Choose the best answer:
If you see someone who's looking blue, just reach out and offer a kind word, a smile, a hug. Sometimes people just feel (23) ____ they need someone to care. Maybe they're confused and not sure what's going on just in the moment, or in a bigger picture such as where their lives are (24) ____. The purpose of our lives is to love, laugh, be happy and to grow together, sharing with one another. If we are all too busy (25) ____ someone who is in emotional need, it can leave the person wondering what's the real point of everything. By reaching out and smiling, showing compassion, listening, offering a (26) ____ of gentle advice, you remind both yourself and the (27) ____ what the bigger picture is, and bring a little burst of more light and happiness into the world. Enough of those bursts and lights contribute to the tipping point towards a more compassionate and joyful world

Choose the best answer:
Increasing numbers of parents in the U.S. are choosing to teach their children at home. In fact, the U.S. Department of Education has estimated that in 1999, about 850,000 children were being homeschooled. Some educational experts say that the real number is double this estimate, and the ranks of home-schooled children seem to be growing at the average rate of about eleven percent every year. At one time, there was a theory accounting for home-schooling: it was traditionally used for students who could not attend school because of behavioral or learning difficulties. Today, however, more parents are taking on the responsibility of educating their own children at home due to their dissatisfaction with the educational system. Many parents are unhappy about class size, as well as problems inside the classroom. Teacher shortages and lack of funding mean that, in many schools, one teacher is responsible for thirty or forty students. The children are, therefore, deprived of the attention they need. Escalating classroom violence has also motivated some parents to remove their children from school. Although there have been a lot of arguments for and against it, home-schooling in the U.S. has become a multi-million dollar industry, and it is growing bigger and bigger. There are now plenty of websites, support groups, and conventions that help parents protect their rights and enable them to learn more about educating their children. Though once it was the only choice for troubled children, homeschooling today is an accepted alternative to an educational system that many believe is failing. 
2. According to some experts, the exact number of home-schooled children then must be _______.

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

Choose the best answer:
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to get your dream job? It can take years to get the education and develop the skills you need for the perfect job. However, there is a way to experience your dream job without having to get the required training or degree. Since 2004, Brian Kurth’s company, Vocation Vacations, has been connecting people with mentors who have the jobs of their dreams. Kurth had been working for a phone company before starting his own company. He didn’t like his job, and he had a long time to think about it on his drive to and from work. He also thought about his dream job while driving. He was interested in becoming a dog trainer, but he didn’t want to take any chances  and switch to a field he didn’t have experience in. He really wanted to know what the job was like and if  it was realistic for him to work towards his goal. So, he found a mentor – a dog trainer that could tell him about the job and everything it involved. After that, he helped his friends find mentors to explore jobs  they were interested in. They thought it was helpful to talk to people who had their dream jobs before spending lots of time and money getting the training they needed for those jobs. Kurth saw how much this helped his friends, so he decided to turn it into his business. He started Vocation Vacations in 2004, and by 2005, the company was offering experience with over 200 dream jobs. Today, about 300 mentors work with the company to share their knowledge about their jobs. Customers pay to experience the job of their dreams and work with these mentors to see what a job is really like. A “job vacation” costs between $350 and $3,000 and can be for one to three days. Many people use Vocation Vacations to see if their dream job is a career path they want to continue. Others do  it just to experience the job of their dreams one time. Vocation Vacations jobs are in the fields of fashion, food, entertainment, sports and animals. Many  people want to try glamorous jobs. For example, they want to try working as actors, music producers, photographers and fashion designers. According to Kurth, some other popular dream jobs are working as bakers, hotel managers and wedding planners.  
2. The word their in paragraph 3 refers to: 

Read the following dialogue and then choose the best answer A, B, C, D:

"Teacher: Good morning. Minh. Do you (1).....................      in town?
Minh : Yes, I live in (2).....................        apartment.
Teacher: Is (3)...................... a supermarket near the apartmenr?
Minh : Yes, there’s also a bank, a clinic (4)       ........... a hotel.
Teacher: Are there any (5).............. near it?
Minh Yes, there (6)............... a toy store, a bakery, a drugstore and two bookstores.                   
Teacher: Is it (7) ....... there? 
Minh No, it’s very (8) ................"

3. Is (3)...................... a supermarket near the apartmenr?

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
What do you do if you want to (1)______ a book in a library? If you know the author’s (2)______, go to the author catalogue. Find the title of the book (3)______ check the shelf mark. Make a note of this before you look (4)_______ the appropriate shelf. If you do not know the author’s name, go to the (5)______ catalogue. If there (6)_______ no title catalogue in the library, go to the subject catalogue. Check all the titles which are under the (7)______ you want. Then check the appropriate card, as with the author catalogue. Next look for the book on the shelf. Let the librarian stamp it (8)_______ you take it out of the library. If the book isn’t on the shelf, ask the librarian to get it for you

Choose the best answer:
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

Choose the best answer:
Anthropologists have pieced together the little they know about the history of left - handedness and right - handedness from indirect evidence. Though early men and women did not leave written records, they did leave tools, bones, and pictures. Stone Age hand axes and hatchets were made from stones that were carefully chipped away to form sharp cutting edges. In some, the pattern of chipping shows that these tools and weapons were made by right handed people, designed to fit comfortably into a right hand. Other Stone Age implements were made by or for left-handers Prehistoric pictures, painted on the walls of caves, provide further clues to the handedness of ancient people. A right - hander finds it easier to draw faces of people and animals facing toward the left, whereas a left - hander finds it easier to draw faces facing toward the right. Both kinds of faces have been found in ancient painting. On the whole, the evidence seems to indicate that prehistoric people were either ambidextrous or about equally likely to be left - or right - handed. But, in the Bronze Age, the picture changed. The tools and weapons found from that period are mostly made for right - handed use. The predominance of right - handedness among humans today had apparently already been established.
3. In line 6, the word "further" is closest in meaning to which of the following?

Choose the best answer:
It is true that keeping fit will benefit a person’s health in many ways. It has become clear in recent years, that a large number of people are doing less and less exercise and this is now causing many serious illnesses, putting a strain on doctors and hospitals. However, some experts believe that too much exercise can do just as much (44) ____.Although it is true that moderate exercise such as walking can be very beneficial to a person’s health, it is not the only one factor (45) keeps us healthy. Diet is also extremely important and I would argue that it is probably even more important than exercise, although the ideal is for both of these factors to work together. It seems to me that many people are unwilling to put in the effort required to become fitter. (46) , too much exercise can also cause problems. So people are urged to take   moderate exercise and eat moderately healthily rather than embarking on extreme diets and training. In too many instances, ultra–fit people have had heart attacks or dropped down dead. In all, governments need to find ways of (47) people to take responsibility for their own health. People need to realize that eating healthy food does not have to cost  a (48) , nor is it difficult to prepare healthy meals themselves. People need to be better educated about their health

Choose the best answer:
There is a natural balance to all things: life and death, good and bad, happiness and sadness, pleasure and pain. The very idea that you should focus on positives and ignore negatives, likewise with strengths versus weaknesses, is not only delusional; it's a recipe for disaster. Let me tell you a couple of stories to show how dealing with reality as openly and genuinely as possible is the path to success and happiness, while focusing only on the positives and strengths can destroy your career and your company. It's no secret that Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1984 because his management style had become toxic to the company. Much later, Jobs would come to realize that getting fired from the company he cofounded "was the best thing that could have ever happened” to him. He called it “awful-tasting medicine" that "the patient needed." He also likened it to life hitting him in the head with a brick. That forced Jobs to look in the mirror and see the truth - that he wasn't as capable or as strong a leader as he could be. And as he addressed the issues that stood in his way, the result was the founding of NeXT and Pixar, his eventual return to Apple, and the greatest turnaround in corporate history that built the most valuable company on Earth. It's easy to miss the obvious connection staring us right in the face, that it wasn’t just Apple that had hit a wall, fallen on hard times, and found itself in need of a turnaround. The same was true of Jobs. And there was an undeniable connection between the two. It's also easy to miss the insightfulness of Jobs' realization that none of his later achievements would have occurred if he hadn't faced reality. That sort of introspection only comes from someone who's had some sort of intervention and gone through gut-wrenching change as a result. Not to compare myself with Jobs, but the truth is I've gotten a couple of those bricks to the head myself. I've been fired more than once and lost my wife early in our marriage. But in every case I looked in the mirror, faced what I saw, made some changes, and bounced back stronger than ever. If I'd just tried to stay positive, focused on my strengths, and searched for the silver lining in the clouds, I never would have figured out what was wrong and become a better person, a better husband, and a better leader. I never would have achieved so much in my career or won my wife back. While life is full of ups and downs, one thing is certain: If you attempt to filter your consciousness and disallow negative thoughts or make believe the weaknesses holding you back don't exist, you'll never get past those hurdles and get to the next stage in your personal and professional development. And neither will your business.
5. The writer uses the "bricks" (as Steve Job did) in paragraph 6 to describe ____.

Choose the best answer:
Bonsai trees have always been a source of great fascination to people. They are perfect miniatures, grown in pots small enough to sit on a windowsill. You have to keep reminding yourself that these frees are actually real and identical to their larger cousins in all (31) _____except their size. Rather like other small and perfectly-formed artifacts, bonsai trees command quite a high price in the marketplace and so it doesn't come as a great surprise to find that they also (32) _____the attention of thieves. It seems that quite a flourishing business has evolved, in which they are stolen from the homes of growers and collectors, then repotted and trimmed by unscrupulous dealers, to be sold on, at good prices, to (33) _____buyers. One of Britain's top collectors of bonsai trees, Paul Widdington, believes that he has found a solution, however. After losing his life's work, valued at £250,000, when burglars broke into his home one night, Paul decided to (34) _____the possibilities of electronically tagging the trees he bought as a replacement. This involves injecting a microchip the size of a grain of rice into the trunk of each tree. Each chip is a laser-etched with information which is stored in a central register held by the police. Paul is quite aware that this kind of data-tagging doesn't (35) _____thieves from stealing the trees in the first place, although it may increase the chances of getting them back. So he's also installing a security alarm system complete with infra-red detectors, in his home

Choose the best answer:
Waves don’t always (31) _________ the beaches with enough height or force to allow a sport such as surfing. The surfers in the 1960s looked for something that would allow them to have the thrill of riding waves without having to actually go in the water on days when it looked more like a (32) _________ rather than a series of hills reaching the shore. The simple solution was to put wheels on a board, and before long, a new style of surfing was born, but it was done on land. Looking back, it is easy to see how skateboarding could become more popular than even surfing. To surf you need coastline and waves, but to skateboard, all you need is a paved surface. As its popularity grew, skateboarding took (33) _________ new forms, and adventurous skateboarders tried new stunts. Skateboard parks started popping up throughout several countries, and there was plenty of innovation in skateboards. Early skateboards had metal wheels, usually (34) _________ from roller skates. Clay wheels replaced these, followed by the special urethane wheels that are used today. The innovations with wheels made the sport safer in many ways, but they also (35) _________ the stunts to become more and more extreme

Choose the best answer:
Edward Patrick Eagan was born on April 26th 1897 in Denver, Colorado, and his father died in a railroad accident when Eagan was only one year old. He and his four brothers were raised by his mother, who earned a small income from teaching foreign languages. Inspired by Frank Marriwell, the hero of a series of popular novels for boys, Eagan pursued an education for himself and an interest in boxing. He attended the University of Denver for a year before serving in the U.S. army as an artillery lieutenant during World War I. After the war, he entered Yale University and while studying there, won the US national amateur heavyweight boxing title. He graduated from Yale in 1921, attended Harvard Law School, and received a Rhodes scholarship to the University of Oxford where he received his A.M. in 1928. While studying at Oxford, Eagan became the first American to win the British amateur boxing championship. Eagan won his first gold medal as a light heavyweight boxer at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium. Eagan also fought at the 1924 Olympics in Paris as a heavyweight but failed to get a medal. Though he had taken up the sport just three weeks before the competition, he managed to win a second gold medal as a member of four-man bobsled team at the 1932 Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. Thus, he became the only athlete to win gold medals at both the Summer and Winter Olympics.
4. According to the passage, Eagan won all of the following EXCEPT ______

Choose the best answer:
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.

Read the passage and decide each sentence is True or False.

Hi! My name is Steve. I'm 10 years old and I live in Bristol, in the UK, with my parents and my siblings, Paul and Lucy. I am a dynamic boy. I ride to school. I like doing sports. We train after school and play matches against other schools every week. Playing basketball is my favourite sport. I'm an excellent swimmer, but I don't go much. I don't like water sports. It is too cold in winter.

In my free time, I play computer games, collect stamps or read books. My favourite one is playing computer games. But all teachers at school say "reading is fundamental", so I must read much more.

On the weekends, I usually go camping with my parents and my siblings. When my parents go trekking, my siblings, other children and I usually play tag or leapfrog. My favourite game is playing leapfrog. Camping is very enjoyable and fun. We set fire and sing songs. Lucy sings and Paul plays the guitar. Music is their common hobby.

2. He goes to school by bike. 

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
The heart has long been considered to be (1) _______ feelings of love dwell. In love songs throughout the ages, love almost always goes together (2) _______  the heart. The heart has continuously been viewed (3) _______ the place where love begins and develops. Even the Bible gives (4) _______ to love and the heart. The role of the heart in love must come from what happens to it when a person feels strongly (5) _______ to someone. The strong feelings (6) _______ the other person, especially in the early stages of a relationship, have the results that the heart starts beating faster and breathing starts speeding (7) _______.According to psychologists, a love relationship is a situation that (8) _______ a lot of stress and the body reacts to this by getting ready to face the unknown. This has been called the "fight or flight" (9) _______, meeting danger by fighting it or running away. So with love, the heart accelerates and (10) _______ becomes quick.

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
Jane’s family decided to go to London last week because they want to __(1)__ a tour. The sight in London was so __(2)__ that she’s been there a few days but it __(3)__ to her only to be yesterday. It means __(4)__ she enjoyed the trip so much. She and her father stayed __(5)__ a very big hotel __(6)__ two hundred rooms. From there, they can __(7)__ reach Hyde Park, __(8)__ very big park in London. In here, people can buy from a needle __(9)__ an elephant in two best__(10)__ streets, Regent Street and Oxford Street.

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
There are many Chinese festivals in Hong Kong. The Western New Year starts on the first day of January but the Chinese begin New Year on the first day of the first moon of the Chinese calendar. Before New Year's Day comes, people clean and decorate their houses, (1)_____ a lot of traditional food and go shopping for presents and new clothes. New Year’s Eve is the time (2) _____every family gathers its members together for dinner. People (3)____ the New Year with a music performance and a firework display to light up the sky. On New Year's Day, they visit their friends and relatives. The children get lucky money in red envelopes. Many people go to the (4)____ to wish for good health and good luck. Chinese people in Hong Kong celebrate the New Year with (5) _____ and happiness

Choose the best answer:
Increasing numbers of parents in the U.S. are choosing to teach their children at home. In fact, the U.S. Department of Education has estimated that in 1999, about 850,000 children were being homeschooled. Some educational experts say that the real number is double this estimate, and the ranks of home-schooled children seem to be growing at the average rate of about eleven percent every year. At one time, there was a theory accounting for home-schooling: it was traditionally used for students who could not attend school because of behavioral or learning difficulties. Today, however, more parents are taking on the responsibility of educating their own children at home due to their dissatisfaction with the educational system. Many parents are unhappy about class size, as well as problems inside the classroom. Teacher shortages and lack of funding mean that, in many schools, one teacher is responsible for thirty or forty students. The children are, therefore, deprived of the attention they need. Escalating classroom violence has also motivated some parents to remove their children from school. Although there have been a lot of arguments for and against it, home-schooling in the U.S. has become a multi-million dollar industry, and it is growing bigger and bigger. There are now plenty of websites, support groups, and conventions that help parents protect their rights and enable them to learn more about educating their children. Though once it was the only choice for troubled children, homeschooling today is an accepted alternative to an educational system that many believe is failing. 
7. This estimated number was presented by _______

Choose the best answer:
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is perhaps not a name that is universally recognized, but Dodgson did achieve enormous success under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. He created this pseudonym from the Latinization, Carolus Ludovicus, of his real given name. It was under the name Lewis Carroll that Dodgson published the children's books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel Through the Looking Glass (1872). Though Dodgson achieved this success in children's literature, he was not an author of children's books by training or profession. His education and chosen field of pursuit were far removed from the field of children's literature and were instead focused on theoretical mathematics. Dodgson graduated with honors from Christ Church, Oxford, in 1854 and then embarked on a career in the world of academia. He worked as a lecturer in mathematics at Oxford and, later in his career, published a number of theoretical works on mathematics under his own name rather than under the pseudonym that he used for his children's stories. He produced a number of texts for students, such as A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry (1860), Formulae of Plane Trigonometry (1861), which was notable for the creativity of the symbols that he used to express trigonometric functions such as sine and cosine, and A Guide for the Mathematical Student (1866). In a number of more esoteric works, he championed the principles of Euclid; in Euclid and his Modern Rivals (1879), he presented his ideas on the superiority of Euclid over rival mathematicians in a highly imaginative fashion, by devising a courtroom trial of anti-Euclid mathematicians that he named "Euclid-wreakers" and ultimately finding the defendants guilty as charged. Curiosa Mathematica (1888-1893) made a further defense of Euclid's work, focusing on Euclid's definition of parallel lines. These academic works never had the universal impact of Dodgson's works for children using the name Lewis Carroll, but they demonstrate a solid body of well-regarded academic material.
2. The word " they" in paragraph 2 refers to _______

Choose the best answer:
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.   
2. The word "which" in the passage refers to ____