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Population in the world is currently (2018) growing at a rate of around 1.09% per year (down from 1.12% in 2017 and 1.14% in 2016). The current average population increase is estimated (1)________83 million people per year Annual growth rate reached its (2)__________in the late 1960s, when it was at around 2%. The rate of increase has nearly halved since then, and will continue (3)_________in the coming years. It is estimated to reach 1% by 2023, less than 0.5% by 2052, and 0.25% in 2076 (a yearly addition of 27 million people to a population of 10.7 billion). In 2100, it should be only 0.09%, or an addition of only 10 million people to a total population of 11.2 billion. World population will therefore continue to grow in the 21st century, but at a much slower rate (4)___________to the recent past. World population has doubled (100% increase) in 40 years from 1959 (3 billion) to 1999 (6 billion). It is now estimated that it will (5)_________another nearly 40 years to increase by another 50% to become 9 billion by 2037

Books which give instructions on how to do things are very popular in the United States today. Thousands of these How-to books are useful. In fact, there are about four thousand books with titles that begin with the words “How to”. One book may tell you how to earn more money. Another may tell you how to save or spend it and another may explain how to give your money away.

Many How-to books give advice on careers. They tell you how to choose a career and ‘now to succeed in it. If you fail, however, you can buy the book ” How to Turn Failure into Success”. If you would like to become very rich, you can buy the book “How to Make a Millionaire”. If you never make any money at all, you may need a book called “How to Live on Nothing”.

One of the most popular types of books is one that helps you with personal problems. If you want to have a better love of life, you can read “How to Succeed in Love every Minute of Your Life”. If you are tired of books on happiness, you may prefer books which give step-by-step instructions on how to redecorate or enlarge a house.

Why have How-to books become so popular? Probably because life has become so complex. Today people have far more free time to use, more choices to make, and more problems to solve. How-to books help people deal with modern life.

Which of the following is NOT the type of books giving information on careers?

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The print media includes newspapers, magazines, brochures, newsletters, books and even leaflets and pamphlets. Visual media like photography can also be mentioned under this sub-head, since photography is an important mass media, which communicates via visual representations. Although it is said that the electronic or new media have replaced the print media, there exists a majority of audiences who prefer the print media for various communication purposes. Public speaking and event organizing can also be considered as a form of mass media. For many people, it is impossible to imagine a life without their television sets, be it the daily news dose or even the soap operas. This mass media includes television and radio. This category also included electronic media like movies, CDs and DVDs as well as the new hottest electronic gadgets.  With the advent of new technologies like Internet, we are now enjoying the benefits of high technology mass media, which is not only faster than the old-school mass media, but also has a widespread range. Mobile phones, computers and Internet are often referred to as the new-age media. Internet has opened up several new opportunities for mass communication which include email, websites, blogging, Internet television and many other mass media which are booming today. Mass media was developed as a means of social responsibility at the beginning. However, in the course of time, they have attained the status of an industry. Besides the social and industrial nature of mass media, the following common points may also be mentioned. Specifically, it is highly impersonal, because the masses are not identifiable based on perfectly defined audio, visual or written messages. In addition, it is never likely to reach 100 percent of the target nor to have more than 10 percent effectiveness in most of the cases. Contents are generally based on the broad social issues and aspiration of the target audience which may be designed to achieve some specific goals; and all in all, modern mass media draw heavily on technology  
2. Print media may have to compete with _______________

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Concord used to be _______ passenger plane in the world

Rewrite the sentence:
Nobody in the class is as tall as Mike.

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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.
9. According to the passage, the iridium found beneath the ocean floor near Bermuda: 

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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

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Do you know that your place on the family ladder may have certain effects on the sort of person you grow up to be? You may be the only child, the eldest, youngest or (1) _______ one; you may be the youngest of three boys or the eldest girl with a younger brother and sister. All the different combinations of relationships will have helped to (2) __________ you the person you are. The number of years between your siblings and you also helps to shape your character. Knowing such details about your best friend or loved one (3) _______ also tell you about the type of friend or partner he needs. For example, a boy with a younger sister would normally get along much better (4) ______ a girl who has an older brother than with a girl who has a younger brother. Similarly, if your girlfriend is the oldest in her family, she would probably be domineering. Fortunately for all of us, family psychology is not (5) _______ accurate. There are always exceptions to the rule. Most important of all, we should always judge people according to who they are, not the relatives they have

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Thunderstorms, with their jagged bursts of lightning and roaring thunder, are actually one of nature’s primary mechanisms for transferring heat from the surface of the earth into the atmosphere. A thunderstorm starts when low-lying pockets of warm air from the surface of the earth begin to rise. The pockets of warm air float upward through the air above that is both cooler and heavier. The rising pockets cool as their pressure decreases, and their latent heat is released above the condensation line through the formation of cumulus clouds. What will happen with these clouds depends on the temperature of the atmosphere. In winter, the air temperature differential between higher and lower altitudes is not extremely great, and the temperature of the rising air mass drops more slowly. During these colder months, the atmosphere, therefore, tends to remain rather stable. In summer, however, when there is a high accumulation of heat near the earth’s surface, in direct contrast to the considerably colder air higher up, the temperature differential between higher and lower altitudes is much more pronounced. As warm air rises in this type of environment, the temperature drops much more rapidly than it does in winter; when the temperature drops more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit per thousand feet of altitude, cumulus clouds aggregate into a single massive cumulonimbus cloud, or thunderhead. In isolation, a single thunderstorm is an impressive but fairly benign way for Mother Earth to defuse trapped heat from her surface; thunderstorms, however, can appear in concert, and the resulting show, while extremely impressive, can also prove extraordinarily destructive. When there is a large-scale collision between cold air and warm air masses during the summer months, a squall line, or series of thunderheads, may develop. It is common for a squall line to begin when an advancing cold front meets up with and forces itself under a layer of warm and moist air, creating a line of thunderstorms that races forward at speeds of approximately forty miles per hour. A squall line, which can be hundreds of miles long and can contain fifty distinct thunderheads, is a magnificent force of nature with incredible potential for destruction. Within the squall line, often near its southern end, can be found supercells, long-lived rotating storms of exceptional strength that serve as the source of tornadoes.
3. It can be inferred from the passage that, in summer, ________

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Napoleon/ attack/ the/ West Indian island/ of/ Santo Domingo/ 1801.

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The national teachers union and an activist group have welcomed Human Resources  Minister M Kula Segaran’s announcement that schools will be supplied with a list of endangered jobs, saying it will be a useful aid in career guidance. Kula said on Wednesday that the list would help pupils decide what courses to avoid in pursuing further studies. Kula spoke of the looming fourth industrial revolution, saying it could result in the irrelevance of 30% of existing jobs. Harry Tan, the secretary-general of the National Union of the Teaching Profession, said the list would be a good additional tool for schools in their work to prepare students for the job market, and Parent Action Group for Education chairman Noor Azimah Rahim said its use could result in an easing of the problem of youth unemployment.  Tan told FMT he hoped the education and human resources ministries would also consult the private sector since they were familiar with market forces. He said teachers would always try to help students pursue their dreams, but he added that schools were facing what he called “logistical issues” that could prevent them from effectively preparing students for future jobs. One of these problems, he said, was a shortage of English teachers and another was a lack of computer numerical control machines in vocational colleges.  Azimah warned against using the list as more than just a guide, saying the job market would keep changing with the times. What would remain a constant, she said, was the need for students to be bilingual, to master the foundations of mathematics and science and to balance these with involvement in sports and the arts. She urged teachers to promote creative thinking and problem solving skills among their students, saying these were sought after by employers. 
1. Which best serves as the title for the passage?

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Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical 1963 book “The Bell Jar” is most likely to be found in a sophomore English class, pored over by high-school students. But recently at Squarefoot, a commercial real estate company based in Manhattan, it was the chosen book title for the office book club. “People really latched onto [“The Bell Jar”] and talked about women’s roles in the workplace,” says Eliza Bell, people-operations manager. “The book club has been a bonding opportunity. People are able to learn about each other, and it’s really nice to talk about stuff that isn’t work-related. ‘The Bell Jar’ really brought that out, and we were able to talk about diversity initiatives.” Over the summer, the book pick was “The Hate U Give,” the 2017 young adult novel by Angie Thomas. The monthly club meets during a lunch that is provided by the company. In its first iteration, the club met after work and read business books: Not surprisingly, people weren’t quite as enthusiastic about that initiative. The club is the brainchild of CEO Jonathan. Wasserstrum, who is passionate about reading. There are some rules: At the beginning everyone has a chance to express what they liked or didn’t like. “If someone goes on a rant, it’s important to change the topic and move to another one,” says Bell. “When we read ‘The Last Lecture’ [the 2008 bestseller co-authored by the late Randy Pausch] for instance, it got a little heated.” What makes for a good pick? “We need an aspect of it to get people excited. It’s important that the books are ones people will have opinions on. People can learn from all sorts of different books,” says Bell. “And they have to be less than 250 pages.”  
3. According to paragraph 1, which statement is NOT correct about the novel “The Bell Jar”?

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We'll see you after the performance or give you £50 for the tickets, however much they cost.

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Australia has a well-organized and well-structured education system. The education starts at the age of five or six, but it may differ by a narrow margin between states. It starts with the preschool education which is not compulsory and can be offered within a school or separately. The primary and secondary school encompasses the compulsory education for Australians. There are a large number of primary and high school across the country with most of them being public schools. It is estimated that public schools amount to 60% of scholars as opposed to 40% in private settings. All these education providers must be licensed by the government and must fulfill certain requirements including infrastructure and teaching. Universities, on the other hand, are mainly public institutions. The Australian education system has established a standard curriculum so all scholars will be given the same quality of education. Despite there may be some states at which this curriculum is modified a bit, but the change is not that significant. The actual curriculum set  out in Australia education system is based on important abilities one must have in his life: Literacy, Numeracy, Information and communication technology, Critical and creative thinking, personal and social capability, ethical understanding, intercultural understanding. Vocational and Technical schools prepare students that want to skip the university and want to move directly to the job market. Actually, here it stands the difference between universities and colleges: the Vocational and Technical Schools are more oriented in teaching practical skills while university courses are mainly theory-based to lead students to different academic careers. There are hundreds of other schools out there that provide technical and further education (TAFE) and vocational education and training (VET). These schools offer short courses, certificates I through IV, diplomas, and advanced diplomas. They focus on training their students in a particular vocation or just to help their students get out into the workplace. These schools offer a wide variety of courses and qualifications attained by these courses can lead to different career pathways to follow afterward  Australian higher education modernity and reputation relies on a huge number of educational providers including universities and different training organizations. Currently, there are 43 universities across the country. The vast majority of universities are public except two private universities. The world-class teaching offered is surely undisputed. Seven Australian universities are traditionally found at the top 100 best universities in the world which is a sufficient indicator to highlight their quality. Besides universities, more than 5,000 training organizations are registered and accredited. Actual figures show that the number of enrolled students is around 3.8 million with international students sharing more than half a million. There are also 3 self-accrediting higher education institutions. Furthermore, dozens of smaller schools do not grant any degrees or have an accreditation – these are private schools that focus on theology, business, information technology, natural therapies, hospitality, health, law, and accounting.  
2. According to paragraph 1, which of the following is TRUE about the educationin Australia?

Find mistake:

In order that training be efficient, there must be targeted system.

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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.
4. The word “strived” in the second paragraph is closest in meaning to: 

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The word noise is derived from the Latin word nausea, meaning “seasickness”. Noise is among the most pervasive pollutants today. Noise pollution can broadly be defined as unwanted or offensive sounds that unreasonably intrude into our daily activities. Noises from traffic, jet engines, barking dogs, garbage trucks, construction equipment, factories, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, televisions, boom boxes and car radios, to name a few, are among the audible litter that is routinely broadcast into the air. One measure of pollution is the danger it poses to health. Noise negatively affects human health and well-being. Problems related to noise include hearing loss, stress, high blood pressure, sleeplessness, fright, distraction, and lost productivity. Noise pollution also contributes to a general reduction in the quality of life and eliminates opportunities for tranquility. We experience noise in a number of ways. On some occasions, we can be both the cause and the victim of noise, such as when we are operating noisy appliances or equipment. There are also instances when we experience noise generated by others, just as people experience secondhand smoke. In both instances, noise is equally damaging physically. Secondhand noise is generally more troubling, however, because it is put into the environment by others, without our consent. The air into which secondhand noise is emitted and on which it travels is “a commons”. It belongs not to an individual person or a group, but to everyone. Please, businesses and organizations, therefore, do not have unlimited rights to broadcast noise the as they please, as if the effects of noise were limited only to their private property. Those that disregard the obligation to not interfere with other’ use and enjoyment of the commons by producing noise pollution are, in many ways, acting like a bully in a schoolyard. Although they may do so unknowingly, they disregard the rights of others and claim for themselves rights that are not theirs. The actual loudness of a sound is only one component of the negative effect noise pollution has on human beings. Other factors that have to be considered are the time and place, the duration, the source of the sound, and even the mood of the affected person. Most people would not be bothered by the sound of a 21-gun salute on a special occasion. On the other hand, the thump-thump of music coming from the apartment downstairs at 2a.m, even if barely audible, might be a major source of stress. The sound of neighbor’s lawn mower may be unobjectionable on a summer afternoon, but if someone is hoping to sleep late on a Saturday morning, the sound of a lawn mower starting up just after sunrise is an irritant  
3. The author of the passage implies that secondhand noise pollution ______

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Ask about “the population problem” to people of a certain age, and the first and perhaps only thing that comes to mind is the “population bomb” or “population explosion.” And they would be right - for their time. In the second half of the 20th century, rapid population growth - especially but not exclusively in the developing countries - created unprecedented increases in the number of people on the earth. And this growth was accompanied by crowding, malnutrition, disease, and poverty. Indeed, for many Americans, the coming “population explosion” was, along with the Cold War, the most unsettling fact about our world. But “population problems” have been part of American discourse for over 100 years. In the 1930s and 1940s, for instance, many observers feared that depopulation due to plummeting birth rates would cause chronic economic depression as the numbers of U.S. consumers and workers declined. In the 1920s, the U.S. “population problem” was rapid urbanization, reflected in a 1920 census count showing that for the first time more than onehalf the population lived in urban areas. Rural incumbents in the House of Representatives, fearing they would be voted out of office by their new urban constituents, succeeded in blocking reapportionment of the House’s seats on the basis of the census counts as mandated by the U.S. Constitution. The century’s first “population problem” was mass xenophobia about immigration. Beginning in 1880, wave after wave of European immigrants was creating congestion and social change at an unprecedented rate. In response to widespread anxiety and anger, Congress in 1924 passed the country’s most restrictive immigration legislation ever. Each problem was based in hard numbers. Each generated private emotions and public fears. Each suffered exaggeration and manipulation. And each commanded the attention of opinion leaders and elected officials.  
4. According to paragraph 2, what were the two problems mentioned as population concerns?

Read the passage carefully and choose the correct answer.

Movements and gestures by the hands, arms, legs, and other parts' of the body and face are the most pervasive types of nonverbal messages and the most difficult to control. 'It is estimated that there are over 200.000 physical signs capable of stimulating meaning in another person. For example, there are 23 distinct eyebrow movements, each capable of stimulating a different meaning.

Humans express attitudes toward themselves and vividly through body movements and postures. Body movements express true messages about feelings that cannot be masked. Because such avenues of communication are visual, they travel much farther than spoken words and are unaffected by the presence of noise that interrupt, or cancels out speech.

People communicate by the way they walk, stand, and sit. We tend to be more relaxed with friends or when addressing those of lower status. Body orientation also indicates status or liking of the other individual. More direct orientation is related to a more positive attitude.

Body movements and postures alone have no exact meaning, but they can greatly support or reject the spoken word. If these two means of communication are dichotomized and contradict each other, some result will be a disordered image and most often the nonverbal will dominate.

Nonverbal communication ________.

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Many people in Britain and the US belong to at least one club or society. Club is often used to (1) _______ to a group of people who regularly meet together socially or take part in sports. Most young people’s groups are called clubs. A society is usually concerned (2) _____ a special interest, e.g. birdwatching or local history. National societies, such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, usually have local branches. Social clubs have a bar where members can sit and talk to each other. Member of the upper class or business people may belong to a gentlemen’s club. Most of (3) ______ are in London and even today only some of them allow women to be members. They are places to relax in, (4) _______also to make business contracts and take clients. Some clubs combine social events with community service. Members of the Rotary Club and the Lions Club are usually (5) ______or business people. In the US, these organizations are called service clubs. Some are open only to men. They hold events to raise money for good causes, e.g. to provide scholarships for university students or to raise money for a hospital

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Our eyes are the window to our soul, so the saying goes, but they’re also a window into our health. Picking up eye problems early can significantly (1) ____ the chance of sight loss.  Several programs are looking at how to combine existing medical knowledge about our eyes with AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools.  Google DeepMind has teamed up with Moorfields Eye Hospital in London to work on (2) ____ two major conditions that cause sight loss: diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular (3) ____ (AMD). Together, these eye diseases affect more than 625,000 people in the UK and over 100 million people worldwide.  Algorithms have been trained using thousands of eye scans, then set to work detecting potential issues, allowing doctors (4) ____ the right course of action in a fraction of the time it would normally take and with a greater degree of certainty. DeepMind says that 300,000 UK patients a year could be helped (5) ____ the system is given the go ahead for general use following the completion of clinical trials