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National parks protect the best of our natural heritage: stunning landscapes,  extraordinary wildlife and majestic forests. Together with other protected areas they form the basis of our economic and social wellbeing, attract millions of visitors annually, and help to protect Australia’s unique wildlife by acting as a refuge for threatened species. Future generations deserve the right to see these natural values intact and protected as we do today.  Our national parks form the cornerstone of biodiversity conservation in Australia, containing vital habitat that provides safe havens in which animals and plants can survive and thrive. Together with other protected areas, they provide a ‘backbone’ of core conservation areas that can be linked by conservation efforts across different tenures, supporting a diverse, healthy and resilient environment. A well-connected landscape is essential for saving NSW’s 1,000 threatened species, 70% of which occur in our national parks. In addition our protected areas provide life-sustaining services vital for the wellbeing of our environment and society, such as protection of urban water catchments and climate amelioration.  National Parks provide a major boost to Australia’s economy, with nature-based tourism bringing $23 billion into the country every year. Regional communities in particular benefit from the 35.5 million people who visit NSW’s national parks each year, through job creation and money spent on accommodation, fuel and food. The Great Barrier Reef alone attracts more than $6 billion a year in tourist-spending and supports over 63,000 jobs. Furthermore, from ancient aboriginal rock-art sites, to the buildings left over from early European settlements, our national parks also serve as a natural history book dating back thousands of years. Our national parks protect these vital and fragile places; areas where the traces of a history extending back more than 22,000 years can remain undisturbed.  Natural areas have a profound effect on our physical and emotional health and wellbeing. In our increasingly frenetic world, our national parks are important sanctuaries where people can take time out, enjoy nature, get fit, relax and revitalise, whilst nature’s inherent beauty serves as a source of artistic, creative and spiritual inspiration. Research on the benefits of contact with the natural environment show that it is likely to have a significant positive psychological effect, serving to reduce stress, anger, frustration and aggression, providing an opportunity for social bonding, and serving as a place for learning and mental stimulation. Children in particular display long-term benefits of playing outdoors.
6. The word “it” in paragraph 4 refers to _____.

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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. 
1. Which best serves as the title for the passage?

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Despite the fact that humans haven’t returned to the Moon since the cancellation of the Apollo program in 1972, there have nonetheless been incredible advances in space exploration in recent years. All across the world, human time is the most valuable commodity – particularly when it comes to solving problems. Far from stealing jobs, the majority of advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning are designed to automate relatively “simple” processes and free up time for humans to do what they do best. Already we have had a taste of what AI can achieve from space, even as far back as the early 2000s with the launch of the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite, which helps analyse and inform the appropriate response in the event of a disaster, such as hurricanes and volcanic eruptions. In some cases, the systems in place on EO-1 began capturing satellite images of disaster zones before ground personnel were even aware that a disaster had occurred. More recently, AI has been used on the Mars Curiosity rover, where AEGIS software is able to identify intriguing rock or soil patches that should be targeted for analysis. This significantly expedites the process of collecting data from the surface of Mars as the robot isn’t relying solely on human commands. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic – which hopes to soon begin conducting commercial flights – charges between $200,000 to $250,000 per ticket for a flight where passengers will experience just several minutes of weightlessness beyond the Karman line where space officially begins. Therefore, previous space missions have always needed to consider very carefully which astronauts they send to space, with the ultimate decision often coming down to an astronaut’s ability to act as a ‘jack-of-all-trade’. In future, it should be possible to automate the computing and engineering tasks that historically astronauts have had to train for. This would mean sending individuals with specialised expertise in science and research in place of the all-rounder astronauts of yesteryear. For success in space exploration in the years to come, we will need to continue along the exponential curve of open source uptake and see advances in the approach to how spacecraft software, hardware and infrastructure is developed and deployed. With this baseline in place, advances in AI-driven scientific research have the potential to propel us forwards.
4. According to paragraph 3, what is the challenge that paint the AI advances so valuable?

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The comings and goings of teenagers, while a frequent source of tension in the  parent–child relationship, are a crucial experience in the construction of social identities. For this age group, mobility is not just a practice that is socially determined – by social background, residential environment and schooling – but also a specific experience that durably shapes their relationships with the spaces and the social world they encounter.  Although mobility is a socialised practice, based on habits forged in the domestic, residential and school environments, it is itself a specific experience in teenage socialisation. At this age, mobility plays an important role in individuals’ learning of behaviours and ways of being, gradually reshaping the dispositions acquired during primary socialisation.  First of all, mobility affects teenagers’ ways of being and behaving within their peer group, which play an increasingly important role in teenage socialisation. At this age, peers become more and more involved in mobility practices: they are one of the key reasons for mobility but, above all, they become preferred partners in self-mobility situations.  Furthermore, the movements of teenagers, alone or in groups, gradually reshapes their dispositions vis-à-vis mobility, particularly those acquired in the domestic sphere. At this age, experiences in mobility have lasting effects on the future practices of teenagers. They sometimes help modify the dispositions of teenagers regarding transport modes. We could cite, among other examples, the case of a girl whose fear of the metro gradually diminished as a result of occasional trips with her best friend, who was more familiar with this mode of transport. These experiences also influence the spatial amplitude of future mobility, in particular preferences for travel within or outside one’s area of residence.  Lastly, mobility allows teenagers to discover the public domain, when it gives rise to interactions that take place under the gaze of an incidental audience and which are therefore subject to specific rules. In the course of their travels, teenagers gradually become familiar with these rules, and they mutually adapt their behaviours to those of other citizens so as to eventually find their place within the public domain. Listening to music on mobile phones on public transport, for example, is appropriate to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the circumstances at the time.
4. The word “diminished” in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to _______

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the undelined part that needs correction in each of the following questions:
In the USA, the UK and many other countries, a lot of babies were born in the “baby boom” of the late 1940s and 1950s; after that the birth-rate fell. Baby boomers have now retired, or are approaching retirement, and this is causing headaches for many organizations: there are not enough people to succeed their top managers when they retire.
Does your organization have key staff who can’t easily be replaced? A CEO or financial director, perhaps, or a technical expert with knowledge that nobody else in the organization has. If your answer is “yes”, what will happen when they retire, or leave for another company? Will you wait until the last moment before looking for someone to replace them? Or is your organization thinking about likely future changes now, as it should be, and making plans, so that there is likely to be someone ready to replace the person leaving? If the answer is that you are planning ahead, your organization is carrying out succession planning.
Succession planning means looking inside the organization for “high-fliers” - current staff members with the potential to fill key positions - and planning the training, responsibilities and promotion they need, to make them ready when a senior vacancy occurs - which may not be for several years. The company benefits by being able to make an internal promotion when a key person leaves, and in the meantime it benefits by developing the skills of its high-fliers and encouraging them to stay. And the high-fliers benefit, because they achieve their full potential, a career is planned for them within the organization, and they can look forward to a senior post in time.
The training program planned for the high-fliers will help them to develop the leadership skills they need for more senior roles, skills such as planning long-term strategies. A career path is also planned, so that each high-flier moves into a number of different positions over a few years, to gain the experience and know ledge they need.
Sometimes a staff member is chosen as a potential successor to a particular senior manager, but a better method is for organizations to select a number of high-fliers, and prepare them for a range of senior roles. An organization can’t be certain when a particular senior manager will leave. Having a group of people being prepared fee top positions makes it easier to replace someone who leaves unexpectedly, and also means that there are other people available if a high-flier leaves the company.

The word “succeed” in the passage is closest in meaning to     .

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Stonehenge, the prehistoric stone circle in southern England, is one of the most distinctive and mysterious monuments in the world. The monument, which attracted more than one and a half million visitors last year, is thought to be up to 5,000 years old, and the heaviest stone weighs 38 tons. No one really knows how the stones got there, or the reason they look the way they do – but a piece removed from one of the stones six decades ago could bring some answers. At first glance, the new “discovery” - a cylinder of rock - might look unremarkable. But for Lewis and Robin Phillips, it meant one thing: their dad, Robert. In 1958, Robert Phillips worked on a major restoration project commissioned by the British government. The goal was to make the monument safer, and help historians better understand what Stonehenge was and why it was there. The team drilled through the largest of the sarsen rocks, removing three stone cores. Robert Phillips was gifted one as a souvenir. At the time, the core sample was considered to be “waste material,” Lewis said. “I think that the standards of the day, in conservation, were a bit different to what they are now,” Robert added. Six decades later, Robert - who’s now in his 90s - asked his sons to return the “waste material.” But what had become a family heirloom for the Phillips’ was “the Holy Grail” of Stonehenge for geologists, according to Susan Greaney, an archaeologist at English Heritage. “When the Phillips family first got in touch with us, we had no idea that this existed,” Greaney said. “We’d just assumed that they’d been thrown away.” In 1958, samples like this couldn’t provide much information - but now, Greaney added, it can help archaeologists understand where the stones were from and how they were transported. It could even provide clues to one of the biggest questions: why move all these rocks to one location? Right now, “we don’t know” is the answer to that, Greaney said. "We think this is a prehistoric temple. It’s aligned with the movements of the sun, so we think it’s some kind of ceremonial space. But exactly what the stones mean, why they built them in this way and set them up in the way we see today, there are lots of mysteries about Stonehenge that we have yet to get to the bottom of. 
1. Which best serves as the title for the passage?

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An astronaut living in space begins a day in much the same way as he would on Earth.  The astronaut is able to brush his teeth and use the toilet in space. It is, however, rather challenging as the water droplets will (1) _________ around. The astronaut will also have to make to do with sponge baths.  There is a special plan for the astronaut on (2) _______ a spaceship which includes beverages and food items. The astronaut is allowed to have a maximum of three main meals a day. The meal varies each day until the sixth day. On that day, the menu is (3) _______ and the astronaut eats the meals he had on the first day. The food that is brought on a shuttle mission can be dehydrated, in natural (4) _________ for fresh. Sometimes, they are kept in thermostabilized cans or sealed pouches. It takes only thirty minutes to cook a delicious meal for a (5) ____________ of up to seven people on a space mission. However, astronauts have to eat slowly and carefully or the food will float away

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the undelined part that needs correction in each of the following questions:
There has been much debate over the past few decades concerning fears that automation will lead to robots replacing human workers on a massive scale.
The increasing use of robotics, computers and artificial intelligence is a reality, but its full implications are far from cut and dried. Some forecasts present the future in a utopian way, claiming that robots will take over the tedious heavy work thus freeing up human time and potential, allowing for more creativity and innovation. At the other end of spectrum are those who foresee an employment apocalypse, predicting that almost fifty percent of all American jobs could vanish within the next few decades. Former Microsoft chairman Bill Gates states that in 20 years robots could be in place in a number of job categories, particularly those at lower end of the scale in terms of skills.
The bottom line is that while the future is always uncertain, robots are a fixture of our society, which is not going to disappear. As with the Industrial Revolution, where machines were utilized in many tasks in place of manual laborers and social upheaval followed, the Digital Revolution is likely to place robots in various jobs. In spite of that, many of today’s jobs were not in existence before the Industrial Revolution, such as those of programmers, engineers and data scientists. This leads other experts to criticize this alarmist approach of robot scare-mongering, which is invariably compared to the 19th-century “Luddites”. This group was textile workers who feared being displaced by machines and resorted to violence, burning down factories and destroying industrial equipment – their rejection of inevitable progress has come to symbolize mindless ignorance.
Needless to say, exactly what new kinds of jobs might exist in the future is difficult to envision at present. Therefore, the crux of the issue is not whether jobs will be lost, but whether the creation of new vacancies will outpace the ever-increasing number of losses and what skills will be required in the future.
It is clearly not all doom and gloom, as demand for employees with skills in data analysis, coding, computer science, artificial intelligence and human-machine interface is rising and will continue to do so. Furthermore, the demand for skills in jobs where humans surpass computers, such as those involving  care, creativity and innovative craftmanship, are likely to increase considerably. Ultimately, the key lies in the adaptation of the workforces, through appropriate education and training, to keep pace with our world’s technological progress.

What can be inferred from the comments made by Bill Gates?

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The human desire for companionship may feel boundless, but research suggests that  our social capital is finite. Social scientists have used a number of ingenious approaches to gauge the size of people’s social networks; these have returned estimates ranging from about 250 to about 5,500 people. An undergraduate thesis from MIT focusing exclusively on Franklin D. Roosevelt, a friendly guy with an especially social job, suggested that he might have had as many as 22,500 acquaintances. Looking more specifically at friendship, a study using the exchange of Christmas cards as a proxy for closeness put the average person’s friend group at about 121 people.  However vast our networks may be, our inner circle tends to be much smaller. The average American trusts only 10 to 20 people. Moreover, that number may be shrinking: From 1985 to 2004, the average number of confidants that people reported having decreased from three to two. This is both sad and consequential, because whoever has strong social relationships tends to live longer than those who don’t. So what should you do if your social life is lacking? Just follow the research. To begin with, don’t dismiss the humble acquaintance. Even interacting with people with whom one has weak social ties has a meaningful influence on well-being. Beyond that, building deeper friendships may be largely a matter of putting in time. A recent study out of the University of Kansas found that it takes about 50 hours of socializing to go from acquaintance to casual friend, an additional 40 hours to become a “real” friend, and a total of 200 hours to become a close friend. If that sounds like too much effort, reviving dormant social ties can be especially rewarding. Reconnected friends can quickly recapture much of the trust they previously built, while offering each other a dash of novelty drawn from whatever they’ve been up to in the meantime. And if all else fails, you could start randomly confiding in people you don’t know that well in hopes of letting the tail wag the relational dog. The academic literature is clear: Longing for closeness and connection is pervasive. Which suggests that most of us are stumbling through the world pining for companionship that could be easily provided by the lonesome stumblers all around us.
6. The word “dormant” in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to _______

Read the passage carefully, then choose the correct answers.

The dramatic growth of the world's population in the twentieth century was on a scale without parallel in human history. Most of this growth had occurred since 1950 and was known as the population 'explosion'. Between 1950 and 1980 the world population increased from 2.5 to over 4 billion, and by the end of the twenty century the figure had risen to about 6.6 billion. Growth of this size cannot continue indefinitely. Recent forecasts suggest that the total population will level out at between 10 and 15 billion in the mid twenty first century. Already there are encouraging signs that the rate of increase in many less developed countries is beginning to slow down.

It has been forecast that, by the middle of the twenty-first century _____.

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Whether a species is endangered—meaning at risk of extinction—depends on which definition you use. The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species classifies an animal as endangered when its numbers in the wild have dropped so low that it’s at “extremely high risk” of extinction. Meanwhile, the United States’ Endangered Species Act of 1973 takes into consideration any destruction to a species’ habitat, whether it has been over-consumed, any disease or predation that threaten it, whether any other man-made factors put it in danger, and what policies currently exist to protect it. When members of the public or a state agency propose to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service that a species be listed as endangered under the law, research and management plans are formed to help those species survive. It is illegal under the Endangered Species Act to capture, hunt, shoot, or otherwise harm an animal that’s listed as endangered. Sometimes, federal agencies decide that although a species could be considered endangered, other species are higher priorities. In those cases, the animal or plant gets limited protections. One animal whose numbers have increased through conservation is the bald eagle. There were only about 500 bald eagles in the continental United States in the 1960s because of pesticides that damaged the shells of their eggs. Conservation efforts including captive breeding programs, habitat protection, and a ban on the insecticide DDT helped the bald eagle’s numbers soar back into the thousands. Another is the giant panda, which was declared no longer endangered in 2016 thanks to 50 years of efforts to save it. U.S. Rep. John Dingell, who wrote the Endangered Species Act, argued that “only natural extinction is part of natural order.” Scientists believe that 227 species - including the grizzly bear, the peregrine falcon and the gray wolf - were saved from extinction in the first 33 years of the law’s existence. Still, critics argue that the act is expensive and ineffective because it protects so many species. Several federal courts have heard and rejected arguments that the Endangered Species Act is unconstitutional, and members of Congress have tried to weaken the law in small ways.
4. According to paragraph 2, what can happen to the species filed under the endangered list?

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Vegetables are parts of (1) __________ that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. The original meaning is still commonly used and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, (2) __________ the flowers, fruits, stems, leaves, roots, and seeds. Originally, vegetables were collected from the wild by huntergatherers and entered cultivation in several parts of the world, probably during the period 10,000 BC to 7,000 BC, when a new agricultural way of life developed. At first, plants which grew locally would have been cultivated, but as time went on, trade brought exotic crops from (3)__________ to add to domestic types. Nowadays, most vegetables are grown all over the world as climate permits. Crops may be cultivated in protected environments in less suitable locations, and global trade in (4) __________ products allows consumers to purchase vegetables grown in faraway countries. The scale of production varies from subsistence farmers supplying the needs of their family for food, to agribusinesses with vast areas of single-product crops. Depending on the type of vegetable concerned, harvesting the crop is followed by grading, storing, processing, and marketing. Vegetables can be eaten (5) __________ raw or cooked and play an important role in human nutrition, being mostly low in fat and carbohydrates, but high in vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber. Many nutritionists encourage people to consume plenty of fruit and vegetables, five or more portions a day often being recommended

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A new method for analyzing DNA collected from waterways which can help identify endangered bird species has been developed with the help of researchers from The University of Western Australia. The DNA analysis method developed also with researchers from Charles Darwin University and the Northern Territory’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources provides a new way of understanding the distribution of endangered birds by analyzing DNA collected in the waterways where they drink. The research, which will be published in Endangered Species Research Journal, offers new possibilities to support conservation efforts and increase understanding of birds that are scarce and otherwise hard to capture data on. The team developed a probe to locate DNA in water samples of the critically endangered Gouldian Finch (Erythrura gouldiae), a rainbowcolored grassfinch endemic to the savanna woodlands of northern Australia. UWA Professor Simon Jarman from the School of Biological Sciences said the researchers thought it would be hard to detect bird DNA in tropical conditions where the rate of DNA breakdown was high. “We were also sampling from pools where the water was not flowing and there was a lot of sediment and algal and bacterial growth,” Professor Jarman said. “However we were really pleased to get reliable bird detections from our methods showing DNA can be used to detect many species from the poles to the equator.” Professor Jarman said the Gouldian Finch was a beautiful and iconic species that was endangered due to habitat loss from being hunted extensively. "The DNA method will help to map where the finches are currently found with great accuracy, which will help persuade people to conserve the areas where they live," he said.  
4. The word “they” in paragraph 4 refers to _______

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Pick any day in the Piazza del Duomo in the Italian city of Pisa, and you will  undoubtedly spot a bunch of tourists posing for the same photo: hands outstretched towards the cathedral’s conspicuously tilting bell tower, as if they are supporting it with their sheer strength. The so-called Leaning Tower of Pisa is one of the most famous buildings in the world, although maybe not for the reasons its original architects would have wanted.  In 1173, construction began on a white marble bell tower for the cathedral complex in Pisa, located between the Arno and Serchio rivers in Tuscany, central Italy. By the time builders had finished the third of eight planned stories about five years later, the tower’s foundation had begun to settle unevenly on the ground beneath it, a dense mixture of clay, sand and shells. As a result, the structure had begun to tilt visibly toward the south. Shortly after that, war broke out between Pisa and Genoa, another Italian city-state, halting construction for nearly a century. This delay allowed the foundation to settle further, likely prevented the bell tower’s premature collapse.  When construction resumed, chief engineer Giovanni di Simone tried to compensate for the lean by adding extra masonry to the short side, but the additional weight caused the structure to tilt even further. The tower was officially completed around 1370, but its lean only increased over the next six centuries, becoming an integral part of the monument’s quirky appeal. Despite various attempts to reinforce it, Pisa’s tower continued to subside at a rate of some 0.05 inches per year, placing it in increasing danger of collapse. By 1990, it was leaning 5.5 degrees (or some 15 feet) from the perpendicular–the most extreme angle yet. That year, the monument was closed to visitors and the bells removed as engineers started extensive reparations to stabilize it. By siphoning earth from beneath and adding counterweights to the tower’s north end, they were able to reduce the lean to 13.5 feet, or 4.0 degrees from perpendicular. The straightening continued after the tower reopened in 2001, and in 2008 sensors showed the subsiding motion had stopped, after a total improvement of some 19 inches. Engineers now believe the Leaning Tower of Pisa will remain stable for some 200 years, barring an earthquake or other unpredictable disaster. 
3. The word “it” in paragraph 1 refers to _____

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While good grades are important and should be something every student strives for, they do not necessarily correlate with a student’s intelligence. Students should worry less about their grades and instead care more about retaining the content they are learning and gaining actual knowledge. David Thomas, a principal lecturer at ASU, said there are varying theories about intelligence. One of them is the entity theory of intelligence, which describes intelligence as being stable throughout someone’s life. Thomas said there are also people who think just the opposite, and that a person can become more intelligent throughout their life. While there are varying theories on what intelligence is and whether it can improve, you can gain knowledge throughout the course of your life. This principle should be the focus of education, not a person’s grades. Every student at ASU is preparing for a career and learning the necessary skills to do well in their desired industry. Getting an “A” on a test will not mean anything if you cannot apply the material you learned to real-life situations. Just because someone gets an “A” in a class or is in Barrett, the Honors College, it doesn’t define intelligence. Similarly, someone who gets a “D” in a class is not necessarily unintelligent, as there are other factors that play into grades. Take Bill Gates for example, a very wealthy and successful man who dropped out of Harvard University two years into his degree and later became the co-founder of Microsoft. He is intelligent, and yet he did not have a college degree when he started his company. Additionally, Thomas said motivation plays a big part in a person’s grades. A student with mastery-oriented motivation approaches a class with curiosity and an interest in the subject, whereas a student with performance-orientated motivation does so solely from a grade standpoint. If people spent the same amount of time working to ensure they retain important information as they did pulling all-nighters to cram for finals, they could become be more intelligent. Students should focus on developing their critical thinking and problemsolving skills rather than simply memorizing information for a test. A transcript only shows a student’s motivation, dedication and work ethic — not their personality, humor, work or life experiences. While grades still matter, we need to stop weighing our intelligence through grades and instead recognize that intelligence comes in all forms.
7. The word “ethic” in paragraph 5 can be replaced by ________

Choose the word or phrase  A, B, C or D that best fits the blank space in the following passage:

"Face-to-face conversation is a two-way process: you speak to me, I reply to you and so on. Two-way (1)….. depends on having a coding System that is understood by both (2)….. and receiver, and an agreed convention about (3)…. the beginning and end of the (4)… . In speech, the coding System is the language like English or Spanish; the convention that one person speaks at a time may seem too obvious to (5)…. . In fact, the (6)…..that people use in conversations and meetings are often non- verbal. For example, lowering the pitch of voice may mean the end of a sentence; a Sharp intake of breath may signal the desire to (7)….. , catching the chairman’s (8)…. may indicate the desire to speak in a formal setting like a (9)….. , a clenched fist may indicate anger. When these (10)….. signals are not possible, more formal signals may be needed."

9. in a formal setting like a (9)….. , a clenched fist may indicate anger.

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Where humans have planted crops for food, unless they are organic, poisonous chemicals have been sprayed on them; insecticides are used to kill insect pests and herbicides are used to kill weeds. Fungicides fight off fungal diseases. Artificial fertilizers are added to the soil to increase the yield of the crops. If these chemicals are used in excess, some of them dissolve in rainwater and drain into rivers, streams and ponds, polluting the water and killing the wildlife. The “weeds” competing with the farmers’ crops include wild flowers and many of these have become endangered through the use of herbicides. Insects rely on plants for food and breeding sites so the number of these are affected by a reduction in the number of plants. Many birds depend on insects for food so the numbers of birds may be affected by the use of both insecticides and herbicides. One of the reasons why the Barn Owl is endangered is due to a shortage of insects and it may also be poisoned by eating insects affected by chemical sprays. The case of DDT and other chemicals known as organo-chlorines is well known. These were first used extensively in the 1950s, sprayed onto crops to kill insect pests. Unfortunately, after a few years, it was noticed that birds of prey were rapidly declining in numbers and thousands of seed-eating birds were dying. By the 1960s, the once common sparrow hawk was a rare bird in Britain. The sparrow hawk’s prey was the seed-eating birds which were carrying the poisonous insecticides in their bodies. Consequently, many sparrow hawks and other birds of prey were being indirectly poisoned by the chemical sprays. The organo-chlorines also caused many birds to lay thin shelled eggs, which cracked easily. Research showed that the chemicals were entering the food chains and being stored in the fat of the animals’ bodies. For example, a thrush may eat snails which have eaten a sprayed cabbage plant. The thrush may not have eaten enough poison to be actually killed but a sparrowhawk eating several thrushes accumulates so much of the poison that it is killed. The chemicals become more concentrated as they travel up the food chain. Even most humans still have small amounts of organo-chlorines in their fatty tissues although these chemicals had been withdrawn from use by 1976. They are still used, however, in some Third World countries. By the 1980s, the sparrowhawk population had recovered dramatically and it is once again a common bird. This example shows just how dangerous the use of chemicals in the environment can be. As mentioned earlier, some plants are endangered through collectors such as the Venus fly-trap and some tropical orchids, but most threatened plants have become so through the destruction of their habitat. Once very common plants have almost disappeared because of the way humans have changed the land. For example, the Egyptian Papyrus, a type of reed, had been used for thousands of years for all sorts of things such as paper, medicine, boats, baskets, food etc. Then, when changes in the irrigation methods on the river Nile were introduced, this valuable plant almost completely disappeared. It was thought to be extinct until 1968 when a few plants were found in an undisturbed waterway. Orchids have been also collected from rainforests to become household favourites, causing many species to become endangered.  
8. It can be inferred from the passage that _____________

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the undelined part that needs correction in each of the following questions:
It is said that George Washington was one of the first to realize how important tire building of canals would be to the nation’s development. In fact, before he became the President, he headed the first company in the United States to build a canal, which was to connect the Ohio and Potomac rivers. It was never completed, but it showed the nation the feasibility of canals. As the country expanded westward, settlers in western New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio needed a means to ship goods. Canals linking natural waterways seemed to supply an effective method.
In 1791, engineers commissioned by the state of New York investigated the possibility of a canal between Albany on the Hudson River and Buffalo on Lake Eric to link the Great Lakes area with the Atlantic seacoast. It would avoid the mountains that served as a barrier to canals from the Delaware and Potomac rivers.
The first attempt to dig the canal, to be called the Eric Canal, was made by private companies but only a comparatively small portion was built before the project was halted for lack of funds. The cost of the prospect was estimated $5 million, an enormous amount for those days. There was some on-again-off-again federal funding, but this time the War of 1812 put an end to construction. In 1817, DeWitt Clinton was elected Governor of New York and persuaded the state to finance and build the canal. It was completed in 1825, costing S2 million more than expected.
The canal rapidly lived up to its sponsors’ faith, quickly paying for itself through tolls. It was far more economical than any other form of transportation at the time. It permitted trade between the Great Lake region and the East coast, robbing the Mississippi River of much of its traffic. It allowed New York to supplant Boston, Philadelphia, and other eastern cities as the chief center of both domestic and foreign commerce. Cities sprang up along the canal. It also contributed in a number of ways to the Norths victory over the South in the Civil War.
An expansion of the canal was planned in 1849. Increased traffic would undoubtedly have warranted its construction had it not been for the railroads.

According to the passage, the Eric Canal connected the      

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:
The ruined temples of Angkor are perhaps one of the most impressive Seven Wonders of the World. Located in modern day Cambodia near Lake Tonle Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Asia, Angkor was the seat of power for the Khmer Empire for the ninth to the fifteenth century. The ruins of Angkor are documented as some of the most impressive ones in the world, rivaling the pyramids of Giza in Egypt. Why this mighty civilization died out is a question that archaeologists are now only beginning to ponder. The answer, it turns out, may be linked with the availability of fresh water.
One possible explanation for the downfall of the Khmer Empire has to do with the inhabitant’s irrigation system. The temples and palaces of Angkor were constructed around a series of artificial reservoirs and canals which were annually flooded to capacity by the Mekong River. Once filled, they were used to irrigate the surrounding paddies and farmland during the course of the year. Farmers were completely dependent on the water for their crucial rice crop. Without consistent irrigation, the farmers would have been unable to maintain functional crop production.
Scientists speculate that toward the end of the Khmer Empire the hydraulic system of the reservoirs and canals broke down. The construction of hundreds of sandstone temples and palaces required an enormous amount of physical labor. In addition, as the capital of Khmer Empire, Angkor contained upwards of one hundred thousand people who resided in and around Angkor. In order to feed so many people, the local farmers were driven to grow food more quickly and more efficiently. After centuries of continual use, the irrigation system was pushed beyond its capacity. Soil erosion, nutrient depletion, and loss of water led to decrease in the food supply. With the less food available, the people of Angkor slowly began to migrate to other parts of Cambodia, thus leaving the marvelous city of Angkor to be swallowed by the jungle. Therefore, it is speculated that the Khmer Empire may have fallen victim to its own decrepit infrastructure.

The word “seat” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to     .

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
In Viet Nam festivals often take place during the three months in spring and in autumn when people have a lot of leisure time. In addition, the climate in spring and autumn is especially suitable for holding festivals and for festivals goers to enjoy. Traditional festivals constitute a form of cultural activities, a spiritual product which the people have created and developed during the course of history. From generation to generation, the Vietnamese people preserve the fine tradition of “remembering the source while drinking water.” Festivals are events which represent this tradition of the community as well as honor the holy figures named as “gods” – the real persons in national history or legendary persons. The images of gods converge the noble characteristics of mankind. They are national heroes who fought against foreign invaders, reclaimed new lands, treated people, fought against natural calamities, or those legendary characters who affect the earthly life. Accordingly, first and foremost, festivals are events when people pay tribute to divinities that rendered merits to the community and the nation. These are occasions when people come back to either their natural or national roots, which form a sacred part in their mind. Furthermore, festivals represent the strength of the commune or village, the local region or even the whole nation. Worshipping the same god, the people unite in solidarity to overcome difficulties, striving for a happy and wealthy life. Moreover, festivals display the demand for creativity and enjoyment of spiritual and material cultural values of all social strata. Festivals become a form of education under which fine traditional moral values can be handed from one generation to the next in a unique way of combining spiritual characters with competition and entertainment games. Festivals are also the time people can express their sadness and worries in a wish that gods might bestow favor on them to help them strive for a better life.  
5. What is the best title of the passage?