Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
How men first learnt to invent words is unknown; in other words, the origin of language is a (1)………. . All we really know is that men, unlike animals, somehow invented certain sounds to express thoughts and feelings, actions and things so that they could communicate with each other; and that later they agreed (2)…….. certain signs, called letters, which could be combined to represent those sounds, and which could be written down. These sounds, (3)……… spoken or written in letters, are called words. Great writers are those who not only have great thoughts but also express these thoughts in words that appeal powerfully to our minds and emotions. This charming and telling use of words is what we call literacy type. Above all, the real poet is a master of words. He can (4) ……..his meanings in words which sing like music, and which by their position and association can move men to tears. We should, therefore, learn to choose our words carefully, (5)……… they will make our speech silly and vulgar

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The Rise of E-books
Over the past decade, e-books have revolutionized the way people consume written formation. It will probably come as no surprise the total global sales number continues to rise each year. There are several reasons why readers are buying more e-books. For starters, reading a lengths e-book in front of your computer isn't the most comfortable thing to do. But since tablet sales have exploded, readers can now relax and read their favourite e-books in bed from the beach. Many e-books are often sold at lower prices than traditional books. Since there is almost zero cost for producing e-books, some authors are offering their novels at lower prices. Another factor is convenience. In the past, keeping a large book collection meant setting aside a lot of extra space in one's home. With e-books, it is now possible for readers to carry a portable library, which contains thousands of books. To really understand e-book market though, it is important to keep up with national trends. Recent data suggests that the e-book market in the US and the UK have matured. In both of these countries, e-book sales account for roughly 20 percent of overall book sales. Although that percentage continues to increase, it is going up at a slower rate than in the past. The popularity of e-books has exploded in Russia. In one poll, 70 percent of Russians claim to have read at least one e-book. However, publishers are not too pleased with this new because approximately 92 percent of e-books in Russia are acquired illegally. In France, consumers don't appear to be loo keen on e-books at this time. Although in 2012, e-book sales comprised about 3 percent of the market, it is predicted that this number will increase at a very slow pace. Some French people believe that reading e-books on small screens is uncomfortable. Others say that the French are a cultural exception, as they like the feeling of holding a dusty old physical book. This demonstrates that no matter how popular e- books get, it is unlikely that traditional books will disappear any time soon.
1. This year, e-book sales in the US and the UK will probably ___

PGD Bank strives ---131--- the highest levels of client security and service. This applies not only to online- and telephone-based services but also to our brick-and-mortar locations. Our three branch offices have proudly been a part of the community ---132--- a combined total of 40 years.
To assist you even better in the future, our Smithville branch will be temporarily closed for renovations from July 8-22. ---133---. In the meantime, our other two regional branches in Pine Grove and Bradford will maintain normal business ---134---.

132............

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The custom of paying a bride price before marriage is still a well-established part of many African cultures. In paying a bride price, the family of the groom must provide payment to the family of the bride before the marriage is allowed. The bride price can vary greatly from culture to culture in Africa. In the Zulu and Swazi tribes of southern Africa, the bride price often takes the form of cattle. In Western African, kola nuts, shells, and other goods are often used for the payment of the bride price. The actual payment of money sometimes takes place, but the payment of goods is more frequent. The amount of paid in a bride price can also vary. In modern times, the bride price is occasionally quite small and its value is mainly symbolic. However, the bride price can still be quite high, especially among prominent or highly traditional families.There are a number of justifications used to explain the payment of bride price. The first is that the bride price represents an acknowledgement of the expense the bride's family has gone in order to raise her and bring her up as a suitable bride for the groom. It also represents payment for the loss of a family member, since the bride will officially become a member of her husband's family and will leave her own. On a deeper level the bride price represents payment for the fact that the bride will bring children into the family of the groom, thereby increasing the wealth of the family. This concept is reinforced by the fact that the bride price must often be returned if the bride fails to bear children.The payment of the bride price has quite a number of effects on African society. First, the payment of bride price acts to increase the stability of African family structures. Sons are dependent on their fathers and older relatives to help them pay the bride price of their wives, and this generally leads to greater levels of obedience and respect. The negotiations between the two families concerning the bride price allow the parents and other family members to meet and get to know one another before the marriage. Finally, since the bride price must often be repaid in case of divorce, the bride's family often works to make sure that any marital problems are solved quickly. Bride prices also work as a system of wealth distribution in African cultures. Wealthier families can afford to support the marriage of their son, and thus their wealth is transferred to other families.Not all of the effects of bride price are so positive, however. One major disadvantage to the system of bride price is that women are often married to men much older than themselves. In many African cultures, the typical age for marriage amongst women is still quite young, lower than in many cases. Yet few men at this age would have the ability to raise the bride price to marry. Thus there is sometimes a significant age gap between husbands and wives. This cuts short the education of many young women. In addition, the husband, being far older, may die whilst the wife is still relatively young, leaving her with the burden of raising the children alone.
3. The word "prominent" in the passage is closest in meaning to _______

Chọn câu đồng nghĩa với câu trên:
“You have just got a promotion, haven’t you? Congratulations!” Peter said to his friend.

Choose the best answer:
Water these plants or they will die.

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I ............for Christine. Do you know where she is?

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His handicap prevented him ___________ swimming all lifelong.

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You can only drive if you’ve got a ________ license.

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:

LOWELL (March 3) – Just one year after opening, Viggo's Sweet Shop on Park Street has become the place to go for residents wishing to satisfy their sugary cravings. Says owner Viggo Magnusson, "Returning customers bring friends and relatives with them, so the shop is always ---1---." Mr. Magnusson credits the success of his business to the recipes he inherited from his grandmother about a decade ago. ---2---. But the popularity of the pastry shop ---3--- Mr. Magnusson with an unanticipated problem: lack of store space. So when the shoe store next door went out of business recently, he purchased the property to allow for the ---4--- of his shop. Renovations will start in April.

Choose the best answer:
It is possible for local wildlife to coexist ...... industry.

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Some Amazing Apps for Your Smartphone
It is hard to imagine life in modern society without smartphones. These handy little devices keep us entertained and enable us to manage important tasks on the go. Although smartphones feature powerful hardware, they wouldn’t be so useful without thousands of handy applications. Here are a few free and helpful apps that you can download to help you throughout the day. If you have a habit of forgetting things and want to organize your life, give Evernote a try. It promises to help users remember everything. With a few clicks, you can send all of your photos, documents, and audio notes to Evernote. Then, your digital information can be stored in folders or tagged with useful keywords. When you need to access this data, you can perform a simple search and it will appear in seconds. Evernote is available on smartphones, tablets, and computers, so you can access your data from everywhere. Imagine this scenario. You are watching a TV show and you hear a cool song in the background. You want to buy it but there is one problem. You don’t know the name of the song. SoundHound is an app that will make this problem a thing of the past. It enables users to quickly identify songs by launching the app and holding their phone in the air. The app takes the song playing and compares it to thousands of other songs until it finds a match. Within seconds, it can tell you the name, artist, and album of the song you just heard. Another spectacular app is Lookout. Hopefully, you won’t have to use it often, but when you do need it. Lookout can be a lifesaver. Its main function is to help you find your phone if it goes missing. Lookout does this by using your smartphone’s data connection to locate your lost device. To see where your phone is on a map, simply log into Lookout from any web browser. In the worst-case situation, if someone steals your phone and you fear it has gone for good, you can wipe out all of its data with a few clicks. This will ensure no one will see any private information on your phone. These helpful apps are just the tip of the iceberg. If you do some searching online, you are certain to find many other apps that will make your life more convenient.
3. What could best replace the word “appear” in paragraph 2?

Those letters _____ now. You can do the typing later.

(393)______

Read the text and choose the best answer (A, B, C or D) to each of the questions.
I was brought up in a very ordinary but very happy home with one elder sister, my mother and my father. The great love of my life since I was a small girl was writing, which only family thought was surprising because they didn't consider themselves educated people. I wasn't surprised though because my parents were great readers which is my idea of being educated. Anyway, I trained to be a nurse but whenever I had free time I wrote: poems, short stories, I even once wrote a novel called 'The Pleasure Principle' but I didn't feel comfortable writing longer pieces and I soon went back to my poetry. 
Then the strangest thing happened. I had my twenty-first birthday just a few days before and I was feeling very much that I wanted to change things in my life. I'd been nursing a very old woman for several months in a private ward, she told me that although she had-lots of relatives, no one came to visit her. Anyway, when she died she left me an enormous sum of money, nearly three-quarters of a million pounds! Of course when the lawyer rang me up and told me I just laughed and thought that my friends were playing a joke on me. So I put down the phone and went in to tell my mother the joke. 
But it wasn't a joke! All of a sudden, I was a very rich woman. Well, the first thing was that I was determined that I wouldn't waste the money. Of course I wanted to do something for my family, but all my dad said was 'We're not leaving this house after all the work I've put into the garden!' My mother agreed so all I did was give them something towards a new car and a new greenhouse. My sister was working abroad at this time and when I wrote to tell her the news and offer her some money she said it was my money and that she knew I would use it sensibly. None of this really came as a surprise because they've always had a sensible attitude towards money. 
But this left me a fortune on my hands to spend! It soon became obvious to me that much as I loved nursing, I loved writing more and that's how I got started. I went to America and did a degree in creative writing. I had a wonderful time and learned a great deal, not from the lecturers necessarily but mainly from other hopeful writers on the course. All this was a decade ago and I've now had several volumes of poetry published. I now want to do something to help other young poets so I'm thinking of setting up a small publishing company which I'll call Grace Park Books after the wonderful old lady who helped me fulfill my life's ambition!

The author thought that her parents ............

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.

Choose the best answer:
________ my experience, very few people really understand the problem.

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Hooray for Hip Hop
It is amazing how far hip hop music has come in its relatively short history. You can trace the roots of this urban art form to New York City in the 1970s. Hip hop began as a spontaneous way of entertaining crowds. DJs discovered that people loved dancing to the drum breaks in popular funk and soul records. These breaks were typically brief, so DJs would move or “scratch” records back to extend them. In addition, a master of ceremonies (MC) would sometimes grab the microphone and say a few words to get the crowd more excited. At first, the words of MCs were simple chants but they later became a more complex form of poetry. Still, for several years rap remained an underground art. Then, in the early 1980s, artists like LL Cool J, KRS-One, and Run DMC helped it reach a wider audience. Nevertheless, hip hop didn’t have an easy road to mainstream success. Many people dismissed rap music because no “real musicians” were involved in creating it. Critics blamed the beats were repetitive and stolen from other artists. Others claimed the lyrics were too negative and violent. Yet they were overlooking several things. The lyrics were often from the perspective of underprivileged youths growing up in the big city. Although these words were often dark, they painted a clear picture that allowed outsiders to understand their joys and pain. Not all hip hop songs had a heavy message, though. Others were quite humorous and showed a lighter side of street life. The influence of hip hop would spread far beyond music itself. In fact, a collection of other art forms, would develop out of it. Since hip hop music had a beat like no other music before it, new dance styles had to emerge. B-boying, more commonly called break dancing, was one of these styles. Break dancers featured lots of spinning and fancy moves that took speed, agility, and lots practice to perfect. Hip hop also helped to inspire waves of modern street graffiti. Urban artists would spray-paint their names on walls and subway cars a rebellious way of expressing themselves. After nearly three decades of popularity, hip hop has spread from New York to every continent on the earth and it is still going strong as it continues to evolve.
4. The word “chants” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to __________

Choose the best answer:
“ Do you have a camera?” she asked.

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Is it possible for you to _________ me a favor?

Of course you can come to the party. _____.

(449)_____

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
Many parents believe that they should begin to teach their children to read when they are (1)________ more than toddlers. This is fine if the child shows a real interest but forcing a child could be counter-productive if she isn't ready. Wise parents will have a (2) ________attitude and take the lead from their child. What they should provide is a selection of stimulating toys, books and other activities. Nowadays there is plenty of good (3) ________available for young children, and of course, seeing plenty of books in use about the house will also (4) ________them to read. Of course, books are no longer the only source of stories and information. There is also a huge range (5)_______ videos, which can reinforce and extend the pleasure a child finds in a book and are equally valuable in helping to increase vocabulary and concentration. Television gets a bad review as far as children are concerned, mainly because too many spend too much time watching programmes not intended for their age group