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 questions:
One of the factors contributing to the intense nature of twenty-first-century stress is our continual exposure to media – particularly to an overabundance of news. If you feel stressed out by the news, you are far from alone. Yet somehow many of us seem unable to prevent ourselves from tuning in to an extreme degree.
The further back we go in human history, the longer news took to travel from place to place, and the less news we had of distant people and lands altogether. The printing press obviously changed all that, as did every subsequent development in transportation and telecommunication.
When television came along, it proliferated like a poplulation of rabbits. In 1950, there were 100,000 television sets in North American homes; one year later there were more then a million. Today, it’s not unusual for a home to have three or more television sets, each with cable access to perhaps over a hundred channels. News is the subject of many of those channels, and on several of them it runs 24 hours a day.
What’s more, after the traumatic events of Sptember 11, 2001, live newcasts were paired with perennial text crawls across the bottom of the screen – so that viewers could stay abreast of every story all the time.
Needless to say, the news that is reported to us is not good news, but rather disturbing images and sound bytes alluding to diasater (natural and man-made), upheaval, crime, scandal, war, and the like. Compounding the proplem is that when actual breaking news is scarce, most broadcasts fill in with waistline, hairline, or very existence in the future. This variety of story tends to treat with equal alarm a potentially lethal flu outbreak and the bogus claims of a wrinkle cream that overpromises smooth skin.
Are humans meant to be able to process so much trauma – not to mention so much overblown anticipation of potetial trauma – at once? The human brain, remember, is programmed to slip into alarm mode when danger looms. Danger looms for someone, somewhere at every moment. Exposing ourslves to such input without respite and without perspective cannot be anything other than a source of chronic stress.

According to the passage, our continual exposure to bad news without perspective is obviously     .

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word for each of the blanks.
In an experiment in Canada, ten-year-old children were put in classes of four sizes: 16, 23, 30 and 37 children in (1)...... class. Their teachers said that the smaller classes would result in more individual attention and better marks. However, when the children were (2)....... , those in the smaller classes didn’t get higher marks than the others, except in mathematics. Moreover, children in the larger classes said they liked school (3)........   as much. Perhaps the most surprising result   was the difference between what teachers expected and the actual results obtained. More than 90% of the teachers expected the smaller classes to (4)......... well. After teaching these smaller classes, over 80% of the teachers thought the pupils had done better. However, according to the researchers, nothing of the (5)........ happened. Class size seemed to make a difference only to the teachers’ own attitudes - and not to the results they obtained.
(4)..............................

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 questions:
Martin Luther King, Jf, is well- known for his work in civil rights and for his many famous speeches, among which is his moving “I have a dream” speech. But fewer people know much about King’s childhooD. M.L., as he was called, was bom in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, at the home of his maternal grandfather. M.L.’s grandfather purchased their home on Auburn Avenue in 1909, twenty years before M.L was bom. His grandfather allowed the house to be used as a meeting place for a number of organizations dedicated to the education and social advancement of blacks. M.L. grew up in the atmosphere, with his home being used as a community gathering place, and was no doubt influenced by it.
M.L.’s childhood was not especially eventfully. His father was a minister and his mother was a musician. He was the second of three children, and he attended all black schools in a black neighborhood. The neighborhood was not poor, however. Auburn Avenue was an area of banks, insurance companies, builders, jewelers, tailors, doctors, lawyers, and other businesses and services. Even in the face of Atlanta’s segregation, the district thrived. Dr. King never forgot the community spirit he had known as a child, nor did he forget the racial prejudice that was a huge barrier keeping black Atlantans from mingling with whites.

According to the author, M.L.     .

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks. 
A scientist said robots will be more intelligent than humans by 2029. The scientist's name is Ray Kurzweil. He works for Google as Director of Engineering. He is one of the world’s leading experts on (1) ______ intelligence (A.I). Mr Kurzweil believes computers will be able to learn from experiences, just like humans. He also thinks they will be able to tell jokes and stories, and even flirt. Kurzweil‘s 2029 prediction is a lot sooner than many people thought. The scientist said that in 1999, many A.I. experts said it would be hundreds of years (2) ____ a computer was more intelligent than a human. He said that it would not be long before computer (3) ______ is one billion times more powerful than the human brain.
Mr Kurzweil joked that many years ago, people thought he was a little crazy for predicting computers would be as intelligent as humans. His thinking has stayed the same but everyone else has changed the way they think. He said: “My views are not radical any more. I've actually stayed (4) ______. It's the rest of the world that's changing its View.” He highlighted examples of high-tech things we use, see or read about every day. These things make us believe that computers have intelligence. He said people think differently now: "Because the public has seen things like Siri (the iPhone’s voice-recognition technology) (5) ______ you talk to a computer, they've seen the Google self-driving cars."

(4).....................

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or II to indicate the answer to each of the question. 
     Having a hobby that you enjoy—whether that’s crocheting a sweater for your beastie’s new baby, hitting the slopes to enjoy some fresh powder, or practicing pirouettes in ballet class—has all sorts of well-documented benefits, from lower levels of stress to an increased sense of belonging and purpose. Clearly, hobbies can make a serious impact on your quality of life. But they can also improve your work performance. According to licensed professional counselor Rebecca Weiler, when you’re engaged and fulfilled in your life outside of work like you are when you’re pursuing meaningful hobbies, that happiness spills over. It can make you more focused and enthusiastic when you’re on the job.
     And depending on the hobby, the skills you gain as a result of your leisurely pursuits can also make you better at your job and make you a more appealing candidate for potential employers. “For example, someone who performs in an improvisational group as a hobby could be attractive to an employer because they can think quickly on their feet and may also be more comfortable presenting in front of a group of people,” Weiler says.
    So, having a hobby that you love can do good things for your life and your job. But what if you don’t actually have a hobby you enjoy? You’re not alone. According to Weiler, trying to find meaningful hobbies is one of the primary reasons her clients—especially young people—seek counseling. Clearly, there are plenty of people out there who don’t have, or don’t know how to find, a hobby. But that doesn’t mean they can’t find one. It doesn’t matter if you’re 25 or 85 years old—it’s not too late to hop on board the hobby train! 

The word “they” in paragraph 2 refers to _______.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word for each of the blanks.
I had never been to Denmark before, so when I set out to catch the ferry in early May, I little suspected that by the end of the trip I'd have made such lasting friendships. Esjberg is a (1)..... port for acyclist's arrival, where tourist information can be obtained and money changed. A cycle track leads out of town an down to Ribe, where I spent my first night. The only appointment I had to (2)...... was a meeting with a friend who was flying out in June. I wanted to use my time well, so I had planned a route which would include several small islands and various parts of the countryside.
In my (3)........ , a person travelling alone sometimes meets with unexpected hospitality, and this trip was no exception. On only my second day, I got into conversation with a cheerful man who turned (4)..........to be the local baker. He insisted that I should join his family for lunch, and, while we were eating, he contacted his daughter in Odense. Within minutes, he had arranged for me to visit her and her family. Then I was sent on my way with a fresh loaf of bread to keep me (5).......... , and the feeling that this would turn out to be a wonderful holiday

(1)..................................... 
 

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 questions:
According to some accounts, the first optical telescope was accidentally invented in the 1600s by children who put two glass lenses together while playing with them in a Dutch optical shop. The owner of the shop, Hans Lippershey, looked through the lenses and was amazed by the way they made the nearby church look so much larger. Soon after that, he invented a device that he called a “looker”, a long thin tube where light passed in a straight line from the front lens to the viewing lens at the other end of the tube. In 1608 he tried to sell his invention unsuccessfully. In the same year, someone described the “looker” to the Italian scientists Galileo, who made his own version of the device. In 1610 Galileo used his version to make observations of the Moon, the planet Jupiter, and the Milky Way. In April of 1611, Galileo showed his device to guests at a banquet in his honor. One of guests suggested a name for the device: telescope
When Isaac Newton began using Galileo’s telescope more than a century later, he noticed a problem. The type of telescope that Galileo designed is called a refractor because the front lens bends, or refracts, the light. However, the curved front lens also caused the light to the separated into colors. This meant that when Newton looked through the refracting telescope, the images of bright objects appeared with a ring of colors around them. This sometimes interfered with viewing. He solved this problem by designing a new type of telescope that used a curved mirror. This mirror concentrated the light and reflected a beam of light to the eyepiece at the other end of the telescope. Because Newton used a mirror, his telescope was called a reflector
Very much larger optical telescopes can now be found in many parts of the world, built on hills and mountains far from city lights. The world’s largest refracting telescope is located at the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. Another telescope stands on Mount Palomar in California. This huge reflecting telescope was for many years the largest reflecting telescope in the world until an even larger reflecting telescope was built in the Caucasus Mountains. A fourth famous reflector telescope, the Keck Telescope situated on a mountain in Hawaii, does not use a single large mirror to collect the light. Instead, the Keck uses the combined light that falls on thirty- six mirrors
Radio telescopes, like optical telescopes allow astronomers to collect data from outer space, but they are different in important ways. First of all, they look very different because instead of light waves, they collect radio waves. Thus, in the place of lenses or mirror, radio telescopes employ bowl-shaped disks that resemble huge TV satellite dished. Also, apart from their distinctive appearance, radio telescope and optical telescopes use different methods to record the information they collect. Optical telescopes use cameras to take photographs of visible objects, while radio telescopes use radio receivers to record radio waves from distant object in space.

Where does the largest reflecting telescope stand?

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 questions:
Buying a house is the single largest financial investment an individual makes. Yet, in India this act is fraught with risk and individuals depend on weak laws for justice. Occasionally, deviant promoters are called to account as was the case in the detention of Unitech’s promoters. This incident shows up the fallout of an absence of proper regulation to cover contracts between buyers and real estate promoters. A real estate bill, which is presently pending in Rajya Sabha, seeks to fill this gap. It has been debated for over two years and should be passed by Parliament in the budget session.
India is in the midst of rapid urbanization and urban population is expected to more than double to about 900 million over the next three decades. Unfortunately, even the current population does not have adequate housing. A government estimate in 2012 put the shortage at nearly 19 million units. If this shortage is to be alleviated quickly, India’s messy real estate sector needs reforms.
The real estate bill seeks to set standards for contracts between buyers and sellers. Transparency, a rare commodity in real estate, is enforced as promoters have to upload project details on the regulators’ website. Importantly, standard definitions of terms mean that buyers will not feel cheated after taking possession of a house. In order to protect buyers who pay upfront, a part of the money collected for a real estate project is ring-fenced in a separate bank account. Also, given the uncertainty which exists in India on land titles, the real estate bill provides title insurance. This bill has been scrutinized by two parliamentary committees and its passage now brooks no delay.
This bill is an important step in cleaning up the real estate market, but the journey should not end with it. State governments play a significant role in real estate and they are often the source of problems. Some estimates suggest that real estate developers have to seek approvals of as many as 40 central and state departments, which lead to delays and an escalation in the cost of houses. Sensibly, NDA government’s project to provide universal urban housing forces states to institute reforms to access  central funding. Without real estate reforms at the level of states, it will not be possible to meet the ambition of making housing accessible for all urban dwellers.

The word “they” in the last paragraph refers to     .

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 questions:
In the explosion of the linguistic life cycle, it is apparent that it is much more difficult to learn a second language in adulthood than a first language in childhood. Most adults never completely master a foreign language, especially in Phonology – hence the ubiquitous foreign accent. Their development often “fossilizes” into permanent error patterns that no teaching or correction can undo. Of course, there are great individual differences, which depend on effort, attitudes, amount of exposure, quality of teaching and plain talent, but there seems to be a cap for the best adults in the best circumstances
Many explanations have been advanced for children’s superiority; they exploit Motherese (the simplified, repetitive conversation between parents and children), make errors unself- consciously, are more motivated to communicate, like to conform, are not set in their ways, and have not first language to interfere. But some of these accounts are unlikely, based on what is known about how language acquisition works. Recent evidence is calling these social and motivation explanations into doubt. Holding every other factor constant, a key factor stands out: sheer age
Systematic evidence comes from the psychologist Elissa Newport and her colleagues. They tested Korean and Chinese – born students at the University of Illinois who had spent a least ten years in the United States. The immigrants were give a list of 276 simple English sentences, half of them containing some grammatical error. The immigrants who came to the United States between the age of 3 and 7 performed identically to American – born students. Those who arrived between ages 8 and 15 did worse the latter they arrived, and those who arrived between 17 and 39 did the worst of all, and showed huge variability unrelated to their age of arrival.

From the passage, it can be inferred that “Phonology” is the study of      

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 questions:
Transportation accounts for up to one–third of greenhouse gas emissions from the world’s biggest cities and traffic is the largest source of toxic air pollution. To create sustainable, healthy and liveable cities, we need to increase the number of cyclists on our streets, and that means getting more women on their bikes. In San Francisco, only 29% of cyclists are women; in Barcelona, there are three male cyclists for every female cyclist; in London, 37% of cyclists are female.
Surveys reveal that potential cyclists of all genders are deterred by similar concerns, including aggressive and speeding drivers, the threat posed by large vehicles such as lorries and buses, and bike theft. However, women disproportionately view protected cycle lanes as a more urgent priority.
According to research about women and cycling in San Francisco, cities should invest in protected cycle lanes with consistent and clear signage that function as a joined–up network to encourage female riders. Together with more secure cycle parking, these infrastructure investments would make cycling safer, supporting those who already cycle and encouraging those who do not yet ride.
People do what they perceive to be possible. Research in San Francisco found that women, especially women of colour, felt that “people like me” do not cycle. Similarly, 49% of people in London say they do not feel cycling is for “people like them”. More diverse and inclusive imagery of cyclists (in policy documents, in the media and on city streets) could help challenge these perceptions and make more people feel that cycling is for everyone. Social events that enable women to try cycling in a relaxed environment, perhaps as part of a buddy or mentor system that pairs experienced cyclists with those newer to cycling, can help make cycling more accessible and inclusive, along with approaches such as female–led maintenance classes.
The different decisions men and women make about cycling are not only based on issues of convenience or comfort. People’s perceptions of safety influence how, when, where and why they travel. Women and girls learn early on to worry about their personal safety when out and about, and to change their behaviour, dress, speech and travel patterns to avoid sexual harassment or violence. Cities must take women’s and girls’ safety considerations seriously through initiatives such as safety audits.

The word “their” in paragraph 4 refers to     .

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.

       The (1) _________over vending machines in schools is not new. For a long time, regional governments and public schools have been deliberating on whether or not it is a good idea to have vending machines in schools. In America, (2) ______, only one state has banned these machines in its public schools. Around the country, however, most state schools have different rules about how many and how often vending machines should be accessible to students. Although some people believe that having these drink and snack machines in schools is a good idea, others (3)_________ that there are many disadvantages, too.

      Doctors and other health workers, for instance, suggest that the main disadvantage of having vending machines in schools is based on health and (4)________. They cite statistics that show school – aged children have poorly balanced diets, often due to eating too much fast food. If vending machines are introduced to schools, children will have yet another option for eating unhealthy foods. In a survey of vending machines sales across the country, it was found that sweet drinks like colas and sugary snacks like candy bars were the biggest sellers. Sugary foods and drinks commonly cause obesity in consumers. Opponents of vending machines in schools worry that we are teaching children to be obese. (5)__________the problem of childhood obesity, it is plausible to say that children’s health problems will only get worse if vending machines are followed in schools.

(1).....................

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks. 

BRITPOP
       In the early to mid-1990s Britpop artists, influenced by British guitar sounds of the 1960s and 70s, wrote about topics that were considered purely British and relevant to their generation. The music style with its (1) ____ songs was considered as a reaction against the grunge music that was arriving from the States and, in fact, it did not have a huge commercial success in the USA.
       Britpop bands included Suede, Pulp, Blur and Oasis but it was the (2) ____ two that really dominated the market. In 1994 Blur released their album Parklife (3) ____ had a strong retro feel from the 70s and Oasis released Definitely Maybe, again with a retro feel reminiscent of John Lennon.
       The two bands were often seen (4) ____ rivals and this was exaggerated by the media who emphasized their differences in origins and class: Oasis from the north of England, Blur from the south. This culminated in both bands releasing singles on the same day in 1985, with Blur's single Country House reaching number one in the charts and Oasis's Roll With It number two. Oasis, however, went on to have greater commercial success, particularly with the album (What's the story) Morning Glory? (1985) which sold 412 million (5) ____ in the UK. 

(2)...............

Read the following passage and choose the best answer for each blank.

Here's some advice for trying to find the university that works for you.

1. You need to examine (26) _____ and your reasons for going to university before you start your search. Why are you going? What are your abilities and strengths? What are your weaknesses? What do you want out of life? Are you socially self-sufficient (27) _____ do you need warm, familial (28) _____? Talk with your family, friends and high-school counselors as you ask these questions. The people (29) _____ know you best can help you the most with these important issues.

2. Very few high-school students have enough information or (30) _____ to choose a major. You need to be well (31) _____ to determine your interest and aptitude. Many students (32) _____ their minds two or three times before they settle on a major.

3. If you do not have to go to university right (33) _____ it is never too late. There is no such thing as the perfect time to start university. Some students benefit from a year off to work, study or travel, and these experiences (34) _____ them to be better, more engaged students. Some students choose to apply to university and gain admission and then defer their entrance, while others wait to apply until after they have had (35) _____ alternative experience.

(34) _____

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 questions:
Very few people in the modem world obtain their food supply by hunting and gathering in the natural environment surrounding their homes. This method of harvesting from nature’s provision is the oldest known subsistence strategy and has been practised for at least the last two million years. It was, indeed, the only way to obtain food until rudimentary farming and the domestication of wild animals were introduced about 10,000 years ago.
Because hunter-gatherers have fared poorly in comparison with their agricultural cousins, their numbers have dwindled, and they have been forced to live in marginal environments, such as deserts and arctic wastelands. In higher latitudes, the shorter growing seasons have restricted the availability of plant life. Such conditions have caused a greater dependence on hunting, and on fishing along the coasts and waterways. The abundance of vegetation in the lower latitudes of the tropics, on the other hand, has provided a greater opportunity for gathering a variety of plants. In short, the environmental differences have restricted the diet and have limited possibilities for the development of subsistence societies.
Contemporary hunter-gatherers may help US understand our prehistoric ancestors. We know from the observation of modem hunter-gatherers in both Africa and Alaska that a society based on hunting and gathering must be very mobile. While the entire community camps in a central location, a smaller party harvests the food within a reasonable distance from the camp. When the food in the area has become exhausted, the community moves on to exploit another site. We also notice seasonal migration patterns evolving for most hunter-gatherers, along with a strict division of labor between the sexes. These patterns of behavior may be similar to those practised by mankind during the Paleolithic Period.

According to the passage, which of the following is NOT mentioned?

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 questions:
Henry is the undisputed star of Dronfield School near Sheffield. Whatever the achievements of other members of the comprehensive school, it is Henry, with his soulful eyes and glossy hair, who has hogged the limelight, appearing on television in Britain and abroad. Yet despite all the public adulation, Henry stirs up no envy or resentment among the 2000 students – in fact, they all adore him. The dog, who first arrived six months ago, is a super dog, who has improved students’ behaviour and encouraged more students to focus on their academic achievement.
Andrew Wainwright, a student at Dronfield School, says there is something magical and calming about being able to interact with Henry during his time at the school’s catch-up classes, and that if he falls behind, that opportunity will be denied. Even doubting staff have finally been won round. Perhaps that is because Henry, who lies on the floor during staff meetings, has also had a calming effect on them.
It was Andrew’s teacher, Wendy Brown and the school counsellor, Julie Smart, who first proposed buying a school dog. “Julie and I were talking one day about how looking after dogs can positively affect children’s conduct,” says Brown. “We did some research and discovered that the presence of pets has been shown to be therapeutic. A number of studies have shown that animals improve recovery after surgery or illness and have a calming influence on people in a lot of settings. Some of my kids can be a handful and some of the children Julie counsels have terrible problems.”
Could the school dog become a craze? Other schools such as the Mulberry Bush, a primary school for children with behavioural problems, have stepped forward to point out they already have one. Rosie Johnston, a Mulberry staff member has been bringing her golden retriever, Muskoka, into school for three years. Apart from being a calming influence, Muskoka even plays his part in literacy lessons. Children at the school can be too shy to read to adults so they read to Muskoka. “Their anxiety about mispronouncing something or getting the words in the wrong order is reduced when they read to him,” says Johnston.
Psychologist Dr Deborah Wells from Queen's University Belfast specialises in animal-human interaction. She believes that the underlying key to the Henry effect is that dogs offer unconditional love and that cheers up adults and children and helps with self-esteem. But traditionalist Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of schools says, “I don’t see why a teacher cannot create a positive learning environment through the subject they teach and their personality. Dogs strike me as a bit of a publicity stunt. It’s the kind of sentimental story journalists love.” Despite this sentiment, Henry remains as popular as ever.

Which of the following best summarises Chris Woodhead's viewpoint in paragraph 5?

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the question. 
Nowadays, most people realize that it’s risky to use credit card numbers online. However, from time to time, we all use passwords and government ID numbers on the Internet. We think we are safe, but that may not be true! A new kind of attack is being used by dishonest people to steal IDs and credit card numbers from innocent websurfers. This new kind of attack is called “phishing.”
Phishing sounds the same as the word “fishing,” and it implies that a thief is trying to lure people into giving away valuable information. Like real fishermen, phishers use bait in the form of great online deals or services. For example, phishers might use fake emails and false websites to con people into revealing credit card numbers, account usernames, and passwords. They imitate well-known banks, online sellers, and credit card companies. Successful phishers may convince as many as five percent of the people they contact to respond and give away their personal financial information. 
Is this really a big problem? Actually, tricking five percent of the online population is huge! Currently, more than 350 million people have access to the Internet, and seventy-five percent of those Internet users live in the wealthiest countries on Earth. It has been estimated that phishers send more than three billion scam messages each year. Even by tricking only five percent of the people, phishers can make a lot of money. 
Since there is so much money to make through this kind of scam, it has caught the interest of more than just small-time crooks. Recently, police tracked down members of an organized phishing group in Eastern Europe, who had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from people online. The group created official-looking email messages requesting people to update their personal information at an international bank’s website. However, the link to the bank in the message actually sent people to the phishers’ fake website. To make matters worse, further investigation revealed that this group had connections to a major crime gang in Russia. 
How can innocent people protect themselves? Above all, they have to learn to recognize email that has been sent by a phisher. Always be wary of any email with urgent requests for personal financial information. Phishers typically write upsetting or exciting, but fake, statements in their emails so that people will reply right away. Also, messages from phishers will not address recipients by name because they really don’t know who the recipients are yet. On the other hand, valid messages from your bank or other companies you normally deal with will typically include your name.

As mentioned in paragraph 4, the trick used by phishers in Eastern Europe is ____________.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word for each of the blanks.
When you read something in a foreign language, you frequently come across words you do not fully understand. Sometimes you (1).... the meaning in a dictionary and sometimes you guess. The strategy you adopt depends very much upon the degree of accuracy you require and the time at your disposal.
If you are the sort of person who tends to turn to the dictionary frequently, it is (2)..remembering that every dictionary has its limitations. Each definition is only an approximation and one builds up an accurate picture of the meaning of a word only after meeting it in a (3)...... of contexts. It is also important to recognize the special dangers of dictionaries that translate from English into your native language and vice versa. If you must use a dictionary, it is usually far safer to consult an English-English dictionary.
In most exams you are not permitted to use a dictionary. (4) .... you are allowed to use one, it is very time-consuming to look up words, and time in exams is usually limited. You are, therefore, forced to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words. When you come across unknown words in an exam text, it is very easy to panic. However, if you develop efficient techniques for guessing the meaning, you will overcome a number of possible problems and help yourself to understand far more of the text than you at first thought likely.
Two strategies which may help you guess the meaning of a word are: using contextual clues, both within the sentence and outside, and making use of clues (5)....... from the formation of the word
(1)........................

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 questions:
How is the news different from entertainment? Most people would answer that news is real but entertainment is fiction. However, if we think more carefully about the news, it becomes clear that the news is not always real. The news does not show us all the events of the day, but stories  from a small number of chosen events. The creation of news stories is subject to specific constraints, much like the creation of works of fiction. There are many constraints, but three of the most important ones are: commercialism, story formulas, and sources.
Newspapers, radio, and TV stations are businesses, all of which are rivals for audiences and advertising revenue. The amount of time that the average TV station spends on news broadcasts has grown steadily over the last fifty years - largely because news is relatively cheap to produce, yet sells plenty of advertising. Some news broadcasts are themselves becoming advertisements. For example, during one week in 1996 when the American CBS network was airing a movie about the sinking of the Titanic, CBS news ran nine stories about that event (which had happened 84 years before). The ABC network is owned by Disney Studios, and frequently runs news stories about Mickey Mouse. Furthermore, the profit motive drives news organizations to pay more attention to stories likely to generate a large audience, and to shy away from stories that may be important but dull. This pressure to be entertaining has produced shorter, simpler stories: more focus on celebrities than people of substance, more focus on gossip than on news, and more focus on dramatic events than on nuanced issues.
As busy people under relentless pressure to produce, journalists cannot spend days agonizing over the best way to present stories. Instead, they depend upon certain story formulas, which they can reuse again and again. One example is known as the inverted pyramid. In this formula, the journalist puts the most important information at the beginning of the story, than adds the next most important, and so on. The inverted pyramid originates from the age of the telegraph, the idea being that if the line went dead halfway through the story, the journalist would know that the most crucial information had at least been relayed. Modern journalists still value the formula for a similar reason. Their editors will cut stories if they are too long. Another formula involves reducing a complicated story into a simple conflict. The best example is "horse race" election coverage. Thorough explication of the issues and the candidates' views is forbiddingly complex. Journalists therefore concentrate more on who is winning in the opinion polls, and whether the underdog can catch up in the numbers than on politicians' campaign goals.
Sources are another constraint on what journalists cover and how they cover it. The dominant sources for news are public information officers in businesses and government offices. The majority of such officers try to establish themselves as experts who are qualified to feed information to journalists. How do journalists know who is an expert? In general, they don't. They use sources not on the basis of actual expertise, but on the appearance of expertise and the willingness to share it. All the major news organizations use some of the same sources (many of them anonymous), so the same types of stories always receive attention. Over time, the journalists may even become close friends with their sources, and they stop searching for alternative points of view. The result tends to be narrow, homogenized coverage of the same kind.

The word relayed in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to    _.

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 questions:
Body language is a vital form of communication. In fact, it is believed that the various forms of body language contribute about 70 percent to our comprehension. It is important to note, however, that body languages varies in different cultures. Take for example, eye movement. In the USA a child is expected to look directly at a parent or teacher who is scolding him/her. In other cultures the opposite is true. Looking directly at a teacher or parent in such a situation is considered a sign of disrespect.
Another form of body language that is used differently, depending on the culture, is distance. In North America people don’t generally stand as close to each other as in South America. Two North Americans who don’t know each other well will keep a distance of four feet between them, whereas South Americans in the same situation will stand two to three feet apart. North Americans will stand closer than two feet apart only if they are having a confidential conversation or if there is intimacy between them.
Gestures are often used to communicate. We point a finger, raise an eyebrow, wave an arm – or move any other part of the body - to show what we want to say. However, this does not mean that people all over the world use the same gestures to express the same meanings. Very often we find that the same gestures can communicate different meanings, depending on the country. An example of a gesture that could be misinterpreted is sticking out the tongue. In many cultures it is a sign of making a mistake, but in some places it communicates ridicule.
The dangers of misunderstanding one another are great. Obviously, it is not enough to learn the language of another culture. You must also learn its non-verbal signals if you want to communicate successfully.

The word “misinterpreted” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to     .

Fiberscopes are one of the most important Outcomes of the science of fiber optics. Fibers made of glass and transparent acrylic plastic are capable of conveying light energy, and when thousands of these fibers are combined in what is called a fiberscope, they can transmit images. The most common fiberscopes contain about 750,000 fibers, each 0.001 centimeter, or 10 microns, in diameter. For certain uses, the diameter of the fiber may be as small as 5 microns.
Fiberscopes have a wide range of applications. In the medical field, physicians use fiberscopes to examine internal organs and as an aid in delicate surgeries. Miniature probes have also been developed to view muscle fiber, skin tissue, and blood cells. Fiberscopes have also found varied uses in industry, particularly to inspect or control operations in inaccessible areas. Bundles of fiberscopes fused together in a solid plate, called a faceplate, are being used in the manufacture of television picture tubes and other cathode-ray tube devices. 
The most far-reaching applications of fiber-optic technology are in communications. Optical fibers carry voice messages for telephone service. The sound of the voice is electronically broken down into thousands of pulses per second, which causes a transmitting laser to send coordinated pulses of light through the optical fibers. At the receiving end, the light pulses are converted to electrical signals and the voice message is reconstructed. Light-wave communication systems can handle an immensely greater number of telephone calls and television programs than the current system, and they will form the basis of the "electronic superhighway" expected to crisscross the nation in the near future of the information age.

Fiberscopes are being used to do all of the following EXCEPT _________