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.
When you first apply for a job, you (1)..... not succeed in getting it. It’s always a good (2).... to ask them to explain to you what prevent you from beating the other candidates. Don’t complain about the situation, but ask them to advise you (3)........ what you can do better next time. Perhaps the interviewer disapproved of or disagree with something you said. Perhaps they just glanced at your application and saw something that made it easy to choose between you and another candidate. Don’t regard it as a failure, but recognize it as a chance to  learn more. (4)........ you don’t worry too much about it and continue to believe in yourself, you’ll eventually find the chance you’ve been waiting for. Then, your family and friends will be able to (5)........... you on your success
(3).......................

Read the following passage and choose among A, B, C or D the correct answer to each of the questions.

Telecommuting is some form of computer communication between employees' homes and offices. For employees whose job involves sitting at a terminal or word processor entering data or typing reports, the location of the computer is of no consequence. If the machine can communicate over telephone lines, when the work is completed, employees can dial the office computer and transmit the material to their employers. A recent survey in USA Today estimates that there are approximately 8.7 million telecommuters. But although the numbers are rising annually, the trend does not appear to be as significant as predicted when Business Week published "The Portable Executive" as its cover story a few years ago. Why hasn't telecommuting become more popular?

Clearly, change simply takes time. But in addition, there has been active resistance on the part of many managers. These executives claim that supervising the telecommuters in a large workforce scattered across the country would be too difficult, or at least systems for managing them are not yet developed, thereby complicating the manager's responsibilities.

It is also true that employees who are given the option of telecommuting are reluctant to accept the opportunity. Most people feel that they need regular interaction with a group, and many are concerned that they will not have the same consideration for advancement if they are not more visible in the office setting. Some people feel that even when a space in their homes is set aside as a work area, they never really get away from the office.

How many Americans are involved in telecommuting?

Read the following passage and choose among A, B, C or D the correct answer to each of the questions.

Telecommuting is some form of computer communication between employees' homes and offices. For employees whose job involves sitting at a terminal or word processor entering data or typing reports, the location of the computer is of no consequence. If the machine can communicate over telephone lines, when the work is completed, employees can dial the office computer and transmit the material to their employers. A recent survey in USA Today estimates that there are approximately 8.7 million telecommuters. But although the numbers are rising annually, the trend does not appear to be as significant as predicted when Business Week published "The Portable Executive" as its cover story a few years ago. Why hasn't telecommuting become more popular?

Clearly, change simply takes time. But in addition, there has been active resistance on the part of many managers. These executives claim that supervising the telecommuters in a large workforce scattered across the country would be too difficult, or at least systems for managing them are not yet developed, thereby complicating the manager's responsibilities.

It is also true that employees who are given the option of telecommuting are reluctant to accept the opportunity. Most people feel that they need regular interaction with a group, and many are concerned that they will not have the same consideration for advancement if they are not more visible in the office setting. Some people feel that even when a space in their homes is set aside as a work area, they never really get away from the office.

The word “them” in the second paragraph relent to ____

Choose the correct answer to complete the following passage by writing the corresponding letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet.
Of the myriad of Japanese ceremonies introduced to the West, the Japanese tea ceremony would have to be the least accessible. (1)__________ many other aspects of Japanese culture, the practice of drinking tea was (2) __________ from China well over a thousand years ago. In Japan, green tea developed its own character, and the Japanese tea ceremony has evolved (3) __________ a peculiarly Japanese phenomenon.

The modern tea ceremony can be (4) __________back to the 17th century when it developed alongside another singular Japanese adaption of Chinese culture: the philosophy of Zen. The tea ceremony eventually became established as a recognized form of high art, where it was practiced in (5) __________ locations, from a Zen temple to an ordinary home. Even today, the simplest and most secular tea ceremony still embraces the Zen aesthetics of (6) __________, austerity and devotion. During the ceremony strictly prescribed words of invitation and gratitude are murmured quietly; tea maker and guests (7) __________ their roles with humility and respect. A brief moment of (8) __________ tranquility has been communally created and shared. It is simultaneously an aesthetic, social and spiritual moment. Significantly it is a Japanese moment, fleeting and poignant with its own peacefulness (9) __________ the noise and confusion of the everyday world is temporarily suspended as a vague, indefinable (10) __________ of the eternal pervades.

2.

Choose the best answer:
Fans are generally taken (1)______ when a famous actor or actress suddenly (2)______ the profession at the height of his or her career. Greta Garbo, who made her last film when she was not yet 40, was a notable (3)______ in point.

Sportsmen and women face this decision earliest. Though they generally have evidence that their powers are in (4)______, very few have the self-awareness to get out while the going is still (5)______.

Politicians are perhaps the last to realise that the game is up. As long as they can (6)______ on to power, they refuse to accept the advice of party members, no doubt suspecting it is prompted by their colleagues' own ambitions!
1.

Choose the item (A, B, C or D) that best completes the following sentences

One of the greatest advantages of robots is that they can work in situations that are dangerous or harmful for human workers. For example, the continuous smell of paint has a harmful effect on painters, but it doesn't "bother" a robot. Robots can work in nuclear power plants and in undersea research stations that might be dangerous for humans. Already, robots are working in the plastics industry and in chemical and industrial equipment industries. One  of the most common uses of robots is still in automobile factories. They can do the heavy, unpleasant, or dangerous work. These kinds of industrial robots are not usually "mobile". The work they need to do is brought to them, like cars on an assembly line, for example.

The robot industry is a big business. By the middle of the 1990s, Japan' led the world in robot production with more than 71,000 industrial robots at work. Both the United States and Japan, as well as other countries, continue to develop more advanced robots. Robots can now be made to perform more complex jobs. Robots can make decisions while they are working  and learn from their mistakes. Robots can now see with TV camera "eyes." They can easily hear and can even speak using a voice made by a computer. But it is difficult to make a robot "understand." Thinking and understanding are very human qualities. The robots of the future will probably be very complex. They will be able to perform many humanlike tasks. Robots and other technology will make the future a very interesting place!

According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true about the robots of the future?

Animation traditionally is done by hand-drawing or painting successive frame of an object,  each slightly different than the proceeding frame. In computer animation, although the computer  may be the one to draw the different frames, in most cases the artist will draw the beginning and  ending frames and the computer will produce the drawings between the first and the last drawing.  This is generally referred to as computer-assisted animation, because the computer is more of a  helper than an originator. 
In full computer animation, complex mathematical formulas are used to produce the final  sequences of pictures. These formulas operate on extensive databases of numbers that defines the  objects in the pictures as they exist in mathematical space. The database consists of endpoints,  and color and intensity information. Highly trained professionals are needed to produce such  effects because animation that obtains high degrees of realism involves computer techniques from three-dimensional transformation, shading, and curvatures. 
High-tech computer animation for film involves very expensive computer systems along  with special color terminals or frame buffers. The frame buffer is nothing more than a giant image  memory for viewing a single frame. It temporarily holds the image for display on the screen. 
A camera can be used to film directly from the computer’s display screen, but for the  highest quality images possible, expensive film recorders are used. The computer computers the  positions and colors for the figures in the picture, and sends this information to the recorder,  which captures it on film. Sometimes, however, the images are stored on a large magnetic disk  before being sent to the recorder. Once this process is completed, it is replaced for the next frame.  When the entire sequence has been recorded on the film, the film must be developed before the  animation can be viewed. If the entire sequence does not seem right, the motions must be  corrected, recomputed, redisplayed, and rerecorded. This approach can be very expensive and time – consuming. Often, computer-animation companies first do motion tests with simple computer  generated line drawings before selling their computers to the task of calculating the high resolution, realistic-looking images.

The word “captures” in the fourth paragraph is closest in meaning to .....................

Read the following passage and mark A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct answer to each  of the blanks from 36 to 40.
From a very early age, it was apparent that Magnus Carlen was a brilliant chess player. By the age of 13, Magnus was (36)    to be one of the best chess players in the world, and his parents wanted him to reach his full potential as a professional chess player.
This meant their son had to develop a lifestyle of strict (37) which included many  hours of practice. Only this way could he become a world champion. (38) Magnus's parents supported him, they did not want him to devote his whole life to chess. They felt that if he focused only on chess, he would suffer both physically and emotionally. They made it clear to him that thay had no intention of letting their son drop out of school. He was also encouraged to follow his interest in sports. As a result of his (39)      , when Magnus graduated from high school in 2009, he was not only the best chess player in the world, but he was also awarded the title of "sport-student of the year" for his achievements  in snowboarding and golf.
Today, Magnus gives credit to his parents for the way they raised him. They set rules, but they never (40)    with his ambitions. Instead they gave him the support and encouragement he needed to achieve his goals and still be a happy young man.
(40)................

Choose the item among A, B, C or D that best answers the question about the passage:

"Until recently, the ‘Science of the future’ was supposed to be electronics and artificial intelligence. Today it seems more and more likely that the next breakthrough in technology will be brought about through a combination of those
two Sciences with organic chemistry and genetic engineering. This Science is the combination of biotechnology.
 Organic chemistry enables us to produce marvelous synthetic materials. However, it is still difficult to manufacture anything that has the capacity of wool to conserve heat and also to absorb moisture. Nothing that we have been able to produce so far comes anywhere near the combination of strength, lightness, and flexibility that we find in the bodies of ordinary insects.
 Nevertheless, scientists in the laboratory have already succeeded in ‘growing’ a material that has many of the characteristics of human skin. The next step may well be ‘biotech heart and eyes’ which can replace diseased organs in human beings. This will not be rejected by the body, as in the case with organs from humans.
 The application of biotechnology to energy production seems even more promising. In 1996, the famous science-fiction writer Arthur c. Clarke, many of whose previous predictions have come true, said that we may soon be able to develop remarkably cheap and renewable sources of energy. Some of these power sources will be biological. Clarke and others have warned us repeatedly that sooner or later we will have to give up our dependence on non-renewable power sources. Coal, oil and gas are indeed convenient. However, using them also means creating dangerously high levels of pollution. It will be impossible to meet the growing demand for energy without increasing that pollution to catastrophic levels unless we develop power sources that are both cheaper and cleaner."

3. According to the text, it may soon be possible …….

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.

INTERNSHIPS

In many countries going through difficult economic times, job openings for new graduates can be few and far between. In this competitive environment, relevant work experience can help job seekers stand out from the crowd, and (1) ______ organisations now offer temporary placements, called internships. The problem with numerous internships, (2) ______, is that they are unpaid, and this often puts young people off applying for them.

Employers and interns sometimes come to mutually beneficial arrangements, however. Dinesh Pathan, applying for an internship with an IT company, negotiated a deal in which he would be given travel (3) ______ only for two weeks, and then, as long as he could show his marketing work was adding value, he would be paid a wage. The arrangement worked well: Dinesh had a(n) (4) ______ to work hard, and he ended up feeling "not so much an intern as a temporary staffer". HR consultant Denise Baker says similar arrangements are common. What is more, "if interns do well, employers would often rather make them full employees than recruit people (5) ______ they don't know".

(Adapted from Exam Essential Practice Tests - Cambridge English by Tom Bradbury and Eunice Yeates)

(2) ______

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.
Students and jobseekers are keen to get onto the course or into the workplace of their choice hope that voluntary work will help them stand out from the crowd. This chance to (1)........ experience-personally and professionally-is high on the wish list of young people. A survey carried out last year revealed that young and old alike said volunteering had improved their lives, particularly those (2)........in conservation or heritage work. Businesses recognize its importance and get to raise their profile in the community, while staff get a break from their daily routine to develop “soft skill”, (3)......initiative and decision-making. One volunteering organization is conduct another survey to find out if volunteering does make a difference in the workplace, or if it is something businesses do simply to improve their (4)....... Not only are business-sponsored placements becoming more common, the government is also investing money and aiming to (5)..... volunteers. The push is clear to make volunteering as attractive as possible to everyone. And the more people who participate, the more act fulfils its direction of making the world a better place.
(4).............................

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.
Travelling abroad is getting easier and easier for young people nowadays. If you take the time to talk to travel (1)..... and shop around, some really good deals can be found. Eurorail and Interail are two travel cards which allow people aged 20 or under, unlimited travel in Europe, mainly by train. It’s quite a good idea to plan your route before you set off. Most young travelers stay on campsites or in youth (2)....... , as they are quite cheap. Unbelievable bargains can be found by making last-minute bookings for charter flights. Remember to check in with your luggage two hours before (3)............ for international flights. But don’t take too much with you or you won’t be able to carry it to the bus or taxi that will take you to your hotel. It is advisable to carry traveler’s (4)......... rather than cash, and keep them in a money belt around your waist. Look after your passport and tickets carefully. If disaster strikes and all your valuables are stolen, contact your nearest (5) ...........there they’ll help you with all the paperwork and make sure you get home safely.
(4).............................

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.
Without transportation, our modern society could not (23).......... We would have no metal, no coal and no oil nor would we have any (24)....... made from these materials.
(25)....... , we would have to spend most of our time raising food and food would be limited to the kinds that could grow in the climate and soil of our neighborhood.
Transportation also affects our lives in other ways. Transportation can speed a doctor to the side of a sick person, even if the patients’ lives on an isolated farm. It can take police to the scene of a crime within a moment of being noticed. Transportation (26)......._ teams of athletes to compete in national and international sports contests. In time of (27).............. transportation can rush aid to persons in areas stricken by floods, families and earthquakes.
(27).......................
 

Basic to any understanding of Canada in the 20 years after the Second World War is the country’s impressive population growth. For every three Canadians in 1945, there were over five in 1966. In September 1966 Canada’s population passed the 20 million mark. Most of this surging growth came from natural increase.  The depression of the 1930s and the war had held back marriages, and the catching-up process  began after 1945. The baby boom continued through the decade of the 1950s, producing a population increase of nearly fifteen percent in the five years from 1951 to 1956. This rate of increase had been exceeded only once before in Canada’s history, in the decade before 1911, when  the prairies were being settled. Undoubtedly, the good economic conditions of the 1950s  supported a growth in the population, but the expansion also derived from a trend toward earlier marriages and an increase in the average size of families. In 1957 the Canadian birth rate stood at  28 per thousand, one of the highest in theworld. 
After the peak year of 1957, the birth rate in Canada began to decline. It continued falling  until in 1966 it stood at the lowest level in 25 years. Partly this decline reflected the low level of births during the depression and the war, but it was also caused by changes in Canadian society. Young people were staying at school longer, more women were working; young married couples  
were buying automobiles or houses before starting families; rising living standards were cutting down the size of families. It appeared that Canada was once more falling in step with the trend  toward smaller families that had occurred all through the Western world since the time of the  IndustrialRevolution. 
Although the growth in Canada’s population had slowed down by 1966 (the increase in the  first half of the 1960s was only nine percent), another large population wave was coming over the horizon. It would be composed of the children who were born during the period of the high birth  rate prior to 1957.

The phrase “prior to” in bold is closest in meaning to .......................

SCIENCE FLYING IN THE FACE OF GRAVITY

It looked just like another aircraft from the outside. The pilot told his young passengers that it was built in 1964, a Boeing KC-135 refueling tanker, based on the 707. But appearances were deceptive, and the 13 students from Europe and the USA who boarded the aircraft were in for the flight of their lives.

Inside, the area that normally had seats had become a long white tunnel. Heavily padded from floor to ceiling; it looked a bit like a lunatic asylum. There were almost no windows, but lights along the padded walls eerily illuminated it. Most of the seats had been taken out apart from a few at the back, where the young scientists quickly took their places with a look of apprehension.

From 12 months, science students from across the continents had competed to win a place on the flight at the invitation of the European Space Agency. The challenge had been to suggest imaginative experiments to be conducted in weightless conditions. For the next two hours the Boeing's flight resembled that of an enormous bird which had lost its reason, shooting upwards towards the heavens before hurting towards Earth. The intention was to achieve weightlessness for a few seconds.

The aircraft took off smoothly enough, but any feelings that I and the young scientists had that we were on anything like a scheduled passenger service were quickly dismissed when the pilot put the plane into a 45-degree climb which lasted around 20 seconds. Then the engine cut out and we became weightless. Everything became confused, and left or right, up or down no longer had any meaning. After 10 seconds of free-fall descent, the pilot pulled the aircraft out of its nosedive. The return of gravity was less immediate than its loss, but was still sudden enough to ensure that some students came down with a bump. After two hours of going up and down in the plane doing experiments, the predominant feeling was one of exhilaration rather than nausea. Most of the students thought it was an unforgettable experience and one they would be keen to repeat.

What does the word it in the last paragraph refer to?

Read the passage below and decide whether the statements are TRUE or FALSE?

   Becoming a nurse practitioner requires a master’s degree in nursing and certification. With an aging population, the demand for healthcare is expected to double over the next decade. Physician assistants have climbed up to number 2 in the best jobs in America. They conduct physical exams, prescribe medicine, and treat illnesses. What does a physician assistant make? A physician assistant averages $92,000 per year and job growth is expected to rise a remarkable 39%.

Becoming a nurse practitioner requires a master’s degree.

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

   How would you like (1) _______work in the fast-growing tech sector? Information technology is the #1 field in (2)_______ of expected job growth over the next decade,(3) _______makes systems engineers among the most highly sought after professionals today. The average salary for a systems engineer is $87,100, and the career field is expected to grow 45% over the next 10 years. To become a systems engineer, you need a bachelor’s (4)_______in engineering.

   Software architects have taken the title as the best job in the country with job growth of 34% and an average annual salary of $119,000 per year. These innovative engineering professionals are responsible for (5)_______ to analyze and store data.

(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.

   Dodder is an unusual and unwanted plant that attacks other plants. Except for its flowers, the plant looks like spaghetti noodles. Its almost leafless, thread–like stems hang down atop other plants that dodder needs to stay alive. Dodder does not produce its own food. Instead, it steals it from other plants. It feeds by sucking juices from the plant it is wrapped around, often making its host very weak or even killing it. Dodder can find other plants by their smell. When a dodder seedling starts growing, it follows the scent of plants it prefers, like tomato plants, potato plants, or other farm crops.

   Unlike most plants that usually grow in the direction of light or warmth, a dodder plant will grow in the direction of, for example, tomato odor––if a tomato happens to be growing nearby.

   However, a young dodder plant must find a host plant quickly. If it cannot catch a whiff of a potential host within a few days, it will dry up and disappear—even if there is plenty of water around. Once it finds a host, the young dodder plant will attach itself to it and start growing faster. At that point, the dodder plant will drop its root.

   Dodder is thus a difficult weed to manage and a real headache for farmers. When it does get out of hand, dodder can greatly reduce a farmer’s harvest or even destroy crops completely. Before sowing their produce, farmers in warm parts of the world often check to make sure no unwanted dodder seeds have intermingled with their crop seeds. This is a good way to stop dodder plants from sneaking their way into a crop field.

What causes dodder to grow in a particular direction?

Fill in each numbered blank with one suitable word or phrase.

Robots are already a part of our lives. Industrial robots widely used in manufacturing. Military and police organizations use robots to (1) _____ in dangerous situations. Robots can (2) _____ be found from vacuuming the floors in your home to exploring the surface of Mars.

Within a few more years a whole host of robotic adaptations will be running many aspects' of our lives. "I think in (3) _____ next thirty years, we are going to see a transformation between the industrial sorts of robots to personal robots," says Brooks from Brooks' company, IRobot, markets floor cleaning robots for homes.

"The advances in robotics make it clear that many household (4) ____ will be easily handled by a robot in the near future," says Bob Christopher, who works for a robotic technology company that is marketing a toy robot (5) _____ Pleo. "We have only one child but I could easily (6) _____ five or six robots in the home as well."

Within the next 10 years one will be able to (7) _____, to lease or purchase a domestic robot that not only does the household cleaning and prepare and serve his meals, (8) _____ also can carry him to the bathtub if he cannot walk.

Demographic changes, such as a rapidly aging population and a shrinking workforce, will drive forward the application of new (9) ___. There is going to be a real pull for increasing the productivity of working age people. So there is going to be a real push for robotics to help people. (10) _____ addition it is likely that in the near future we will see robots- taking on some of the care functions elderly, or long-term ill people.

(9)..............................

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

"The big issue for plane-makers for the future is size, not speed. With the skies already full of air traffic, and with worse to come, the important questions for the designers are how many passengers they can (1)….. into the new super- planes and who will be able to build them first. (2) ……yourself ten years from now in a packed airport departure lounge. Eight hundred passengers are waiting with you for their first flight on one of a remarkable range of super-planes, and the check-in time (3)…… have been as much as four hours before take-off to (4)…… for the extra people. Impossible? Far from it. Designs for these planes are already stored on Computer at the world’s top aircraft manufacturers, waiting to be turned (5)…. reality. The airlines badly need the new jets to (6)…. with future increases in passenger numbers. A billion passengers a year are currently carried by plane, but that figure is (7)….. to double by the year 2010. The only practical way of avoiding making the skies even busier is to build much bigger planes. The (8)…. to build the new jets is the hottest contest in the airliner business. Manufacturers are working (9) ........ with the major airlines to produce designs I that will please airlines and passengers (10) …..."

7. A billion passengers a year are currently carried by plane, but that figure is (7)….. to double by the year 2010.

Animation traditionally is done by hand-drawing or painting successive frame of an object,  each slightly different than the proceeding frame. In computer animation, although the computer  may be the one to draw the different frames, in most cases the artist will draw the beginning and  ending frames and the computer will produce the drawings between the first and the last drawing.  This is generally referred to as computer-assisted animation, because the computer is more of a  helper than an originator. 
In full computer animation, complex mathematical formulas are used to produce the final  sequences of pictures. These formulas operate on extensive databases of numbers that defines the  objects in the pictures as they exist in mathematical space. The database consists of endpoints,  and color and intensity information. Highly trained professionals are needed to produce such  effects because animation that obtains high degrees of realism involves computer techniques from three-dimensional transformation, shading, and curvatures. 
High-tech computer animation for film involves very expensive computer systems along  with special color terminals or frame buffers. The frame buffer is nothing more than a giant image  memory for viewing a single frame. It temporarily holds the image for display on the screen. 
A camera can be used to film directly from the computer’s display screen, but for the  highest quality images possible, expensive film recorders are used. The computer computers the  positions and colors for the figures in the picture, and sends this information to the recorder,  which captures it on film. Sometimes, however, the images are stored on a large magnetic disk  before being sent to the recorder. Once this process is completed, it is replaced for the next frame.  When the entire sequence has been recorded on the film, the film must be developed before the  animation can be viewed. If the entire sequence does not seem right, the motions must be  corrected, recomputed, redisplayed, and rerecorded. This approach can be very expensive and time – consuming. Often, computer-animation companies first do motion tests with simple computer  generated line drawings before selling their computers to the task of calculating the high resolution, realistic-looking images.

The word “task” in the fourth paragraph is closest in meaning to ......................