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By mid-century, there will likely be 9 billion people on the planet, consuming ever more resources and leading ever more technologically complex lives. What will our cities be like? How much will artificial intelligence advance? Will global warming trigger catastrophic changes, or will we be able to engineer our way out of the climate change crisis?
Making predictions is, by nature, a dicey business, but to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Smithsonian magazine Big Think asked top minds from a variety of fields to weigh in on what the future holds 40 years from now. The result is our latest special series, Life in 20 50. Demographic changes in world population and population growth will certainly be dramatic. Rockefeller University mathematical biologist Joel Cohen says it's likely that by 2050 the majority of the people in the world will live in urban areas, and will have a significantly higher average age than people today. Cities theorist Richard Florida thinks urbanization trends will reinvent the education system of the United States, making our economy less real estate driven and erasing the divisions between home and work.
Large migrations from developing countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Mexico, and countries in the Middle East could disrupt western governments and harm the unity of France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom under the umbrella of the European Union.
And rapidly advancing technology will continue ever more rapidly. According to Bill Mitchell, the late director of MIT's Smart Cities research group, cities of the future won't look like "some sort of science -fiction fantasy" or "Star Trek" but it's likely that "discreet, unobtrusive" technological advances and information overlays, i.e. virtual reality and augmented reality, will change how we live in significant ways. Self-driving cars will make the roads safer, driving more efficient, and provide faster transports. A larger version of driverless cars-driverless trucks-may make long haul drivers obsolete.
Meanwhile, the Internet will continue to radically transform media, destroying the traditional model of what a news organization is, says author and former New York Times Public Editor, Daniel Okrent, who believes the most common kinds of news organizations in the future will be "individuals and small alliances of individuals” reporting and publishing on niche topics.

What does the word "who" in the last paragraph refer to?

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   Different cultures follow their own special customs when a child's baby teeth fall out. In Korea, for example, they have the custom of throwing lost teeth up on the roof of a house. According to tradition, a magpie will come and take the tooth. Later, the magpie will return with a new tooth for the child. In other Asian countries, such as Japan and Vietnam, children follow a similar tradition of throwing their lost teeth onto the roofs of houses.

   Birds aren't the only animals thought to take lost teeth. In Mexico and Spain, tradition says a mouse takes a lost tooth and leaves some money. However, in Mongolia, dogs are responsible for taking teeth away. Dogs are highly respected in Mongolian culture and are considered guardian angels of the people. Tradition says that the new tooth will grow good and strong if the baby tooth is fed to a guardian angel. Accordingly, parents in Mongolia will put their child's lost tooth in a piece of meat and feed it to a dog.

   The idea of giving lost teeth to an angel or fairy is also a tradition in the West. Many children in Western countries count on the Tooth Fairy to leave money or presents in exchange for a tooth. The exact origins of the Tooth Fairy are a mystery, although the story probably began in England or Ireland centuries ago. According to tradition, a child puts a lost tooth under his or her pillow before going to bed. In the wee hours, while the child is sleeping, the Tooth Fairy takes the tooth and leaves something else under the pillow. In France, the Tooth Fairy leaves a small gift. In the United States, however, the Tooth Fairy usually leaves money. These days, the rate is $1 to $5 per tooth, adding up to a lot of money from the Tooth Fairy!

According to paragraph 2, parents in Mongolia feed their child's lost tooth to a dog because ______.

Choose the letter A, B, C or D to complete the passage below

   In 1973, when the tiger appeared to (1)______ facing extinction, the World Wide Fund for Nature and (2) _____Indian Government agreed to set up “Operation Tiger”- a campaign (3) ______ save this threatened creature. They started by creating nine special parks so that tigers could live in safety. The first was at Ranthambhore, a region (4) _____ was quickly turning into a desert as too much of the grass was being eaten by the local people’s cattle. At the time there (5) ______ just fourteen tigers left there. The government had to clear twelve small villages, which mean moving nearly 1,000 people and 10,000 cattle so the land could be handed back to nature.

(3).......................

Choose the option that best completes each of the following sentences

Computer programmer David Jones earns £35,000 a year designing new computer games, yet he cannot find a bank prepared to let him have a cheque card. Instead, he has been told to wait another two years, until he is 18.

The 16-year-old works for a small firm in Liverpool, where the problem of most young people of his age is finding a job. David's firm releases two new games for the expanding home computer market each month.

But David's biggest headache is what to do with his money.

Despite his salary, earned by inventing new programs within tight schedules, with bonus payments and profit-sharing, he cannot drive a car, take out a mortgage, or obtain credit cards. He lives with his parents in their council house in Liverpool, where his father is a bus driver. His company has to pay £150 a month in taxi fares to get him the five miles to work and back every day because David cannot drive.

David got his job with the Liverpool-based company four months ago, a year after leaving school with six O-levels and working for a time in a computer shop. "I got the job because the people who run the firm knew I had already written some programs," he said.

"I suppose £35,000 sounds a lot but actually that's being pessimistic. I hope it will come to more than that this year." He spends some of his money on records and clothes, and gives his mother £20 a week. But most his spare time is spent working.

"Unfortunately, computing was not part of our studies at school," he said. "But I had been studying it in books and 'magazines for four years in my spare time. I knew what I wanted to do and never considered staying on at school. Most people in this business are fairly young, anyway."

David added: "I would like to earn a million and I suppose early retirement is a possibility. You never know when the market might disappear."

Why is David different from other young people at his age?

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The concept of being environmentally conscious, or “green”, has become more prevalent in twenty first-century U.S culture. It has begun to affect the manufacturing of everything from non-toxic household cleaning products to motor vehicles powered by alternative sources of energy. However, one way of being “green” that is perhaps not as apparent to the viewer but of equal importance in being environmentally conscious, is the construction of buildings that are considered “sustainable”. Sustainable buildings are those that do not impose on the environment or rely on the over-utilization of energy or natural resources. There are four main principles of sustainability, which includes consideration of the health and stability of all living things and their environmental diversity, as well as the economic opportunities of humanity.
Sustainable architecture consists of environmentally conscious design techniques. In the past, the demolition of an old building meant that all or most of the debris of the building would end up in a landfill or a waste disposal site. Today, architects can plan and design a building that uses recycled materials, such as wood, concrete, stone, or metal. These materials are salvaged from the demolition of an older building and can be appropriately incorporated into a new construction. Architects and construction supervisors may also choose to recycle more organic parts of demolished buildings, such as wooden doors, windows and other glass, ceramics, paper, and textiles.
A problem that has often arisen has been with how a site crew-whether it is demolition or construction crew determines and sorts what is “waste” and what is recyclable. Architects and environmental scientists have to decide whether or not a material is appropriate for use in new construction and how it will impact the environment. They must evaluate the materials from the demolition and determine what those materials contain, and if they meet the standards set by the U.S, government’s Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA). If the debris from the demolition contains hazardous materials that are harmful to the environment or to the consumer, such as asbestos, then the material is not salvageable. Use of the asbestos for insulation and as a form of fire retardation in buildings and fabrics was common in the nineteenth century. Asbestos was once used in shingles on the sides of buildings, as well as in the insulation in the interior walls of homes or other construction. In new “green” construction, insulation that once asbestos- based can be replaced with recycled denim or constructed with cellulose-a fibrous material found in paper products. The same-assessment applies to wood or wallboard painted with toxic lead-based paints. In addition, gas-flow regulators and meters on both water and gas heating systems constructed prior to 1961 must be carefully evaluated to determine that they do not contain dangerous substances such as mercury. Mercury can be harmful to humans and the environment if it is spilled during the removal of these devices.

 According to paragraph 1, which of the following is true?

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After a busy day of work and play, the body needs to rest. Sleep is necessary for good health. During this time, the body recovers from  the (1)............ of the previous day. The rest that you get while sleeping enables your body to prepare itself for the next day.
There are four levels of sleep, each being a little (2)....... than the one before. As you sleep, your muscles relax little by little. Your heart beats more slowly, and your brain slows down. After you (3).......the fourth level, your body shifts back and forth from one level of sleep to the other.
Although your mind slows down, you will dream from time to time. Scientists who study sleep state that when dreaming (4)....., your eyeballs begin to move more quickly. This stage of sleep is called REM, which stands for Rapid Eye Movement.
If you have trouble falling asleep, some people recommend breathing very slowly and deeply. Other people believe that drinking warm milk will make you (5).................. There is also an old suggestion that counting sheep will put you to sleep!
(4).......................

It is hard to get any agreement on the precise meaning of the term "social class". In everyday life, people tend to have a different approach to those they consider their equals from which they assume with people they consider higher or lower than themselves in social scale. The criteria we use to 'place' a new acquaintance, however, are a complex mixture of factors. Dress, way of speaking, area of residence in a given city or province, education and manners all play a part.
In ancient civilizations, the Sumerian, for example, which flourished in the lower Euphrates valley from 2000 to 5000 B.C. social differences were based on birth, status or rank, rather than on wealth. Four main classes were recognized. These were the rulers, the priestly administrators, the freemen (such as craftsmen, merchants or farmers) and the slaves.
In Greece, after the sixth-century B.C., there was a growing conflict between the peasants and the aristocrats, and a gradual decrease in the power of the aristocracy when a kind of ‘middle class’ of traders and skilled workers grew up. The population of Athens, for example, was
divided into three main classes which were politically and legally distinct. About one-third of the total population was slaves, who did not count politically at all, a fact often forgotten by those who praise Athens as the nursery of democracy. The next main group consisted of resident foreigners, the, ‘metics’ who were freemen, though they too were allowed no share in political life. The third group was the powerful body of ‘citizens”, who were themselves divided into sub- classes.
In the later Middle Ages, however, the development of a money economy and the growth of cities and trade led to the rise of another class, the ‘burghers’ or city merchants and mayors. These were the predecessors of the modern middle classes. Gradually high office and occupation assumed importance in determining social position, as it became more and more possible for a person born to one station in life to move to another. This change affected the towns more than the country areas, where remnants of feudalism lasted much longer.

According to the passage, we evaluate other people's social position by  ...........

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Most of the fastening devices used in clothing today, like the shoelace, the button, and the safely pin. have existed in some form in various cultures for thousands of years. But the zipper was the brainchild of one American inventor, namely Whitcomb Judson of Chicago. At the end of the 19th century. Judson was already a successful inventor, with a dozen patents to his credit for mechanical items such as improvements to motors and railroad braking system.
He then turned his mind to create a replacement for the lengthy shoelaces which were then used in both men’s and women's boots. On August 29th 1893, he won another patent, for what he called the case “locker”. Though the model was somewhat clumsy, and frequently jammed, it did work: in fact, Judson and his business associate Lewis Walker had sewn the device into their own boots. Although Judson displayed his clasp–locker at the World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893, the public largely ignored it. The company founded by Judson and Walker, Universal Fastener, despite further refinements, never really succeeded in marketing the device.
The earliest zip fasteners were being used in the clothing industry by 1905, but it was only in 1913, after a Swedish–American engineer, Gideon Sundbach, had remodeled Judson's fastener into a more streamlined and reliable form, that the zipper was a success. The US Army applied zippers to the clothing and equipment of the troops of World War I. By the late 1920s, zippers could be found in all kinds of clothing, footwear, and carrying cases; by the mid–1930s, zippers had even been embraced by the fashion industry.
The term “zipper" was coined as onomatopoeia (resembling the sound it makes) by B.F. Goodrich whose company started marketing rubber shoes featuring the fastener in 1923. Regrettably. Whitcomb Judson died in 1909, and never heard the term, or saw the success by which his invention would become popular.

The word "refinements" in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to    .

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The history of American newspapers begins in  the early 18th century with the publication of the first colonial newspapers. American newspapers began as modest affairs - a sideline for printers. They became a political force in the campaign for American independence. After independence, the first article of U.S. Constitution guaranteed freedom of the  press.  The  U.S. Postal Service Act of  1792  provided substantial subsidies: Newspapers were delivered up to 100 miles for a penny and beyond for 1.5 cents, when first class postage ranged from six cents to a quarter.
The American press grew rapidly during the First Party System (1790s-1810s) when both parties sponsored papers to reach their loyal partisans. From the 1830s onward, the  Penny  press began to play a major role in American journalism and its interests seemed to remarkably surprised the management board in the journal industry. Technological advancements such as the telegraph and faster printing presses in the 1840s also helped to  expand the press of  the nation as  it experienced rapid economic and demographic growth. Editors typically became the local party spokesman, and hard-hitting editorials were widely reprinted.
By 1900 major newspapers had become profitable powerhouses of advocacy, muckraking and sensationalism, along with serious, and objective news-gathering. During the early 20th century, prior to rise of television, the average American read several newspapers per- day. Starting in the 1920s, changes in technology again
morphed the nature of American journalism as radio and later, television, began to play increasingly important competitive roles.
In the late 20th centuiy, much of American journalism became housed in big media chains.    With the coming of digital journalism in the 21st century, all newspapers faced a business crisis as readers turned to the Internet for sources and advertisers followed them.

It can be inferred from the passage that changes in technology again

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The majority of medium and large companies pay higher wage rates to men than to women, according to the latest government figures. The disparity, known as the gender pay gap, reflects the different average hourly salaries earned by men and women. The government data showed 74% of firms pay higher rates to their male staff. just 15% of businesses with more than 250 employees pay more to women. As many as 11% of firms said there is no difference between the rates paid to either gender.
Unlike pay inequality - which compares the wages of men and women doing the same job - a gender pay difference at a company is not illegal, but could possibly reflect discrimination. The average gender pay gap across all medium and large-sized firms is now 8.2%, as measured by median pay. in other words, men typically earn over 8% more per hour than women. Among those with the largest gender pay gap are airlines such as Tui and Easyjet, and banks including Virgin Money, the Clydesdale and TSB. Easyjet has said its pay gap of 45.5% is down to the fact that most of its pilots are male, while most of its more modestly paid cabin crew are female. Tui Airways - where men earn 47% more than 214women - has the same issue. Many banks also appear to have a gender bias on salaries. The Bank of England's wage rate for men is 24% higher than for its female employees.
By law, all firms with more than 250 staff must report their gender pay gap to the government by 4 April this year. So far only 1,047 firms have complied, leaving another 8,000 to go. Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of the CBI, denied companies were dragging their feet in reporting the data. "I don't see a reluctance," she told the Today programme. "I think this is genuinely quite difficult data to find, it is often sitting on different systems and firms are working very hard towards that deadline.

The phrase "dragging their feet" in paragraph 3 means     .

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Expanding the planet's protected natural areas to safeguard vanishing forests and other ecosystems, and the species they protect, is unlikely to be effective on its own as human encroachment into reserves grows, scientists warned Tuesday. A study by Cambridge University researchers, which looked at thousands of conservation areas in more than 150 countries, found that, on average, protected designation is not reducing human encroachment in vulnerable areas. Both chronic underfunding of efforts to protect the land, and a lack of engagement with local communities that live there are hurting conservation efforts, they found.
Creating protected areas is "a type of intervention that we know can work, we know is absolutely essential for conserving biodiversity, at a time in this world's history where it has never been under higher pressure," said lead author Jonas Geldmann. "But despite that we are seeing that some of our protected areas are not managing to mitigate or stop that increasing pressure," said Geldmann, of the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute.
One-sixth of the globe now falls within protected areas, the study noted. Those include national parks, nature reserves and wilderness areas, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's World Database on Protected Areas. Such protected areas are vital for preserving diverse ecosystems, and helping to curb climate change by conserving carbon-sequestering forests and other vegetation. The United Nations Environment Program estimates protected areas hold 15% of the carbon stored on land.
"Protected areas are one of the most important things that we can do to stem the loss of biodiversity and to help solve the climate crisis," said Andrew Wetzler, managing director of the U.S.-based Natural Resources Defense Council's nature program. "The destruction of natural habitat is the single biggest driver of extinction."

The word “stem” in paragraph 4 refers to _______.

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Almost all living things ultimately get their energy from the sun. In a process called photosynthesis, plants, algae, and some other organisms capture the sun's energy and use it to make simple sugars such as glucose. Most other organisms use these organic molecules as a source of energy. Organic materials contain a tremendous amount of energy. As food, they fuel our bodies and those of most other creatures. In such forms as oil, gas, and coal, they heat our homes, run our factories and power our cars.
Photosynthesis begins when solar energy is absorbed by chemicals called photosynthetic pigments that are contained within an organism. The most common photosynthetic pigment is chlorophyll. The bright green color characteristic of plants is caused by it. Most algae have additional pigments that may mask the green chlorophyll. Because of these pigments, algae may be not only green but brown, red, blue or even black.
In a series of enzyme-controlled reactions, the solar energy captured by chlorophyll and other pigments is used to make simple sugars, with carbon dioxide and water as the raw materials. Carbon dioxide is one of very few carbon- containing molecules not considered to be organic compounds. Photosynthesis then converts carbon from an inorganic to an organic form. This is called carbon fixation. In this process, the solar energy that was absorbed by chlorophyll is stored as chemical energy in the form of simple sugars like glucose. The glucose is then used to make other organic compounds. In addition, photosynthesis produces oxygen gas. All the oxygen gas on earth, both in the atmosphere we breathe and in the ocean, was produced by photosynthetic organisms. Photosynthesis constantly replenishes the earth's oxygen supply.
Organisms that are capable of photosynthesis can obtain all the energy they need from sunlight and do not need to eat. They are called autotrophs. Plants are the most familiar autotrophs on land. In the ocean, algae and bacteria are the most important autotrophs. Many organisms cannot produce their own food and must obtain energy by eating organic matter. These are called heterotrophs.

From the passage, we can see that     .

The ocean bottom - a region nearly 2.5 times greater than the total land area of Earth - is a vast frontier that even today is largely unexplored and uncharted. Until about a century ago, the deep-ocean floor was completely inaccessible, hidden beneath waters averaging over 3,600 meters deep. Totally without light and subjected to intense pressures hundreds of times greater than at the Earth’s surface, the deep-ocean bottom is a hostile environment to humans, in some ways as forbidding and remote as the void of outer space.
Although researchers have taken samples of deep-ocean rocks and sediments for over a century, the first detailed global investigation of the ocean bottom did not actually start until 1968, with the beginning of the National Science Foundation’s Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP). Using techniques first developed for the offshore oil and gas industry, the DSDP’s drill ship, the Glomar Challenger, was able to maintain a steady position on the ocean’s surface and drill in very deep waters, extracting samples of sediments and rock from the ocean floor.
The Glomar Challenger completed 96 voyages in a 15-year research program that ended in November 1983. During this time, the vessel logged 600,000 kilometers and took almost 20,000 core samples of seabed sediments and rocks at 624 drilling sites around the world.. The Glomar Challenger’s core samples have allowed geologists to reconstruct what the planet looked like hundreds of millions of years ago and to calculate what it will probably look like millions of years in the future. Today, largely on the strength of evidence gathered during the Glomar Challenger’s voyages, nearly all earth scientists agree on the theories of plate tectonics and continental drift that explain many of the geological processes that shape the Earth.
The cores of sediment drilled by the Glomar Challenger have also yielded information critical to understanding the world’s past climates. Deep-ocean sediments provide a climatic record stretching back hundreds of millions of years, because they are largely isolated from the mechanical erosion and the intense chemical and biological activity that rapidly destroy much land-based evidence of past climates. This record has already provided insights into the patterns and causes of past climatic change - information that may be used to predict future climates.

How long did the Glomar Challenger conduct its research?

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Most of the fastening devices used in clothing today, like the shoelace, the button, and the safely pin. have existed in some form in various cultures for thousands of years. But the zipper was the brainchild of one American inventor, namely Whitcomb Judson of Chicago. At the end of the 19th century. Judson was already a successful inventor, with a dozen patents to his credit for mechanical items such as improvements to motors and railroad braking system.
He then turned his mind to create a replacement for the lengthy shoelaces which were then used in both men’s and women's boots. On August 29th 1893, he won another patent, for what he called the case “locker”. Though the model was somewhat clumsy, and frequently jammed, it did work: in fact, Judson and his business associate Lewis Walker had sewn the device into their own boots. Although Judson displayed his clasp–locker at the World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893, the public largely ignored it. The company founded by Judson and Walker, Universal Fastener, despite further refinements, never really succeeded in marketing the device.
The earliest zip fasteners were being used in the clothing industry by 1905, but it was only in 1913, after a Swedish–American engineer, Gideon Sundbach, had remodeled Judson's fastener into a more streamlined and reliable form, that the zipper was a success. The US Army applied zippers to the clothing and equipment of the troops of World War I. By the late 1920s, zippers could be found in all kinds of clothing, footwear, and carrying cases; by the mid–1930s, zippers had even been embraced by the fashion industry.
The term “zipper" was coined as onomatopoeia (resembling the sound it makes) by B.F. Goodrich whose company started marketing rubber shoes featuring the fastener in 1923. Regrettably. Whitcomb Judson died in 1909, and never heard the term, or saw the success by which his invention would become popular.

The word "embraced" in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to     .

Ambient divers are, unlike divers who go underwater in submersible vehicles of pressure resistant suits, exposed to the pressure and temperature of the surrounding ambient water. Of all types of diving, the oldest and simplest is free diving. Free divers may use no equipment at all, but most use a face mask, foot fins, and a snorkel. Under the surface, free divers must hold their breath. Most free divers can only descend 30 to 40 feet, but some skilled divers can go as deep as 100 feet.
Scuba diving provides greater range than free diving. The word scuba stands for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. Scuba divers wear metal tanks with compressed air or other breathing gases. When using open-circuit equipment, a scuba diver simply breathes air form the tank through a hose and releases the exhaled air into the water. A closed-circuit breathing device, also called a rebreather, filters out carbon dioxide and other harmful gases and automatically adds oxygen. This enables the diver to breathe the same air over and over. In surface-supplied diving, divers wear helmets and waterproof canvas suits. Today, sophiticated plastic helmets have replaced the heavy copper helmets used in the past.These divers get their air from a hose connected to compressors on a boat. Surface-supplied divers can go deeper than any other type of ambient diver.

When using closed-circuit devices, divers .............

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   Different cultures follow their own special customs when a child's baby teeth fall out. In Korea, for example, they have the custom of throwing lost teeth up on the roof of a house. According to tradition, a magpie will come and take the tooth. Later, the magpie will return with a new tooth for the child. In other Asian countries, such as Japan and Vietnam, children follow a similar tradition of throwing their lost teeth onto the roofs of houses.

   Birds aren't the only animals thought to take lost teeth. In Mexico and Spain, tradition says a mouse takes a lost tooth and leaves some money. However, in Mongolia, dogs are responsible for taking teeth away. Dogs are highly respected in Mongolian culture and are considered guardian angels of the people. Tradition says that the new tooth will grow good and strong if the baby tooth is fed to a guardian angel. Accordingly, parents in Mongolia will put their child's lost tooth in a piece of meat and feed it to a dog.

   The idea of giving lost teeth to an angel or fairy is also a tradition in the West. Many children in Western countries count on the Tooth Fairy to leave money or presents in exchange for a tooth. The exact origins of the Tooth Fairy are a mystery, although the story probably began in England or Ireland centuries ago. According to tradition, a child puts a lost tooth under his or her pillow before going to bed. In the wee hours, while the child is sleeping, the Tooth Fairy takes the tooth and leaves something else under the pillow. In France, the Tooth Fairy leaves a small gift. In the United States, however, the Tooth Fairy usually leaves money. These days, the rate is $1 to $5 per tooth, adding up to a lot of money from the Tooth Fairy!

The word "origins" in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ______.

Paul Watson is an environmental activist. He is a man who believes that he must do something, not just talk about doing something. Paul believes in protecting endangered animals, and he protects them in controversial ways. Some people think that Watson is a hero and admire him very much. Other people think that he is a criminal.
On July 16th, 1979, Paul Watson and his crew were on his ship, which is called the Sea Shepherd. Watson and the people who work on the Sea Shepherd were hunting on the Atlantic Ocean near Portugal. However, they had a strange prey; instead of hunting for animals, their prey was a ship, the Sierra. The Sea Shepherd found the Sierra, ran into it and sank it. As a result, the Sierra never returned to the sea. The Sea Shepherd, on the other hand, returned to its home in Canada. Paul Watson and his workers thought that they had been successful.
The Sierra had been a whaling ship, which had operated illegally. The captain and crew of the Sierra did not obey any of the international laws that restrict whaling. Instead, they killed as many whales as they could, quickly cut off the meat, and froze it. Later, they sold the whale meat in countries where it is eaten.
Paul Watson tried to persuade the international whaling commission to stop the Sierra. However, the commission did very little, and Paul became impatient. He decided to stop the Sierra and other whaling ships in any way that he could. He offered to pay $25,000 to anyone who sank any illegal whaling ship, and he sank the Sierra. He acted because he believes that the whales must be protected. Still, he acted without the approval of the government; therefore, his actions were controversial.
Paul Watson is not the only environmental activist. Other men and women are also fighting to protect the Earth. Like Watson, they do not always have the approval of their governments, and like Watson, they have become impatient. Yet, because of their concern for the environment, they will act to protect it.

The Sea Shepherd was hunting  ...............

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It weighed about 10,000 tons, entered the atmosphere at a speed of 64,000 km/h and exploded over a city with a blast of 500 kilotons. But on 15 February 2013, we were lucky. The meteorite that showered pieces of rock over Chelyabinsk, Russia, was relatively small, at only about 17 metres wide. Although many people were injured by falling glass, the damage was nothing compared to what had happened in Siberia nearly one hundred years ago. Another relatively small object (approximately 50 metres in diameter) exploded in mid–air over a forest region, flattening about 80 million trees. If it had exploded over a city such as Moscow or London, millions of people would have been killed.
By a strange coincidence, the same day that the meteorite terrified the people of Chelyabinsk, another 50m–wide asteroid passed relatively close to Earth. Scientists were expecting that visit and know that the asteroid will return to fly close by us in 2046, but the Russian meteorite earlier in the day had been too small for anyone to spot.
Most scientists agree that comets and asteroids pose the biggest natural threat to human existence. It was probably a large asteroid or comet colliding with Earth which wiped out the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago. An enormous object, 10 to 16 km in diameter, struck the Yucatan region of Mexico with the force of 100 megatons. That is the equivalent of one Hiroshima bomb for every person alive on Earth today.
Many scientists, including the late Stephen Hawking, say that any comet or asteroid greater than 20 km in diameter that hits Earth will result in the complete destruction of complex life, including all animals and most plants. As we have seen, even a much smaller asteroid can cause great damage.
The Earth has been kept fairly safe for the last 65 million years by good fortune and the massive gravitational field of the planet Jupiter. Our cosmic guardian, with its stable circular orbit far from the sun, sweeps up and scatters away most of the dangerous comets and asteroids which might cross Earth’s orbit. After the Chelyabinsk meteorite, scientists are now monitoring potential hazards even more carefully but, as far as they know, there is no danger in the foreseeable future.A

Which could be the best title for the passage?

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.
Set in the red desert of central Australia is the mining town of Coober Pedy. At first sight, the town looks similar to many other such communities, but Coober Pedy is different. Sixty per cent of its population of 4,000 people lives underground. There are today about 800 underground houses as well as shops, hotels and even churches in the town and the surrounding hills. Once a site has been chosen, special tunneling machines are (1)............in to create passages and rooms in the sandstone. Rock pillars are left to support the roof, and doors and windows are cut into the front. Houses are of all shapes and (2)......., the largest having twenty rooms, and some even have their own swimming poll.
Living underground may sound strange but in fact it has a number of advantages. In summer, the temperature outside can reach an astonishing 47°C, and in winter the nights can be (3)...... cold.
However, inside the houses it remains a steady 25°C all year round. Many people say that living underground makes they feel very secure. There is no problem with noise from the neighbours and the houses are not affected. By the fierce dust storms that regularly sweep (4)........the area. And of course,  if  your family (5)........... or lots of friends come to stay, you can always dig another room.
(3)..........................

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:
Urban populations interact with their environment. Urban people change their  environment through their consumption of Food, energy, water, and land. And in turn, the polluted urban environment affects the health and quality of life of the urban population. People who live in urban areas have very different consumption patterns than residents in rural areas. For example, urban populations consume much more food, energy, and durable goods than rural populations. In China during the 1970s, the urban populations consumed twice as much pork as the rural populations who were raising the pigs. With economic development,  the difference  in  consumption declined as the rural populations ate better diets. But even a decade later, urban populations had 60 percent more pork in their diets than rural populations. The increasing consumption of meat is a sign of growing affluence in Beijing; in India where  many  urban  residents are vegetarians, greater prosperity is seen in higher consumption of milk.
Urban populations not only consume more food, but they also consume more durable goods, In the early 1990s, Chinese households in urban areas were two times more likely to have a   TV, eight times more likely to have a washing machine, and 25 times more likely to have a refrigerator than rural households. This increased consumption is a function of urban labor markets, wages, and household structure.
Urban consumption of energy helps create heat islands that can change local weather patterns and weather downwind from the heat islands. The heat  island  phenomenon is created because cities radiate heat back into the atmosphere at rate 15 percent to 30 percent less than rural areas. The combination of the increased energy consumption and difference in albedo (radiation) means that cities are warmer than rural areas (0.6 to 1.3 C), And these heat islands become traps for  atmospheric pollutants. Cloudiness and fog occur with greater frequency. Precipitation is 5 percent to 10 percent higher in cities; thunderstorms and hailstorms are much  more frequent, but snow days in cities are less common.
Urbanization also affects the broader regional environments. Regions  downwind  from  large industrial complexes also see increases in the amount of precipitation, air pollution, and the number of days with thunderstorms. Urban areas affect not only the weather patterns, but also the runoff patterns for water. Urban areas generally generate more rain, but they reduce the infiltration of water and lower the water tables. This means that runoff occurs more rapidly with greater peak flows. Flood volumes increase, as do floods and water pollution downstream.
Many of the effects of urban areas on the environment are not necessarily linear. Bigger  urban areas do not always create more environmental problems. And small urban areas can cause large problems. Much of what determines the extent of the environmental impacts is how the urban populations behave - their consumption and living patterns - not just how large they are.

According to paragraph 3, the following are mentioned as examples of durable goods, EXCEPT    .