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.
In an experiment in Canada, ten-year-old children were put in classes of four sizes: 16, 23, 30 and 37 children in (1)...... class. Their teachers said that the smaller classes would result in more individual attention and better marks. However, when the children were (2)....... , those in the smaller classes didn’t get higher marks than the others, except in mathematics. Moreover, children in the larger classes said they liked school (3)........   as much. Perhaps the most surprising result   was the difference between what teachers expected and the actual results obtained. More than 90% of the teachers expected the smaller classes to (4)......... well. After teaching these smaller classes, over 80% of the teachers thought the pupils had done better. However, according to the researchers, nothing of the (5)........ happened. Class size seemed to make a difference only to the teachers’ own attitudes - and not to the results they obtained.

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

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

"Like any other universities, the Open University can give you a degree. However, you don’t have to (1)…. working to study. It can also open up a whole variety (2)….. interest. If you have (3)….. studied before, you will enjoy the special, new pleasure of (4)….. your knowledge. You will make friends of (5)….. kinds. You may also (6)…. that your qualification provides new career opportunities.
 You don’t actually (7)…. to the Open University for lectures, but study at home, using television, radio and Computer software. You can (8)….. one class a month if you wish at an Open University centre. Of course, there are exams to take, as in (9)…..  university. If you (10)….like to know more, all you have to do is to complete the form below. It could be the start of a wonderful new period in your life."

9. Of course, there are exams to take, as in (9)…..  university.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the question. 
Nowadays, most people realize that it’s risky to use credit card numbers online. However, from time to time, we all use passwords and government ID numbers on the Internet. We think we are safe, but that may not be true! A new kind of attack is being used by dishonest people to steal IDs and credit card numbers from innocent websurfers. This new kind of attack is called “phishing.”
Phishing sounds the same as the word “fishing,” and it implies that a thief is trying to lure people into giving away valuable information. Like real fishermen, phishers use bait in the form of great online deals or services. For example, phishers might use fake emails and false websites to con people into revealing credit card numbers, account usernames, and passwords. They imitate well-known banks, online sellers, and credit card companies. Successful phishers may convince as many as five percent of the people they contact to respond and give away their personal financial information. 
Is this really a big problem? Actually, tricking five percent of the online population is huge! Currently, more than 350 million people have access to the Internet, and seventy-five percent of those Internet users live in the wealthiest countries on Earth. It has been estimated that phishers send more than three billion scam messages each year. Even by tricking only five percent of the people, phishers can make a lot of money. 
Since there is so much money to make through this kind of scam, it has caught the interest of more than just small-time crooks. Recently, police tracked down members of an organized phishing group in Eastern Europe, who had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from people online. The group created official-looking email messages requesting people to update their personal information at an international bank’s website. However, the link to the bank in the message actually sent people to the phishers’ fake website. To make matters worse, further investigation revealed that this group had connections to a major crime gang in Russia. 
How can innocent people protect themselves? Above all, they have to learn to recognize email that has been sent by a phisher. Always be wary of any email with urgent requests for personal financial information. Phishers typically write upsetting or exciting, but fake, statements in their emails so that people will reply right away. Also, messages from phishers will not address recipients by name because they really don’t know who the recipients are yet. On the other hand, valid messages from your bank or other companies you normally deal with will typically include your name.

Which of the following could best serve as the topic of the passage?

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:
A generation gap in the workplace can make workers both young and old feel inferior, as well as hamper productivity and teamwork. Differences between generations can be seen in work ethics, habits and communication styles. Younger workers might fear not being taken seriously by their older colleagues, while older workers might fear that their experience is not valued but replaced by workers with knowledge of more current technology. However, members of each generation can close the gap between them if they're willing to meet one another halfway.
Older workers can show respect to the younger set by asking for their opinions and recognizing their contributions to the workplace as valid, or complimenting them on a job well done. Younger workers can show their elders respect by asking for advice on how to manage a situation with work, based on the older worker's many years of experience. It's important for both entry- and senior-level workers to see each other as equals, regardless of the type of position in which they work. No one wants to feel inferior or irrelevant just because of their age. Rather, a generation gap at work can be a learning opportunity.
Workers can also put themselves in their colleagues' shoes to determine what might be bothering them about their generational age difference. If a person is much older than another, perhaps it is bitterness about fewer job opportunities, or fear that a younger worker might seem more relevant and edge him out of his job. If workers open their minds to understand where co-workers are coming from, it can help ease any tension between them and appreciate each other's
work contributions.
If age seems to be a problem for someone at the workplace, it can be helpful to do the very opposite of what a co-worker might expect from someone of a different age set due to stereotypes. For example, if a worker is considerably younger such as right out of college, she can share researched information to indicate that she knows what she's doing, or show curiosity instead of upset to indicate emotional maturity if the person makes a disparaging remark about her youth. Older workers  can maintain an enthusiastic attitude about work instead of showing boredom or bitterness from past experiences.
Workers can, moreover, directly address the concern of age differences at work with the colleague at odds with them by asking the person for constructive advice on how to handle the issue. For example, older workers who are unfamiliar with new software that younger colleagues understand might acknowledge to them that they did the same tasks differently in years past but show interest in learning the program to keep up with modern technology. Learning to speak their technological language can make them feel more connected. Likewise, a younger worker can admit to being green on the work scene, but eager to gain experience by learning from senior colleagues.

The word “acknowledge” is closest in meaning 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:
No sooner had the first intrepid male aviators safely returned to Earth than it seemed that women, too, had been smitten by an urge to fly. From mere spectators, they became willing passengers and finally pilots in their own right, plotting their skills and daring line against the hazards of the air and the skepticism of their male counterparts. In doing so they enlarged the traditional bounds of a women's world, won for their sex a new sense of competence and achievement, and contributed handsomely to the progress of aviation.
But recognition of their abilities did not come easily. "Men do not believe us capable." The famed aviator Amelia Earhart once remarked to a friend. "Because we are women, seldom are we trusted to do an efficient job." Indeed old attitudes died hard: when Charles Lindbergh visited the Soviet Union in 1938 with his wife, Anne–herself a pilot and gifted proponent of aviation – he was astonished to discover both men and women flying in the Soviet Air Force.
Such conventional wisdom made it difficult for women to raise money for the up – to – date equipment they needed to compete on an equal basis with men. Yet they did compete, and often they triumphed finally despite the odds.
Ruth Law, whose 590 – mile flight from Chicago to Hornell, New York, set a new nonstop distance record in 1916, exemplified the resourcefulness and grit demanded of any woman who wanted to fly. And when she addressed the Aero Club of America after completing her historic journey, her plainspoken wordstestified to a universal human motivation that was unaffected by gender: "My flight was done with no expectation of reward," she declared, "just purely for the love of accomplishment."

According to the passage, women pilots were successful in all  of  the  following  EXCEPT     .

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:
Do you think you're smarter than your parents and grandparents? According to James Flynn, a professor at a New Zealand university, you are! Over the course of the last century, people who have taken IQ tests have gotten increasingly better scores-on average, three points better for every decade that has passed. This improvement is known as "the Flynn effect," and scientists want to know what is behind it.
IQ tests and other similar tests are designed to measure general intelligence rather than knowledge. Flynn knew that intelligence is partly inherited from our parents and partly the result of our environment and experiences, but the improvement in test scores was happening too quickly to be explained by heredity. So what was happening in the 20th century that was helping people achieve higher scores on intelligence tests?
Scientists have proposed several explanations for the Flynn effect. Some suggest that the improved test scores simply reflect an increased exposure to tests in general. Because we take so many tests, we learn test-taking techniques that help us perform better on any test. Others have pointed to better nutrition since it results in babies being born larger, healthier, and with more brain development than in the past. Another possible explanation is a change in educational styles, with teachers encouraging children to learn by discovering things for themselves rather than just memorizing information. This could prepare people to do the kind of problem solving that intelligence tests require.
Flynn limited the possible explanations when he looked carefully at the test data and discovered that the improvement in scores was only on certain parts of the IQ test. Test takers didn't do better on the arithmetic or vocabulary sections of the test; they did better on sections that required a special kind of reasoning and problem solving. For example, one part of the test shows a set of abstract shapes, and test-takers must look for patterns and connections between them and decide which shape should be added to the set.
According to Flynn, this visual intelligence improves as the amount of technology in our lives increases. Every time you play a computer game or figure out how to program a new cell phone, you are exercising exactly the kind of thinking and problem solving that helps you do well on one kind of intelligence test. So are you really smarter than your parents? In one very specific way, you may be.a

Which sentence from the article gives a main idea?

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. 
      Urbanization degrades the environment, according to conventional wisdom. This view has led many developing countries to limit rural - urban migration and curb urban expansion. But this view is incorrect. There are a number of reasons urbanization can be good for the environment, if managed properly.
      First, urbanization brings higher productivity because of its positive externalities and economies of scale. Asian urban productivity is more than 5.5 times that of rural areas. The same output can be produced using fewer resources with urban agglomeration than without. In this sense, urbanization reduces the ecological footprint. The service sector requires urbanization because it needs a concentration of clients. As services generally pollute less than manufacturing, this aspect of urbanization is also beneficial to the environment.
      Second, for any given population, the high urban density is benign for the environment. The urban economics literature shows that compactness is a key determinant of energy use. High density can make public transport more viable and reduce the length of trips. Urban living encourages walking and cycling rather than driving. Third, environment-friendly infrastructure and public services such as piped water, sanitation, and waste management are much easier and more economical to construct, maintain, and operate in an urban setting. Urbanization allows more people to have access to environment-friendly facilities and services at affordable prices.
     Fourth, urbanization drives innovation, including green technologies. In the long term, environment-friendly equipment, machines, vehicles, and utilities will determine the future of the green economy. Green innovations in Asia's cities will be supported by the region's vast market as the billions of people who will be buying energy-efficient products will create opportunities and incentives for entrepreneurs to invest in developing such products. Finally, the higher standard of living associated with urbanization provides people with better food, education, housing, and health care. Urban growth generates revenues that fund infrastructure projects, reducing congestion and improving public health. Urbanization fosters a pro-environment stance among property owners and the middle class, which is crucial for the introduction and enforcement of environmental laws and regulations.
      Of course, urbanization also comes with costs. Millions of people are migrating to Asian cities and companies are locating there to employ them. Urban sprawl and industrial activities, such as power generation, transportation, construction, garbage and waste disposal, harm the environment. An assessment of the impact of urbanization on the environment must balance its benign and adverse effects.

The word “footprint” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ______.

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 from 81 to 92.
What is a gifted child? There are different ways to define this term. It may refer to special talents in the arts  or to  a  high  level  of academic  abilities. A child  may  be gifted in one (81) area, such as music, or have talents in many areas. According to the U.S. National Association for Gifted Children, a gifted child shows an "exceptional level of performance” in one or more areas. In general usage, giftedness includes high levels of cognitive ability, motivation, inquisitiveness, creativity, and leadership. Gifted children (82) approximately 3 to 5 percent of the school-aged population. Although giftedness cannot be assessed by an intelligence test alone, these tests are often used to indicate giftedness. (83) giftedness begins at an IQ of 115, or about one in six children. Highly gifted children have IQs over 145, or about one in a thousand children. Profoundly gifted children have IQs over 180, or about one in a million children. Because very few education programs include any courses on teaching the gifted, teachers are often not able to recognize the profoundly gifted. Teachers are more likely to recognize moderately gifted children because they are ahead of the other children but not so far ahead as to be unrecognizable. For instance, children who can read older children's books in first and second grade are often transferred into gifted classes, but children (84) are reading adult books are told to stop reading them. Those profoundly gifted students who are not recognized often turn into discipline problems when they are not offered (85) ways to focus their extraordinary creativity.

(84)................

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:
A generation gap in the workplace can make workers both young and old feel inferior, as well as hamper productivity and teamwork. Differences between generations can be seen in work ethics, habits and communication styles. Younger workers might fear not being taken seriously by their older colleagues, while older workers might fear that their experience is not valued but replaced by workers with knowledge of more current technology. However, members of each generation can close the gap between them if they're willing to meet one another halfway.
Older workers can show respect to the younger set by asking for their opinions and recognizing their contributions to the workplace as valid, or complimenting them on a job well done. Younger workers can show their elders respect by asking for advice on how to manage a situation with work, based on the older worker's many years of experience. It's important for both entry- and senior-level workers to see each other as equals, regardless of the type of position in which they work. No one wants to feel inferior or irrelevant just because of their age. Rather, a generation gap at work can be a learning opportunity.
Workers can also put themselves in their colleagues' shoes to determine what might be bothering them about their generational age difference. If a person is much older than another, perhaps it is bitterness about fewer job opportunities, or fear that a younger worker might seem more relevant and edge him out of his job. If workers open their minds to understand where co-workers are coming from, it can help ease any tension between them and appreciate each other's
work contributions.
If age seems to be a problem for someone at the workplace, it can be helpful to do the very opposite of what a co-worker might expect from someone of a different age set due to stereotypes. For example, if a worker is considerably younger such as right out of college, she can share researched information to indicate that she knows what she's doing, or show curiosity instead of upset to indicate emotional maturity if the person makes a disparaging remark about her youth. Older workers  can maintain an enthusiastic attitude about work instead of showing boredom or bitterness from past experiences.
Workers can, moreover, directly address the concern of age differences at work with the colleague at odds with them by asking the person for constructive advice on how to handle the issue. For example, older workers who are unfamiliar with new software that younger colleagues understand might acknowledge to them that they did the same tasks differently in years past but show interest in learning the program to keep up with modern technology. Learning to speak their technological language can make them feel more connected. Likewise, a younger worker can admit to being green on the work scene, but eager to gain experience by learning from senior colleagues.

It can be inferred from the passage that     .

Read the passage carefully and choose the correct answer.

“Where is the university?” is a question many visitors to Cambridge ask, but no one can give them a clear answer, for there is no wall to be found around the university. The university is the city. You can find the classroom buildings, libraries, museums and offices of the university all over the city. And most of its members are the students and teachers or professors of the thirty-one colleges. Cambridge is already a developing town long before the first students and teachers arrived 800 years ago. It grew up by the river Granta, as the Cam was once called. A bridge was built over the river as early as 875.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, more and more land was used for college buildings. The town grew faster in the nineteenth century after the opening of the railway in 1845. Cambridge became a city in 1951 and now it has the population of over 100000. Many young students want to study at Cambridge. Thousands of people from all over the world come to visit the university town. It has become a famous place all around the world.

From what we read we know that now Cambridge is _______.

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:
Martin Luther King, Jf, is well- known for his work in civil rights and for his many famous speeches, among which is his moving “I have a dream” speech. But fewer people know much about King’s childhooD. M.L., as he was called, was bom in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, at the home of his maternal grandfather. M.L.’s grandfather purchased their home on Auburn Avenue in 1909, twenty years before M.L was bom. His grandfather allowed the house to be used as a meeting place for a number of organizations dedicated to the education and social advancement of blacks. M.L. grew up in the atmosphere, with his home being used as a community gathering place, and was no doubt influenced by it.
M.L.’s childhood was not especially eventfully. His father was a minister and his mother was a musician. He was the second of three children, and he attended all black schools in a black neighborhood. The neighborhood was not poor, however. Auburn Avenue was an area of banks, insurance companies, builders, jewelers, tailors, doctors, lawyers, and other businesses and services. Even in the face of Atlanta’s segregation, the district thrived. Dr. King never forgot the community spirit he had known as a child, nor did he forget the racial prejudice that was a huge barrier keeping black Atlantans from mingling with whites.

M.L. was    by the atmosphere in which he grew up.

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:
Rachel Carson was bom in 1907 in Springsdale, Pennsylvania. She studied biology in college and zoology at Johns Hopkins University, where she received her master’s degree in 1933. In 1936, she was hired by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, where she worked most of her life.
Carson’s first book, Under the Sea Wind, was published in 1941. It received excellent reviews, but sales were poor until it was reissued in 1952. In that year, she published The Sea Around Us, which provided a fascinating look beneath the ocean’s surface, emphasizing human history as well as geology and marine biology. Her imagery and language had a poetic quality. Carson consulted no less than 1, 000 printed sources. She had voluminous correspondence and frequent discussions with experts in the field. However, she always realized the limitations of her non-technical readers.
In 1962, Carson published Silence Spring, a book that sparked considerable controversy. It proved how much harm was done by the uncontrolled, reckless use of insecticides. She detailed how they poison the food supply of animals, kill birds, and contaminate human food. At that time, spokesmen for the chemical industry mounted personal attacks against Carson and issued propaganda to indicate that her findings were flawed. However, her work was vindicated by a 1963 report of the President’s Science Advisory Committee.

The word “reckless” is closest in meaning 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.

Although noise, commonly defined as unwanted sound, is a widely recognized form of pollution, it is very difficult to measure because the discomfort experienced by different individuals is highly subjective and, therefore, variable. Exposure to lower levels of noise may be slightly irritating, whereas exposure to higher levels may actually cause hearing loss. Particularly in congested urban areas, the noise produced as a byproduct of our advancing technology causes physical and psychological harm, and detracts from the quality of life for those who are exposed to it.

Unlike the eyes, which can be covered by the eyelids against strong light, the ear has no lid, and is, therefore, always open and vulnerable; noise penetrates without protection. Noise causes effects that the hearer cannot control and to which the body never becomes accustomed. Loud noises instinctively signal danger to any organism with a hearing mechanism, including human beings. In response, heartbeat and respiration accelerate, blood vessels constrict, the skin pales, and muscles tense. In fact, there is a general increase in functioning brought about by the flow of adrenaline released in response to fear, and some of these responses persist even longer than the noise, occasionally as long as thirty minutes after the sound has ceased.

Because noise is unavoidable in a complex, industrial society, we are constantly responding in the same way that we would respond to danger. Recently, researchers have concluded that noise and our response may be much more than an annoyance. It may be a serious threat to physical and psychological health and well-being, causing damage not only to the ear and brain but also to the heart and stomach. We have long known that hearing loss is America‟s number one nonfatal health problem, but now we are learning that some of us with heart disease and ulcers may be victims of noise as well. Fetuses exposed to noise tend to be overactive, they cry easily, and they are more sensitive to gastrointestinal problems after birth. In addition, the psychic effect of noise is very important. Nervousness, irritability, tension, and anxiety increase affecting the quality of rest during sleep, and the efficiency of activities during waking hours, as well as the way that we interact with each other.

According to the passage, what is noise?

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the answer to each of the question. 
A report from the United Nations given at the conference unveils how worrying the pollution caused by plastic utensils, especially plastic bags, is becoming. In a single minute, the world consumes one million plastic bottles; in a year, the world consumes five billion single-use plastic bags, according to Vietnamplus. The scary fact is that such plastic bottles and bags are not properly treated, as each year, the world discharges 300 million tons of plastic waste, accounting for some 10% of all solid waste, putting the environment and human health under tenterhooks, according to the news site.
The conference also drew attention to another fact: “For a plastic bag that can be used for five minutes, it takes five seconds to produce, one second to discard, but 500 to 1,000 years to become totally decomposed,” says Vietnamplus.
In another message given by the UN General Secretary and delivered at the conference, it is reported that since more than eight million tons of plastic bags end up in the oceans each year, “microplastics in the seas now outnumber stars in our galaxy.” “If present trends continue, by 2050 our oceans will have more plastic than fish,” Dan Tri reports, quoting Caitlin Wiesen, country director of the UN Development Programme in Vietnam.
These above-mentioned fearful facts, however, are not merely global issues, but domestic problems as well, according to local media. Many local news outlets, when relating data from the conference, point out that white pollution – a term used to indicate the overwhelming discharge of plastic bags into the environment – is even getting worse in Vietnam than elsewhere.

Which of the following could be the main idea of the passage?

Read the passage carefully and choose the correct answer.

“Where is the university?” is a question many visitors to Cambridge ask, but no one can give them a clear answer, for there is no wall to be found around the university. The university is the city. You can find the classroom buildings, libraries, museums and offices of the university all over the city. And most of its members are the students and teachers or professors of the thirty-one colleges. Cambridge is already a developing town long before the first students and teachers arrived 800 years ago. It grew up by the river Granta, as the Cam was once called. A bridge was built over the river as early as 875.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, more and more land was used for college buildings. The town grew faster in the nineteenth century after the opening of the railway in 1845. Cambridge became a city in 1951 and now it has the population of over 100000. Many young students want to study at Cambridge. Thousands of people from all over the world come to visit the university town. It has become a famous place all around the world.

Around what time did the university begin to appear?

Fill in each numbered blank with one suitable word or phrase.

The University of Oxford, informally called "Oxford University", or simply "Oxford", (1) ______ in the city of Oxford, in England, is (2) ______ oldest university in the English-speaking world.  It is also considered as one of the world's leading (3) ______ institutions. The university traces, its roots back to at least the end of the 11th century, (4) ______ the exact date of foundation remains unclear. Academically, Oxford is consistently ranked in the world's top ten universities. The University is also open (5) ______ overseas students, primarily from American universities, who may (6) _____ in study abroad programs during the summer months for more than a century, it has served as the home of the Rhodes Scholarship, (7) ______ brings highly accomplished students from a number of countries to study at Oxford as (8) ______ The University of Oxford is also a place where many talented leaders from all over the world used to study. Twenty-five British Prime Ministers attended Oxford, including Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. At (9) ______ 25 other international leaders have been educated at Oxford, and this number includes King Harald V of Norway and King Abdullah II of Jordan. Bill Clinton is the first American President to attend Oxford.  Forty-seven Nobel (10) __ winners have studied or taught at Oxford.

(10) ______

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.
               KEEPING FIT
Bodies are  made to move! They are   not (1) ............. for sitting around in front of the television or reading magazines. Keeping fit doesn't mean have to be a super-athlete, and even (2)...exercise can give you a lot of fun. When you are fit and healthy, you will find you look better and feel better. You will develop more energy and self-confidence.
Every time you move, you are exercising. The human body is designed to bend, stretch, run, jump  and climb. (3)........ it does, the stronger and fitter it will become. Best of all, exercise is fun. It's what your body likes doing most-keeping on the move.
Physical exercise is not only good for your body. People who take regular exercise are usually happier, more relaxed and more alert than people who sit around all day. Try an experiment-next time you are in a bad mood, go for a walk or play a ball game in the park. See how much better you feel after an hour.
A good (4)......... of achievement is yet another benefit of exercise. People feel good about themselves when they know they have improved their fitness. People who exercise regularly will tell you that they find they have more energy to enjoy life. So  have (5)....... you'll soon see and feel the benefits.
(1)..................................
 

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.
       Early writing and Alphabets
When people first began to write, they did not use an alphabet. Instead, they drew small pictures to (1)........  the objects they were writing about. This was very slow because there was a different picture for every word.
The  Ancient  Egyptians  had a (2).......... of picture writing that was called hieroglyphics. The meaning of this writing was forgotten for a very long time but in 1799 some scientists (3)............ a stone near Alexandria, in Egypt. The stone had been there for over a thousand years. It had both Greek and hieroglyphics on it and researchers were finally able to understand what the hieroglyphics meant.
An alphabet is quite different from picture writing. It (4)............ of letters or symbols that represent a sound and each sound is just  part  of  one  word.  The  Phoenicians,  who  lived  about  3,000 years ago, developed the modern alphabets. It was later improved by the Roman's and this alphabet is now used (5)........... throughout the world.

(5)...........................
 

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 people can remember a phone number for up to thirty seconds. When this short amount of time elapses, however, the numbers are erased from the memory. How did the information get there in  the first place? Information that makes its way to the short term memory (STM) does so via the sensory storage area. The brain has a filter which only allows stimuli that is of immediate interest to pass on to the STM, also known as the working memory.
There is much debate about the capacity and duration of the short term memory. The most accepted theory comes from George A. Miller, a cognitive psychologist who suggested that humans can remember approximately seven chunks of information. A chunk is defined as a meaningful unit of information, such as a word or name rather than just a letter or number. Modern theorists suggest that one can increase the capacity of the short term memory by chunking, or classifying similar information together. By organizing information, one can optimize the STM, and improve the chances of a memory being passed on to long term storage.
When making a conscious effort to memorize something, such as information for an exam, many people engage in "rote rehearsal". By repeating something over and over again, one is able to keep a memory alive. Unfortunately, this type of memory maintenance only succeeds if there are no interruptions. As soon as a person stops rehearsing the information, it has the tendency to disappear. When a pen and paper are not handy, people often attempt to remember a phone number by repeating it aloud. If the doorbell rings or the dog barks to come in before a person has the opportunity to make a phone call, he will likely forget the number instantly. Therefore, rote rehearsal is not an efficient way to pass information from the short term to long term memory. A better way is to practice "elaborate rehearsal". This involves assigning semantic meaning to a piece of information so that it can be filed along with other pre-existing long term memories.
Encoding information semantically also makes it more retrievable. Retrieving information can be done by recognition or recall. Humans can easily recall memories that are stored in the long term memory and used often; however, if a memory seems to be forgotten, it may eventually be retrieved by prompting. The more cues a person is given (such as pictures), the more likely a memory can be retrieved. This is why multiple choice tests are often used for subjects that require a lot of memorization.

All  of  the  following  are  mentioned  as  places  in  which  memories  are  stored EXCEPT     .

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:
A mansion is a very large home. McDonald's is the name of a fast food hamburger chain. What do you get when you put the two together? You get McMansion, the recently created name for a type of  large suburban, two storied home that originated in the United States. Many people love McMansions for their low price, abundant space and impressive styling, but the news is not all good. In fact, McMansions may now be a threatened species.
McMansion became very popular in the United States during the 1990s, and this popularity continued for almost 20 years. During those years the economy was relatively strong, and banks were willing to lend large sums of money to people who wanted to buy a home. The result was an increase in the average home size. In 1988, the average new American home was 170 square meters, but by 2008 this had risen to 244 square meters, a 44% increase.
To offset the greater costs of these large homes, land developers built many homes that all used a similar basic design and identical construction methods. Framing and interior fittings were constructed in factories, instead of on site, and the materials used were often of a lower quality. Finally, the sections of land used for each house were much smaller than before.
The result was suburban developments full of huge homes, often over 280 square meters in floor area, that all looked similar to each other. Their standardization and lowest possible-cost construction reminded people of McDonald's hamburgers, hence the term McMansion. For many people a McMansion was their dream home, but that dream is now rapidly turning sour.
There are two main problems with McMansions. One problem is that their huge size means that they cost a lot to heat or cool. Energy is becoming more expensive, so owners are faced with huge bills if they try to heat or cool their home. The other problem is that McMansion owners are often in a lot of debt. They borrowed a lot of money to pay for their impressive home, but during the 2000s, with struggling economy and high unemployment, they couldn't afford to repay their loan.
McMansion are still popular in some area, but no one is sure how long it will last. Will energy become even more expensive and force owners to downsize? Will the economy grow and banks become more willing to end again? Will the drop-in house prices allow larger, less affluent families to afford a McMansion? These questions are weighing heavily on the future of one of the most popular housing styles of the late 20th century.

Which of the following statements is NOT true about McMansions?

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:
One of the factors contributing to the intense nature of twenty-first-century stress is our continual exposure to media – particularly to an overabundance of news. If you feel stressed out by the news, you are far from alone. Yet somehow many of us seem unable to prevent ourselves from tuning in to an extreme degree.
The further back we go in human history, the longer news took to travel from place to place, and the less news we had of distant people and lands altogether. The printing press obviously changed all that, as did every subsequent development in transportation and telecommunication.
When television came along, it proliferated like a poplulation of rabbits. In 1950, there were 100,000 television sets in North American homes; one year later there were more then a million. Today, it’s not unusual for a home to have three or more television sets, each with cable access to perhaps over a hundred channels. News is the subject of many of those channels, and on several of them it runs 24 hours a day.
What’s more, after the traumatic events of Sptember 11, 2001, live newcasts were paired with perennial text crawls across the bottom of the screen – so that viewers could stay abreast of every story all the time.
Needless to say, the news that is reported to us is not good news, but rather disturbing images and sound bytes alluding to diasater (natural and man-made), upheaval, crime, scandal, war, and the like. Compounding the proplem is that when actual breaking news is scarce, most broadcasts fill in with waistline, hairline, or very existence in the future. This variety of story tends to treat with equal alarm a potentially lethal flu outbreak and the bogus claims of a wrinkle cream that overpromises smooth skin.
Are humans meant to be able to process so much trauma – not to mention so much overblown anticipation of potetial trauma – at once? The human brain, remember, is programmed to slip into alarm mode when danger looms. Danger looms for someone, somewhere at every moment. Exposing ourslves to such input without respite and without perspective cannot be anything other than a source of chronic stress.

According to the passage, when there is not enough actual breaking news, broadcasts