Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):

Scott Newman wouldn’t be without his pocket-size TV, which he mainly watches in bed. “I only watch programmes which last about half an hour, as any longer (1)_______ my eyes. I use the set for general entertainment though it is also really good for (2)_______ up with current affairs. The main problem with the set is that it’s not loud enough even when you use headphones. The (3)_______ is all right as long as nothing moves in front of the aerial.” Scott admits to being a gadget man, but doesn’t regret buying the set since he uses it nearly every day. Retired engineer Paul Hardcastle, has owned a pocket TV for a number of years. “I use it mostly in the bathroom. I wanted to use it outdoors, but the trouble is that in bright light you can’t see the picture. I use rechargeable batteries as (4)_______ ones would cost too much. Paul believes that this sort of TV could be improved if the screen was slightly bigger and it didn’t (5)_______ up batteries so quickly: he can only get half an hour’s viewing before the batteries go flat

Choose the answer A, B, c or D to fill the blank space in the following passage.

"Speech is one of the most important ways of communicating. It consists of far more than just (1)….. noises. To talk or to (2)…. by other people, we have to master a language, that is, we have to use combinations of sound that (3)….. for a particular object or idea. Communication (4)…. impossible if everyone (5)….. up their own language.
Learning a language is very important. The basic vocabulary of English is not very large, and only about 2,000 words are needed to speak (6)…. quite well. But the more words you know, the more ideas you can express, and the more precise you can be (7)…. their meaning. Words are the main things we use (8)…. what we want to say. The way we say the words (9)…. also very important. One tone of voice can express (10)…. emotions and show whether we are pleased or angry for instance."

1. Speech is one of the most important ways of communicating. It consists of far more than just (1)….. noises.

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:
Who talks more - men or women? Most people believe that women talk more. However, linguist Deborah Tannen, who has the studied the communication style of men and women, says that this is a stereotype. According to Tannen, women are more verbal - talk more - in private situations, where they use conversation as the “glue’ to hold relationships together. But, she says, men talk more in public situations, where they use conversation to exchange information and gain status. Tannen points out that we can see these difference even in children. Little girls often play with one ‘best friend’ and their play includes a lot of conversation. Little boys often play games in groups, their play usually involves more doing than talking. In school, girls are often better at verbal skills, while boys are often better at mathematics.
A recent study at Emory University helps to shed light on the roots of this difference. Researchers studied conversation between children aged 3-6 and their parents. They found evidence that parents talk very differently to their sons than they do to their daughters. The startling conclusion was that parents use more language with their girls. Specifically, when parents talk with their daughters, they use more descriptive language and more details. There is also far more talk about emotions, especially with daughters than with sons.

Which sentence best expresses the main idea of the first paragraph?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Cyberbullying is the use of technology to harass, threaten, embarrass, or target another person. Online threats and mean, aggressive, or rude texts, tweets, posts or messages all count. So (1) _______ posting personal information, pictures or videos designed to hurt or embarrass someone else. Cyberbullying also includes photos, messages or pages that don’t get taken (2) ______, even after the person has been asked to do so. In (3) _______ words, it’s anything that gets posted online and is meant to hurt, harass or upset someone else. Intimidation or mean comments that focus on things like a person’s gender, religion, sexual orientation, race or physical differences count as discrimination, which is against the law in many states. That means the police could get involved, and bullies may face serious penalties. Online bullying can be particularly damaging and upsetting because it’s usually anonymous or hard to trace. It’s also hard to control, and the person being victimized has no idea how many people (or hundreds of people) have seen the messages or posts. People can be tormented nonstop (4) _________ they check their device or computer. Online bullying and harassment can be easier to commit than other acts of bullying because the bully doesn’t have to confront his or her target in (5) _______

Choose the best answer:
It is unnecessary for ____ to do this task. It's not ours.

Rewrite the sentence:
Working on the computer is not what she feels like.

Find mistake:
With clear evidence, his company couldn't deny having dump a large quantity of toxins into the sea.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Cyberbullying is the use of technology to harass, threaten, embarrass, or target another person. Online threats and mean, aggressive, or rude texts, tweets, posts or messages all count. So (1) _______ posting personal information, pictures or videos designed to hurt or embarrass someone else. Cyberbullying also includes photos, messages or pages that don’t get taken (2) ______, even after the person has been asked to do so. In (3) _______ words, it’s anything that gets posted online and is meant to hurt, harass or upset someone else. Intimidation or mean comments that focus on things like a person’s gender, religion, sexual orientation, race or physical differences count as discrimination, which is against the law in many states. That means the police could get involved, and bullies may face serious penalties. Online bullying can be particularly damaging and upsetting because it’s usually anonymous or hard to trace. It’s also hard to control, and the person being victimized has no idea how many people (or hundreds of people) have seen the messages or posts. People can be tormented nonstop (4) _________ they check their device or computer. Online bullying and harassment can be easier to commit than other acts of bullying because the bully doesn’t have to confront his or her target in (5) _______

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
As places transformed, so did the people. When researchers at Yale University and the University of Westminster studied what images people associated with climate change, they found a shift this decade. When they began their study in 2003, the majority of people surveyed thought of melting polar ice. By 2016, more and more people had weather top of mind. Climate, to be clear, is not weather. It’s the difference between a trend and a one-off event. But with wetter storms and hotter summers unfolding over the course of the decade, people were making new connections between climate change and the weather. Seeing climate change through the lens of something they experience every day opens the door for people to see the weight of the issue over their own lives. “Americans are just beginning to connect the dots and to say, wait a second, what’s going on here,” says Anthony Leiserowitz, a lead author of the study and director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. “There’s been this increasing dawning of awareness among many Americans that climate change is actually starting to harm people here and now.” New renewable energy projects outpaced new fossil fuel installations in worldwide growth for the first time in 2015. In a pivotal moment for the whole planet, every country on Earth agreed to take on climate change when they adopted the Paris climate accord in 2015. That committed countries to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep the Earth from warming beyond roughly 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a threshold that could be catastrophic for people and ecosystems if it’s crossed. It was the culmination of years of political wrangling. “It is rare to have the opportunity in a lifetime to change the world,” former French president François Hollande told delegates gathered on the final day of negotiations. “Seize it so that the planet can live on, so that humanity can live on.” But cooperation, even when the health of the whole planet is on the line, can be a fragile, fleeting thing. After Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, he began the process of formally withdrawing the US from the Paris accord. One by one, Trump backtracked on existing federal efforts to cut down on pollution, too. The words “climate change” began disappearing from government websites and documents  
2. The word “they” in paragraph 1 refers to _____

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
You’ll be able to purchase high-quality emotions online. Emotion-sharing experiences  are the latest fad in 2045. Imagine your friend at Glastonbury can post a photo on Instagram and with it comes bundled a faint twinkling of what she was feeling right there in that moment, so you too can share emotionally in her social experience.  Recently, techniques for direct brain stimulation, like opt genetics, have made it possible to not only read but also write information into single neurons. At the moment data transfer rates are still very slow, the best we can do is a few bits per second, but this could well increase to kilobits or maybe reach broadband speeds by 2045. This means the range of human perception could expand beyond its current design limitations. One could foresee a new and extraordinary world where there is a virtual marketplace for trading high quality emotions – where artists looking for a particularly high strength brew of melancholy, or actors needing to channel regret or compassion for their next play, could purchase emotions online.  Our cities will be made from living, dynamic materials that respond to the environment. In 30 years, tall buildings made of glass and twisted steel will be seen as relics from a bygone era, in the same way we think now of 1970s concrete tower blocks: ugly, outdated and unfit for contemporary purpose. The urban environment of 2045 blends architecture with living materials that are mouldable, adaptable, responsive and disposable.  Entirely new synthetic life forms, or biological machines, made of engineered living cells from bacteria, fungi and algae will grow and evolve with the changing needs of a building’s inhabitants. They breathe in pollutants, clean wastewater, and use sunlight to make useful chemicals, energy, heat and vibrant vertical gardens. We will start to see a convergence between biology and technology, to the point where there is no longer a perceptible difference between the two. Today, synthetic biology labs are looking at the full diversity of what nature has to offer and using this to mix, match and edit genomes to design synthetic life forms. Right now, this field is just getting started and the science of synthetic biology is going to be tougher than most will admit.  We will use invisibility cloaks to “disappear” ugly objects. Invisibility has forever been a tantalizing prospect. The key to cloaking lies in the way the electromagnetic spectrum  (including visible light) interacts with objects. The human eye picks up electromagnetic radiation that falls and scatters from objects and we perceive this as light. In recent decades, scientists figured out using mathematics that it might just be possible to imagine a new class of artificial materials made of intricate tiny features with light bending properties. They named them metamaterials.  Using nanotechnology engineering, scientists have since shown cloaking actually works – in principle at least, for a narrow range of colours and only from certain viewing angles. The future applications of cloaking are highly uncertain and will likely be determined by the fads and social contagion of the time. They may be used in everything from novelty gimmicks to making unsightly construction sites and power stations seemingly ‘disappear’.   
7. According to the fifth paragraph, human eyes can see things and objects thanks to the fact that _____.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
As places transformed, so did the people. When researchers at Yale University and the University of Westminster studied what images people associated with climate change, they found a shift this decade. When they began their study in 2003, the majority of people surveyed thought of melting polar ice. By 2016, more and more people had weather top of mind. Climate, to be clear, is not weather. It’s the difference between a trend and a one-off event. But with wetter storms and hotter summers unfolding over the course of the decade, people were making new connections between climate change and the weather. Seeing climate change through the lens of something they experience every day opens the door for people to see the weight of the issue over their own lives. “Americans are just beginning to connect the dots and to say, wait a second, what’s going on here,” says Anthony Leiserowitz, a lead author of the study and director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. “There’s been this increasing dawning of awareness among many Americans that climate change is actually starting to harm people here and now.” New renewable energy projects outpaced new fossil fuel installations in worldwide growth for the first time in 2015. In a pivotal moment for the whole planet, every country on Earth agreed to take on climate change when they adopted the Paris climate accord in 2015. That committed countries to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep the Earth from warming beyond roughly 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a threshold that could be catastrophic for people and ecosystems if it’s crossed. It was the culmination of years of political wrangling. “It is rare to have the opportunity in a lifetime to change the world,” former French president François Hollande told delegates gathered on the final day of negotiations. “Seize it so that the planet can live on, so that humanity can live on.” But cooperation, even when the health of the whole planet is on the line, can be a fragile, fleeting thing. After Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, he began the process of formally withdrawing the US from the Paris accord. One by one, Trump backtracked on existing federal efforts to cut down on pollution, too. The words “climate change” began disappearing from government websites and documents  
8. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Isolated from the mainland, the Con Dao islands are one of Vietnam’s star (1) ______. Long preserve of political prisoners and undesirables, they now turn heads thanks to their striking natural beauty. Con Son, the (2) ______ of this chain of 15 islands and islets, is ringed with lovely beaches, coral reefs and scenic bays, and remains partially covered (3) ______ tropical forests. In addition to hiking, diving and exploring deserted coastal roads, there are excellent wildlife–watching opportunities, such as the black giant squirrel and endemic bow–fingered gecko. (4) ______ it seems an island paradise, Con Son was once hell on earth for the thousands of prisoners who languished in a dozen jails during French rule and the American– backed regime. Many Vietnamese visitors are former soldiers (5) ______ were imprisoned on the island. Until recently, few foreigners visited Con Dao, but with the commencement of low–cost boat connections this looks sure to change

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Traditional media come from the people and antecede the mass media; their appeal has historically been both functional and aesthetic. Whether of roughly hewn folk origins or of classifically rigid moulds, they have always served to entertain, educate to reinforce existing ideas or ideologies or to change existing values and attitudes. In other words, it is a means of changing values, attitudes and norms in order to provide a proper climate for social and economic progress. It is also a method of promoting certain behavioural acts or patterns. The aim is to get people to perform specific acts to achieve objectives of national policy (e.g. visiting clinics, investing in bonds, using fertilizer). Moreover, it is a channel for conveying information about available techniques and facilities which people may use to solve problems. Being close to people at the local level, these channels are potentially useful in the service of social concerns, as determined by local, provincial or national authorities themselves. They are, moreover, abundantly present in areas where mass media technology has not been fully or effectively developed to capture sustained interest at local, provincial or national levels. Folk media are personal forms of entertainment and communication. This is important because behavioural changes are most easily brought about by personal interaction. These forms of art are a part of the way of life of a community and provide acceptable means of bringing development issues into the community in its own-terms. They are capable of reaching intimate social groups, thus making use of already established communication networks in the audience. 
2. What purpose of traditional media is NOT mentioned?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Egypt’s 100 millionth citizen was born last week, undoubtedly a happy occasion for one family, but a moment filled with foreboding for a country struggling to contain a population explosion. In the past year the government has scrambled to stem the birth rate with a new program called “Two is Enough.” It is establishing family planning clinics throughout the country, where Egyptians can purchase heavily subsidized contraceptives. But many doctors and activists fear that this is too little, and comes too late to reverse the uptick in population growth. Doctors complain that the new “Two is Enough” program lacks in a clear strategy to bring down birthrates. The financial resources deployed thus far have been a fraction of previous efforts; some family-planning clinics have reportedly run out of contraceptives. While clinics funded by the campaign to provide some reproductive health education, sexual education remains taboo in Egyptian schools. There is also a lack of adequate services for the poor and pensioners. Many Egyptians opt to have more children in the hope they will look after them as they age, a phenomenon common in countries with high levels of poverty and inadequate safety nets. While over 30 million Egyptians live in poverty, only 9.4 million receive means-tested cash transfers from the government’s welfare programs. Economic reforms undertaken as part of a recently completed International Monetary Fund program have cut subsidies in a number of areas, contributing a spike in inflation that at one point exceeded 30%. For newborns like the 100-millionth Egyptian, the outlook is grim. A burgeoning population exacerbates many problems. Despite Egypt’s limited supply - it depends almost exclusively on the Nile - there has been a systemic failure to adequately address water waste. From wasteful megaprojects draining the Nile to literally dumping waste in the river, Egyptian officials have consistently failed to prudently protect what is perhaps the country’s most vital natural resource. In 2018, Egypt temporarily reduced the farming of rice, a water intensive crop - only to expand cultivation the following year. The New Administrative Capital that Sisi has set out to erect is projected to need 650,000 cubic meters of water per day when finished. Failure to quickly and dramatically improve water management practices in Egypt could be disastrous, and the risk is the greater for the country’s rapid population growth  
6. According to paragraph 4, what is the problem in general resulted from overpopulation?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Birds are even more disrupted by their noisy neighbours than had been thought  previously, researchers have found. And human activities could be preventing birds from reproducing and even developing normal social behaviour and keeping the peace.  A study by Queen’s University Belfast found that when European robins were subjected to human produced noises their behaviour changed. Background noise appeared to mask the communication of crucial information between birds. While aggressive communication is common and birds respond to it, interference through noise can lead to the birds mistaking the signals.  Birds can end up in situations all too familiar to humans. “The birds receive incomplete information on their opponent’s intent and do not appropriately adjust their response,” explained Arnott. “Where song is disguised by background noise, in some cases the male ends up fighting more vigorously than he should, but at other times gives in too easily.”Arnott said the purpose of birdsong was twofold – to attract mates and defend territory. Birds already face an array of human-made dangers, from pesticides and intensive farming to shooting and poisoning. But noise had often been overlooked, the paper in Biology Letters found. A spokesperson for the RSPB said: “Everyone is becoming increasingly concerned that nature is in crisis in the UK, with one in 10 of our wildlife species at threat of extinction. Many of our birds’ populations are already facing a serious crisis as a result of habitat loss, climate change and other human activities. This report is a good reminder that the way we live and our lifestyle has an impact on our natural world, and that we need to protect our natural world if we want to let nature sing.”  For birds, the extra burden of noise pollution adds to extraordinary decline in species, including among once common birds, in recent decades due to such activities as agricultural practice and pesticide use. In the experiment the team used playbacks of robin song to stimulate responses from birds who were territory holders. Simple or complex songs were used in either the presence or absence of noise. The researchers found that song complexity  was used as a signal of aggressive intent; birds demonstrated higher aggressive intent towards complex rather than simple song. This process was disrupted by the presence of added noise.
5. According to paragraph 3, what is NOT mentioned as an anthropogenic threat to birds?

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 United States Department of Education describes “giftedness” as exceptionally advanced performance or the potential for outstanding performance in intellectual, creative leadership, artistic, or specific academic fields. Children who demonstrate outstanding talents come from all social, cultural, and economic groups.
Educators believe that gifted students require special education services because their learning needs differ significantly from those of the general population. They learn more rapidly and are able to understand more abstract and complex ideas. They are also able to transform existing knowledge into new and useful forms, and to create new knowledge recognized for its originality, complexity, and elegance. Special education services and facilities for gifted children may enhance these abilities. In addition, some gifted learners may require special counseling services to address social or emotional adjustment issues that are complicated by their exceptional abilities.
Many regular elementary and secondary schools in the United States offer special programs designed specifically to meet the needs of gifted students. Some schools provide specialized education programs to gifted children exclusively. These schools offer advanced education in mathematics, science, technology, the arts, or other academic disciplines. Many schools rely on intelligence tests to identify gifted students. However, most guidelines for determining giftedness recommend the use of a combination of standardized test scores, rating systems developed by individual schools, classroom observation records, and performance assessments.
Gifted children may study a specially modified curriculum or may progress through academic subjects at an accelerated pace. Acceleration involves adapting education programs so that students may progress through particular subject material quicker than usual. These modifications may take place within the regular classroom setting or they may involve changing the child’s placement in school. Some gifted children gain early entrance to kindergarten, skip grades, enter college earlier than usual, or take specific courses with older children. Ideal programs for gifted students consider the individual needs of children and offer multiple options for services. These programs generally involve both advanced course materials and acceleration.

Gifted children come from     .

Choose the best answer:
One special feature of cuisine in Southern Vietnam is short cooking time which aims to …… the freshness of food.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Most sexual assault and violence in schools is committed by people who know their victims — they’re either dating, friends, or classmates. Regardless, they have a relationship of some sort, which is why a focus on relationships and empathy is crucial to reducing violence and preparing students for more meaningful lives. And while it might seem uncomfortable to move beyond the cut-and-dried facts of contraception into the murkier waters of relationships, students are hungry for it. A survey by researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Making Caring Common initiative found that 65 percent of young-adult respondents wished they had talked about relationships at school. “It’s so critical that kids are able to undertake this work of learning to love somebody else,” says developmental psychologist Richard Weissbourd, the director of Making Caring Common and lead author of a groundbreaking report called The Talk: How Adults Can Promote Young People’s Healthy Relationships and Prevent Misogyny and Sexual Harassment. “They’re not going to be able to do it unless we get them on the road and are willing to engage in thoughtful conversations.” Nicole Daley works with OneLove, a nonprofit focused on teen violence prevention. She previously worked extensively with Boston Public Schools on violence prevention. She echoes Weissbourd: A focus on relationships is key to keeping students safe. “If a young person is not in a healthy relationship, they can’t negotiate sex in a meaningful way,” she says. “Really discussing healthy relationships and building that foundation is important. Even if they’re not having sex yet, they’re grappling with the idea of what healthy relationship is.” And it’s critical to start that work before college.  
3. The word “they” in paragraph 2 refers to _______

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Most people have heard about how PTSD can unravel a person. Fewer have heard about posttraumatic growth, the process that lifted Curry out of his despair and into his new role as a leader in the veteran community. The term - defined as “positive change that occurs as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life crises” - was coined in the mid-1990s by Richard Tedeschi, PhD, and Lawrence Calhoun, PhD, after studying how people develop wisdom. They identified five specific ways people can grow after a crisis. First, their relationships strengthen. One woman diagnosed with breast cancer, for example, said she realized her relationships “are the most important things you have.” Bereaved parents told Tedeschi and Calhoun that losing a child had made them more compassionate. Second, they discover new paths and purposes in life. Sometimes these are related to a particular survivor mission. One interviewee became an oncology nurse after losing her child to cancer. Other times, the crisis becomes the catalyst for a more general reconsideration of priorities, as Christine discovered when she started attending The Dinner Party in the aftermath of her mother’s death. Third, the trauma allows them to find their inner strength. The common thread among those Tedeschi and Calhoun studied is a “vulnerable yet stronger” narrative. This paradoxical outlook defined the attitude of a rape survivor who admitted the world seemed more dangerous after the assault, but that, at the same time, she felt more resilient as a result of the inner strength she’d built. Fourth, their spiritual life deepens. That could mean they renew their faith in God, or it could mean they grapple with existential questions more broadly, coming to know certain deep truths about the world or themselves, as one interviewee did after his spinal-cord surgery. Finally, they feel a renewed appreciation for life. Rather than taking for granted a stranger’s kindness or the vivid colors of autumn leaves, they savor the small moments of beauty that light up each day. The difference between those who are able to grow from adversity and those who are stymied lies in what Tedeschi and Calhoun call “deliberate rumination” or introspection. The participants they studied spent a lot of time trying to make sense of their painful experiences, reflecting on how the events changed them. Doing so helped them make the life changes associated with posttraumatic growth.  
8. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
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?

Choose the option A, B, C or D to answers the question about the passage:

"Most young couples have meals regularly in their parents’ home with little or no pay, and give their children to the care of old couple free of charge. Investigations have shown that parents of many young couples don’t mind providing meals and caring for their children. However, this practice should not become an accepted social custom. The old couples’ expense on food has already increased while young couples spend more on clothing and furnishing and less on food. If this trend continues, many young couples might take these privileges for granted and become more dependent. It is not the right for young people to make use of the old couples’ love, not only because our nation is well-known for its special respect paid to the elderly, but also because the young must become independent What young people should do is to become more considerate towards their old parents. After years of hard work, they are worthy of such consideration."

4. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?