It was the first photograph that I had ever seen, and it fascinated me. I can remember holding it at every angle in order to catch the flickering light from the oil lamp on the dresser. The man in the photograph was unsmiling, but his eyes were kind. I had never met him, but I felt that I knew him. One evening when I was looking at the photograph, as I always did before I went to sleep, I noticed a shadow across the man’s thin face. I moved the photograph so that the shadow lay perfectly around his hollow cheecks. How different he looked!
That night I could not sleep, thinking about the letter that I would write. First, I would tell him that I was eleven years old, and that if he had a little girl my age, she could write to me instead of him. I knew that he was a very busy man. Then I would explain to him the real purpose of my letter. I would tell him how wonderful he looked with the shadow that I had seen across his photograph, and I would most carefully suggest that he grow whiskers.
Four months later when I met him at the train station near my home in Westfield, New York, he was wearing a full beard. He was so much taller than I had imagined from my tiny photograph.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I have no speech to make and no time to make it in. I appear before you that I may see you and that you may see me.” Then he picked me right up and kissed me on both cheeks. The whiskers scratched. “Do you think I look better, my little friend?” he asked me.
My name is Grace Bedell, and the man in the photograph was Abraham Lincoln.

The word “fascinated” in paragraph 1 could best be replaced by.........

In addition to the great ridges and volcanic chains, the oceans conceal another form of undersea mountains: the strange guyot, or flat-topped seamount. No marine geologist even suspected the existence of these isolated mountains until they were discovered by geologist Harry H. Hess in 1946.
He was serving at the time as naval officer on a ship equipped with a fathometer. Hess named these truncated peaks for the nineteenth-century Swiss-born geologist Arnold Guyot, who had served on the faculty of Princeton University for thirty years. Since then, hundreds of guyots have been discovered in every ocean but the Arctic. Like offshore canyons, guyots present a challenge to oceanographic theory. They are believed to be extinct volcanoes. Their flat tops indicate that they once stood above or just below the surface, where the action of waves leveled off their peaks. Yet today, by definition, their summits are at least 600 feet below the surface, and some are as deep as 8,200 feet. Most lie between 3,200 feet and 6,500 feet. Their tops are not really flat but slope upward to a low pinnacle at the center. Dredging from the tops of guyots has recovered basalt and coral rubble, and that would be expected from the eroded tops of what were once islands. Some of this material is over 80 million years old. Geologists think the drowning of the guyots involved two processes: The great weight of the volcanic mountains depressed the sea floor beneath them, and the level of the sea rose a number of times, especially when the last Ice Age ended, some 8,000 to 11,000 years ago.

According to the passage, most guyots are found at a depth of ..............

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:
“ Calcite- containing dust particles blow into the air and combine with nitric acid in polluted air from factories to form an entirely new particle – calcium nitrate , ” said Alexander Laskin, a senior research scientist at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington .These nitrates have optical and chemical properties that are completely different from those of the originally dry dust particles . Due to this, climate models need to be updated to reflect this chemistry. Calcite dust is common in arid areas such as Israel, where scientists collected particles for analysis.
Working from a mountaintop, the team collected dust that had blown in from the northern shores of Egypt, Sinai,and southern Israel. The particles had combined with air containing pollutants that came from Cairo.They analyzed nearly 2,00 individual particles and observed the physical and chemical changes at the W.R Wiley Environmental Sciences Laboratory.
A key change in the properties of the newly formed nitrate particles is that they begin to absorb water and retain the moisture .These wet particles can scatter and absorb sunlight-presenting climate modelers, who need to know where the energy is going , a new wild card to deal with . Companion studies of dust samples from the Sahara and the Saudi coast and loess from China show that the higher the calcium in the mineral , the more reactive they are in with nitric acid .And once the particle is changed , it stays that way.
“When dust storms kick up these particles and they enter polluted areas , the particles change ,” Laskin said . “To what extent this is happening globally, as more of the world becomes industrialized , we don’t know . But now we have the laboratory and field evidence that shows it is definitely happening . The story is much more complicated than anybody thought .”

 It can be inferred that the word “retain ” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to     .

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:
“ Calcite- containing dust particles blow into the air and combine with nitric acid in polluted air from factories to form an entirely new particle – calcium nitrate , ” said Alexander Laskin, a senior research scientist at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington .These nitrates have optical and chemical properties that are completely different from those of the originally dry dust particles . Due to this, climate models need to be updated to reflect this chemistry. Calcite dust is common in arid areas such as Israel, where scientists collected particles for analysis.
Working from a mountaintop, the team collected dust that had blown in from the northern shores of Egypt, Sinai,and southern Israel. The particles had combined with air containing pollutants that came from Cairo.They analyzed nearly 2,00 individual particles and observed the physical and chemical changes at the W.R Wiley Environmental Sciences Laboratory.
A key change in the properties of the newly formed nitrate particles is that they begin to absorb water and retain the moisture .These wet particles can scatter and absorb sunlight-presenting climate modelers, who need to know where the energy is going , a new wild card to deal with . Companion studies of dust samples from the Sahara and the Saudi coast and loess from China show that the higher the calcium in the mineral , the more reactive they are in with nitric acid .And once the particle is changed , it stays that way.
“When dust storms kick up these particles and they enter polluted areas , the particles change ,” Laskin said . “To what extent this is happening globally, as more of the world becomes industrialized , we don’t know . But now we have the laboratory and field evidence that shows it is definitely happening . The story is much more complicated than anybody thought .”

Which of the following may be true ?

All mammals feed their young. Beluga whale mothers, for example, nurse their calves for some twenty months, until they are about to give birth again and their young are able to find their own food. The behavior of feeding of the young is built into the reproductive system. It is a nonselective part of parental care and the defining feature of a mammal, the most important thing that mammals-- whether marsupials, platypuses, spiny anteaters, or placental mammals -- have in common.
But not all animal parents, even those that tend their offspring to the point of hatching or birth, feed their young. Most egg-guarding fish do not, for the simple reason that their young are so much smaller than the parents and eat food that is also much smaller than the food eaten by adults. In reptiles, the crocodile mother protects her young after they have hatched and takes them down to the water, where they will find food, but she does not actually feed them. Few insects feed their young after hatching, but some make other arrangement, provisioning their cells and nests with caterpillars and spiders that they have paralyzed with their venom and stored in a state of suspended animation so that their larvae might have a supply of fresh food when they hatch.
For animals other than mammals, then, feeding is not intrinsic to parental care. Animals add it to their reproductive strategies to give them an edge in their lifelong quest for descendants. The most vulnerable moment in any animal's life is when it first finds itself completely on its own, when it must forage and fend for itself. Feeding postpones that moment until a young animal has grown to such a size that it is better able to cope. Young that are fed by their parents become nutritionally independent at a much greater fraction of their full adult size. And in the meantime those young are shielded against the vagaries of fluctuating of difficult-to-find supplies. Once a species does take the step of feeding its young, the young become totally dependent on the extra effort. If both parents are removed, the young generally do not survive.

The word "shielded" in line 22 is closest in meaning to.........

Read the following passage and choose among A, B, C or D the correct answer to each of the questions.

FIRST TIME IN THE AIR

When John Mills was going to fly in an aero plane for the first time, he was frightened.

He did not like the idea of being thousands of feet up in the air. "I also didn't like the fact that I wouldn't be in control," says John.

"I'm a terrible passenger in the car. When somebody else is driving, I tell them what to so. It drives everybody crazy."

However John couldn't avoid flying any longer. It was the only way he could visit his grandchildren in Canada.

"I had made up my mind that I was going to do it, I couldn't let my son, his wife and their three children travel all the way here to visit me. It would be so expensive for them and I know Tom's business isn't doing so well at the moment - it would also be tiring for the children - it's a nine-hour flight!" he says.

To get ready for the flight John did lots of reading about aero planes. When he booked his seat, he was told that he would be flying on a Boeing 747, which is better known as a jumbo jet. "I needed to know as much as possible before getting in that plane. I suppose it was a way of making myself feel better. The Boeing 747 is the largest passenger aircraft in the world at the moment. The first one flew on February 9th 1969 in the USA. It can carry up to 524 passengers and 3.400 pieces of luggage. The fuel for aero planes is kept in the wings and the 747 is wings are so big that they can carry enough fuel for an average car to be able to travel 16,000 kilometers a year for 70 years. Isn't that unbelievable? Even though I had discovered all this very interesting information about the jumbo, when I saw it for the first time, just before I was going to travel to Canada, I still couldn't believe that something so enormous was going to get up in the air and fly. I was even more impressed when I saw how big it was inside with hundreds of people!"

The biggest surprise of all for John was the flight itself. "The take-off itself was much smoother than I expected although I was still quite scared until we were in the air. In the end, I managed to relax, enjoy the food and watch one of the movies and the view from the window was spectacular. I even managed to sleep for a while! Of course," continues John, "the best reward of all was when I arrived in Canada and saw my son and his family, particularly my beautiful grandchildren. Suddenly, I felt so silly about all the years when I couldn't even think of getting on a plane. I had let my fear of living stop me from seeing the people I love most in the world. I can visit my son and family as often as I like now!"

What happened when he saw the jumbo jet for the first time?

Choose the word or phrase ( A, B, C or D ) that best fits the blank space in the following passage.

What do you do well? What do you enjoy doing? Your answers to these two questions will help you identify your (1)_____. An employer will consider you seriously for a (2)___ when you can show them that you know who you are, what you can offer and which you have studied. Sometimes it is difficult to know what your weaknesses are. Clearly not everyone is equally good (3) ___ everything. You may need to improve yourself and so (4) ___courses in that field could turn a weakness into strength.

You will need to (5) ___some time on your self-assessment. Your honesty and the desire for self-improvement will lead to success in getting the right job. Explore the following seven areas to start to get to know yourself: your aptitude, your skills, your personality, the level of responsibility you feel comfortable with, your interests and your needs.

(2)_____

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
Martin Luther King, Jr., is well known for his work in civil rights and for his many famous speeches, among them is his moving “I Have A Dream” speech. But fewer people know much about King’s childhood. M.L., as he was called, was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, at the home of his maternal grandfather. M.L.’s grandfather, the Reverend A.D. Williams, purchased their home on Auburn Avenue in 1909, twenty years before M.L. was born. The Reverend Williams, an eloquent speaker, played an important role in the community since so many people’s lives centered around the church. He allowed his church and his home to be used as a meeting place for a number of organizations dedicated to the education and social advancement of blacks.
M.L. grew up in this atmosphere, with his home being used as a community gathering place, and was no doubt influenced by it.

M.L.’s childhood was not especially eventful. His father was a minister and his mother was a musician. He was the second of three children, and he attended all-black schools in a black neighborhood. The neighborhood was not poor, however. Auburn Avenue was the main artery through a prosperous neighborhood that had come to symbolize achievement for Atlanta’s black people. It was an area of banks, insurance companies, builders, jewelers, tailors, doctors, lawyers, and other black-owner, black- operated businesses, and services. Even in the face of Atlanta’s segregation, the district thrived. Dr. King never forgot the community spirit he had known as a child, nor did he forget the racial prejudice that was a seemingly insurmountable barrier that kept black Atlanta from mingling with whites.

According to the author, blacks in King’s neighborhood were involved in all the following businesses and services EXCEPT.

Choose the word or phrase among A, B, C or D that best fits the blank space in the following passage:

"Before the 1960s, Singapore was essential a trading nation. Since (1)….. , it has developed a more (2)…. economy and has become an important financial, trade, and transportation center. Singapore has (3)….. banks, insurance, and finance companies, as (4) …..  as a stock exchange. Tourism is also important to the (5)…. of Singapore.
 There is (6)…. unemployment in Singapore. The country’s annual income per capita (per person) is one of the (7) …. in Asia. The government of Singapore plays a major role in the country’s economy. For example, it (8)….. what benefits, such as vacation time and sick leave, must be (9)….for workers by employers. It also operates an employment agency to help people find jobs, and it provides (10)…..  for retired workers."

5. Tourism is also important to the (5)…. of Singapore.

Choose the letter A, B, C or D to answer these following questions

According to futurist Ray Kurzweil human civilisation will be unavoidably transformed in the year 2045 by an event that he call The Singularity. He suggests that exponential technological development will lead to the inevitable rise of artificial intelligence (A.I.). Such advanced technology may make humanity insignificant.

Kurzweil says that technologies are double-edged swords and envisions the possibility that an artificial intelligence might decde to put an end to humanity simply because it surpasses human intelligence. Kurzweil does have faith in mankind, however. He suggests that people are wise to accept that technological progress is unavoidable and that such acceptance will make the process of transition easier.

Kurzweil has personal reasons to hope for the coming of The Singularity, because he wants his life to be extended by it. Kurzweil envisions that future medical advances could invent tiny computerised machines, or nanobots, which operate inside the body to enhance the immune system. In addition ne believes that future technology might be able to resurrect his deceased father.

Looking at the state of current technological advances in many fields such as medicine, navigation and communication, Kurzweil's visions may not be unbelievable.The critical issue, however, is whether genuine artificial intelligence can ever be truly realised. Kurzweil suggests that critics of his theories, who believe that the human brain is too complex to duplicate, are underestimating what the exponential growth in technology can eventually accomplish.

Why does Kurzweil hope for the coming of The Singularity?

Iron production was revolutionized in the early eighteenth century when coke was first used instead of charcoal for refining iron ore. Previously the poor quality of the iron had restricted its use in architecture to items such as chains and tie bars for supporting arches, vaults, and walls. With the improvement in refining ore, it was now possible  to  make  cast-iron beams, columns, and girders. During the nineteenth century further advances were made, notably Bessemer’s process for converting iron into steel, which made the material more commercially viable.
Iron was rapidly adopted for the  construction  of  bridges,  because  its  strength was far greater  than that of stone or timber, but its use in the architecture of buildings developed more slowly. By 1800 a complete internal iron skeleton for buildings had been developed in industrial architecture replacing traditional timber beams, but it generally remained concealed. Apart from its low cost, the appeal of iron as a building material lay in its strength, its resistance to fire, and its potential to span vast areas. As a result, iron became increasingly popular as a structural material for more traditional styles of architecture during the nineteenth century, but it was invariably concealed.
Significantly, the use  of  exposed  iron  occurred  mainly  in  the  new  building types spawned by the Industrial Revolution: in factories, warehouses, commercial offices, exhibition hall, and railroad stations, where its  practical  advantages  far  outweighed  its  lack of status. Designers of the railroad stations of the new age explored the potential of iron, covering huge areas with spans that surpassed the great vaults of medieval churches and cathedrals. Paxton’s Crystal Palace, designed to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, covered an area of 1.848 feet by 408 feet in prefabricated units of glass set in iron frames. The Paris Exhibition of 1889 included both the widest span and the  greatest height achieved so far with the Halle Des Machines, spanning 362 feet, and the Eiffel Tower 1,000 feet high. However, these achievements were mocked by the artistic elite of Paris as expensive and ugly follies. Iron, despite its structural advantages, had little aesthetic status. The use of an exposed iron structure in the more traditional styles of architecture was slower to develop.

The word “it” in paragraph 2 refers to ..........

Choose the item among A, B, C or D that best answers the question about the passage:

"When Franklin Roosevelt was elected President of the United States in 1932. not only the United States but also the rest of the world was in the throes of an economic depression. Following the termination of World War I, Britain and the United States at first experienced a boom in industry. Called the Roaring Twenties, the 1920s ushered in a number of things - prosperity, greater equality for women in the work world, rising consumption, and easy credit. The Outlook for American business was rosy.
 October 1929 was a month that had catastrophic economic reverberation worldwide. The American stock market witnessed the “Great Crash,” as it is called, and the temporary boom in the American economy came to a standstill. Stock prices sank, and panic spread. The ensuing unemployment figure soared to 12 million by 1932.
 Roosevelt was elected because he promised a “New Deal” to lift the United States out of the doldrums of the depression. Following the principles advocated to Keynes, a British economist, Roosevelt mustered the spending capacities of the federal government to provide welfare, work, and agricultural aid to the millions of down-and-out Americans. Roosevelt succeeded in dragging the nation out of the Depression before the outbreak of World War II."

5. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” advocated ……. .

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:
Theresa May, the second female Britain’s prime minister following Margaret Thatcher, revealed in 2013 that she had been given a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes, a condition that requires daily insulin injections. Asked later how she felt about the diagnosis, she said her approach to it was the same as toward everything in her life: “Just get on and deal with it.” That kind of steeliness brought her to center stage in the aftermath of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and the feuding that erupted in the Conservative Party over who would succeed David Cameron.
Ms” May, 59 years old, is the country’s longest-serving home secretary in half a century, with a reputation for seriousness, hard work and above all, determination. She is one of a growing number of women in traditionally male-dominated British politics rising to the upper position of leadership.
Bom in 1956, Ms. May grew up mainly in Oxford shire, an only child who was first drawn to the Conservative Party at age 12. As a conscientious student, she never rebelled against her religious upbringing and remains a regular churchgoer. Tellingly, her sports hero was Geoffrey Boycott, a solid, stubborn cricketer who specialized in playing the long game.
Like many other Britain’s prime minister including Tony Blair, Sir Robert Peel and Margaret Thatcher, she won a place at Oxford. But while almost every other political leader got there by way of Eton College and joined Oxford’s hedonistic Bullingdon Club, she attended a state secondary school and had a more sedate university career. After unsuccessful attempts to be elected to the House of Commons in 1992 and 1994, she finally became an MP in 1997 general election.
May is known for a love of fashion and in particular distinctive shoes. She even wore leopard-print shoes to her final Cabinet meeting as Home Secretary in early 2016. However, she has been quite critical of the media focusing on her fashion instead of her achievement as a politician. May also describes cooking and walking as primary hobbies, and if someone is raising questions about why walking can be classified as a hobby, she elaborates in a column for Balance magazine, in which she wrote of her battle with diabetes.

Which of the following statements is NOT true?

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.

   Before the mid-nineteenth century, people in the United States ate most foods only in season. Drying, smoking and salting could preserve meat for a short time, but the availability of fresh meat, like that of fresh milk, was very limited; there was no way to prevent spoilage. But in 1810, a French inventor named Nicolas Appert developed the cooking-and-sealing process of canning. And in the 1850’s an American named Gail Borden developed a means of condensing and preserving milk. Canned goods and condensed milk became more common during the 1860’s, but supplies remained low because cans had to be made by hand. By 1880, however, inventors had fashioned stamping and soldering machines that massproduced cans from tinplate. Suddenly all kinds of food could be preserved and bought at all times of the year.

   Other trends and inventions had also helped make it possible for Americans to vary their daily diets. Growing urban population created demand that encouraged fruit and vegetable farmers to raise more produce. Railroad refrigerator cars enabled growers and meat packers to ship perishables great distances and to preserve them for longer periods. Thus, by the 1890’s, northern city dwellers could enjoy southern and western strawberries, grapes, and tomatoes, previously available for a month at most, for up to six months of the year. In addition, increased use of iceboxes enabled families to store perishables. As easy means of producing ice commercially had been invented in the 1870’s, and by 1900 the nation had more than two thousand commercial ice plants, most of which made home deliveries. The icebox became afixture in most homes and remained so until the mechanized refrigerator replaced it in the 1920’s and 1930’s.

   Almost everyone now had a more diversified diet. Some people continued to eat mainly foods that were heavily in starches or carbohydrates, and not everyone could afford meat. Nevertheless, many families could take advantage of previously unavailable fruits, vegetables, and dairy products to achieve more varied fare.

During the 1860’s, canned food products were _________ .

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word for each of the blanks.
 In recent years there have been many articles on air pollution in newspapers and magazines. Scientists all over the world have warned that our atmosphere is (1).....more and more contaminated, and that Man, through his carelessness, may run out of pure air to breathe.
Automobiles and industries mainly account (2).... air pollution in most cities. They pour into the air such gases as carbon monoxide, sulfur and nitrogen oxides, (3)...... are very harmful to humans. (4)......still, these gases, a series of chemical changes, turn into toxic acids. They fall down in “acid rains”, raising the acidity in the air, soil and water to dangerous levels and affecting not only tress but also fish and other wildlife. Many industrial countries in Europe and North America have suffered bad effects (5)......those “rains”.
Surely, Man faces no more urgent problem than that of saving his own survival. Scientists, social organizations and governments shout sit down together to solve the air pollution problem.
(1).........................

Read the following passage and choose the best answer for each blank.

Vietnam is considered a third world country, its people live (26) _____ poverty by the millions. After the (27) _____, Vietnam's economy remained dominated by small-scale production, low labor productivity, (28) _____, material and technological shortfalls, and insufficient food and (29) _____ goods. The Doi Moi reforms that were instated in 1986 have shed new light and added new features to the Vietnamese economy. (30) ____ Vietnamese Communist Party plays a leading role in establishing the foundations and principles of communism, mapping strategies for economic development, setting growth targets, and (31) _____ reforms. Doi Moi combined government planning with free-market incentives and (32) _____ the establishment of private businesses and foreign investment, including foreign-owned enterprises. By the late 1990s, the success of the business and agricultural reforms ushered in under Doi Moi was evident. (33) _____ than 30,000 private businesses had been created, and the economy was growing at an annual (34) _____ of more than 7 percent. Farming systems research and the international development projects are a source of new hope for the people of Vietnam. If these recent projects are successful and Doi Moi continues on its current path the Vietnamese people may (35) _____ a new standard of living. More reforms like Doi Moi need to take place in order to create a more stable Vietnamese future.

(30) _____

The attraction of gold is as old as history. Since ancient times, gold has been the object of dreams and obsessions. Western literature is full of characters who kill for gold or hoard it, from King Midas in the ancient Greek myths, to Fagin in Dickens' Oliver Twist. These characters go to evil extremes to get or keep their gold and they get the punishment they deserve. Most people would not be willing to go to such extremes, of course, but they would not question the assumption that gold has lasting value above and beyond any local currency. Societies change over time, customs and currencies evolve, but gold remains. A wedding ring, for example, must be gold, and so should any serious gift of jewelry. In fact, giving and wearing gold is still a mark of prestige in our post-industrial society, though gold is no longer valued as it used to be thousands of years ago.
Why is gold so valuable? True, it is shiny, durable, and rare, but it is far less useful than many other minerals or metals. It is also not like stock in a company, where the value of the stock depends on the performance of the company. Gold, on the contrary, like any currency, is valuable precisely because people believe it is valuable. That is, if people were willing to accept seashells for their labor and could use them to pay for food, fuel, and other commodities, then seashells would become a valuable currency. Thus, the value of gold depends on the collective belief that gold will continue to be valuable. As long as demand for gold remains steady, the price will hold steady; if demand is high, it will continue to increase in value. But if people should someday lose faith in gold, the price of gold could fall sharply.
Another factor that has affected the price of gold has been the increasing difficulty in acquiring it. Today, most of the gold left in the grounds is in microscopic pieces mixed with rock. To get it, miners must dig up tons and tons of rock, and then spray it with chemicals to separate out the gold. For one ounce of gold - a wedding ring, for example - the mine processes about 30 tons of rock. This is already a costly operation. But there are also hidden social and environmental costs. The mining and processing of gold is ruinous to the environment and to the health of people living nearby. Most of these mines are in poor regions where the people have had little voice in whether there should be mines and how the mines should be run. The large multinational mining companies simply bought the land and opened the mines. However, as people and governments begin to realize the extent of the damage caused by the mines, the situation might change.
Indeed, if the mining companies ever have to pay the full environmental and social costs of mining gold, the price of gold is likely to climb yet higher.

According to the passage, what is people’s behavior towards gold?

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 increase in international business and in foreign investment has created a need for executives with knowledge of foreign languages and skills in cross-culture communication. Americans, however, have not been well trained in either area and, consequently, have not enjoyed the same level of success in negotiation in an international arena as have their foreign counterpart.
Negotiating is the process of communicating back and forth for the purpose of reaching an agreement. It involves persuasion and compromise, but in order to participate in either one, the negotiators must understand the ways in which people are persuaded and how compromise is reached within the culture of the negotiation.
In many international business negotiations abroad, Americans are perceived as wealthy and impersonal. It often appears to the foreign negotiator that the American represents a large multimillion- dollar corporation that can afford to pay the price without bargaining further. The American negotiator’s role becomes that of an impersonal purveyor of information and cash, an image that succeeds only in undermining the negotiation.
In studies of American negotiators abroad, several traits have been indentified that may serve to confirm this stereotypical perception, while subverting the negotiator's position. Two traits in particular that cause cross-culture misunderstanding are directness and impatience on the part of American negotiator. Furthermore, American negotiators often insist on realizing short-term goals. Foreign negotiators, on the other hand, may value the relationship established between negotiators and may be willing to invest time in it for long-term benefits. In order to solidify the relationship, they may opt for indirect interactions without regard for the time involved in getting to know the other negotiator.
Clearly, perceptions and differences in values affect the outcomes of negotiations and the success of negotiators. For Americans to play a more effective role in international business negotiations, they must put forth more effort to improve cross-cultural understanding.

According to the passage, how can American businesspersons improve their negotiation skills?

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:
Working on the computer is very tough on your body, which is not used to this modem type of work. Sitting has long been known to cause back pain and negatively influence circulation, which can promote cardiovascular disease. Extensive use of the keyboard and mouse can lead to stiffening of the muscles in your hands, arms, and neck. Staring at a bright screen for too long can cause dry eyes and headaches. So, computer work can be as unhealthy a job as you can imagine.
First and foremost, sitting for long stretches of time is a very serious health risk! Sitting affects your blood circulation, your back experiences a steady stress, you are more likely to drink and eat stuff that isn’t good for you, and you bum very little calories, making it more likely that you overeat. As a result, sitting contributes to a host of conditions, most notably gaining weight, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and consequently a shortened life span.
Second, bad posture causes pain. You can develop bad posture from anything you do habitually, whether it’s sitting, standing, or walking. The typical consequences associated with bad posture while working on the computer are pain in the back, shoulder, and neck, often resulting in tension headaches.
Third, staring at the screen causes eve strain. Staring at a bright screen for hours can lead to eye fatigue or eye strain, headaches, blurred vision, burning, itching or tearing eyes, and temporary vision disorders. Fortunately, eye strain rarely results in a permanent condition and symptoms can be prevented or cured rather easily.
Last, but not least, emotional pressure and isolation cause anxiety and depression. Computers are very efficient tools in that they help us with getting more work done in less time. At the same time, you spend less face-to-face time with your colleagues, family, or friends. This can lead to isolation, anxiety, and depression, i.e. both physical and mental health issues. The symptoms are manifold and can include tense muscles, back pain, headaches, poor sleep (insomnia), increased or flat breathing, quickened pulse, and generally signs of stress, depression, or anxiety.

What is the organization of the passage?

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:
Line Europeans who arrived in the Americas, the first American Indians were immigrants. Because Indians were nomadic hunters and gatherers, they probably arrived in search of new hunting grounds from Asia when they crossed the ice-covered Bering Strait to Alaska. Anthropologists estimate that the entire Indian population north of Mexico was slightly greater than 1,020,000 when the first settlers arrived from Europe. Although Native Americans belonged to one geographic race, their cultures and languages were only marginally similar, and by and large, they had different ways of life. Nomadic migrations required Indians to construct shelters that did not need to be transported, but could be easily erected from the materials found in their new location.
Eastern Woodland Indian tribes lived in bark-covered wigwams that were shaped like cones or domes. The frame for the hut was made of young trees firmly driven into the ground, and then bent overhead to tie together with bark fibers or strings of animal hides. Sheets and slabs of bark were attached to the frame to construct the roof and walls, leaving an opening to serve as a door and to allow smoke to escape. The Iroquois in north eastern regions built longhouses that were more spacious than wigwams because five to a dozen families lived under one roof. During the winter, they plastered clay to the poles of the frame to protect the inhabitants from wind and rain.
Pueblo Indians who lived in the southwest portion of the United States in northern Arizona and New Mexico constructed elaborate housing with several stories and many rooms. Each family unit had only one room, and their ancestors dug shelters in the walls of cliffs and canyons. The ground story of a Pueblo dwelling had no doors or windows in order to prevent enemies from entering. The next level was set back the width of one room, and the row of rooms above it was set back once again, giving their houses the appearance of a terrace Pueblos used ladders to climb to the upper levels and pulled them in when all family members returned for the night.
Indians living in deserts used sandstone and clay as construction materials. Those who lived in the valleys of rivers even made bricks of clay with wood chips to add strength and to prevent the clay from cracking. To make roofs, Pueblos tied logs together to make rafters and laid them across the two outside walls. On top of the rafters, layers of tree branches, sticks, grass, and brush created a solid roof to preclude the water from leaking inside. Pueblo dwellings were dark because windows were often not large enough to allow much light.

The author of the passage implies that Eastern Indians