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She/ often/ listen/ music/ read/ book/ free time.

 

______it was so cold, he went out without an overcoat.
(130)_______

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I think Son Doong Cave is by far ____________ cave in Vietnam.

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“How was the first night of the play?” “Oh, pretty good – there were a _______________ number of people there.”

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Science is used in all corners of the world for the __________ of human.

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Let’s ____________ to the rainforest.

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.

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I will come and see you before I.............for America.

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
Say Sayonara to Sushi?
There are few meals as nutritious as a plate of fresh fish. Whether eaten steamed or raw, fish provides our bodies with healthy fats and it tastes great, too. Yet for years, the fishing industry has practised overfishing, depleting the world’s oceans. It has been estimated that 85 percent of stocks worldwide have been diminished to a dangerous level. Statistics show that the average person consumes more than four times as much fish as someone from the 1950s. As the world’s population grows and more people are able to afford pricier foods, the problem will likely get worse. In truth, knowledge of the shortage of fish is not something new. Since the late 1980s, despite increased technology and a greater demand for fish, the total global catch has not increased. Eager to make a buck, some fishermen have resorted to illegal tactics to catch more fish and increase their income. They will violate regulations by fishing in waters that are supposed to be off-limits. To make matters worse, they often use mile-long drift nets which trap and kill large numbers of unwanted marine life for no reason at all. These practices only serve to destroy fishes’ habitats and speed up the rate of population decline. As a result of dwindling fish supplies, many nations are turning to farmed fish. About half of the fish sold today is derived from this practice. Supporters point out its efficiency and that it is more feasible to support populations in this manner than with land animals. However, there are still many hurdles to overcome. Many of the current farm fisheries are poorly run by their owners. Poor practices can lead to marine pollution, as waters can be filled with fish manure and extra feed that is not consumed. Some farmed fish have limited space, which causes disease. This in turn can lead to health issues for the people who consume the fish. Still, some regard fish farming as the way of the future. They suggest that with a few modifications, it would be possible to meet the growing demand for fish. Others have suggested more drastic measures, such as placing a ten-year ban on capturing some species, to deal with the shortage. These people argue that a decade would provide sufficient time for the fish population to replenish itself hack to healthy levels. Hopefully, nations can come together and agree upon an effective course of action before it is too late.
1. What is the main problem mentioned in the passage?

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Books help broaden the mind. Books also provide a good source of entertainment.

 Singapore is a popularity travel destination, making tourism one of its largest industries. About 37 million tourists visited Singapore in 2006.

(519)_____

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India’s Classical Jewel
If you are looking for a refreshing break from the standard pop songs on the radio and you have an open mind, give Indian classical music a try. It dates back to thousands of years to when the Vedas, India’s sacred holy texts were written. This makes it one of the oldest unbroken musical traditions in the world. In fact, the music itself is closely linked to Hinduism. The songs and chants were originally parts of devotional rituals performed to please the gods. The music features several instruments that are uniquely Indian, but two in particular are featured prominently. The first is the sitar, a stringed instrument with an extremely long neck. The sitar is a far more complex instrument than the guitar, as it can have as many as 20 strings. When played, it lets off a buzzing vibration that has a relaxing effect on listeners. The other instrument which is essential for classical Indian music is the tabla. Tablas are a special kind of hand drum that provides the tempo and rhythm. Tabla players sit on the floor and keep the drum in place by locking it between their knees. Unlike Western drummers, tabla players use their hands and fingers to play the instrument. The player’s fingers keep the beat, while a sudden flick of the wrist and a slide of the palm can change the pitch of the drum. Instead of songs, classical Indian music revolves around the concept of ragas, which are more accurately defined as musical themes. Players take these ideas and begin to improvise their own melodies around them. Ragas tend to be a bit longer than typical songs, and in some cases they can go for several hours. Each raga is expected to have a wide range of tempos to help viewers experience different emotions during the performance. One of the most influential classical Indian musicians was a sitar player named Ravi Shankar. After training for years to master his craft, he travelled to the US and Europe during the 1950s to perform for Western audiences. He would eventually become close friends with Beaties’ guitarist George Harrison, and his music would influence several of the band’s songs. Although he passed away in 2012, his music continues to inspire both Eastern and Western musicians alike.
7. Who would probably enjoy classical Indian music the most?

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After dinner, Mom ______ the lamp and Dad used to tell us stories.

Fill in each numbered blank with one suitable word or phrase.

The Early Life of Bill Gates

While Bill Gates had to work (1)………..to become what he is today, his story isn’t exactly a rags-to-riches one as he was born into a fairly wealthy family. His father was a successful attorney while his mother was a school teacher who went onto a member of the Board of Directors of the First Interstate Bank. Gates was a bright student and (2) ……….well academically, especially in mathematics. And, this was exemplified by the 800 points that young Bill Gates scored in the mathematics part of an intelligence test.

Bill Gates developed a (3) ………..for computers and programming as early as 13. At the same age, Gates enrolled in the Lakeside School, a private preparatory school. While Gates was still at the school, the school administration decided to buy a computer from the General Electric Company. (4) ………his flare in programming, the school administration excused Gates from classes to allow him to (5) ………….his interest. On the GEC machine, Bill Gates built his first ever computer program.

At the school, Gates met Paul Allen and they worked (6)………..to find bugs in a system belonging to Computer Center Corporation. In exchange for computer time and royalties, Gates and Allen along with two other students wrote a payroll program for Information Sciences. This led to Gates’ school becoming fully aware (7)………..his talent and they had him build a program (8)………..scheduled students in classes.

Gates and Allen continue to build software and at just the age of 15, Bill Gates sold a software to optimize traffic for $$ 20,000. A few years later, he developed another software and earned $$ 30,000 from (9)...... And, this was the start of Bill Gates’ journey to a billion-dollar (10)…………..

(7)……….

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
The principal difference between urban growth in Europe and in the North American colonies was the slow evolution of cities in the former and their rapid growth in the latter. In Europe they grew over a period of centuries from town economies to their present urban structure. In North America, they started as wilderness communities and developed to mature urbanism in little more than a century. In the early colonial days in North America, small cities sprang up along the Atlantic Coastline, mostly in what are now New England and the Middle Atlantic states in the United States and in the lower Saint Lawrence valley in Canada. This was natural because these areas were nearest England and France, particularly England, from which most capital goods were imported. Merchandising establishments were, accordingly, advantageously located in port cities from which goods could be readily distributed to interior settlements. Here, too, were the favored locations for processing raw materials prior to export. Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Montreal, and other cities flurished, and as the colonies grew, these cities increased in importance. This was less true in the colonial South, where life centered around large farms, known as plantations, rather than around towns, as was the case in the areas further north along the Atlantic coastline. The local isolation and the economic self-sufticiency of the plantations were antagonistic to the development of the towns. The plantations maintained their independence because they were located on navigable streams and each had a wharf accessible to the small shipping of that day. In fact, one of the strongest factors in the selection of plantation land was the desire to have it front on a water highway. When the United States became an independent nation in 1776, it did not have a single city as large as 50,000 inhabitants, but by 1820 it had a city of more than 100,000 people, and by 1880 it had recorded a city of over one million. It was not until after 1823, after the mechanization of the spinning and weaving industries, that cities started drawing young people away from farms. Such migration was particularly rapid following the Civil War (1861 -1865)
6. The passage indicates that during colonial times, the Atlantic coastline cities prepared which of the following for shipment to Europe?

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Some Amazing Apps for Your Smartphone
It is hard to imagine life in modern society without smartphones. These handy little devices keep us entertained and enable us to manage important tasks on the go. Although smartphones feature powerful hardware, they wouldn’t be so useful without thousands of handy applications. Here are a few free and helpful apps that you can download to help you throughout the day. If you have a habit of forgetting things and want to organize your life, give Evernote a try. It promises to help users remember everything. With a few clicks, you can send all of your photos, documents, and audio notes to Evernote. Then, your digital information can be stored in folders or tagged with useful keywords. When you need to access this data, you can perform a simple search and it will appear in seconds. Evernote is available on smartphones, tablets, and computers, so you can access your data from everywhere. Imagine this scenario. You are watching a TV show and you hear a cool song in the background. You want to buy it but there is one problem. You don’t know the name of the song. SoundHound is an app that will make this problem a thing of the past. It enables users to quickly identify songs by launching the app and holding their phone in the air. The app takes the song playing and compares it to thousands of other songs until it finds a match. Within seconds, it can tell you the name, artist, and album of the song you just heard. Another spectacular app is Lookout. Hopefully, you won’t have to use it often, but when you do need it. Lookout can be a lifesaver. Its main function is to help you find your phone if it goes missing. Lookout does this by using your smartphone’s data connection to locate your lost device. To see where your phone is on a map, simply log into Lookout from any web browser. In the worst-case situation, if someone steals your phone and you fear it has gone for good, you can wipe out all of its data with a few clicks. This will ensure no one will see any private information on your phone. These helpful apps are just the tip of the iceberg. If you do some searching online, you are certain to find many other apps that will make your life more convenient.
8. Which of the following statements does the author most probably agree with?

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
You should come visit the Jungle Cafe, Macau's newest spot for family (1)-------. You (2)------- a true jungle adventure, the cafe is designed to look and sound as if you are inside a tropical rainforest: vines hang from the ceilings, monkeys screech, and gorgeous tropical fish swim in huge aquariums placed on almost every wall surface. Children will love the "jungle thunderstorms" that take place periodically .The overhead "sky" darkens, thunder roars, and lightning flashes across the ceiling, just like a genuine thunderstorm, And, (3)------ the realistic special effects, no one gets wet!

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More than ten victims _______missing in the storm last week

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Alemur is a unique animal. When you look at a lemur, it might be hard to tell what you are really looking at. With their huge dark eyes and lush fur, lemurs are very cute, but what animal family are they from? Some lemurs look like a cross between a cat and a dog. Some look a little like squirrels, while others resemble monkeys. Why do they look so strange? To answer to this question we need to understand the lemur's history and genetics. In modern biology, lemurs are called prosimians. This means before monkeys. Remarkably, lemurs, monkeys, apes, and humans all share a common ancestor from about 50 million years ago. Monkeys, apes, and humans developed together in one direction. However, lemurs developed differently and slowly because of their geographical location. All lemurs come from the island of Madagascar, located off the east coast of Africa. Madagascar split off from mainland Africa 50 million years ago. It is believed that the first prosimians traveled to Madagascar on floating trees and plants. The prosimians that traveled to Madagascar were isolated from the rest of Africa. Predators, like dogs or cats, did not make it to Madagascar. Since there were no dangerous threats, prosimians did not have to evolve as quickly as other primates did. (primates: any nimal that belongs to the group of mammals that includes humans, apes, and monkeys.) Over time, the original prosimians evolved into lemurs. Lemurs have changed in some ways over those 50 million years, but they are much more similar to our shared ancestor than either humans, monkeys, or apes. Because of this, their bodies and behaviors hold clues about what out common ancestor looked like. Lemurs have four fingers and a thumb on their hands, and five toes on their feet, just like humans do. They have eyes and jaw bones that are similar to humans as well, but they have a wet nose, like a dog. Lemur behavior is also comparable to human behavior, as they live in social groups. Like apes and humans, lemurs travel together, groom one another, fight each other, and play together. Lemurs, however, have simpler friend and family relationships. Recently, lemurs have been studied in captivity. Like their distant chimpanzee and monkey cousins, they can be taught to use tools and to solve complicated problems. The word lemur means ghost. While the name probably comes from their huge reflective eyes and their strange, haunting cries, lemurs are ghosts in a way. They are living ghosts that remind US where we came from, and also give US clues about how humans evolved.
10. Why does the writer say: "they are living shosts" in paragraph 6?

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Until recently, most American entrepreneurs were men. Discrimination against women in business, the demands of caring for families, and lack of business training had kept the number of women entrepreneurs small. Now, however, businesses owned by women account for more than $40 billion in annual revenues, and this figure is likely to continue rising throughout the 1990s. As Carolyn Doppelt Gray, an official of the Small Business Administration, has noted, "The 1970s was the decade of women entering management, and the 1980s turned out to be the decade of the woman entrepreneur". What are some of the factors behind this trend? For one thing, as more women earn advanced degrees in business and enter the corporate world, they are finding obstacles. Women are still excluded from most executive suites. Charlotte Taylor, a management consultant, has noted, "In the 1970s, women believed if they got an MBA and worked hard they could become chairman of the board. Now they've found out that isn't going to happen, so they go out on their own." In the past, most women entrepreneurs worked in "women's" fields: cosmetics and clothing, for example. But this is changing. Consider ASK Computer Systems, a $22-million- a-year computer software business. It was founded in 1973 by Sandra Kurtzig, who was then a housewife with degrees in math and engineering. When Kurtzig founded the business, her first product was software that let weekly newspapers keep tabs on their newspaper carriers and her office was a bedroom at home, with a shoebox under the bed to hold the company's cash. After she succeeded with the newspaper software system, she hired several bright computer-science graduates to develop additional programs. When these were marketed and sold, ASK began to grow. It now has 200 employees, and Sandra Kurtzig owns $66.9 million of stock. Of course, many women who start their own business fail, just as men often do. They still face hurdles in the business world, especially problems in raising money, the banking and finance world is still dominated by men, and old attitudes die hard. Most businesses owned by women are still quite small. But the situation is challenge, there are likely to be many more Sandra Kurtzigs in the years ahead.
10. The author's attitude about the future of women in business is: 

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 rules of etiquette in American restaurants depend upon a number of factors the physical location of the restaurant, eg., rural or urban; the type of restaurant, eg., informal or formal; and certain standards that are more universal. In other words, some standards of etiquette vary significantly while other standards apply almost anywhere. Learning the proper etiquette in a particular type of restaurant in a particular area may sometimes require instruction, but more commonly it simply requires sensitivity and experience. For example, while it is acceptable to read a magazine in a coffee shop, it is inappropriate to do the same in a more luxurious setting. And, if you are eating in a very rustic setting it may be fine to tuck your napkin into your shirt, but if you are in a sophisticated urban restaurant this behavior would demonstrate a lack of manners. It is safe to say, however, that in virtually every restaurant it is unacceptable to indiscriminately throw your food on the floor. The conclusion we can most likely draw from the above is that while the types and locations of restaurant determine etiquette appropriate to them, some rules apply to all restaurant.

The author uses the word “draw” in line 10 to mean     .