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On the tiny island of Flores, east of Bali and midway between Asia and Australia, the scientists have discovered the remains of a small, hobbit-like species of humans. These people grew no larger than the modern three-year-old child. They lived about 18,000 years ago and are completely different species of human.
This discovery has taught scientists a lot about the human species. This remarkable discovery shows that the human species is more varied and flexible in its ability to adapt than previously thought. These hobbit-like people join a short list of other type of humans that lived with modern humans.
The researchers believe that these hobbits evolved from a normal size, human population that reached Flores around 840,000 years ago. One likely explanation is that, over thousands of years, the species became smaller because the environmental conditions favored a smaller body size. The dwarfing of mammals on islands occurs frequently. Islands limit food supply and predators and species compete for the same environmental space. Survival would depend on minimizing energy requirements.
Which is the main topic of this passage?
Suy nghĩ và trả lời câu hỏi trước khi xem đáp án
Lời giải:
Báo saiChủ đề chính của đoạn văn là khám phá chủng tộc người Hobbit và tầm quan trọng của họ
Câu hỏi liên quan
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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.What does the passage say about the Arctic Ocean?
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Fifty-five delegates representing all thirteen states except Rhode Island attended the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia from May to September 1787. The delegates had been instructed by the Continental Congress to revise the old Articles of Confederation, but most believed that a stronger central government was needed. There were differences, however, about what structure the government should take and how much influence large states should have.
Virginia was by far the most populous state, with twice as many as people as New York, four times as many as New Jersey, and ten times as many as Delaware. The leader of the Virginia delegation, James Madison, had already drawn up a plan for government, which became known as the Large State Plan. Its essence was that congressional representation would be based on population. It provided for two or more national executives. The smaller states feared that under this plan, a few large states would lord over the rest. New Jersey countered with the Small State Plan. It provided for equal representation for all states in a national legislature and for a single national executive. Angry debate, heightened by a stifling heat wave, led to deadlock.
A cooling of tempers seemed to come with lower temperatures. The delegates hammered out an agreement known as the Great Compromise- actually a bundle of shrewd compromises. They decided that Congress would consist of two houses. The larger states were granted representation based on population in the lower house, the House of Representatives. The smaller states were given equal representation in the upper house, the Senate, in which each state would have two senators regardless of population. It was also agreed that there would be a single executive, the president. This critical compromise broke the logjam, and from then on, success seemed within reach.The phrase “this plan” refers to
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It is often considered that the schoolyard is where bullies go to make other kids a miserable school life, but a new study suggests that classrooms are another popular place.
The study, presented recently at the American Public Health Association’s yearly meeting in Philadelphia, is based on the results of the research from more than 10,000 middle school students who answered questions online.
Of those researched, 43% said they’d been physically bullied within the last month. A bit more than half said they had been laughed at in an unfriendly way, and half reported being called hurtful names. About one third said groups had excluded them to hurt their feelings. 28% said their belongings had been taken or broken; 21% said someone had threatened to hurt them. According to the results, two-thirds of the students said they had been bullied in more than one way over the previous month.
The study authors mentioned that 8% of the students who answered said they had missed school at least once during the school year because of fear of being bullied, 25% said they had taken other actions, such as missing recess, not going to the bathroom or lunch, missing classes, or staying away from some area of the school to escape from experiencing a bully. Bullies did too much to the school life.
Question 31. How does the writer feel about bullies at school?
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Are organically grown foods the best food choices? The advantages claimed for such foods over conventionally grown and marketed food products are now being debated. Advocates of organic foods - a term whose meaning varies greatly - frequently proclaim that such products are safer and more nutritious than others.
The growing interest of consumers in the safety and nutritional quality of the typical North American diet is a welcome development. However, much of this interest has been sparked by sweeping claims that the food supply is unsafe or inadequate in meeting nutritional needs.
Although most of these claims are not supported by scientific evidence, the preponderance of written material advancing such claims makes it difficult for the general public to separate fact from fiction. As a result, claims that eating a diet consisting entirely of organically grown foods prevents or cures disease or provides other benefits to health have become widely publicized and form the basis for folklore.
Almost daily the public is besieged by claims for “no-aging” diets, new vitamins, and other wonder foods. There are numerous unsubstantiated reports that natural vitamins are superior to synthetic ones, that fertilized eggs are nutritionally superior to unfertilized eggs, that untreated grains are better than fumigated grains, and the like.
One thing that most organically grown food products seem to have in common is that they cost more than conventionally grown foods. But in many cases consumers are misled if they believe organic foods can maintain health and provide better nutritional quality than conventionally grown foods. So there is real cause for concern if consumers, particularly those with limited incomes, distrust the regular food supply and buy only expensive organic foods instead.The author implies that there is cause for concern if consumers with limited incomes buy organic foods instead of conventionally grown foods because ..........
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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to get your dream job? It can take years to get the education and develop the skills you need for the perfect job. However, there is a way to experience your dream job without having to get the required training or degree. Since 2004, Brian Kurth’s company, Vocation Vacations, has been connecting people with mentors who have the jobs of their dreams.
Kurth had been working for a phone company before starting his own company. He didn’t like his job, and he had a long time to think about it on his drive to and from work. He also thought about his dream job while driving. He was interested in becoming a dog trainer, but he didn’t want to take any chances and switch to a field he didn’t have experience in. He really wanted to know what the job was like and if it was realistic for him to work towards his goal. So, he found a mentor – a dog trainer that could tell him about the job and everything it involved. After that, he helped his friends find mentors to explore jobs they were interested in. They thought it was helpful to talk to people who had their dream jobs before spending lots of time and money getting the training they needed for those jobs.
Kurth saw how much this helped his friends, so he decided to turn it into his business. He started Vocation Vacations in 2004, and by 2005, the company was offering experience with over 200 dream jobs. Today, about 300 mentors work with the company to share their knowledge about their jobs. Customers pay to experience the job of their dreams and work with these mentors to see what a job is really like. A “job vacation” costs between $350 and $3,000 and can be for one to three days. Many people use Vocation Vacations to see if their dream job is a career path they want to continue. Others do it just to experience the job of their dreams one time.
Vocation Vacations jobs are in the fields of fashion, food, entertainment, sports and animals. Many people want to try glamorous jobs. For example, they want to try working as actors, music producers, photographers and fashion designers. According to Kurth, some other popular dream jobs are working as bakers, hotel managers and wedding planners.What do mentors at Vocation Vacations do?
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Working on the computer is very tough on your body, which is not used to this modem type of work. Sitting has long been known to cause back pain and negatively influence circulation, which can promote cardiovascular disease. Extensive use of the keyboard and mouse can lead to stiffening of the muscles in your hands, arms, and neck. Staring at a bright screen for too long can cause dry eyes and headaches. So, computer work can be as unhealthy a job as you can imagine.
First and foremost, sitting for long stretches of time is a very serious health risk! Sitting affects your blood circulation, your back experiences a steady stress, you are more likely to drink and eat stuff that isn’t good for you, and you bum very little calories, making it more likely that you overeat. As a result, sitting contributes to a host of conditions, most notably gaining weight, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and consequently a shortened life span.
Second, bad posture causes pain. You can develop bad posture from anything you do habitually, whether it’s sitting, standing, or walking. The typical consequences associated with bad posture while working on the computer are pain in the back, shoulder, and neck, often resulting in tension headaches.
Third, staring at the screen causes eve strain. Staring at a bright screen for hours can lead to eye fatigue or eye strain, headaches, blurred vision, burning, itching or tearing eyes, and temporary vision disorders. Fortunately, eye strain rarely results in a permanent condition and symptoms can be prevented or cured rather easily.
Last, but not least, emotional pressure and isolation cause anxiety and depression. Computers are very efficient tools in that they help us with getting more work done in less time. At the same time, you spend less face-to-face time with your colleagues, family, or friends. This can lead to isolation, anxiety, and depression, i.e. both physical and mental health issues. The symptoms are manifold and can include tense muscles, back pain, headaches, poor sleep (insomnia), increased or flat breathing, quickened pulse, and generally signs of stress, depression, or anxiety.What is the organization of the passage?
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Every year about two million people visit Mount Rushmore, were the faces of four U.S presidents were carved in granite by sculptor Gutzon Borglum and his son, the late Lincoln Borglum. The creation of the Mount Rushmore monument Line took 14 years – from 1927 to 1941 – and nearly a million dollars. There were times when money was difficult to come by and many people were jobless. To move more than 400,000 tons of rock, Borglum hired laid-off workers from the closed-down mines in the Black Hills area. He taught these men to dynamite, drill, carve, and finish the granite as they were hanging in midair in his specially devised chairs, which had many safety features. Borglum was proud of the fact that no workers were killed or severely injured during the years of blasting and carving.
During the carving, many changes in original design had to be made to keep the carved heads free of large fissures that were uncovered. However, not all the cracks could be avoided, so Borglum concocted a mixture of granite dust, white lead, and linseed oil to fill them.
Every winter, water from melting snows gets into the fissures and expands as it freezes, making the fissures bigger. Consequently, every autumn maintenance work is done to refill the cracks. The repairers swing out in space over a 500-foot drop and fix the monument with the same mixture that Borglum used to preserve this national monument for future generations.The men who Borglum hired were
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Many of the world’s cities lie under a permanent blanket of smog. People are concerned about global warming, and fuel prices just keep going up and up. It’s no surprise therefore, that in recent years, car manufacturers have been put under pressure to invent a vehicle that is both cheaper to run and better for the environment. Finally, after much trial and error, it seems as though they might be making progress, and the future of the car industry is beginning to look a little “greener”.
One of the first ideas which car manufacturers tried was to replace engines which run on fossil fuels with electric motors. Unfortunately, these vehices had several drawbacks and they didn’t sell very well. The problems were that the batteries of these electric cars ran out very quickly and took a long time to recharge. Also, the replacement energy parts were very expensive.
However, the idea of electric cars has not been scrapped altogether. Car manufacturers have improved the concept so that environmentally friendly cars can now be efficient and economical as well. This is where the hybrid car, which has both an electric motor and a traditional petrol engine, comes in. The electric motor never needs to be recharged and it is much better for the planet than a traditional car.
In a hybrid car, the engine is controlled by a computer which determines whether the car runs on petrol, electricity, or both. When the car needs maximum power, for example, if it is accelerating or climbing a steep hill, it uses all of its resources, whereas at steady speeds it runs only on petrol. When slowing down or braking, the electric motor recharges its batteries.
Hybrid cars are better for the environment because the electric motor can help out whenever it is needed and they have a much smaller engine than a traditional car. Also, hybrid cars on the market are made using materials such as aluminium and carbon fibre, which makes them extremely light. Both of these factors mean that they use far less petrol than normal cars, so they produce less pollution.
Of course, hybrid cars aren’t perfect; they still run on fossil fuel and so pollute the environment to some extent. However, they may be the first step along the road to cleaner, “greener” cars. Car manufacturers are already working on vehicles which run on hydrogen. The only emission from these cars is harmless water vapor. These are still some way in the future, though, as designers need to think of cheap and safe ways of producing, transporting and storing hydrogen, but at last, it looks like we might be heading in the right direction.The computer in a hybrid car .
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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.Look at the four numbers (1), (2), (3), and (4) in paragraph 2 that indicate where this sentence can be added to the passage. Where would the sentence fit best?
The Spanish extended food choices by bringing cattle, pigs, 15 goats, and sheep to the island.
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Sir Anthony Van Dyck, one of the world’s greatest masters of portraiture, was born in Antwerp and was the seventh of twelve children. His affluent father apprenticed him to a painter when he was just a little over ten. Having become a member of the Antwerp Guild of painters before he was nineteen, he worked in the studio of Peter Paul Rubens for several years. In Italy, Van Dyck studied the great Venetian masters and painted flattering portraits of gorgeous ladies and haughty nobles in gilded velvet robes with lace and pearls. While he was sought after by the aristocracy for his acclaimed loose brushwork, his engravings and etchings also evinced his outstanding talent. Upon his return to Antwerp in 1628, he was influenced by Rubens’s interpretation of the artistic form and produced numerous religious paintings while holding an appointment as the court painter. During his tenure, he proved that his use of color, his sensitive elegance, and his remarkable insight were unexcelled.
His fame preceded him to England, where he was invited by King Charles I. After years of faithful service, he was knighted in recognition of his achievements in painting countless portraits of the king, the queen, the royal children, and the titled nobility of England.
However, Van Dyck’s greatest piece is one of his religious works, a true masterpiece displayed in the Antwerp gallery. This group scene exhibits his artful polish in painting the folds of fabric, the delicacy of human skin, landscape, and other externals, and puts him above other accomplished contemporary masters. Although Charles paid Van Dyck a salary and granted him a pension, the painter’s extravagant life-style and penchant for luxuries led him into debt, and he died without means.How did Charles I honor Van Dyck?
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Quite different from storm surges are the giant sea waves called tsunamis, which derive their name from the Japanese expression for “high water in a harbor.” These waves are also referred to by the general public as tidal waves, although they have relatively little to do with tides.
Scientists often referred to them as seismic sea waves, far more appropriate in that they do result from undersea seismic activity.
Tsunamis are caused when the sea bottom suddenly moves, during an underwater earthquake or volcano for example, and the water above the moving earth is suddenly displaced. This sudden shift of water sets off a series of waves. These waves can travel great distances at speeds close to 700 kilometers per hour. In the open ocean, tsunamis have little noticeable amplitude, often no more than one or two meters. It is when they hit the shallow waters near the coast that they increase in height, possibly up to 40 meters.
Tsunamis often occur in the Pacific because the Pacific is an area of heavy seismic activity.
Two areas of the Pacific well accustomed to the threat of tsunamis are Japan and Hawaii. Because the seismic activity that causes tsunamis in Japan often occurs on the ocean bottom quite close to the islands, the tsunamis that hit Japan often come with little warning and can, therefore, prove disastrous. Most of the tsunamis that hit the Hawaiian Islands, however, originate thousands of miles away near the coast of Alaska, so these tsunamis have a much greater distance to travel and the inhabitants of Hawaii generally have time for warning of their imminent arrival.
Tsunamis are certainly not limited to Japan and Hawaii. In 1755, Europe experienced a calamitous tsunami, when movement along the fault lines near the Azores caused a massive tsunami to sweep onto the Portuguese coast and flood the heavily populated area around Lisbon. The greatest tsunami on record occurred on the other side of the world in 1883 when the Krakatoa volcano underwent a massive explosion, sending waves more than 30 meters high onto nearby Indonesian islands; the tsunami from this volcano actually traveled around the world and was witnessed as far away as the English Channel.According to the passage, all of the following are true about tidal waves except that .............
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Loneliness is a curious thing. Most of us can remember feeling most lonely when we were not in fact alone at all, but when we were surrounded by people. Everyone has experienced, at some time, that utter sense of isolation that comes over you when you are at a party, in a room full of happy laughing people, or in an audience at a theatre or a lecture. It suddenly seems to you as if everybody knows everybody else, everybody is sure of himself, everybody knows what is going on; everybody, that is, except you. This feeling of loneliness which can overcome you when are in a crowd is very difficult to get rid of. People living alone - divorced, widowed or single people - are advised to tackle their loneliness by joining a club or society, by going out and meeting people. Does this really help? And what do you do if you are already surrounded by people? There are no easy solutions. Your first day at work, or at a new school or university, is a typical situation in which you are likely to feel lonely. You feel lonely because you feel left out of things. You feel that everybody else is full of confidence and knows what to do, but you are adrift and helpless. The fact of the matter is that, in order to survive, we all put on a show of self-confidence to hide our uncertainties and doubts. So it is wrong to assume that you are alone. In a big city it is particularly easy to get the feeling that everybody except you is leading a full, rich, busy life. Everybody is going somewhere, and you tend to assume that they are going somewhere nice and interesting, where they can find life and fulfilment. You are also going somewhere, and there is no reason at all to believe that your destination is any less, or, for that matter, any more exciting than the next man's. The trouble is that you may not be able to hide the fact that you are lonely, and the miserable look on your face might well put people off. After all, if you are at a party you are not likely to try to strike up a conversation with a person who has a gloomy expression on his face and his lips turned down at the comers. So trying to look reasonably cheerful is a good starting point in combating loneliness, even if you are choking inside. The next thing to avoid is finding yourself in a group where in fact you are a stranger, that is, in the sort of group where all the other people already know each other. There is a natural tendency for people to stick together, to form 'cliques'. You will do yourself no good by trying to establish yourself in a group which has so far managed to do very well without you. Groups generally resent intrusion, not because they dislike you personally, but because they have already had to work quite hard to turn the group into the functioning unit. To include you means having to go over a lot of ground again, so that you can learn their language, as it was, and get involved in their conversation at their level. Of course if you can offer something the group needs, such as expert information, you can get in quickly. In fact the surest way of getting to know others is to have an interest in common with them. There is no guarantee that you will then like each other, but at least part of your life will be taken up with sharing experiences with others. It is much better than always feeling alone. If all this seems to be a rather pessimistic view of life, you have to accept the fact that we are all alone when it comes down to it. When the most loving couple in the world kiss and say goodnight, as soon as the husband falls asleep, the wife realizes that she is alone, that her partner is as far away as if he were on another planet. But it is no cause for despair: there is always tomorrow.The word “fulfilment” in the passage is closest meaning to.....................
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Genetic modification of foods is not a new practice. It has been practiced for thousands of years under the name of "selective breeding". Animals and plants were chosen because they had traits that humans found useful. Some animals were larger and stronger than others, or they yielded more food, or they had some other trait that humans valued. Therefore, they were bred because of those traits. Individuals with those traits were brought together and allowed to breed in the hope that their offspring would have the same traits in greater measure.
Much the same thing was done with plants. To produce bigger or sweeter fruit, or grow more grain per unit of land, strains of plants were combined and recombined to produce hybrids, or crossbreeds that had the desired traits in the right combinations. All the while, however, biologists wondered: is there a more direct and versatile way to change the traits of plants and animals? Could we rewrite, so to speak, the heredity of organisms to make them serve our needs better?
In the 20th century, genetic modification made such changes possible at last. Now, it was possible to alter the genetic code without using the slow and uncertain process of selective breeding. It even became possible to blend plants and animals genetically: to insert animal genes into plants, for example, in order to give the plants a certain trait they ordinarily would lack, such as resistance to freezing. The result was a tremendous potential to change the very nature of biology.The word "blend" in paragraph 3 mostly means .
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Halloween falls on October 31 each year in North America and other part of the world. What do you know about Halloween? Do you celebrate it in your country? Here is a little history about it?
Like other holidays, Halloween has evolved and changed throughout history. Over 2,000 years ago people called the Celts lived in what is now Ireland, the UK, and parts of Northern France. November 1 was their New Year's Day. They believed that the night before the New Year (October 31) was a time when the living and the dead came together.
More than a thousand years ago the Christian church named November 1 All Saints Day (also called All Hallows). This was a special holy day to honor the saints and other people who died for their religion. The night before All Hallows was called Hallows Eve. Later the name was changed to Halloween.
Like the Celts, the Europeans of that time also believed that the spirits of the dead would visit the earth on Halloween. They worried that evil spirits would cause problems or hurt them. So on that night people wore costumes that looked like ghosts or other evil creatures. They thought if they dressed like that, the spirits would think they were also dead and not harm them.
The tradition of Halloween was carried to America by the immigrating Europeans. Some of the traditions changed a little, though. For example, on Halloween in Europe some people would carry lanterns made from turnips. In America, pumpkins were more common. So people began putting candles inside them and using them as lanterns. That is why you see Jack 'o lanterns today.
These days Halloween is not usually considered a religious holiday. It primarily a fun for children. Children dress up in costumes like people did a thousand years ago. But instead of worrying about evil spirits, they go from house to house. They knock on door and say "trick or treat". The owner of each house give candy or something special to each trick and treat.The word "they" in paragraph 4 refers to ..................
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Public holidays in the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as bank holidays, are days where most businesses and non – essential services are closed although an increasing number of retail businesses (especially the larger ones) do open on some of the public holidays. There are restrictions on trading on Sundays and Christmas Day. Four public holidays are common to all countries of the United Kingdom. These are: New Year's Day, the first Monday in May, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day. Some banks open on some bank holidays. In Scotland, while New Year's Day and Christmas Day are national holidays, other bank holidays are not necessarily public holidays, since the Scots instead observe traditional local customs and practice for their public holidays. In Northern Ireland, once again, bank holidays other than New Year's
Day and Christmas Day are not necessarily public holidays. Good Friday and Christmas Day are common law holidays, except in Scotland, where they are bank holidays. In Scotland the holiday on 1 January (or 2 January if 1 January is Sunday) is statutory, and 25 December is also a statutory holiday (or 26 December if Christmas Day falls on a Sunday). Boxing Day is a holiday traditionally celebrated the day following Christmas Day, when servants and tradesmen would receive gifts, known as a "Christmas box", from their bosses or employers. Today, Boxing Day is the bank holiday that generally takes place on 26 December. And 28 December only is given if Boxing Day is Saturday.
Like Denmark, the United Kingdom has no national day holiday marked or celebrated for its formal founding date. Increasingly, there are calls for public holidays on the patron saints' days in England, Scotland and Wales. An online petition sent to the Prime Minister received 11,000 signatures for a public holiday in Wales on St. David's Day; the Scottish Parliament has passed a bill creating a public holiday on St. Andrew's Day although it must be taken in place of another public holiday; campaigners in England are calling for a bank holiday on St. George's Day; and in Cornwall, there are calls for a public holiday on St. Piran's Day.Which of the following statements is wrong about the U.K.?
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After the Anasazi abandoned southwestern Colorado in the late 1200s or early 1300s, history’s pages are blank. The Anasazi were masons and apartment builders who occupied the deserts, river valleys, and mesas of this region for over a thousand years, building structures that have weathered the test of time.
The first Europeans to visit southwestern Colorado were the ever-restless, ambitious Spanish, who sought gold, pelts, and slaves. In 1765, under orders from the Spanish governor in Santa Fe, Juan Maria Antonio Rivera led a prospecting and trading party into the region. Near the Dolores River in southwestern Colorado, he found some insignificant silver-bearing rocks, and it is thought that it was he who named the mountains nearby the Sierra de la Plata or the Silver Mountains. Rivera found little of commercial value that would interest his superiors in Santa Fe, but he did open up a route that would soon lead to the establishment of the Old Spanish Trail. This expedition and others to follow left names on the land which are only reminders we have today that the Spanish once explored this region.
In 1776, one of the men who had accompanied Rivera, Andre Muniz, acted as a guide for another expedition. That party entered southwestern Colorado in search of a route west to California, traveling near today’s towns of Durango and Dolores. Along the way, they camped at the base of a large green mesa which today carries the name Mesa Verde. They were the first Europeans to record the discovery of an Anasazi archeological site in southwestern Colorado.
By the early 1800s, American mountain men and trappers were exploring the area in their quest for beaver pelts. Men like Peg-leg Smith were outfitted with supplies in the crossroads trapping town of Taos, New Mexico. These adventurous American trappers were a tough bunch. They, possibly more than any other newcomers, penetrated deeply into the mountain fastness of southwestern Colorado, bringing back valuable information about the area and discovering new routes through the mountains. One of the trappers, William Becknell, the father of the Santa Fe Trail, camped in the area of Mesa Verde, where he found pottery shards, stone houses, and other Anasazi remains.The purpose of the expedition of 1776 was .
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The ocean bottom - a region nearly 2.5 times greater than the total land area of the Earth - is a vast frontier that even today is largely unexplored and uncharted. Until about a century ago, the deep ocean floor was completely inaccessible, hidden beneath waters averaging over 3,600 meters deep. Totally without light and subjected to intense pressures hundreds of times greater than at the Earth's surface, the deep-ocean bottom is a hostile environment to humans, in some ways as forbidding and remote as the void of outer space.
Although researchers have taken samples of deep-ocean rocks and sediments for over a century, the first detailed global investigation of the ocean bottom did not actually start until 1968, with the beginning of the National Science Foundation's Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP). Using techniques first developed for the offshore oil and gas industry, the DSDP's drill ship, the Glomar Challenger, was able to maintain a steady position on the ocean's surface and drill in very deep waters, extracting samples of sediments and rock from the ocean floor.
The Glomar Challenger completed 96 voyages in a 15-year research program that ended in November 1983. During this time, the vessel logged 600,000 kilometers and took almost 20,000 core samples of seabed sediments and rocks at 624 drilling sites around the world. The Glomar Challenger's core samples have allowed geologists to reconstruct what the planet looked like hundreds of millions of years ago and to calculate what it will probably look like millions of years in the future. Today, largely on the strength of evidence gathered during the Glomar Challenger's voyages, nearly all earth scientists agree on the theories of plate tectonics and continental drift that explain many of the geological processes that shape the Earth.
The cores of sediment drilled by the Glomar Challenger have also yielded information critical to understanding the world's past climates. Deep-ocean sediments provide a climatic record stretching back hundreds of millions of years, because they are largely isolated from the mechanical erosion and the intense chemical and biological activity that rapidly destroy much land-based evidence of past climates. This record has already provided insights into the patterns and causes of past climatic change - information that may be used to predict future climates.The author refers to the ocean bottom as a "frontier" because it .
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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 New York Times is a daily newspaper published in New York city. For a long time, it has been the newspaper of record in the United States and one of the world’s great newspapers. Its strength is in its editorial excellence; it has never been the largest newspaper in terms of circulation.
The Times was established in 1851 as a penny paper whose editors wanted to report the news in a
restrained and objective fashion. It enjoyed early success as its editors set a pattern for the future by appealing to a cultured, intellectual readership instead of a mass audience. However, in the late nineteenth century, it came into competition with more popular, colorful, if not lurid, newspapers in New York City. Despite price increases, the Times was losing $1,000 a week when Adolph Simon Ochs bought it in 1896. Ochs built the Times into an internationally respected daily. He hired Carr Van Anda as editor. Van Anda placed greater stress than ever on full reporting of the news of the day, and his reporters maintained and emphasized existing good coverage of international news. The management of the paper decided to eliminate fiction from the paper, added a Sunday magazine section, and reduced the paper’s price back to a penny. In April 1912, the paper took many risks to report every aspect of the sinking of the Titanic. This greatly enhanced its prestige, and in its coverage of two world wars, the Times continued to enhance its
reputation for excellence in world news.
In 1971, the Times was given a copy of the so–called “Pentagon Papers,” a secret government study of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. When it published the report, it became involved in several awsuits. The U.S. Supreme Court found that the publication was protected by the freedom–of–thepress clause in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Later in the 1970s, the paper, under Adolph Ochs’s grandson, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, introduced sweeping changes in the organization of the newspaper and its staff and brought out a national edition transmitted by satellite to regional printing plants.What is the main idea of the passage?
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Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
The increase in urbanization causes different problems. Air and water pollution are amongst the major issue we have to tackle.
In the first place, cars, factories and burning waste emit dangerous gases that change the air quality in our cities and pose threats to our health. Dangerous gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides cause respiratory diseases, for instant, bronchitis and asthma. Those are also proved to have long-term effects on the environment.
Furthermore, with the increased population, it becomes difficult to manage the waste generated in cities. Most of the waste is discharged or dumped into rivers or onto streets. The waste pollutes water and makes it unfit for human consumption. Subsequently, it becomes more and more difficult for city dwellers to get clean water. Some cities in Africa are unable to provide adequate water supply because most of the water is lost in pipe leakages. In fact, most city dwellers in developing countries are forced to boil their water or to buy bottled water, which is very expensive.
There are several actions that could be taken to eradicate the problems described above. Firstly, a simple solution would be joining community efforts to address problems affecting your city. Ask your parents, friends and relatives to join in as well. These efforts might include clean-up campaigns, recycling projects and a signature campaign to ask the government to do something about the situation. A second measure would be encouraging your teacher to talk about these problems and to discuss how young people can help to solve them. Finally, writing to local organizations working on these issues for ideas on how you can contribute to solve them.Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
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Choose the word or phrase among A, B, C or D that best fits the blank space in the following passage:
"Before the 1960s, Singapore was essential a trading nation. Since (1)….. , it has developed a more (2)…. economy and has become an important financial, trade, and transportation center. Singapore has (3)….. banks, insurance, and finance companies, as (4) ….. as a stock exchange. Tourism is also important to the (5)…. of Singapore.
There is (6)…. unemployment in Singapore. The country’s annual income per capita (per person) is one of the (7) …. in Asia. The government of Singapore plays a major role in the country’s economy. For example, it (8)….. what benefits, such as vacation time and sick leave, must be (9)….for workers by employers. It also operates an employment agency to help people find jobs, and it provides (10)….. for retired workers."5. Tourism is also important to the (5)…. of Singapore.