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.
            Finding Beauty in the City
Cities are known to have lives of their own, and photographers are able to (1).............. some of it. Whether taking shots of people walking on a crowded street or time-lapse shots of cars driving at night, the (2).......photos can be breathtaking. Because many of the shots taken are of man-made objects like architecture, many emotions that come into (3)........ wouldn’t be found in nature photography. Photos can show the wonder of a child staring at a fountain as water shoots upward in the sunlight. They can also show the sadder side, such as a camp of homeless people living in terrible poverty. (4)............ of what they show, there is always beauty to be found, even if it is beauty in something that is showing an ugly truth. Depending on the time of the day, photos taken in an urban environment can change drastically. To see the (5)............ of a building as its shadow is cast on the lawn of a park is always amazing to see.
(4).........................

Being aware of one's own emotions - recognizing and acknowledging feelings as they happen - is at the very heart of Emotional Intelligence. And this awareness encompasses not only moods but also thoughts about those moods. People who are able to monitor their feelings as they arise are less likely to be ruled by them and are thus better able to manage their emotions.
Managing emotions does not mean suppressing them; nor does it mean giving free rein to every feeling. Psychologist Daniel Goleman, one of several authors who have popularized the notion of Emotional Intelligence, insisted that the goal is balance and that every feeling has value and significance. As Goleman said, "A life without passion would be a dull wasteland of neutrality, cut off and isolated from the richness of life itself." Thus, we manage our emotions by expressing them in an appropriate manner. Emotions can also be managed by engaging in activities that cheer us up, soothe our hurts, or reassure us when we feel anxious.
Clearly, awareness and management of emotions are not independent. For instance, you might think that individuals who seem to experience their feelings more intensely than others would be less able to manage them. However, a critical component of awareness of emotions is the ability to assign meaning to them - to know why we are experiencing a particular feeling or mood. Psychologists have found that, among individuals who experience intense emotions, individual differences in the ability to assign meaning to those feelings predict differences in the ability to manage them. In other words, if two individuals are intensely angry, the one who is better able to understand why he or she is angry will also be better able to manage the anger.
Self-motivation refers to strong emotional self-control, which enables a person to get moving and pursue worthy goals, persist at tasks even when frustrated, and resist the temptation to act on impulse. Resisting impulsive behavior is, according to Goleman, "the root of all emotional self- control."
Of all the attributes of Emotional Intelligence, the ability to postpone immediate gratification and to persist in working toward some greater future gain is most closely related to success - whether one is trying to build a business, get a college degree, or even stay on a diet. One researcher examined whether this trait can predict a child's success in school. The study showed that 4-year-old children who can delay instant gratification in order to advance toward some future goal will be "far superior as students" when they graduate from high school than will 4-year-olds who are not able to resist the impulse to satisfy their immediate wishes.

Which of the following can we infer from paragraph 1?

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, most guyots are found at a depth of ..............

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 .”

Which of the following may be true ?

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.”

Which of the following could NOT be inferred about Andrew Jackson?

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:
Most volcanoes are found along an imaginary belt, called the Ring of Fire, that encircles the Pacific Ocean. However, volcanic activity takes place in many far-flung regions of the world such as Hawaii, Iceland, Europe, and even the floor of the earth’s oceans. The leading theory as to why volcanic activity, as well as earthquakes, takes place when and where it does is called the theory of “plate tectonics”. The theory holds that the outer shell of the earth is divided into many different rigid sections of rock, called plates. These plates are not static, they are in continuous motion over a layer of partly melted rock. While their movement may appear insignificant, at only several inches per year, it is not. Indeed, the collisions between plates caused by this almost imperceptible movement can have catastrophic consequences. Volcanic activity and earthquakes are concentrated near the boundaries of these giant, moving plates.
The majority of volcanoes are formed at te point where two plates collide. One of the plates is forced underneath the other. As the plate sinks, the earth’s heat and the friction of the movement cause a portion of the sinking plate to melt. This melted portion of plate is called magma, and when it reaches the earth’s surface it becomes a volcano. Volcanoes can also be created when two plates begin to diverge. Then, magma from below the earth’s crust moves up to fill the void between the two plates. Large quantities of lava spill out from the void. Volcanoes of this type usually are found not on land, but on the ocean floor. In extreme instances this can lead to the formation of gigantic, sunken mountain ranges like Mid-Atlantic Ridge that spans nearly the entire length of the Atlantic Ocean. The theory of plate tectonics also explains why some volcanic activity takes place so far from any known plate boundaries. Basically, these volcanoes are the result of huge column of magma, or plumes, that rise up and break through the surface of the earth.

The word “imperceptible" is closest in meaning to    .

Choose the best answer: 
Jeans are very popular with (23) _________ people all over the world. Some people say that
jeans are the “uniform” of youth. But they haven’t always been popular. The story of jeans started (24) _________ two hundred years ago. People in Genoa, Italy made pants so the cloth made in Genoa (25) _________ “jeanos”. Accordingly, the pants were called “jeans”.
   In 1850, a salesman in California began selling pants made of canvas. His name was Levi Strauss. Because they were so strong, “Levi’s pants” became (26)_________ gold miners, farmers and cowboys. Six years later, Levi began making his pants with blue cotton cloth called denim. Soon after, factory (27) _________in the US and Europe began wearing jeans. At the time, young people actually didn’t wear them very much until later on.
25. 

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.

To which class of protozoans do the amoebae belong?

Choose the best answer: 
Hurricane Dorian was the strongest hurricane on record to (1)...........the Bahamas, and is regarded as the worst natural disaster in the country’s history. On 1 September 2019, Dorian hit the Abaco Islands with sustained winds (2)............... 185 mph (295 km/h). It made landfall as a (3)................ 5 hurricane on Elbow Cay, just east of Great Abaco Island, and went on to strike Grand Bahama at similar intensity, stalling just north of the territory with unrelenting winds for at least 24 hours. Damage in the Bahamas was (4)................ due to the prolonged and intense storm conditions, including heavy rainfall, high winds and storm surge with thousands of homes destroyed, 70,000 people (5)................ homeless, and at least 58 deaths recorded. As of September 28, 600 people still remain missing. Dorian is (6).............. the costliest disaster in Bahamian history, estimated to have left behind an exceptional $7 billion in property damage.(7)................ its ravages through the Bahamas, Dorian proceeded along the coasts of the Southeastern United States and Atlantic Canada, leaving behind considerable damage and economic (8).............. in those regions.

1. 

No educational medium better as means of spatial communication than the atlas. Atlases deal with such invaluable information as population distribution and density. One of the best, Pennycooke's World Atlas, has been widely accepted as a standard owing to the quality of its maps and photographs, which not only show various settlements but also portray them in a variety of scales. In fact, the very first map in the atlas is a cleverly designed population cartogram that projects the size of each country if geographical size were proportional to population. Following the proportional layout, a sequence of smaller maps shows the world’s population density, each country’s birth and death rates, population increase or decrease, industrialization, urbanization, gross national product in terms of per capita income, the quality of medical care, literacy, and language. To give readers a perspective on how their own country fits in with the global view, additional projections depict the world's patterns in nutrition, calorie and protein consumption, health care, number of physicians per unit of population, and life expectancy by region. Population density maps on a subcontinental scale, as well as political maps. Convey the diverse demographic phenomena of the world in a broad array of scales.

 It can be inferred from the passage that maps can be used 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:
Living things include both the visible world of animals, plants, and fungi as well as the invisible world of bacteria and viruses. On a basic level, we can say that life is ordered. Organisms have an enormously complex organization. We're all familiar with the intricate systems of the basic unit of life, the cell. Life can also "work." Living creatures can take in energy from the environment. This energy, in the form of food, is transformed to maintain metabolic processes and for survival. Life grows and develops. This means more than just replicating or getting larger in size. Living organisms also have the ability to rebuild and repair themselves when injured. Life can reproduce. Think about the last time you accidentally stubbed your toe. Almost instantly, you moved back in pain. Finally, life can adapt and respond to the demands placed on it by the environment. There are three basic types of adaptations that can occur in higher organisms.
Reversible changes occur as a response to changes in the environment. Let's say you live near sea level and you travel to a mountainous area. You may begin to experience difficulty breathing and an increase in heart rate as a result of the change in altitude. These symptoms go away when you go back down to sea level. Body-related changes occur as a result of prolonged changes in the environment. Using there previous example, if you were to stay in the mountainous area for a long time, you would notice that your heart rate would begin to slow down and you would begin to breath normally. These changes are also reversible. Genotypic changes (caused by genetic mutation) take place within the genetic makeup of the organism and are not reversible. An example would be the development of resistance to pesticides by insects and spiders.

What does the word “reversible” in the passage mean?

Choose the best answer: 
We are all slowly (1) __________ the earth. The seas and rivers are too dirty to swim in.
There is so much smoke in the air that it is unhealthy to live in many of the world’s cities. In one well-
known city, for example, poisonous gases (2) __________ cars pollute the air so much that traffic
policemen have to wear oxygen masks. We have cut down (3) __________ trees that there are now
vast areas of wasteland all over the world. As a result, farmers in parts of Africa cannot grow enough
(4) __________. In certain countries in Asia, there is too little rice. Moreover, we do not take care of
the countryside.
Wild animals are quickly disappearing. For instance, tigers are rare in India now because we
have killed too many of them. However, it isn’t enough simply to talk about the problem. We must act
now before it is too late to do (5) __________ about it. Join us now. Save the Earth!
1. 

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.
              THE FUTURE OF WATER
Many of us often wonder what the future holds; some believe major advances in technology will occur which will result in improvements to our everyday lives. Scientists have predicted shortages in fossil fuels and changes in the weather patterns of the world. (1).......... , one significant change that will have an alarming impact on all of us is the global water shortage. Analysts have forecast that some of the consequences of this will be mass migration from Africa to Europe and wars between countries over clean water. The main causes of this disturbing water shortage are global warming, climate change and the increasing world population. The supply of fresh water (2)....... comes from mountain glaciers and  flows  into  lakes  and  rivers  is  diminishing,  and  this also (3).......... to the shortage. Water analysts and government leaders need to start making radical changes to the way water use is managed and they need to find new sources that will be able to meet the demands of an ever-growing population.  In addition, more things need to be done to control global warming as this will help to reduce water shortages.   People   should   be made  (4)......... of the situation and warned not to waste water. Multinational companies should invest in developing better water management systems. In summary, if we start (5) ............. action now, we might be able to prevent a world disaster.
(2).................................

Choose the best answer: 
Jeans are very popular with (23) _________ people all over the world. Some people say that
jeans are the “uniform” of youth. But they haven’t always been popular. The story of jeans started (24) _________ two hundred years ago. People in Genoa, Italy made pants so the cloth made in Genoa (25) _________ “jeanos”. Accordingly, the pants were called “jeans”.
   In 1850, a salesman in California began selling pants made of canvas. His name was Levi Strauss. Because they were so strong, “Levi’s pants” became (26)_________ gold miners, farmers and cowboys. Six years later, Levi began making his pants with blue cotton cloth called denim. Soon after, factory (27) _________in the US and Europe began wearing jeans. At the time, young people actually didn’t wear them very much until later on.
26.

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 is likely to be over-controlled by the government?

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:
Puerto Rico, a Caribbean island rich in history and remarkable natural beauty, has a cuisine all its own. Immigration to the island has helped to shape its cuisine, with people from all over the world making various contributions to it. However, before the arrival of these immigrants, the island of Puerto Rico was already known as Borikén and was inhabited by the Taíno people. Taíno cuisine included such foods as rodents with sweet chili peppers, fresh shellfish, yams, and fish fried in corn oil.
Many aspects of Taíno cuisine continue today in Puerto Rican cooking, but it has been heavily influenced by the Spanish, who invaded Puerto Rico in 1508, and Africans, who were initially brought to Puerto Rico to work as slaves. (2)Taíno cooking styles were mixed with ideas brought by the Spanish and Africans to create new dishes. (3) Africans also added to the island’s food culture by introducing powerful, contrasting tastes in dishes like piñon–plantains layered in ground beef. In fact, much of the food Puerto Rico is now famous for—plantains, coffee, sugarcane, coconuts, and oranges—was actually imported by foreigners to the island. (4)
A common assumption many people make about Puerto Rican food is that it is very spicy. It’s true that chili peppers are popular; ajícaballero in particular is a very hot chili pepper that Puerto Ricans enjoy. However, milder tastes are popular too, such as sofrito. The 25 base of many Puerto Rican dishes, sofrito is a sauce made from chopped onions, garlic, green bell peppers, sweet chili peppers, oregano, cilantro, and a handful of other spices. It is fried in oil and then added to other dishes.

What is the main idea of the second paragraph?

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.
          Keeping the World in Our Pockets
Faster processors and advances in memory technology have made today’s smartphones much more powerful than a lot of computers from just a decade ago. With wireless technology, people can surf the Internet, play online games, send e-mail, and do (1)............ all the things they once could only do on a computer. (2)......... , they have the power to do things constantly at their fingertips.
Many people (3)....... that while smartphones are powerful tools, they are making people reliant on them. Why would a person need to learn to read a map when he can get directions to anywhere by simply asking his phone a question? Who needs to learn maths when you have immense calculating power in your pocket at all times? What (4).........is there to memorise facts about history, art, or geography when that information is readily available from a portable Internet interface?
There are just some of the questions being asked and answered as smartphone usage continues to spread. Like any technology, smartphones have their advantages, but they do have disadvantages as well that we must (5).......... an eye on.
(2)............................

Interest is the sum charged for borrowing money for a fixed period of time. Principal is the term used for the money that is borrowed, and the rate of interest is the percent per year of the principal charged for its use. Most of the profits for a bank are derived from the interest that they charge for the use of their own or their depositor’s money.
All problems in interest may be solved by using one general equation that may be stated as follows:
Interest = Principal X Rate X Time
Any one of the four quantities – that is, interest, principal, rate, or time – may be found when the other three are known. The time is expressed in years. The rate is expressed as a decimal fraction. Thus, 6 percent interest means six cents charged for the use of $1 of principal borrowed for one year. Although the time may be less than, equal to, or greater than one year, most applications for loans are for periods of less than one year. For purpose of computing interest for short periods, the commercial year or 360 days is commonly used, but when large sums of money are involved, exact interest is computed on the basis of 365 days.

Which of the following would be a correct expression of an interest rate as stated in the equation for computing interest?

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:
The nuclear family, consisting of a mother, father, and their children, may be more an American ideal than an American reality. Of course, the so-called traditional American family was always more varied than we had been led to believe, reflecting the very different racial, ethnic, class, and religious customs among different American groups.
The most recent government statistics reveal that only about one third of all current American families  fit the traditional mold and another third consists of married couples who either have no children or have none still living at home. Of the final one third, about 20 percent of the total number of American households are single people, usually women over sixty-five years of age. A small percentage, about 3 percent of the total, consists of unmarried people who choose to live together; and the rest, about 7 percent are single, usually divorced parents, with at least one child.
Today, these varied family types are typical, and therefore, normal. Apparently, many Americans are achieving supportive relationships in family forms other than the traditional one.

Who generally constitutes a one-person household?

For a time, the Hubble telescope was the brunt of jokes and subject to the wrath of those who believed the U.S government had spent too much money on space projects that served no valid purpose. The Hubble was sent into orbit with a satellite by the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990 amid huge hype and expectation. Yet after it was in position, it simply did not work. Because the primary mirror was misshapen, it was not until 1993 that the crew of the Shuttle Endeavor arrived like roadside mechanics, opened the hatch that was installed for the purpose, and replaced the defective mirror with a good one.
Suddenly, all that had originally been expected came true. The Hubble telescope was indeed the “window on the universe”, as it had originally been dubbed. When you look deep into space, you are actually looking back through time, because even though light travels at 186,000 miles a second, it requires time to get from one place to another. In fact, it is said that in some cases, the Hubble telescope is looking back eleven billion years to see galaxies already forming. The distant galaxies are speeding away from Earth, some travelling at the speed of light.
Hubble has viewed exploding stars such as the Eta Carinae, which clearly displayed clouds of gas and dust billowing outward from its poles at 1.5 million miles an hour. Prior to Hubble, it was visible from traditional telescopes on Earth, but its details were not as certainable. But now, the evidence of the explosion is obvious. The star still burns five million times brighter than the Sun and illuminates clouds from the inside.
Hubble has also provided a close look at black holes, which are described as comic drains. Gas and dust swirl around the drain and are slowly sucked in by the incredible gravity. It has also looked into an area that looked empty to the naked eye and, within a region the size of a grain of sand, located layer upon layer of galaxies, with each galaxy consisting of billions of stars.
The Hubble telescope was named after Edwin Hubble, a 1920s astronomer who developed a formula that expresses the proportional relationship of distances between clusters of galaxies and the speeds at which they travel. Astronomers use stars known as Cepheid variables to measure distances in space. These stars dim and brighten from time to time, and they are photographed over time and charted. All the discoveries made by Hubble have allowed astronomers to learn more about the formation of early galaxies.

The word “billowing” in the third paragraph is closest meaning to ..........