Choose the letter A, B, C or D to complete the sentences with given words

Have/ you/ ever/ attend/ video conference?

 Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.

      ARE TRADITIONAL WAYS OF LEARNING THE BEST?

Read about some alternative schools of thought…

One school in Hampshire, UK, offers 24-hour teaching. The children can decide when or if they come to school. The school is open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., for 364 days a year and provides online teaching throughout the night. The idea is that pupils don't have to come to school and they can decide when they want to study. Cheryl Heron, the head teacher, said “Some students learn better at night. Some students learn better in the morning.” Cheryl believes that if children are bored, they will not come to school. “Why must teaching only be conducted in a classroom? You can teach a child without him ever coming to school.”

Steiner schools encourage creativity and free thinking so children can study art, music and gardening as well as science and history. They don’t have to learn to read and write at an early age. At some Steiner schools the teachers can’t use textbooks. They talk to the children, who learn by listening. Every morning the children have to go to special music and movement classes called “eurhythmy”, which help them learn to concentrate. Very young children learn foreign languages through music and song. Another difference from traditional schools is that at Steiner schools you don't have to do any tests or exams.

A child learning music with the Suzuki method has to start as young as possible. Even two-year-old children can learn to play difficult pieces of classical music, often on the violin. They do this by watching and listening. They learn by copying, just like they learn their mother tongue. The child has to join in, but doesn't have to get it right. “They soon learn that they mustn't stop every time they make a mistake. They just carry on,” said one Suzuki trainer. The children have to practise for hours every day and they give performances once a week, so they learn quickly. “The parents must be involved too,” said the trainer, “or it just doesn't work.”

 The word “involved” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ____.

In 1900, life expectancy in the United States was 47 years, and only four per cent of the population was 65 or older. Today, life expectancy is 76 years, and by 2025, it is estimated about 20 per cent of the U.S. population will be 65 or older. For the first time, a generation of adults must plan for the needs of both their parents and their children. Most Americans are responding with remarkable grace. One in four households gives the equivalent of a full day a week or more in unpaid care to an aging relative, and more than half say they expect to do so in the next 10 years. Older people are less likely to be impoverished or incapacitated by illness than in the past, and have more opportunity to develop a relationship with their grandchildren.

Even some of the choices that worry people the most are turning out to be manageable. Divorce rates are likely to remain high, and in many cases marital breakdown causes serious problems for both adults and kids. Yet when parents minimize conflict, family bonds can be maintained. And many families are doing this. More non-custodial parents are staying in touch with their children. Child-support receipts are rising. A lower proportion of children from divorced families are exhibiting problems than in earlier decades. And stepfamilies are learning to maximize children's access to supportive adults rather than cutting them off from one side of the family.

The word “this” in the paragraph 3 refers to ____.

Rearrange the sentences to make meaningful sentences

We/ stay/ to/ at/ afternoon/ decided/ this/ home.

Hi, my name is Anna. This is the photo of my family. There are six people in my family: my grandmother, my grandfather, my mother, my father, my elder brother and me. These are my grandparents. They are old and retired. They love gardening and doing morning exercise. This is my father. He is forty-one and he is a doctor. He works in a big hospital. This is my mother. She is thirty-eight. She is an Art teacher. She teaches in a secondary school. This is my elder brother. His name is Jack. He is sixteen and he is a high school student. I'm ten and I'm the youngest in my family. Our family lives in a house on Nguyen Hue Street. The house is a little small but it's lovely. There is a living room, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. However, the thing I love most is that the house also has a big garden and a large pond behind it. These are the places where my family likes to relax or fish on weekends.

 How many people are there in Anna's family?

Read the passage carefully and choose the correct answer

A birthday party is a celebration that occurs to celebrate the birth of the person being honored. Birthday parties are celebrated in many cultures. While a child’s party is usually at home and consists of soft drinks and sweet food as well as some main courses, adults’ birthday parties in Western countries often take place in bars or nightclubs where a range of alcoholic beverages are consumed. 

In Western cultures, particularly in the United States, birthday parties are often accompanied by colorful decorations such as streamers and balloons. A birthday cake is often served with candles that are to be blown out after a “birthday wish” has been made. While the birthday cake is brought to the table, the song Happy Birthday to You is sung. Wealthy people or celebrities may hire an event management agency or a party service to organize a birthday party. 

The birthday cake has been an integral part of the birthday tradition in Western cultures since the middle of the 19th century.

The cake, or sometimes a pastry or dessert, is served to a person on his or her birthday, and is often decorated with small novelty candles, with the person’s name and a message of congratulations inscribed with icing. The phrase “Happy Birthday” did not appear on birthday cakes until the song Happy Birthday to You was popularized in the early 1900s.

Tradition holds that the person with the birthday may make a wish, which will come true if all the candles can be blown out in one breath.

In a child’s birthday party, there is not____.

 Choose the answer - a, b, c, or d - that is nearest in meaning to the printed before it.

 There's no point in persuading him to do this.

Kumbh Vivah: India

Indian men and women born as Mangliks — meaning Mars is situated in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th, 8th or 12th house of a person’s Rashi (Indian astrological moon sign) — are believed __________ (12). It is believed that Mangalik Dosha negatively impacts married life, causing tension and sometimes the untimely death of one of the partners. To cancel ___________ (13) effects, a Kumbh Vivah can be performed before the wedding. This is a wedding between a Mangalik and either a statue of Vishnu or a Peepal tree or banana tree. The celebrated Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai had one such marriage with a tree before marrying her husband, Abhishek.

Bathroom Moratorium: Tidong community, Indonesia/ Malaysia

(12)________

A camera can be used to film directly from the computer’s display screen, but for the highest quality images possible, expensive film recorders are used. The computer computers the positions and colors for the figures in the picture, and sends this information to the recorder, which captures it on film. Sometimes, however, the images are stored on a large magnetic disk before being sent to the recorder. Once this process is completed, it is replaced for the next frame. When the entire sequence has been recorded on the film, the film must be developed before the animation can be viewed. If the entire sequence does not seem right, the motions must be corrected, recomputed, redisplayed, and rerecorded. This approach can be very expensive and time – consuming. Often, computer-animation companies first do motion tests with simple computer-generated line drawings before selling their computers to the task of calculating the high-resolution, realistic-looking images.

The word “task” in the fourth paragraph is closest in meaning to .

 Different cultures follow their own special customs when a child's baby teeth fall out. In Korea, for example, they have the custom of throwing lost teeth up on the roof of a house. According to tradition, a magpie will come and take the tooth. Later, the magpie will return with a new tooth for the child. In other Asian countries, such as Japan and Vietnam, children follow a similar tradition of throwing their lost teeth onto the roofs of houses.

   Birds aren't the only animals thought to take lost teeth. In Mexico and Spain, tradition says a mouse takes a lost tooth and leaves some money. However, in Mongolia, dogs are responsible for taking teeth away. Dogs are highly respected in Mongolian culture and are considered guardian angels of the people. Tradition says that the new tooth will grow good and strong if the baby tooth is fed to a guardian angel. Accordingly, parents in Mongolia will put their child's lost tooth in a piece of meat and feed it to a dog.

According to paragraph 2, parents in Mongolia feed their child's lost tooth to a dog because ______.

Read the passage and do the tasks below.

A new hearing device is now available for some hearing-impaired people. This device uses a magnet to hold a detachable sound-processing portion in place. Like other aids, it converts sound into vibrations. But it is unique in that it can transmit the vibrations directly to the magnet and then to the inner ear. This produces a clearer sound. The new device will not help all hearing-impaired people only those with a hearing loss caused by infection or some other problems in the middle ear. It will probably help no more than 20 percent of all people with hearing problems. Those people who have persistent ear infections, however, should find relief and restored hearing with the new device.

According to the passage, what does the device not do?

Unfortunately, diets don‘t work for most people. They do lose weight but then go off the diet and put it back. Building a sensible diet and exercise plan is the key (1)_____ maintaining a consistent weight. You need to figure out how many calories you need in a day and how many you actually (2)______. The next step is to add exercise (3)_____ you can raise the number of calories you can consume per day.Burning 250 or 500 calories per day can make a big (4)_____ . You can ride an exercise bike while you are watching television (5)______ you can take the stairs instead of the elevator. Find an exercise partner. Exercises can be a lot easier if there is someone to talk to. It‘s a good idea to wear firm-fitting clothes if you are on a diet. Tight clothing acts as a reminder of what you are trying to accomplish

  Scientists do not yet thoroughly understand just how the body of an individual becomes sensitive to a substance that is harmless or even wholesome for the average person. Milk, wheat, and egg, for example, rank among the most healthful and widely used foods. Yet these foods can cause persons sensitive to them to suffer greatly. At first, the body of the individual is not harmed by coming into contact with the substance. After a varying interval of time, usually longer than a few weeks, the body becomes sensitive to it, and an allergy has begun to develop. Sometimes it's hard to figure out if you have a food allergy, since it can show up so many different ways. Your symptoms could be caused by many other problems. You may have rashes, hives, joint pains mimicking arthritis, headaches, irritability, or depression. The most common food allergies are to milk, eggs, seafood, wheat, nuts, seeds, chocolate, oranges, and tomatoes. Many of these allergies will not develop if these foods are not fed to an infant until her or his intestines mature at around seven months. Breast milk also tends to be protective. Migraines can be set off by foods containing tyramine, phenathylamine, monosodium glutamate, or sodium nitrate. Common foods which contain these are chocolate, aged cheeses, sour cream, red wine, pickled herring, chicken livers, avocados, ripe bananas, cured meats, many Oriental and prepared foods (read the labels!). Some people have been successful in treating their migraines with supplements of B-vitamins, particularly B6 and niacin. Children who are hyperactive may benefit from eliminating food additives, especially colorings, and foods high in salicylates from their diets. A few of these are almonds, green peppers, peaches, tea, grapes. This is the diet made popular by Benjamin Feingold, who has written the book “Why your Child is Hyperactive”. Other researchers have had mixed results when testing whether the diet is effective.

Which of the following was a suggested treatment for migraines in the passage?

 Orchids are unique in having the most highly developed of all blossoms, in which the usual male and female reproductive organs are fused in a single structure called the column. The column is designed so that a single pollination will fertilize hundreds of thousands, and in some cases millions, of seeds, so microscopic and light they are easily carried by the breeze. Surrounding the column are three sepals and three petals, sometimes easily recognizable as such, often distorted into gorgeous, weird, but always functional shapes. The most noticeable of the petals is called the labellum, or lip. It is often dramatically marked as an unmistakable landing strip to attract the specific insect the orchid has chosen as its pollinator. To lure their pollinators from afar, orchids use appropriately intriguing shapes, colors, and scents. At least 50 different aromatic compounds have been analyzed in the orchid family, each blended to attract one, or at most a few, species of insects or birds. Some orchids even change their scents to interest different insects at different times.

   Once the right insect has been attracted, some orchids present all sorts of one-way obstacle courses to make sure it does not leave until pollen has been accurately placed or removed. By such ingenious adaptations to specific pollinators, orchids have avoided the hazards of rampant crossbreeding in the wild, assuring the survival of species as discrete identities. At the same time they have made themselves irresistible to collectors.

Which of the following is a kind of petal?

Write the sentence with the following words 

We/buy/ her/ flowers/ presents/ a birthday cake.

Liquids such as milk, coffee, tea, soups and eggs may be dried by pouring them over a heated horizontal steel cylinder or by spraying them into a chamber through which a current of hot air passes. In the first case, the dried material is scraped off the roller as a thin film which is then broken up into small, though still relatively coarse flakes. In the second process it falls to the bottom of the chamber as a fine powder. Where recognizable pieces of meat and vegetables are required, as in soup, the ingredients are dried separately and then mixed.

      Dried foods take up less room and weigh less than the same food packed in cans or frozen, and they do not need to be stored in special conditions. For these reasons they are invaluable to climbers, explorers and soldiers in battle, who have little storage space. They are also popular with housewives because it takes so little time to cook them.

 What does the word “which” in the fourth paragraph refer to?

The five men, however, were not the first people to have seen these creatures called Bigfoot. Long before their experience, local Native Americans were certain that a race of apelike animals had been living in the neighboring mountain for centuries. They called these creatures Sasquatch.

   In 1958, workmen, who were building a road through the jungles of Northern California often found huge footprints in the earth around their camp.

   Then in 1967, Roger Patterson, a man who was interested in finding Bigfoot went into the Northern California jungles with a friend. While riding, they were suddenly thrown off from their horses. Patterson saw a tall apelike animal standing not far away. He managed to shoot seven rolls of film of the hairy creature before the animal disappeared in the hushes. when Patterson's film was shown to the public, not many people believed his story.

   In another incident, Richard Brown, a music teacher and also an experienced hunter spotted a similar creature. He saw the animal clearly through the telescopic lens of his rifle. He said the creature looked more like a human than an animal.

 Did the town people believe the story of the five men about their meeting with Bigfoot?

Choose the best sentence that can be made from the words given

the competition / begin / 8. 00 pm

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.

   Hummingbirds are small, often brightly colored birds of the family Trochilidae that live exclusively in the Americas. About 12 species are found in North America, but only the ruby-throated hummingbird breeds in eastern North America and is found from Nova Scotia to Florida. The greatest variety and number of species are found in South America. Another hummingbird species is found from southeastern Alaska to northern California.

   Many hummingbirds are minute. But even the giant hummingbird found in western South America, which is the largest known hummingbird, is only about 8 inches long and weighs about two-thirds of an ounce. The smallest species, the bee hummingbird of Cuba and the Isle of Pines, measures slightly more than 5.5 centimeters and weighs about two grams.

   Hummingbirds' bodies are compact, with strong muscles. They have wings shaped like blades. Unlike the wings of other birds, hummingbird wings connect to the body only at the shoulder joint, which allows them to fly not only forward but also straight up and down, sideways, and backward. Because of their unusual wings hummingbirds can also hover in front of flowers so they can suck nectar and find insects. The humming- bird's bill, adapted for securing nectar from certain types of flowers, is usually rather long and always slender, and it is curved slightly downward in many species.

   The hummingbird’s body feathers are sparse and more like scales than feathers. The unique character of the feathers produces brilliant and iridescent colors, resulting from the refraction of light by the feathers. Pigmentation of other feathers also contributes to the unique color and look. Male and female hummingbirds look alike in some species but different in most species; males of most species are extremely colorful.

   The rate at which a hummingbird beats its wings does not vary, regardless of whether it is flying forward, flying in another direction, or merely hovering. But the rate does vary with the size of the bird - the larger the bird, the lower the rate, ranging from 80 beats per second for the smallest species to 10 times per second for larger species. Researchers have not yet been able to record the speed of the wings of the bee humming-bird but imagine that they beat even faster. Most hummingbirds, especially the smaller species, emit scratchy, twittering, or squeaky sounds. The wings, and sometimes the tail feathers, often produce humming, hissing, or popping sounds, which apparently function much as do the songs of other birds.

The author indicates that the ruby-throated hummingbird is found _______.

 The American type of football was developed in the 19th century from soccer and rugby football. Played by professionals, amateurs, college and high school students, or young children, football in American is one of the most popular sports besides basketball and baseball. It attracts millions of fans each fall and people are very supportive of their favourite teams. The football playing field of today is rectangular in shape and measures 100 yards long and 53.5 yards wide. White lines are painted on the playing field to mark off the distances to the end zone. The games is divided into four quarters, each fifteen minutes long. The first two quarters are known as the first half. There is a rest period between two halves which usually last about fifteen minutes. Each team has eleven players. Each team has offensive players who play when the team has possession of the ball and defensive players who play when the other team has the possession of the ball.

What do officials do during the game of football?

 Choose the best sentence -a, b, c, or d - made from the given cues.

boys/ clever/ see/ solution/ problem/ so quickly/