Choose the best answer:
John and Lisa have a lot in __________ with each other.

 

Beginning on March 15, we will be using a new payroll service that will affect a number of our current payroll processes. First, weekly payroll checks will be mailed on Thursday instead of Friday. Direct-deposit payroll payments will also be processed a day---139---. Second, pay stubs for direct-deposit payments will no longer be e-mailed. Instead,  employees will be able to  ---140--- this information by accessing their payroll accounts online.

Other processes will remain the same. All-time cards will continue to be due to the payroll department by Monday at 6:00 P.M.---141---. A complete, updated list of instructions for payroll procedures ---142--- to all employees on or before March 1. If you have any questions before then, please contact Leonti Belousov at ext. 5810.

139................

Choose the best answer:
Lucia/ said/ they/ be not/ going to/ the/ cinema/ that night.

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
The Advancing Development of Artificial Limbs
It wasn’t very long ago that losing a limb automatically meant a drastic drop in the quality of a person’s life. Thanks to the wonders of modern science, people now are recovering from all sorts of horrendous injuries that let them disabled. The reason they are able to do so is remarkable advances made in the field of artificial limbs. Doctors have been creating prosthetic limbs for their patients dating back to ancient Greece. For most of history, however, these replacements were mainly for cosmetic purposes. Pirates, knights, loot soldiers that lost their limbs in battle would get them, so they wouldn’t lose face when returning to society. It wasn’t until the mid-19th century that doctors were able to perform surgeries to reliably attach limbs to people’s bodies and amputate limbs without causing serious infection. Modern artificial limbs represent a tremendous leap forward in terms of form and function. Today’s limbs are far more durable and can withstand a lot more wear and tear. An amazing example of how far artificial limbs have progressed is the Flex-Foot Cheetah. Made from carbon fiber, it is able to store energy as the person moves, which enables the wearer to run and jump. The technology is so good that approximately 90 percent of all Special Olympic amputees use them in competition. Meanwhile, the Bebionic3 has emerged as the most advanced prosthetic arm available. It has been nicknamed “The Terminator” because it is similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s mechanical limbs in the famous blockbuster film. The Bebionic3 can perform a multitude of tasks including writing, tying a shoelace, lifting heavy objects, and even pouring a beer. Wearers simply push a button on the base of the arm and the Bebionic3 will work its magic. In September 2013, scientists took another giant leap forward when they successfully fitted a patient with an artificial leg that can be controlled by thought. Two of the patient’s nerves were attached to his hamstring muscle. These nerves then interact with sensors inside the artificial leg. Sensors will then transmit these messages to a computer which will follow through on his instructions. Therefore, if the patient wants to stretch out his leg, the computer will understand this command and send a message to the limb and instruct it to do so. If artificial limb technology keeps advancing like this, losing a limb may not be such a big deal.
8. The word “it” in the last paragraph refers to __________

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
A computer keyboard is an input device (1) _______ allows a person to enter letters, numbers, and other (2) _______ into a computer. It is one of the most used input devices for computers. Using a keyboard to enter lots of data is called typing. Keyboard keys typically have a set of characters engraved on them. While the main use is for typing, keyboards are capable of executing commands by using a combination of keys to create (3) _______, such as copying and pasting, deleting, etc. When you enter the (4) _______ hole, you find that the world of keyboards is diverse. It can be a traditional keyboard for basic uses or a mechanical keyboard that provides very satisfying sounds and feelings whenever you type. A lot of keyboard (5) _______ customize their own keyboards that could cost an arm and a leg. Having said that, the reason behind the price comes down to the material, the switches and the keycaps. Next time when you see a keyboard, don’t judge the way it looks but judge the way it feels and the experience it provides to the users.

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

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
Space Tourism
If you are like most people, you probably dream of spending your next vacation sightseeing or relaxing in a tropical spot. But pretty soon, you may have the option of blasting into space and exploring the universe. It appears that space tourism may start to experience a boom that is sure to be out of this world. Since ancient times, humans have surely dreamed about visiting space. However, it was just a fantasy until 1961, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly into space. Yet in the years following, only a few highly-trained Soviet and American astronauts managed to leave the Earth’s atmosphere. In the mid-1980s, the US began to relax some of its restrictions. In 1986, an engineer named Charles Walker became the first non-government employee to fly into space. A year later, an American teacher named Christa McAuliffe was chosen to be the first teacher in space. Unfortunately, the Space Shuttle she was on, The Challenger, crashed during takeoff, killing everyone on board. Space tourism got an unexpected boost from the collapse of the Soviet Union. With Russia’s space programme in dire need of money, it became open to offers for space tourism. In 1990, a Japanese reporter was allowed to fly with a Russian crew into space, but the trip would cost his employer $28 million. In the late 1990s, a private company, MirCorp, started organizing trips to space for wealthy individuals. Now, many other companies are trying to do the same. Still, most people who want to become space tourists face a major barrier: the price. Early space tourists have paid dozens of millions of dollars for a seven-to- ten-day stay outside the Earth. However, there are some indications that the price will come down in the near future. Some corporations are gearing up for this with big plans to make space a more hospitable place. The luxurious hotel chain Hilton has expressed interest in opening a space hotel in the next 15 to 20 years. Meanwhile, some experts believe that flights to and from the moon could become a common occurrence within a few decades. Hopefully someday soon we will all have the chance to get to know our solar system a little bit better.
8. It can be inferred from the passage that _________.

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
The Rise of E-books
Over the past decade, e-books have revolutionized the way people consume written formation. It will probably come as no surprise the total global sales number continues to rise each year. There are several reasons why readers are buying more e-books. For starters, reading a lengths e-book in front of your computer isn't the most comfortable thing to do. But since tablet sales have exploded, readers can now relax and read their favourite e-books in bed from the beach. Many e-books are often sold at lower prices than traditional books. Since there is almost zero cost for producing e-books, some authors are offering their novels at lower prices. Another factor is convenience. In the past, keeping a large book collection meant setting aside a lot of extra space in one's home. With e-books, it is now possible for readers to carry a portable library, which contains thousands of books. To really understand e-book market though, it is important to keep up with national trends. Recent data suggests that the e-book market in the US and the UK have matured. In both of these countries, e-book sales account for roughly 20 percent of overall book sales. Although that percentage continues to increase, it is going up at a slower rate than in the past. The popularity of e-books has exploded in Russia. In one poll, 70 percent of Russians claim to have read at least one e-book. However, publishers are not too pleased with this new because approximately 92 percent of e-books in Russia are acquired illegally. In France, consumers don't appear to be loo keen on e-books at this time. Although in 2012, e-book sales comprised about 3 percent of the market, it is predicted that this number will increase at a very slow pace. Some French people believe that reading e-books on small screens is uncomfortable. Others say that the French are a cultural exception, as they like the feeling of holding a dusty old physical book. This demonstrates that no matter how popular e- books get, it is unlikely that traditional books will disappear any time soon.
3. The phrase “account for" in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ___

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Genetics is the study of hereditary characteristics that are passed down from one generation of living organisms to another. Although farmers have used selective breeding to improve the resilience of crops and animals, it wasn't until the mid-1800s that Gregor Mendel started the science of genetics as we know it today. Following Mendel's methods, scientists have discovered "chromosomes" and "DNA". With the ability to study DNA, scientists were able to study the genetic differences between races. Modern genetics discovered that all humans are descendants of "Mitochondrial Eve," a woman who lived over 150,000 generations have passed, and many subtle differences are now evident. Humans share at least 99% of their genetic makeup. A 1% difference may not seem like much, but when you consider that a chimpanzee shares 98% of human genes, you realize how much a 1% difference makes! Africans are more closely related to Europeans than any other two groups despite the fact that they differ so much in appearance. The biggest genetic differences are found between Africans and the native populations of Nord America (22%). However, it is essential to note that the genetic differences between people of the same race are much greater than the differences between people of different races. This means that the argument which claims that genets differences make one race superior to another is nothing but a tall story. The differences in various populations may also be the result of circumstances rather than genetic makeup. Factors such as climate, diet, health care, education, and employment as well as other socioeconomic factors are all influential. However, there are some traits which are genetic, for example, then is a much higher incidence of sickle cell anemia among black populations that any other population group. Adult African-Americans and Latinos have twice as many cases of diabetes than Caucasians. In the U.S, Latinos suffer more deaths from liver disease than other races. Europeans suffer more from heart disease and cancer. Genes not only affect our susceptibility to disease, they also affect our physical attributes. The Dinka people from the Sudan are considered to be the tallest people with men having an average height of 6ft 3 in, while women hit the big time with an impressive 5ft 3 in. This contrasts sharply with the Pygmy tribes who get the short end of the stick at only about 4ft 11 in tall. Genetic differences may help US to tailor health service to people of different races or to detect life threatening diseases early. However, they are not significant enough to support the claim that one race is superior to another. In fact, our modern scientific understanding of human genetic diversity flit in the face of almost all our social stereotypes.
4. What does the phrase "a tall story" in the third paragraph mean?

Choose the best answer:
Each year about fifty hundred_________ of plants and animals are already being eliminated.

Choose the best answer:
Were it not for the money, this job wouldn't be worth while.

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
Lady Liberty
New York City is undoubtedly one of the most famous cities in the world. There are several landmarks such as the Empire State Building, Broadway, and Times Square which have come to symbolize the Big Apple. Although these landmarks are all impressive, nothing captures the true spirit of the city like a gigantic, greenish sculpture that stands proudly in New York Harbour: the famed Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty was created as a special gift to the US by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi. It was designed to represent the friendship between the French and American people, two close allies that fought against the British during the American Revolutionary War. Initially, Bartholdi anticipated that he would be able to finish the statue by 1876. The project was conceived as a joint venture. The French would fund and create the statue and send it to the US, while Americans would provide a location and build a pedestal to display it on. The initial completion date would eventually be delayed, however, due to financial issues with both nations. Bartholdi had some technical issues to deal with as well. He had never designed an enormous copper structure of this size and he required some expert assistance. Therefore, Bartholdi recruited Alexandre Gustave Eiffel the designer of the Eiffel Tower to help him. After nine years of hard work, the 151-foot, 22-ton statue was eventually completed and presented to the American Ambassador in France. It then had to he taken apart and separated into crates before being delivered to the US. It took another two years before Americans were able to raise enough public funds to build the pedestal that she would stand on. But the task was finally completed and the Statue of Liberty was assembled and dedicated on October 28, 1886. Over the years, the symbolism of the Statue of Liberty continued to glow more and more important until it became a key symbol of the entire nation. During the late 19th and early 20th century, it was the first landmark that waves of immigrants saw as they sailed into Ellis island. The sight of this symbol of freedom gave them hope and inspiration that their life would be better in their new country. Even today, people from all around the world see it as a powerful symbol of the American democracy.
4. What could replace the word “initial” in paragraph 2?

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:
Composers today use a wider variety of sounds than ever before, including many that were once considered undesirable noises. Composer Edgard Varese (1883-1965) called thus the “liberation of sound…the right to make music with any and all sounds.” Electronic music, for example – made with the aid of computers, synthesizers, and electronic instruments – may include sounds that in the past would not have been considered musical.
Enviromental sounds, such as thunder, and electronically generated hisses and blips can be recorded, manipulated, and then incorporated into a musical composition. But composers also draw novel sounds from voices and non-electronic instruments. Singers may be asked to scream, laugh, groan, sneeze, or to sing phonetic sounds rather than words. Wind and string players may lap or scrape their instruments. A brass or woodwind player may hum while playing, to produce two pitches at once; a pianist may reach inside the piano to pluck a string and then run a metal blade along it. In the music of the Western world, the greatest expansion and experimentation have involved percussion instruments, which outnumber strings and winds in many recent compositions. Traditional persussion instruments are struck with new types of beaters; and instruments that used to be couriered unconventional in Western music – tom-toms, bongos, slapsticks, maracas – are widely used.
In the search for novel sounds, increased use has been made in Western music of Microtones. Non-Western music typically divides and intervals between two pitches more finely than Western music does, thereby producing a greater number of distinct tones or micro tones, within the same interval. Composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki create sound that borders on electronic noise through tone clusters – closely spaced tones played together and heard as a mass, block, or band of sound. The directional aspect of sound has taken on new importance as well Loudspeakers or groups of instruments may be placed at opposite ends of the stage, in the balcony, or at the back and sides of the auditorium. Because standard music notation makes no provision for many of these innovations, recent music scores may contain graph like diagrams, new note shapes and symbols, and novel ways of arranging notation on the page.

According to the passage, which of the following types of instruments has played a role in much of the innovation in Western music?

Francis Bacon lived _____ about the same time as Shakespeare.

(379)________

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:
Recent technological advances in manned and unmanned vehicles, along with breakthroughs in satellite technology and computer equipment, have overcome some of the limitations of divers and diving equipment for scientists doing research on the great oceans of the world. Without a vehicle, divers often became sluggish, and their mental concentration was severely limited. Because undersea pressure affects their speech organs, communication among divers has always been difficult or impossible. But today, most oceanographers avoid the use of vulnerable human divers, preferring to reduce the risk to human life and make direct observations by means of instruments that are lowered into the ocean, from samples take from the water, or from photographs made by orbiting satellites. Direct observations of the ocean floor can be made not only by divers but also by deep-diving submarines in the water and even by the technology of sophisticated aerial photography from vantage points above the surface of more than seven miles and cruise at depths of fifteen thousand feet. In addition, radio-equipped buoys can be operated by remote control in order to transmit information back to land-based laboratories via satellite. Particularly important for ocean study are data about water temperature, currents, and weather. Satellite photographs can show the distribution of sea ice, oil slicks, and cloud formations over the ocean. Maps created from satellite pictures can represent the temperature and the color of the ocean's surface, enabling researchers to study the ocean currents from laboratories on dry land. Furthermore, computers help oceanographers to collect, organize, and analyze data from submarines and satellites. By creating a model of the ocean's movement and characteristics, scientists can predict the patterns and possible effects of the ocean on the environment.
Recently, many oceanographers have been relying more on satellites and computers than on research ships or even submarine vehicles because they can supply a greater range of information more quickly and more effectively. Some of humankind's most serious problems, especially those concerning energy and food, may be solved with the help of observations made possible by this new technology.

Undersea vehicles    .

Choose the best answer:
People here have a more relaxed attitude ________ their work.

Choose the sentence A, B, C or D which in closest in meaning to the printed sentence.
You will never eat there at the weekend unless you have made a reservation.

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:
Students working for their first degree at university are called undergraduates. Then they take their degree we say they graduate, and then they are called graduates. If they continue studying at university after they have graduated, they are called post-graduates. Full-time university students spend all their free time studying. They have no other employment. Their course usually lasts for three or four years. Medical students have to follow a course lasting for six or seven years. Then they graduate as doctors. In Britain, full-time university students have three terms of about ten weeks in each year. During these terms they go to lectures or they study by themselves. Many students become members of academic societies and sports clubs and take part in their activities. Between the university terms they have vacations (or holiday periods). Their vacations are long, but of course they can use them to study at home.

Students who continue studying at university after having graduated are called

Choose the best answer:
New opportunities will emerge as the _____ climate improves.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
The County Council has decided to give a  higher (1)______ to cycling and agreed a new strategy to guide the way ahead in East Sussex.Cycling is a (2)____ , healthy and environmentally friendly form of transport. It is (3)_______- to make it safer, more convenient, and to increase the proportion of journeys made by bicycle.Cycling is being encouraged both for utility purposes (such as journeys to work, school and the shops) and for recreation trips for exercise and enjoyment, including longer trips by tour. Recent cycle schemes carried out in conjunction with District Councils and other bodies (4) ____   the Brighton and Hove seafront route and the Cross Levels Way cycle route, in Eastbourne.Local people will be consulted as the strategy is implemented. The County council will work with local cycling and other groups, and a countrywide Cycling Forum will be formed to (5) _______ that all bodies concerned with cycling are in regular (6) ________  . The (7) ______ of the Cycling strategy are given in a leaflet, and a copy of the full strategy document can be seen in County Council Public Libraries.

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 :
The oceans of the world are precious because of (1)_________ they do for all life on the Earth. They help regulate the temperature of the planet and they are home to a myriad of sea creatures – many of which we depend on (2)________ sources of food. However, due to our consumption and improper disposal of plastic items, human beings have created a swirling mess of garbage. The one located in the Pacific now known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and it is not a pretty sight. In an ideal world, all of the plastic would be recycled and there would be zero waste. This is not the case, however, and a huge amount of the plastic ends up making its (3)_________ to our oceans due to carelessness. (4)__________ the plastic is part of rain runoff coming from a landfill or just a thoughtless discard of a piece of plastic onto the ground, if it ends up in the Pacific Ocean, it will eventually become part of the disgusting patch of garbage. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch may be impossible to (5)__________ but it is doing a lot of harm to sea life. If anything, we can do our best to avoid over-using plastic