Read the following passage, then choose the correct answer to questions 26 - 30.
Jeans are very popular with (26)_________ 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 (27)_________ almost two hundred years ago. People in Genoa, Italy made pants. The cloth made in Genoa was (28)_________ “jeanos”. 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 (29)_________ with gold miners, fanners and cowboys. Six years later Levis began making his pants with blue cotton cloth called denim. Soon after, factory (30)_________ in the US and Europe began wearing jeans. Young people usually didn’t wear them.
(26)......................

Learning means acquiring knowledge or developing the ability to perform new behaviors. It is common to think of learning as something that takes place in school, but much of human learning occurs outside the classroom, and people continue to learn throughout their lives.

Even before they enter school, young children learn to walk, to talk, and to use their hands to manipulate toys, food, and other objects. They use all of their senses to learn about the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells in their environments. They learn how to interact with their parents, siblings, friends, and other people important to their world. When they enter school, children learn basic academic subjects such as reading, writing, and mathematics. They also continue to learn a great deal outside the classroom. They learn which behaviors are likely to be rewarded and which are likely to be punished. They learn social skills for interacting with other children. After they finish school, people must learn to adapt to the many major changes that affect their lives, such as getting married, raising children, and finding and keeping a job.

Because learning continues throughout our lives and affects almost everything we do, the study of learning is important in many different fields. Teachers need to understand the best ways to educate children. Psychologists, social workers, criminologists, and other human- service workers need to understand how certain experiences change people's behaviors.

Employers, politicians, and advertisers make use of the principles of teaming to influence the behavior of workers, voters, and consumers.

Learning is closely related to memory, which is the storage of information in the brain.

Psychologists who study memory are interested in how the brain stores knowledge, where this storage takes place, and how the brain later retrieves knowledge when we need it. In contrast, psychologists who study learning are more interested in behavior and how behavior changes as a result of a person's experiences.

There are many forms of learning, ranging from simple to complex. Simple forms of learning involve a single stimulus. A stimulus is anything perceptible to the senses, such as a sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste. In a form of learning known as classical conditioning, people learn to associate two stimuli that occur in sequence, such as lightning followed by thunder. In operant conditioning, people learn by forming an association between a behavior and its consequences (reward or punishment). People and animals can also learn by observation - that is, by watching others perform behaviors. More complex forms of learning include learning languages, concepts, and motor skills

According to the pasage, which of the following is learning in broad view comprised of?

Choose the letter A, B, C or D to answer these following questions:
The ASEAN Declaration states that the aims and purposes of the Association are: (1) to accelerate the economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region through joint endeavors in the spirit of equality and partnership in order to strengthen the foundation for a prosperous and peaceful community of Southeast Asian nations, and (2) to promote regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law in the relationship among countries in the region and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter. In 1995, the ASEAN Heads of State and Government re-affirmed that “Cooperative peace and shared prosperity shall be the fundamental goals of ASEAN.”
TAC stated that ASEAN political and security dialogue and cooperation should aim to promote regional peace and stability by enhancing regional resilience. Regional resilience shall be achieved by cooperating in all fields based on the principles of self-confidence, self-reliance, mutual respect, cooperation, and solidarity, which shall constitute the foundation for a strong and viable community of nations in Southeast Asia.
Although ASEAN States cooperate mainly on economic and social issues, the organization has a security function, with a long-discussed program for confidence-building measures and for establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Southeast Asia, with the objective of implementing ASEAN’s 1971 Declaration on a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN), and a Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ), which would be a component of ZOPFAN

What is the passage mainly about?

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:
Humans are bringing about another global-scale change in the atmosphere: the increase in what are called greenhouse gases. Like glass in a greenhouse, these gases admit the Sun's light but tend to reflect back downward the heat that is radiated from the ground below, trapping heat in the Earth's atmosphere. This process is known as the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide is the most significant of these gases – there is 25 percent more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today than there was a century ago, the result of our burning coal and fuels derived from oil. Methane, nitrous oxide, and CFCs are greenhouse gases as well.
Scientists predict that increases in these gases in the atmosphere will make the Earth a warmer place. They expect a global rise in average temperature somewhere between 1.0 and 3.5 degrees Celsius in the next century. Average temperatures have in fact been rising and the years from 1987 to 1997 were the warmest years on record. Some scientists are reluctant to say that global warming has actually begun because climate naturally varies from year to year and decade to decade, and it takes many years of records to be sure of a fundamental change. There is little disagreement, though, that global warming is looming.
Global warming will have different effects in different regions. A warmed world is expected to have more extreme weather, with more rain during wet periods, longer droughts, and more powerful storms. Although the effects of future climate changes are unknown, some predict that exaggerated weather conditions may translate into better agricultural yields in areas such as the western United States, where temperature and rainfall are expected to increase, while dramatic decreases in rainfall may lead to severe droughts and plunging agricultural yields in parts of Africa, for example.
Warmer temperatures are expected to partially melt the polar ice caps, leading to a projected sea level rise of 50 centimeters by the year 2050. A sea level rise of this magnitude would flood coastal cities, force people to abandon low-lying islands, and completely inundate coastal wetlands. Diseases like malaria, which at present are primarily found in the tropics, may become more common in the regions of the globe between the tropics and the polar regions, called the temperate zones. For many of the world's plant species, and for animal species that are not easily able to shift their territories as their habitat grows warmer, climate change may bring extinction.

According to paragraph 1, which of the following factors causes an increase in greenhouse gases?

Read the passage carefully and choose the correct answer

On 8 August 1967, five leaders - the Foreign Ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand- sat down together in the main hall of the Department of Foreign Affairs building in Bangkok, Thailand and signed a document. By virtue of that document, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was born. The five Foreign Ministers who signed it have been considered as the founders of probably the most successful intergovernmental organization in the developing world today. The document that they signed would be known as the ASEAN Declaration.

It is a short, simply-worded document containing just five articles. It declares the establishment of an Association for Regional Cooperation among the Countries of Southeast Asia to be known as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and spells out the aims and purposes of that Association. These aims and purposes are about the cooperation in economy, society, culture, techniques, education and other fields, and in the promotion of regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the principles of the United Nations Charter. It stipulates that the Association will be open for participation by all States in the Southeast Asian region subscribing to its aims, principles and purposes. It proclaims ASEAN as representing the collective will of the nations of Southeast Asia to bind themselves together in friendship and cooperation and, through joint efforts and sacrifices, secure for their peoples and for posterity the blessings of peace, freedom and prosperity. The goal of ASEAN, then, is to create, not to destroy.

The original ASEAN logo presented five brown sheaves of rice stalks, one for each founding member. Beneath the sheaves is the legend "ASEAN" in blue. These are set on a field of yellow encircled by a blue border. Brown stands for strength and stability, yellow for prosperity and blue for the spirit of cordiality in which ASEAN affairs are conducted. When ASEAN celebrated its 30^th Anniversary in 1997, the sheaves on the logo had increased to ten -representing all ten countries of Southeast Asia and reflecting the colors of the flags of all of them. In a very real sense, ASEAN and Southeast Asia will be one and the same, just as the founders had envisioned.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations ________.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer for each blank.

What is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and what is its purpose? The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a multilateral organization which was (26) _____ to give Southeast Asian states a forum to communicate (27) _____ each other. Since the region had a long colonial past and a history of endemic warfare, there has never been much peaceful and constructive (28) _____ between kings, presidents and other officials. A neutral forum was, (29) _____, a very useful development for all of those countries.ASEAN was formed as a result of the Bangkok (30) _____ of 1967 and initially had five members: Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, (31) _____ Philippines and Singapore. Brunei (32) _____ joined in 1984 after it had won independence from Britain. Vietnam became the seventh member of the group, officially joining in 1995. (33) _____ several years of negotiation, Myanmar and Laos joined in 1997 and the final member of the ten, Cambodia, joined in 1999. The only (34) _______state in Southeast Asia which is not a member of ASEAN is now East Timor. It is still (35) _____ vulnerable and fragile to be able to participate for the foreseeable future.

(34) _____

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.

   Fungi are a group of organisms that, despite being plants, have no leaves or flowers. In fact, fungi do not even share the green colour that most other plants display. Scientists estimate that there are over 1.5 million different species of fungi in the world. Though, to date, only 100.000 have been identified, leaving many more that have not been found. One interesting feature of fungi is that they often interact with oilier organisms in order to survive. These relationships are at times beneficial to both organisms. Other times, the fungus benefits without causing harm to the other organism.

   Many types of fungus have beneficial relationships with plants. Initially many gardeners would be concerned to know that their plants were colonised by a fungus. This is because some fungi can cause plants to die. In fact, the Irish potato famine was caused by a fungus that killed entire crops of potatoes. However, many plants actually depend on certain types of fungi to help it stay healthy. Fungi are important to plants because they help plants absorb more minerals from the soil than they could on their own. The reason for this has to do with how fungi obtain food. Unlike green plants, fungi cannot make their own food. They must absorb their food. When the fungi absorb minerals from the soil, they draw the nutrients closer to the roots of the plants, so the plant is able to use them as well. The fungus also benefits from this relationship. Using the minerals from the soil, as well as sunlight, the plants is able to produce sugars and other nutrients. Then the fungus absorbs the nutrients from plant roots and uses them to survive.

   Not all relationships are beneficial for both organisms: in some interactions, only the fungus benefits. Still, for some fungus species, contact with other organisms is essential. And though the fungi do not provide any benefits for the other organism, they do not harm it either. One example of this is a species called Pilobolus. This fungus relies on other animals to help it reproduce. The Pilobolus grows in animal dung. When it becomes mature, it shoots its spores away from the dung pile. The spores land in the grass where cows graze. The spores are consumed by the animal but do not grow while inside the stomach. They travel through the body of the animal until they are passed and deposited in another area, where they continue to grow.

According to paragraph 2, which of the following is not true about fungus growing on or near plants?

Choose the letter A, B, C or D to complete the passage below

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN _________ (1) on 8 August 1967 in Bangkok by the five original Member Countries, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Brunei Darussalam joined ASEAN on 7 January 1984, Viet Nam joined _________ (2) 28 July 1995, Lao PDR and Myanmar on 23 July 1997, and Cambodia on 30 April 1999. Brunei Darussalam joined ASEAN _________ (3) its sixth member soon after assuming her full independence in January 1984. Present at the admission ceremony at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, Indonesia was His Royal Highness Prince Mohamed Bolkiah, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brunei Darussalam. Since then, ASEAN became the cornerstone of Brunei's foreign policies. Through ASEAN, Brunei Darussalam participates in various other regional frameworks including ASEAN regional Forum, ASEAN Plus Three and East Asia Summit.

His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam _________ (4) other ASEAN leaders signed the ASEAN Charter on 20 November 2007 in Singapore. Brunei Darussalam was _________ (5) second member state after Singapore to ratify the Charter on 31 January 2008. Brunei officials who have served in the ASEAN secretariat included Dato Roderick Yong, ASEAN Secretary-General (July 1986 - July 1989), Dato Haji Mahadi Wasli, Deputy Secretary-general (1994 - 1997), and Pengiran Dato Mashor Pg. Ahmad (2003 - 2005).

(1)............................

Ranked as the number one beverage consumed worldwide, tea takes the lead over coffee in both popularity and production with more than 5 million metric tons of tea produced annually. Although much of this tea is consumed in Asia, European and African countries, the United  States drinks it fair share. According to estimates by the Tea Council of the United States, tea is enjoyed by no less than half of the U.S population on any given day. Black tea or green tea - iced, spiced, or instant - tea drinking has spurred a billion - dollar business with major tea produces in Africa and South America and throughout Asia.
Tea is made from the leaves of an evergreen plant, Camellia sinensis, which grows tall and lush in tropical regions. On tea plantation, the plant is kept trimmed to approximately four feet high, and as new buds called flush appear, they are plucked off by hand. Even in today's world of modern agricultural machinery, hand harvesting continues to be preferred method. Ideally, only the top two leaves and bud should be picked. This new growth produces the highest quality tea.
After being harvested, tea leaves are laid out on long drying racks, called withering racks, for 18 to 20 hours. During this process, the tea softens and becomes limp. Next, depending on the type of the tea being produced, the leaves may be crushed or chopped to release flavor, and then steamed to retain their green color, and the fermentation process is skipped. Producing black teas requires fermentation during which the tea leaves begin to darken. After fermentation, black tea is dried in vats to produce its rich brown or black color.
No one knows when or how tea became popular, but legend has it that tea as a beverage was discovered in 2737 B.C. by Emperor Shen Nung of China when leaves from Camellia dropped into his drinking water as it was boiling over a fire. As the story goes, Emperor Shen Nung drank the resulting liquid and proclaimed that the drink to be most nourishing and refreshing. Though this account cannot be documented, it is thought that tea drinking probably originated in China and spread to other parts of Asia, then to Europe, and ultimately to America colonies around 1650.
With about half of the caffeine content as coffee, tea is often chosen by those who want to reduce, but not necessarily eliminate their caffeine intake. Some people find that tea is less acidic than coffee and therefore easier on the stomach. Others have become interested in tea drinking since the National Cancer Institute published its findings on the antioxidant properties of tea. But whether tea is enjoyed for its perceived health benefits, its flavor, or as a social drink, teacups continue to be filled daily with the world's most popular beverage.

Based on the passage, what is implied about tea harvesting?

PANDEMIC DISEASES

Diseases are a natural part of life on earth. If there were  no diseases,  the population would grow too quickly, and there would not be enough food or other resources, so in a way, diseases are natural ways of keeping the Earth in balance. But sometimes  they  spread  very  quickly and kill large numbers of people. For example, in 1918, an outbreak of the flu spread  across the world, killing over 25 million people in only six months. Such terrible outbreaks of a disease are called pandemics.

Pandemics happen when a disease changes in a way that our bodies are not prepared to fight.  In 1918, a new type of flu virus appeared. Our bodies had no way to fight this new flu virus, and    so it spread very quickly and killed large numbers of people. While there have  been  many  different pandemic diseases throughout history, all of them have a new thing in    common.

First, all pandemic diseases spread from one person to another very   easily.

Second, while they may kill many people, they generally do not kill people very quickly. A good example of this would be the Marburg virus. The Marburg virus is an extremely infectious disease. In addition, it is deadly. About 70 -80% of all people who  get the Marburg virus  died  from the disease. However, the Marburg virus has not become  a pandemic  because most people die within three days of getting the disease. This means that the virus does not have enough time    to spread a large number of people. The flu virus of 1918, on the other hand, generally took about   a week to ten days to kill its victims, so it had more time to   spread.

While we may never be able to completely stop pandemics, we  can  make  them  less  common. Doctors carefully monitor new diseases that they fear could become pandemics. For example, in 2002, and 2003, doctors carefully watched SARS. Their health warnings may have prevented SARS from becoming a  pandemic.

 According to paragraph 1, how are diseases a natural part of life on   Earth?

Brown bears are found in Alaska and western Canada. They are first cousins of the grizzly, each belonging to the species Ursus arctos. The chief difference in them is size, as brown bears on the average are slightly larger. A full-grown male may weigh 1,500 pounds and stand 9 to 10 feet tall. Like bears everywhere they are creatures of habit that tread the same trails year after year. Brown bears have three gaits: an even, deliberate one that takes them over rough or boggy ground at a steady clip, a quick shuffle, and a fast gallop. They are not only surprisingly fast, but also, for such huge beasts, amazingly inclines. Fishing the streams in summer, they pounce on swift-moving salmon and snatch them with almost simultaneous movements of their paws and mouths. Brown bears are excellent swimmers and love to loll and wallow in the water on warm days. They are also curious and playful. Most manifest a fear of humans, but Alaskans prefer not to test these creatures and usually carry noisemakers of some kind to warn the bears of their presence.

Which of the following can be implied from the passage?

The issue of equality for women in British society first attracted national attention in the early 20th century, when the suffragettes won for women the right to vote. In the 1960s feminism became the subject of intense debate when the women's liberation movement encouraged women to reject their traditional supporting role and to demand equal status and equal rights with men in areas such as employment and pay.
Since then, the gender gap between the sexes has been reduced. The Equal Pay Act of 1970, for instance, made it illegal for women to be paid less than men for doing the same work, and in 1975 the Sex Discrimination Act aimed to prevent either sex having an unfair advantage when applying for jobs. In the same year the Equal Opportunities Commission was set up to help people claim their rights to equal treatment and to publish research and statistics to show where improvements in opportunities for women need to be made. Women now have much better employment opportunities, though they still tend to get less well-paid jobs than men, and very few are appointed to top jobs in industry.
In the US the movement that is often called the "first wave of feminism' began in the mid 1800s. Susan B. Anthony worked for the right to vote, Margaret Sanger wanted to provide women with the means of contraception so that they could decide whether or not to have children, and Elizabeth Blackwell, who had to fight for the chance to become a doctor, wanted women to have greater opportunities to study. Many feminists were interested in other social issues.
The second wave of feminism began in the 1960s. Women like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem became associated with the fight to get equal rights and opportunities for women under the law. An important issue was the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which was intended to change the Constitution. Although the ERA was not passed, there was progress in other areas. It became illegal for employers, schools, clubs, etc. to discriminate against women. But women still find it hard to advance beyond a certain point in their careers, the so-called glass ceiling that prevents them from having high-level jobs. Many women also face the problem of the second shift, i.e. the household chores.
In the 1980s, feminism became less popular in the us and there was less interest in solving the remaining problems, such as the fact that most women still earn much less than men.
Although there is still discrimination, the principle that it should not exist is widely accepted.

Which of the following would be the best title for 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.

   Many flowering plants woo insect pollinators and gently direct them to their most fertile blossoms by changing the color of individual flowers from day to day. Through color cues, the plant signals to the insect that it would be better off visiting one flower on its bush than another. The particular hue tells the pollinator that the flower is full of far more pollen than are neighboring blooms. That nectar-rich flower also happens to be fertile and ready to disperse its pollen or to receive pollen the insect has picked up from another flower. Plants do not have to spend precious resources maintaining reservoirs of nectar in all their flowers. Thus, the color-coded communication system benefits both plants and insects.

   For example, on the lantana plant, a flower starts out on the first day as yellow, when it is rich with pollen and nectar. Influenced by an as-yet-unidentified environmental signal, the flower changes color by triggering the production of the pigment anthromyacin. It turns orange on the second day and red on the third. By the third day, it has no pollen to offer insects and is no longer fertile. On any given lantana bush, only 10 to 15 per cent of the blossoms are likely to be yellow and fertile. But in tests measuring the responsiveness of butterflies, it was discovered that the insects visited the yellow flowers at least 100 times more than would be expected from haphazard visitation. Experiments with paper flowers and painted flowers demonstrated that the butterflies were responding to color cues rather than, say, the scent of the nectar.

   In other types of plants, blossoms change from white to red, others from yellow to red, and so on. These color changes have been observed in some 74 families of plants.

The word “triggering” is closest in meaning to __________

We live in a world of tired, sleep deprived people. In his book Counting Sheep, Paul Martin - a behavioural biologist - describes a society which is just too busy to sleep and which does not give sleeping the importance it deserves. Modern society has invented reasons not to sleep. We are now a 24/7 society where shops and services must be available all hours. We spend longer hours at work than we used to, and more time getting to work.
Mobile phones and email allow us to stay in touch round the clock and late-night TV and the Internet tempt us away from our beds. When we need more time for work or pleasure, the easy solution is to sleep less. The average adult sleeps only 6.2 hours a night during the week, whereas research shows that most people need eight or even eight and a half to feel at their best. Nowadays, many people have got used to sleeping less than they need and they live in an almost permanent state of'sleep debt'.
Until the invention of the electric light in 1879 our daily cycle of sleep used to depend on the hours of daylight. People would get up with the sun and go to bed at nightfall. But nowadays our hours of sleep are mainly determined by our working hours (or our social life) and most people are woken up artificially by an alarm clock. During the day caffeine, the world's most popular drug, helps to keep us awake. 75% of the world's population habitually consume caffeine, which up to a point masks the symptoms of sleep deprivation.
What does a chronic lack of sleep do to us? As well as making us irritable and unhappy as humans, it also reduces our motivation and ability to work. This has serious Implications for society in general. Doctors, for example, are often chronically sleep deprived, especially when they are on'night call',  and may got less than three hours'sleep. Lack of sleep can seriously  impair their mood, judgment, and ability to take decisions. Tired engineers, in the early hours of the morning, made a series of mistakes with catastrophic results. On our roads and motorways lack of sleep kills thousands of people every year. Tests show that a tired driver can be just as dangerous as a drunken driver. However, driving when drunk is against the law but driving when exhausted isn't As Paul Martin says, it is very ironic that we admire people who function on very little sleep instead of criticizing them for being irresponsible, Our world would be a much safer, happier place if everyone, whatever their job, slept eight hours a night

Which of the following would the writer of the passage approve of?

Commuting is the practice of travelling a long distance to a town or city to work each day, and then travelling home again in the evening. The word commuting comes from commutation ticket, a US rail ticket for repeated journeys, called a season ticket in Britain. Regular travellers are called commuters.

The US has many commuters. A few, mostly on the East Coast commute by train or subway, but most depend on the car. Some leave home very early to avoid the traffic jams, and sleep in their cars until their office opens. Many people accept a long trip to work so that they can live in quiet "bedroom communities" away from the city, but another reason is 'white flight'. In the 1960s most cities began to desegregate their schools, so that there were no longer separate schools  for  white and black children. Many white families did not want to send their children to desegregated schools, so they moved to the suburbs, which have their own schools, and where, for various reasons, few black people live.

Millions of people in Britain commute by car or train. Some spend two or three hours a day travelling, so that they and their families can live in suburbia or in the countryside. Cities are surrounded by commuter belts. Part of the commuter belt around London is called the stock broker belt because it contains houses where rich business people live. Some places are becoming dormitory towns, because people sleep there but take little part in local activities.

Most commuters travel to and from work at the same time, causing the morning and evening rush hours, when buses and trains are crowded and there are traffic jams on the roads. Commuters on trains rarely talk to each other and spend their journey reading, sleeping or using their mobile phones, though this is not popular with other passengers. Increasing numbers of people now work at home some days of the week, linked to their offices by computer, a practice called telecommuting.

Cities in both Britain and the US are trying to reduce the number of cars conning into town each day. Some companies encourage car pooling (called car sharing in Britain), an arrangement for people who live and work near each other to travel together. Some Us cities have a public service that helps such people to contact each other, and traffic lanes are reserved for car-pool vehicles. But cars and petrol/gas are cheap in the US, and many people prefer to drive alone because it gives them more freedom. In Britain many cities have park-and-rids schemes, car parks on the edge of the city from which buses take drivers into the centre.

It can be inferred from the passage that dormitory towns in Britain are places where people ...................

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

On 8 August 1967, five leaders - the Foreign Ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand- sat down together in the main hall of the Department of Foreign Affairs building in Bangkok, Thailand and signed a document. By virtue of that document, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was born. The five Foreign Ministers who signed it have been considered as the founders of probably the most successful intergovernmental organization in the developing world today. The document that they signed would be known as the ASEAN Declaration.

It is a short, simply-worded document containing just five articles. It declares the establishment of an Association for Regional Cooperation among the Countries of Southeast Asia to be known as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and spells out the aims and purposes of that Association. These aims and purposes are about the cooperation in economy, society, culture, techniques, education and other fields, and in the promotion of regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the principles of the United Nations Charter. It stipulates that the Association will be open for participation by all States in the Southeast Asian region subscribing to its aims, principles and purposes. It proclaims ASEAN as representing the collective will of the nations of Southeast Asia to bind themselves together in friendship and cooperation and, through joint efforts and sacrifices, secure for their peoples and for posterity the blessings of peace, freedom and prosperity. The goal of ASEAN, then, is to create, not to destroy. The original ASEAN logo presented five brown sheaves of rice stalks, one for each founding member. Beneath the sheaves is the legend "ASEAN" in blue. These are set on a field of yellow encircled by a blue border. Brown stands for strength and stability, yellow for prosperity and blue for the spirit of cordiality in which ASEAN affairs are conducted. When ASEAN celebrated its 30th Anniversary in 1997, the sheaves on the logo had increased to ten -representing all ten countries of Southeast Asia and reflecting the colors of the flags of all of them. In a very real sense, ASEAN and Southeast Asia will be one and the same, just as the founders had envisioned.

Which does not belong to the purpose and aim of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations?

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:
Humans are bringing about another global-scale change in the atmosphere: the increase in what are called greenhouse gases. Like glass in a greenhouse, these gases admit the Sun's light but tend to reflect back downward the heat that is radiated from the ground below, trapping heat in the Earth's atmosphere. This process is known as the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide is the most significant of these gases – there is 25 percent more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today than there was a century ago, the result of our burning coal and fuels derived from oil. Methane, nitrous oxide, and CFCs are greenhouse gases as well.
Scientists predict that increases in these gases in the atmosphere will make the Earth a warmer place. They expect a global rise in average temperature somewhere between 1.0 and 3.5 degrees Celsius in the next century. Average temperatures have in fact been rising and the years from 1987 to 1997 were the warmest years on record. Some scientists are reluctant to say that global warming has actually begun because climate naturally varies from year to year and decade to decade, and it takes many years of records to be sure of a fundamental change. There is little disagreement, though, that global warming is looming.
Global warming will have different effects in different regions. A warmed world is expected to have more extreme weather, with more rain during wet periods, longer droughts, and more powerful storms. Although the effects of future climate changes are unknown, some predict that exaggerated weather conditions may translate into better agricultural yields in areas such as the western United States, where temperature and rainfall are expected to increase, while dramatic decreases in rainfall may lead to severe droughts and plunging agricultural yields in parts of Africa, for example.
Warmer temperatures are expected to partially melt the polar ice caps, leading to a projected sea level rise of 50 centimeters by the year 2050. A sea level rise of this magnitude would flood coastal cities, force people to abandon low-lying islands, and completely inundate coastal wetlands. Diseases like malaria, which at present are primarily found in the tropics, may become more common in the regions of the globe between the tropics and the polar regions, called the temperate zones. For many of the world's plant species, and for animal species that are not easily able to shift their territories as their habitat grows warmer, climate change may bring extinction.

The word "plunging" in paragraph 3 probably means  ...................

Water scarcity is fast becoming one of the major limiting factors in world crop production.  In many areas, poor agricultural practices have led to increasing desertification and the loss of formerly arable lands. Consequently, those plants species that are well adapted to survival in dry climates are being looked at for an answer in developing more efficient crops to grow on marginally arable lands.

Plants uses several mechanisms to ensure their survival in desert environments. Some involve purely mechanical and physical adaptations, such as the shape of the plant's surface, smaller leaf size, and extensive root systems. Some of the adaptations are related to chemical mechanisms. Many plants, such as cacti, have internal gums and mucilages which give them water-retaining properties. Another chemical mechanism is that of the epicuticular wax layer. This wax layer acts as an impervious cover to protect the plant. It prevents excessive loss of internal moisture. It also protects the plant from external aggression, which can come from inorganic agents such as gases, or organic agents which include bacteria ant plant pets.

Researchers have proposed that synthetic waxes with similar protective abilities could be prepared based on knowledge of desert plants. If successfully developed, such a compound could be used to greatly increase a plant's ability to maintain health in such adverse situations as inadequate water supply, limited fertilizers availability, attacked by pets, and poor storage after harvesting

This passage deals mainly with.......................

Ranked as the number one beverage consumed worldwide, tea takes the lead over coffee in both popularity and production with more than 5 million metric tons of tea produced annually. Although much of this tea is consumed in Asia, European and African countries, the United  States drinks it fair share. According to estimates by the Tea Council of the United States, tea is enjoyed by no less than half of the U.S population on any given day. Black tea or green tea - iced, spiced, or instant - tea drinking has spurred a billion - dollar business with major tea produces in Africa and South America and throughout Asia.
Tea is made from the leaves of an evergreen plant, Camellia sinensis, which grows tall and lush in tropical regions. On tea plantation, the plant is kept trimmed to approximately four feet high, and as new buds called flush appear, they are plucked off by hand. Even in today's world of modern agricultural machinery, hand harvesting continues to be preferred method. Ideally, only the top two leaves and bud should be picked. This new growth produces the highest quality tea.
After being harvested, tea leaves are laid out on long drying racks, called withering racks, for 18 to 20 hours. During this process, the tea softens and becomes limp. Next, depending on the type of the tea being produced, the leaves may be crushed or chopped to release flavor, and then steamed to retain their green color, and the fermentation process is skipped. Producing black teas requires fermentation during which the tea leaves begin to darken. After fermentation, black tea is dried in vats to produce its rich brown or black color.
No one knows when or how tea became popular, but legend has it that tea as a beverage was discovered in 2737 B.C. by Emperor Shen Nung of China when leaves from Camellia dropped into his drinking water as it was boiling over a fire. As the story goes, Emperor Shen Nung drank the resulting liquid and proclaimed that the drink to be most nourishing and refreshing. Though this account cannot be documented, it is thought that tea drinking probably originated in China and spread to other parts of Asia, then to Europe, and ultimately to America colonies around 1650.
With about half of the caffeine content as coffee, tea is often chosen by those who want to reduce, but not necessarily eliminate their caffeine intake. Some people find that tea is less acidic than coffee and therefore easier on the stomach. Others have become interested in tea drinking since the National Cancer Institute published its findings on the antioxidant properties of tea. But whether tea is enjoyed for its perceived health benefits, its flavor, or as a social drink, teacups continue to be filled daily with the world's most popular beverage.

The word "eliminate" in paragraph 5 could be best replaced by?

Ranked as the number one beverage consumed worldwide, tea takes the lead over coffee in both popularity and production with more than 5 million metric tons of tea produced annually. Although much of this tea is consumed in Asia, European and African countries, the United  States drinks it fair share. According to estimates by the Tea Council of the United States, tea is enjoyed by no less than half of the U.S population on any given day. Black tea or green tea - iced, spiced, or instant - tea drinking has spurred a billion - dollar business with major tea produces in Africa and South America and throughout Asia.
Tea is made from the leaves of an evergreen plant, Camellia sinensis, which grows tall and lush in tropical regions. On tea plantation, the plant is kept trimmed to approximately four feet high, and as new buds called flush appear, they are plucked off by hand. Even in today's world of modern agricultural machinery, hand harvesting continues to be preferred method. Ideally, only the top two leaves and bud should be picked. This new growth produces the highest quality tea.
After being harvested, tea leaves are laid out on long drying racks, called withering racks, for 18 to 20 hours. During this process, the tea softens and becomes limp. Next, depending on the type of the tea being produced, the leaves may be crushed or chopped to release flavor, and then steamed to retain their green color, and the fermentation process is skipped. Producing black teas requires fermentation during which the tea leaves begin to darken. After fermentation, black tea is dried in vats to produce its rich brown or black color.
No one knows when or how tea became popular, but legend has it that tea as a beverage was discovered in 2737 B.C. by Emperor Shen Nung of China when leaves from Camellia dropped into his drinking water as it was boiling over a fire. As the story goes, Emperor Shen Nung drank the resulting liquid and proclaimed that the drink to be most nourishing and refreshing. Though this account cannot be documented, it is thought that tea drinking probably originated in China and spread to other parts of Asia, then to Europe, and ultimately to America colonies around 1650.
With about half of the caffeine content as coffee, tea is often chosen by those who want to reduce, but not necessarily eliminate their caffeine intake. Some people find that tea is less acidic than coffee and therefore easier on the stomach. Others have become interested in tea drinking since the National Cancer Institute published its findings on the antioxidant properties of tea. But whether tea is enjoyed for its perceived health benefits, its flavor, or as a social drink, teacups continue to be filled daily with the world's most popular beverage.

What does the word "they" in paragraph 2 refers to?

Very few people, groups, or governments oppose globalization in its entirety. Instead,  critics of globalization believe aspects of the way globalization operates should be changed. The debate over globalization is about what the best rules are for governing the global economy so that its advantages can grow while its problems can be solved.
On one side of this debate are those who stress the benefits of removing barriers to international trade and investment, allowing capital to be allocated more efficiently and giving consumers greater freedom of choice. With free-market globalization, investment funds can move unimpeded from the rich countries to the developing countries. Consumers can benefit from cheaper products because reduced taxes make goods produced at low cost from faraway places cheaper to buy. Producers of goods gain by selling to a wider market. More competition keeps sellers on their toes and allows ideas and new technology to spread and benefit others.
On the other side of the debate are critics who see neo-liberal policies as producing greater poverty, inequality, social conflict, cultural destruction, and environmental damage. They say that the most developed nations - the United States, Germany, and Japan - succeeded not because of free trade but because of protectionism and subsidies. They argue that the more recently successful economies of South Korea, Taiwan, and China all had strong state-led development strategies that did not follow neo-liberalism. These critics think that government encouragement of "infant industries"' that is, industries that are just beginning to develop - enables a country to become internationally competitive.
Furthermore, those who criticize the Washington Consensus suggest that the inflow and outflow of money from speculative investors must be limited to prevent bubbles. These bubbles are characterized by the rapid inflow of foreign funds that bid up domestic stock markets and property values. When the economy cannot sustain such expectations, the bubbles burst as investors panic and pull their money out of the country.
Protests by what is called the anti-globalization movement are seldom directed against globalization itself but rather against abuses that harm the rights of workers and the environment. The question raised by nongovernmental organizations and protesters at WTO and IMF gatherings is whether globalization will result in a rise of living standards or a race to the bottom as competition takes the form of lowering living standards and undermining environmental regulations.
One of the key problems of the 21st century will be determining to what extent markets should be regulated to promote fair competition, honest dealing, and fair distribution of public goods on a global scale.

The phrase "keeps sellers on their toes" in the passage mostly means "     ".