Choose the best answer:
Maybe you are staying in a city, and there is no park nearby where you can take your morning job. One of the more recent trend is to go on a running tour, but you are not leading the way. Rather, a running (1)_________ who knows the best (2)_________ in the city acts as your guide. You are going out for a run, but you are also being shown highlights of the city while you are doing it. Guided running tours are a trend that seems to be catching (3)_________ in quite a few of the bigger cities in the United States. New York City, Chicago,  and San Francisco are just three of the major cities that have running tours in (4)_________. They offer these tours to individuals, groups, and even for corporate events. If you are going into a city with colleagues to attend a business meeting or a convention, what better way is there to see the city and network with others (5)_________ while taking a healthy run?

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Welcome to Trang An, Vietnam's newest UNESCO World Heritage Site, a place where the water is crystal clear and pink flowers bloom along the shallows. Temples rest on a precipice of rock and water. Here, for 30,000 years, people have lived amongst these limestone giants. To the unfamiliar, this area is a maze of confusing waterways and impassable hills, a place where one could easily disappear from the world. However, to the emperors of the 10th and 11th centuries, this was the ideal setting for a capital city where the inhabitants could be controlled and enemies rebuffed.  This combination of stunning natural beauty and ancient history has led Trang An to be recognised as Vietnam's eighth World Heritage Site. Unlike the previous seven, Trang An is notable for being the only UNESCO site in Vietnam to be classified for both its cultural beauty and natural integrity.  At the ticket office, we are met by the sight of thousands of wooden boats bobbing along the shoreline. Stepping gingerly into the closest dinghy, we are greeted by a young woman whose ability to paddle three adults - all in the midst of Christmas feasting - for three straight hours left me in awe of her strength. What followed was a string of beautiful caves of varying heights and lengths, interspersed with scenes of a peaceful beauty that can be hard to come by in Vietnam.  Dubbed ‘Halong Bay on land’, Trang An’s landscape is reminiscent of its coastal World Heritage neighbour. Dominated by similar karst geography, Halong Bay and Trang An both provide a stunning backdrop lo a tranquil boat cruise. Unlike Halong, however, the boats at Trang An are small, seating no more than five adults, and weekday crowds are minimal. We emerged from a particularly low cave opening and into a small cove ringed by flowering reeds and waterlilies. The steep limestone cliffs block all outside sounds. Underwater reeds stand tall in the clear water beneath our boat, their green spongy limbs waving gently in the current as we paddle past. Brown-and-gold fish dart between grass, their scales glinting in the sunlight, before plunging into the shadows of the towering hills above. Water movement is imperceptible, with the steep hillsides, plunging valleys and clear sky mirrored in its glassy surface. It is as though a parallel world of deep crevices and underwater mountains exists just below our feet.  A parallel world does, in fact, describe how it seemed as we floated through the caves of Trang An. The journey through the first hollow felt like stepping through the back of the wardrobe and entering Narnia. We were suddenly transported into a beautiful, magical world. So at odds with the industrial limestone factories that dominate the Ninh Binh landscape, this small pocket of serenity is surprising.  With more and more visitors flocking to Vietnam's World Heritage Sites, I worry that Trang An will suffer the consequences of unchecked mass tourism. We can only hope that tourism officials will learn from the experiences of other popular tourist destinations and ensure that this place remains as close to paradise as it was on our visit. 
9. Why is Trang An considered as a parallel world?

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Welcome to Trang An, Vietnam's newest UNESCO World Heritage Site, a place where the water is crystal clear and pink flowers bloom along the shallows. Temples rest on a precipice of rock and water. Here, for 30,000 years, people have lived amongst these limestone giants. To the unfamiliar, this area is a maze of confusing waterways and impassable hills, a place where one could easily disappear from the world. However, to the emperors of the 10th and 11th centuries, this was the ideal setting for a capital city where the inhabitants could be controlled and enemies rebuffed.  This combination of stunning natural beauty and ancient history has led Trang An to be recognised as Vietnam's eighth World Heritage Site. Unlike the previous seven, Trang An is notable for being the only UNESCO site in Vietnam to be classified for both its cultural beauty and natural integrity.  At the ticket office, we are met by the sight of thousands of wooden boats bobbing along the shoreline. Stepping gingerly into the closest dinghy, we are greeted by a young woman whose ability to paddle three adults - all in the midst of Christmas feasting - for three straight hours left me in awe of her strength. What followed was a string of beautiful caves of varying heights and lengths, interspersed with scenes of a peaceful beauty that can be hard to come by in Vietnam.  Dubbed ‘Halong Bay on land’, Trang An’s landscape is reminiscent of its coastal World Heritage neighbour. Dominated by similar karst geography, Halong Bay and Trang An both provide a stunning backdrop lo a tranquil boat cruise. Unlike Halong, however, the boats at Trang An are small, seating no more than five adults, and weekday crowds are minimal. We emerged from a particularly low cave opening and into a small cove ringed by flowering reeds and waterlilies. The steep limestone cliffs block all outside sounds. Underwater reeds stand tall in the clear water beneath our boat, their green spongy limbs waving gently in the current as we paddle past. Brown-and-gold fish dart between grass, their scales glinting in the sunlight, before plunging into the shadows of the towering hills above. Water movement is imperceptible, with the steep hillsides, plunging valleys and clear sky mirrored in its glassy surface. It is as though a parallel world of deep crevices and underwater mountains exists just below our feet.  A parallel world does, in fact, describe how it seemed as we floated through the caves of Trang An. The journey through the first hollow felt like stepping through the back of the wardrobe and entering Narnia. We were suddenly transported into a beautiful, magical world. So at odds with the industrial limestone factories that dominate the Ninh Binh landscape, this small pocket of serenity is surprising.  With more and more visitors flocking to Vietnam's World Heritage Sites, I worry that Trang An will suffer the consequences of unchecked mass tourism. We can only hope that tourism officials will learn from the experiences of other popular tourist destinations and ensure that this place remains as close to paradise as it was on our visit. 
2. The word "rebuffed" in the passage is closest in meaning to ____

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

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
I live in a house near the sea. It is ................. (1) old house, about 100 years old and ................. (2) very small. There are two bedrooms upstairs ................. (3) no bathroom. The bathroom is down stairs ................. (4) the kitchen. There is a living room where there is a lovely old fire place. There is a garden ................. (5) the house. The garden ................. (6) down to the beach and in Spring and Summer ................. (7) flowers everywhere. I like sitting alone ................. (8) my dog, Rack, but we have a lot of visitors. My city friends often stay with ................. (9) I love my house for ................. (10)reasons: the garden, the flowers in Summer, the fire in winter, but the best thing is the view from my bedroom window

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It’s only natural that people want to use the latest innovations to better themselves. Smart devices can truly do incredible things and help to simplify our day. They can also enhance our perceptions, arm us with knowledge, and open up a world of new possibilities. A few people have even decided to make the leap and transform themselves to become cyborgs. Cyborg is a term used to describe a being that is half human and half machine. This may sound like something out of science-fiction novels, but some people have already adapted this lifestyle. One is artist Neil Harbisson. He was bom completely colour-blind, and could only see black and white images. It seemed that he would never experience colour. After attending a cybernetics talk in college, he met an inventor who agreed to make a special device for him. They designed an eyeborg, a mechanical eye that converted colours into sound frequencies. This enabled Harbisson to hear colour and perceive the world in a different way. He started going to museums to ‘"hear” classic paintings. In fact, a simple walk down a grocery store filled with colourful products produces some catchy tunes. Harbisson loves his eyeborg so much that he rarely takes it off. He now gives talks urging others to consider adding their own mechanical improvements. In 1998, British scientist Kevin Warwick conducted his own experiment. He implanted a chip inside of his arm, which he used to control lights and other appliances at home. He later expanded the project by placing electrodes inside his nervous system and linking it to the Internet. This allowed him to control external objects including robotic arms, amplifiers, and. loudspeakers. His work remains influential as this example of extended sensory input was the first of its kind. If you’re interested in becoming a cyborg and you’re willing, a good place to start might be with a pair of Google Glass. Users wear it like ordinary eyeglasses, yet Google Glass is equipped with state-of-the-art electronics. Using voice commands you can have it take a picture of what you see, see directions right in front of you, or translate your voice into other languages. Hopefully, this experience will help you decide whether becoming a cyborg is right for you, or if you’re content to remain a human like the rest of us.
6. The word “it” in paragraph 3 refers to________.

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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

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Maria Alcalá of Madrid speaks for many Mediterranean people when she says that “a meal without olive oil would be a bore.” No one knows when the Mediterranean civilizations initially fell in love with olives. That occurred before recorded history. However, there is evidence that the cultivation of olive trees began in countries around the Mediterranean Sea in approximately 4000 B.C., and 2,000 years after that people in the eastern Mediterranean region began to produce oil from olives. The Mediterranean still accounts for 99 percent of all world olive oil production. From ancient times until today, the basic process of producing the oil is the same. First, whole olives are crushed. Then, the liquid is separated from the solids. After that, the valuable oil is separated from the water. Many olive growers maintain their ancient traditions and still harvest the olives by hand. “We harvest in the traditional way,” says Don Celso, an olive farmer from Tuscany, Italy. "It would be less expensive to do it with machines, but it's more a social thing. Twenty people come to help with the harvest, and we pay them in oil." Olive oil has had a variety of uses through its long history. In ancient times, olive oil was used as money and as medicine. It was even used during war-heated up and dropped down on attackers. It is still used in religious ceremonies. It is great for protecting the freshness of fish and cheese. There are even olive oil lamps and olive oil soaps. Olive oil enhances the lives of people everywhere. Its benefits, recently confirmed by science, were already understood in ancient times. Mediterranean people are happy to share their secret with the world.
2. The word ‘civilisations’ in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _______

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One of the greatest concerns parents have when facing an international move is “What schooling will be available to my child? Will my child be disadvantaged academically as a result of this move?”. (12) _____ this fear is certainly strongest in families moving overseas for the first time, even those who may be more experienced often have concerns about their children’s education. Dr. Ernest Mannino, Director of the State Department’s Office of Overseas Schools, and Dr.Keith Miller, Deputy Director of the office, spoke candidly (13) _____ some of the common concerns parents have regarding the education of their children. Dr. Mannino and Dr. Miller (14) _____ parents against making assumptions about their children’s education. To make an educated choice, parents need to (15) _____ through schooling issues and to research post schools as far in advance of a move as possible. Children (16) _____ are internationally mobile have many choices of schools to attend. In most major cities, there are schools based on the U.S, French, German, and British systems. Some parents also choose to become their children’s teachers through home education. Which school is appropriate for your child is an individual decision based on many factors

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The Industrial Revolution in Britain was built on the use of machines in factories. Since the 1950s, Britain's (24)......industries have replaced machine operators with computers, and this (25)......has led to a decline in the number of (26).......in many factories. Goods are bought and used much more than ever before but a lot of these goods are imported. By the beginning of the 20th century, other. industrial countries like the USA were (27).......with Britain's exports, and countries in the Far East have been able to provide cheaper (28)......since the 1970s. Areas located with heavy industries are suffering high unemployment. During the last 30 years, there has been a constant rise in smaller industries (29).........as "light industries". These ones use electricity and are not (30) .........on raw materials such as coal so they are "footloose", i.e. they can be located anywhere. They produce such things as washing machines or spare (31) .......... Some of these industries produce nothing at all, but provide services like distribution. The consumer boom of the 1980s and the increased leisure time of most Britons have led to rapid (32) ........ in service industries like banking, tourism, retailing and information processing, and in industries which distribute, maintain, and repair (33)............consumer goods

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Sociologists have been carrying out research into the social pressures of being a teenager. Many adolescents are unhappy at school because they find it difficult to (17) _____ friends. This stress can bring on illness or result in poor grades. They may also worry about their appearance and often feel (18) _____ enormous pressure to dress, talk and behave the same as (19) _____. This phenomenon is called peer pressure, and it is very common in today’s society. Advertising contributes a lot to the social pressures teenagers feel. Advertisers know how important it is to feel that you belong to a group when you are in your teens, so they try to persuade teenagers that certain products will make them (20) _____ with their classmates. Sadly, many teenagers act irresponsibly and even do dangerous things just to make others accept them. Peer pressure is often the reason for teenage smoking, drug (21) _____ or dangerous driving. Teenagers need to learn to say no to social pressure and to find friends who they can talk things over with when they have a problem

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
Another side effect of the human population explosion will be the conversion of more land to food production or cities. This habitat (1)_______ will cause progressive extinction of many more species. Globally, 45 species of birds and 40 species of mammals went (2) ______ between 1650 and 1969, more have disappeared since then, and many more are in endangered species list. It has been estimated that half of all the species on Earth reside in the Amazon rain forest, (3) ______ most of them in Brazil. Brazil’s plans to colonize and cut down the rain forests and similar changes in Congo and Indonesia may very well (4) ______a major episode of extinction. Recent efforts to estimate the projected rate of extinction suggest (5) ______ half of all the species of mammals and birds will become extinct within the next 200 to 300 years

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
Hoang is a (1) ……………. He’s twelve years (2) …………….. He’s tall and (3)……………. His face is (4) ……………… and his hair is (5) ………………. and black. He (6) ……………… at school in the morning and (7) …………….. football in the afternoon. He (8) ……………… good marks in class

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
Here is a wonderful opportunity at a (1) ________ cost to visit the truly remarkable island of Cuba. We have (2) ________ rooms at some of the finest hotels for periods of 7 and 14 nights. You may (3) ________ your time between relaxing and exploring this beautiful country by taking advantage of our extensive excursion programme. The (4) ________ of such a small country is amazing and, as it is set in the warm waters of Caribbean, it is (5) ________ to have one of the most pleasant climates in the world. Cuba, being so small, is not only an ideal country to tour, but it's also a place where visitors can relax and (6) ________ in exotic surroundings. Not only has nature (7) ________ Cuba with magnificent coast and some fine sandy beaches, but there are also extensive (8) ________ near them. Most beaches are close to important sites such as international parks with their (9) ________ wildlife, flora and fauna. Because the south of the island is blessed with being the driest region in the country most hotels are situated here. Rain is however (10) ________ in the north from December to July.

Read the passage and choose the best answer.

The Vietnamese students take part (1) ______ different after - school activities. Some students play sports. They often (2) __________ soccer, table tennis or badminton. Sometimes they (3) ________ swimming in the swimming pools. Some students like music, drama and movies. They often practice playing musical instrument in the school music room. They (4) __________ in the school theater group and usually rehearse plays. Some are members of the stamp collectors’ (5) ________. They often get together and talk about their stamps. A few students stay at home and play video games or computer games. Most of them enjoy their activities after school hours.

(5) ______

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Not everybody recognizes the benefits of new developments in communications technology. Indeed, some people fear that text messaging may actually be having a negative ______(31) on young people's communication and language skills, especially when we hear that primary school children may be at ______(32) of becoming addicted to the habit. So widespread has texting become, however, that even pigeons have started doing it. What‟s more, in this case, it's difficult to view the results as anything but positive. Twenty of the birds are about to ______(33) to the skies with the task of measuring air pollution, each ______(34) with sensor equipment and a mobile phone. The ______(35) made by the sensors will be automatically ______(36) into text messages and beamed to the Internet - where they will appear on a dedicated 'pigeon blog'

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Why do people like to chew gum? Some people say they like the taste.(31)________say they can think better if they chew gum. Some people chew it when they have some boring work to do. Others chew gum when they are nervous. Gum is a mixture of things. For many years gum companies made gum from chicle. Chicle is a natural gum from a tree in Mexico and Central America. Now companies use plastic and rubber made from petroleum (32)________of chicle. Gum must be soft so that you can chew it. A softener keeps it soft. The gum company makes the softener from vegetable oil. A sweetener makes the gum sweet. The sweetener is usually sugar. Then the company (33)________the flavor. Thomas Adams made the first gum from chicle in 1836. However , chewing gum was not new. The Greeks chewed gum from a tree (34)________2,000 years ago. Mayan Indians in Mexico chewed chicle. Indians in the Northeastern United States taught Europeans to chew gum from a tree there. People first made bubble gum in 1928. Children like to (35)________bubble with bubble gum. Some university students do too

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The American southwest is full of deserts. If you ever go there, you might get to see a very strange event. We are talking something called the sailing stones. Sometimes, stones in the southwestern desert move by themselves. Wind doesn’t seem to push them. People and animals don’t touch them. However, these stones still move. Sometimes they travel more than a hundred meters. They always leave a trail in the sand behind them. This is useful because we can look at the trail and figure out how far a stone has moved. How is this possible? How can stones move all by themselves? Scientists have been studying this for years. People have offered all kinds of theories. One of the earliest theories was that wind pushes the stones. That theory isn’t correct, because some of the stones weigh more than 300 kilograms. When it seemed like there was no logical explanation for the sailing stones, people started coming up with crazier ideas. Some people said that aliens were moving the stones, and others said that clever people were playing a joke. Finally, in 2013, a scientist came up with an explanation for the sailing stones. This scientist normally studies weather on other planets, and when he heard about the sailing stones, he became interested in them. He found out that ice forms on the bottom of the stones. When that happens, even a very light wind can push the stone for long distances. To prove his theory, the scientist did an experiment. He put a rock in his freezer and let some ice form on it. Then, he put sand and a little water in a tray. Finally, he put his frozen rock on top of the sand. When he blew on the rock, it moved. Even when he blew very gently, he had no problems moving the rock. Here is something interesting about the sailing stones. Curious people visit the desert in the southwest to see them. A lot of those people don’t like to hear the scientific explanation for the sailing stones. Many people prefer to feel that the stones are still a mystery.
7. What can be inferred from the scientist’s experiment?

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Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park is located in the middle of the Annamite Mountain Range in Quang Binh province, Vietnam, and shares its boundary (23) ____ the Hin Namno Nature Reserve in the Lao PDR to the west. The property (24) ____ an area of 123,326 ha and contains terrestrial and aquatic habitats, primary and secondary forest, sites of natural regeneration, tropical dense forests and savanna and is rich in large, often spectacular and scientifically significant caves.  The property contains and protects over 104 km of caves and underground rivers making (25) ____ one of the most outstanding limestone karst ecosystems in the world. (26) ____ karst formation has evolved since the Palaeozoic period (some 400 million years ago) and as such is the oldest major karst area in Asia. (27) ____ to massive tectonic changes, the karst landscape is extremely complex, comprising a series of rock types that are interbedded in complex ways and with many geomorphic features. The karst landscape is not only complex but also ancient with high geodiversity and geomorphic features of considerable significance

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Scientists agree that the earth's rising temperatures are fueling longer and hotter heat waves, more frequent droughts, heavier rainfall, and more powerful hurricanes. In 2015, for example, scientists said that an ongoing drought in California - the state's worst water shortage in 1,200 years - had been intensified by 15 percent to 20 percent by global warming. They also said the odds of similar droughts happening in the future had roughly doubled over the past century. And in 2016, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine announced that it's now possible to confidently attribute certain weather events, like some heat waves, directly to climate change.  The earth's ocean temperatures are getting warmer, too - which means that tropical storms can pick up more energy. So global warming could turn, say, a category 3 storm into a more dangerous category 4 storm. In fact, scientists have found that the frequency of North Atlantic hurricanes has increased since the early 1980s, as well as the number of storms that reach categories 4 and 5. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina - the costliest hurricane in U.S. history struck New Orleans; the second - costliest, Hurricane Sandy, hit the East Coast in 2012.  The impacts of global warming are being felt across the globe. Extreme heat waves have caused tens of thousands of deaths around the world in recent years. And in an alarming sign of events to come, Antarctica has been losing about 134 billion metric tons of ice per year since 2002. This rate could speed up if we keep burning fossil fuels at our current pace, some experts say, causing sea levels to rise several meters over the next 50 to 150 years.   
7. The overall tone of the passage is ____

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Many older cities are having modern makeovers and they are being given a new (1) ____. Sometimes the impetus for this (2) ____ of change comes from the need to provide new (3) ____ for particular events being held in the city - a sporting event, or something (4) ____. On other (5) ____ the change just seems to (6) ____ place almost naturally.  Take Birmingham, for instance, (7) ____ it was previously an (8) ____ place to live, it has now become trendy, and this change has been brought about largely by the new-look architecture that can be found everywhere in the city. The old shopping centre has been (10) ____ down and completely rebuilt, and new shopping malls are competing to attract shoppers with the high quality of their services and goods. The area located around the canal, once hidden away and surrounded by decaying factories was often used as a rubbish (11) ____, but it has now become a trendy place (12) ____ up of modern offices, bars, sought-after apartments and restaurants. To (13) ____ up, Birmingham has become the place to be. Even in what was formerly the poorest part of the city an old factory has been (14) ____ into a lively complex of studios, galleries and coffee bars. With its theatres, museums and football teams Birmingham is (15) ____ worth visiting and has something for everyone