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.
I live on the first floor of a house that has been (1).......... into three flats. Five months ago, a couple moved into the flat above and since then my life has been a nightmare. They get up at 6 a.m and make a terrible noise. They listen to the radio at top (2)......... , talk loudly and stamp on the floor. In the evening they play the same record on their stereo over and over again. It’s beginning to (3)......... me mad. I’ve tried turning my own stereo up to (4)............ out the noise but I like peace and quiet and find loud music stressful. I tried to talking to them but it hasn’t done any good. I realize I should live and (5)............. live , but I have begun to have quite irrational revenge fantasies about them – like switching off their electricity or deliberately making a lot of noise late at night when I know they are asleep. What on earth can I do?
(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:
With Robert Laurent and William Zorach, direct carving enters into the story of modern sculpture in the United States. Direct carving - in which the sculptors themselves carve stone or wood with mallet and chisel - must be recognized as something more than just a technique. Implicit in it is an aesthetic principle as well: that the medium has certain qualities of beauty and expressiveness with which sculptors must bring their own aesthetic sensibilities into harmony. For example, sometimes the shape or veining in a piece of stone or wood suggests, perhaps even dictates, not only the ultimate form, but even the subject matter.
The technique of direct carving was a break with the nineteenth-century tradition in which the making of a clay model was considered the creative act and the work was then turned over to studio assistants to be cast in plaster or bronze or carved in marble. Neoclassical sculptors seldom held a mallet or chisel in their own hands, readily conceding that the assistants they employed were far better than they were at carving.
With the turn-of-the-century Crafts movement and the discovery of nontraditional sources of inspiration, such as wooden African figures and masks, there arose a new urge for hands-on, personal execution of art and an interaction with the medium. Even as early as the 1880's and 1890's, nonconformist European artists were attempting direct carving. By the second decade of the twentieth century, Americans - Laurent and Zorach most notably - had adopted it as their primary means of working.
Born in France, Robert Laurent (1890-1970) was a prodigy who received his education in the United States. In 1905 he was sent to Paris as an apprentice to an art dealer, and in the years that followed he witnessed the birth of Cubism, discovered primitive art, and learned the techniques of woodcarving from a frame maker.
Back in New York City by 1910, Laurent began carving pieces such as The Priestess, which reveals his fascination with African, pre-Columbian, and South Pacific art. Taking a walnut plank, the sculptor carved the expressive, stylized design.
It is one of the earliest examples of direct carving in American sculpture. The plank's form dictated the rigidly frontal view and the low relief. Even its irregular shape must have appealed to Laurent as a break with a long-standing tradition that required a sculptor to work within a perfect rectangle or square.

Where did Robert Laurent learn to carve?

Read the passage below and choose the best answer (A, B, C or D ) to each question.

Sometimes you know things about people the first time you see them, for example, that you want to be friends with them or that you don't trust them. But perhaps this kind of intuition isn't as hard to explain as may seem. For instance, people give out body language signals all the time. The way you hold your body, head and arms tells people about your mood. If you hold your arms tightly at your sides, or fold them across your chest, people will generally feel that you are being defensive. Holding your head to one side shows interest in the other, while an easy, open posture indicates that you are self-confident. All this affects the way you feel about someone.

Also, a stranger may remind you of a meeting with someone. This may be because of something as simple as the fact that he or she is physically similar to someone who treated you well or badly. Your feelings about a stranger could be influenced by a smell in the air that brings to mind a place where you were happy as a child. Since even a single word can bring back a memory such as that, you may never realize it is happening.

What does the second paragraph discuss?

Read the passage and choose correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.

BOOKS

Nearly all the discoveries that have been (1)_______ through the ages can be found in books. The invention of the book is one of humankind's (2)_______ achievements, the importance of (3)_______ cannot be overestimated. Books are very adaptable, (4)_______ us with both entertainment and information. The production of books (5)_______ in Ancient Egypt, though not in a form that is recognised to us today. The books read by the Romans, however, have some similarities to the ones we read now. Until the middle of the 15th century, in Europe, all books were written by hand. They were often beautifully illustrated and always rare and expensive. With printing came the possibility of cheap, large-scale publication and distribution of books, making knowledge more widespread and accessible.

(5) ______

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

Robots are already a part of our lives. Industrial robots widely used in manufacturing. Military and police organizations use robots to (26) _____ in dangerous situations. Robots can (27) _____ 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 (28) _____ 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 (29) ____ 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 (30) _____ Pleo. "We have only one child but I could easily (31) _____ five or six robots in the home as well."

Within the next 10 years one will be able to (32) _____, to lease or purchase a domestic robot that not only does the household cleaning and prepare and serve his meals, (33) _____ 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 (34) ___. 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. (35) _____ 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.

(27) _____

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

"Some day people will certainly try to build settlements on the moon. The best place for houses in a moon town will be a cave or a tunnel. Underground houses will not be squashed by meteorites that constantly foil on the moon from outer space. This will be important on the moon, since daytime is so hot that food could be cooked in the rocks, and the nights get bitterly cold.
 Pioneer moon homes may be made of airtight plastic that can be blown up like a balloon inside a cave. The reasons is that the moon has no air around it. The pioneers will have take along from the earth the oxygen masks when they are away from home. But the balloon house itself will be filled with air. Perhaps the house will have beds, tables and chairs, built into it. These can be inflated, too. So people will sleep, eat, and work on air! Moon-house building will be easy. The moon’s gravity is less than the earth’s. Everything weighs only one sixth as much as it does on the earth."

4. If a stone weighs 18 tons on the earth, how much does it weigh on the moon?

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.
All men should study, we have to study to (31)......    our knowledge and develop our intelligence. An uneducated man can only utilize his body strength to work and live. An educated man, without this strength, still has the faculty of his intelligent brain and good inflection. This intelligence and thought enable him to help his physical strength to act more quickly (32)......... cleverly.
In a same profession or work, the educated man differs from the uneducated considerably. Therefore, intellectual workers have to study, this is a matter of course but (33)......... workers must also (34)........ an education
In civilized countries compulsory education has been applied. Man must spend seven or eight years studying. From ploughmen to laborers in these nations, no one is (35).......  to read a   book or a paper fluently.
(33)...........................

When we were in England last year, I went fishing with my friend, Peter. Early in the morning we were sitting quietly by the side of the lake when we had an unpleasant surprise. We saw a duck come along with three ducklings padding cheerfully behind her. As we watched them,  there was a sudden swirl in the water. We caught a glimpse of the vicious jaws of a pike – a fish  which is rather like a freshwater shark – and one of the ducklings was dragged below the surface. 
This incident made Peter furious. He vowed to catch the pike. On three successive  mornings we returned to the vicinity and used several different kinds of bait. On the third day Peter was lucky. Using an artificial frog as bait, he managed to hook the monster. There was a  desperate fight but Peter was determined to capture the pike and succeeded. When he had got it  ashore and killed it, he wieghed the fish and found that it scaled nearly thirty pounds – a record for that district. 

Why do you think Peter was sitting quietly by the lake? 

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.

Which of the following statement is supported by the passage?

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!
4.

Read the passage below and choose the best answer (A, B, C or D ) to each question.

The movement of people towards cities has accelerated in the past 40 years, particularly in the less developed regions, and the share of the global population living in urban areas has increased from one third in 1960 to 47% (2.8 billion people) in 1999. The world's urban population is now growing by 60 million persons per year, about three times the increase in the rural population.

Increasing urbanisation results about equally from births in urban areas and from the continued movement of people from the rural surround. These forces are also feeding the sprawl of urban areas as formerly rural peri-urban settlements become incorporated into nearby cities and as secondary cities, linked by commerce to larger urban centres, grow larger.

The proportion of people in developing countries who live in cities has almost doubled since 1960 (from less than 22% to more than 40%), while in more-developed regions the urban share has grown from 61% to 76%. There is a significant association between this population movement from rural to urban areas and declines in average family size.

Asia and Africa remain the least urbanised of the developing regions (less than 38% each). Latin America and the Caribbean is more than 75% urban, a level almost equal to those in Europe, Northern America and Japan (all are between 75 and 79%).

Urbanisation is projected to continue well into the next century. By 2030, it is expected that nearly 5 billion (61%) of the world's 8.1 billion people will live in cities. The less-developed regions will be more than 57% urban. Latin America and the Caribbean will actually have a greater percentage of inhabitants living in cities than Europe will.

Globally, the number of cities with 10 million or more inhabitants is increasing rapidly, and most of these new 'megacities' are in the less-developed regions. In 1960, only New York and Tokyo had more than 10 million people. By 1999, there were 17 cities of more than 10 million people around the world, 13 of these were in less-developed regions. It is projected that there will be 26 megacities by 2015, 22 in less-developed regions (18 will be in Asia); more than 10% of the world's population will live in these cities, up from just 1.7% in megacities in 1950.

The word "declines" in paragraph 3 most closely means

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 phase “of no consequence” means ____.

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

Robots are already a part of our lives. Industrial robots widely used in manufacturing. Military and police organizations use robots to (26) _____ in dangerous situations. Robots can (27) _____ 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 (28) _____ 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 (29) ____ 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 (30) _____ Pleo. "We have only one child but I could easily (31) _____ five or six robots in the home as well."

Within the next 10 years one will be able to (32) _____, to lease or purchase a domestic robot that not only does the household cleaning and prepare and serve his meals, (33) _____ 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 (34) ___. 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. (35) _____ 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.

(26) _____

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.
I live on the first floor of a house that has been (1).......... into three flats. Five months ago, a couple moved into the flat above and since then my life has been a nightmare. They get up at 6 a.m and make a terrible noise. They listen to the radio at top (2)......... , talk loudly and stamp on the floor. In the evening they play the same record on their stereo over and over again. It’s beginning to (3)......... me mad. I’ve tried turning my own stereo up to (4)............ out the noise but I like peace and quiet and find loud music stressful. I tried to talking to them but it hasn’t done any good. I realize I should live and (5)............. live , but I have begun to have quite irrational revenge fantasies about them – like switching off their electricity or deliberately making a lot of noise late at night when I know they are asleep. What on earth can I do?
(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 first each of the numbered blanks from 1 to 5.
Humans are destroying the earth‟s tropical rain forests. About 80,000 square kilometers are being destroyed every year. About a quarter of the (1)_______ comes from people cutting trees for fuel. Another quarter is to make grassland for their cattle. The (2)_______ trees are cut down to sell the wood to start farms.
The population in cities all over the world is growing, and more and more wood is needed to build huge new buildings. For example, 5,000 trees from Sarawak rain forest in Malaysia were used to build just one tall building. (3)_______ people continue cutting down that many trees in Sarawak rain forest, all the trees could be gone in eight years.
The world needs more food, and it (4)_______ like a good idea to clear the rain forests and use the land for agriculture. Many people think that the land under these huge, thick forests must be in rich nutrients, but it isn't. This is another surprising thing about rain forests. Most of the land in tropical rain forest is very(5) _______ .
(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:
With Robert Laurent and William Zorach, direct carving enters into the story of modern sculpture in the United States. Direct carving - in which the sculptors themselves carve stone or wood with mallet and chisel - must be recognized as something more than just a technique. Implicit in it is an aesthetic principle as well: that the medium has certain qualities of beauty and expressiveness with which sculptors must bring their own aesthetic sensibilities into harmony. For example, sometimes the shape or veining in a piece of stone or wood suggests, perhaps even dictates, not only the ultimate form, but even the subject matter.
The technique of direct carving was a break with the nineteenth-century tradition in which the making of a clay model was considered the creative act and the work was then turned over to studio assistants to be cast in plaster or bronze or carved in marble. Neoclassical sculptors seldom held a mallet or chisel in their own hands, readily conceding that the assistants they employed were far better than they were at carving.
With the turn-of-the-century Crafts movement and the discovery of nontraditional sources of inspiration, such as wooden African figures and masks, there arose a new urge for hands-on, personal execution of art and an interaction with the medium. Even as early as the 1880's and 1890's, nonconformist European artists were attempting direct carving. By the second decade of the twentieth century, Americans - Laurent and Zorach most notably - had adopted it as their primary means of working.
Born in France, Robert Laurent (1890-1970) was a prodigy who received his education in the United States. In 1905 he was sent to Paris as an apprentice to an art dealer, and in the years that followed he witnessed the birth of Cubism, discovered primitive art, and learned the techniques of woodcarving from a frame maker.
Back in New York City by 1910, Laurent began carving pieces such as The Priestess, which reveals his fascination with African, pre-Columbian, and South Pacific art. Taking a walnut plank, the sculptor carved the expressive, stylized design.
It is one of the earliest examples of direct carving in American sculpture. The plank's form dictated the rigidly frontal view and the low relief. Even its irregular shape must have appealed to Laurent as a break with a long-standing tradition that required a sculptor to work within a perfect rectangle or square.

How does direct carving differ from the nineteenth-century tradition of sculpture?

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.
(23).......................

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to the following question.

Bees, classified into over 10,000 species, are insects found in almost every part of the world except the northernmost and southernmost regions. One commonly known species is the honeybee, the only bee that produces honey and wax. Humans use wax in making candles, lipsticks, and other products, and they use honey as food. While gathering the nectar and pollen with which they make honey, bees are simultaneously helping to fertilize the flowers on which they land. Many fruits and vegetables would not survive if bees did not carry the pollen from blossom to blossom.

Bees live in a structured environment and social structure within a hive, which is a nest with storage space for the honey. The different types of bees each perform a unique function. The worker bee carries nectar to the hive in a special stomach called a honey stomach. Other workers make beeswax and shape it into a honeycomb, which is a waterproof mass of six-sided compartments, or cells. The queen lays eggs in completed cells. As the workers build more cells, the queen lays more eggs.

All workers, like the queen, are female, but the workers are smaller than the queen. The male honeybees are called drones; they do no work and cannot sting. They are developed from unfertilized eggs, and their only job is to impregnate a queen. The queen must be fertilized in order to lay worker eggs. During the season when less honey is available and the drones are of no further use, the workers block the drones from eating the honey so that they will starve to death.

The word “species” in the first sentence probably means ______.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best option for each of the blanks from 11 to 15.
Women are much healthier when they (11) it easy, reveals a new survey. Those who work long hours are more likely than men to (12) in unhealthy behavior such as eating snacks, smoking and drinking caffeine. (Long hours have no such impact on men). One positive benefit of long hours for both sexes, however, is that alcohol (13) is reduced.
The study (14)  by the Economic and  Social Research Council is part of a wider study by psychologists from the University of Leeds into the effects of stress on eating. “Stress causes people to
(15) for unhealthy high fat and high-sugar snacks in preference to healthier food choice” says researcher Dr. Daryl of the University of Leeds.
(12)........................

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.
Here is a wonderful opportunity at a small cost to visit the truly remarkable island of Cuba. We have (26).......rooms at some of the finest hotels for periods of 7 and 14 nights. You may divide your time between relaxing and exploring this beautiful country by taking advantage of our extensive excursion programme.
The diversity of such a small country is amazing and, as it is set in the warm waters of Caribbean, it is (27)............ to have one of the most pleasant climates in the world. Cuba, being so small, is not only an ideal country to tour, but it's also a place where visitors can relax and (28)...........in exotic surroundings. Not only has nature (29)......... Cuba with magnificent coast and some fine sandy beaches, but there are also extensive facilities near them. Most beaches are close to important sites such as international parks with their abundant wildlife, flora and fauna.
Because the south of the island is blessed with being the driest region in the country most hotels are situated here. Rain is however (30).......... in the north from December to July.
 (29)...............................

Most of us tend to think of production when we think of mass media industries. After all, it  is the output of this production – the papers we read, the cable TV shows we watch – that grab our attention, make us happy or angry, interested or bored. Moreover, most public discussion about  mass communication tends to be about production. The latest gossip about that actor will be in what film, the angry comments a mayor makes about the violence on local TV news, the newest  CDs by an up-and-coming group – these are the kinds of topics that focus our attention on the  making of content, not its distribution or exhibition. 
Media executives know, however, that production is only one step in the arduous and risky process of getting a mass media idea to an audience. Distribution is the delivery of the produced  material to the point where it will be shown to its intended audience. The activity takes place out of public view. We have already mentioned the NBC acts as a distributor when it disseminates  
television programming via satellite to TV stations. When Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. delivers  its Philadelphia Inquirer to city newsstands, when Twentieth – Century – Fox moves its Musicland  stores, they are involved in distribution to exhibitions. 

This passage states that distribution is ...........................