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If you see someone who’s looking blue, just reach out and offer a kind word, a smile, a hug. Sometimes people just feel (1) ____ they need someone to care. Maybe they’re confused and not sure what’s going on just in the moment, or in a bigger picture such as where their lives are (2) ____. The purpose of our lives is to love, laugh, be happy and to grow together, sharing with one another. If we are all too busy (3) ____ someone who is in emotional need, it can leave the person wondering what’s the real point of everything. By reaching out and smiling, showing compassion, listening, offering a (4) ____ of gentle advice, you remind both yourself and the (5) ____ what the bigger picture is, and bring a little burst of more light and happiness into the world. Enough of those bursts and lights contribute to the tipping point towards a more compassionate and joyful world

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Advances in mobile technology and social networking websites mean we spend more time online than ever before. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world by population (The Economist, 2010). It is (1) ______ not surprising that so many psychologists, sociologists, and others are eager to give their thoughts on how this is impacting negatively on our society. The biggest criticism levelled at social networking is that young people are losing their offline friends to online friends (2) ______ are unable to provide the same deep connection and emotional support. However, a lot of research shows these criticisms are generally (3) ______. Allen et al. (2010) discovered that it is socially adjusted adolescents who are more likely to have a networking profile than those who are not. One study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (2009) found that people are not (4) ______ offline friends with online companions but are using them to support their offline relationships. The study also found that social networks allow us to have discussions with a much more diverse set of people than in the real world, so we share knowledge with people from a wide (4) ______ of backgrounds

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Preschool offers many benefits. It can be a great place for kids to interact with peers and learn valuable life lessons such as how to share, take turns, and follow rules. But going to preschool does come with some emotions, for both the parent and the child. For a child, entering a new preschool environment (1) ___________ with unfamiliar teachers and kids can cause both anxiety and excitement. Parents might have mixed emotions about (2) ___________ their child is ready for preschool. When you enter the classroom on the first day, calmly reintroduce the teacher to your child, then step back to allow the teacher to begin (3) __________ a relationship with your child. Your endorsement of the teacher will show your child that he or she will be happy and safe in the teacher’s care. If your child clings to you or refuses to participate in the class, don’t get upset — this may only upset your child more. Always say a loving goodbye to your child, but once you do, leave (4)________. Don’t sneak out. Leaving without saying goodbye can make kids feel abandoned. A long farewell, on the other hand, might only reinforce a child’s sense that preschool is a bad place. A consistent and predictable farewell routine can make leaving easier. Some parents wave from outside the classroom window or make a funny goodbye face, while others have a special handshake before parting. Transitional objects — a family picture, a special doll, or a favorite blanket — can also help comfort a child. Also, (5)___________ in mind that most kids do well after their parents leave

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:
When another old cave is discovered in the south of France, it is not usually news.
Rather, it is an ordinary event. Such discoveries are so frequent these days that hardly anybody pays heed to them. However, when the Lascaux cave complex was discovered in 1940, the world was amazed. Painted directly on its walls were hundreds of scenes showing how people lived thousands of years ago. The scenes show people hunting animals, such as bison or wild cats.
Other images depict birds and, most noticeably, horses, which appear in more than 300 wall images, by far outnumbering all other animals.
Early artists drawing these animals accomplished a monumental and difficult task. “They” did not limit themselves to the easily accessible walls but carried their painting materials to spaces that required climbing steep walls or crawling into narrow passages in the Lascaux complex.
Unfortunately, the paintings have been exposed to the destructive action of water and temperature changes, which easily wear the images away. Because the Lascaux caves have many entrances, air movement has also damaged the images inside. Although they are not out in the open air, where natural light would have destroyed them long ago, many of the images have deteriorated and are barely recognizable. To prevent further damage, the site was closed to tourists in 1963, 23 years after it was discovered.

Why was painting inside the Lascaux complex a difficult task?

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Far from being barren wastelands, deserts are biologically rich habitats with a vast  array of animals and plants that have adapted to the harsh conditions there. Some deserts are among the planet’s last remaining areas of total wilderness. Yet more than one billion people, one-sixth of the Earth’s population, actually live in desert regions.  Deserts cover more than one fifth of the Earth’s land, and they are found on every continent. A place that receives less than 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain per year is considered a desert. Deserts are part of a wider classification of regions called “dry lands.” These areas exist under a moisture deficit, which means they can frequently lose more moisture through evaporation than they receive from annual precipitation.  And despite the common conceptions of deserts as dry and hot, there are cold deserts as well. The largest hot desert in the world, northern Africa’s Sahara, reaches temperatures of  up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) during the day. But some deserts are always cold, like the Gobi desert in Asia and the desert on the continent of Antarctica. Others are mountainous. Only about 10 percent of deserts are covered by sand dunes. The driest deserts get less than half an inch (one centimeter) of precipitation each year, and that is from condensed fog not rain.  Desert animals have adapted ways to help them keep cool and use less water. Camels, for example, can go for days without food and water. Many desert animals are nocturnal, coming out only when the brutal sun has descended to hunt. Some animals, like the desert tortoise in the south-western United States, spend much of their time underground. Most desert birds are nomadic, crisscrossing the skies in search of food. Because of their very special adaptations, desert animals are extremely vulnerable to introduced predators and changes to their habitat.  Some of the world’s semi-arid regions are turning into desert at an alarming rate. This process, known as “desertification,” is not caused by drought, but usually arises from the demands of human populations that settle on the semi-arid lands to grow crops and graze animals. The pounding of the soil by the hooves of livestock may degrade the soil and encourage erosion by wind and water.
3. Which feature of desert animals is NOT mentioned?

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If you want to improve group productivity, it is advisable that you organize competitions that build morale and teamwork skills for all participants, (1) _______ than just a few star performers. For example, if you (2) _______ a competition between sales teams, you can reward all members of the (3) _______ group with a lunch out at a nice restaurant or a group trip. This way, even the lower-performing members of the team have a reason to try as hard as they can to help the team win. In an individual sales contest, a few top salespeople compete with one another for the top prize, (4) _______ everyone else gives up because they know they can’t win. The productivity of (5) _______ top people increases, but the productivity of the rest of the group does not. In a team competition, even the lowestperforming member of the group can help earn the prize, so all team members put in their best effort and the productivity of the entire group goes up

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The elusive “generation gap” is construed as being widest when one of the two  generations is the adolescent. While the gap exists in almost all facets of social and personal domains, never is it more evident than in the field of technology, where one of the generations is a digital native and the other, an immigrant or even an alien, depending upon the stage of the continuum of adulthood. The use of gadgets itself is markedly influenced by age, as shown in Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project that studied how different generations use technology.  Although cell phones are now the predominant form of interpersonal communication, the way they are used significantly varies between generations. Youngsters use their phones for a variety of activities such as taking photos, texting, going online, instant messaging, emailing, playing games, listening to music, and even recording and watching videos while adults progressively according to their age progression, restrict the use of these devices to fewer and fewer activities. Interestingly, Pew Research found that the one cell phone activity that transcends age is taking photos, with adults just as likely to click photos on the cell phone cameras as the young. However, the type of photos taken differs, with adolescents clicking more selfies that adults.  The Internet seems to be a good leveler of digital use, at least within the US. While fewer than 60% of senior citizens (ages >65) are conversant with and use the Internet in 2014, the percentages are comparable for all other age groups; 92% for teens, 97% for young adults (18-29 years), 94% for the mid-lifers (30-49%) and 88% for older adults (50-64%). How the internet is used also varies among age groups. While teenagers and young adults under age 30 use the Internet to find information, socialize, play, shop and perhaps conduct business, older users visit government websites or seek financial information online. However, this gap is narrowing, according to Pew Research, and activities such as emails and search engines being increasingly used by all age groups that are online.  Social media is another area where there is an age difference. While the percentage of adults who use social media (72%) is not that different from the youngsters in it (81%), there is a difference in the type of social media applications that is favored. Youngsters (teens and young adults) seem more prevalent in social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter while adults dominate tumblr, Instagram and Pinterest. Adults are largely passive or semi-active users of social media as seen in that adults typically add contacts only on request while adolescents actively seek new friendships. Adolescents use the social media platform as a conversation space and an outlet for self-expression, aimed largely at building new relationships while adults use social media to maintaining existing relationships. Adults have fewer contacts with a third of the adults in social media admitting to having family as their main contact group. Contrast this with the fact that only 10 and 15 percent of adolescents reported to have family in their social media contact list.
2. What does the word “they” in the second paragraph refer to?

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When I tell people about the idea of moving out, many people’s reaction is like, “what do your parents say?” because they assume the parents would not like their children to leave them. Well I don’t know if my parents like it but I can tell you my parents support and respect my decision. They think it is good for me to try and live on my own and then I would know it is the best to stay with my family. The most important reason for independent living is to save the travelling time to work. It used to take me one hour fifteen minutes to travel to work from my previous living place. From my new apartment, it just takes me thirty minutes so I saved forty-five minutes’ traveling time. I don’t have to get up so early and I save two-third of my traveling cost. It does not only save my time to travel for work but also from most of the places in Hong Kong. In addition, I gain my personal space and freedom by independent living. I make my own decision all the time, I do not have to say whether I would go home for dinner, I can invite my friends to come up and stay late. Of course, there are some trade-offs in living on your own. If you want to rent an apartment, there are lots of preparatory work to do. You have to keep visiting the apartments to search for your ideal one. You have to negotiate with the landlord about the price, furniture inclusion, who is responsible for the maintenance of the furniture and equipment. My experience was that after we moved into the apartment, it was not until the kitchen cupboard was soaked with water that we found out there was water leakage in the kitchen sink. Money is the main issue in living on your own. You have to be responsible for all the expenses, for example, the rent, electricity, gas, water, telephone, internet bills, etc.  Therefore, you’ve got to be well prepared and save up for your bills. Although I find my transportation time much shorter, the saved time is spent on other things, such as cooking and some other household chores. I think preparing and cooking the food do occupy a significant portion of my time, therefore I always try to make simple meals. On the other hand, I have to regularly tidy up my apartment and wash my clothes, so it doesn’t really save much of my time after all. Now everything is settled down, I’m getting used to my new life and I am enjoying it. I feel that moving out makes it easier for me to strike a balance between my work, my social life, my study and my family. It may be troublesome but it may worth  
7. The word "it" in the passage refers to ____

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Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace do not help you make more  genuine close friends, according to a survey by researchers who studied how the websites are changing the nature of friendship networks. Although social networking on the internet helps people to collect hundreds or even thousands of acquaintances, the researchers believe that face to face contact is nearly always necessary to form truly close friendships.  “Although the numbers of friends people have on these sites can be massive, the actual number of close friends is approximately the same in the face to face real world,” said psychologist Will Reader, from Sheffield Hallam University. Social networking websites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace have taken off rapidly in recent years. Facebook was launched initially in 2004 for Harvard University members but has since expanded to more than 34 million users worldwide. MySpace, which was set up in 2003, has more than 200 million users and was bought by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in 2005 for $580m (£285m). Previous research has suggested that a person’s conventional friendship group consists of around 150 people, with five very close friends but larger numbers of people whom we keep in touch with less regularly. This figure is so consistent that scientists have suggested it is determined by the cognitive constraints of keeping up with large numbers of people. But Dr. Reader and his team have found that social networking sites do allow people to stretch this figure. The team asked more than 200 people to fill in questionnaires about their online networking, asking for example how many online friends they had, how many of these were close friends and how many they had met face to face. The team found that although the sites allowed contact with hundreds of acquaintances, as with conventional friendship networks, people tend to have around five close friends. Ninety per cent of contacts whom the subjects regarded as close friends were people they had met face to face. “People see face to face contact as being absolutely imperative in forming close friendships,” added Dr. Reader. He told the British Association Festival of Science in York that social networking sites allow people to broaden their list of nodding acquaintances because staying in touch online is easy. “What social network sites can do is decrease the cost of maintaining and forming these social networks because we can post information to multiple people,” he said.  But to develop a real friendship we need to see that the other person is trustworthy, said Dr. Reader. "What we need is to be absolutely sure that a person is really going to invest in us, is really going to be there for us when we need them … It’s very easy to be deceptive on the internet."
4. What does the word “they” in paragraph 3 refer to? 

Most Americans still get married at some point in their lives, but even that group is shrinking. Among current generations of adult American - starting with those bom in 1920s - more than 90 percent have married or will marry at some point in their lives. However, based on recent patterns of marriage and mortality, demographers calculate that a growing share of the younger generations are postponing marriage for so long that an unprecedented number will never marry at all.

More Americans are living together outside of marriage. Divorced and widowed people are waiting longer to remarry. An increasing number of single women are raising children. Put these trends together with our increasing life expectancy, and the result is inevitable. Americans are spending a record low proportion of their adult lives married.

Married rates for unmarried men and women have dropped from their post-195Os high to record lows. Part of this fall is due to the change in the age at which people first marry. The median age at first marriage is the age by which half the men or women who will ever marry have done so. It fell almost continuously from the time it was first measured, in 1890, at 22.0 years for women and 26.1 for men, to a low of 20.3 for women and 22.6 for men between 1947 and 1962. Since then, it has risen at a rapid pace, to a record high for 23.8 for women and 26.2 for men in 1994.

The length of time between marriages is also increasing, and more divorced people are choosing not to remarry. In 1990, divorced men had waited an average of 3.8 years before remarrying, and divorced women had waited an average of 3.5 years, an increase of more than one year over the average interval in 1970.

Data on cohabitation and unmarried childbearing suggest that marriage is becoming less relevant to Americans. 2.8 million of the nation's households are unmarried couples, and one-third of them are caring for children, according to the Census Bureau.

Between 1890 and the 1950s, the age at which men first married    

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If you think you left the cliques behind in high school, think again. When it comes to  building friendships, men are more likely to return to their clique-y roots than women, according to a recent study published in the journal PLOS One. Researchers found that, in general, men seek to join all-male cliques, clubs or teams, while women prefer a more select, one-on-one relationship with a few close female friends. “Much of male friendship is about coalition building,” said Tamas David-Barett, lead author of the research paper, and member of the experimental psychology department at the University of Oxford.  After analyzing the profile pictures of nearly 112,000 Facebook users worldwide, David-Barett and his co-authors found that men were more likely to post a profile picture showing themselves with a large group of male friends. The study notes that such pictures are “arguably an essential element of the male-male coalition competition.” Conversely, women almost never posted a large group profile picture, but tended to display a photo with only one other female friend. As the paper explained, women “appear more often to focus their social capital on only one person at a time.”  So why are men and women different in the way they make friends? One hypothesis is the difference between the male and female brain. Typically, women tend to have a larger deep limbic system than their male counterparts. The limbic system is a network of nerves in the brain connected to instinct and mood. The limbic system controls basic emotions such as happiness and fear. Because this system tends to be larger in women, females are more in touch with their feelings and have an increased ability to connect individually with others.  According to the Wall Street Journal, other research indicates that females tend to build friendships off of emotional connections and are more apt to share intimate conversations. The male friendship, however, is established by doing things together, such as watching the game or hosting a barbecue. “Female friendships are characterized as more face-to-face. Women want to share and exchange,” said Irene Levine, a friendship expert. “They want to bond. Men, however, want to do things together. They want to go to spectator sports; they want to participate in sports together. They do things that are more side-by-side.” 
2. The word “coalition” in paragraph 1 can be replaced by _______

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When it comes to cooking, boomers cook one, Generation X cooks another way and the beat generation does things that must be recorded now, because once they have passed out of fashion, they will never be discovered again. They have weird skills, derived from scarcity in their early years. They keep their spices in brown glass because they last longer. For practical purposes, this means everything is in an old Calpol bottle with “sumac” scrawled over it. Some of them are, and will fish an empty packet of sugar out of the bin, shake a quarter-teaspoon of sugar from it and put it back. They can often make a cake by eye, without weighing anything, which I find incredible, and they know what to do with leaf gelatine, which is great until it isn’t. My mother once made avocado in jelly and then said: “I don’t know, the proportions may have been slightly off.” I said, recklessly: “Don’t worry – I’m sure I’ll choke it down,” but when it came to it, my cutlery bounced off it, like a prank played on a very hungry person in a cartoon. The beat generation canon is Meat at Any Price and Fish at Any and anything to do with mince. The descent of mince from a sacred food to a bolognese-only staple is one of the great mysteries of progress, because it is delicious even when you don’t shove a load of tomato in it. But you can’t just shove cheap meat in a pan and watch while it sweats out watery grey juice. This seems to be something that only wartime generations understand. Hip parents in the 70s, or regular parents in the 80s, or quite trad parents in the 90s had a horror of overcooked carrots and waterlogged cabbage. The very smell of cooked vegetables evoked for them every bad memory of British cuisine, before anchovies and Italians and radicchio arrived, when all dinner was a school dinner. So they would all just tease their vegetables with a hint of boiling water, before turning them out, still basically a salad, only a bit warmer. Then you, their offspring, would leave home, and accidentally encounter a vegetable that had been cooked, and realise how delicious it was and now you probably overcook your vegetables a bit, and your children will go the other way.  
8. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

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Have you ever been cycling? This spring my elder brother and I left the busy city and spent a long weekend cycling in the countryside. Our average speed was only around 14 kph, but that didn’t matter. We hadn’t come to break any speed records, or to get fit and healthy. All we wanted was some fresh air and a break from schoolwork. My bike only once went more than 30 kph, and that was when I raced my brother down the only hill on our route.  We really enjoyed cycling along flat, traffic-free country paths. There was plenty of spring sunshine, but it was quite cold, especially in the morning. We didn’t mind, though - and we soon warmed up as we rode along. Our only problem was when my brakes started making a terrible noise. But I didn’t mind as it gave us an excuse to visit a cafe while a helpful bike mechanic had a look at it.  That was one of the best things about our route: every few kilometres there was a village where we could find everything we needed. All the local people were really friendly, too. However, most places we stopped at served chips with the meals, which soon got fairly boring. One night we were woken at 4 a.m. by a group of rugby fans singing loudly in the hotel corridor. We were tired and bad-tempered when we set off the next morning and very nearly got lost, but soon felt more cheerful when the sun came out. That’s what I like about cycling - it’s simple and it’s fun. If you’re looking for a short break that’s active and cheap, then cycling is a great choice!  
2. What do we find out about Chris’s bike?

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Few political and social issues generate as much passion and controversy as immigration. One of the most prominent concerns among anti-immigration campaigners is the idea that immigration breaks down the host society’s cultural traditions and harms its cultural identity. Central to these debates is what academics call “acculturation”. This term refers to behavioural or psychological changes in immigrants or their descendants that follow migration. They are typically changes that make behaviour or ways of thinking more similar to members of the adopted society. Recent studies typically measure behavioural or psychological traits in first generation migrants, second generation migrants, and non-migrants who have been living in the host area for several generations. The evidence suggests that acculturation is common, but generational. While first generation migrants typically retain the values of their society of origin, later generations shift about 50% of the way from their parents’ values towards nonmigrant values. This even occurs in communities that form large, cohesive minorities. Migration with no acculturation breaks down distinct host cultures. This is the scenario envisioned by anti-immigration campaigners. Even a little migration, without acculturation, soon creates a homogeneous worldwide blend of the cultural traits that were originally unique to different societies. But adding just a small amount of acculturation to the simulations could preserve cultural differences. For example, even for relatively high migration rates where ten per cent of the society migrates in each time period, just a 20% probability of acculturation is needed to maintain distinct cultural variation between societies. This suggests that the 50% acculturation level observed in the real-world is strong enough to preserve distinct cultures.  These results held for both “neutral” traits such as dress or dance, and for costly cooperative traits, such as building bridges or paying taxes, where individuals pay initial costs to benefit the entire society. Much concern over immigration centres on the latter – that immigrants take benefits without paying costs. There were, however, levels of migration at which no level of acculturation could preserve cultural traditions. When 50% or more of the societies migrate, then distinct traditions cannot be maintained. While this exceeds modern levels of migration, we might think of historical cases of colonisationas examples where high levels of migration broke down traditions. Whatever future research finds, it would surely be better if immigration policy and media coverage of immigration, were better informed by the available evidence concerning migrant acculturation  
3. The word “cohesive” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to _______

A considerable body of research has demonstrated a correlation between birth order and aspects such as temperament and behavior, and some psychologists believe that birth order significantly affects the development of personality. Psychologist Alfred Adler was a pioneer in the study of the relationship between birth order and personality. A key point in his research and in the hypothesis that he developed based on it was that it was not the actual numerical birth position that affected personality; instead, it was the similar responses in large numbers of families to children in specific birth order positions that had an effect. For example, first-borns, who have their parents to themselves initially and do not have to deal with siblings in the first part of their lives, tend to have their first socialization experiences with adults and therefore tend to find the process of peer socialization more difficult. In contrast, later-born children have to deal with siblings from the first moment of their lives and therefore tend to have stronger socialization skills.

Numerous studies since Adler's have been conducted on the effect ofbirth order and personality. These studies have tended to classify birth order types into four different categories: first-born, second-born and/or middle, last, and only child.

Studies have consistently shown that first-born children tend to exhibit similar, positive and negative personality traits. First-borns have consistently been linked with academic achievement in various studies; in one study, the number of National Merit scholarship winners who are first- borns was found to be equal to the number of second-and third-borns combined. First-borns have been found to be more responsible and assertive than those born in other birth-order positions and tend to rise to positions of leadership more often than others; more first-borns have served in the u.s. Congress and as u.s. presidents than have those born in other birth-order positions. However, studies have shown that first-borns tend to be more subject to stress and were considered problem children more often than later-borns.

Second-born and/or middle children demonstrate markedly different tendencies from first- borns. They tend to feel inferior to the older child or children because it is difficult for them to comprehend that their lower level of achievement is a function of age rather than ability, and they often try to succeed in areas other than those in which their older sibling or siblings excel. They tend to be more trusting, accepting, and focused on others than the more self-centered first-borns, and they tend to have a comparatively higher level of success in team sports than do first-borns or only children, who more often excel in individual sports.

The last-born child is the one who tends to be the eternal baby of the family and thus often exhibits a strong sense of security. Last-borns collectively achieve the highest degree of social success and demonstrate the highest levels of self-esteem of all the birth-order positions. They often exhibit less competitiveness than older brothers and sisters and are more likely to take part in less competitive group games or in social organizations such as sororities and fraternities.

Only children tend to exhibit some of the main characteristics of first-borns and some of the characteristics of last-borns. Only children tend to exhibit the strong sense of security and self-esteem exhibited by last-borns while, like first-borns, they are more achievement oriented and more likely than middle-or last-borns to achieve academic success. However, only children tend to have the most problems establishing close relationships and exhibit a lower need for affiliation than other children.

What is stated in paragraph 1 about Adler?

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Once restricted to space stations and satellites, photovoltaics are now gaining popularity and becoming an increasingly viable option. Every day, the sun releases an enormous amount of energy, far more than the entire population consumes. Being that the sun is a sustainable, renewable, and inexhaustible source for generating electricity, not using it seems almost counter-intuitive, especially considering the social and environmental impacts of other forms of energy generation. But the technology to create electricity from the sun is by no means simple and still has some limitations, the most significant being price. The process of turning the sun’s rays into electrical energy all starts in the so-called photovoltaic cell. These cells are produced with two chemically altered silicon layers of which one is missing elections and the other is electron-overloaded. When the photons from the sunlight reach the surface, these electrons gain the ability to move, generating a flow that creates an electric current. Each cell generates a small amount of energy and a panel is usually made of between 36 and 72 photovoltaic cells. By connecting several panels together, a photovoltaic system is created. Eight to ten panels is enough to power a small house. Evidently, however, this statistic is influenced by some factors, such as the efficiency of the panels, the amount of sunshine in the region, and the energy demand of the residence itself.  Importantly, photovoltaic solar panels produce electricity in the form of direct current, meaning the electricity must pass through an inverter to transform it into alternating current - which is what is normally used in buildings, appliances, sockets, and light bulbs. Photovoltaic systems can facilitate energy generation in remote locations where infrastructural networks do not reach. In these cases, the system uses batteries to store electricity when less energy is used than is consumed, such as at night or on very cloudy days. However, it is also possible to use photovoltaics in systems connected to the power grid. In these cases, the excess energy goes to the electricity grid, creating energy “credits” for the building in question. In some countries, it is even possible to sell surplus energy, making the building a power plant for neighbors and method of paying off the investment more quickly.  
3. According to paragraph 1, why is overlooking solar energy considered such a mistake?

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The number of people accessing the State’s and community’s priority policies and  programmes is increasing, said Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung. Vietnam has around 6.2 million people over the age of two with disabilities, making up 7.06 per cent of the country’s population. Of those, 28 per cent are severely disabled, 58 per cent female, 28 per cent children and 10 per cent living in poverty. Most live in rural areas and many are victims of Agent Orange.  Minister Dung said in the past, the State, the Party and Vietnamese people had paid much care to people with disability. Vietnam ratified the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of People with Disability in 2014. In March this year, the country ratified the International Labour Organisation’s Convention 159 about jobs for people with disability. It strongly confirmed Vietnam’s commitment ensuring the disabled would not be discriminated at work.  Last month, the Secretariat Committee issued the Instruction 39 about the Party’s leading work on affairs related to people with disability. The National Assembly later ratified the amended Law on Labour with many adjustments relating to disabled people. Dung said that every year, millions of disabled people receive an allowance from the State and all of provinces and cities had rehabilitation centres. Attending the event, Truong Thi Mai, head of the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Mass Mobilisation, said besides the achievements, Vietnam still sees many obstacles. Infrastructure is still limited demand for people with disability and many live below the poverty line depending heavily on their families.  Mai asked organisations to improve education to raise people’s awareness of the meaning of supportive work to people with disability. This year, more than VNĐ17 trillion (US$735.4 million) from the State budget was allocated to provinces and cities to implement policies for people with disability, according to the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.  The Ministry of Planning and Investment on Thursday launched the programme “White stick for Vietnamese visual impaired people”. Its aim is to present one million white sticks to visually impaired people across the country. Training to use the device will also be provided. Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung said the ministry will listen to disabled people’s demands and wishes and put them into its policies. Deputy chairwoman of the National Assembly Tong Thi Phong said Vietnam has committed to developing socioeconomy, taking care of social equality and improving social management ability.  
7. Which of the following statements is 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 following questions:
In the United States, presidential elections are held in years evenly divisible by four (1888, 1900, 1964, etc.). Since 1840, American presidents elected in years ending with zero have died in office, with one exception. William H. Harrison, the man who served the shortest term, died of pneumonia only several weeks after his inauguration.
Abraham Lincoln was one of four presidents who were assassinated. He was elected in 1860, and his untimely death came just five years later. James Garfield, a former Union army general from Ohio, was shot during his first year in office (1881) by a man to whom he wouldn’t give a job. While in his second term of office (1901), William McKinley, another Ohioan, attended the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. During the reception, he was assassinated while shaking hands with some of the guests. John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 in Dallas only three years after his election.
Three years after his election in 1920, Warren G, Harding died in office. Although it was never proved, many believe he was poisoned. Franklin Roosevelt was elected four times (1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944), the only man to serve so long a term. He had contracted polio in 1921 and eventually died of the illness in 1945.
Ronald Reagan, who was elected in 1980 and reelected four years later, suffered an assassination attempt but did not succumb to the assassin’s bullets. He was the first to break the long chain of unfortunate events. Will the candidate in the election of 2020 also be as lucky?

The word “inauguration” in the first paragraph means most nearly the same as     .

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While trust in media as a whole may be at an all-time low, a new study by the EBU has shown the public’s trust in traditional media (broadcast and the written press) is actually on the rise. However, people’s trust in new media continues to fall: 61% of European countries distrust the internet while 97% have no faith in social networks. The EBU’s new report – Trust in Media 2018 – shows the figures illustrating the differences between people’s trust in traditional and new media. Broadcast media remain the most trusted forms of media with 59% of people tending to trust radio (equivalent to 2017) and 51% trusting TV in the EU (an increase of 1 percentage point on 2017). Trust in the written press has also slowly improved over the last 5 years and it is now trusted by 47% of EU citizens. At the same time, people’s trust in the internet and social media has been eroded by fake news, misinformation and disinformation. Only 34% of EU citizens trust the internet and a mere 20% now trust social networks (down from 36% and 21% respectively in 2017). Trust in Media 2018 is based on data published in the 88th Eurobarometer survey and gives an idea of European citizens’ perception of the trustworthiness of different types of media. The survey consists of approximately 1000 face-to-face interviews in the 33 countries covered by the study. The report shows how European citizens’ trust in broadcast media is closely connected with a free and independent press. The higher the level of trust in a country’s radio and TV, the higher press freedom in that country tends to be. There are also strong regional differences with the Nordics and Albania tending to trust traditional media the most while Eastern Europeans tend to trust social networks and the internet more. The EBU’s Head of Strategy and the Media Intelligence Service Roberto Suárez Candel said: “The results of our research show that good quality, impartial media is highly valued by the public. “Public service media play an important role in that and, together, our Members make an invaluable contribution to society. The role of our public service Members in upholding democratic values and supporting media freedom is clearly demonstrated by the results of our research.”  
4. The word “it” in paragraph 2 refers to _____.

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In 1903 the members of the governing board of the University of Washington in  Seattle engaged a firm of landscape architects, specialists in the design of outdoor environments - Olmsted Brothers of Brookline, Massachusetts - to advise them on an appropriate layout for the university grounds. The plan impressed the university officials, and in time many of its recommendations were implemented. City officials in Seattle, the largest city in the northwestern United States, were also impressed, for they employed the same organization to study Seattle’s public park needs. John Olmsted did the investigation and subsequent report on Seattle’s parks. He and his brothers believed that parks should be adapted to the local topography, utilize the area’s trees and shrubs, and be available to the entire community. They especially emphasized the need for natural, serene settings where hurried urban dwellers could periodically escape from the city. The essence of the Olmsted park plan was to develop a continuous driveway, twenty miles long, that would tie together a whole series of parks, playgrounds, and parkways. There would be local parks and squares too, but all of this was meant to supplement the major driveway, which was to remain the unifying factor for the entire system. In November of 1903 the city council of Seattle adopted the Olmsted Report, and it automatically became the master plan for the city’s park system. Prior to this report, Seattle’s park development was very limited and funding meager. All this changed after the report. Between 1907 and 1913, city voters approved special funding measures amounting to $4,000,000. With such unparalleled sums at their disposal, with the Olmsted guidelines to follow, and with the added incentive of wanting to have the city at its best for the AlaskaYukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909, the Parks Board bought aggressively. By 1913 Seattle had 25 parks amounting to 1,400 acres, as well as 400 acres in playgrounds, pathways, boulevards, and triangles. More lands would be added in the future, but for all practical purposes it was the great land surge of 1907-1913 that established Seattle’s park system
7. According to the passage, when was the Olmsted Report officially accepted as the master plan for the Seattle public park system?

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The town of Chichen-Itza was established during the Classic period close to two natural cavities (cenotes or chenes), which gave the town its name “At the edge of the well of the Itzaes”. The cenotes facilitated tapping the underground waters of the area. The dates for this settlement vary according to subsequent local accounts: one manuscript gives 415-35 A.D., while others mention 455 A.D. The town that grew up around the sector known as Chichen Viejo already boasted important monuments of great interest: the Nunnery, the Church, Akab Dzib, Chichan Chob, the Temple of the Panels and the Temple of the Deer. They were constructed between the 6th and the 10th centuries in the characteristic Maya style then popular both in the northern and southern areas of the Puuc hills. The second settlement of Chichen-Itza, and the most important for historians, corresponded to the migration of Toltec warriors from the Mexican plateau towards the south during the 10th century. According to the most common version, the King of Tula, Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, or Kukulkan as the Maya translated the name, reportedly took the city between 967 A.D. and 987 A.D. Following the conquest of Yucatán a new style blending the Maya and Toltec traditions developed, symbolizing the phenomenon of acculturation. Chichen-Itza is a clear illustration of this fusion. Specific examples are, in the group of buildings to the south, the Caracol, a circular stellar observatory whose spiral staircase accounts for its name, and, to the north, El Castillo. Surrounding El Castillo are terraces where the major monumental complexes were built: on the north-west are the Great Ball Court, Tzompantli or the Skull Wall, the temple known as the Jaguar Temple, and the House of Eagles; on the north-east are the Temple of the Warriors, the Group of the Thousand Columns, the Market and the Great Ball Court; on the south-west is the Tomb of the High Priest. After the 13th century no major monuments seem to have been constructed at Chichen-Itza and the city rapidly declined after around 1440 A.D. From its abandonment during the 15th century, Chichen-Itza underwent a process of gradual deterioration until the first excavations at the site began more than a century ago. Nevertheless, the excellent materials and building techniques used by the Maya in the construction of the buildings secured that the architectonic, sculptural and pictorial essence of Chichen-Itza would be conserved through the centuries  
2. According to paragraph 1, what is NOT mentioned about the city Chichen Itza?