Choose the best answer:
If you choose sewing as your hobby, you will …… you own clothes.

 

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
This article (1) _______ on the game of American football, a distinct type of football that developed in the United States in the 19th century. It developed out of two other sports, soccer (2) _______ known as association football) and rugby football, each of which remains a separate sport with its own specific set of rules. American football differs slightly in (3) _______ and field size from a style of football (4) _______ mostly in Canada, called Canadian football. Other varieties of the game popular in (5) _______ parts of the world have Australian football and Gaelic football.

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
Durable Ceramic Beauty
Inside an art and craft workshop, a young woman sits in front of a pottery wheel. The machine contains a large lump of clay which she molds into the shape of an elaborate bowl. Later, when she is satisfied with its appearance, it will be baked in an oven until it solidifies. Then she adds decorative paints to add some style. In the end, this ceramic pot will be both a handy utility for eating as well as a work of art. Humans have been working with ceramics for about 30,000 years, making it one of the oldest industries on the planet. In ancient times, ceramics enabled humans to make containers to store food and drinks, as well as bricks for buildings, but as time went on, people found other uses for this prehistoric technology. Techniques were added to give these products more eye-catching designs. Objects were often coated with glaze, so they would be smoother and more pleasant to touch. This helped to transform these practical items into works of art. People would pay large amounts of money for pieces of ceramic art and use them to decorate their homes. In modern times, architects and inventors discovered that ceramic offered the perfect balance between beauty and durability, and started using it in their products as well. Ceramics have found a home in the world of automobiles as they are used to produce several products. They are often used to make brake discs, engines, and other parts because ceramics are able to withstand extremely hot temperatures. Ceramics also play a part in the world of medicine, as their flexibility and strength are perfect for creating sturdy dental implants. Other doctors are using them to replace damaged bones because they are able to bond with tissues in the body without causing adverse reactions. In many kitchens today, you will also find ceramic knives. Once they are produced, the hard edges of these blades rarely need to be sharpened. Unlike metal knives, they won’t rust when exposed to difficult conditions. Ceramics also help to make it possible for humans to travel into space. Space shuttles are designed with ceramic tiles because they are one of the few materials that can stand the extreme heat when reentering the Earth’s atmosphere, plus they don’t wear out easily. With so many useful applications, it is hard to deny that ceramic technology is out of this world.
2. What were ceramics used for at first?

Choose the letter A, B, C or D to complete the sentences with given words:
The winner/ be/ chosen/ a celebrity panel/ and/ home viewers.

Choose the best answer:
How many states are there in _________ USA?

 Choose the best answer:
There is a strange symbol ..................... the screen.

The train ______ by bad weather. I am not sure.

(395)________

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
Incredible Shrinking Microchips
There is a popular old saying that “bigger is better”. Although this may be true in some regards, the exact opposite often applies in technology. As electronic components get smaller, it allows companies to manufacture tinier devices with more features. Thus began the never-ending quest to create the smallest microchips on the planet. Yet as these vital electronic components get smaller, they are also getting stronger and clever inventors are finding new ways in which to use them to do incredible things. Currently, the biggest limitation microchip producers face when trying to reduce chips’ size is the copper wires that provide electrical current throughout the chip. Although they can be made smaller, this can cause a whole host of problems such as melting and overheating. Thanks to the work of a few scientists from the UK though, this problem may soon be a thing of the past. Their solution is getting rid of the copper wiring altogether and using carbon nanotubes instead. Not only would this allow for smaller sizes but it would also increase the power that microchips can generate. In the end, this would translate into smaller and more powerful devices much to the delight of consumers all over the world. Corporate powerhouse Intel® has announced plans to create a line of tiny, low power chips that can be used in bracelets, smart watches, and other tiny devices. The chips will be called Intel® Quark, and they are being designed primarily to fit in biomedical devices. A key selling point to biomedical technology is that the devices have to be nonintrusive because people don’t want to carry around heavy equipment to monitor their health. If they can do this, Intel® will likely find several tablet and smartphone manufacturers who are willing to corporate Quark microchips into their devices. In a somewhat unusual project, researchers are working on a special microchip that will serve as miniature human organs in experiments. These “organ” chips could be used to test different medicines and study diseases. If realized, the technology could put an end to the use of lab mice and other animals for testing. Everyone from the largest pharmaceutical companies to the US military has shown interest in the project. Currently, the research team in charge of the project believes that within five years the organ chips will be used in practical research. It goes to show that thinking small often produces the biggest results.
6. Where are you most likely to find an Intel® Quark chip at first?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
The penny press, which emerged in the United Sates during the 1830’s, was 1 a powerful agent of mass communication. These newspapers were little dailies, generally four pages in length, written for the mass taste. They differed from the 3 staid, formal presentation of the conservative press, with its emphasis on political and literary topics. The new papers were brief and cheap, emphasizing sensational reports of police courts and juicy scandals as well as human interest 5 stories. Twentieth – century journalism was already foreshadowed in the penny press of the 1830’s. 7 The New York Sun, founded in 1833, was the first successful penny paper, and it was followed two years later by the New York Herald, published by James 9 Gordon Bennett. Not long after, Horace Greeley issued the New York Tribune, which was destined to become the most influential paper in America. Greeley 11 gave space to the issues that deeply touched the American people before the Civil War – abolitionism, temperance, free homesteads, Utopian cooperative settlements, and the problems of labor. The weekly edition of the Tribune, with 13 100,000 subscribers, had a remarkable influence in rural areas, especially in Western communities. 15 Americans were reputed to be the most avid readers of periodicals in the world. An English observer enviously calculated that, in 1829, the number of 17 newspapers circulated in Great Britain was enough to reach only one out of every thirty – six inhabitants weekly; Pennsylvania in that same year had a 19 newspaper circulation which reaches one out of every four inhabitants weekly. Statistics seemed to justify the common belief that Americans were devoted to periodicals. Newspapers in the United States increased from 1,200 in 1833 to 21 3000 by the early 1860’s, on the eve of the Civil War. This far exceeded the number and circulation of newspapers in England and France.
6. The word remarkable in line 14 is closest in meaning to: 

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that bestfits each of the numbered blanks.
           WOMEN TAKING THE HUSBAND’S NAME
Many women in Western society, aware of the power of names to influence identity, are aware that choosing how to identify themselves after marriage can be a significant decision. They may follow the tradition of taking their husband's last name, hyphenate their (1)........     name and their husband's, or keep  their birth name. One fascinating survey reveals that a woman's choice is (2)........   to reveal a great deal   about herself and her relationship with her husband. Women who take their husband's name place the most importance (3).......... relationships. On the other hand, women who keep their birth names put their personal concerns ahead of relationships and social expectations. Female forms of address influence others' perceptions as well. Research (4)...........in the late 1980s showed that women who choose the title Ms. give the impression of being more achievement oriented, socially self-confident, and dynamic but less interpersonally warm than counterparts (5)........ prefer the more traditional forms Miss or Mrs.

(5)........................

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
Voluntary work helps foster independence and imparts the ability to deal with different situations, often simulaneously, thus teaching people how to (1)____ their way through different systems. It therefore brings people into touch with the real worls; and, hence, equips them for the future. Initially, young adults in their late teens might not seem to have the expertise or knowledge to impart to others that say a teacher or an agriculturalist or a nurse would have, (2)____ they do have many skills that can help others. And in the absence of any particular talent, their energy and enthusiasm can be harnessed for the benefit (3) ____ their fellow human beings, and ultimately themselves. From all this, the gain to any community no matter how many voluntees are involved is (4)_____ Employers will generally look favorably on people (5)_____ have shown an ability to work as part of a team. It demonstrates a willingness to learn and an independent spirit, which would be desirable qualities in any employee

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
The ubiquitous bar code, developed more than twenty years ago, is not a stagnant product. On the contrary, the technology has been improved so that it can be used more efficiently. Much less expensive than a computer chip, the bar code can hold more information than it had in the past by adding a second dimension to the structure. The bar code consists of a series of parallel vertical bars or lines of two different widths, although sometimes four widths are used, printed in black on a white background. Barcodes are used for entering data into a computer system. The bars represent the binary digits 0 and 1, just like basic computer language, and sequences of these digits can indicate the numbers from 0 to 9, which can then be read by an optical laser scanner and processed by a digital computer. Arabic numbers appear below the code. The traditional bar code has been used to monitor skiers at ski lifts and to determine price and perform inventory control on groceries, drugs, medical supplies, manufactured parts, and library books to name a few. The bar code used on grocery products, introduced in the 1970s, is called a universal product code (or UPC) and assigns each type of food or grocery product a unique code. The five digits on the left are assigned to a particular manufacturer or maker and the five digits on the right are used by that manufacturer to identify a specific type or mark of product. Traditional single dimension bar codes are not readily customizable because there is little extra space. The two-dimensional bar code, with an information density of 1,100 bytes, allows a considerably greater amount of information to be coded than does the traditional bar code, including customized information. [A] It also has built-in redundancy, meaning that the identical information is duplicated on the same code. [B] Therefore, if the code is damaged, it can still be read. [C] The technology even allows pictures or texts to be contained within the code, as well as bar code encryption. [D] The new technology dramatically reduces the errors of the single dimensional bar code and reduces the enormous costs that some companies have reported in the past. 
7. A UPC is a type of .......

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.
In the past, people bought goods using (1).................. They rarely borrowed money from financial institutions and only when they had saved the money did they buy what they wanted.
Recently, however, there have been great changes in the way people purchase goods. To begin with, some people pay for things by  cheque, (2)................ others prefer monthly installments rather than paying the whole amount at once. Most consumers, though, prefer to buy things using their credit cards. (3)..............., it is thought that there are benefits to having a credit card. Apart from the fact that credit cards are handy, some stores offer bonus points to people making purchases, while others give discounts on certain products.
On the other hand, credit cards must be used wisely because they can prove disastrous. In the long run, consumers find that they can’t (4)............. without their credit cards and constantly rely on them, as they are “easy money”. As a result, some people lose control of their finances spending more than they should end up not being able to (5).................. So they end up in debt and have difficulty in paying it back.

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

Choose the best answer:
_____aspects of learning English do you find the most difficult?

______the book again and again, I finally understood what the author meant.

(147)_______

Can you make a ______ estimate of how much our expedition in the desert may be?

(340)_______

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.
If you're an environmentalist, plastic is a word you tend to say with a sneer or a snarl. It has become a symbol of our wasteful, throw-away society. But there seems little doubt it is here to stay, and the truth is, of course, that plastic has brought enormous (1)............ , even environmental ones. It’s not really the plastics themselves that are the evil ─ it's the way society chooses to use and (2)................. them.
Almost all the 50 or so different kinds of modern plastic are made from oil, gas or coal ─ non-renewable natural (3)................... . We (4)......... well over three million tones of the stuff in Britain each year and, sooner or later, most of it is thrown away. A high (5)............ of our annual consumption is in the form of packaging, and this (6).................. about seven percent by weight of our domestic refuse.

(6)...............................

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
The Great Energy Debate
Modern civilization is heavily dependent on energy. Without reliable power sources, we couldn’t operate machines, use transportation, communicate via Internet, or do many other things. Although everyone recognizes the importance of energy, deciding what kind of energy the world should use in the future is not a simple task. The two leading candidates for this role are green energy and nuclear energy. Currently, most of the energy we use is derived from fossil fuels. Although this energy source has got us this far, there are several problems with it. For starters, it is a finite resource which is quickly running out. Some analysts have even estimated that the Earth could run out of coal and oil within the next 50 years. Burning fossil fuels also creates large amount of pollution, which is harmful to the environment. Although fossil fuels still provide the majority of our power, governments are seeking better energy sources to use going forward. Green energy is one option that is becoming increasingly attractive. It includes technologies such as solar, wind, and hydro power. These are seen as clean sources of energy because they cause very little pollution. In addition, they are completely renewable, so there is no danger that it will run out. The major disadvantage with green energy sources is that they are not cheap. The other alternative is nuclear power. Like green energy, it is also a renewable source of power that will not run out, and it also doesn’t produce air pollution. In addition, nuclear power is more reliable than green energy, as it doesn’t depend on sunshine, rain, or wind to operate. The major issues with nuclear power are safety concerns and nuclear waste. Nuclear power plants create a considerable amount of nuclear waste which is extremely hazardous to people’s health. If they happen to have a meltdown, this could destroy the surrounding area for years to come. The recent nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan brought this reality into the spotlight once again. In response, Germany announced it would close down eight of its nuclear plants immediately, and close the rest by 2022. Meanwhile, other nations refuse to give up on nuclear power, stating that these disasters are rare. The debate of whether to use green or nuclear power will likely continue for some time. In the end, it is quite possible that both energy sources will be used to fuel our planet.
8. It can be inferred from the passage that _________

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
Getting Closer to Nature at National Parks
In modern times, we seem to be getting more separate from nature with each passing day. Most of us spend the majority of our time indoors, typing away at computers and fiddling with digital devices. All the while, we are destroying the planet’s natural beauty by cutting down forests and building cities in their place. In an effort to preserve nature for future generations, national parks were created. The primary function of national parks is conservation. In many cases, it is a matter of national pride for countries to protect their indigenous species. Although several nations considered opening national parks, the US was the first country to officially do so when Yellowstone Park opened in 1872. This designation made the federal government responsible for taking care of the territory. Soon after, national parks started to open in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and eventually across the globe. Today, almost 100 countries have established their own national parks. In total, there are over 6,500 worldwide. There are several incredible national parks that have a lot to offer. Kruger National Park in South Africa at 19,633 square kilometers is one of the largest game reserves. Tourists can go on safari and witness elephants, rhinoceroses, lions, and several other large mammals in their natural environments. At 75,000 square miles, the Northeast Greenland National Park is the world’s largest. In fact, it is larger than all but 30 countries in the world. Despite differences in names, location, and rules, most natural parks have certain traits in common. For one, they are usually open to visitors throughout the year. Those who come to the park can take part in a wide scope of outdoor activities including hiking, camping, cycling, bird watching, and fishing. Other options may include horseback riding, rafting, or scuba diving if the territory is suitable. In most places, visitors are encouraged not to feed the animals. The purpose for this law is twofold: to protect the animals as well as those who might feed them. Animals also have strict dietary needs, so feeding them exotic foods could make them sick. Feeding wild animals could also cause them to aggressively pester humans they encounter in the future for food. However, as long as you follow the rules, you are assured of having a great time at whichever national park you visit.
5. Which of these activities would probably NOT be featured at a national park?

Choose the best answer:
In __________ time, farmers use buffalo-drawn cart to take food home.

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 :
In Africa a famous food company tried to sell its baby food by advertising it with the picture of a baby on the label. They did not know that this particular country used labels only to (1)_________ a picture of the food inside. When Pepsico used the slogan "Come alive with Pepsi' in Taiwan, they had no idea that it would be translated into Chinese as 'Pepsi (2) ________ your ancestors back from the dead’. Misunderstandings such as these about language or about culture are sometimes comical but can also cause genuine hurt or anger. Business styles (3) ________ widely in different countries and what is normal in one culture can be completely unacceptable in another. Socialising in different countries can be tricky. In Arabic countries, for example, people do not discuss business (4) _________ meals. Giving gifts is another potential problem: in the UK most people take presents to a dinner party, but in many countries this is not polite because it (5) _________ you think the host is poor