Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
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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For 150 years scientists have tried to determine the solar constant, the amount of solar energy that reaches the Earth. Yet, even in the most cloud-free regions of the planet, the solar constant cannot be measured precisely. Gas molecules and dust particles in the atmosphere absorb and scatter sunlight and prevent some wavelengths of the light from ever reaching the ground. With the advent of satellites, however, scientists have finally been able to measure the Sun's output without being impeded by the Earth's atmosphere. Solar Max, a satellite from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), has been measuring the Sun's output since February 1980. Although a malfunction in the satellite's control system limited its observation for a few years, the satellite was repaired in orbit by astronauts from the space shuttle in 1984. Max's observations indicate that the solar constant is not really constant after all. The satellite's instruments have detected frequent, small variations in the Sun's energy output, generally amounting to no more than 0.05 percent of the Sun's mean energy output and lasting from a few weeks. Scientists believe these fluctuations coincide with the appearance and disappearance of large groups of sunspots on the Sun's disk. Sunspots are relatively dark regions on the Sun's surface that have strong magnetic fields and a temperature about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the rest of the Sun's surface. Particularly large fluctuations in the solar constant have coincided with sightings of large sunspot group. In 1980, for example, Solar Max's instrument, registered a 0.3percent drop in the solar energy reaching the Earth. At that time a sunspot group covered about 0.6 percent of the solar disk, an area 20 times larger than the Earth's surface. Long-term variations in the solar constant are more difficult to determine. Although Solar Max's data have indicated a slow and steady decline in the Sun's output, some scientists have thought that the satellite's aging detectors might have become less sensitive over the years, thus falsely indicating a drop in the solar constant. This possibility was dismissed, however, by comparing Solar Max's observations with data from a similar instrument operating on NASA's Nimbus 7 weather satellite since 1978.
3. Why is it not possible to measure the solar constant accurately without a satellite?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
If you go back far enough, everything lived in the sea. At various points in evolutionary history, enterprising individuals within many different animal groups moved out onto the land, sometimes even to the most parched deserts, taking their own private seawater with them in blood and cellular fluids. In addition to the reptiles, birds, mammals and insects which we see all around us, other groups that have succeeded out of water include scorpions, snails, crustaceans such as woodlice and land crabs, millipedes and centipedes, spiders and various worms. And we mustn’t forget the plants, without whose prior invasion of the land, none of the other migrations could have happened. Moving from water to land involved a major redesign of every aspect of life, including breathing and reproduction. Nevertheless, a good number of thoroughgoing land animals later turned around, abandoned their hard-earned terrestrial re-tooling, and returned to the water again. Seals have only gone part way back. They show us what the intermediates might have been like, on the way to extreme cases such as whales and dugongs. Whales (including the small whales we call dolphins) and dugongs, with their close cousins, the manatees, ceased to be land creatures altogether and reverted to the full marine habits of their remote ancestors. They don’t even come ashore to breed. They do, however, still breathe air, having never developed anything equivalent to the gills of their earlier marine incarnation. Turtles went back to the sea a very long time ago and, like all vertebrate returnees to the water, they breathe air. However, they are, in one respect, less fully given back to the water than whales or dugongs, for turtles still lay their eggs on beaches. There is evidence that all modern turtles are descended from a terrestrial ancestor which lived before most of the dinosaurs. There are two key fossils called Proganochelys quenstedti and Palaeochersis talampayensis dating from early dinosaur times, which appear to be close to the ancestry of all modern turtles and tortoise. You might wonder how we can tell whether fossil animals lived in land or in water, especially if only fragments are found. Sometimes it’s obvious. Ichthyosaurs were reptilian contemporaries of he dinosaurs, with
fins and streamlined bodies. The fossils look like dolphins and they surely lived like dolphins, in the water. With turtles it is a little less obvious. One way to tell is by measuring the bones of their forelimbs.
8. It can be inferred from the last passage that _____________

Stop Pollution Now!

Pollution is a really big problem on our planet and it must (1) …. immediately. It must be stopped before our planet goes extinct. There are three main reasons, in my opinion, why pollution should be stopped.

The first reason why we should stop pollution is that pollution is destroying the environment we live in. Carbon dioxide is a big (2) ……….. to pollution. Carbon dioxide affects our climate in many different ways. The way it works is that certain ‘greenhouse gases’ can't escape (3) …….. our atmosphere because they get trapped. The second reason why we should stop pollution is that it also has an influence on us – (4) ……….. Pollution also influences human life and that is a big problem. According to the World Health Organization, indoor air pollution from the burning of coal or biomass fuels like wood risks lives of millions of people. Air pollution causes two million deaths per year, mostly from heart disease and respiratory disorders (5) …….. infections and lung cancer.

The third reason why we should stop pollution is that (6) …………. we do, we can live longer on this planet. If we don’t stop pollution and global warming, something really bad will happen (7) ….. us. Humans have destroyed the planet so quickly. We can live longer and extent our existence on this planet so that our children’s children can live in a planet without worries. In short, pollution must be stopped immediately. The earth is our only home and we must protect it and take care of it as much as we can. Pollution must be stopped before we (8) ………. our planet.

et.

(4) …......

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
After World War II drew to a close in the mid-20th century, a new conflict began.  Known as the Cold War, this battle pitted the world’s two great powers–the democratic, capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union–against each other. By the mid1950s, the U.S.-Soviet Cold War had worked its way into the fabric of everyday life in both countries, fueled by the arms race and the growing threat of nuclear weapons, wide-ranging espionage and counter-espionage between the two countries, war in Korea and a clash of words and ideas carried out in the media. These tensions would continue throughout the space race, exacerbated by such events as the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and the outbreak of war in Southeast Asia. Space exploration served as another dramatic arena for Cold War competition. On October 4, 1957, a Soviet R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile launched Sputnik (Russian for “traveler”), the world’s first artificial satellite and the first man-made object to be placed into the Earth’s orbit. Sputnik’s launch came as a surprise, and not a pleasant one, to most Americans. In the United States, space was seen as the next frontier, a logical extension of the grand American tradition of exploration, and it was crucial not to lose too much ground to the Soviets. In addition, this demonstration of the overwhelming power of the R-7 missile– seemingly capable of delivering a nuclear warhead into U.S. air space–made gathering intelligence about Soviet military activities particularly urgent.  Beginning in the late 1950s, space would become another platform for the competition, as each side sought to prove the superiority of its technology, its military firepower and–by extension–its political-economic system.
1. Which best serves as the title for 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:
“Where is the university?” is a question many visitors to Cambridge ask, but no one can give them a clear answer, for there is no wall to be found around the university. The university is the city. You can find the classroom buildings, libraries, museums and offices of the university all over the city. And most of its members are the students and teachers or professors of the thirty- one colleges. Cambridge is already a developing town long before the first students and teachers arrived 800 years ago. It grew up by the river Granta, as the Cam was once called. A bridge was built over the river as early as 875.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, more and more land was used for college buildings. The town grew faster in the nineteenth century after the opening of the railway in 1845. Cambridge became a city in 1951 and now it has the population of over 100000. Many young students want to study at Cambridge. Thousands of people from all over the world come to visit the university town. It has become a famous place all around the world.

After which year did the town really begin developing?

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

The word "them" in the last paragraph refers to________.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
In the early twentieth century, an American woman named Emily Post wrote a book on etiquette. This book explained the proper behavior Americans should follow in many different social (1)______, from birthday parties to funerals. But in modern society, it is not simply to know the proper rules for behavior in your own country. It is necessary for people (2)______ work or travel abroad to understand the rules of etiquette in other cultures as well. Cultural (3)______ can be found in such simple processes as giving or receiving a gift. In Western cultures, a gift can be given to the receiver with relatively little ceremony. When a gift is offered, the receiver usually takes the gift and expresses his or her thanks. (4)______, in some Asian countries, the act of gift–giving may appear confusing to Westerners. In Chinese culture, both the giver and receiver understand that the receiver will typically refuse to take the gift several times before he or she finally accepts it. In addition, to (5)______ respect for the receiver, it is common in several Asian cultures to use both hands when offering a gift to another person.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Scientists believe that something very serious is happening to the Earth. It is becoming warmer. Scientists predict that there will be major changes in the climate during the 21st century. Coastal waters will have higher temperatures. This will have a serious effect on agriculture. Farmers will have trouble producing good crops. In warm regions, the weather will be too dry. The amount of water could decrease by 50 per cent. This would cause a large decrease in agricultural production. World temperatures could increase from 1.5 to 5.6 degrees Celsius by the middle of the 21st century. And the increase in temperature could be even greater in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. A rise in temperature could cause the great ice sheets to melt, which, in turn would raise the level of oceans by one to two meters. Many coastal cities would be underwater. Why is all this happening? The Earth and its atmosphere are kept warm by the Sun. The atmosphere lets most of the light from the Sun pass through to warm the Earth. The Earth is warmer by the sunlight and sends heat energy back into the atmosphere. Much of this energy escapes from the Earth’s atmosphere. However, some of it remains. Gases such as carbon dioxide, ozone and water vapor absorb this energy and create more heat. Then, this heat is sent back down to Earth, and the Earth becomes warmer. Recently, however, an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is causing serious problems. Too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere prevents heat energy from escaping. Too much heat is sent back down to the Earth, and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continues to increase. When oil, gas, and coal burn, they create large amounts of carbon dioxide. The destruction of rain forests that absorb carbon dioxide also helps to increase the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Some scientists believe that the amount of carbon dioxide in the air will double by the late 2000s. Scientists call this warming of the Earth and its atmosphere “the greenhouse effect”. A greenhouse, made of glass and plastic, is a special place where plants are grown. The sunlight passes through the glass or plastic and warms the air inside. The heat inside escapes very slowly, so the greenhouse remains very warm. This is exactly what is happening on the Earth. Another reason why the Earth is growing warmer is because of the amount of ozone in our atmosphere. Ozone is a form of oxygen. In the upper atmosphere, very far from the Earth, a layer of ozone helps to protect the Earth from 95 percent of the harmful light that comes from the sun. If your skin receives too much of this light, you would develop skin cancer. We need the ozone layer to protect ourselves. But the ozone layer is in trouble. Scientists have observed that the ozone layer is becoming thin, and above Antarctica there is a hole. This allows too much of the sun’s dangerous light into our atmosphere and makes the Earth warmer. Scientists say we must start making changes and planning now. We need to continue to do research, so we can predict what will happen in the future. We must burn less coal, oil, and gas. Other scientists believe that the problem is not so serious. They think that the Earth is growing warmer naturally, that we don’t need to worry about it now, and that we should just get ready for life in the warmer climate. Most scientists agree that the causes of the world’s climate are very complicated. They say that we must continue to measure the amount of carbon dioxide and ozone in the atmosphere. Scientists also encourage people to learn about the changes that are occurring in the world and how we can all help protect our atmosphere  
8. Which is the best title for the passage?

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For many years, scientists have speculated that the cataclysmic impact of an asteroid with the earth was responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs approximately 65 million years ago. Previous discoveries and results have hinted that an asteroid two kilometers in diameter struck the Yucatan peninsula in Eastern Mexico. This impact, stronger than one thousand nuclear explosions, is speculated to have cast a cloud of dust and debris into the atmosphere, covering the entire surface of the earth and blocking out the sun and consequently lowering the surface temperature of the earth. With such a radical change in the earth's environment, scientists believe that over 99% of all animal and plant species were eradicated. Only after millions of years did plants and animals even begin to recover and develop into forms that were better adapted to survive changes in their environment. But, the reign of the dinosaurs had ended and the age of mammals had begun. The crucial link that has held this theory together has been the element iridium. Iridium is not commonly found on either the surface of the earth or inside the crust. It is more commonly found in asteroids or meteorites throughout the solar system. Scientists have hypothesized that after the asteroid impacted the Earth, an even layer of iridium sediment settled over the globe and eventually became part of its surface. The theory, of course, has depended on the discovery of such an existing layer of iridium. Unfortunately, scientists have never been able to offer absolute proof that this asteroid impact ever occurred. Recently, however, a discovery may go a long way toward validating these scientists 'theories. In 1996, a team of marine biologists excavated samples of rock from the Atlantic Ocean just off the cost of Bermuda. Found thousands of meters below the sea, these samples contain iridium similar to those found in the Yucatan peninsula thousands of kilometers away. At first, scientists were skeptical whether the samples were from the same time period. But since carbon dating placed them to 65 million years ago, their doubts were quickly alleviated. Since then many of the other theories for the demise of the dinosaur have been finally laid to rest.
6. The word "reign" is closest in meaning to: 

choose the best answer:
I'm in a difficult position. What do you advise me ____?

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:
Body postures and movements are frequently indicators of self-confidence, energy, fatigue, or status. Cognitively, gestures operate to clarify, contradict, or replace verbal messages. Gestures also serve an important function with regard to regulating the flow of conversation. For example, if a student is talking about something in front of the class, single nods of the head from the teacher will likely cause that student to continue and perhaps more elaborate. Postures as well as gestures are used to indicate attitudes, status, affective moods, approval, deception, warmth, arid other variables related to conversation interaction.
The saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” well describes the meaning of facial expressions. Facial appearance – including wrinkles, muscle tone, skin coloration, and eye color- offers enduring cues that reveal information about age, sex, race, ethnic origin, and status.
A less permanent second set of facial cues-including length of hair, hairstyle, cleanliness, and facial hair-relate to an individual’s idea of beauty. A third group of facial markers are momentary expressions that signal that cause changes in the forehead, eyebrows, eyelids, cheeks, nose, lips, and chin, such as raising the eyebrows, wrinkling the brow, curling the lip.
Some facial expressions are readily visible, while others are fleeting. Both types can positively or negatively reinforce the spoken words and convey cues concerning emotions and attitudes.

According to the writer, “A picture is worth a thousand words” means ................

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When Tony Stark dazzled audiences by designing his Iron Man suit by simply picking  up and chucking up holographic virtual gear in mid air instead of being hunched over a computer it was a perfect teaser into the future of gesture-based computing. What’s even more exciting is that most of this technology is already available and is set to go mainstream. Gesture-based computing is interacting with computers through nontraditional interfaces using the body instead of the mouse and the keyboard. It allows users to have no physical contact with a device and yet interact with it just as they would with traditional interfaces. The most widely used of gesture-based computing devices and already a huge commercial success is the Kinect. Thanks to some amazing software that could extrapolate missing body parts and even tell different users apart, it went on to become a hit among gamers looking for the next big thing to enhance their gaming experience. The Kinect works by being able to map a body and produce a digital reproduction of a body’s shape, skeletal outline and even facial details that gives developers access to unlimited possibilities for interfaces and applications.  Another big contender in the gesture computing revolution is the Leap motion. Leap motion takes gesture-based computing to finger precision perfection. It reads gestures within a 8 cubic feet volume and any motion of the hand or fingers can be tracked to 1/100th of a millimeter, heralding exciting possibilities about its use with applications that require a higher degree of accuracy.  Gesture-based computing is now ripe to be a part of gaming, TVs, devices, kiosks, medical, 3D sculpting, engineering, medical professionals, designers, advertisers and even people with physical disabilities.
5. According to paragraph 3, how precise is the technology from the Leap motion?

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Most of the roughly 1,400 active volcanoes around the world, including many in the  United States, do not have on-site observatories. Lacking ground-level data, scientists are turning to satellites to keep tabs on volcanoes from space. Now using artificial intelligence, scientists have created a new satellite-based method of detecting warning signs of when a volcano is likely to erupt.  Every time one of the satellites passes over a given volcano, it can capture an InSAR image of the volcano from which ground movement away from or toward the satellite can be calculated.  InSAR can often pick up the ominous expansion of the ground that occurs when magma moves within a volcano’s plumbing, but it is difficult to continuously monitor the huge number of images produced by the latest generation of SAR-equipped satellites. In addition, some volcanoes exhibit long-lasting deformation that poses no immediate threat, and new images must be compared with older ones to determine whether a deformation at a volcano is a warning sign or just business as usual. To solve these issues, the researchers turned to machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence that can glean subtle patterns in vast quantities of data. They developed an algorithm that can rapidly analyze InSAR data, compare current deformation to past activity, and automatically create an alert when a volcano’s unrest may be cause for concern.  To test the algorithm’s viability, the team applied it to real data from the period leading up to the 2018 eruption of Sierra Negra, a volcano in the Galápagos Islands. The algorithm worked, flagging an increase in the ground’s inflation that began about a year before the eruption. Had the method been available at the time, the team writes, it would have accurately alerted researchers that Sierra Negra was likely to erupt.
3. The word “it” in paragraph 2 refers to _______

Choose the best answer:
Hugh is quite worried because he hasn't ____ for the end-of-term test.

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Do you find the American education system to be confusing and different from the education system in your own country? Do you want to attend a university or a school in the USA? The American education system offers international students the most diverse set of options in the world. In fact, an international student who elects to take advantage of the American education system can pursue anything from nuclear science to film and dance. The possibilities are almost endless! The American education system requires that students complete 12 years of primary and secondary education prior to attending university or college. This may be accomplished either at public (or government-operated) schools, or at private schools. These 12 years of schooling (or their equivalent) may also be completed outside the USA, thus giving foreign students the opportunity to pursue the benefits of the American education system and obtain a quality American education. Perhaps one of the most impressive facts is the large number of presidents, prime ministers and leaders from other countries who have experienced the American education system and graduated from a university or school in the USA. In many fields and industries, the American education system offers the most cutting-edge, soughtafter programs at the world’s best schools. That is why graduating from an accredited American school and being exposed to the rigors of the American education system is an investment in your future. Whether you want to study at a USA university, a top college, or at an ESL, vocational or high school, a thorough understanding of how the American education system works is essential. Without a clear grasp of the system, an international student will find it difficult to make the right academic choices. The information provided in the Overview of the American education system section will help you develop that understanding. You can also search our list of Universities, colleges, community colleges, graduate schools, and boys and girls boarding schools. It is no surprise that the United States hosts more international students than any other country in the world!  
5. What is probably the best title for the passage?

In the mid - nineteenth century, the United States had tremendous natural resources that could be exploited in order to develop heavy industry. Most of the raw materials that are valuable in the manufacture of machinery, transportation facilities, and consumer goods lay ready to be worked into wealth. Iron, coal, and oil - the basic ingredients of industrial growth - were plentiful and needed only the application of technical expertise, organizational skill, and labor.

One crucial development in this movement toward industrialization was the growth of the railroads. The railway network expanded rapidly until the railroad map of the United States looked like a spider's web, with the steel filaments connecting all important sources of raw materials, their places of manufacture, and their centers of distribution. The railroads contributed to the industrial growth not only by connecting these major centers, but also by themselves consuming enormous amounts of fuel, iron, and coal.

Many factors influenced emerging modes of production. For example, machine tools, the tools used to make goods, were steadily improved in the latter part of the nineteenth century - always with an eye to speedier production and lower unit costs. The products of the factories were rapidly absorbed by the growing cities that sheltered the workers and the distributors. The increased urban population was nourished by the increased farm production that, in turn, was made more productive by the use of the new farm machinery. American agricultural production kept up with the urban demand and still had surpluses for sale to the industrial centers of Europe.

The labor that ran the factories and built the railways was recruited in part from American farm areas where people were being displaced by farm machinery, in part from Asia, and in part from Europe. Europe now began to send tides of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe - most of whom were originally poor farmers but who settled in American industrial cities. The money to finance this tremendous expansion of the American economy still came from European financiers for the most part, but the American were approaching the day when their expansion could be financed in their own " money market".

What does the passage mainly discuss?

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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."
8. Which of the following most accurately reflects the author’s opinion of making a close online friend?

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Myriad occupational schools in the central coastal city of Da Nang have received just a small number of applications over the past few years. “Last year we only had 142 new students, but the number of new enrollees is 50 this school year,” Truong Van Hung, rector of the Duc Tri Da Nang Vocational College, said, adding the school has set a target of recruiting 1,200 students for the 2014-2015 academic year. “Closing the school is just a matter of time,” he said. Similarly, the Viet A Vocational School in Hai Chau District in Da Nang has not recruited any new enrollee for over one year given the absence of job opportunities for its graduates. “We do not want to enroll because we cannot help students land jobs after they graduate,” a leader of Viet A said. “We will only admit new students when we can have a partnership with companies who can employ our students after they finish their studies.” Elsewhere, vocational schools in the southern province of Dong Nai are ‘frozen’. The Dong Nai Information Technology-Telecommunications Vocational School in the academic year of 2013-2014 enrolled only 82 students compared with a target of 1,000; the Nhon Trach Industrial Engineering Vocational School only had 200 out of its goal of 600 students for the school year; the 26-3 Vocational School received 150 students while they set a target of 250; and the South-Eastern Electromechanical Vocational School only recruited 300 out of the 500 students they planned to admit. The situation means that equipment for training programs at those schools has been left unused and covered with rust. Local experts have commented that if the lack of students persists, vocational schools are at high risk of being closed, sooner or later. 
5. The word “persists” in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to ______

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Andrew Jackson Beard lived an extraordinary life for a black American inventor. Unlike the vast majority of inventors who never profit from their patents, he profited from his inventions. Andrew Beard was born a slave on a plantation in Woodland, Alabama, in 1849, shortly before slavery ended. He received emancipation at age 15 and he married at age 16. Andrew Beard was a farmer, carpenter, blacksmith, a railroad worker, a businessman and finally an inventor. He grew apples as a farmer near Birmingham, Alabama for five years before he built and operated a flour mill in Hardwicks, Alabama. His work in agriculture led to tinkering with improvement for plows. In 1881, he patented his first invention, an improvement to the double plow, and sold the patent rights for $4,000 in 1884. His design allowed for the distance between the plow plates to be adjusted. That amount of money would be the equivalent of almost $100,000 today. In 1887, Andrew Beard patented a second plow and sold it for $5,200. This patent was for a design that allowed the pitch of the blades of plows or cultivators to be adjusted. The amount he received would be the equivalent of about $130,000 today. In 1897, Andrew Beard patented an improvement to railroad car couplers. His improvement came to be called the Jenny Coupler. It was one of many that aimed to improve the knuckle coupler patented by Eli Janney in 1873 (patent US138405). The knuckle coupler did the dangerous job of hooking railroad cars together, which formerly was done by manually placing a pin in a link between the two cars. Beard, himself had lost a leg in a car coupling accident. As an ex-railroad worker, Andrew Beard had the right idea that probably saved countless lives and limbs. Beard received three patents for automatic car couplers. These are US594059 granted November 23, 1897, US624901 granted May 16, 1899, and US807430 granted on May 16, 1904. While there were thousands of patents filed at the time for car couplers, Andrew Beard received $50,000 for the patent rights to his Jenny coupler. This would be just shy of 1.5 million dollars today. Congress enacted the Federal Safety Appliance Act at that time to enforce using automatic couplers. Andrew Jackson Beard was inducted into the National
Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006 in recognition of his revolutionary Jenny coupler
3. According to paragraph 2, what is NOT correct about period of plow inventions of Beard?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
The idea of life in (1) ____________ space has been talked about for a long time.  Some scientists say that life development on Earth was far too unlikely for it to have happened anywhere else. Things had to be perfect for us to make it on this planet. Other scientists say that space is too big. Stars and other planets are far too numerous for there to be no other life in the universe.   For many years, there have been reports of visitors from other planets. People all around the world have claimed to see alien spaceships or even aliens themselves. There have  been (2)________of these so-called UFOs (unidentified flying objects) flying through the air and they have even been captured on video. Some Americans believe that the U.S. Army found an alien spaceship crashed in the desert and then lied to the press about it. (3)________these sightings may be true, scientists have not found significant evidence that aliens exist.   If you go out into the countryside on a clear night and look up, you can see thousands of stars. Those stars (4)_____a tiny part of our unniverse. There are more stars, planets, and galaxies than we can count. Even the smartest scientists can’t even come close to defining how big space is. The number of possible stars and planets out there is bigger than our ability to count. If we are really on the only planet that can (5)_________life, then we are very special in a universe full of amazing things