Choose the best answer:
The results of an exhausting study into masculinity were published this week and they make for illuminating reading.

Choose the best answer:
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

Choose the best answer:
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), originally known (26)______the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, was created by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11th , 1946 to provide emergency food and healthcare to children and mothers in countries that had been devastated by World War II. The Polish physician Ludwik Rajchman is widely regarded as the (27)______of UNICEF and served as its first chairman from 1946 to 1950, when he had to flee the United States in the wake of McCarthyism. Rajchman is to this day the only person that served as UNICEF’s Chairman for longer than 2 years. On Rajchman’s suggestion, the American Maurice Pate was appointed its first executive director, serving from 1947 until his death in 1965. In 1950, UNICEF’s mandate was extended to address the long-term needs of children and women in developing countries everywhere. In 1953, it (28)______a permanent part of the United Nations System, and the words "international" and "emergency" were dropped from the organization's name, though it retained the original acronym, "UNICEF". UNICEF (29)______ on contributions from governments and private donors. UNICEF’s total income for 2015 was more than five billion dollars. Governments contribute two-thirds of the organization’s resources. Private groups and individuals contribute the rest through national committees. It is estimated that 92 per cent of UNICEF revenue is distributed to program services. UNICEF’s programs emphasize developing community-level services to (30)______ the health and well-being of children. UNICEF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 and the Prince of Asturias Award of Concord in 2006

Choose the best answer:
People of every culture tell each other fairy tales but the same story often takes a variety of forms in different parts of the world. In the story of Little Red Riding Hood that European children are familiar with, a young girl on the way to see her grandmother meets a wolf and tells him where she is going. The wolf runs on ahead and disposes of the grandmother, then gets into bed dressed in the grandmother’s clothes to wait for Little Red Riding Hood. You may think you know the story – but which version? The universal appeal of these tales is frequently attributed to the idea that they contain cautionary messages: in the case of Little Red Riding Hood, to listen to your mother, and avoid talking to strangers. ‘It might be what we find interesting about this story is that it’s got this survival-relevant information in it,’ says anthropologist Jamie Tehrani at Durham University in the UK. But his research suggests otherwise. ‘We have this huge gap in our knowledge about the history and prehistory of storytelling, despite the fact that we know this genre is an incredibly ancient one,’ he says. That hasn’t stopped anthropologists, folklorists and other academics devising theories to explain the importance of fairy tales in human society. Tehrani’s analysis focused on Little Red Riding Hood in its many forms, which include another Western fairy tale known as The Wolf and the Kids. Checking for variants of these two tales and similar stories from Africa, East Asia, and other regions, he ended up with 58 stories recorded from oral traditions. First, he tested some assumptions about which aspects of the story alter least as it evolves, indicating their importance. Folklorists believe that what happens in a story is more central to the story than the characters in it. However, Tehrani found no significant difference in the rate of evolution of incidents compared with that of characters. Neither did his analysis support the theory that the central section of a story is the most conserved part. But the really big surprise came when he looked at the cautionary elements of the story. ‘Studies on hunter-gatherer folk tales suggest that these narratives include really important information about the environment and the possible dangers that may be faced there – stuff that’s relevant to survival. Yet in his analysis such elements were just as flexible as seemingly trivial details. What, then, is important enough to be reproduced from generation to generation? The answer, it would appear, is fear – blood-thirsty and gruesome aspects of the story, such as the eating of the grandmother by the wolf, turned out to be the best preserved of all. Why are these details retained by generations of storytellers, when other features are not? Tehrani has an idea: ‘In an oral context, a story won’t survive because of one great teller. It also needs to be interesting when it’s told by someone who’s not necessarily a great storyteller.’ Maybe being swallowed whole by a wolf, then cut out of its stomach alive is so gripping that it helps the story remain popular, no matter how badly it’s told. Mathias Clasen at Aarhus University in Denmark isn’t surprised by Tehrani’s findings. ‘Habits and morals change, but the things that scare us, and the fact that we seek out entertainment that’s designed to scare us – those are constant,’ he says. Clasen believes that scary stories teach us what it feels like to be afraid without having to experience real danger, and so build up resistance to negative emotions
6. Which of the following is NOT true, according to the passage?

Choose the best answer:
According to a leading business consultancy, 3–14% of the global workforce will need to switch to a different occupation within the next 10-15 years, and all workers will need to adapt as their occupations (26) _______ alongside increasingly capable machines. Dr Stella Pachidi from Cambridge Judge Business School believes that some of the most fundamental changes are happening as a result of the 'algorithmication' of jobs (27) _______ are dependent on data rather than on production - the so-called knowledge economy. Algorithms are capable of learning from data to (28) _______ tasks that previously needed human judgement, such as reading legal contracts, analysing medical scans and gathering market intelligence. 'In (29) _______ cases, they can outperform humans,' says Pachidi. '(30) _______ these enhancements are not without consequences,' says Pachidi. 'If routine cognitive tasks are taken over by AI, how do professions develop their future experts?' she asks. 'One way of learning about a job is “legitimate peripheral participation” - a novice stands next to experts and learns by observation. If this isn't happening, then you need to find new ways to learn.

Choose the best answer:
You depend on all the people closely around to give you the warm feeling of belongingness that you must have to feel secure. But, in fact, the members of all the groups to which you belong also depend on you to give that feeling to them. A person who shows that he wants everything for himself is bound to be a lonely wolf.  The need for companionship is closely related to the need for a sense of belongingness. How sad and lonely your life would be if you had no one to share your feelings and experiences. You may take it for granted that there always will be people around to talk to and to do things with you and for you. The important point, however, is that keeping emotionally healthy does not depend so much upon having people around you as upon your ability to establish relationships that are satisfying both to you and to them.  Suppose you are in a crowd watching a football game. You don't know them. When the game is over, you will all go your separate ways. But just for a while you had a feeling of companionship, of sharing the feelings of others who were cheering for the team you wanted to win.  An experience of this kind gives the clue to what companionship really is. It depends upon emotional ties of sympathy, understanding, trust, and affection. Companions become friends when these ties are formed.  When you are thrown in a new circle of acquaintances, you may not know with whom you will make friends, but you can be sure that you will be able to establish friendships if you show that you really like people.
5. You will find it hard to make friends with people ____

Choose the best answer:
There are many types of family systems around the world. In North America and northern Europe, the nuclear family (with two generations - a father, a mother and one or more children) is often seen as the most typical. In contrast, in most other parts of the world, extended families, which include other family members such as grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, are seen as the norm.  The common view is that the nuclear family has become the norm in many Western societies as a result of industrialization and urbanization. This trend began in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when people were forced to move to cities to find work in the factories that sprang up during the Industrial Revolution. In the twentieth century, greater industrialization resulted in even more people leaving their large extended families. Urbanization also meant that people lived in much smaller houses, which were not big enough for an extended family.  The trend towards nuclear families meant that many of the duties and responsibilities of a family, such as providing food and shelter, cleaning the home, preparing the food, caring for children and their education, and caring for the sick and elderly are no longer shared among the members of the extended family. The parents (or parent) now have to do this, with some help from the state. However, this is the price that people pay for the higher standard of living that may come from living in a city.  We may think we know what we mean by a ‘nuclear' family and an extended family, but reality is more complicated than most people believe. Most nuclear families are part of extended families: children have grandparents and, in many cases, aunts, uncles and cousins as well. Part of what makes them ‘nuclear' is that they live in their own separate household, but it is not the whole story. In Greece or Italy, for example, a nuclear family may live in its own flat, but the extended family may live in the same apartment block or in the same street and family members see each other and even eat together every day.  There is at least one more factor to consider. Family members may be separated from each other by geographical distance, but they may have close emotional ties. Even in North America and northern Europe, grandparents usually have close bonds with their grandchildren, and families often travel long distances so that they can see each other. Grandparents often help their adult children, for example, by cooking and looking after their children in emergencies. In the same way, when their parents become too old to live on their own, adult children may take them into their own homes. As a result, they turn their nuclear family into an extended family.  The structure of families changes over time. The effects of urbanization and industrialization are enormous, but they are not the only reasons for the changes. People marry, have children, become widowed, divorce and die. Children grow up and adults grow old. Nuclear families become extended families and extended families become nuclear families. Family ties stay strong or become weak. One thing is certain: in a changing world, the family will continue to change, but ultimately, it is likely to continue to be the basic unit of society.  
10. Which of the following best serves as the title for the passage?

Choose the best answer:
Choice, we are given to believe, is a right. In daily life, people have come to expect endless situations about which they are required to make decisions one way or another. In the (31) _______ , these are just irksome moments at work which demand some extra energy or brainpower, or during lunch breaks like choosing which type of coffee to order or indeed (32) _______ coffee shop to go to. But sometimes selecting one option as (33) _______ another can have serious or lifelong repercussions. More complex decision-making is then either avoided, postponed, or put into the hands of the army of professionals, lifestyle coaches, lawyers, advisors, and the like, waiting to (34) _______ the emotional burden for a fee. (35) _______ for a good many people in the world, in rich and poor countries, choice is a luxury, not a right. And for those who think they are exercising their right to make choices, the whole system is merely an illusion, created by companies and advertisers wanting to sell their wares

Fill in the gap with the most suitable provided words

Peter: Hello, Mary. How (1) ....?

Mary: I'm fine, (2) .... . And you?

Peter: Fine, thank.

Mary: Peter, this (3) ....Tom. Tom, this is Peter.

Tom: Hi, Peter.

Peter: Hi, Tom. How (4) ....?

Tom: (5) .... six.

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

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
There are many reasons (1) ____ it is important to have a hobby. First of all, a hobby can be a remedy for your (2) ____. Because it is the activity you choose for yourself, it will always give you pleasure and (3) ____ you relax. Even if you just spend a little time enjoying your hobby, you can see the difference (4) ____ your spirit. Second, some hobbies can also (5) ____ you financially. Many old people enjoy gardening. They grow a lot of trees and vegertable, so they can sell them for some money. In (6) ____, a hobby can help you connect with other people. If you like colecting stamps, you can (7) ____ a stamp club to share your albums with other collectors. If your hobby is caving eggshells, you can give your products to your friends (8) ____ gifts

Choose the best answer:
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 _______

Choose the best answer:
Scientists have identified two ways in which species disappear. The first is through ordinary or “background” extinctions, where species that fail to adapt are slowly replaced by more adaptable life forms. The second is when large numbers of species go to the wall in relatively short periods of biological time. There have been five such extinctions, each provoked by cataclysmic evolutionary events caused by some geological eruption, climate shift, or space junk slamming into the Earth. Scientists now believe that another mass extinction of species is currently under way – and this time human fingerprints are on the trigger. How are we are doing it? Simply by demanding more and more space for ourselves. In our assault on the ecosystems around us we have used a number of tools, from spear and gun to bulldozer and chainsaw. Certain especially rich ecosystems have proved the most vulnerable. In Hawaii more than half of the native birds are now gone – some 50 species. Such carnage has taken place all across the island communities of the Pacific and Indian oceans. While many species were hunted to extinction, others simply succumbed to the „introduced predators’ that humans brought with them: the cat, the dog, the pig, and the rat. Today the tempo of extinction is picking up speed. Hunting is no longer the major culprit, although rare birds and animals continue to be butchered for their skin, feathers, tusks, and internal organs, or taken as savage pets. Today the main threat comes from the destruction of the habitat of wild plants, animals, and insects need to survive. The draining and damming of wetland and river courses threatens the aquatic  food chain and our own seafood industry. Overfishing and the destruction of fragile coral reefs destroy ocean biodiversity. Deforestation is taking a staggering toll, particularly in the tropics where the most global biodiversity is at risk. The shinking rainforest cover of the Congo and Amazon river basins and such place as Borneo and Madagascar have a wealth of species per hectare existing nowhere else. As  those precious hectares are drowned or turned into arid pasture and cropland, such species disappear forever.
6. Which is no longer considered a major cause of the mass extinction under way currently?

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
In addition to the challenge to be excellent, American schools have been facing novel problems. They must cope with an influx of immigrant children, many of whom speak little or no English. They must respond to demands that the curriculum reflect the various cultures of all children. Schools must make sure that students develop basic  skills for the job market, and they must consider the needs of nontraditional students, such as teenage mothers. Schools are addressing these problems in ways that reflect the diversity of the US educational system. They are opening (3)________the traditional European-centered curriculum to embrace material from American, Asian, and other cultures. Schools are also teaching cognitive skills to the nearly 40 percent of American students who do not go on to higher education. In the (4)________of a recent report by the Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, “A strong back, the willingness to work, and a high school diploma were once all that was necessary to (5)________a start in America.”

Choose the best answer:
Pablo Picasso is considered to be one of the most (26)_______painters in the twentieth century.(27)_______ was born in Malaga, Spain on October 20, 1881.(28)______painting, Picasso also tried (29)______ kinds of job such as a printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright. From the age of seven, Picasso received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting. On one occasion, the father found his son painting over his unfinished sketch of a pigeon. Observing the (30)______ of his son’s technique, the father felt that the thirten-year-old Picasso had surpassed him, and vowed to (31)______ painting. Picasso grew up to become one of the greatest (32)______most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known (33)______ co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for (34)_____ styles that he helped develop and explore. Picasso is now regarded as one of the artists (35)______ most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century

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

Choose the best answer:
The editors of this tabloid newspaper deployed a conspicuous absence of evidence when it came to a drug-related crime

Choose the best answer:
The traffic light signal was invented by a railway signaling engineer. It was installed (26)_________The House of Parliament in 1868. It (27)_________like any railway signal of the time, and was operated by gas. (28)_________, it exploded and killed a policeman, and the accident (29)_________further development until cars became common.             (30)_________traffic lights are an American invention. Red-green (31)_________were installed in Cleveland in 1914. Three-color signals, (32)_________by hand from a tower in the (33)_________of the street, were installed in New York in 1918. The (34)________lights of this type to (35)________in Britain were in London, on the junction between St James’s street and Piccadilly in 1925.

Choose the best answer:
Fashion is no longer something that is just made of cloth or leather. These days it has become something that needs batteries and is often connected to the Internet. When it comes to high-tech fashion, it might be (31) _________ to your wrist or resting on the bridge of your nose, and it is doing a lot more than just (32) _________ you look stylish. Google was one of the first to burst on the scene with a fashionable item that was also very (33) _________. Google Glass, which looks like glasses, allows wearers to do all sorts of things, from seeing information in a simple viewer to simply saying out loud, “Take a picture.” What you are seeing in the picture that will be taken, (34) _________Google Glass heard you through its microphone and has a built-in camera. If you ask a question, you will (35) _________ the answer in the tiny screen displayed before one eye. Google Glass uses Bluetooth technology to communicate with a smartphone, so it is not a stand-alone item

Choose the best answer:
Throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, citizens of the United States maintained a bias against big cities. Most lived on farms and in small towns and believed cities to be centers of corruption, crime, poverty, and moral degradation. Their distrust was caused, in part, by a notional ideology that proclaimed farming the greatest Occupation and rural living superior to urban living. This attitude prevailed even as the number of urban dwellers increased and cities became an essential feature of the notional landscape. Gradually, economic reality overcame ideology. Thousands abandoned the precarious life on the farm for more secure and better paying jobs in the city. But when these people migrated from the countryside, they carried their fears and suspicions with them. These new urban population, already convinced that cities were overwhelmed with great problems, eagerly embraced the progressive reforms that promised to bring order out of the chaos of the city.  One of many reforms came in the area of public utilities. Water and sewerage systems were usually operated by municipal governments, but the gas and electric networks were privately owned. Reformers feared that the privately owned utility companies would charge exorbitant rates for these essential services and deliver them only to people who would afford them, some city and state governments responded by regulating the utility companies, but a number of cities began to supply these services themselves. Proponents of these reforms argued that public ownership and regulation would insure widespread access to these utilities and guarantee a fair price.  While some reforms focused on government and public behavior, others looked at the cities as a whole. Civic leaders, convinced that physical environment influenced human behavior, argued that cities should develop master plans to guide their future growth and development. City planning was nothing new, but the rapid industrialization and urban growth of the late nineteenth century took place without any consideration for order. Urban renewal in the twentieth century followed several courses. Some cities introduced plans to completely rebuild the city core. Most other cities contented themselves with zoning plans for regulating future growth. Certain parts of town were restricted to residential use, while others were set aside for industrial or commercial development. 
9. The word "Proponents" 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:
Amparo Lasén, the Spanish sociologist who conducted the study found that Londoners use their cellphones the least in public. If they are with (1)______, they prefer to let calls be answered by voicemail (a recorded message)and then they check for messages later. If the English do answer a call on thestreet, they seem to dislike talking with others around. They tend to move away from a crowdedsidewalk and seek out a place (2)_____  they cannot be heard, such as the far side of a subwayentrance or even the edge of a street. They seem to feel that the danger of the traffic is preference to therisk of having their conversation be overheard. This has led to a behavior that Laser has called"clustering. " In Paris,  (3)______,  there are  stricter rules   about how and   when  to use  cell  phones. It is  not (4)______ polite to use a phone in a restaurant, for instance, though it might be acceptable in themore informal setting of a café. One special (5)______ that has developed in cafés seems unique toParis. Young women often place their cell phones on the table beside them to signal that they areexpecting someone. When the friend arrives, the phone is put away. In fact, the French are generallyvery disapproving of phone use in public and are quick to express that disapproval, even to strangers. (Adapted from “Advanced Reading Power” by Beatrice S. Mikulecky and Linda Jeffries)

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.