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 increase in international business and in foreign investment has created a need for executives with knowledge of foreign languages and skills in cross-culture communication. Americans, however, have not been well trained in either area and, consequently, have not enjoyed the same level of success in negotiation in an international arena as have their foreign counterpart.
Negotiating is the process of communicating back and forth for the purpose of reaching an agreement. It involves persuasion and compromise, but in order to participate in either one, the negotiators must understand the ways in which people are persuaded and how compromise is reached within the culture of the negotiation.
In many international business negotiations abroad, Americans are perceived as wealthy and impersonal. It often appears to the foreign negotiator that the American represents a large multimillion- dollar corporation that can afford to pay the price without bargaining further. The American negotiator’s role becomes that of an impersonal purveyor of information and cash, an image that succeeds only in undermining the negotiation.
In studies of American negotiators abroad, several traits have been indentified that may serve to confirm this stereotypical perception, while subverting the negotiator's position. Two traits in particular that cause cross-culture misunderstanding are directness and impatience on the part of American negotiator. Furthermore, American negotiators often insist on realizing short-term goals. Foreign negotiators, on the other hand, may value the relationship established between negotiators and may be willing to invest time in it for long-term benefits. In order to solidify the relationship, they may opt for indirect interactions without regard for the time involved in getting to know the other negotiator.
Clearly, perceptions and differences in values affect the outcomes of negotiations and the success of negotiators. For Americans to play a more effective role in international business negotiations, they must put forth more effort to improve cross-cultural understanding.

According to the author, what is the purpose of negotiation?

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.
24.
 

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

Which of the following does the word “it” in paragraph 2 refer to?

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
“ Calcite- containing dust particles blow into the air and combine with nitric acid in polluted air from factories to form an entirely new particle – calcium nitrate , ” said Alexander Laskin, a senior research scientist at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington .These nitrates have optical and chemical properties that are completely different from those of the originally dry dust particles . Due to this, climate models need to be updated to reflect this chemistry. Calcite dust is common in arid areas such as Israel, where scientists collected particles for analysis.
Working from a mountaintop, the team collected dust that had blown in from the northern shores of Egypt, Sinai,and southern Israel. The particles had combined with air containing pollutants that came from Cairo.They analyzed nearly 2,00 individual particles and observed the physical and chemical changes at the W.R Wiley Environmental Sciences Laboratory.
A key change in the properties of the newly formed nitrate particles is that they begin to absorb water and retain the moisture .These wet particles can scatter and absorb sunlight-presenting climate modelers, who need to know where the energy is going , a new wild card to deal with . Companion studies of dust samples from the Sahara and the Saudi coast and loess from China show that the higher the calcium in the mineral , the more reactive they are in with nitric acid .And once the particle is changed , it stays that way.
“When dust storms kick up these particles and they enter polluted areas , the particles change ,” Laskin said . “To what extent this is happening globally, as more of the world becomes industrialized , we don’t know . But now we have the laboratory and field evidence that shows it is definitely happening . The story is much more complicated than anybody thought .”

 It can be inferred that the word “retain ” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to     .

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!
3.

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.
In the past, the process of choosing a career was a much simpler matter than it is today. Aboy often followed in his father’s footsteps. His sister learned the household skills that (1)..... her to become a wife and mother. Nowadays young people grow up in a much freer society (2)........they enjoy almost unlimited career opportunities. In recent years, there (3)..... an enormous increase in the kinds of vocations from which it is possible to choose. In addition, many of the barriers to career opportunity that existed only a few decades ago, such as (4).......... based on sex or religion or ethnic origins, are (5)............... disappearing.
(3)..................

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
Perhaps better known than the Cullinan Diamond is the Hope Diamond, a valuable and blue gem with a background of more than 300 years as a world traveler.The 112-carat blue stone later became the Hope Diamond was mined in India sometime before the middle of the seventeenth century and was first known to be owned by Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal in memory of his beloved wife. From India, the celebrated blue stone has changed hands often, moving from location to location in distant corners of the world.
In the middle of the seventeenth century, a trader from France named Jean Baptiste Tavernier acquired the large blue diamond, which was rumored to have been illegally removed from a temple Tavemier returned to France with the big blue gem, where the stone was purchased by the Sun King Louis XIV. Louis XIV had it cut down from 112 to 67 carats to make its shape symmetrical and to maximize its sparkle. The newly cut diamond, still huge by any standards, was passed down through the royal family of France, until it arrived in the hands of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
During the French Revolution, Louis XVI and his wife met their fate on the guillotine in 1793, and the big blue diamond disappeared from public sight.
The diamond somehow managed to get from France to England, where banker Henry Hope purchased it from a gem dealer early in the nineteenth century. The huge blue stone was cut into a 45.5-carat oval, and at this point it took on the name by which it is known today. The diamond stayed in the Hope family for around a century, when deep indebtedness brought on by a serious gambling habit on the part of one of Henry Hope's heirs forced the sale of the diamond.
From England, the Hope Diamond may have made its way into the hands of the Sultan of Turkey; whatever route it took to get there, it eventually went on to the United States when American Evelyn Walsh McLean purchased it in 1911. Mrs.
McLean certainly enjoyed showing the diamond off guests in her home were sometimes astounded to notice the huge stone embellishing the neck of Mrs. McLean’s Great Dane as the huge pet trotted around the grounds of her Washington, D.C. home. The Hope Diamond later became the property of jeweler Harry Winston, who presented the stunning 45.5- carat piece to the Smithsonian in 1958. The Hope Diamond is now taking a well-earned rest following its rigorous travel itinerary and is on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where it has been since 1958.

The pronoun "it" in the passage refers to

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 author states that the Hubble was not always popular because ............

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:
Geothermal energy is natural heat from the interior of the Earth that is converted to heat buildings and generate electricity. The idea of harnessing Earth’s internal heat is not new. As early as 1904 , geothermal power was used in Italy . Today, Earth’s natural internal heat is being used to generate electricity in 21 countries , including Russia, Japan, New Zealand, Iceland, Mexico, Ethiopia, Guatemala, EI Salvador, the Philippines, and the United States .Total worldwide production is approaching 9,000 MW (equivalent to nine large modern coal-burning or nuclear power plants)-double the amount in 1980 .Some 40 million people today receive their electricity from geothermal energy at a cost competitive with that of other energy sources. In EI Salvador , geothermal energy is supplying 30% of the total electric energy used.
However, at the global level, geothermal energy supplies less than 0,15%of the total energy supply.
Geothermal energy may be considered a nonrenewable energy source when rates of extraction are greater than rates of natural replenishment. However, geothermal energy has its origin in the natural heat production within Earth , and only a small fraction of the vast total resource base is being utilized today. Although most geothermal energy production involves the tapping of high heat sources, people are also using the low-temperature geothermal energy of groundwater in some applications.

Geothermal Systems
The average heat flow from the interior of the Earth is very low, about 0,06% W/m2.This amount is trivial compared with the 177 W/m2from solar heat at the surface in the United States. However, in some areas, heat flow is sufficiently high to be useful for producing energy . For the most part, areas of high heat flow are associated with plate tectonic boundaries. Oceanic ridge systems (divergent plate boundaries) and areas where mountains are being uplifted and volcanic island arcs are forming (convergent plate boundaries) are areas where this natural heat flow is anomalously high. One such region is located in the western, United States, where recent tectonic and volcanic activity has occurred.
On the basis of geological criteria, several types of hot geothermal systems (with temperatures greater than about 800C , or 1760F)have been defined, and the resource base is larger than that of fossil fuels and nuclear energy combined. A common system for energy development is hydrothermal convection, characterized by the circulation of steam and / or hot water that transfers heat from depths to the surface.

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 problem of cardiac arrest has become a major problem these days. A lot of patients have acute pain after suffering from a stroke. There are plenty of medicines, surgical methods developed in the field of medicine to treat such cardiac problems. These solutions are time consuming and costly. In the process of rehabilitation, the medicines also have a lot of side effects on the human body and take time to give relief. Therefore, a lot of people go for alternative therapies that help in rehabilitation of patients who suffer from cardiac stroke. The alternative therapies help in relieving pain, stress and make the body healthy and fit through exercise, yoga as well as meditation.
Those who have the cardiac complaint have to take a good care of their diet.
Also, they must look after their regular exercise in order to stay fit and make sure that they do not take undue stress. These are some of the precautions that you need to take while you are in the process of rehabilitation. The cardiac rehabilitation can be carried out at the rehabilitation centers as well as at the residence of the patients. Once the patient learns all the exercise and techniques of meditation and understands what diet he or she should include in their meals as the instructions of the doctor’s and dieticians, then it is possible to accomplish the rehabilitation process at home with little guidance and monitoring. But the best results are seen at the center, where the program is given to a group of patients together.
The alternative therapies used for cardiac rehabilitation are stress management, physical exercises and diet. Stress management is very much essential in the rehabilitation process because it has a lot of effects on the patient’s body. A lot of relaxation techniques are taught to the patients that helps them in stress management, among them meditation is one of the main focuses.
The various rehabilitation programs also give you information on how to have a stress free lifestyle. The patients are supported and encouraged to discuss their problems with the counselor or fellow patients. This helps them to vent their feelings and feel comforted. Breathing exercises are also of great help for the patients who are undergoing cardiac rehabilitation.
In addition to stress management, physical exercises are also given a lot of importance in the rehabilitation program. The patients are asked to perform various forms of physical exercise which are suitable to them depending on their age and the severity of their problems. These activities include activities like walking, jogging, cycling, and some other sports like badminton, tennis etc., to maintain their health and keep their muscles, bones, and body tissues in a good state. Cardio exercise in a gymnasium is also encouraged. This helps in strengthening the muscles and managing weight.
The diet of these patients also needs to be looked upon very carefully. Such people should stay away from alcohol and tobacco consumption in order to improve their health. Make sure that their meals include plenty of organic foodstuffs as well as fruits and juices. Do not include junk and oily foodstuffs in your diet because they are very difficult to digest. The intake of calories should also be done at required level. It is a significant fact that the patients have to understand and work accordingly.

What does the passage primarily discuss?

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.

According to paragraph 5, children might be more successful in school if they can resist impulses because they can  ...........

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.
(2).........................

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:
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.

Which of the followings can best replace the word “eye strain” in Paragraph 4?

Bees, classified into over 10,000 species, are insects found in almost every part of the world except the northernmost and southernmost regions. One commonly known species is the honeybee, the only bee that produces honey and wax. Humans use the wax in making candles, lipsticks, and other products, and they use the honey as a substance that people eat to maintain life and growth. While gathering the nectar and pollen with which they make honey, bees are simultaneously helping to fertilize the flowers on which they land. Many fruits and vegetables would not survive if bees did not carry the pollen from blossom to blossom.
Bees live in a structured environment and social structure within a hive, which is a nest with storage space for the honey. The different types of bees each perform a unique function. The worker bee carries nectar to hive in a special stomach called a honey stomach. Other workers make beeswax and shape it into a honeycomb, which is a waterproof mass of six-sided compartments, or cells. The queen lays eggs in completed cells. As the workers build more cells, the queen lays more eggs.
All workers, like the queen, are female, but the workers are smaller than the queen. The male honeybees are called drones; they do no work and cannot sting. They are developed from unfertilized eggs, and their only job is to impregnate a queen. The queen must be fertilized in order to lay more worker eggs. During the season when less honey is available and the drone is of no further use, the workers block the drones from eating the honey so that they will starve to death.

The word “which” refers to ........

Read the passage below and choose one correct answer for each question.

Between 1945 and 1973, the economies of the industrialized nations of Western Europe, Japan, and the U. S. grew fast enough to vastly improve living standards for their residents. A similarly favorable growth was registered by some, but far from all, of the developing or industrializing nations, in particular such thriving Southeast Asian economies as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea. After the devastation of World War II, a substantial rebuilding boom, combined with lavish flows of aid from the US, generated rapid growth in Western Europe and Japan. American multinational corporations invested heavily in the rest of the world. Perhaps the most important of all, energy was plentiful and cheap.

Poor nations need aid from the rich nations in the form of capital and of technological and organizational expertise. They also need easy access to the markets of the industrialized nations for their manufactures and raw materials. However, the political capacity of rich nations to respond to these needs depends greatly on their own success in coping with inflation and unemployment. In democratic communities, it is exceedingly difficult to generate public support for assistance to foreign countries when average wage earners are themselves under serious financial pressure. It is not easier politically to permit cheap foreign merchandise and materials to freely enter American and European markets when they are viewed as the cause of unemployment among domestic workers.

In many democratic communities, average wage earners are never under serious financial, pressure.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word for each of the blanks
One of the most important (1)........of a standardized test is time. You’ll only be allowed a certain number of minutes for each section, so it is very important that (2)....... . The most important time strategy is pacing yourself. Before you begin, take just a few seconds to survey the test, noting the number of questions and the sections that looks easier than the rest. Then, make a rough time schedule based on the amount of time available to you. Mark the half-way point on your test and make a note beside that mark of the time when the testing period is half over.
Once you begin the test, continue moving. If you work slowly in an attempt to make fewer mistakes, your mind will become bored and begin to wander. You’ll end up making far more mistakes if you’re not concentrating. If you take too long to answer questions that stump you, you may end up (3).........    out of    time before you finish. So don’t stop for difficult questions. Skip them and move on. You can come back to them later if you have time. A question that takes you five seconds to answer counts as much as one that takes you several minutes, so pick up the easy points first. (4)...... , answering the easier questions first helps build your confidence and gets you in the testing groove. If you are a little ahead, you know you are on track and may even have a little time left to check your work. If you are a little behind, you have 4 several choices. You can pick up the pace a little, but do this (5) ..........if you can do it comfortably.
(1).........................

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!
4.

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:
Footracing is a popular activity in the United States. It is seen not only as a competitive sport but also as a way to exercise, to enjoy the camaraderie of like–minded people, and to donate money to a good cause. Though serious runners may spend months training to compete, other runners and walkers might not train at all. Those not competing to win might run in an effort to beat their own time or simply to enjoy the fun an exercise. People of all ages. From those of less than one year (who may be pushed in strollers) to those in their eighties, enter into this sport. The races are held on city streets, on college campuses, through parks, and in suburban areas, and they are commonly 5 to 10 kilometers in length.
The largest footrace in the world is the 12 kilometer Bay to Breakers race that is held in San Francisco every spring. This race begins on the east side of the city near San Francisco Bay and ends on the west side at the Pacific Ocean. There may be 80,000 or more people running in this race through the streets and hills of San Francisco. In the front of are the serious runners who compete to win and who might finish in a little as 34 minutes. Behind them are the thousands who take several hours to finish. In the back of the race are those who dress in costumes and come just for fun. One year there was a group of men who dresses like Elvis Presley, and another group consisted of the firefighters who were tired together in a long line and who were carrying a firehose. There was even a bridal party, in which the bride was dressed in a long white gown and the groom wore a tuxedo. The bride and groom threw flowers to bystanders, and they were actually married at some point along the route.

The phrase “a good cause” in paragraph 1 could be best replaced by which of the following?

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:
Our eyes and ears might be called transformers because they send the light and sound around us and turn them into electrical impulses that the brain can interpret. These electrical impulses that have been transformed by the eyes and ears reach the brain and are turned into massages that we can interpret. For the eye, the process begins as the eye admits light waves, bends them at the cornea and lens, and then focuses them on the retina. At the back of each eye, nerve fibers bundle together to form optic nerves, which join and then split into optic tracts. Some of the fibers cross so that part of the input from the right visual field goes into the left side of the brain, and vice versa. The process in the ear is carried out through sensory cells that are carried in fluid-filled canals and that are extremely sensitive to vibration. Sound that is transformed into electricity travels along nerve fibers in the auditory nerve. These fibers form a synapse with neurons that carry the massages to the auditory cortex on each side of the brain.

Which of the following is closest in meaning to the word “admits” in line 4?

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    .