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More than a decade ago the UK investigative journalist Nick Davies published Flat Earth News, an exposé of how the mass media had abdicated its responsibility to the truth. Newsroom pressure to publish more stories, faster than their competitors had, Davies argued, led to journalists becoming mere “churnalists”. Shocking as Davies’ revelations seemed in 2008, they seem pretty tame by today’s standards, writes Ben Lorica, Chief Data Scientist at O’Reilly. We now live in a post-truth world of Fake News and “alternative facts”; where activists don’t just seek to manipulate the news agenda with PR but now use advanced technology to fake images and footage. A particularly troubling aspect of these ‘”deepfake” videos is their use of artificial intelligence to fabricate people saying or doing things with almost undetectable accuracy. The result is that publishers risk running completely erroneous stories – as inaccurate as stating that the world is flat – with little or any ability to check their source material and confirm whether it is genuine. The rise of unchecked fakery has serious implications for our liberal democracy and our ability to understand what’s truly going on in the world. The technology to manipulate imagery has come a long way since Stalin had people airbrushed out of history. Creating convincing yet fake digital content no longer requires advanced skills or a well-resourced (mis)information bureau. Anyone with a degree of technical proficiency can create content that will fool even the experts. Take the faked footage of Nancy Pelosi earlier this year, which was doctored to make her look incoherent and was viewed two and a half million times before Facebook took it down. This story shows how social media is giving new life to the old aphorism that “a lie can go halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its boots on”. The propagation of lies and misinformation is immeasurably enhanced by platforms like Twitter and Facebook that enable virality. What’s more, the incentives for creating fake content now favour malicious actors, with clear economic and political advantages for disseminating false footage. Put simply, the more shocking or extreme the content, the more people will share it and the longer they will stay on the platform. Meanwhile, counterfeiters can manipulate the very tools being developed to detect and mitigate deepfak content, just as the security industry inadvertently supplies software that can be misused for cybercrime.
6. The word “disseminating” in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to _______

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Anna Gomez is a successful TV sports presenter, but most people still think of her as the famous women’s ice-skating champion who won several important competitions when she was younger. “As a child, my dream was actually to become a ballet dancer – I didn’t own any skates until I was nine, and didn’t become really keen on skating until I was fourteen,” says Anna. She went on to university, where, despite ice-skating almost all the time, she left with an excellent degree. “I felt I owed it to my parents. They supported me through university, and expected me to do well there – I didn’t feel I could disappoint them.” In a sport where most stars become famous as teenagers, Anna was unusual in being in her twenties before she won any major titles. “When I was younger, I got very angry at competitions, shouting at judges if I disagreed with them. That made me unpopular, especially with other skaters. My technique was just as good as theirs and I had a very encouraging coach at the time. The problem was in my head – I just didn’t think I had what it takes to be a champion. That changed as I won more competitions, and I was performing at my best by the age of twenty-five.” Anna retired from professional ice-skating five years later, having accomplished great success during that period. “It was a difficult decision. As you get near the end of your career, people always ask when you’re going to stop. At the time, I wasn’t sure that I was actually ready to give up. But, looking back, I’m glad I stopped when I did. You shouldn’t think too much about the past – just move on to the next thing.”  
4. What does Anna say about her retirement from skating?

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This French expansion can be traced back to Isle of France, or Ile-de-France, the  administrative region for Metropolitan Paris. It is often referred to as “the city of love” or “the city of lights”, now it can officially be called “Paris, the city of incredibly talented soccer players”.  In order to preserve the integrity of the international competition, FIFA tightened the rules on nationality and representation in 2004. The decision arrived amid a growing trend of so called “lesser” footballing nations naturalising players from a greater talent pool, typically from Brazil, to play for their national team. For example, Qatar offered citizenship to three Brazilians within a week having never lived or played football in the country, while Togo managed to naturalise five Brazilians for their national team. To prevent this, FIFA declared that any player wishing to represent a “new” nation must have a “clear connection” to it. A “clear connection”, according to FIFA, means that a player must have at least one parent or grandparent who were born in their newly chosen country.  The diversity of France, and Paris in particular, lends a hand to the range of national teams its citizens can represent. Along with many European migrants residing in Paris, France’s colonial history also means that a large proportion of African and Caribbean immigrants call Paris home. Famed French nationals Claude Makalele and Lilian Thuram both migrated with their families to Paris from Zaire and Guadeloupe respectively. By law, the French INSEE census does not collect data on religion or ethnicity so it is difficult to estimate the extent of diversity in the Ile-de-France region, but approximately 20% of its inhabitants were born abroad. One might conclude that an even larger percentage have at least one parent or grandparent who were part of the sizeable waves of immigrants arriving to Paris since WWI. These waves of migrations chiefly occurred in the late 19th century and up until WWI. It is unlikely that the current crop of footballers would have many feelings of nationalism toward the faraway countries of their grandparents. The advantage Paris has is that a vast majority of professional footballers may feel that their best opportunity to play for a national team would be with the country of their heritage. 
6. According to paragraph 4, why do many foreign footballers choose to play for France?

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In 2018 the Tchaikovsky Competition celebrated its 60th anniversary. While many things have changed in the country, in the world and in the people, the art of music has been showing its amazing vital power helping the performing art go through difficult times and contributing to its amazing ability to revive. It appears that the history of the Tchaikovsky Competition can be divided into three periods which in the terms of a well-known critic can be defined as the rise, the soaring and the descent. The rise refers to the first three Competitions (1958, 1962 and 1966) when the structure of the Competition was formed (the First Competition comprised two categories, the Second – three and the Third – four categories). The competition jury was a pool of renowned cultural figures. Under the special focus were the amazingly talented competitors and they exceeded all expectations. The winner of the piano contest of the I Competition became Van Cliburn, a US piano player who just after finishing his first program items became the object of admiration and a legend that was passed down in Russia and America for generations. His impressive performance was something that couldn’t be judged only from the professional point of view; our listener’s perception was almost irrational. Also, for long we remembered by names the other piano players taking part in the I Competition. Truly, Toyoaki Matsuura and Daniel  Pollack were brilliant virtuosos, if not genius. Besides, both Daniel Pollack and Van Cliburn studied under Rosina Levina, a famous Russian educator, i.e. they were kindred spirits for Russians. What was happening gave an impression of something truly exceptional and unmatched, and this was proved to be true during the many years of the Tchaikovsky Competition in the future. The II Competition was also truly amazing. In the piano category won Vladimir Ashkenazi, the Soviet virtuoso piano player, and an eccentric Englishman John Ogdon. In the violin contest the winner was Leningrad native Boris Gutnikov who had won all the competitions in which he had participated. At the III Competition there was a sensation: a Leningrad native 16-year-old Grigory Sokolov while not being considered by the critics as the most likely winner won the first prize in the piano contest; his charmingly fresh musicality and magical pianism turned the jury’s opinion in his favor despite the dissatisfaction of the Moscow audience over the jury’s choice.  
3. The word “critic” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _______

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The first two decades of this century were dominated by the microbe hunters. These hunters had tracked down one after another of the microbes responsible for the most dreaded scourges of many centuries: tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria. But there remained some terrible diseases for which no microbe could be incriminated: scurvy, pellagra, rickets, beriberi. Then it was discovered that these diseases were caused by the lack of vitamins, a trace substance in the diet. The diseases could be prevented or cured by consuming foods that contained the vitamins. And so in the decades of the 1920’s and 1930’s, nutrition became a science and the vitamin hunters replaced the microbe hunters. In the 1940’s and 1950’s, biochemists strived to learn why each of the vitamins was essential for health. They discovered that key enzymes in metabolism depend on one or another of the vitamins as coenzymes to perform the chemistry that provides cells with energy for growth and function. Now, these enzyme hunters occupied center stage. You are aware that the enzyme hunters have been replaced by a new breed of hunters who are tracking genes – the blueprints for each of the enzymes – and are discovering the defective genes that cause inherited diseases – diabetes, cystic fibrosis. These gene hunters, or genetic engineers, use recombinant DNA technology to identify and clone genes and introduce them into bacterial cells and plants to create factories for the massive production of hormones and vaccines for medicine and for better crops for agriculture. Biotechnology has become a multibilliondollar industry. In view of the inexorable progress in science, we can expect that the gene hunters will be replaced in the spotlight. When and by whom? Which kind of hunter will dominate the scene in the last decade of our waning century and in the early decades of the next? I wonder whether the hunters who will occupy the spotlight will be neurobiologists who apply the techniques of the enzyme and gene hunters to the funtions of the brain. What to call them? The head hunters. I will return to them later.
1. What is the main topic of the passage?

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Peter said that if he ............... rich, he ............... a lot.

Each sentence has a mistake. Find it bychosing A B C or D

Activity steps are being taken to calm the situation

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When you volunteer, it might be one of the best ways to gain hands-on experience for  a future career. And giving a (1) ________________ hand to a community won’t just result in great networking opportunities but the experience can also be a great addition to your skill set and CV. With each new volunteering job comes training with a different (2) ________________ of skills. These skills might seem basic and unhelpful while training but can become a great benefit soon. If you develop new abilities, it’ll help set you (3) _______________ in the job market. It can also make you more productive and successful. Volunteering broadens your experience and exposure to life. And it won’t just help you make a difference in a community, it’ll (4) _________ help you on a personal level. Are you planning on becoming a nurse or doctor? Volunteer at your local hospital. Are you following a career in environmental science? Find a (5)______________________ restoration programme. This is the perfect opportunity to gain essential leadership experience that all employers want to see

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There are many types of family systems around the world. In North America and  northern Europe, the nuclear family (with two generations - a father, a mother and one or more children) is often seen as the most typical. In contrast, in most other parts of the world, extended families, which include other family members such as grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, are seen as the norm.  The common view is that the nuclear family has become the norm in many Western societies as a result of industrialization and urbanization. This trend began in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when people were forced to move to cities to find work in the factories that sprang up during the Industrial Revolution. In the twentieth century, greater industrialization resulted in even more people leaving their large extended families. Urbanization also meant that people lived in much smaller houses, which were not big enough for an extended family.  The trend towards nuclear families meant that many of the duties and responsibilities of a family, such as providing food and shelter, cleaning the home, preparing the food, caring for children and their education, and caring for the sick and elderly are no longer shared among the members of the extended family. The parents (or parent) now have to do this, with some help from the state. However, this is the price that people pay for the higher standard of living that may come from living in a city.  We may think we know what we mean by a ‘nuclear’ family and an extended family, but reality is more complicated than most people believe. Most nuclear families are part of extended families: children have grandparents and, in many cases, aunts, uncles and cousins as well. Part of what makes them ‘nuclear’ is that they live in their own separate household, but it is not the whole story. In Greece or Italy, for example, a nuclear family may live in its own flat, but the extended family may live in the same apartment block or in the same street and family members see each other and even eat together every day. There is at least one more factor to consider. Family members may be separated from each other by geographical distance, but they may have close emotional ties. Even in North America and northern Europe, grandparents usually have close bonds with their grandchildren, and families often travel long distances so that they can see each other. Grandparents often help their adult children, for example, by cooking and looking after their children in emergencies. In the same way, when their parents become too old to live on their own, adult children may take them into their own homes. As a result, they turn their nuclear family into an extended family.  The structure of families changes over time. The effects of urbanization and industrialization are enormous, but they are not the only reasons for the changes. People marry, have children, become widowed, divorce and die. Children grow up and adults grow old. Nuclear families become extended families and extended families become nuclear families. Family ties stay strong or become weak. One thing is certain: in a changing world, the family will continue to change, but ultimately, it is likely to continue to be the basic unit of society
6. The word "their" in the passage refers to ____

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Our parents play an important role in what we’re today and in what we’ll be in future. It’s our parents who make us (1)_____ in all sphere of life, they guides us, supports us, teaches us, and propels us in all phases of your life. The biggest role is of our mother; most cherished and admired relation in the world. She is special for everyone and should be. She is one (2)____ teaches us everything from how to speak to what to speak, from how to eat to what to eat, from how to (3)____ up for school to college. She is with us from happiness to sorrow. She teaches us from what is right to what is wrong. Definitely she is one who brings smiles on our faces when we take a walk down memory (4)_____ from our childhood till now. But when I recall my childhood, what I have is her faint memory; unfortunately, probably when I was about 5 years old she left this world. When I look around I realize how lucky they are who have someone under whose feet lies the paradise. So realize importance of her presence in your life and love her (5)______ the way she loves you unconditionally; dedicate every day of your life to her and don’t wait for mother day; celebrate everyday a mother day

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Annie love doing sports. She’s ___________.

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From their inception, most rural neighborhoods in colonial North America included at least one carpenter, joiner, sawyer, and cooper in woodworking; a weaver and a tailor for clothing production; a tanner, currier, and cordwainer (shoemaker) for fabricating leather objects; and a blacksmith for metalwork. Where stone was the local building material, a mason was sure to appear on the list of people who paid taxes. With only an apprentice as an assistant, the rural artisan provided the neighborhood with common goods from furniture to shoes to farm equipment in exchange for cash or for “goods in kind” from the customer’s field, pasture, or dairy. Sometimes artisans transformed material provided by the customer wove cloth of yam spun at the farm from the wool of the family sheep; made chairs or tables from wood cut in the customer’s own woodlot; produced shoes or leather breeches from cow, deer, or sheepskin tanned on the farm.  Like their farming neighbors, rural artisans were part of an economy seen, by one historian, as “an orchestra conducted by nature.” Some tasks could not be done in the winter, others had to be put off during harvest time, and still others waited on raw materials that were only produced seasonally. As the days grew shorter, shop hours kept pace, since few artisans could afford enough artificial light to continue work when the sun went down.  To the best of their ability, colonial artisans tried to keep their shops as efficient as possible and to regularize their schedules and methods of production for the best return on their investment in time, tools, and materials. While it is pleasant to imagine a woodworker, for example, carefully matching lumber, joining a chest together without resort to nails or glue, and applying all thought and energy to carving beautiful designs on the finished piece, the time required was not justified unless the customer was willing to pay extra for the quality - and few in rural areas were. Artisans, therefore, often found it necessary to employ as many shortcuts and economics as possible while still producing satisfactory products.
4. According to the passage, from whose skin were shoes produced?

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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

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He sometimes ____________ sports with friends

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Electronic devices are becoming increasingly common in educational environments. The term most commonly used for such devices is “educational technology”. This is not actually a new idea, as the rewritable wax tablets, often with lined surfaces to guide novice writers used in antiquity or the blackboard itself are both instances of technological innovations to support pedagogy. There are many different ways in which electronic devices are used in education. For example, students in STEM (science, technology, engineering medicine) fields have been making extensive use of sophisticated calculators for many years (the abacus and slide rule were non-electronic predecessors to calculators). In humanities as well as sciences, students use computers or equivalent devices to do research and write papers. In all fields, courses are now likely to have websites, and many instructors use course management software such as Blackboard, to post information for students, record grades, set up online discussions, and check for plagiarism. In lecture classes, many instructors project slides or notes on a screen and may even upload lecture notes so that students can review them. Some courses are hybrid, meaning that they have a strong online component, or offered entirely online. Many courses taught in conventional lecture halls are streamed online, and may use devices such as clickers to become more interactive. Any device (including tablets or cell phones) that instructors incorporate into a learning environment functions as educational technology.  
3. The word "extensive" in the passage is closest in meaning to ____

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People have five senses. We have a sense of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. Believe (1) _______ , your sense of smell is very important. Our nose tells us about our environment. When your nose smells something, it sends information to our brain. Smells tell us if there is danger nearby, or if there is something to eat. Of course, these tools were more useful in the past, but they still come (2) _______ today. The things you smell can affect your (3) _______ If you smell something nice, you are more likely to be happy. On the other hand, if you smell something unpleasant, you are more likely to be unhappy. That is (4) _______ there are so many businesses that work to create nice scents. Businesses also work on the best ways to deliver scents to people’s noses. Candles (5) _______. a whole room smell better. Oils and soaps also have health benefits.

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Alzheimer's disease impairs a person's ability to recall memories, both distant and as a few hours before. Although there is no yet a cure for the illness, there may be hope for a cure with a protein called nerve growth factor. The protein is produced by nerve cells in the same region of the brain where Alzheimer's occurs. Based on this relationship, scientists from the University of Lund in Sweden and the University of California at San Diego designed an experiment to test whether doses of nerve growth factor could reverse the effects of memory loss caused by Alzheimer's. Using a group of rats with impaired memory, the scientists gave half of the rats doses of nerve growth factor while giving the other half a blood protein as a placebo, thus creating a control group. At the end of the four-week test, the rats given the nerve growth factor performed equally to rats with normal memory abilities. While the experiment do not show that nerve growth factor can stop the general process of deterioration caused by Alzheimer's, they do show potential as a means to slowing the process significantly.
5. Which of the following is closest in meaning to the word "doses"?

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Don’t look now, but artificial intelligence is watching you. Artificial intelligence has tremendous power to enhance spying, and both authoritarian governments and democracies are adopting the technology as a tool of political and social control. Data collected from apps and websites already help optimize ads and social feeds. The same data can also reveal someone’s personal life and political leanings to the authorities. The trend is advancing thanks to smartphones, smart cameras, and more advanced AI. An algorithm developed at Stanford in 2017 claimed to tell from a photograph whether a person is gay. Accurate or not, such a tool creates a new opportunity for persecution. “Take this type of technology, feed it to a citywide CCTV surveillance system, and go to a place like Saudi Arabia where being gay is considered a crime,” says Lisa Talia Moretti, a digital sociologist. “Suddenly you’re pulling people off the street and arresting them because you’re gay, because the computer said so.”  No country has embraced facial recognition and AI surveillance as keenly as China. The AI industry there has flourished thanks to fierce competition and unrivaled access to personal data, and the rise of AI is enabling tighter government control of information, speech, and freedoms. In some Chinese cities, facial recognition is used to catch criminals in surveillance footage, and to publicly shame those who commit minor offenses. Most troubling, AI is being used in Xinjiang, a province in Western China, to persecute Muslims. Even if China’s AI capabilities are exaggerated, the AI boom there is having a chilling effect on personal freedom, says Ian Bremmer, an expert on global political risk and founder of the Eurasia Group. “You just need a government that is starting to get that capacity and make it known, and have a few people that are sort of strung up as examples, and suddenly everyone is scared,” he says. This might feel like a distant reality, but similar tools are being developed and used in the West. Just ask Glenn Rodriguez, who faced judgment from an algorithm when seeking parole from prison in the US. Despite 10 years of good behavior, Rodriguez saw how an algorithm called COMPAS, designed to predict inmates’ likelihood of reoffending, would be biased against him. And even though the parole board went against the computer program’s  
8. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

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Frenchman Edouard de Laboulaye first proposed the idea of a monument for the United States in 1865. Ten years later sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was commissioned to design a sculpture with 1876 in mind for completion, to commemorate the centennial of the American Declaration of Independence. The Statue was named “Liberty Enlightening the World” and was a joint effort between America and France. It was agreed that the American people were to build the pedestal, and the French people were responsible for the Statue and its assembly here in the United States. However, lack of funds was a problem on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In France, public fees, various forms of entertainment, and a lottery were among the methods used to raise funds. In the United States, benefit theatrical events, art exhibitions, auctions and prizefights assisted in providing needed funds. Poet Emma Lazarus wrote her famous sonnet “The New Colossus” in 1883 for the art and literary auction to raise funds for the Statue’s pedestal. Meanwhile in France, Bartholdi required the assistance of an engineer to address structural issues associated with designing such a colossal copper sculpture. Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (designer of the Eiffel Tower) was commissioned to design the massive iron pylon and secondary skeletal framework which allows the Statue’s copper skin to move independently yet stand upright Back in America, fundraising for the pedestal was going particularly slowly, so Joseph Pulitzer opened up the editorial pages of his newspaper, “The World,” to support the fund raising effort. Pulitzer used his newspaper to criticize both the rich who had failed to finance the pedestal construction and the middle class who were content to rely upon the wealthy to provide the funds. Pulitzer’s campaign of harsh criticism was successful in motivating the people of America to donate. Architect Richard Morris Hunt designed the Statue of Liberty’s granite pedestal in 1884, donating his fee to help fund the Statue. Financing for the pedestal was completed in August 1885, and pedestal construction was finished in April 1886. The Statue was completed in France in July 1884 and arrived in New York Harbor in June 1885 onboard the French frigate “Isere.” In transit, the Statue was reduced to 350 individual pieces and packed in 214 crates. The Statue was reassembled on her new pedestal in four months’ time. On October 28, 1886, President Grover Cleveland oversaw the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in front of thousands of spectators. She was a centennial gift ten years late  
8. According to the passage, which of the following statements about the Statue of Liberty is NOT true?

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the 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?

All of the following presidents were assassinated EXCEPT     .

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At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the American educational system was desperately in need of reform. Private schools existed, but only for the very rich. There were very
few public schools because of the strong sentiment that children who would grow up to be laborers should not “waste” their time on education but should instead prepare themselves for their life’s work. It was in the face of this public sentiment that educational reformers set about their task. Horace Mann, probably the most famous of the reformers, felt that there was no excuse in a republic for any citizen to be uneducated. As Manager of Education in the state of Massachusetts from 1837 to 1848, he initiated various changes, which were soon matched in other school districts around the country. He extended the school year from five to six months and improved the quality of teachers by instituting teacher education and raising teacher salaries. Although these changes did not bring about a sudden improvement in the educational system, they at least increased public awareness as to the need for a further strengthening of the system.

The word “they” in the passage refers to     .