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The Internet is very much like television, in which it takes time away from other pursuits, provides entertainment and information, but in no way can compare with the warm, personal experience of reading a good book. This is not the only reason why the Internet will never replace books, for books provide the in-depth knowledge of a subject that sitting in front of a computer monitor cannot provide. We can download text from an Internet source, but the aesthetic quality of sheets of downloaded text leave much to be desired. A welldesigned book enhances the reading experience. The book is still the most compact and inexpensive means of conveying a dense amount of knowledge in a convenient package. The easy portability of the book is what makes it the most user-friendly format for knowledge ever invented. The idea that one can carry in one’s pocket a play by Shakespeare, a novel by Charles Dickens or Tom Clancy, Plato’s Dialogues, or the Bible in a small paperback edition is mind-boggling. We take such uncommon convenience for granted, not realizing that the book itself has undergone quite an evolution since the production of the Gutenberg Bible in 1455 and Shakespeare’s First Folio in 1623, just three years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth to colonize the New World. Not only has the art and craft of printing and book manufacturing been greatly improved over the centuries, but the great variety of subject matter now available in books is astounding, to say the least. In fact, the Internet requires the constant input of authors and their books to provide it with the information that makes it a useful tool for exploration and learning.  Another important reason why the Internet will never replace books is because those who wish to become writers want to see their works permanently published as books - something you can hold, see, feel, skim through, and read at one’s leisure without the need for an electric current apart from a lamp. The writer may use a word processor instead of a typewriter or a pen and pad, but the finished product must eventually end up as a book if it is to have value to the reading public. The writer may use the Internet in the course of researching a subject just as he may use a library for that purpose, but the end product will still be a book.
5. The word “astounding” in paragraph 3 could be best replaced by ___________

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If you think you left the cliques behind in high school, think again. When it comes to  building friendships, men are more likely to return to their clique-y roots than women, according to a recent study published in the journal PLOS One. Researchers found that, in general, men seek to join all-male cliques, clubs or teams, while women prefer a more select, one-on-one relationship with a few close female friends. “Much of male friendship is about coalition building,” said Tamas David-Barett, lead author of the research paper, and member of the experimental psychology department at the University of Oxford.  After analyzing the profile pictures of nearly 112,000 Facebook users worldwide, David-Barett and his co-authors found that men were more likely to post a profile picture showing themselves with a large group of male friends. The study notes that such pictures are “arguably an essential element of the male-male coalition competition.” Conversely, women almost never posted a large group profile picture, but tended to display a photo with only one other female friend. As the paper explained, women “appear more often to focus their social capital on only one person at a time.”  So why are men and women different in the way they make friends? One hypothesis is the difference between the male and female brain. Typically, women tend to have a larger deep limbic system than their male counterparts. The limbic system is a network of nerves in the brain connected to instinct and mood. The limbic system controls basic emotions such as happiness and fear. Because this system tends to be larger in women, females are more in touch with their feelings and have an increased ability to connect individually with others.  According to the Wall Street Journal, other research indicates that females tend to build friendships off of emotional connections and are more apt to share intimate conversations. The male friendship, however, is established by doing things together, such as watching the game or hosting a barbecue. “Female friendships are characterized as more face-to-face. Women want to share and exchange,” said Irene Levine, a friendship expert. “They want to bond. Men, however, want to do things together. They want to go to spectator sports; they want to participate in sports together. They do things that are more side-by-side.” 
3.  According to paragraph 2, what does the statistics imply about the distinction between males and females?

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Global sea level has been rising over the past century, and the rate has increased in recent decades. In 2014, global sea level was 2.6 inches above the 1993 average-the highest annual average in the satellite record (1993-present). Sea level continues to rise at a rate of about one-eighth of an inch per year. Higher sea levels mean that deadly and destructive storm surges push farther inland than they once did, which also means more frequent nuisance flooding. Disruptive and expensive, nuisance flooding is estimated to be from 300 percent to 900 percent more frequent within U.S. coastal communities than it was just 50 years ago. The two major causes of global sea level rise are thermal expansion caused by warming of the ocean since water expands as it warms, and increased melting of land-based ice, such as glaciers and ice sheets. The oceans are absorbing more than 90 percent of the increased atmospheric heat associated with emissions from human activity. With continued ocean and atmospheric warming, sea levels will likely rise for many centuries at rates higher than that of the current century. In the United States, almost 40 percent of the population lives in relatively high-population-density coastal areas, where sea level plays a role in flooding, shoreline erosion, and hazards from storms. Globally, eight of the world’s 10 largest cities are near a coast, according to the U.N. Atlas of the Oceans. Sea level rise at specific locations may be more or less than the global average due to local factors such as land subsidence from natural processes and withdrawal of groundwater and fossil fuels, changes in regional ocean currents, and whether the land is still rebounding from the compressive weight of Ice Age glaciers. In urban settings, rising seas threaten infrastructure necessary for local jobs and regional industries. Roads, bridges, subways, water supplies, oil and gas wells, power plants, sewage treatment plants, landfills-virtually all human infrastructure-is at risk from sea level rise. 
4. What does the word “it” in paragraph 3 refer 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:
Carefully guiding a needle that's longer than his tiny fingers, a young boy in Pakistan stitches together the leather pieces of a soccer ball. He sits crouched in the corner of a hot, airless shed for 12 hours. For his long day's work, he will earn 60 cents.
The boy is one of more than 200 million children who work at hard, sometimes dangerous jobs all over the world. Child labor exists in two-thirds of the world's nations. From Indonesia to Guatemala, poor children as young as six are sent off to work. Often they are mistreated and punished for not working hard enough. Children mix the gunpowder for firecrackers in China and knot the threads for carpets in India, all for pennies a day. Sometimes they are sold as slaves.
In a speech to the Child Labor Coalition when he was U.S. Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich expressed gratitude for the organization's work to end abuse of child labor, "You turned up the heat, and you got results." He also congratulated Craig Kielburger, then 13, of Canada, who traveled the world for a year fighting for kids' rights. Craig believes kids can make a difference. He offers this advice, "Write letters to companies and government officials. Put pressure on leaders to make changes and to stop the misuse of children."
One solution to the child-labor problem in poor countries is education. "The future of these countries," Secretary Reich declared, "depends on a work force that is educated. We are prepared to help build schools."
Education has helped to make the world a brighter place for one youth, Aghan of India. When he was nine, Aghan was kidnapped from his home and sold to a carpet maker. Aghan's boss was very cruel. "I was always crying for my mother," he recalls. Aghan's dream was to learn to write so that he could send letters to his parents. Fortunately, a group that opposes child labor rescued Aghan from the factory. He was sent to a shelter in New Delhi where he worked hard to learn to write.

The children who work are often     .

Find synonym:
In order to stay healthy, make sure you have a balanced intake of vitamins and minerals.

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.

The word “warranted” in paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to

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

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Kids can be creatures of habit. Much like how they can watch the same movie over and over, some kids will stick to one author or genre of book that they’ve fallen in love with. But does it matter if they’re always reading the same type of book? After all, isn’t their love of reading in itself enough? Reading builds their imagination, develops their critical thinking skills, and improves their communication skills, amongst many other benefits. Well, while a love of reading of any sort is to be nurtured, when a child only reads the same author or type of book, their growth and the benefits they gain may not be as broad if they were to explore more types of books. Coaxing them to open up to reading other genres can be a big advantage for them in the long term. They will get exposed to different types of characters and lifestyles when they read a wider range of writing. For example, their favourite fantasy novels may spark their imagination, but true tales of life halfway around the world can trigger interest in traveling and foster understanding of other cultures. It helps them develop a broad perspective on the world around them. Their vocabulary will benefit, too, if they read a wide selection of books. Think of the words and the sentence structure used in a vampire book and how they will differ significantly from those in a suspense novel. They will have to sound out words, and it’ll be helpful to have a dictionary handy. With each new word encountered in the broad range of reading materials they’re consuming, their vocabulary grows. Reading a variety of books will also help your child grow their love of reading and it’ll fuel their motivation to read more and more. They once only adored one author, who has  a limited number of books written, discovering new authors or types of books expands their choice of reading material; they’ll never run out of books to add to their reading list! Consider, too, the value of specific types of books for very young readers. Ones that teach the alphabet help them learn that letters come together to form the words in books. Poetry with rhyming words will help develop a child’s phonemic awareness, which is the ability to hear, identify and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words. Folktales and nursery rhymes are beloved and cherished. Surely there are ones that bring you right back to your childhood, and they tend to be shared from one generation to the next - your child’s favourite will likely be ones they teach their children when they grow up and have kids of their own!
5. What does the word “it” in paragraph 3 refer to?

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It’s probably the most painstaking, heart wrenching, and stress inducing test of dedication a marriage can face. But the reward at the end is pretty sweet. At the annual Wife Carrying World Championships in Sonkajärvi, Finland, male competitors race around a track hauling their female partners on their backs. Winner takes home his wife’s weight in beer. It’s no ordinary racetrack, either. Competitors must wade through a neck-deep pool of water, climb over hurdles, and run through pits of sand before crossing the finish line. While some participants don crazy costumes for the pre-race, the actual event is pretty straightlaced. Wives must weigh at least 49 kilograms (108 pounds). Any woman lighter than that is required to carry a heavy rucksack until she reaches this minimum. A participant who drops his wife will be penalized 15 seconds. But there is one catch: contestants don’t have to carry their own wives. A friend’s wife, stranger’s wife, or even a random grandmother will do – as long as she’s over 17. Contestants flock from 47 countries across the globe to show their stuff in this epic display of brute strength. This year, Finnish couple Taisto Miettinen and Kristiina Haapanen captured the title for the fourth consecutive year. The 46-year-old lawyer and his wife completed the 235-meter course in one minute and four seconds. Like any dedicated athlete, Miettinen reported that he’d been training for a while. “In last autumn, I started running in the track, one hundred, two hundred and four hundred meters,” Miettinen said in a post-race interview. He also practiced the course in ski boots to build leg strength. The competition, which began in 1992, is supposedly rooted in the legend of Ronkainen the Robber — a hardnosed gang leader who hazed potential members by making them lug sacks of grain or live pigs over a similar course. He and his comrades also made a habit of stealing women from neighboring villages as a nod to this practice, many men “steal” friends’ wives for the competition. If you want to compete but can’t make it to Finland, there’s a North American version of the contest held in October at Sunday River Resort in Maine. With 100-plus pounds of brewski on the line, you might want to tell your significant other to start shaping up.
7. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

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At its narrowest point, Vietnam is only 30 miles (48 kilometers) wide. Two of Vietnam’s largest rivers, the Mekong in the south and the Red in the north, end at the South China Sea in huge swampy plains called (1)________ . These regions are home to most of the country’s people and provide (2)________ ground to grow rice and many other crops. Vietnam’s mountainous terrain, forests, wetlands, and long coastline contain many different habitats that support a great (3)________ of wildlife. Some 270 types of mammals, 180 reptiles, 80 amphibians, and 800 bird species reside in Vietnam Many rare and unusual animals live in Vietnam, (4)________ giant catfish, Indochinese tigers, Saola antelopes, and Sumatran rhinos. The government has set up 30 parks and reserves to protect its animals, but their survival is (5) ________doubt because much of their habitat has been cleared for lumber or to grow crops

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Spend just a minute watching the world population counter tick up on Worldometers and you’ll see just how quickly we’re swelling in numbers. The current figure stands at around 7.7 billion, and this is projected to become 9.8 billion by 2050, according to the UN. More people means more carbon footprints - more cars, waste and emissions, more houses and infrastructure to be constructed using the world’s limited resources, more mouths to be fed using more water and energy in food production. Governments recognise the severity of the situation and have mostly come together over global policies like the UN’s Paris Agreement, to limit carbon emissions and their impact on climate change. In addition, new technologies are being developed to make our use of resources more efficient. As for controlling population growth, the education of women is one key factor. Research shows the higher level to which a woman is educated, the fewer children she is likely to have. In Ghana, for example, women who have been to high school, have a fertility rate of between two and three children, compared with six for those who have no education. This could be for several reasons including learning about desired family size and understanding child health better. This means that the mother is more confident her children will survive. She is also likely to hold more sway within the family, arguing for fewer children if that is what she wants.  There is also plenty that individuals can do to reduce their personal footprint. Earth Overshoot Day is defined as the day when humanity has used up nature’s resource budget for the year. The Global Footprint Network calculates that moving Earth Overshoot day back by five days every year would mean that, by 2050, we’d be using the resources of less than one planet. Just eating 50% less meat and replacing it with vegetarian alternatives could save the planet five days. As David Attenborough says, if we want to save Earth, we can no longer afford to keep eating meat: “We are omnivores, so biologically, if you could have a biological morality, you can say, yes we evolved to eat pretty well everything. But now we’ve got to a stage in our own social evolution in which that is no longer practical.” Sir David says he himself now eats less meat and is bolstered by the knowledge that it’s helping the planet.  
2. The word “swelling” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _______

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Mai and Hung were ill, so …went to school today.

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Stabilisation work means the Leaning Tower of Pisa is leaning slightly less than it used to, experts have said. The tower, which has leaned to one side ever since it began to take shape in 1173, has lost 4cm of its tilt over the past two decades, according to a report from the surveillance group that meets every three months to give updates on the monument’s condition “Since restorative work began, the tower is leaning about half a degree less,” said Nunziante Squeglia, a geotechnics professor at the University of Pisa who works with the group. “But what counts is the stability of the tower, which is better than initially predicted.” The structure, which was badly damaged during the second world war, was closed to the public in 1990 over safety fears and did not reopen for 11 years. The surveillance group was set up in 2001 ago after Michele Jamiolkowski, an engineer of Polish origin, coordinated an international committee to save the landmark. The bell tower, a symbol of the power of the maritime republic of Pisa in the Middle Ages, was defective from the beginning due to the porous clay soil beneath its foundations. After three floors were completed, construction stopped and did not resume until 90 years later when workers started building additional floors on a diagonal to offset the lean. But work was again disrupted before finally being completed in 1372. The tower, located behind Pisa’s cathedral, attracts more than 5 million visitors a year. Reaching the top requires climbing 269 steps. The surveillance group’s work, which is funded by the non-profit Opera della Primaziale Pisana, includes improving the quality of the structure’s conservation and promoting research.
3. According to paragraph 2, what is the result of the straightening work?

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 can be used as a synonym of the word “feelings” ?

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The lottery winner was willing to spend a considerable sum of money to ____ to charity to help those in need.

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Climate change, also called global warming, refers to the rise in average surface temperatures on Earth. An overwhelming scientific consensus maintains that climate change is due primarily to the human use of fossil fuels, which (1) __________ carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the air. The gases trap heat within the atmosphere, which can have a range of effects on ecosystems, (2) __________ rising sea levels, severe weather events, and droughts that render landscapes more susceptible to wildfires. While consensus among nearly all scientists, scientific organizations, and governments is (3)__________ climate change is happening and is caused by human activity, a small minority of voices questions the validity of such assertions and prefers to cast doubt on the preponderance of evidence. Climate change deniers often claim that recent changes (4) __________ to human activity can be seen as part of the natural variations in Earth’s climate and temperature, and that it is difficult or impossible to establish a direct connection between climate change and any single weather event, such as a hurricane. While the latter is generally true, decades of data and analysis support the reality of climate change and the human factor in this process. In any case, economists agree that acting to reduce fossil fuel emissions would be far less expensive than (5) __________ with the consequences of not doing so

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All families face challenges and hurdles as a normal part of life and getting through these times requires respectful communication and care for each other. However, some families face significant (1) _______ like not having a place to live, a parent going to court, a parent having a long-term illness, or parents having to work (2) ________ from home or for long hours.  Some families seem to fight and argue a lot, which can be really scary and stressful. Sometimes, family relationships can be so stressful that you feel unsafe and scared. These types of things make relationships (3) _________ and negative and it can make it difficult to feel like talking things through.  As a teenager you are going through a lot of changes within yourself physically, mentally, emotionally and socially. Often these changes (4) _________ at different rates and at different times. It is important for you to be aware of what is going on and how this may affect you at school, home and/or around family and friends having an understanding of adolescent development can be very (5) ______

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Fairy tales are the stories that adults, especially parents, tell young children. In view of their name, it is surprising that hardly any of them are actually about fairies. (33) ________ most fairy tales have happy endings, the stories usually deal with very frightening situations - children abandoned in the forest, terrifying giants, cruel stepmothers. However, despite being scared when they are told the stories, children will often ask to hear them over and over again. Many psychologists believe that what fairy tales do, in addition to (35) ________ children's imagination, is to show that there are problems in the world and they can be overcome. Just like adults, children have fears and worries: theirs are of things such as abandonment, loss, injuries, witches. Fairy tales present real problems in a fantasy form (36) ________ children are able to understand. This, it is claimed, allow them to (37) ________ their fears and to realise, if ever in their unconscious mind, that no matter how difficult the circumstances, there are always ways of coping.

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The burglar cut the telephone wires for fear that I’ll call the police.

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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

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The idea of going overseas to study can be daunting, with visions of baffling languages or nights spent in isolation while you are gradually forgotten by your friends and family. (1) _________, the benefits of studying abroad - such as broadening your mind, improving your career prospects and making friends from all over the world - can make digging out your passport really rewarding. “Studying abroad is an eye-opening experience,” says Anna Boyd, event manager at The Student World. “Being (2) _________ in another culture, understanding differences and spotting similarities, living on a beach or in the mountains, (3) _________ will have an impact on every student.” Overseas study comes in many shapes and sizes. It might be a single semester abroad via an Erasmus programme, for example. Or you might elect to follow a full three- or fouryear degree programme. Whatever your ambition, the key is starting early. Some countries require specific combinations of A-levels from UK students. Germany looks for four A-levels including maths or science and one modern foreign language, for instance, while others, such as the US, value extracurricular activities. Starting our research well ahead (4) _________ time can help you make the right choices. “Getting involved in sports, arts and music is also worth considering, as well as gaining experience through volunteering and work placements,” says Boyd. In fact, applying to study abroad could even work to your advantage , for example, you might encounter lower (5) _______ requirements