed. They do, however, still breathe air, having never developed anything equivalent to the gills of their earlier marine incarnation. Turtles went back to the sea a very long time ago and, like all vertebrate returnees to the water, they breathe air. However, they are, in one respect, less fully given back to the water than whales or dugongs, for turtles still lay their eggs on beaches. There is evidence that all modern turtles are descended from a terrestrial ancestor which lived before most of the dinosaurs. There are two key fossils called Proganochelys quenstedti and Palaeochersis talampayensis dating from early dinosaur times, which appear to be close to the ancestry of all modern turtles and tortoise. You might wonder how we can tell whether fossil animals lived in land or in water, especially if only fragments are found. Sometimes it’s obvious. Ichthyosaurs were reptilian contemporaries of he dinosaurs, with
fins and streamlined bodies. The fossils look like dolphins and they surely lived like dolphins, in the water. With turtles it is a little less obvious. One way to tell is by measuring the bones of their forelimbs.
4. The word “ceased” in paragraph 2 mostly means ______________

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Digital learning is replacing traditional educational methods more and more each day. With (1) ____ rapidly classrooms are changing, it is best to forget methods you may remember from when you were in school and start thinking about newer teaching and learning techniques based on digital learning tools and technologies. The inclusion of digital learning in the classrooms can (2) ____ from simply using tablets instead of paper (3) ____ using elaborate software programs and equipment as opposed to the simple pen. This could entail using sites, services, programs, teaching tools, and technologies like study aids built for at-home (4) ____. Even social networks and communications platforms can be used to create and manage digital assignments and agendas. (5) ____ of how much technology is integrated into the classroom, digital learning has come to play a crucial role in education. It empowers students by getting them to be more interested in learning and expanding their horizons

Rewrite the sentence:
He became successful as a professional writer at the age of 20.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Nuclear family, also called elementary family, in sociology and anthropology, is a group of people who are united by ties of partnership and parenthood and consisting of a pair of adults and their socially recognized children. Typically, but not always, the adults in a nuclear family are married. Although such couples are most often a man and a woman, the definition of the nuclear family has expanded with the advent of same-sex marriage. Children in a nuclear family may be the couple’s biological or adopted offspring.  Thus defined, the nuclear family was once widely held to be the most basic and universal form of social organization. Anthropological research, however, has illuminated so much variability of this form that it is safer to assume that what is universal is a “nuclear family complex” in which the roles of husband, wife, mother, father, son, daughter, brother, and sister are embodied by people whose biological relationships do not necessarily conform to the Western definitions of these terms. In matrilineal societies, for example, a child may be the responsibility not of his biological genitor but of his mother’s brother, who fulfills the roles typical of Western fatherhood.  Closely related in form to the predominant nuclear-family unit are the conjugal family and the consanguineal family. As its name implies, the conjugal family is knit together primarily by the marriage tie and consists of mother, father, their children, and some close relatives. The consanguineal family, on the other hand, typically groups itself around a unlineal descent group known as a lineage, a form that reckons kinship through either the father’s or the mother’s line but not both. Whether a culture is patrilineal or matrilineal, a consanguineal family comprises lineage relatives and consists of parents, their children, and their children’s. Rules regarding lineage exogamy are common in these groups; within a given community, marriages thus create cross-cutting social and political ties between lineages.  The stability of the conjugal family depends on the quality of the marriage of the husband and wife, a relationship that is more emphasized in the kinds of industrialized, highly mobile societies that frequently demand that people reside away from their kin groups. The consanguineal family derives its stability from its corporate nature and its permanence, as its relationships emphasize the perpetuation of the line.
8. What does the author imply in the last paragraph?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Vietnam’s football team received a “rock-star” welcome in Hanoi yesterday, (1)_______ losing to Uzbekistan in the 2018 U23 Asian Championship Final. Thousands of supporters flocked to the streets from Noi Bai Airport to Hanoi’s city center to greet the team bus, (2)________the Vietnamese PM’s reception for the team by five hours. A home-coming celebration was also held at My Dinh National Stadium, where all 40,000 seats were filled with thousands more waiting outside to see the players. Their (3)______ at the U23 Asian Cup made the players “overnight celebrities in the football-crazy nation”, AFP wrote. Various Korean outlets, including Korea Times, Sportal Korea and Hani, have also expressed amazement at the way football fans have celebrated their national team’s achievement, and at the same time, hailed the team’s performance at the tournament (4)_____ “heroic” and “like a fairy tale”. According to Sportal Korea, the team made an “impressive achievement” at the Asian tournament. “The red flags were being waved everywhere on the streets, and the cheering went on until late,” Hani wrote. The Korea Times also added that Vietnam’s success at the Asian Cup had brought Vietnamese football and Korean football “closer”. More importantly, it is the success (5)_____unites the country on so many levels

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

The  sale of pet turtles was banned because of the decrease risk they posed to young child

Choose the best answer:
That about ___________ the solution together this afternoon?

Choose the best answer:
The ____________ will announce tomorrow’s weather on TV at 7:30 tonight.

A considerable body of research has demonstrated a correlation between birth order and aspects such as temperament and behavior, and some psychologists believe that birth order significantly affects the development of personality. Psychologist Alfred Adler was a pioneer in the study of the relationship between birth order and personality. A key point in his research and in the hypothesis that he developed based on it was that it was not the actual numerical birth position that affected personality; instead, it was the similar responses in large numbers of families to children in specific birth order positions that had an effect. For example, first-borns, who have their parents to themselves initially and do not have to deal with siblings in the first part of their lives, tend to have their first socialization experiences with adults and therefore tend to find the process of peer socialization more difficult. In contrast, later-born children have to deal with siblings from the first moment of their lives and therefore tend to have stronger socialization skills.

Numerous studies since Adler's have been conducted on the effect ofbirth order and personality. These studies have tended to classify birth order types into four different categories: first-born, second-born and/or middle, last, and only child.

Studies have consistently shown that first-born children tend to exhibit similar, positive and negative personality traits. First-borns have consistently been linked with academic achievement in various studies; in one study, the number of National Merit scholarship winners who are first- borns was found to be equal to the number of second-and third-borns combined. First-borns have been found to be more responsible and assertive than those born in other birth-order positions and tend to rise to positions of leadership more often than others; more first-borns have served in the u.s. Congress and as u.s. presidents than have those born in other birth-order positions. However, studies have shown that first-borns tend to be more subject to stress and were considered problem children more often than later-borns.

Second-born and/or middle children demonstrate markedly different tendencies from first- borns. They tend to feel inferior to the older child or children because it is difficult for them to comprehend that their lower level of achievement is a function of age rather than ability, and they often try to succeed in areas other than those in which their older sibling or siblings excel. They tend to be more trusting, accepting, and focused on others than the more self-centered first-borns, and they tend to have a comparatively higher level of success in team sports than do first-borns or only children, who more often excel in individual sports.

The last-born child is the one who tends to be the eternal baby of the family and thus often exhibits a strong sense of security. Last-borns collectively achieve the highest degree of social success and demonstrate the highest levels of self-esteem of all the birth-order positions. They often exhibit less competitiveness than older brothers and sisters and are more likely to take part in less competitive group games or in social organizations such as sororities and fraternities.

Only children tend to exhibit some of the main characteristics of first-borns and some of the characteristics of last-borns. Only children tend to exhibit the strong sense of security and self-esteem exhibited by last-borns while, like first-borns, they are more achievement oriented and more likely than middle-or last-borns to achieve academic success. However, only children tend to have the most problems establishing close relationships and exhibit a lower need for affiliation than other children.

The word traits in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to________.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
The Forbidden City is the former imperial palace in the center of Beijing, China. Construction began in 1406, and the emperor’s (1)_______ officially moved in by 1420. The Forbidden City got its name because most people were barred (2) _______ entering the 72- hectare site, surrounded by walls. Even government officials and the imperial family were permitted only limited access. Only the emperor could enter any section at (3)_______. The architecture of the Forbidden City conforms rigidly to traditional Chinese principles. All buildings within the walls follow a north-south line and the most important ones face south to honor the sun. The designers arranged the other buildings, and the ceremonial spaces between them, to impress all visitors with the great power of the Emperor, while reinforcing the (4)_____ of the individual. This architectural concept was carried out to the smallest detail. For example, the importance of a building was determined not only by its height or width but also by the style of its roof and the quantity of statuettes placed on the roof’s ridges. In (5)_____ of the importance of its unparalleled architecture, UNESCO added the palace to its World Heritage List in 1987. Today, visitors from all over the world do not wait for an imperial invitation to walk about this palace, now a museum of imperial art

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Deforestation has important global consequences. Forests sequester carbon in the  form of wood and other biomass as the trees grow, taking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. When forests are burned, their carbon is returned to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that has the potential to alter global climate, and the trees are no longer present to sequester more carbon.  In addition, most of the planet’s valuable biodiversity is within forests, particularly tropical ones. Moist tropical forests such as the Amazon have the greatest concentrations of  animal and plant species of any terrestrial ecosystem; perhaps two-thirds of Earth’s species live only in these forests. As deforestation proceeds, it has the potential to cause the extinction of increasing numbers of these species.  On a more local scale, the effects of forest clearing, selective logging, and fires interact. Selective logging increases the flammability of the forest because it converts a closed, wetter forest into a more open, drier one. This leaves the forest vulnerable to the accidental movement of fires from cleared adjacent agricultural lands and to the killing effects of natural droughts. As wildfires, logging, and droughts continue, the forest can become progressively more open until all the trees are lost. Additionally, the burning of tropical forests is generally a seasonal phenomenon and can severely impact air quality. Record-breaking levels of air pollution have occurred in Southeast Asia as the result of burning for oil palm plantations.  In the tropics, much of the deforested land exists in the form of steep mountain hillsides. The combination of steep slopes, high rainfall, and the lack of tree roots to bind the soil can lead to disastrous landslides that destroy fields, homes, and human lives. With the significant exception of the forests destroyed for the oil palm industry, many of the humid forests that have been cleared are soon abandoned as croplands or only used for lowdensity grazing because the soils are extremely poor in nutrients. The vegetation that contains most of the nutrients is often burned, and the nutrients literally “go up in smoke” or are washed away in the next rain. Although forests may regrow after being cleared and then abandoned, this is not always the case, especially if the remaining forests are highly fragmented. Such habitat fragmentation isolates populations of plant and animal species from each other, making it difficult to reproduce without genetic bottlenecks, and the fragments may be too small to support large or territorial animals. Furthermore, deforested lands that are planted with commercially important trees lack biodiversity and do not serve as habitats for native plants
and animals, many of which are endangered species.
2. What does the author imply in paragraph 2?

Choose the best answer:
Mai and Hung were ill, so …went to school today.

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

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

According to the passage, the banded gecko .

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 following questions:
It’s often said that we team things at the wrong time. University students frequently do the minimum of work because they’re crazy about a good social life instead. Children often scream before their piano practice 5 because it’s so boring. They have to be given gold stars and medals to be persuaded to swim, or have to be bribed to take exams. But the story is different when you’re older.
Over the years, I’ve done my share of adult learning. At 30, I went to a college and did courses in History and English. It was an amazing experience. For starters, I was paying, so there was no reason to be late - I was the one frowning and drumming my fingers if the tutor was late, not the other way round. Indeed, if I could persuade him to linger for an extra five minutes, it was a bonus, not a nuisance. I wasn’t frightened to ask questions, and homework was a pleasure not a pain. When I passed an exam, I had a big meal, not for my parents or my teachers. The satisfaction I got was entirely personal.
Some people fear going back to school because they worry that their brains have got rusty. But the joy is that, although some parts have rusted up, your brain has learnt all kinds of other things since you were young. It has learnt to think independently and flexibly and is much better at relating one thing to another. What you lose in the rust department, you gain in the maturity department.
In some ways, age is a positive plus. For instance, when you’re older, you get less frustrated. Experience has told you that, if you’re calm and simply do something carefully again and again, eventually you’ll get the hang of it. The confidence you have in other areas - from being able to drive a car, perhaps - means that if you can’t, say, build a chair instantly, you don’t, like a child, want to destroy your first pathetic attempts. Maturity tells you that you will, with application, eventually get there.
I hated piano lessons at school, but I was good at music. And coming back to it, with a teacher who could explain why certain exercises were useful and with musical concepts that, at the age of ten. I could never grasp, was magical. Initially, I did feel a bit strange, thumping out a piece that I’d played for my school exams, with just as little comprehension of what the composer intended as I’d had all those years before. But soon, complex emotions that I never knew poured out from my fingers, and suddenly I could understand why practice makes perfect.

The word “they” in paragraph 1 refers to     .

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Many prehistoric people subsisted as hunters and gatherers. Undoubtedly, game  animals, including some very large species, provided major components of human diets. An important controversy centering on the question of human effects on prehistoric  wildlife concerns the sudden disappearance of so many species of large animals at or near the end of the Pleistocene epoch. Most paleontologists suspect that abrupt changes in climate led to the mass extinctions. Others, however, have concluded that prehistoric people drove many of those species to extinction through overhunting. In their “Pleistocene overkill hypothesis,” they cite what seems to be a remarkable coincidence between the arrival of prehistoric peoples in North and South America and the time during which mammoths, giant ground sloths, the giant bison, and numerous other large mammals became extinct.  Perhaps the human species was driving others to extinction long before the dawn of history. Hunter-gatherers may have contributed to Pleistocene extinctions in more indirect ways. Besides overhunting, at least three other kinds of effects have been suggested: direct competition, imbalances between competing species of game animals, and early agricultural practices. Direct competition may have brought about the demise of large carnivores such as the saber-toothed cats. These animals simply may have been unable to compete with the increasingly sophisticated hunting skills of Pleistocene people.  Human hunters could have caused imbalances among game animals, leading to the extinctions of species less able to compete. When other predators such as the gray wolf prey upon large mammals, they generally take high proportions of each year’s crop of young. Some human hunters, in contrast, tend to take the various age-groups of large animals in proportion to their actual occurrence. If such hunters first competed with the larger predators and then replaced them, they may have allowed younger to survive each year, gradually increasing the populations of favored species. As these populations expanded, they in turn may have competed with other game species for the same environmental niche, forcing the less hunted species into extinction. This theory, suggests that human hunters played an indirect role in Pleistocene extinctions by hunting one species more than another. 
5. The author mentions saber-toothed cats in paragraph 3 as an example of a carnivore that ____.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
In 1959 Xerox created the first plain paper copy machine. It was one of the most  successful products ever. The company name Xerox grew into a verb that means “to copy,” as in “Bob, can you Xerox this for me?” Around 50 years later, the same thing happened to Google. Their company name grew into a verb that means “to do an internet search.” Now everyone and their grandma knows what it means to Google it.  Unlike Xerox, Google wasn’t the first company to invent their product, not by a long shot. Lycos released their search engine in 1993. Yahoo! came out in 1994. AltaVista began serving results in 1995. Google did not come out until years later, in 1998. Though a few years difference may not seem like much, this is a major head start in the fast moving world of tech. So how did Google do it? How did they overtake their competitors who had such huge leads in time and money? Maybe one good idea made all the difference.  There are millions and millions of sites on the internet. How does a search engine know which ones are relevant to your search? This is a question that great minds have been working on for decades. To understand how Google changed the game, you need to know how search engines worked in 1998. Back then most websites looked at the words in your query. They counted how many times those words appeared on each page. Then they might return pages where the words in your query appeared the most. This system did not work well and people often had to click through pages and pages of results to find what they wanted.  Google was the first search engine that began considering links. Links are those blue underlined words that take you to other pages when you click on them. Larry Page, cofounder of Google, believed that meaningful data could be drawn from how those links connect. Page figured that websites with many links pointing at them were more important than those that had few. He was right. Google’s search results were much better than their rivals. They would soon become the world’s most used search engine.  It wasn’t just the great search results that led to Google becoming so wellliked. It also had to do with the way that they presented their product. Most of the other search engines were cluttered. Their home pages were filled with everything from news stories to stock quotes. But Google’s homepage was, and still is, clean. There’s nothing on it but the logo, the search box, and a few links. It almost appears empty. In fact, when they were first testing it, users would wait at the home page and not do anything. When asked why, they said that they were, “waiting for the rest of the page to load.” People couldn’t imagine such a clean and open page as being complete. But the fresh design grew on people once they got used to it. 
6. How did Google improve search quality in 1998?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Adharanand Finn is a British journalist and a keen runner. Recently, he did the Fluorspar run in Kenya with a group of top Kenyan athletes. Here is the story he told the press after the event. The route of the Fluorspar run is exactly 21 km long and is uphill from start to finish. When I arrived at the start of the run at the bottom of the hill, the morning sun was up, and it was already hot. The ten athletes and I stood together for a group photograph and then immediately started our run up to the top. Most of the athletes who live in this part of Kenya have done it at least once. After about five minutes, I was already starting to fall behind other runners. I’ve never been that good at hill climbing, so I always knew I’d find it thorny. ‘Sure and steady,’ I told myself as I ran along, avoiding the biggest stones and trying to take the shortest line up the hill. But whenever I looked up, the others were further ahead, until soon they disappeared completely. At first I felt fine, but towards the end I began to feel a bit weak and strange. I don’t know now if I was imagining things but the people I passed, who were travelling down the road, seemed to be laughing at me. Finally, I reached the top. The rest of the runners were sitting on the grass, drinking lemonade and eating peanuts and boiled eggs. It took me one hour and fifty eight minutes, which is not bad at all. The others told me kindly that anyone who can run it in under two hours is very strong. They completed it much faster, in around one hour 30 minutes. I honestly have no idea how they do it.  
5. What is the writer doing in this text?

Rewrite the sentence:
I find cooking in my free time relaxing.