Read the passage and answer the questions that follow by circling the corresponding letter A, B, C or D of the correct answers. 
Ragtime, developed primarily by black pianists, is a style of composed piano music that was popular from the 1890s to about 1915. It is a style of jazz characterized by an elaborately syncopated rhythm in the melody and a steadily accented accompaniment. Ragtime quickly gained popularity after its first appearances, reaching millions on a national scale through sheet music, player pianos, ragtime songs, and arrangements for dance and marching bands. The leading ragtime composer was Scott Joplin, known as the "King of Ragtime," whose most famous piano piece, "Maple Leaf Rag," was published in 1899.
Ragtime piano music has a generally standard form, duple meter (2/4, or two beats per measure) performed at a moderate march tempo. The pianist's right hand plays a highly syncopated melody, while the left hand steadily maintains the beat with an "oom-pah" accompanishment. A ragtime piece usually consists of several similar melodies that take such forms as AA BB A CC DD or Introduction AA BB CC DD EE, where each letter represents a melodic phrase. "Maple Leaf Rag" is a classic example of ragtime.
The forms of ragtime derive from European marches and dances, but the rhythms are rooted in African-American folk music.

Which of the following is NOT characteristic of ragtime?

 Domestic violence and abuse are used for one purpose and one purpose only: __________ (8) and maintain total control over you. 

Read the following passage, then choose the correct answer to questions 31 - 35.
Smoking causes lung cancer, which is the number one cancer among men. Ninety percent of the people who get lung cancer die. Smoking is also the leading cause of mouth cancer, tongue cancer, and throat cancer. Many smokers have heart disease and pneumonia. Smoking causes one million early deaths in the world every year.
Smokers not only harm themselves but also harm others. Smokers breathe smoke out into the air. They breathe it out on their children and their wives or husbands. Children whose parents smoke have more breathing and lung problems than other children. Women who are married to smokers are more likely to have lung cancer than those married to non-smokers.
We are all aware that smoking is bad. So why do people smoke?

Every year, smoking causes about one million____________.

Read the following passage and choose A, B, C, or D to fill in the gaps:
Alice is 18 years old and she comes (41) ………. England. She is now in Hanoi and (42) ……….Vietnamese. She came to Hanoi (43) ……….July so she (44) ……….there for six months. Alice (45) ……….she likes Hanoi very much. She likes (46) ……….shopping and cycling around the town. (47) ……….month she will go to Ho Chi Minh city (48) ……….a friend of (49) ……….. Alice hopes she (50) ………. many letters from England.

50______________

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

"A composer is someone who ________ (1) and directs original music used to produce various types of media entertainment. The scores written need ________ (2) technically correct in order to create flawless performances by choruses, musicians or instrumental ensembles. Sound recordings produced from the score vary ________ (3) style and may reflect the classical, country, folk, jazz, techno or pop genres. A composer's job is to help ________ (4) a story in a film, television story, play or video game without ________ (5) the viewer. The soundtrack they create must suit the project ________ (6) convey the appropriate mood and tone.

Successful composers are versatile with ________ (7) collaboration skills, allowing them ________ (8) on a variety of projects with producers and musicians from various backgrounds. They have extensive knowledge of the industry and a passion and talent ________ (9) creating sound recordings. Most composers are often skilled in playing one or multiple instruments and ________ (10) a good ear for music.

7. Successful composers are versatile with ________ (7) collaboration skills,

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

"A composer is someone who ________ (1) and directs original music used to produce various types of media entertainment. The scores written need ________ (2) technically correct in order to create flawless performances by choruses, musicians or instrumental ensembles. Sound recordings produced from the score vary ________ (3) style and may reflect the classical, country, folk, jazz, techno or pop genres. A composer's job is to help ________ (4) a story in a film, television story, play or video game without ________ (5) the viewer. The soundtrack they create must suit the project ________ (6) convey the appropriate mood and tone.

Successful composers are versatile with ________ (7) collaboration skills, allowing them ________ (8) on a variety of projects with producers and musicians from various backgrounds. They have extensive knowledge of the industry and a passion and talent ________ (9) creating sound recordings. Most composers are often skilled in playing one or multiple instruments and ________ (10) a good ear for music."

1. A composer is someone who ________ (1) and directs original music used to produce various types of media entertainment. 

Read the following passage carefully, and then select the best option A, B, C or D to complete it:

"Music, artful arrangement of sounds (1) _______ time. This definition is obviously very broad, but a narrower one would exclude (2) _______ much. Music is part of virtually every culture on (3) _______, but it varies widely among cultures in style and structure. Definitions of music can (4) _______ dramatically over a short time, as they have across the world during the 20th (5)_________. Can music exist without (6) _______? Some philosophers argue that music should be defined as a kind of “mental(7) _______” and that the physical aspects of sound are simply by-products of this image. If you (8) _______ you can have a musical experience by imagining the sound of a piece of music, then you think (9) _______ can exist without sound. But most musical experiences involve producing or (10) _______ to physical characteristics of sound such as pitch and timbre (quality comparable to texture or color in sight).
Is the tape-recorded sound of a large metal-stamping machine music? Are 4 minutes (11) _______ 33 seconds of silence music? Is the activity of reading a (12) _______ of hundreds of seemingly unrelated objects, activities, and states of mind music? Each of these “(13) _______”, as well as many other sounds (or nonsounds), has been copyrighted (14) _______ a musical composition, performed, and recorded in the 20th century. One of the legacies of 20th century music is to have blurred the definition of music as (15) _______ before."

11. Are 4 minutes (11) _______ 33 seconds of silence music?

Read the text carefully, then choose the most suitable answers (A, B, C, or D).

Son Doong Cave has become more famous after the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) aired a live program featuring its magnificence on ‘Good Morning America’ in May 2015.

Located in Quang Binh Province, Son Doong Cave was discovered by a local man named Ho Khanh in 1991 and became known internationally in 2009 thanks to British cavers, led by Howard Limbert. The cave was formed about 2 to 5 million years ago by river water eroding the limestone underneath the mountain. It contains some of the tallest known stalagmites in the world – up to 70 meters tall. The cave is more than 200 meters wide, 150 meters high, and nearly 9 kilometers long, with caverns big enough to fit an entire street inside them. Son Doong Cave is recognized as the largest cave in the world by BCRA (British Cave Research Association) and selected as one of the most beautiful on earth by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation).

In August 2013, the first tourist group explored the cave on a guided tour. Permits are now required to access the cave and are made available on a limited basis. Only 500 permits were issued for the 2015 season, which runs from February to August. After August, heavy rains cause river levels to rise and make the cave largely inaccessible.

The word ‘them’ refers to ______.

Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D:

"ADULT EDUCATION: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Early formal adult education activities focused (1) _______ single needs such as reading and writing. Many early programs were (2) _______ by churches to teach people to read the Bible. When the original purpose was (3) _______, programs were often adjusted to meet more general educational needs of the (4) _______. Libraries, lecture series, and discussion societies began in various countries during the (5) _______. As more people experienced the benefits of (6) _______, they began to participate increasingly in social, political, and occupational (7) _______. By the 19th century, adult education was developing as a formal, organized movement in the (8) _______ world.
The largest early program in the U.S., the Lyceum, (9) _______ (1826) in Massachusetts by Josiah Holbrook, was a local (10) _______ of men and women with some schooling who wanted to expand their own education (11) _______ working to establish a public school system. The Lyceum (12) _______ encouraged the development of other adult education institutions (13) _______ libraries, evening schools, and gifted lecture series. By mid-century, employers and philanthropists began to endow (14) _______ such as the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (1859) in New York City (15) _______ the Peabody Institute (1857) in Baltimore, Maryland, for adult education. Large audiences were (16) _______ to the Chautauqua movement, which began (1874) in New York State (17) _______ a summer training program for Sunday school teachers and evolved into a traveling lecture series and (18) _______ school. Chautauqua was the prototype of institutions established to further (19) _______ education in the U.S. By 1876, universities started offering extension programs that (20) _______ education directly to the public..."

3. When the original purpose was (3) _______, 

Read the passage and choose the best answer.

Just like American students, you will have to submit your academic transcripts as part of your application for admission to a university or college. Academic transcripts are (23)……………copies of your academic work. In the US, this (24)……………your “grades” and “grade point average”(GPA), which are measurements of your academic achievement. Courses are commonly graded using percentages, which are converted (25)……………letter grades.

The grading system and GPA in the USA can be (26)……………, especially for international students. The interpretation of grades has a lot of variation. For example, two students who attended different schools (27)……………submit their transcripts to the same university. They both have 3.5 GPAs, but one student attended an average high school while the other attended a prestigious school that was academically challenging. The university might interpret their GPAs differently because the two schools have dramatically different standards.

23_____________

Read the following passage and choose A, B, C, or D to fill in the gaps:
Five thousand (41) ………….. gathered in a demonstration in front of Parliament House to (42) ………….. the increase in the price of wheat export.
Most of them were (43) ………….. the North-Eastern part of the country (44) ………….. has just been hit heavily by the snowfall.
Mr. Naruan, Head of the Wheat Growers' Union of the area (45) ………….. our reporter that if the government had agreed to increase the price of wheat export and lowered the price of machine import, the farmers' life (46) ………….. not have been so hard. (47) ………….. also said due to the government's policy, hundreds of farmers were prepared to (48) ………….. the country - farming area in the country (49) …………..  abandoned. Dairy farming would (50) ………….. the same problem.

47______

Read the passage and choose the best answer.

An artist went to a beautiful part of the country for a holiday and stayed with a farmer. Every day he went out with his paints and his brushes and painted from morning to evening, and then when it got dark, he went back to the farm and had a good dinner before going to bed.

At the end of his holiday, he wanted to pay the farmer, but the farmer said: “No, I do not want money, but give me one of your pictures. What is money? In a week it will all be finished, but your painting will be still here.”

The artist was very pleased and thanked the farmer for saying such kind of things. The farmer still smiled and answer “It is not that. I have a son in London. He wants to become an artist. When he comes here next month, I will show him your picture, and then he will not want to become an artist anymore. I think.”

The farmer’s son wouldn’t want to become an artist anymore………………………

Read the passage and answer the questions that follow by circling the corresponding letter A, B, C or D of the correct answers. 
Ragtime, developed primarily by black pianists, is a style of composed piano music that was popular from the 1890s to about 1915. It is a style of jazz characterized by an elaborately syncopated rhythm in the melody and a steadily accented accompaniment. Ragtime quickly gained popularity after its first appearances, reaching millions on a national scale through sheet music, player pianos, ragtime songs, and arrangements for dance and marching bands. The leading ragtime composer was Scott Joplin, known as the "King of Ragtime," whose most famous piano piece, "Maple Leaf Rag," was published in 1899.
Ragtime piano music has a generally standard form, duple meter (2/4, or two beats per measure) performed at a moderate march tempo. The pianist's right hand plays a highly syncopated melody, while the left hand steadily maintains the beat with an "oom-pah" accompanishment. A ragtime piece usually consists of several similar melodies that take such forms as AA BB A CC DD or Introduction AA BB CC DD EE, where each letter represents a melodic phrase. "Maple Leaf Rag" is a classic example of ragtime.
The forms of ragtime derive from European marches and dances, but the rhythms are rooted in African-American folk music.

Ragtime reached people nationwide through all of the following EXCEPT........

Read the following passage and choose the best answer:
Mercury is the smallest member of the sun's family. It is only 3.100 miles across. It is also the sun's swiftest planet. Its yearly journey around the sun is only 85 days.
Mercury always keeps one side towards the sun. On this side, it is always day, on the other side always night. We only see the lighted side.
Mercury appears to us like a yellowish-orange star. The nearest planet to the sun is always seen near the sun, either just before sunrise or soon after sunset. People sometimes call mercury the morning star or evening star.
Mercury is half the size of the earth. Because it is much lighter, it has much less gravity. If you can visit Mercury in a spaceship, you will find it a strange world. Its low gravity makes you feel very light. If your weight on earth is 100 pounds, your weight on Mercury is only 27 pounds.
Looking at the sun from Mercury, you can see that it's much more brilliant than it is seen from the earth. And the yellow center of the sun appears three times bigger than Mercury.
On its lighted side, Mercury's temperature is about 300 degrees centigrade. But the dark side is extremely cold, but 150 degrees below zero so mercury is probably the coldest as well as the hottest of the planets.

 We cannot see the dark side of Mercury because .......

Fill in each numbered blank with one suitable word or phrase

Stop Pollution Now!

Pollution is a really big problem on our planet and it must (1) ........…. immediately. It must be stopped before our planet goes extinct. There are three main reasons, in my opinion, why pollution should be stopped.

The first reason why we should stop pollution is that pollution is destroying the environment we live in. Carbon dioxide is a big (2) ……….. to pollution. Carbon dioxide affects our climate in many different ways. The way it works is that certain ‘greenhouse gases’ can't escape (3) …….. our atmosphere because they get trapped. The second reason why we should stop pollution is that it also has an influence on us – (4) ……….. Pollution also influences human life and that is a big problem. According to the World Health Organization, indoor air pollution from the burning of coal or biomass fuels like wood risks lives of millions of people. Air pollution causes two million deaths per year, mostly from heart disease and respiratory disorders (5) …….. infections and lung cancer.

The third reason why we should stop pollution is that (6) …………. we do, we can live longer on this planet. If we don’t stop pollution and global warming, something really bad will happen (7) …............. us. Humans have destroyed the planet so quickly. We can live longer and extent our existence on this planet so that our children’s children can live in a planet without worries. In short, pollution must be stopped immediately. The earth is our only home and we must protect it and take care of it as much as we can. Pollution must be stopped before we (8) ………. our planet.

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

Read the following passage and choose A, B, C, or D to fill in the gaps:
Five thousand (41) ………….. gathered in a demonstration in front of Parliament House to (42) ………….. the increase in the price of wheat export.
Most of them were (43) ………….. the North-Eastern part of the country (44) ………….. has just been hit heavily by the snowfall.
Mr. Naruan, Head of the Wheat Growers' Union of the area (45) ………….. our reporter that if the government had agreed to increase the price of wheat export and lowered the price of machine import, the farmers' life (46) ………….. not have been so hard. (47) ………….. also said due to the government's policy, hundreds of farmers were prepared to (48) ………….. the country - farming area in the country (49) …………..  abandoned. Dairy farming would (50) ………….. the same problem.

46___________

Read the passage and choose the best answer.

Living in a city has a (23)…………..of drawbacks. Firstly, there are many problems of traffic jams and traffic accidents. The increase (24)…………..population and the increasing number of vehicles have caused many accidents to happen every day. Secondly, air pollution negatively affects people’s health, and it also has a bad influence on the environment. More and more city dwellers (25)…………..from coughing or breathing problems. Thirdly, the city is noisy, even at night. Noise (26)…………..comes from the traffic and from construction sites. Buildings are always being knocked (27)………….. and rebuilt. These factors contribute to making city life more difficult for its residents.

23___________

Read the passage and choose the best answer.

I live in a small village (23)____ Henfield – there are about 500 people here. I love it because it is quiet and life is slow and easy. You never (24) ____ queue in shops or banks. The village is clean – people (25) ____ it and don’t throw their rubbish in the streets. The air is also clean because there’s not much heavy traffic. It’s much more friendly here than in a city. Everyone knows everyone and (26) ____ someone has a problem, there are always people who can help. There aren’t many things I don’t like about Henfield. One thing is that there’s not much to do in the evening – we haven’t got any cinemas or theaters. Another problem is that people always talk about (27) ____ and everyone knows what everyone else is doing. But I still prefer village life to life in a big city.

26_____________

Read the passage and answer the questions that follow by circling the corresponding letter A, B, C or D of the correct answers.
It has been said that to turn a corner in Toledo is to enter another century. The city is a rich blend of the cultures that occupied it after a series of invations. Strategically nearly impregnable. Toledo is located in the centre of Spain and is encircled by the Tagus River. Roman rule lasted 300 years and saw the development of the Spanish language. 
Having defeated the Romans, the Visigoths established their capital at Toledo and brought Christianity to the city's citizens.
It was the conquest of Toledo in the eighth century by the Moors that created the most dramatic and lasting effects upon the city. Moorish arts and architecture embellished the once predominantly military fortress. Mosques, mansions, and towers were built to last, so they remain to impress the visitors to Toledo with their opulence to this day.
Medieval Toledo sheltered a compatible mixture of Christians, Moslems, and Jews. Scholars from all three religious groups collaborated to make the school of Translators famous throughout Europe for its Aristotelian philosophy.

Toledo was invaded by_____.

Read the following passage and choose A, B, C,  or D to fill in the gaps:
Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, a small town (41) the state of Illinois. As a boy, he was often taken on frequently hunting and fishing trips (42) his father to Michigan, the locale of many his stories, and (43) he soon got acquainted with the life of the Indians and such virtues as courage and endurance, (44) were later revealed in his fiction. After school Hemingway (45) as a newspaper reporter and then joined a volunteer ambulance unit (46) in World War I. After the war, he came home (47) a hero. He lived for several years in Paris after that. He joined a group of expatriated American writers who considered (48) a lost generation. In Paris, he published "Three Stories and Ten Poems" (1923) and "In Our Time" (1924) (49) his own experiences of life are revealed, and which brought him (50) immediately.

41_________

Read the passage and choose the best answer.

I live in a small village (23)____ Henfield – there are about 500 people here. I love it because it is quiet and life is slow and easy. You never (24) ____ queue in shops or banks. The village is clean – people (25) ____ it and don’t throw their rubbish in the streets. The air is also clean because there’s not much heavy traffic. It’s much more friendly here than in a city. Everyone knows everyone and (26) ____ someone has a problem, there are always people who can help. There aren’t many things I don’t like about Henfield. One thing is that there’s not much to do in the evening – we haven’t got any cinemas or theaters. Another problem is that people always talk about (27) ____ and everyone knows what everyone else is doing. But I still prefer village life to life in a big city.

25____________