Read the passage carefully, then choose the correct answer. 
A higher reading rate, with no loss of comprehension, will help you in other subjects as well as in English, and, the general principles apply to any language. Naturally, you will not read every book at the same speed. You would expect to read a newspaper, for example, much. more rapidly than physics or economics textbook — but you tan raise your average reading speed over the whole range of materials you wish to cover so that the percentage gained will be the same whatever kind of reading you are concerned with. 
The reading passages which follow are all of an average level of difficulty for your stage of instruction. They are all about five hundred words long. They are about topics of general interest which do not require a great deal of specialized knowledge. Thus they fall between the kind of reading you might find in your textbooks and the much less demanding kind you will find in a newspaper or light novel. If you read this kind of English, with understanding at four hundred words per minute, you might skim through a newspaper at perhaps 650 - 700 words per minute while with a difficult textbook you might drop to two hundred or two hundred and fifty. Perhaps you would like to know what reading speeds is common among native English-speaking university students and how those speeds can be improved. Tests in Minnesota, USA, for example, have shown that students without special training can read English of average difficulty, for example, Tolstoy's War and Peace in translation, at speed of between 240 and 250 words per minute with about seventy percent comprehension. Students in Minnesota claim that after twelve-half-hour lessons, once a week, the reading speed can be increased, with no loss of comprehension, to around five hundred words per minute.

A fax is a machine by which _______ over the telephone line.

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.

   Telecommuting is a form of computer communication between employees’ homes and offices. For employees whose jobs involve 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 work force 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.

It can be inferred from the passage that the author is ___________.

Read the text below and decide which answer (A,B,C, or D) best fits each space.
Tattooing is an old art. In ancient Greece, people who had tattoos were regarded  asmembers of the (16)____classes. On the other hand, tattooing was  (17)_____in Europe by the early Christians, who thought that it was a sinful  thing to(18) .It was not until the late 18th century, when Captain Cook  saw South Sea Islander decorating their bodies with tattoos that attitudes began  to change. Sailors came back from these islands with pictures of Christ on their  backs and from then on, tattooing (19)_____in popularity. A survey by the  French army in 1881 (20)_____that among the 387 men (21)_______ there were  1,333 designs. Nowadays, not everybody finds tattoos acceptable. Some people  thing that getting one is silly because tattoos are more or less permanent. There  is also some (22)_____about (23)_____ a blood disease from unsterilized needles. Even for those who do want a tattoo, the (24)_____of getting one is not  painless, but the final result, in their eyes, is (25)______the pain. 

18.....................

Many of the most damaging and life-threaling types of weather-torrential rains, severe thunderstorms, and tornadoes-begin quickly, strike suddenly, and dissipate rapidly, devastating small regions while leaving neighboring areas untouched. One such event, a tornado, struck the northeastern section of Edmonton, Alberta, in July 1987. Total damages from the tornado exceeded $250 million, the highest ever for any Canadian storm. Conventional computer models of the atmosphere have limited value in predicting short-live local storms like the Edmonton tornado, because the available weather data are generally not detailed enough to allow computers to discern the subtle atmospheric changes that precede these storms. In most nations, for example, weather balloon observations are taken just once every twelve hours at locations typically separated by hundreds of miles. With such limited data, conventional forecasting models do a much better job predicting general weather conditions over large regions than they do forecasting specific local events.
Until recently, the observation-intensive approach needed for accurate, very short range forecasts, or “Nowcasts”, was not feasible. The cost of equipping and operating many thousands of conventional weather stations was prohibitively high, and the difficulties involved in rapidly collecting and processing the raw weather data from such a network were insurmountable. Fortunately, scientific and technological advances have overcome most of these problems. Radar systems, automated weather instruments, and satellites are all capable of making detailed, nearly continuous observation over large regions at a relatively low cost. Communications satellites can transmit data around the world cheaply and instantaneously, and modern computers can quickly compile and analyzing this large volume of weather information. Meteorologists and computer scientists now work together to design computer programs and video equipment capable of transforming raw weather data into words, symbols, and vivid graphic displays that forecasters can interpret easily and quickly. As meteorologists have begun using these new technologies in weather forecasting offices, Nowcasting is becoming a reality.

The word “subtle” is closest in meaning to ________.

Choose the letter A, B, C or D to answer these following questions:
If you want to prepare yourself for great achievement and have more to contribute to your education or your work, try reading more books. Pick up some of the interestingly informative books and search for well-researched material that can help you grow. 
We should encourage our children to read more books and spend less time watching TV. Some people have commented that this is inconsistent. "Why is the written word a superior way to get information than television?" That is an interesting point of view worth further exploration. Reading is a skill that is in much greater demand than the demand for watching TV. There are no jobs that require a person to be able to watch TV but reading is an integral part of many jobs. The written word is an incredibly flexible and efficient way of communication. You can write something down and, in no time, it can be sent to many different people. Not only that, we can digest vast amounts of information through reading in a very short time. A good reader can acquire more information in reading for two hours than someone watching TV can acquire in a full day. You are able to gain a lot of information quickly because you are a fast reader with good comprehension skills. It will save you massive amounts of time and you will be able to assimilate vast quantities of information.

What is the best title of the passage?

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

A scientist said robots will be more intelligent than humans by 2029. The scientist's name is Ray Kurzweil. He works for Google as Director of Engineering. He is one of the world's (1)______ experts on artificial intelligence (A.I.). Mr Kurzweil believes computers will be able to learn from experiences, just like humans. He also thinks they will be able to tell jokes and stories, and even flirt. Kurzweil's 2029 prediction is (2)______ sooner than many people thought. The scientist said that in 1999, many A.I. experts said it would be hundreds of years before a computer was more intelligent than a human. He said that it would not be long before computer intelligence is one billion times more powerful than the human brain.

Mr Kurzweil joked that many years ago, people thought he was a little crazy (3)______ predicting computers would be as intelligent as humans. His thinking has (4)______ the same but everyone else has changed the way they think. He said: "My views are not radical any more. I've actually stayed consistent. It's the (5)______ of the world that's changing its view." He highlighted examples of high-tech things we use, see or read about every day. These things make us believe that computers have intelligence. He said people think differently now: "Because the public has seen things like Siri [the iPhone's voice-recognition technology] where you talk to a computer; they've seen the Google self-driving cars."

(3) ______

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word for each of the blanks from 36 to 40.
Vietnamese generally shake hands when greeting and parting. Using both hands shows respect as does a (36)_________ bow of the head. In rural areas, elderly people who do not extend their hand are greeted with a slight bow. Women are more likely to bow the head than to shake hands. Vietnamese names begin with the family name andare (37)_________ by a given name. People address one another by their given names,    but add a title that indicates their perceived relationship to the other person. These titles are family related rather than professional. Among colleagues, for example, the younger of the two might combine the given name with the title of - Anh(OlderBrother). A/n (38)_________ greeting combined with the given name and titleis “Xin chao” (Hello). Classifiers for gender and familiarity are also combined with the greeting. In formal meetings, business cards are sometimes exchanged on greeting.
Vietnamese have astrong (39)_________ of hospitality and feel embarrassed if they cannot show their guests  full respect by preparing for their arrival. Therefore, it is (40)_________ to visit someone without having been invited. Gifts are not required, but are appreciated. Flowers, incense, or tea may be appropriate gifts for the hosts. Hosts also appreciate a small gift for their children or elderly parents.
(36).................

Let children learn to judge their own work. A child learning to talk does not learn by being corrected all the time. If corrected too much, he will stop talking. He notices a thousand times a day the difference between the language he uses and the language those around him use. Bit by bit, he makes the necessary changes to make his language like other people’s. In the same way, children learn all the other things they learn to do without being taught - to talk, run, climb, whistle, ride a bicycle - compare their own performances with those of more skilled people, and slowly make the needed changes. But in school we never give a child a chance to find out his mistakes for himself, let alone correct them. We do it all for him. We act as if we thought that he would never notice a mistake unless it was pointed out to him, or correct it unless he was made to. Soon he becomes dependent on the teacher. Let him do it himself. Let him work out, with the help of other children if he wants it, what this word says, what the answer is to that problem, whether this is a good way of saying or doing this or not.
If it is a matter of right answers, as it may be in mathematics or science, give him the answer book. Let him correct his own papers. Why should we teachers waste time on such routine work? Our job should be to help the child when he tells us that he can’t find the way to get the right answer. Let’s end all this nonsense of grades, exams, and marks. Let us throw them all out, and let the children learn what all educated persons must someday learn, how to measure their own understanding, how to know what they know or do not know.
Let them get on with this job in the way that seems most sensible to them, with our help as school teachers if they ask for it. The idea that there is a body of knowledge to be learnt at school and used for the rest of one’s life is nonsense in a world as complicated and rapidly changing as ours. Anxious parents and teachers say, “But suppose they fail to learn something essential, something they will need to get on in the world?” Don’t worry! If it is essential, they will go out into the world and learn it.

Exams, grades and marks should be abolished because children’s progress should only be estimated by ________.

Read the text below and decide which answer (A,B,C, or D) best fits each space.
MY FIRST JOB

When I was 19, I (58) …….. out of my university course and ended up getting a job in a local travel agent’s. I’d seen the (59) …….. for the job in local paper. It said they wanted someone with a nice (60) …….. and a friendly (61) …….. .I thought the job might be an (62) …….. to send people to interesting places and to see some of the world myself. (63) …….. , it turned out to be a bit of a joke. I arrived at work on the first day with a positive (64) …….., ready to work and learn about new places. I spent that morning and every morning for the first three months filling (65)…….. forms and making coffee for the rest of the staff. (66) …….. I was hoping to be dealing with travel-hungry people with a good idea of where they wanted to go, the (67) …….. customer took ages to make their mind (68) …….. . It was amazing the number  of  customers  who  would  spend  ages  finding  the  perfect  destination  only  to have a change (69) …….. heart at the last moment. If we did organize the trip of a lifetime for someone, we rarely got thanks (70) …….. all our efforts. I now work in publishing (71) …….. a living, so these days I’m a customer in travel agencies. One thing I always keep (72) …….. mind is the need to say thank you.

66.......................

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word(s) for each of the blanks.

The relationship between students and teachers is less formal in the USA than in many other countries. American students do not stand up when their teachers (1) _______the room. Students are encouraged to ask questions during class, to stop in the teacher’s office for extra help, and to phone if they are absent. Most teachers (2) _________ students to enter class late or leave early if necessary. (3) ______the lack of formality, students are still expected to be polite to their teachers and classmates.

When students want to ask questions, they usually (4) _______ a hand and wait to be called on. When a test is being given, talking to a classmate is not only rude but also risky. Most American teachers consider that students who are talking to each other (5) _______ a test are cheating.

(4) _________

Read the text below and decide which answer (A,B,C, or D) best fits each space.
Statesmen define a family as ―a group of indivi duals having a commo n  dwelling andrelated by blood, adoption or marriage, (1) includes common law relationships.‖ Most people are born into one of these groups and (2) live their lives as a family in such a group.Although the definition of a  family may not change, (3).relationship of people to each other within the family  group changes as society changes. More and more wives are (4) paying jobs,  and, as a result, the roles of husband, wife and children are changing. Today,  men expect to(5) . for pay for about 40 years of their lives, and, in today‘s  marriages(6) . which both spouses have paying jobs, women can expect to  work for about 30 to 35 years of their lives. This mean that man must learn to do  their share of family tasks such as caring for the children and daily (7) chores.  Children, too, especially adolescents, have to (8) with the members od their  family in sharing household tasks. The widespread acceptance of contraception  has meant that having (9) is as matter of choice, not an automatic result of  marriage. Marriage itself has become a choice. As alternatives (10)  common-law relationships and single-parent families have become socially  acceptable, women will become more independent. 

7)...........................

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks. 
     The next time you are watching a film and you see one of the characters jumping out of a plane, falling off a horse, or being blown through a window - spare a (23) ______ for the stunt artist. Lots of people think that stunt artists are just "extras" who play small, unimportant parts in films and television. Nothing could be further from the truth. 
     A stunt artist must combine the skills of an actor with the physical abilities of a first- (24) _____________ athlete. He or she must be extremely fit, and highly trained in a number of activities like scuba-diving, horse riding, martial arts or parachuting. 
It is not easy to get started in a career as a stunt performer. Film and television producers look for experience and proven ability, as it is unlikely that they will take on a complete newcomer. However, because of the (25) ____________ of their profession, stunt artists tend to retire early. This means that new performers must be employed, or there will be no one to take (26) ______________ when the present generation quits. 
      Even when a stunt artist becomes well-known, the work is not regular. It may sometimes be necessary to travel to the other side of the world for a job which involves long hours and great physical danger. It is not a glamorous occupation either. Unlike the famous actors for (27) ____________ they sometimes risk their lives, few stunt artists are recognized in the street by adoring fans. 

However, because of the (25) ____________ of their profession, stunt artists tend to retire early.

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 following questions.

Let children learn to judge their own work. A child learning to talk does not learn by being corrected all the time. If corrected too much, he will stop talking. He notices a thousand times a day the difference between the language he uses and the language those around him use. Bit by bit, he makes the necessary changes to make his language like other people's. In the same way, children learn all the other things they learn to do without being taught - to talk, run, climb, whistle, ride a bicycle - compare their own performances with those of more skilled people, and slowly make the needed changes. But in school we never give a child a chance to find out his mistakes for himself, let alone correct them. We do it all for him. We act as if we thought that he would never notice a mistake unless it was pointed out to him, or correct it unless he was made to. Soon he becomes dependent on the teacher. Let him do it himself. Let him work out, with the help of other children if he wants it, what this word says, what the answer is to that problem, whether this is a good way of saying or doing this or not.

If it is a matter of right answers, as it may be in mathematics or science, give him the answer book. Let him correct his own papers. Why should we teachers waste time on such routine work? Our job should be to help the child when he tells us that he can't find the way to get the right answer. Let's end all this nonsense of grades, exams, and marks. Let us throw them all out, and let the children learn what all educated persons must someday learn, how to measure their own understanding, how to know what they know or do not know.

Let them get on with this job in the way that seems most sensible to them, with our help as school teachers if they ask for it. The idea that there is a body of knowledge to be learnt at school and used for the rest of one's life is nonsense in a world as complicated and rapidly changing as ours. Anxious parents and teachers say, “But suppose they fail to learn something essential, something they will need to get on in the world?" Don't worry! If it is essential, they will go out into the world and learn it.

The word “those” in paragraph 1 refers to _____.

Read the following passage and mark A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the blanks from 46 to 50.
University researchers have taken samples from a preserved dodo specimen in an (46)         to uncover the extinct bird‟s family tree. They worked with the British Natural History Museum to collect and study genetic material from large number of specimens: a preserved dodo, the extinct solitaire bird, and 35 kind of living pigeons and doves. Their analysis (47)           the doo and the solitaire to be close relatives with the Nicobar pigeon, their nearest living relative. The dodo lived on Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. It was a flightless bird, bigger than a turkey. By 1681, all dodos had been (48)      by hungry sailors. The    solitaire, which looked a bit like a dodo, had gone the same way by 1800. By extracting short pieces of the dodo‟s DNA and (49)        these with the DNA of living birds, the scientists were able to deduce when the dodo evolved away from its relatives into a separate entity. The scientists can now (50)       assume that the dodo developed its distinctive appearance and features as a result of its geographical isolation. They are now convinced that it separated from the solitaire about 25 million years ago, long before Mauritius became an island.
(47).................

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.

I’m standing on a sidewalk in the early morning. The great avenues of Paris are silent, and the shops are closed. Suddenly, a couple appeared from a hole in the sidewalk. Mud covers their boots. They place the iron cover over the hole and run down the street, smiling. The couple had been exploring the tunnels beneath the city.

When Romans occupied Paris, they cut down stone from deep within the earth to build their city. Later, the French used more stone to construct the Notre Dame Cathedral. This left huge underground tunnels upon which part of the city now. Once used for growing mushrooms and as a hiding place, today they are mostly forgotten, except by "cataphiles" - those who love to go down into the tunnels below Paris, even though it is actually not permitted.

In the 70s and 80s, it is easier to enter the tunnels because there were many more open entrances through forgotten doorways and into catacombs - rooms filled with bones. The bones had been moved into the tunnels to solve the problem crowded cemeteries. By the end of the 1980s, most of the entrances were shut and police regularly walked the tunnels. However, there are still cataphiles, like the couple I saw that morning, and for those who dare, the underground is an exciting place to meet, party, perform for each other or create art.

My own experience began beneath the old Paris opera house, where sewer workers showed me a 55-meter-long underground pond, a pond that actually had fish in it! Later, at France's national bank, officials guided me below to an amazing room filled with 2,600 tons of gold.

As cataphiles are the best guides, I then asked one of the cataphiles to give me a tour. Descending into the underground through a secret entrance beneath a bridge, we walked for hours through catacombs, and galleries of huge, bright paintings. The cataphile told me "Many people come down here to party, some to paint. Some people to destroy or to create or to explore. We do what we want, We don't have rules..."

(Adapted from Reading Explorer 2, Paul Macintyre&David Bohlke, 2015)

Which statement is NOT true about the tunnels under Paris?

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.

When I saw her name on the screen, it took me right back to the moment she had moved away with her family ten years before. We had been such close friends at primary school. To begin with, she and I had not hit it off, perhaps because we were both timid. We had quickly got over that, though, and as time went on, we had become really good friends, until you almost never saw one of us without the other.

And now after so much time apart, there was her name. She had sent me a friend request. I knew she had been living abroad, and her profile picture showed her on the beach. I had been expecting her to look different after ten years. The girl in the photo was the same old Lauren, though.

Nowadays, it is easy to find old friends thanks to social networking sites. There are lots of stories about long lost friends getting back in touch after years apart. It was odd because I had been thinking about our friendship too and now here she was!

She told me about the place where she had been living for the past ten years, and I told her about things that had happened to me. Before long, the years melted away and we were the same two girls who had spent so much time together. Of course, true friends are loyal and listen to you when you are down. And they are the people you have fun with. But deep down, I realised that the truest friends are those you are most yourself with. And that is something that never changes. That is what Lauren and I learned that day, the day we realised our friendship was so precious and had never really ended in the first place.

(Adapted from Optimise)

The phrase “hit it off” in paragraph 1 mostly means _______.

Read the text below and decide which answer (A,B,C, or D) best fits each space.
MY FIRST JOB

When I was 19, I (58) …….. out of my university course and ended up getting a job in a local travel agent’s. I’d seen the (59) …….. for the job in local paper. It said they wanted someone with a nice (60) …….. and a friendly (61) …….. .I thought the job might be an (62) …….. to send people to interesting places and to see some of the world myself. (63) …….. , it turned out to be a bit of a joke. I arrived at work on the first day with a positive (64) …….., ready to work and learn about new places. I spent that morning and every morning for the first three months filling (65)…….. forms and making coffee for the rest of the staff. (66) …….. I was hoping to be dealing with travel-hungry people with a good idea of where they wanted to go, the (67) …….. customer took ages to make their mind (68) …….. . It was amazing the number  of  customers  who  would  spend  ages  finding  the  perfect  destination  only  to have a change (69) …….. heart at the last moment. If we did organize the trip of a lifetime for someone, we rarely got thanks (70) …….. all our efforts. I now work in publishing (71) …….. a living, so these days I’m a customer in travel agencies. One thing I always keep (72) …….. mind is the need to say thank you.

62.................

Light from a living plant or animal is called bioluminescence, or cold light, to distinguish it from incandescence or heat-generating light. Life forms could not produce incandescent light without being burned. Their light is produced in chemicals combining in such a way that little or no measurable heat is produced, and the life forms generating it are unharmed. Although bioluminescence is a relatively complicated process, it can be reduced to simple terms. Living light occurs when luciferin and oxygen combine in the presence of luciferase. In a few cases, fireflies the most common, an additional compound called ATP is required.
The earliest recorded experiments with bioluminescence in the late 1800s are attributed to Raphael Dubois, who extracted a luminous fluid from a clam, observing that it continued to glow in the test tube for several minutes. He named the substance luciferin, which means “the bearer of life”. In further research, Dubois discovered that several chemicals were required for bioluminescence to occur. In his notes, it was recorded that a second important substance, which he called luciferase, was always present. In later study of small, luminous sea creatures, Newton Harley concluded that luciferin was composed of carbon, hydrosen, and oxygen, which are the building blocks of all living cells. He also proved that there are a variety of luciferin and luciferase, specific to the plants and animals that produce them.
Much remains unknown, but many scientists who are studying bioluminescence now believe that the origin of the phenomenon may be traced to a time when there was no oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere. When oxygen was gradually introduced to the atmosphere, it was actually poisonous to life forms, plants and animals produced light to use up the oxygen in a gradual but necessary adaptation. It is speculated that millions of years ago, all life may have produced light to survive. As the millennia passed, life forms on Earth became tolerant of, and finally dependent on oxygen, and the adaptation that produced bioluminescence was no longer necessary, but some primitive plants and animals continued to use the light for new functions such as mating or attracting prey.

The word “it” refers to:

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

   The countryside of Britain is well known for its beauty and many contrasts: its bare mountains and moorland, its lakes, rivers and woods, and its long, often wild coastline. Many of the most beautiful areas are national parks and are protected from development. When British people think of the countryside they think of farmland, as well as open spaces. They imagine cows or sheep in green fields enclosed by hedges or stone walls, and fields of wheat and barley. Most farmland is privately owned but is crossed by a network of public footpaths.

   Many people associate the countryside with peace and relaxation. They spend their free time walking or cycling there, or go to the country for a picnic or a pub lunch. In summer people go to fruit farms and pick strawberries and other fruit. Only a few people who live in the country work on farms. Many commute to work in towns. Many others dream of living in the country, where they believe they would have a better and healthier lifestyle.

   The countryside faces many threats. Some are associated with modern farming practices, and the use of chemicals harmful to plants and wildlife. Land is also needed for new houses. The green belt, an area of land around many cities, is under increasing pressure. Plans to build new roads are strongly opposed by organizations trying to protect the countryside. Protesters set up camps to prevent, or at least delay, the building work.

   America has many areas of wild and beautiful scenery, and there are many areas, especially in the West in states like Montana and Wyoming, where few people live. In the New England states, such as Vermont and New Hampshire, it is common to see small farms surrounded by hills and green areas. In Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and other Midwestern states, fields of corn or wheat reach to the horizon and there are many miles between towns.

   Only about 20% of Americans live outside cities and towns. Life may be difficult for people who live in the country. Services like hospitals and schools may be further away and going shopping can mean driving long distances. Some people even have to drive from their homes to the main road where their mail is left in a box. In spite of the disadvantages, many people who live in the country say that they like the safe, clean, attractive environment. But their children often move to a town or city as soon as they can.

   As in Britain, Americans like to go out to the country at weekends. Some people go on camping or fishing trips, others go hiking in national parks.

Which of the following is NOT mentioned as an activity of relaxation in the countryside of Britain?

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 from 41 to 45.
SOCIAL NETWORK
A 16-year-old girl from Essex has been sacked after describing her job as boring on the social networking website, Facebook. The teenager, who had been working (41)      an administrative assistant at a    marketing company for just three weeks, didn‟t feel very enthusiastic about the duties she was asked to do. (42)       of moaning to her friends she decided to express her thoughts on her Facebook page to a colleague, who (43)       the boss‟s attention to it. He immediately fired her on the (44)       that her public display of dissatisfaction made it impossible for her to continue working for the company. She later told newspapers she had been treated totally unfairly, especially as she hadn‟t even mentioned the company‟s name. She claimed she‟s been perfectly happy with her job and that her light-hearted comments shouldn‟t (45)      taken seriously. A spokesperson from a workers‟ union said the incident demonstrated two things: firstly, that people need to protect their privacy online and secondly, that employers should be less sensitive to criticism.
(43).......................

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.

The concept of traffic-free shopping areas goes back a long time. During the Middle Ages, traffic-tree shopping areas were built in Middle Eastern countries to allow people to shop in comfort and, more importantly, safety. As far back as 2000 years ago, road traffic was banned from central Rome during the day to allow for the free movement of pedestrians.

The modern, traffic-free shopping street was born in Europe in the 1960s, when both city population and car ownership increased rapidly. Dirty exhaust from cars and the risks involved in crossing the road were beginning to make shopping an unpleasant and dangerous experience. Many believed the time was right experimenting with car-free streets, and shopping areas seemed the best place to start.

At first, there was resistance from shopkeepers. They argued that people would avoid streets if they unable to get to them in their cars. When the first streets in Europe were closed to traffic, there were noisy demonstrations, as many shopkeepers predicted they would lose customers.

With the arrival of the traffic-free shopping street, many shops, especially those selling things clothes, food and smaller luxury items, prospered. Unfortunately, shops selling furniture and larger electrical appliances actually saw their sales drop. Many of these were forced to move elsewhere, away from centre.

(Adapted from Complete IELTS)

Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?