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The temperature of the earth is rising at nearly twice the rate it was 50 years ago. This rapid rate and pattern of warming, scientists have concluded, cannot be explained by natural cycles alone. The only way to explain the pattern is to include the effect of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted by humans. To come to a conclusion on climate change, the United Nations formed a group of scientists called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. The IPCC meets every few years to review the latest scientific findings and write a report summarizing all that is known about global warming. Each report represents a consensus, or agreement, among hundreds of leading scientists. One of the first things the IPCC learned is that there are several greenhouse gases responsible for warming, and humans emit them in a variety of ways. Most come from the combustion of fossil fuels in cars, factories and electricity production. The gas responsible for the most warming is carbon dioxide, also called CO2. Other contributors include methane released from landfills and agriculture, especially from the digestive systems of grazing animals, nitrous oxide from fertilizers, gases used for refrigeration and industrial processes, and the loss of forests that would otherwise store CO2. Different greenhouse gases have very different heat-trapping abilities. Some of them can even trap more heat than CO2. A molecule of methane produces more than 20 times the warming of a molecule of CO2. Nitrous oxide is 300 times more powerful than CO2. Other gases, such as chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which have been banned in much of the world because they also degrade the ozone layer, have heat-trapping potential thousands of times greater than CO2. But because their concentrations are much lower than CO2, none of these gases adds as much warmth to the atmosphere as CO2 does. In order to understand the effects of all the gases together, scientists tend to talk about all greenhouse gases in terms of the equivalent amount of CO2. Since 1990, yearly emissions have gone up by about 6 billion metric tons of “carbon dioxide equivalent” worldwide, more than a 20 percent increase.  
8. According to the passage, which of the following is TRUE?

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There are many thoughts on the origins of civilization. One of the major factors  involved was the increase in population. The development of techniques, primarily irrigation and food control, which permitted agriculture in special areas such as the flood plain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, made possible the support of large population. Once populations reach a certain number, the older pattern of social organization breaks down and new ones develop. Specifically the older system whereby each individual participated in food production and maintained a similar standard of living, and whereby kinship served as the basic method of social organization, was replaced by the occupational division of labor, political and religious hierarchies, public works such as road and public building construction, class systems, codes of law, markets, new forms of warfare, and urban centres. Allied with these important sociological traits are material traits, such as monumental architecture and development of science and, in many cases, metallurgy and writing systems.  The earliest civilization, Sumer, developed in the Middle East. This was the Bronze Age of the Old World, during which people first developed the art of metallurgy, civilization also arose in other parts of the Old World first in Egypt, China and India, and later in Europe and Africa. At this time, civilization also developed independently in the New World, in the Mexican area and in Peru and its neighboring areas.  In the Old World the Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age, which saw the rise and fall of great empires and the shift of power from the Middle East to Greece and Rome and then to Western Europe. In the 1700s the Industrial Age began, leading directly to the modern civilization of today. 
2. According to the first paragraph, the increase in population ___________

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

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

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Advances in mobile technology and social networking websites mean we spend more time online than ever before. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world by population (The Economist, 2010). It is (1) ______ not surprising that so many psychologists, sociologists, and others are eager to give their thoughts on how this is impacting negatively on our society. The biggest criticism levelled at social networking is that young people are losing their offline friends to online friends (2) ______ are unable to provide the same deep connection and emotional support. However, a lot of research shows these criticisms are generally (3) ______. Allen et al. (2010) discovered that it is socially adjusted adolescents who are more likely to have a networking profile than those who are not. One study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (2009) found that people are not (4) ______ offline friends with online companions but are using them to support their offline relationships. The study also found that social networks allow us to have discussions with a much more diverse set of people than in the real world, so we share knowledge with people from a wide (4) ______ of backgrounds

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Myriad occupational schools in the central coastal city of Da Nang have received just a small number of applications over the past few years. “Last year we only had 142 new students, but the number of new enrollees is 50 this school year,” Truong Van Hung, rector of the Duc Tri Da Nang Vocational College, said, adding the school has set a target of recruiting 1,200 students for the 2014-2015 academic year. “Closing the school is just a matter of time,” he said. Similarly, the Viet A Vocational School in Hai Chau District in Da Nang has not recruited any new enrollee for over one year given the absence of job opportunities for its graduates. “We do not want to enroll because we cannot help students land jobs after they graduate,” a leader of Viet A said. “We will only admit new students when we can have a partnership with companies who can employ our students after they finish their studies.” Elsewhere, vocational schools in the southern province of Dong Nai are ‘frozen’. The Dong Nai Information Technology-Telecommunications Vocational School in the academic year of 2013-2014 enrolled only 82 students compared with a target of 1,000; the Nhon Trach Industrial Engineering Vocational School only had 200 out of its goal of 600 students for the school year; the 26-3 Vocational School received 150 students while they set a target of 250; and the South-Eastern Electromechanical Vocational School only recruited 300 out of the 500 students they planned to admit. The situation means that equipment for training programs at those schools has been left unused and covered with rust. Local experts have commented that if the lack of students persists, vocational schools are at high risk of being closed, sooner or later. 
4. According to paragraph 3, what is the reason for “the vocational schools in the southern province of Dong Nai being ‘frozen’”?

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

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

7. For example, lowering the pitch of voice may mean the end of a sentence; a Sharp intake of breath may signal the desire to (7)….. , 

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Economic .................... this year are better than those of last year.

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What _________ computer a miraculous device?

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My smart phone is so convenient that I bring it everywhere

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Sociologists have been carrying out research into the social pressures of being a teenager. Many adolescents are unhappy at school because they find it difficult to (1) ______ friends. This stress can bring on illness or result in poor grades. They may also worry about their appearance and often feel (2) ______ enormous pressure to dress, talk and behave the same as (3) ______. This phenomenon is called peer pressure, and it is very common in today’s society. Advertising contributes a lot to the social pressures teenagers feel. Advertisers know how important it is to feel that you belong to a group when you are in your teens, so they try to persuade teenagers that certain products will make them (4) ______ with their classmates. Sadly, many teenagers act irresponsibly and even do dangerous things just to make others accept them. Peer pressure is often the reason for teenage smoking, drug (5) ______ or dangerous driving. Teenagers need to learn to say no to social pressure and to find friends who they can talk things over with when they have a problem

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Improving girls’ educational levels has been demonstrated to have clear impacts on the health and economic future of young women, which in turn improves the prospects of their entire community. The infant mortality rate of babies whose mothers have received primary education is half that of children whose mothers are illiterate. In the poorest countries of the world, 50% of girls do not attend secondary school. Yet, research shows that every extra year of school for girls increases their lifetime income by 15%. Improving female education, and thus the earning potential of women, improves the standard of living for their own children, as women invest more of their income in their families than men do. Yet, many barriers to education for girls remain. In some African countries, such as Burkina Faso, girls are unlikely to attend school for such basic reasons as a lack of private latrine facilities for girls. Higher attendance rates of high schools and university education among women, particularly in developing countries, have helped them make inroads to professional careers with better-paying salaries and wages. Education increases a woman’s (and her partner and the family’s) level of health and health awareness. Furthering women’s levels of education and advanced training also tends to lead to later ages of initiation of sexual activity and first intercourse, later age at first marriage, and later age at first childbirth, as well as an increased likelihood to remain single, have no children, or have no formal marriage and alternatively, have increasing levels of long-term partnerships. It can lead to higher rates of barrier and chemical contraceptive use (and a lower level of sexually transmitted infections among women and their partners and children), and can increase the level of resources available to women who divorce or are in a situation of domestic violence. It has been shown, in addition, to increase women’s communication with their partners and their employers, and to improve rates of civic participation such as voting or the holding of office.
8. What can be the best title of the reading passage?

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If you want to be a telephonist, you should _________ your communication skills.

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Most researchers agree that artificial intelligence (AI) peaked around 1985. A public (1)  _______ science-fiction movies and excited by the growing power of computers had high expectations. For years, Al researchers had implied that a breakthrough was just (2) ____ the corner. Marvin Minsky said in 1967 that within a generation the problem of creating AI would be (3) ____ solved. Prototypes of medical-diagnosis programs and speech recognition software appeared to be making progress. It proved to be a false dawn. Thinking computers and household robots failed to (4) ______, and a backlash ensued. "There was undue optimism in the early 1980s’, says David Leaky, a researcher at Indiana University. “Then when people realised these were hard problems, there was retrenchment’. By the late 1980s, the term AI was being avoided by many researchers, who opted instead (5) ____ themselves with specific subdisciplines such as neural networks, agent technology, case-based reasoning

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Vietnam’s population is ageing quickly. In 2017, more than 10 per cent of the population will be 60 and older, and in 15–20 years the elderly will account for one third of the total population. This raises concerns about healthcare, welfare and pensions for the elderly at a time when Vietnam is focusing on economic integration and requires a large labor force. So far two solutions have been proposed: to loosen the two-child policy and to increase the retirement age to 58 for women and 62 for men. By ending the two-child policy the government expects to make up for the ageing population within the next 20 years. But its effect could be creating an uncontrollable boom in the Vietnamese population. When the government loosened the two-child policy in 2015 in a trial period, in the first 6 months of 2016 the third child birth rate increased remarkably by 7.5 per cent. Raising the retirement age has been proposed by the Ministry of Labor pending parliamentary evaluation in May 2017. While the policy is beneficial in utilizing the work experience of the elderly while creating savings in the pension budget, it also means fewer job prospects and promotion opportunities for younger generations. It is also not in the interest of all the elderly, especially the 70 per cent of Vietnam’s labor force working in manual labor-intensive sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing and construction where working above the age of 50 can be dangerous and unproductive. Despite these drawbacks, raising the retirement age is still considered by policymakers as one of the key solutions to the ageing population problem in Vietnam. However, these are only temporary solutions.  
5. The word “temporary” in paragraph 2 means_______________

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In the picture, there is a girl __________ flowers in the rice field.

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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.
3. The phrase “straight-laced” in paragraph 2 probably means ______

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Love stories often include people finding partners who seem to have traits that they lack, like a good girl falling for a bad boy. In this way, they appear to complement one another. For example, one spouse might be outgoing and funny while the other is shy and serious. It’s easy to see how both partners could view the other as ideal – one partner’s strengths balancing out the other partner’s weaknesses. The question is whether people actually seek out complementary partners or if that just happens in the movies.. There is essentially no research evidence that differences in personality, interests, education, politics, upbringing, religion or other traits lead to greater attraction. For example, in one study researchers found that college students preferred descriptions of mates whose written bios were similar to themselves or their ideal self over those described as complementing themselves. Despite the overwhelming evidence, why does the myth of heterogamy endure? There’s evidence that small differences between spouses can become larger over time. In their self-help book “Reconcilable Differences,” psychologists Andrew Christensen, Brian Doss and Neil Jacobson describe how partners move into roles that are complementary over time. For example, if one member of a couple is slightly more humorous than the other, the couple may settle into a pattern in which the slightly-more-funny spouse claims the role of “the funny one” while the slightly-less-funny spouse slots into the role of “the serious one.” In the end, people’s attraction to differences is vastly outweighed by our attraction to similarities. People persist in thinking opposites attract – when in reality, relatively similar partners just become a bit more complementary as time goes by  
3. According to paragraph 2, what is the answer concerning the validity of “opposites attract”: 

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When I tell people about the idea of moving out, many people’s reaction is like, “what do your parents say?” because they assume the parents would not like their children to leave them. Well I don’t know if my parents like it but I can tell you my parents support and respect my decision. They think it is good for me to try and live on my own and then I would know it is the best to stay with my family. The most important reason for independent living is to save the travelling time to work. It used to take me one hour fifteen minutes to travel to work from my previous living place. From my new apartment, it just takes me thirty minutes so I saved forty-five minutes’ traveling time. I don’t have to get up so early and I save two-third of my traveling cost. It does not only save my time to travel for work but also from most of the places in Hong Kong. In addition, I gain my personal space and freedom by independent living. I make my own decision all the time, I do not have to say whether I would go home for dinner, I can invite my friends to come up and stay late. Of course, there are some trade-offs in living on your own. If you want to rent an apartment, there are lots of preparatory work to do. You have to keep visiting the apartments to search for your ideal one. You have to negotiate with the landlord about the price, furniture inclusion, who is responsible for the maintenance of the furniture and equipment. My experience was that after we moved into the apartment, it was not until the kitchen cupboard was soaked with water that we found out there was water leakage in the kitchen sink. Money is the main issue in living on your own. You have to be responsible for all the expenses, for example, the rent, electricity, gas, water, telephone, internet bills, etc.  Therefore, you’ve got to be well prepared and save up for your bills. Although I find my transportation time much shorter, the saved time is spent on other things, such as cooking and some other household chores. I think preparing and cooking the food do occupy a significant portion of my time, therefore I always try to make simple meals. On the other hand, I have to regularly tidy up my apartment and wash my clothes, so it doesn’t really save much of my time after all. Now everything is settled down, I’m getting used to my new life and I am enjoying it. I feel that moving out makes it easier for me to strike a balance between my work, my social life, my study and my family. It may be troublesome but it may worth  
4. Which of the following is NOT included in the preparatory work of renting an apartment?

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People believed that Jane retired because of her poor health.

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The field of 3-D printing comes with a new set of legal questions hospitals using the  technology will need to consider, said Bruce Kline, a technology licensing manager who oversees patents for new technology developed at Mayo Clinic. For starters, he said the STL file printers use are a lot like MP3 music files, in that they can be protected under copyright and require licensing to use. Copyright violations can occur if a purchased STL anatomical model file for rare disease is illegally shared with another institution that did not purchase the file from the vendor that created the file.  Under the law, if a device has a functional use it falls under patent law. If it is not functional, it falls under copyright law. Kline said most medical 3-D printing for educational models and complex anatomy evaluation currently falls under copyright. But, he said that will rapidly change in the coming years as customizable 3-D printable medical devices see wider use.  Additive manufacturing (AM) allows the creation of patient-specific devices at the point of care. Kline said an interesting fact is that these devices are FDA 510(k)-exempt if produced by a hospital instead of a medical device vendor. He said this blurs the lines between traditional vendor relationships, since the hospital can now become the manufacturer. However, if a hospital makes a device, it also becomes liable for it. He advised that it might be better for a commercial vendor to make the device for the hospital so the vendor assumes the liability of the device. Custom-made medical devices are also exempt under FDA regulations, Kline said. So, if a physician creates or modifies a device to meet the clinical needs of a specific patient’s anatomy, he said it is acceptable to use under current FDA rules. This may leave the door wide open for use of 3-D printed devices that are customized for each patient using their own 3-D imaging datasets.  It is possible printable device files may become available in the next few years to customize and print on demand. However, Kline said it will be much more difficult to enforce patents on these types of devices. He explained if someone makes one or two devices, there is no economical way for the creator of those device files to go after the user/maker of of unlicensed copies of the device to claim lost profits.
8. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?