Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Chess, often (1)______ to as the Royal Game, is the oldest of all board games which do not contain an element of chance. The origins of chess are uncertain, (2)______ there are a number of legends regarding its invention. One story says that it was King Solomon who invented chess, another that it was the Greek god Hermes, and yet another that the Chinese mandarin Han-Sing was responsible for its creation. In fact, chess almost certainly originated in India in the sixth or seventh century AD. The game’s popularity then spread quickly through Persia (now known as Iran) and from there came to Europe. The first documented reference to chess in literature is in a Persian romance which was written about 600 AD. It is (3)_______ the word ‘chess’ comes from ‘shah’, the Persian word for ‘king’ and that ‘checkmate’, the game’s winning (4)_______, comes from the phrase ‘shah mat’, (5)______ ‘the king is dead’. The rules and pieces used in the game have undergone changes over the centuries. Modem chess owes much to the Spaniard Lopez de Segura, who in 1561 wrote the first book on how to play the game. In it, he introduced the concept of ‘castling’, which had not been part of the game until then.

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:
All men should study, we have to study to (1)_____ our knowledge and develop our intelligence.An educated man can only utilize his bodily strength to work and live. An educated man, (2)_____this strength, still has the faculty of his intelligent brain and good reflection. This intelligence and thought (3)_____ him to help his physical strength to act more quickly and cleverly.In a same profession or work, the educated man differs (4)______ the uneducated considerably. Therefore, intellectual workers have to study, this is a matter of course but manual workers must also again an education. In civilized countries compulsory education has been applied. Everyone must spend seven or eight years to study. From ploughmen to laborers in these (5)_____, no one is unable to read a book or a paper fluently.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Last year, there were millions of international tourist arrivals across the globe. Whether they were students on their (1)______ years looking for overseas adventure, stressed-out workers hoping to get away for a weekend, or retirees (2)______ to relax in an exotic location- clearly none of them thought they could find the same experience at home. The question is whether foreign travel brings more advantages or disadvantages. An obvious positive point is that going abroad sometimes helps people to expand their knowledge of the world. If they are (3)_____ – minded, they can learn about new cultures and hopefully gain a more accurate understanding about their way of life. In addition, there is the economic benefit of tourism to countries which have few other resources. It can provide an income to many people within the industry. Having said that, some people simply go to a foreign resort (4)______ by high walls and therefore learn little about their holiday (5)______. Another issue is that hordes of tourists often spoil the “unspoilt” places they visit. The most recent example of this is Antarctica, where last year cruise ships took thousands of visitors to view the disappearing icebergs and wildlife. Vegetation, nesting penguins and resting walrus are vulnerable when humans intrude

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.
The philosopher Aristotle said, “In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. They keep the young out of mischief; they comfort and aid the old in their weakness, and they incite those in the prime of life to noble deeds. “Growing up”, my mother always used to tell me “your friends are a reflection of you”. I did not quite understand this (1).................. I started meeting individuals who kept, not so healthy friends in their lives and suddenly, as a young teenager, I learned to understand that the friends I keep in my life (2)............... who I am and desire to be as a person and therefore I have learned to choose my friends wisely over the years. I do not care about the superficial (3)................such as looks, money, success or status but rather I emulate those (4)................ bring laughter, joy, honesty and  who can be there for me and also give me a firm kick in the butt when I need it. I always find it intriguing to meet friends of people I know because I can really get a sense of that person by the company they choose to (5)................... in their life.

(1).......................

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
There are three valid arguments to support the preservation of endangered species. Aesthetic justification contends that biodiversity contributes to the quality of life because many of the endangered plants and animals are particularly appreciated for their unique physical beauty. The aesthetic role of nature in all its diverse forms is reflected in the art and literature of every culture attaining symbolic status in the spiritual life of many groups. According to the proponents of the aesthetic argument, people need nature in all its diverse and beautiful forms as part of the experience of the world. Another argument that has been put forward, especially by groups in the medical and pharmacological fields, is that of ecological self-interest. By preserving all species, we retain a balance of nature that is ultimately beneficial to humankind. Recent research on global ecosystems has been cited as evidence that every species contributes important or even essential functions that may be necessary to the survival of our own species. Some advocates of the ecological argument contend that important chemical compounds derived from rare plants may contain the key to a cure for one of the diseases currently threatening human beings. If we do not protect other species, then they cannot protect us. Apart from human advantage in both the aesthetic and ecological arguments, the proponents of a moral justification contend that all species have the right to exist, a viewpoint stated in the United Nations World Charter for Nature, created in 1982. Furthermore, if humankind views itself as the stewards of all the creatures on Earth, then it is incumbent upon human beings to protect them, and to ensure the continued existence of all species. Moral justification has been extended by a movement called “deep ecology,” the members of which rank the biosphere higher than people because the continuation of life depends on this larger perspective. To carry their argument to its logical conclusion, all choices must be made for the biosphere, not for people.
9. The word " unique" in the first paragraph 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:
Joanne Rowling became famous almost overnight. She is the (1)_____of a highly successful series of books for young people. Joanne has dreamt of being a writer for as long as she can remember. In fact, she has been(2)_____ stories and characters ever since she was a schoolgirl. When she was still quite young, the family moved to a town called Chepstow. A family who lived (3) ____were called Potter, and she used their name for the hero of her books. She and her sister, Di, (4)_____a state school in town. At school, she was hard-­‐working and rather reserved. She was (5)_____good at English and languages. Her talent for telling stories made her popular figure in the school. During breaks between (6) _____she was often surrounded by a crowd of friends, excited to hear the (7) _____story she had written. She often included her classmates in her stories though they were not always aware of this! When she left school, Joanne succeeded in getting a place at university. After graduating, she got a(8) _____in French. Then Joanne started to work as a teacher in a school in Portugal. She married a journalist but, sadly, the couple soon (9)_____and she moved to Edinburgh. She had (10) _____and couldn’t even afford a plastic folder to send her new book to potential publishers. However, one wonderful day a publisher said “yes”. It was the greatest day of her life

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
MEMORANDUM
TO : Accounting Staff
FROM : Ananda Jeyraj, Comptroller
RE : Revised deadline for departmental audits
DATE : April 3
Since we are short of two staff members who went on a business trip, I have decided to (1)------- the April 12 deadline for the quarterly audits of all department budgets. Your reports on the financial status of each section of the corporation will be due on  April 28. I cannot prolong the due date any later than this, though. I appreciate (2)------- hard work and will keep it in mind when performance-based salary increases are (3)------- at the end of the year

Choose the best answer:
When will you ________ a day off?

FAMILY HISTORY

In an age when technology is developing faster than ever before, many people are being (21).........  to the idea of looking back into the past. One way they can do this is by investigating their own family history. They can try to (22) ............ out more about where their family came from and what they did. This is now a fast-growing hobby, especial in countries with a (23).............  short history, like Australia and the United States.

It is (24).................  thing to spend some time (25) ................... through a book on family history and to take the (26) .............. to investigate your own family’s past. It is (27) ............. another to carry out the research work successfully. It is easy to set about it in a disorganised way and (28) ................ yourself many problems which could have been (29)............ with a little forward planning.

If your own family stories tell you that you are (30) ........... with a famous character, whether hero or criminal, do not let this idea take over your research. Just treat it as an interesting possibility. A simple system for collecting and storing your path. The most important thing, though, is to get started. Who knows what you might find?

(21).........

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
Brave William Baldock , who is six years old , is a hero after helping his mother when she fell downstairs . William quickly rang for an ambulance when he discovered his mother had broken her leg . In spite of being frightened , he (1)_____ the emergency services what had happened and answered all the questions they asked him. He also telephoned his father at work, and then his grandmother, to explain what he had (2)______. While waiting for these people to arrive, William looked after his 18-month-old sister. When ambulance man Steve Lyn went to the house , he was amazed: "It's great that a young boy of six knew the right number to deal and was able to give us the correct information.” (3)______ of William's quick thinking , we were able to (4)______ there immediately. Mrs Baldock left hospital yesterday, very (5)______ to both William and the ambulance service.

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
The reality of an interview is never as bad as your fears. For some reason people imagine the interviewer is going to jump on every tiny mistake they (1)________. In truth, the interviewer is as keen for the meeting to go well as you are. It is what makes his or her job enjoyable. The secret of a good interview is preparing for it. What you wear is always important as it creates the first impression. So (2)________ neatly, but comfortably. Make sure that you can deal with anything you are asked. Prepare for questions that are certain to come up, for example: Why do you want to become a nurse? What is the most important quality a good nurse should have? Apart from nursing, what other careers have you considered? What are your interest and hobbies? Answer the questions fully and precisely. For instance, if one of your interests is reading, be prepared to talk about the sort of books you like. (3)________, do not learn all your answers off (4)________ heart. The interviewer wants to meet a human being, not a robot. Remember, the interviewer is genuinely interested in you, so the more you relax and are yourself, the more (5) ________ you are to succeed.

 Mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the sentence that is closest in meaning to each of the following questions.:
The Complex of Hue Monuments, which lies along the Perfume River in Hue City, is a good example of a well-designed capital city.

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
Incredible Shrinking Microchips
There is a popular old saying that “bigger is better”. Although this may be true in some regards, the exact opposite often applies in technology. As electronic components get smaller, it allows companies to manufacture tinier devices with more features. Thus began the never-ending quest to create the smallest microchips on the planet. Yet as these vital electronic components get smaller, they are also getting stronger and clever inventors are finding new ways in which to use them to do incredible things. Currently, the biggest limitation microchip producers face when trying to reduce chips’ size is the copper wires that provide electrical current throughout the chip. Although they can be made smaller, this can cause a whole host of problems such as melting and overheating. Thanks to the work of a few scientists from the UK though, this problem may soon be a thing of the past. Their solution is getting rid of the copper wiring altogether and using carbon nanotubes instead. Not only would this allow for smaller sizes but it would also increase the power that microchips can generate. In the end, this would translate into smaller and more powerful devices much to the delight of consumers all over the world. Corporate powerhouse Intel® has announced plans to create a line of tiny, low power chips that can be used in bracelets, smart watches, and other tiny devices. The chips will be called Intel® Quark, and they are being designed primarily to fit in biomedical devices. A key selling point to biomedical technology is that the devices have to be nonintrusive because people don’t want to carry around heavy equipment to monitor their health. If they can do this, Intel® will likely find several tablet and smartphone manufacturers who are willing to corporate Quark microchips into their devices. In a somewhat unusual project, researchers are working on a special microchip that will serve as miniature human organs in experiments. These “organ” chips could be used to test different medicines and study diseases. If realized, the technology could put an end to the use of lab mice and other animals for testing. Everyone from the largest pharmaceutical companies to the US military has shown interest in the project. Currently, the research team in charge of the project believes that within five years the organ chips will be used in practical research. It goes to show that thinking small often produces the biggest results.
6. Where are you most likely to find an Intel® Quark chip at first?

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
The Particle that Started the Big Bang
In 2013, the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Francois Englert and Peter W. Higgs for their discovery of a particle that is vital to our understanding of the universe. Although its official name is the Higgs boson, many refer to it as the God particle, because it’s considered to be the building block of the universe. Many believe that the Higgs boson may be the cause for the Big Bang explosion which led to the creation of the universe. In the 1960s, Higgs came up with the concept that particles had no mass when the universe started. In a split-second, however, it came into contact with something that gave it mass. This, Higgs theorized, was the Higgs boson. Many scientists initially laughed at the idea, but in the upcoming years, Higgs along with Englert and several of their peers continued to work on these concepts. Their ideas would eventually help lead the way to the discovery of the Higgs boson decades later. The search for the Higgs boson certainly didn’t come up cheap, as it cost nearly $10 billion to build the machinery necessary to perform the tests to find it. Yet nearly every physicist would agree that it was worth it, as the Higgs boson has already been labeled as one of the most important discoveries in particle physics. The finding is also a huge boost for physics in general because it proves that the Standard Model of Physics which researchers have been using for years is correct. The Higgs was the last remaining question mark as all of the other particles and elements had been found. Still, many ordinary people may question how such a discovery affects their lives at all. Although quantum mechanics may seem weird, it has actually led to several important technological breakthroughs over the past century. These findings have led to laser and X-ray technologies that work in the real world. There is still much to be learned with further observation of the Higgs boson in action. Scientists hope to learn more about dark matter, a strange substance that constitutes 25 percent of the mass of the universe. The research could also lead to some other technologies as well.
8. Which of the following is NOT true according to 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 :
The television has undoubtedly changed society. For a modern person to think about (1)__________ the world was like without television is actually hard to imagine. The world before the TV was one of little information flowing in to communities throughout the world. All information that people could get was filtered through newspapers often had specific biases that caused them to (2)__________ the news to whatever their preference was. Although television would follow this to a certain (3)__________, it was able to hit a widespread audience at the same time. In other words, people literally watched the broadcast at the same time each day, and they began (4)__________ news as things happened. A television grew into something that practically every household in industrialized nations had, businesspeople were quick to realize the (5)__________ television had. They realized there was an enormous amount of money to be made, and therefore they were willing to invest in the technology and infrastructure that made it possible.

Rewrite the sentence
Mr. and Mrs. Black have a son, John.

Two-year postsecondary institutions were first (1) _______ in the United States in the (2) _______ 20th century. These schools were called junior colleges (3) _______ their main function was to offer only the beginning (4) _______ of general college study. Credits earned at junior colleges could be transferred to another institution (5) _______ students could complete their final years of college. Now called community colleges, these two-year institutions (6) _______ offer courses of general academic study to recent high school graduates. However, they (7) _______ try to serve the educational needs of a (8) _______ segment of the community, including older students and workers. Today, (9) _______ community colleges offer technical, vocational, preprofessional, and adult-education programs in addition to (10) _______ academic programs.

(29)________

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:
We tend to assume that people like Shakespeare or Darwin owe their success (1)__________ their genius. In his new book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell suggests that the truth may be more complex. Of course, all successful people are bound to have some natural (2)__________. But the true (3)__________ of success are most probably hard work, opportunity, and the environment you grow up in. You need about 10,000 hours of practice before you get really good at something. Mozart’s early work was certainly not great or (4)___________. By the time he composed his first true masterpieces, he must have spent about ten years imposing concertos. But hard work is not enough, you have to get your chance. Most Silicon Valley tycoons, like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, were born around 1955. When the personal computer revolution came twenty years later, they were at a(n) (5)__________ age to lead it

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
The Greatest Light Show on the Earth
If you are a fan of amazing visual displays, planetariums around the world offer some entertaining laser-light shows that are often accompanied by popular music. Yet if you want to see the world’s greatest light show, you won’t be able to catch it indoors. Instead, you will have to head to one of the Poles. In certain spots, you will be treated to colourful streaks of light dancing across the sky. This incredible display is the aurora borealis, and every year people from all corners of the globe flock to witness its wonders firsthand. The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, got its official name in 1621. The name combines the name of the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora, and the Roman god of the north wind, Boreas. In ancient times, the aurora completely baffled people’s minds, as science was far more primitive than it is today. Nevertheless, they created many myths to explain them. The Vikings believed the lights were the reflection of dead maidens. The Scots thought they were supernatural beings battling in heaven. Meanwhile, Eskimos thought that the lights were dead souls, and when the colours changed, it was their attempt to contact living friends and relatives. It was not until 2008 that a team of scientists from ULCA finally concluded with certainty what the true cause of these dancing light is. The process begins when solar winds carry charged particles from the Sun through space and into the Earth’s atmosphere. When these charged particles enter the Earth’s atmosphere, they are magnetically attracted to the Earth’s poles. During their journey to these points, they come in contact with nitrogen and oxygen atoms in the sky. These collisions are what cause the aurora. The heights at which the collisions occur determine the colours of the individual lights. For example, when the solar winds collide with nitrogen at least than 96 kilometres above the Earth’s surface, the lights will be blue. If the same collision occurs above 96 kilometres, however, the light will be purple. Or, if the solar wind particles collide with oxygen, the colours produced will be either red or green. However, merely understanding how the aurora works does not do this phenomena justice. To truly appreciate the full splendor of the aurora, you will have to see this Natural Wonder of the World in person.
7. What can identify the colour of the aurora?

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
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.
4. What is Lookout most useful for?

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.
                      MODERN SCIENCE
It seems entirely natural to us that there are teams of scientists in universities and (1)............. institutions around the world, attempting to discover the way the world works. (2).............. , it hasn’t always been that way. Although the scientific method is now four or five hundred years old, the ancient Greeks, for example, believed that they could (3)............ the cause of natural events just by the power of thought. During the 17th century, more and more people began to realize that they could test their scientific ideas by designing a relevant experiment and seeing what happened. A lot of (4)......... was made in this way by individual scientists. These men and women often worked alone, carrying out research into many different areas of science, and they often received very little (5).............. for their hard work. At the start of the 20th century, though, it became clear that science was becoming more complicated and more expensive. The individual scientists disappeared, to be replaced by highly qualified teams of experts. Modern science was born.
(1).............................