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At one time, these trees are totally destroyed by the Glass Fire in North California

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Typically, Pacific trade winds blow from east to west, transporting warm surface waters westward, east of Indonesia and northeast of Australia. Thus, the water maintains a cold temperature for much of the year. This is achieved by an upwelling of cold deep ocean-water, which benefits fisheries in the Pacific Ocean lying near the equator. However, these trade winds sometimes lose or gain strength in the Northern Hemisphere. This leads to an effect known as the Southern Oscillation which refers to the two recurring weather patterns of El Niño and La Niña.  El Niño, meaning the "boy," is the phenomenon that results in the temperature of the sea surface off the coast of Peru increasing. This condition typically lasts for at least six months. Thus, there is a reduction in dissolved oxygen in the ocean so marine life declines devastating fisheries. It also fuels major differences in air pressure near the Pacific Ocean, which in turn leads to more severe weather events including droughts, increased precipitation, flooding, and even cyclonic storms like hurricanes. Usually, the eastern Pacific region has an upswing in heavy rains to cause flooding, and in contrast, Australia and Indonesia have droughts, often with accompanying forest fires. These two opposing weather events hurt agriculture. For instance, the 1982 – 1983 El Niño, recognized as the worst weather event of the century, hit hard in the U.S. by dropping huge amounts of rainfall on the southern California coast, which resulted in millions of dollars of damage while necessitating the evacuation of 10,000 people.    El Niños counterpart, La Niña, meaning "the girl," contrastingly forms when Pacific trade winds grow more powerful than usual. It is the result of the cooler-than-average temperatures of South American equatorial surface waters which cause global cooling. La Niña's duration usually lasts for 9 to 12 months and although forming in the Pacific region, it can wreak havoc across large swaths of the world. During the winter months, the western Pacific areas including Australia, Malaysia, and the Philippines have much greater rainfall. Conversely, unusually dry conditions settle in over North America's Gulf Coast and large sections of South and Central America as well. Additionally, in the Canadian and American West, there is a cooling effect.  By studying the patterns of the El Niño and La Niña cycles, meteorologists have come to better understand their impacts on global weather phenomena. They are thus better able to make predictions especially in terms of not only the strength of each stage, but also when either will fizzle out or begin again, allowing governments to better prepare for floods and droughts which come with each cycle and to prevent billions of dollars in losses and damage. Thereby, the areas under their influence need accurate forecasts to reduce the wide-reaching effects these phenomena have across many facets of both the environment and the economy.   
8. The main purpose in paragraph 4 is to ____

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Forget global terrorism - for most of the world's population, ticking time bombs like earthquakes, supervolcanoes and hurricanes pose a far greater threat. Natural disaster expert Bill McGuire reveals a few of the top catastrophes waiting to happen. With NASA's eminent climate scientist, Jim Hansen, concerned that collapsing polar ice sheets could result in sea levels rising 1-2m this century and several more in the next, prospects for the Earth's coastal zones are bleak. A 1m rise would threaten one third of the world's agricultural land, while a 4m rise would maroon Miami 60km offshore. Rising sea levels is not the only threat to coastal regions. The Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Canary Island of La Palma is slowly creeping seawards. During a future eruption, this gigantic landslide will plunge into the ocean, pushing up a bulge of water close to a kilometre high, spawning a mega-tsunami capable of devastating all the coastal areas surrounding the North Atlantic. Coastal regions also face the menace of desertification. By 2030, over half a billion people living around the shores of the Mediterranean will be viewing the encroaching desert with increasing panic. An area bigger than the UK, and home to 16 million people, is threatened - by the end of the century- with transformation from a green and pleasant land to a baking wilderness of sand and rock. However, these disasters seem pale in comparison to the mega-catastrophes waiting to happen like supervolcanoes, for instance. Every 50 millennia or so, a colossal volcanic blast expels sufficient ash and gas to cover a continent and block the Sun's rays for years on end, heralding a bitter volcanic winter. At Yellowstone in Wyoming, US, two such super-eruptions have shattered the crust in the last 2.1 million years and the volcano there remains restless. An asteroid attack is another threat which would have devastating consequences. A total of 713 asteroids with diameters of 1km or more, and the potential to clobber the Earth at some future date, have been identified. A 2km asteroid would load the atmosphere with dust and trigger a sustained global freeze. Harvests would fail and billions would die. Fortunately, such collisions only happen every couple of million years.
6. Which of the following is true, according to the passage?

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Human beings are notorious for making mistakes. If you look at the police log in any given city on any given day, you will definitely (1)_________ that one of the biggest problems all cities face is car accidents. People do all sorts of things that (2)_________ them into trouble on the roadways. Sometimes, they feel sleepy or they talk on cell phones while they are driving. Whatever the case may be, the accidents that are caused are almost always due to human error. The car accident as a human error might be in for a big shake-up that will make the roadways much safer. We may soon be (3)_________ into an area of self-driving cars that communicate with other cars on the road while (4)_________ the areas around them to avoid obstacles and keep the passengers safe. The technology is already here, and it is proving to be successful. One company that has fully been (5)___________ the idea of driverless car is Google. The company’s driverless car programme is run by Sebastian Thun, who gained fame in 2005 when his team from Stanford won the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge

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Pablo Picasso is considered to be one of the most (26)_______painters in the twentieth century.(27)_______ was born in Malaga, Spain on October 20, 1881.(28)______painting, Picasso also tried (29)______ kinds of job such as a printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright. From the age of seven, Picasso received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting. On one occasion, the father found his son painting over his unfinished sketch of a pigeon. Observing the (30)______ of his son’s technique, the father felt that the thirten-year-old Picasso had surpassed him, and vowed to (31)______ painting. Picasso grew up to become one of the greatest (32)______most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known (33)______ co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for (34)_____ styles that he helped develop and explore. Picasso is now regarded as one of the artists (35)______ most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century

Read and circle the best option A, B, C or D to complete the passage:

I live in a house near the sea. It is ...(1)... old house, about 100 years old and...(2)... very small. There are two bed rooms upstairs...(3)... no bathroom. The bathroom is downstairs ...(4)... the kitchen and there is a living room where there is a lovely old fire place. There is a garden...(5)... the house. The garden...(6)... down to the beach and in spring and summer...(7)... flowers every where. I like alone...(8)... my dog, Rack, but we have a lot of visitors. My city friends often stay with ...(9)...

I love my house for... (10)... reasons: the garden, the flowers in summer, the old fire place, but the best thing is the view from my bedroom window.

(3)......................

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
George Orwell did not expect to be a successful writer. In fact, he spent much of his life anticipating failure. In an essay about his schooldays, he wrote that until he was about thirty he always planned his life with the (1)____that any major undertaking was bound to fail. He wanted success and worked hard to (2) ____it but he was never quite able to give up the notion that his efforts would always come up short. At the age of 46, (3)____before he died, he confided in his private notebook that a deep sense of inadequacy had haunted him throughout his career. He stated that there had been literally not one day in which he did not feel that he was being lazy, that he was behind with his current job and that his rate of work was miserably small. Even in the first months after the tremendous success of “Animal Farm”, he was quick discount his achievement, declaring that his next book was bound to be a failure. Of course, no conscientious author is ever completely (4)____with their work, but Orwell’s doubts were so (5)____that he often appeared more comfortable (6)____defeat than acknowledging success. In 1940, after the publication of his eighth book, he (7)____to an admiring letter from another writer by (8)____ out of his way to show the man why he was not (9)____of his praise. “It makes me laugh,” he wrote, “to see you referring to me as “famous” and “successful”. I wonder if you (10)____ how little my books sell!

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Today, supermarkets are found in almost every large city in the world. But the first supermarket (26)_________opened only fifty years ago. It was opened in New York by a man named Michael Cullen. A supermarket is different (27)___________other types of stores in several ways. In supermarkets, goods are placed on open shelves. The (28)__________ choose what they want and take them to the checkout counter. This means that fewer shop assistants are needed than in other stores. The way products are displayed is another difference between supermarkets and many other types of stores; (29)__________ example, in supermarkets, there is usually a display of small inexpensive items just in front of the checkout counter: candies, chocolates, magazines, cheap foods and so on. Most customers (30)__________go to a supermarket buy goods from a shopping list. They know exactly what they need to buy. They do the shopping according to a plan

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Maria Alcalá of Madrid speaks for many Mediterranean people when she says that “a meal without olive oil would be a bore.” No one knows when the Mediterranean civilizations initially fell in love with olives. That occurred before recorded history. However, there is evidence that the cultivation of olive trees began in countries around the Mediterranean Sea in approximately 4000 B.C., and 2,000 years after that people in the eastern Mediterranean region began to produce oil from olives. The Mediterranean still accounts for 99 percent of all world olive oil production. From ancient times until today, the basic process of producing the oil is the same. First, whole olives are crushed. Then, the liquid is separated from the solids. After that, the valuable oil is separated from the water. Many olive growers maintain their ancient traditions and still harvest the olives by hand. “We harvest in the traditional way,” says Don Celso, an olive farmer from Tuscany, Italy. "It would be less expensive to do it with machines, but it's more a social thing. Twenty people come to help with the harvest, and we pay them in oil." Olive oil has had a variety of uses through its long history. In ancient times, olive oil was used as money and as medicine. It was even used during war-heated up and dropped down on attackers. It is still used in religious ceremonies. It is great for protecting the freshness of fish and cheese. There are even olive oil lamps and olive oil soaps. Olive oil enhances the lives of people everywhere. Its benefits, recently confirmed by science, were already understood in ancient times. Mediterranean people are happy to share their secret with the world.
4. The word ‘it’ in paragraph 2 refers to _______

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
July 19, 2008
GERALD PEMBERTON
5725 Delphi Drive
Troy, Michigan 48098-2815 USA
Dear Mr. Pemberton,
We would like to thank you for booking exhibit space at the annual Electronics World Convention in
Saginaw, Michigan. We anticipate more than 10,000 electronics enthusiasts to attend this year, so you can be (1)------- that the convention will be an ideal place to display your products. To make sure that your exhibit will be ready on the first day, we are enclosing instructions for setting up your booth. Along with your requested space, a table and one chair are included with the price of your booth. Other equipment and services such as an Internet connection are available for an (2) -------fee. For more information, please visit our Web site at www.electronicsworld.com/convention. To simplify preparation, an events coordinator (3)------- available to provide support during the booth set-up period. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us at the contact numbers or e-mail address listed on our Web site.
Sincerely yours,
JILL COLTRAINE
PRESIDENT
Electronics World Associates

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Bodies are made to move! They are not (31) _____ for sitting around in front of the television or reading magazines. Keeping fit doesn't mean have to be a super-athlete, and even (32) _____ 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. (33) _____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 (34) _____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 (35) _____you'll soon see and feel the benefits

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An A level is an Advanced level GCE qualification. This exam is (1) ____ taken after two years of A level study, following the O level/IGCSE exams. Students can take any number of A level exams; in the UK, most college students take three or four A level exams for their final two years of study. The (2) ____ of A levels to be taken will often depend on the qualifications that the university (3) ____ requires. A level results can open doors to (4) ____ studies at some of the best higher educational institutions in the world, and to a (5) ____ range of professional and vocational courses that can help build skills for an exciting and (6) ____ career. In many countries round the world, some schools follow the GCE syllabus to prepare their pupils for taking A level exams. Students at these schools should enquire at their school about how they can register and sit (7) ____ the exams. Students who do not (8) ____ a school that follows the GCE syllabus can still take A level exams and can register as a private individual with the British Council.  In order to register for an A level exam one will need to (9) ____ an entry form which will become available at the British Council offices. Forms usually become (10) ____ for January examinations in early August of the preceding year. For May/June examinations, they are available in early December of the preceding year

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Tornadoes are known to have higher winds than tropical cyclones, (1)_________ tornadoes are much smaller. As a (2)_________, a tropical cyclone can be hundreds of kilometres wide, with destruction occurring in different degrees depending on which part of the cyclone hits the land. In contrast, tornadoes are usually less than a few hundred metres wide. These storms are (3)_________ destructive in the smaller areas in which they hit, but they are also short-lived. Tropical cyclones develop in areas where the seawater is warm and there is instability in the atmosphere. (4)_________ as tropical depressions, they begin to gather strength. As they are developing, they begin to rotate, with the differences in humidity and air temperature (5)_________ them until sufficient wind speeds are reached to be classified as a tropical cyclone

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Further education in Britain means education after the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) and General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQ) exam taken around the age of 16. It includes courses of study leading to A levels which students take at their school or sixth-form college. Some students go straight to a college of further education which offers a wider range of full- and part-time courses. Further education also includes training for professional qualifications in nursing, accountancy and management, and in fields such as art and music. The term higher education is used in Britain and the US to refer to degree courses at universities.  In the US further education usually means any other education after secondary school. It can mean study at college, or any study towards a professional qualification, and it can have a meaning similar to that of adult education or continuing education, i.e. something that people do after completing their main education, often for personal interest and satisfaction.  Many students in Britain take vocational training courses in fields such as building, engineering, hair-dressing or secretarial skills. Colleges of further education offer courses leading to National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) and other certificates and diplomas. Work-related courses are designed with advice from industry, with the aim of producing students who will have the skills employers require. On longer courses students may do placement (AmE internships) (= periods of work) lasting several months with companies. On other courses, called sandwich courses, students divide their time between periods of paid work and periods of study. A common arrangement is for students to get day release from their work to attend college one or two days a week over several years. Some students do a formal apprenticeship, learning their skills on the job and attending college part-time.  The British government is keen to persuade more young people to remain in education as long as possible to build up a more highly skilled, better educated workforce. About 3.9 million people take part-time further education courses, while another 1.1 million are full-time students.   
7. The passage is most likely taken from ____

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Part of what makes summers so hot is also what causes thunderstorms. As heat from the sun beats down on Earth, the heat evaporates some of the water in lakes and oceans. The evaporated water stays in the air. This evaporated water makes the air feel heavy and humid. Humid air is what makes you feel hot and sticky (1) _______ the summer. Warm humid air usually does not stay in one place. The wind can move it higher in the sky (2) _______ it will cool off. When warm humid air cools, it forms clouds. As more water is moved from lakes and oceans to the airs, the clouds get bigger and bigger. Since summer, the air near the ground is hotter than it is during other seasons of the year. When this hot air mixes with cool air from (3) _______ area, there will be changes in the weather. Greater differences between the (4) _______ of the hot and cold air will cause greater changes in the weather. Imagine putting an ice (5) _______ in a warm drink. As soon as the ice hits the warm drink, it will crack and pop. But if you put the ice cube in a cool drink, it will not crack or pop as much. When warmer and cooler clouds get close to one another, there may be some popping and cracking as the weather changes. There may be more clouds or storms. A thunderstorm may be on its way.

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There is (42) _______ debate between archeologists about when and where the first civilizations developed. That is because the answer to that question depends on what one defines as a civilization. If a civilization is simply a small group of people having a similar culture and beliefs, then civilizations have existed in many parts of the world for thousands of years. If a civilization is defined as a larger, more complex society (43) _______ a government and the construction of cities, then the first civilization was probably the Sumerian civilization in what is now Iraq. The Sumerians were (44) _______ from the Ubaid culture, which was made up of small villages of farmers who lived slightly farther north. Sometime around 4,000 B.C. these farmers moved down into the valley along the Tigris River. This land received little rain, and was unsuitable for farming. Therefore, it was empty and the Sumerians had plenty of (45) _______ and little competition from other peoples. What allowed the Sumerians to successfully farm in this dry land was their knowledge of irrigation, the practice of taking water from a river or lake and moving it to fields through the use of man-made canals. This allowed the Sumerians to farm here successfully (46) _______ the lack of rain. We know that the Sumerians had a great understanding of irrigation because their language is filled with words related to it

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Learning to manage your time involves using a variety of life skills together. First of all, you need to know yourself. Only you know (1) ____ you are a morning or an evening person, for example. Understanding when you are (2) ____ your best can help you decide when to do certain things you have to do - like studying. Then, you need to prioritise and decide which things are the most (and least) important. After that, you need to get organised and start planning a schedule, (3) ____ could include when to study, as well as when to relax. It is important to be (4) ____ when you are trying to manage your time. You need to factor in time to sleep, (5) ____, and this should be based on your normal sleep patterns there is no (6) ____ in planning to study at six in the morning if you have never managed to get out of bed before eight. Many people forget to include socialising, but this is a mistake because it is unhealthy to avoid seeing people, just as it is a mistake to (7) ____ all your time socialising while your list of things to do grows longer and longer.  On the subject of lists, it is important to remember that these may have to change. You need to plan for the unexpected - a visit from a friend, for example - and this means that you may have to (8) ____ your to-do list, perhaps (9) ____ something that is less important. Flexibility is the key here, (10) ____ you risk becoming extremely disorganised. It is better to have to change a plan than to lose it completely.  Finally, remember the old saying - 'If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. In the end, managing your time better will help you avoid stress, and that can only be a good thing.

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
Although women now (1) ______ almost half of all workers in the U.S., nearly 80  percent of them are employed in low-paying clerical, sales, service, or factory jobs.  Approximately a third of all women workers have clerical jobs, which pay (2)  ______ average $12,000 or less. Partly as a result, women make only seventy five cents for every dollar (3) ______ by men. (4) ______, men routinely make  more money even when education, experience, and responsibilities are (5) ______

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When you wake up in the morning, do you assume that you're going to have a great day or that you're going to have a difficult day? If you normally have positive expectations, you might consider yourself an optimist, and if your expectations are usually negative, you may be a pessimist. According to research done by the Mayo Clinic, optimism can have a strong positive effect on your health. Their research shows that optimists may live longer, get colds less often, and be less likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease. Optimists may even deal with stress better than pessimists do. If you think you might be a pessimist and would like to try to be more optimistic, pay attention to what some call “self-talk.” The term “self-talk” refers to the automatic thoughts that go through your head all the time. You know-the ideas, worries, beliefs, and hopes that run through your mind as you're driving, washing dishes, folding laundry. Are those thoughts negative like, “Everyone knows so much more than I do,” or positive like, “I'm learning a lot at this job”? If your self-talk is negative, there are some things you can do to steer it in a more positive direction. First, you can simply stop your negative self-talk. Every time you catch yourself thinking something negative, you can stop yourself by actually saying, “Stop,” out loud. Alternatively, you can revise your self-talk. For example, if you catch yourself saying, “I’m terrible at giving presentations,” revise that to a question like, “How can I improve my presentation skills?” Another idea is to think of yourself as a friend. When you “hear” a negative sentence go through your mind, think about whether or not you would feel comfortable saying it to a friend. If the sentence seems too mean to say to a friend, think about what would sound better
5. Which of the following is true, according to the passage?

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The (31) _________ for many young people today is to communicate with others over the Internet and have a life online. The way they do this is through social networking web sites such as Facebook and Twitter. However, the people who (32) _________ their lives online are also putting themselves at risk, and they may not even understand how they are doing so. The key to limiting risk is to keep certain pieces of information private. If you do any banking online, for example, it is important to note that dates of birth are often used as a(n) (33) _________ feature by banks. They will need to know your identification number and possibly your address as well, but to (34) _________ your identity, they might ask you for your date of birth. If a criminal were to gain access to your account number at a bank, and then obtain your address from public records, the one thing that he would not have would be your birth date. These days, however, a lot of people list their dates of birth openly on Facebook (35) _________ their friends can wish them well on their birthdays. Unfortunately, doing so could end up being a recipe for disaster.

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Vietnam is a (1) ____, developing country that in the last 34 years has had to recuperate from the ravages of war. Substantial progress was (2) ____ from 1986 to 1997 in moving forward from an extremely low level of development and significantly reducing poverty.  Since 2001, Vietnamese authorities have reaffirmed their (3) ____ to economic liberalization and international (4) ____. They have moved to implement the structural reforms needed to modernize the economy and to produce more competitive, (5) ____ industries.  Vietnam's membership in the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and entry (6) ____ force of the US-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement in December 2001 have (7) ____ to even more rapid changes in Vietnam's trade and economic regime. Vietnam's exports to the US doubled in 2002 and again in 2003. Vietnam joined the WTO (World Trade Organization) in January 2007, following over a decade long (8) ____. This should provide an important boost to the economy and should help to ensure the continuation of liberalizing reforms.  Vietnam is working to create jobs to meet the challenge of a (9) ____ that is growing by more than one million people every year. Vietnamese authorities have tightened monetary and fiscal (10) ____ to stem high inflation