Choose the best answer:
An old farmer said that their living _________ a lot thanks to the knowledge their children had brought home.
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Lời giải:
Báo saiGiải thích: câu gián tiếp động từ lùi thời
Dịch: Một người nông dân lớn tuổi nói rằng cuộc sống của họ đã thay đổi nhiều nhờ có kiến thức con cái họ mang về nhà.
Câu hỏi liên quan
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Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the following questions:
In 1972. a century after the first national park in the United States was established at Yellowstone, legislation was passed to create the National Marine Sanctuaries Program. The intent of this legislation was to provide protection to selected coastal habitats similar to that existing for land areas designated as national parks. The designation of an areas a marine sanctuary indicates that it is a protected area, just as a national park is. People are permitted to visit and observe there, but living organisms and their environments may not be harmed or removed.
The National Marine Sanctuaries Program is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a branch of the United States Department of Commerce. Initially, 70 sites were proposed as candidates for sanctuary status. Two and a half decades later, only fifteen sanctuaries had been designated, with half of these established after 1978. They range in size from the very small (less than 1 square kilometer) Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary in American Samoa to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary in California, extending over 15,744 square kilometers.
The National Marine Sanctuaries Program is a crucial part of new management practices in which whole communities of species, and not just individual species, are offered some degree of protection from habitat degradation and overexploitation. Only in this way can a reasonable degree of marine species diversity be maintained in a setting that also maintains the natural interrelationships that exist among these species.
Several other types of marine protected areas exist in the United States and other countries. The National Estuarine Research Reserve System managed by the United States government, includes 23 designated and protected estuaries. Outside the United States, marine protected-area programs exist as marine parks, reserves and preserves.
Over 100 designated areas exist around the periphery of the Caribbean Sea. Others range from the well-known Australian Great Barrer Reef Marine Park to lesser-known parks in countries such as Thailand and Indonesia, where tourism is placing growing pressures on fragile coral reef systems. As state, national, and international agencies come to recognize the importance of conserving marine biodiversity, marine projected areas whether as sanctuaries,parks, or estuarine reserves, will play an increasingly important role in preserving that diversity.According to the passage, all of the following are achievements of the National Marine Sanctuaries Program EXCEPT…
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At a time when the younger generation, hooked to the mobiles, TV and internet, is fast-moving away from books, Sundargarh Collector Nikhil Pasan Kalyan has taken it upon himself this particular sacred responsibility. Kalyan on Thursday launched a campaign ‘Sundargarh Bahi Padha’ to promote reading by distributing books among the people in Sundargarh town. He reached out to the people at roadside stalls and engaged with them over cups of tea. While motivating them to read, he gifted books to them. The district administration plans to extend the initiative to schools and villages in the coming six months with focus on improving school and public libraries, and equipping all offices and waiting rooms with books. Further, reading sessions have been scheduled to be conducted every week at the Collector’s residence campus and other places involving people of all ages including students. “Books are the best teachers. To improve morality and openness in the society, everyone has to read. They could be in any genre. Reading is the starting point,” said Kalyan. Chief District Medical and Public Health Officer (CDM-PHO) Dr SK Mishra commented on the present situation: “Youths and students confine themselves to prescribed courses of study and refuse to go beyond that,” he said. Undoubtedly, internet connection and electronic gadgets like computers, laptops and mobile phones provide a sea of information and ready-made knowledge but simultaneously decrease the creativity in individuals, Mishra added. “Social media kills time, creativity and the urge to pick up a book. It may be noted that people with reading habits have lesser chances of suffering from Alzheimer’s,” he said. Presently, of the four Government-run public libraries in the district three are functional, albeit with few readers. Kalyan has sought collective participation to make the initiative a success
4. The word “They” in paragraph 3 refers to _______ -
What is 'extreme' weather? Why are people talking about it these days? 'Extreme' weather is an unusual weather event such as rainfall, a drought or a heat wave in the wrong place or at the wrong time. In theory, they are very rare. But these days, our TV screens are constantly showing such extreme weather events. Take just three news stories from 2010: 28 centimetres of rain fell on Riode Janeiro in 24 hours, Nashville, USA, had 33 centimetres of rain in two days and there was record rainfall in Pakistan.
The effects of this kind of rainfall are dramatic and lethal. In Rio de Janeiro, landslides followed, burying hundreds of people. In Pakistan, the floods affected 20 million people. Meanwhile, other parts of the world suffer devastating droughts. Australia, Russia and East Africa have been hit in the last ten years. And then there are unexpected heat waves, such as in 2003 in Europe. That summer, 35,000 deaths were said to be heat-related.
So, what is happening to our weather? Are these extreme events part of a natural cycle? Or are they caused by human activity and its effects on the Earth's climate? Peter Miller says it's probably a mixture of both of these things. On the one hand, the most important influences on weather events are natural cycles in the climate. Two of the most famous weather cycles, El Niño and La Niña, originate in the Pacific Ocean. The heat from the warm ocean rises high into the atmosphere and affects weather all around the world. On the other hand, the temperature of the Earth's oceans is slowly but steadily going up. And this is a result of human activity. We are producing greenhouse gases that trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere. This heat warms up the atmosphere, land and oceans. Warmer oceans produce more water vapour - think of heating a pan of water in your kitchen. Turn up the heat, it produces steam more quickly. Satellite data tells US that the water vapour in the atmosphere has gone up by four percent in 25 years. This warm, wet air turns into the rain, storms, hurricanes and typhoons that we are increasingly experiencing. Climate scientist, Michael Oppenheimer, says that we need to face the reality of climate change. And we also need to act now to save lives and money in the future.
(Source: © 2015 National Geographic Learning, www.ngllife.com/wild-weather)
What caused thousands of deaths in 2003?
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There are many types of family systems around the world. In North America and northern Europe, the nuclear family (with two generations - a father, a mother and one or more children) is often seen as the most typical. In contrast, in most other parts of the world, extended families, which include other family members such as grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, are seen as the norm. The common view is that the nuclear family has become the norm in many Western societies as a result of industrialization and urbanization. This trend began in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when people were forced to move to cities to find work in the factories that sprang up during the Industrial Revolution. In the twentieth century, greater industrialization resulted in even more people leaving their large extended families. Urbanization also meant that people lived in much smaller houses, which were not big enough for an extended family. The trend towards nuclear families meant that many of the duties and responsibilities of a family, such as providing food and shelter, cleaning the home, preparing the food, caring for children and their education, and caring for the sick and elderly are no longer shared among the members of the extended family. The parents (or parent) now have to do this, with some help from the state. However, this is the price that people pay for the higher standard of living that may come from living in a city. We may think we know what we mean by a ‘nuclear’ family and an extended family, but reality is more complicated than most people believe. Most nuclear families are part of extended families: children have grandparents and, in many cases, aunts, uncles and cousins as well. Part of what makes them ‘nuclear’ is that they live in their own separate household, but it is not the whole story. In Greece or Italy, for example, a nuclear family may live in its own flat, but the extended family may live in the same apartment block or in the same street and family members see each other and even eat together every day. There is at least one more factor to consider. Family members may be separated from each other by geographical distance, but they may have close emotional ties. Even in North America and northern Europe, grandparents usually have close bonds with their grandchildren, and families often travel long distances so that they can see each other. Grandparents often help their adult children, for example, by cooking and looking after their children in emergencies. In the same way, when their parents become too old to live on their own, adult children may take them into their own homes. As a result, they turn their nuclear family into an extended family. The structure of families changes over time. The effects of urbanization and industrialization are enormous, but they are not the only reasons for the changes. People marry, have children, become widowed, divorce and die. Children grow up and adults grow old. Nuclear families become extended families and extended families become nuclear families. Family ties stay strong or become weak. One thing is certain: in a changing world, the family will continue to change, but ultimately, it is likely to continue to be the basic unit of society
8. Which of the following best serves as the title for the passage? -
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Classrooms have changed considerably in the last hundred years. In the early 1900s, the (1) ______ class in England was twice as big as the average in the 1960s – sixty pupils per class compared with thirty. Nowadays, the average class size in a secondary school is twentythree, (2) ______ is still higher than in many other countries. A hundred years (3) ______, teachers were stricter than today. Punishment was also more severe: pupils were often hit for bad behaviour - a practice not allowed in schools today. The curriculum in the past was also (4) ______ extensive and concentrated on the three Rs - Reading, Writing and Arithmetic – whereas today’s curriculum includes everything from business studies to philosophy. Some people think that the teaching methods used in schools today are not as (5) ______ as those used in the past but, given the wide range of interactive tools available today, the 21st century is definitely the most interesting time to be in the classroom for teachers and pupils alike -
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If you think you left the cliques behind in high school, think again. When it comes to building friendships, men are more likely to return to their clique-y roots than women, according to a recent study published in the journal PLOS One. Researchers found that, in general, men seek to join all-male cliques, clubs or teams, while women prefer a more select, one-on-one relationship with a few close female friends. “Much of male friendship is about coalition building,” said Tamas David-Barett, lead author of the research paper, and member of the experimental psychology department at the University of Oxford. After analyzing the profile pictures of nearly 112,000 Facebook users worldwide, David-Barett and his co-authors found that men were more likely to post a profile picture showing themselves with a large group of male friends. The study notes that such pictures are “arguably an essential element of the male-male coalition competition.” Conversely, women almost never posted a large group profile picture, but tended to display a photo with only one other female friend. As the paper explained, women “appear more often to focus their social capital on only one person at a time.” So why are men and women different in the way they make friends? One hypothesis is the difference between the male and female brain. Typically, women tend to have a larger deep limbic system than their male counterparts. The limbic system is a network of nerves in the brain connected to instinct and mood. The limbic system controls basic emotions such as happiness and fear. Because this system tends to be larger in women, females are more in touch with their feelings and have an increased ability to connect individually with others. According to the Wall Street Journal, other research indicates that females tend to build friendships off of emotional connections and are more apt to share intimate conversations. The male friendship, however, is established by doing things together, such as watching the game or hosting a barbecue. “Female friendships are characterized as more face-to-face. Women want to share and exchange,” said Irene Levine, a friendship expert. “They want to bond. Men, however, want to do things together. They want to go to spectator sports; they want to participate in sports together. They do things that are more side-by-side.”
4. According to paragraph 4, what can be concluded from the Wall Street Journal’s information? -
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The ability to be independent is something that not everyone possesses. (1)_______, you need to be independent in order to survive in the world. Learning to support yourself is (2) ________ for any success you ever hope to achieve. At the end of the day, you only have yourself to fall back on, so it is exceedingly important to be able to handle things on your own. It is all about being secure with who you are and what you believe in. It is extremely empowering knowing that you are (3)________control of your own life and your own choices. It is much more beneficial to listen to the voice inside yourself rather than the berating (4) ________of others. We rely on others far more than it is necessary. People put their happiness in the hands of a significant other, thinking this will bring them fulfillment. This is a fatal error too many people make these days. Do you always want to feel dependent on someone else? Of course not. Not only are you limiting yourself, you are more than likely becoming a burden to this person. We need to learn how to make decisions on our own. I understand asking your friends their opinion on a fashion decision, but do we really need to consult others on every minimal decision we have to make? Think of things (5)________ are in your best interest and choose that option -
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Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world. (1) ____, at the current time, 1 in 5 women and girls between the ages of 15-49 have reported experiencing physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner within a 12-month period and 49 countries currently have no laws (2) ____ women from domestic violence. Progress is occurring regarding harmful practices such as child marriage and FGM (Female Genital Mutilation), which has declined by 30% in the past decade, but there is still much work to be (3) ____ to completely eliminate such practices. Providing women and girls with equal (4) ____ to education, health care, decent work, and representation in political and economic decision-making processes will fuel sustainable economies and benefit societies and humanity at large. Implementing new legal frameworks regarding female equality in the workplace and the eradication of harmful practices (5) ____ at women is crucial to ending the gender-based discrimination prevalent in many countries around the world -
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As places transformed, so did the people. When researchers at Yale University and the University of Westminster studied what images people associated with climate change, they found a shift this decade. When they began their study in 2003, the majority of people surveyed thought of melting polar ice. By 2016, more and more people had weather top of mind. Climate, to be clear, is not weather. It’s the difference between a trend and a one-off event. But with wetter storms and hotter summers unfolding over the course of the decade, people were making new connections between climate change and the weather. Seeing climate change through the lens of something they experience every day opens the door for people to see the weight of the issue over their own lives. “Americans are just beginning to connect the dots and to say, wait a second, what’s going on here,” says Anthony Leiserowitz, a lead author of the study and director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. “There’s been this increasing dawning of awareness among many Americans that climate change is actually starting to harm people here and now.” New renewable energy projects outpaced new fossil fuel installations in worldwide growth for the first time in 2015. In a pivotal moment for the whole planet, every country on Earth agreed to take on climate change when they adopted the Paris climate accord in 2015. That committed countries to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep the Earth from warming beyond roughly 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a threshold that could be catastrophic for people and ecosystems if it’s crossed. It was the culmination of years of political wrangling. “It is rare to have the opportunity in a lifetime to change the world,” former French president François Hollande told delegates gathered on the final day of negotiations. “Seize it so that the planet can live on, so that humanity can live on.” But cooperation, even when the health of the whole planet is on the line, can be a fragile, fleeting thing. After Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, he began the process of formally withdrawing the US from the Paris accord. One by one, Trump backtracked on existing federal efforts to cut down on pollution, too. The words “climate change” began disappearing from government websites and documents
7. The word “backtracked” in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to _______ -
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The year was 1810, the place was southern Germany, Bavaria, and life was hard. It was the month of October and all of the countryside had been working day and night to finish their fall harvest and prepare for the onset of winter. While the plow horses were working and the farmers’ days were filled from sun up to sun down, there were some other preparations being made as well. Prince Ludwig I and his entire court were preparing for his upcoming marriage to Princess Therese of Sachsen-Hildurghausen. The grand wedding was to take place on the 12th, right in the middle of the harvest. As you know any wedding can be difficult to plan, but when you’re a prince it can be even more stressful. The invitations had gone out, the garments had been made and the location had been selected. The big event was to be held in a magnificent “Weise” (meadow) just outside the gates of Munich. As the big day approached, the countryside and town, in fact all of Bavaria was a buzz with talk of the big day. Everyone was planning on attending as they were all exhausted from the harvest and it was really the last chance before the long, cold days of winter to get out and blow off some steam. On the 12th, the ceremony went off without a hitch. The weather was perfect, the bride looked beautiful and about 40,000 guests were in attendance. The reception, as you can imagine, was one of the biggest parties history had ever seen with copious amounts of beer and massive quantities of food being devoured. It was a reception fit for a prince. And this prince was absolutely ecstatic. Ludwig I was so taken with all of his guests that he planned a special treat for them. The prince knew that all of his subjects were huge fans of horseracing so he planned to conclude the event with a somewhat impromptu horse race across the great meadow. When the townspeople heard of this they erupted in a jubilant cry Zicke Zacka, Zicke Zacka, Hoy, Hoy, Hoy. This is still chanted in the beer tents of today’s Oktoberfest celebrations. It was then and there that they decided unanimously to rename the wiese Theresiewiese (Therese Meadow) in honor of the Prince’s new bride. This was their humble way of welcoming her to town. To this day that very meadow still bears her name. After a spectacular day and night — and probably more than a couple of hangovers — the great event came to an end. It was the following fall as the townspeople began to reminisce about the great time they had had the previous year (as do many of our Oktoberfest guests tend to do around the fall) that they decided to honor their prince and celebrate his wedding anniversary in much the same way. King Maximillian agreed, but this party was to be even bigger, better and longer than the first. The event became an annual celebration. And that my friends is how the Oktoberfest tradition began and continues today. As a side note, the beer that was poured all those years ago and that has been continually served at every Oktoberfest in Munich since will now be served at the Big Bear Lake Oktoberfest. The very same beer flowing from the taps in Munich, Germany will be the beer flowing from our taps in humble Big Bear Lake. And like the beer, our Burgermeister just happens to be a true German original as well.
1. What does the passage mainly discuss? -
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There is a new type of advertisement becoming increasingly common in newspaper classified columns. It is sometimes placed among “situations vacant”, although it does not offer anyone a job, and sometimes it appears “situations wanted”, although it is not placed by someone looking for a job, either. What it does is to offer help in applying for a job. “Contact us before writing your application”, or "Make use of our long experience in preparing your curriculum vitae or job history”, is how it is usually expressed. The growth and apparent success of such a specialized service is, of course, a reflection on the current high levels of unemployment. It is also an indication of the growing importance of the curriculum vitae (or job history), with the suggestion that it may now qualify as an art form in its own right. There was a time when job seekers simply wrote letters of application. “Just put down your name, address, age and whether you have passed any exams”, was about the average level of advice offered to young people applying for their first jobs when I left school. The letter was really just for openers, it was explained, everything else could and should be saved for the interview. And in those days of full employment, the technique worked. The letter proved that you could write and were available for work. Your eager face and intelligent replies did the rest. Later, as you moved up the ladder, something slightly more sophisticated was called for. The advice then was to put something in the letter which would distinguish you from the rest. It might be the aggressive approach. “Your search is over. I am the person you are looking for,” was a widely used trick that occasionally succeeded. Or it might be some special feature specially designed for the job in view
4. In the past it was expected that first-job hunters would ____ -
Choose the best answer:
We have ………………… time to get it finished. -
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All birds have feathers, and feathers are unique to birds. No other major group of animals is so easy to categorize. All birds have wings, too, but wings are not (1) ___________ to birds. Many adaptations are found in both feathers and wings. Feathers form the soft down of geese and ducks, the long showy plumes of ostriches and egrets, and the strong flight feathers of eagles and condors. Wings (2) _____________ from the short, broad ones of chickens, who seldom fly, to the long slim ones of albatrosses, who spend almost all their lives soaring on air currents. In penguins, wings have been modified (3) ________ flippers, and feathers into a waterproof covering. In kiwis, the wings are almost impossible to detect. Yet diversity among birds is no so striking as it is among mammals. The (4) ___________ between a hummingbird and a penguin is immense, but hardly as startling as that between a bat and a whale. It is variations in details rather than in fundamental patterns (5) _____________ have been important in the adaptation of birds to many kinds of ecosystems -
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The world is losing languages at an alarming rate. Michael Krauss suggested that of the approximately 6,000 human languages alive today, only 350 to 500 are safe from extinction. Some linguists estimate that a language dies every two weeks or so. At the current rate, by 2100, about 2,500 native languages could disappear. Languages become extinct for many reasons. Through imperialism, colonizers impose their languages on colonies. Some politicians believe multilingualism will fragment national interests. Thus they prohibit education in all but the national language. Another reason for language death is the spread of more powerful languages. In the world today, several languages, including English, are so dominant in commerce, science, and education, that languages with fewer speakers have trouble competing. Although in the past, governments have been one of the primary causes of language death, many have now become champions of preserving endangered languages and have had some significant successes. Two outstanding examples are the revival of Hebrew and Irish. Hebrew was considered a dead language, like Latin, but is now the national language of Israel. Irish was not dead, but severely threatened by English when the government of Ireland began its rescue immediately after the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. All students in public schools must now take some classes in Irish and there are Irish programs in major media, such as television and radio. According to the Irish government, approximately 37% of the population of Ireland now speaks Irish. One of the largest programs to revive languages, Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL), is being conducted by three U.S. government agencies: the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Museum of Natural History. Researchers funded by these agencies are recording interviews with the mostly elderly people who still speak the languages. Analyses of these interviews will help linguists publish dictionaries and grammars of the languages. Eventually, linguists hope to establish language-training programs where younger people can learn the languages, carrying them on into the future. The linguists participating in DEL defend spending millions of dollars to preserve dying languages. They point out that when a language dies, humanity loses all of the knowledge of the world that that culture held. Traditional healers in rural areas have given scientists important leads in finding new medicines; aspirin is an example of these. But one of the most common reasons given by these researchers is that studying languages gives us insight into the radically different way humans organize their world. David Lightfoot, an official at the National Science foundation, gives the example of Guguyimadjir, and Australian aboriginal language, in which there are no words for “right” or left,” only for “north,” “south,” “east,” and “west.” Many researchers are optimistic that the efforts to save dying languages will succeed, at least in part. Bruce L. Cole, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, said, “Not only is this a time of great potential loss, it is also a moment for enormous potential gain. In this modern age of computers and our growing technological capabilities, we can preserve, assemble, analyze, and understand unprecedented riches of linguistic and cultural information.”
4. The word “revive” in paragraph 4 mostly means _______ -
Each sentence has a mistake. Find it bychosing A B C or D
The world’s demand has grown faster in the past five years as in the second half of the 1990s
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Light, litter and noise from boating and water sports are all major stressors on marine life, a new study aims to enhance our knowledge of the effects of these stressors. Researchers will be gathering data from sporting events, leisure boating, tourism and beach activities. The project will assess the impact that these activities have on the environment and marine life in order to offer further guidance to organisers and water sports enthusiasts. Mike Laflin said: “I’ve worked in the sports industry for 30 years, providing market intelligence and information services and a few years ago I started to measure the impact of sporting events on host cities and nations. I’m excited to support this new research so that we can understand more about how our activities impact the environment and how we can mitigate against any negative effects.” Theresa Laflin said: “We are very excited to be able to support all the wonderful work that the university is doing in the area of marine research, and for increasing our awareness of the detrimental impact we have on our environment.” The PhD project will be supervised by Tamara Galloway, Professor of Ecotoxicology at Exeter, who conducts research into the human health effects of pollutants, particularly micro-plastics in water; and Steve Simpson, Associate Professor in Marine Biology and Global Change at the University of Exeter, who has shown that man-made noise is having a detrimental effect on the marine world. Simpson said: “Noise from offshore construction, shipping and motorboats all change the ocean soundscape, disrupting acoustic communication, robbing animals of fundamental sensory information and causing stress. However, working with industry we have found that by managing when and where noise is made, and developing new technology to reduce the noise, we can mitigate the impacts of noise. Finding solutions to reduce the impacts of sporting activities will further help to protect the marine environment.” Galloway said: “We’ll be looking at all forms of pollution both from everyday leisure activities and major sporting events. Investigating specific events gives us the opportunity to measure environmental quality before and after the event, and to return after a period of time to assess recovery. Such an event could be seen as an ‘acute stressor’. Then we’ll also assess ongoing sporting activities, akin to a ‘chronic stressor’ and will try to compare and contrast different types of impact.”
8. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage? -
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The aviation industry, especially the commercial aviation sector, is constantly striving to improve both the way it works and its customer satisfaction. It has begun using artificial intelligence. Though AI in the aviation industry is still in the nascent stage, some progress has been made already as certain leading carriers invest in AI. To make a long story short, AI can redefine how the aviation industry goes about its work. In 2017, American Airlines conducted an app development competition with the goal of having an app developed for making baggage screening easier for passengers. The competition, named HackWars, was themed upon artificial intelligence, drones and augmented and virtual reality. The winner, known as “Team Avatar,” developed an app that would not only allow passengers determine their baggage size before arriving at the airport, but also prepay any potential baggage-related expenses. United Airlines is using Amazon’s Alexa to have certain common customer queries answered. In September 2017, United announced a collaboration with Alexa. The feature is known as the United skill. To get started, all passengers need to do is to add the United skill to their Alexa app and then start asking questions. Alexa answers common queries correctly, such as the status of a flight by number, check-in requests and availability of Wi-Fi on a flight. The reviews so far have been mixed, which points to the fact that there is a learning curve, and it is still a long way to go before AI can fully handle customer assistance. Tracking progress is an enormous challenge that airlines will face. The first thing they need to do is to develop analytics that will help them develop and process accurate data. However, that in itself is a challenge. What kind of analytics will help? For example, customer satisfaction is going to be one of the most important factors in success. What kind of analytics will determine that airlines have been improving on customer satisfaction parameters? AI needs huge investments, and probably the biggest risk in this is smaller, especially budget airlines are going to miss out on reaping the benefits of AI fully. Does that mean that the performance of the smaller carriers will be impacted? That might not be the case, because we might be moving toward more acquisitions and mergers. Bigger airlines will have a massive appetite for acquiring smaller airlines with an eye on the market. It is not all gloom and doom though, because smaller airlines like Southwest have already shown some initiatives toward embracing AI. It is surprising that a sector as important as aviation has woken up to AI so late. As AI in aviation picks up its pace, there could probably be a few mergers, acquisitions or even closure of small airlines which will not be able to afford the investments. Now, AI seems the best option to take aviation to the next level.
7. Which of the following does the word “that” in paragraph 5 refer to? -
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Books have been around for thousands of years. When ancient civilizations first started developing writing systems, they would write on just about anything, from stone to tree bark. Ancient Egyptians were the first to use paper-like materials, called “papyrus”, which they made by pounding flat the woven stems of the papyrus plant. It was not long before the ancient Egyptians began gluing together papyrus sheets to form scrolls, which were the first steps toward books as you know. The birthplace of bookbinding is considered to be India in the 2nd century B.C., where Hindi scribes would bind palm leaves that were etched with religious texts between two wooden boards using twine. The technique became popular in the Middle East and Eastern Asia, and spread to the Romans by the 2nd century A.D. In the mid-15th century, German Johannes Gutenberg invented the first mechanical printing press. His invention was revolutionary because it enabled mass production of booksfor the first time. Before the printing press, a few pages per day could be produced by handcopying. Afterward, printing presses could produce as many as 3,600 pages per day. Today, modern publishers take advantage of incredible advances in technology to produce books in many sizes and shapes very quickly. Although there are many types of processes and machines available, most processes involve similar steps. Printers print the text of a book on large sheets of paper, sometimes as large as a newspaper page. Working with large volumes of paper allows printers to lower costs and produce books more efficiently.The large sheets are then cut into smaller pages that are still about twice the size of a finished book. The smaller pages are then divided into small groups, folded in half, and sewn together. Lastly, the folded and sewn pages are cut down to their finished size and glued to the spine of the final book’s cover. Depending on the quality of the book, additional finishing touches may be added, such as blank pages at the front and back of the book or special tape around the edges of the cover to increase durability. Although printed books may never go away completely, today’s readers will most certainly soon become more familiar with e-books. “E-book” refers to an electronic book, which is simply the text of a book displayed electronically, either via the Internet, a CD-ROM, a tablet, an e-book reader, or even a mobile phone. As electronic devices, such as tablets and mobile phones, become more commonplace, e-books are expected to become more and more popular. One of the benefits of e-books is that they save paper, which helps the environment by reducing the demand for trees
2. Ancient Egypt was mentioned in paragraph 1 as the place where _____. -
Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
More than a decade ago the UK investigative journalist Nick Davies published Flat Earth News, an exposé of how the mass media had abdicated its responsibility to the truth. Newsroom pressure to publish more stories, faster than their competitors had, Davies argued, led to journalists becoming mere “churnalists”. Shocking as Davies’ revelations seemed in 2008, they seem pretty tame by today’s standards, writes Ben Lorica, Chief Data Scientist at O’Reilly. We now live in a post-truth world of Fake News and “alternative facts”; where activists don’t just seek to manipulate the news agenda with PR but now use advanced technology to fake images and footage. A particularly troubling aspect of these ‘”deepfake” videos is their use of artificial intelligence to fabricate people saying or doing things with almost undetectable accuracy. The result is that publishers risk running completely erroneous stories – as inaccurate as stating that the world is flat – with little or any ability to check their source material and confirm whether it is genuine. The rise of unchecked fakery has serious implications for our liberal democracy and our ability to understand what’s truly going on in the world. The technology to manipulate imagery has come a long way since Stalin had people airbrushed out of history. Creating convincing yet fake digital content no longer requires advanced skills or a well-resourced (mis)information bureau. Anyone with a degree of technical proficiency can create content that will fool even the experts. Take the faked footage of Nancy Pelosi earlier this year, which was doctored to make her look incoherent and was viewed two and a half million times before Facebook took it down. This story shows how social media is giving new life to the old aphorism that “a lie can go halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its boots on”. The propagation of lies and misinformation is immeasurably enhanced by platforms like Twitter and Facebook that enable virality. What’s more, the incentives for creating fake content now favour malicious actors, with clear economic and political advantages for disseminating false footage. Put simply, the more shocking or extreme the content, the more people will share it and the longer they will stay on the platform. Meanwhile, counterfeiters can manipulate the very tools being developed to detect and mitigate deepfak content, just as the security industry inadvertently supplies software that can be misused for cybercrime.
7. The word “inadvertently” in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to _______. -
Find opposite:
Among friends again, we may be happy to confide our innermost secrets.