Choose the best answer:
Hardly …the door when the telephone rang.

 

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Vegetables are parts of (1) __________ that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. The original meaning is still commonly used and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, (2) __________ the flowers, fruits, stems, leaves, roots, and seeds. Originally, vegetables were collected from the wild by huntergatherers and entered cultivation in several parts of the world, probably during the period 10,000 BC to 7,000 BC, when a new agricultural way of life developed. At first, plants which grew locally would have been cultivated, but as time went on, trade brought exotic crops from (3)__________ to add to domestic types. Nowadays, most vegetables are grown all over the world as climate permits. Crops may be cultivated in protected environments in less suitable locations, and global trade in (4) __________ products allows consumers to purchase vegetables grown in faraway countries. The scale of production varies from subsistence farmers supplying the needs of their family for food, to agribusinesses with vast areas of single-product crops. Depending on the type of vegetable concerned, harvesting the crop is followed by grading, storing, processing, and marketing. Vegetables can be eaten (5) __________ raw or cooked and play an important role in human nutrition, being mostly low in fat and carbohydrates, but high in vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber. Many nutritionists encourage people to consume plenty of fruit and vegetables, five or more portions a day often being recommended

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
When it comes to cooking, boomers cook one, Generation X cooks another way and the beat generation does things that must be recorded now, because once they have passed out of fashion, they will never be discovered again. They have weird skills, derived from scarcity in their early years. They keep their spices in brown glass because they last longer. For practical purposes, this means everything is in an old Calpol bottle with “sumac” scrawled over it. Some of them are, and will fish an empty packet of sugar out of the bin, shake a quarter-teaspoon of sugar from it and put it back. They can often make a cake by eye, without weighing anything, which I find incredible, and they know what to do with leaf gelatine, which is great until it isn’t. My mother once made avocado in jelly and then said: “I don’t know, the proportions may have been slightly off.” I said, recklessly: “Don’t worry – I’m sure I’ll choke it down,” but when it came to it, my cutlery bounced off it, like a prank played on a very hungry person in a cartoon. The beat generation canon is Meat at Any Price and Fish at Any and anything to do with mince. The descent of mince from a sacred food to a bolognese-only staple is one of the great mysteries of progress, because it is delicious even when you don’t shove a load of tomato in it. But you can’t just shove cheap meat in a pan and watch while it sweats out watery grey juice. This seems to be something that only wartime generations understand. Hip parents in the 70s, or regular parents in the 80s, or quite trad parents in the 90s had a horror of overcooked carrots and waterlogged cabbage. The very smell of cooked vegetables evoked for them every bad memory of British cuisine, before anchovies and Italians and radicchio arrived, when all dinner was a school dinner. So they would all just tease their vegetables with a hint of boiling water, before turning them out, still basically a salad, only a bit warmer. Then you, their offspring, would leave home, and accidentally encounter a vegetable that had been cooked, and realise how delicious it was and now you probably overcook your vegetables a bit, and your children will go the other way.  
8. Which of the following can be inferred from 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.

   Family life in the United States is changing. Thirty or forty years ago, the wife was called a "housewife". She cleaned, cooked, and cared for the children. The husband earned the money for the family. He was usually out working all day. He came home tired in the evening, so he did not do much housework. And he did not see the children very much, except on weekends.

   These days, however, more and more women work outside the home. They cannot stay with the children all day. They, too, come home tired in the evening. They do not want to spend the evening cooking dinner and cleaning up. They do not have time to clean the house and do the laundry. So who is going to do the housework now? Who is going to take care of the children?

   Many families solve the problem of housework by sharing it. In these families, the husband and wife agree to do different jobs around the house, or they take turns doing each job. For example, the husband always cooks dinner and the wife always does the laundry. Or the wife cooks dinner on some nights and the husband cooks dinner on other nights.

   Then there is a question of the children. In the past, many families got help with child care from grandparents. Now families usually do not live near their relatives. The grandparents often are too far away to help in a regular way. More often, parents have to pay for child care help. The help may be a babysister or a day-care center. The problem with this kind of help is the high cost. It is possible only for couples with jobs that pay well.

   Parents may get another kind of help from the companies they work for. Many companies now let people with children work part-time. That way, parents can spend more time with their children. Some husbands may even stop working for a while to stay with the children. For these men there is a new word: They are called "househusband". In the United States more ans more men are becoming househusband every year.

   These changes in the home mean changes in the family. Fathers can learn to understand their children better, and the children can get to know their fathers better. Husbands and wives may also find changes in their marriage. They, too, may have a better understanding of each other.

It can be inferred from paragraph 4 that__________.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
It’s probably the most painstaking, heart wrenching, and stress inducing test of dedication a marriage can face. But the reward at the end is pretty sweet. At the annual Wife Carrying World Championships in Sonkajärvi, Finland, male competitors race around a track hauling their female partners on their backs. Winner takes home his wife’s weight in beer. It’s no ordinary racetrack, either. Competitors must wade through a neck-deep pool of water, climb over hurdles, and run through pits of sand before crossing the finish line. While some participants don crazy costumes for the pre-race, the actual event is pretty straightlaced. Wives must weigh at least 49 kilograms (108 pounds). Any woman lighter than that is required to carry a heavy rucksack until she reaches this minimum. A participant who drops his wife will be penalized 15 seconds. But there is one catch: contestants don’t have to carry their own wives. A friend’s wife, stranger’s wife, or even a random grandmother will do – as long as she’s over 17. Contestants flock from 47 countries across the globe to show their stuff in this epic display of brute strength. This year, Finnish couple Taisto Miettinen and Kristiina Haapanen captured the title for the fourth consecutive year. The 46-year-old lawyer and his wife completed the 235-meter course in one minute and four seconds. Like any dedicated athlete, Miettinen reported that he’d been training for a while. “In last autumn, I started running in the track, one hundred, two hundred and four hundred meters,” Miettinen said in a post-race interview. He also practiced the course in ski boots to build leg strength. The competition, which began in 1992, is supposedly rooted in the legend of Ronkainen the Robber — a hardnosed gang leader who hazed potential members by making them lug sacks of grain or live pigs over a similar course. He and his comrades also made a habit of stealing women from neighboring villages as a nod to this practice, many men “steal” friends’ wives for the competition. If you want to compete but can’t make it to Finland, there’s a North American version of the contest held in October at Sunday River Resort in Maine. With 100-plus pounds of brewski on the line, you might want to tell your significant other to start shaping up.
4. According to paragraph 2, Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a task for competitors to cross on the racetrack?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
When Gustave Eiffel’s company built Paris’ most recognizable monument for the 1889 World’s Fair, many regarded the massive iron structure with skepticism. Today, the Eiffel Tower, which continues to serve an important role in television and radio broadcasts, is considered an architectural wonder and attracts more visitors than any other paid tourist attraction in the world. In 1889, Paris hosted an Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) to mark the 100-year anniversary of the French Revolution. More than 100 artists submitted competing plans for a monument to be built on the Champ-de-Mars, located in central Paris, and serve as the exposition’s entrance. The commission was granted to Eiffel et Compagnie, a consulting and construction firm owned by the acclaimed bridge builder, architect and metals expert Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel. While Eiffel himself often receives full credit for the monument that bears his name, it was one of his employees - a structural engineer named Maurice Koechlin—who came up with and fine-tuned the concept. Several years earlier, the pair had collaborated on the Statue of Liberty’s metal armature. Eiffel reportedly rejected Koechlin’s original plan for the tower, instructing him to add more ornate flourishes. The final design called for more than 18,000 pieces of puddle iron, a type of wrought iron used in construction, and 2.5 million rivets. Several hundred workers spent two years assembling the framework of the iconic lattice tower, which at its inauguration in March 1889 stood nearly 1,000 feet high, and was the tallest structure in the world - a distinction it held until the completion of New York City’s Chrysler Building in 1930. In 1957, an antenna was added that increased the structure’s height by 65 feet, making it taller than the Chrysler Building but not the Empire State Building, which had surpassed its neighbor in 1931. Initially, only the Eiffel Tower’s second-floor platform was open to the public; later, all three levels, two of which now feature restaurants, would be reachable by stairway or one of eight elevators. Millions of visitors during and after the World’s Fair marveled at Paris’ newly erected architectural wonder. Not all of the city’s inhabitants were as enthusiastic, however: Many Parisians either feared it was structurally unsound or considered it an eyesore. The novelist Guy de Maupassant, for example, allegedly hated the tower so much that he often ate lunch in the restaurant at its base, the only vantage point from which he could completely avoid glimpsing its looming silhouette.  
3. The word “granted” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to ______

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Australia has a well-organized and well-structured education system. The education starts at the age of five or six, but it may differ by a narrow margin between states. It starts with the preschool education which is not compulsory and can be offered within a school or separately. The primary and secondary school encompasses the compulsory education for Australians. There are a large number of primary and high school across the country with most of them being public schools. It is estimated that public schools amount to 60% of scholars as opposed to 40% in private settings. All these education providers must be licensed by the government and must fulfill certain requirements including infrastructure and teaching. Universities, on the other hand, are mainly public institutions. The Australian education system has established a standard curriculum so all scholars will be given the same quality of education. Despite there may be some states at which this curriculum is modified a bit, but the change is not that significant. The actual curriculum set  out in Australia education system is based on important abilities one must have in his life: Literacy, Numeracy, Information and communication technology, Critical and creative thinking, personal and social capability, ethical understanding, intercultural understanding. Vocational and Technical schools prepare students that want to skip the university and want to move directly to the job market. Actually, here it stands the difference between universities and colleges: the Vocational and Technical Schools are more oriented in teaching practical skills while university courses are mainly theory-based to lead students to different academic careers. There are hundreds of other schools out there that provide technical and further education (TAFE) and vocational education and training (VET). These schools offer short courses, certificates I through IV, diplomas, and advanced diplomas. They focus on training their students in a particular vocation or just to help their students get out into the workplace. These schools offer a wide variety of courses and qualifications attained by these courses can lead to different career pathways to follow afterward  Australian higher education modernity and reputation relies on a huge number of educational providers including universities and different training organizations. Currently, there are 43 universities across the country. The vast majority of universities are public except two private universities. The world-class teaching offered is surely undisputed. Seven Australian universities are traditionally found at the top 100 best universities in the world which is a sufficient indicator to highlight their quality. Besides universities, more than 5,000 training organizations are registered and accredited. Actual figures show that the number of enrolled students is around 3.8 million with international students sharing more than half a million. There are also 3 self-accrediting higher education institutions. Furthermore, dozens of smaller schools do not grant any degrees or have an accreditation – these are private schools that focus on theology, business, information technology, natural therapies, hospitality, health, law, and accounting.  
8. What can be inferred from the passage?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Aging is the process of growing old. It occurs eventually in every living thing provided, of course, that an illness or accident does not kill it prematurely. The most familiar outward signs of aging may be seen in old people, such as the graying of the hair and the wrinkling of the skin. Signs of aging in a pet dog or cat include loss of playfulness and energy, a decline in hearing and eyesight, or even a light graying of the coat. Plants are too, but the signs are much harder to detect. Most body parts grow bigger and stronger, and function more effiiently during childhood. They reach their peak at the time of maturity, or early adulthood. After that, they begin to decline. Bones, for example, gradually become lighter and more brittle. In the aged, the joints between the bones also become rigid and more inflxible. This can make moving very painful. All the major organs of the body show signs of aging. The brain, for example, works less effiiently, and even gets smaller in size. Thinking processes of all sorts are slowed down. Old people often have trouble in remembering recent events. One of the most serious changes of old age occurs in the arteries, the blood vessels that lead from the heart. They become thickened and constricted, allowing less blood to flw to the rest of body. This condition accounts, directly or indirectly, for many of the diseases of the aged. It may, for example, result in heart attack. Aging is not a uniform process. Different parts of the body wear out at the different rates. There are differences among people in their rate of aging. Even the cell of the body differ in the way they age. The majority of cells are capable of reproducing themselves many times during the course of a lifetime. Nerve cells and muscle fiers can never be replaced once they wear out. Gerontologists - scientists who study the process of aging - believe this wearing out of the body is controlled by a built-in biological time-clock. They are trying to discover how this clock works so that they can slow down the process. This could give man a longer life and a great number of productive years.
6. According to the passage, what condition is responsible for many of the diseases of the old?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Generation gaps form when two age groups begin to see the world from significantly different perspectives. Generation gaps existed long before the 1960s - in the early 19th century, political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville commented, “Among democratic nations, (1) ____ generation is a new people.” But they tend to emerge with greater frequency as the (2) ____ of societal change increases. For example, in the 1800s, chances were that your father’s world looked a lot (3) ____ your own. In the 21st century, even a short span of 20 years can bring radical changes in technology (and the way we use it), moral and religious beliefs, and attitudes about education, work, friends and family life. Longer life spans also increase the prevalence of generation gaps. For babies born in 1920, life (4) ____ in the United States was 56.4 years. For babies born in 2009, it’s 78.7 years. Longer life spans mean that more generations are living and working simultaneously. That means (5) ____ for the first time in history, there are four distinct generations (and four generation gaps) in the workplace

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Children’s behaviour has worsened over the past five years, according to a survey of  teachers which found that a fifth thought girls were more likely to cause trouble than boys. The survey, published after teachers at a Lancashire school went on strike over discipline, found low-level disruption, including chatting and “horsing around”, was the biggest problem. Boys were more likely to be physically aggressive while girls tended to ostracise other pupils. The behaviour of boys was more of a challenge than that of girls but the actions of each sex had deteriorated, according to 56.5% of staff surveyed by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL).  Among male pupils the most challenging behaviour for teachers was physical aggression, such as pushing, spitting, kicking and hitting. A secondary teacher quoted in the survey said boys were usually aggressive with other pupils, while girls tended to call one another names. Teachers criticised a lack of role models in the home. A primary teacher said: “The boys are far more willing to be aggressive to adults, verbally and even physically. There don’t seem to be any parental boundaries set of what is an appropriate way to speak and deal with another adult.” Teachers at Darwen Vale high school, Lancashire, walked out over unruly pupil behaviour this month. They said children challenged them to fights and threatened to film lessons and post them online. The survey of more than 850 teachers, heads and other school staff found that more than 21% thought girls’ behaviour was more challenging than boys, compared with 68% who said male pupils caused more trouble. In schools that have excluded pupils, 57% said more boys and 5% said more girls had been excluded. A department head in a primary school told the survey, carried out in March, that “classes with a majority of boys tend to be louder, less co-operative and harder to teach”. Nearly half of the staff surveyed said boys’ bravado was behind their disruption. For girls, the most likely trigger was a break-up between friends. A primary school teacher from Bedfordshire said: "Boys are generally more physical and their behaviour is more noticeable. Girls often say nasty things, which end up disrupting the lesson just as much as the boys, as other children get upset and can’t focus on their work. They are usually the ones who refuse to comply with instructions." Some staff had noticed girls’ behaviour worsening.” A teaching assistant from Weston-super-Mare said: “Girls are definitely getting more violent, with gangs of girls in school who are getting worse than the gangs of boys.” The ATL annual conference in Liverpool on Monday is due to debate a motion expressing concern at increasing numbers of girls being excluded from secondary school.  Government figures for 2008-9 showed that boys represented 78% of the total number of permanent exclusions from schools in England. This proportion was unchanged from the year before. The ATL general secretary, Mary Bousted, said: "Staff get ground down daily by the chatting and messing around, which disrupts lessons for other pupils and takes the pleasure out of teaching. Even more worrying is the physical aggression, most often among boys but also among some girls, which puts other pupils and staff at risk. Schools need to have firm and consistent discipline policies and work with parents to keep schools and colleges safe places for pupils and staff alike." The education bill, now going through the Commons, will give teachers the right to search pupils for banned items and will remove the requirement to give parents a day’s notice of detention. The education secretary, Michael Gove, said the measures in the bill would “restore discipline” in the classroom.
7. Which of the following best reflects the suggestion of the author to reduce bad behavior of children in the last paragraph?

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

Choose the best answer:
If people work so much, they ….... depressed and eat more.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
The comings and goings of teenagers, while a frequent source of tension in the  parent–child relationship, are a crucial experience in the construction of social identities. For this age group, mobility is not just a practice that is socially determined – by social background, residential environment and schooling – but also a specific experience that durably shapes their relationships with the spaces and the social world they encounter.  Although mobility is a socialised practice, based on habits forged in the domestic, residential and school environments, it is itself a specific experience in teenage socialisation. At this age, mobility plays an important role in individuals’ learning of behaviours and ways of being, gradually reshaping the dispositions acquired during primary socialisation.  First of all, mobility affects teenagers’ ways of being and behaving within their peer group, which play an increasingly important role in teenage socialisation. At this age, peers become more and more involved in mobility practices: they are one of the key reasons for mobility but, above all, they become preferred partners in self-mobility situations.  Furthermore, the movements of teenagers, alone or in groups, gradually reshapes their dispositions vis-à-vis mobility, particularly those acquired in the domestic sphere. At this age, experiences in mobility have lasting effects on the future practices of teenagers. They sometimes help modify the dispositions of teenagers regarding transport modes. We could cite, among other examples, the case of a girl whose fear of the metro gradually diminished as a result of occasional trips with her best friend, who was more familiar with this mode of transport. These experiences also influence the spatial amplitude of future mobility, in particular preferences for travel within or outside one’s area of residence.  Lastly, mobility allows teenagers to discover the public domain, when it gives rise to interactions that take place under the gaze of an incidental audience and which are therefore subject to specific rules. In the course of their travels, teenagers gradually become familiar with these rules, and they mutually adapt their behaviours to those of other citizens so as to eventually find their place within the public domain. Listening to music on mobile phones on public transport, for example, is appropriate to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the circumstances at the time.
7. According to paragraph 5, what is the possible reason for teenagers’ effort to adapt in public domain?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D)
Gender inequality remains an everyday reality for the world’s women and girls. It can begin right at the moment of birth and continue throughout the course of a woman’s life. Despite critical advances over the course of recent history, women in all countries and across all socioeconomic levels in society can face various forms of unfair treatment, including discrimination, harassment, domestic violence and sexual abuse. Other forms of abuse that are particularly prevalent in certain countries or cultural contexts include forced marriage, honor killings, deprivation of education, denial of land and property rights, and lack of access to work and to health care. Women may experience human rights abuses at different points in their working lives, including during recruitment, hiring, promotion and termination processes, as well as in daily interactions with colleagues and supervisors. Outside of the workplace, women are often particularly vulnerable to the social and environmental impacts of business activities. For example, in many developing countries, women and girls are primarily responsible for fetching and hauling water. When company operations contaminate local sources, it is they  who carry the burden of walking, often for hours, to the nearest substitute, which can prevent them from working or going to school. According to the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, gender “refers to the social attributes and opportunities associated with being male and female and the relationships between women and men and girls and boys, as well as the relations between women and those between men. These attributes, opportunities and relationships are socially constructed and are learned through socialization processes.” Furthermore, gender equality “refers to the equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities of women and men and girls and boys. Equality does not mean that women and men will become the same but that women’s and men’s rights, responsibilities and opportunities will not depend on whether they are born male or female.” Women and girls comprise half of the planet’s population; their empowerment is essential in expanding economic growth and promoting social development in a sustainable way. Evidence from around the world shows that gender equality advancements have a ripple effect on all areas of sustainable development, from reducing poverty, hunger and even carbon emissions to enhancing the health, well-being and education of entire families, communities and countries. In fact, “Equality between women and men is seen both as a human rights issue and as a precondition for, and indicator of, sustainable people-centered development.”  
1. What does the passage mainly discuss?

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:
Because writing has become so important in our culture, we sometimes think of it as more real than speech. A little thought, however, will show why speech is primary and writing secondary to language. Human beings have been writing at least 5,000 years, but they have been talking for much longer, doubtless ever since there have been human beings. When writing developed, it was derived from and represented speech, although imperfectly. Even today, there are spoken languages that have no written form. Furthermore, we all learn to talk well before we learn to write; any child who is not severely handicapped physically or mentally will learn to talk: a normal man cannot be prevented from doing so. On the other hand, it takes a special effort to learn to write; in the past, many intelligent and useful members of society did not acquire the skill, and even today many who speak languages with writing systems never learn to read or write while some who learn the rudiments of those skills do so imperfectly.
To affirm the primacy of speech over writing is not to disparage the later. One advantage writing has over speech is that it is more permanent and makes possible the records that any civilization must have. Thus, if speaking makes us human, writing makes us civilized.

The word “doubtless” in the passage mostly means     .

Each sentence has a mistake. Find it bychosing A B C or D

People operating illegal business can be punishing by imprisonment or a fine

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Elephants need a large amount of habitat because they eat so much. Humans have become their direct competitors for living space. Human populations in Africa and Asia have quadrupled since the turn of the century, the fastest growth rate on the planet. Forest and savanna habitat has been converted to cropland, pastureland for livestock, and timber for housing and fuel. Humans do not regard elephants as good neighbors. When humans and elephants live close together, elephants raid crops, and rogue elephants rampage through villages. Local people shoot elephants because they fear them and regard them as pests. Some countries have established culling programs: park officials or hunters kill a predetermined number of elephants to keep herds manageable and minimize human-elephant conflicts. Hunting has been a major cause of the decline in elephant populations. Elephants became prized trophies for big-game hunters after Europeans arrived in Africa. More recently, and more devastatingly, hunters have slaughtered elephants for their ivory tusks. The ivory trade became a serious threat to elephants in the 1970s. A sudden oil shortage caused the world economy to collapse, and ivory became more valuable than gold. In fact, ivory has been called “white gold” because it is beautiful, easily carved, durable, and pleasing to the touch. Most of the world’s ivory is carved in Japan, Hong Kong, and other Asian countries, where skilled carvers depend on a supply of ivory for their livelihoods  Hunting elephants is no longer legal in many African countries, but poaching was widespread until very recently. For many the high price of ivory, about $100 a pound in the 1980s, was too tempting to resist. Local people often had few other ways to make a living, and subsistence farmers or herders could make more by selling the tusks of one elephant than they could make in a dozen years of farming or herding. As the price of ivory soared, poachers became more organized, using automatic weapons, motorized vehicles, and airplanes to chase and kill thousands of elephants. To governments and revolutionaries mired in civil wars and strapped for cash, poaching ivory became a way to pay for more firearms and supplies. Poaching has caused the collapse of elephants’ social structure as well as decimating their numbers. Poachers target the biggest elephants because their tusks are larger. They often kill all the adults in the group, leaving young elephants without any adults to teach them migration routes, dry-season water sources, and other learned behavior. Many of Africa’s remaining elephant groups are leaderless subadults and juveniles.
6. What does the word “durable” in the forth paragraph mostly mean?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
The tradition of gift giving is a worldwide practice that is said to have been around  since the beginning of human beings. Over time, different cultures have developed their own gift giving customs and traditions.  In France, the gift of wine for the hostess of a dinner party is not an appropriate gift as the hostess would prefer to choose the vintage for the night. In Sweden, a bottle of wine or flowers are an appropriate gift for the hostess. In Viet Nam, a gift of whisky is appropriate for the host, and some fruit or small gifts for the hostess, children or elders of the home. Besides, gifts should never be wrapped in black paper because this color is unlucky and associated with funerals in this country. Gifts that symbolize cutting such as scissors, knives and other sharp objects should be avoided because they mean the cutting of the relationship. Also, in some countries you should not open the gift in front of the giver and in others it would be an insult if you did not open the gift.  Beyond the gift itself, give careful consideration to the manner in which it is presented. Different cultures have different customs regarding how a gift should be offered - using only your right hand or using both hands, for example. Others have strong traditions related to the appropriate way to accept a gift. In Singapore, for instance, it is the standard to graciously refuse a gift several times before finally accepting it. The recipient would never unwrap a gift in front of the giver for fear of appearing greedy.  Understanding these traditions and customs, as well as taking time to choose an appropriate gift, will help you to avoid any awkwardness or embarrassment as you seek to build a better cross-cultural relationship.  
2. Which of the following is NOT true about gift-giving customs?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
The Internet has truly transformed how students do their homework. (1)______ homework today still means spending time in the library, it’s for a different reason. Rather than using books for research, students today are (2)______ to the Internet to download enormous amounts of data available online. In the past, students were limited to their school’s (3)______ of books. In many cases, they got to the school library and found out that someone had already taken the books they needed. Nowadays, such inconvenience can be avoided since the Internet never runs out of information. Students, however, do have to (4)______ sure that the information they find online is true. Teachers have also benefited from the homework which is done on the Internet. They do not need to carry students’ papers around with them any more. This is because online (5)______ allow students to electronically upload their homework for their teachers to read and mark. Of course, this also means that students can no longer use the excuse that the dog ate their homework!

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
The word noise is derived from the Latin word nausea, meaning “seasickness”. Noise is among the most pervasive pollutants today. Noise pollution can broadly be defined as unwanted or offensive sounds that unreasonably intrude into our daily activities. Noises from traffic, jet engines, barking dogs, garbage trucks, construction equipment, factories, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, televisions, boom boxes and car radios, to name a few, are among the audible litter that is routinely broadcast into the air. One measure of pollution is the danger it poses to health. Noise negatively affects human health and well-being. Problems related to noise include hearing loss, stress, high blood pressure, sleeplessness, fright, distraction, and lost productivity. Noise pollution also contributes to a general reduction in the quality of life and eliminates opportunities for tranquility. We experience noise in a number of ways. On some occasions, we can be both the cause and the victim of noise, such as when we are operating noisy appliances or equipment. There are also instances when we experience noise generated by others, just as people experience secondhand smoke. In both instances, noise is equally damaging physically. Secondhand noise is generally more troubling, however, because it is put into the environment by others, without our consent. The air into which secondhand noise is emitted and on which it travels is “a commons”. It belongs not to an individual person or a group, but to everyone. Please, businesses and organizations, therefore, do not have unlimited rights to broadcast noise the as they please, as if the effects of noise were limited only to their private property. Those that disregard the obligation to not interfere with other’ use and enjoyment of the commons by producing noise pollution are, in many ways, acting like a bully in a schoolyard. Although they may do so unknowingly, they disregard the rights of others and claim for themselves rights that are not theirs. The actual loudness of a sound is only one component of the negative effect noise pollution has on human beings. Other factors that have to be considered are the time and place, the duration, the source of the sound, and even the mood of the affected person. Most people would not be bothered by the sound of a 21-gun salute on a special occasion. On the other hand, the thump-thump of music coming from the apartment downstairs at 2a.m, even if barely audible, might be a major source of stress. The sound of neighbor’s lawn mower may be unobjectionable on a summer afternoon, but if someone is hoping to sleep late on a Saturday morning, the sound of a lawn mower starting up just after sunrise is an irritant  
2. The author explains the concept of interfering with others’ use and enjoyment of a common by ______.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
A number of scientists are emphasizing the tremendous challenger that will soon be posed when the depletion of fossil fuel supplies coincides with an alarming increase in the global population. They highlight agriculture, which is heavily dependent not only on gasoline to fuel machinery but also on the petrochemicals without which today’s synthetic fertilizers and pesticides could not be manufactured. But for the latter two, crop yields would be only a fraction of what they are. To assume that an abundant source of renewable energy will be a panacea is to ignore these vital non-fuel uses of petrochemicals. Then there is the challenge posed to the current levels of mobility. As a fuel, gasoline has an unrivalled portability compared to electricity, which requires bulky batteries, and hydrogen, which is notoriously difficult to store. Biofuels might seem like an alternative but the energy (currently in the form of fossil fuels) consumed when converting corn into bioethanol, for instance, greatly exceeds the output when the fuels is utilized. In any case, once the crisis in the food supply looms large it will not make sense to divert food crops to other uses. There seems to be a widespread belief that the era of oil dependency is coming to an end. There is a widespread complacency resting on the assumption that the experts will come up with a technological remedy making for a completely pain-free transition. Scientists such as Walter Youngquist argue that tis assumption may be mistaken and that the remaining resources might only support half of the current global population. In his opinion, the absence of a realistic alternative to fossil fuels will mean, amongst other things, that the first priority will be to curb the demand for food  
1. The underlined word “which” in the first paragraph refers to _______________