Read the passage carefully, then decide whether the following statement are true (T) or false (F)

The proverb 'A friend in need is a friend indeed.' means that we shall know who our real friends are when we are in need. Those who desert us when we are in difficulty are just unfaithful friends.

A true friend would remain with us whether we are rich or poor. Some people be friend the rich, simply for the sake of getting benefits from them.

It is useless to have insincere friends because these friends remain with us as long as we are rich or powerful. It is better to have one or two good friends rather than having hundreds of insincere ones.

A true friend will stand by us in our trials and tribulations. He will be a great source of consolation and comfort in our troubles. So we must be careful in choosing our friends. It is difficult to choose a sincere friend overnight; it takes years for us to find a sincere friend.

It's not worth having a lot of friends.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
When jazz began to lose its reputation as "low-down" music and to gain well-deserved acclaim among intellectuals, musicians began to feature many instruments previously considered inappropriate for jazz. Whereas before the 1950s, jazz musicians played only eight basic instruments in strict tempo, in this decade they started to improvise on the flite, electric organ, piccolo, accordion, cello, and even bagpipes, with the rhythm section composed for strings or piano. Big bands no longer dominated jazz, and most changes emerged from small combos, such as the Dave Brubeck Quartet and the Gerry Mulligan Quartet. The Gerry Mulligan Quartet proved that a small, modern band could sound complete without a piano; the rhythm section consisted only of a set of drums and a string bass. Jazz continued to move in new directions during the 1960s. Saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman led a quartet playing "free" jazz that was atonal. Pianist Cecil Taylor also conducted similar experiments with music, and John Coltrane included melodies from India in his compositions. In the 1970s musicians blended jazz and rock music into fusion jazz which combined the melodies and the improvisations of jazz with the rhythmic qualities of rock'n' roll, with three or five beats to the bar and in other meters. The form of jazz music was greatly affected by electric instruments and electronic implements to intensify, distort, or amplify their sounds. However, the younger musicians of the time felt compelled to include a steady, swinging rhythm which they saw as a permanent and essential element in great jazz.
7. The author of the passage implies that in the 1950s, jazz musicians

Read the passage and choose the correct option (A, B, C, or D) to answer each of the given questions.

In 1959, the government of Egypt was working on a plan to build a dam on the River Nile. It was called the Aswan Dam, and it was intended to generate electricity and allow the river water to be used for agriculture. There was one big problem with the plan, though. The dam would flood a nearby valley that contained ancient Egyptian treasures, including two enormous stone temples.
It can be difficult for governments to choose culture and history over economics. However, if countries always made decisions like this, the majority of the world's ancient sites would end up being destroyed. Luckily, UNESCO stepped in. They formed a committee that tried to convince Egypt to protect its ancient treasures. With support from many countries, they were finally successful. The huge temples were carefully removed from their original site and moved to a safe location so that the dam could be built.

After their success in saving the temples in Egypt, UNESCO went on to save more sites around the world. They protected lagoons in Venice, ruins in Pakistan, and temples in Indonesia. With industrialisation changing the world rapidly, there were many sites that needed to be saved. Eventually, UNESCO formed the World Heritage Organisation to protect important natural and historic sites wherever it was necessary.

By now, the World Heritage Organisation has protected hundreds of sites ranging from beautiful natural islands to buildings in large cities and ancient ruins. If you're able to visit any of the many protected sites, you'll agree it was worth it.

What is the best title for the passage?

Read the following passage and mark the letter A,B,C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks from. 
Nowadays, teenagers have (18)______ more money and expensive possessions than their parents ever did. Articles like radios and bicycles, which cost a fortune (19) _____ decades ago, are now mass-produced and cheap. And items that nobody even dreamed of possessing twenty years ago, such as mobile phones and computers, are now in common places. Teenagers are definitely better off financially. However life is not easy for them. There is much more to worry about than there was in the past. Jobs are not as secure (20)_____ they used to be and teenagers can no (21) _____ be confident that the world will always be peaceful and free of pollution. 
Teenagers drive their parents crazy (22)_____ many ways. Some of them spray their hair with amazing color, while others wear clothes that shock their parents. They all want (23)_____ own stereos, mobile phones and televisions. But these young people are not really behaving differently from how their parents behaved when they were young. Many today’s parents and grandparents will laugh when they (24)_____ crazy fashions they wore. Those adults, (25) _____ are parents now fought with their own parents about clothes and lifestyle. In fact, teenagers have fought with their parents (26)_____ time began and no doubt they will always.
(21).....................................

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Another critical factor that plays a part in susceptibility to colds is age. A study done by the University of Michigan School of Public Health revealed particulars that seem to hold true for the general population. Infants are the most cold-ridden group, averaging more than six colds in their first year. Boys have more colds than girls up to age three. After the age of three, girls are more susceptible than boy's , and teenage girls average three colds a year to boy’s two. The general incidence of continues to decline into maturity. Elderly people who are in good health have as few as one or two colds annually. One exception is founds among people in the twentics, especially women, who show a rise in cold infections, because people in this age group are most likely to have young children. Adults who delay having children until thirties forties experience the same sudden increase in cold infections. The study also found that economics play an important role. As income increases, the frequency at which are reported in the family decreases. Families with the lowest income suffer about a third more colds than families at the lower end. Lower income generally forces people to live in more cramped quarters than those typically occupied by wealthier by wealthier people, and crowding increses the opportunities for the cold virus totravel from person to person. Low income may also adversely influence diet. The degree to which poor nutrition affects susceptibility to colds is not yet clearly established, but an inadequate diet is suspected of lowering resistance generally.
10: The author's main purpose in writing the last paragraph of the passage was to .

Read the passage carefully, then choose the correct answer

Having a best friend to confide in can bring a positive effect on our emotional health. An evening out with the closest friend may be the best guarantee of a good time. In fact, our best friend can prevent us from developing serious psychological problems such as depression and anxiety.

Best friendship evolves with time – we cannot go out and pick our best friend. We become friends with people who share common interests – at school or through hobbies, for example.

Best friends have usually known each other for years and stuck together through good and bad times. If you haven’t got one, perhaps you are being too distant from people, or focusing too much on your work.

Close friends need to ________.

 Identify the one underlined word or phrase - A, B, C or D - that must be changed for the sentence to be correct.

 Clay that has been heated or fired in a kiln cannot to be softened again.

Read the passage and do the exercises below:
Give short answers to the following questions. 

It's important that you develop effective strategies for managing your time to balance the conflicting demands of time for study, leisure, earning money and work. Time management skills are valuable in job hunting, but also in many other aspects of life from revising for examinations to working in a vacation job.

Sometimes it may seem that there isn't enough time to do everything that you need to. This can lead to a build-up of stress. When revising for examinations, or during your final year when you have to combine the pressures of intensive study with finding time to apply for jobs, good management of your time can be particularly important. Once we have identified ways in which we can improve the management of our time, we.can begin to adjust our routines and patterns of behavior to reduce any time-related stress in our lives.  

Some of these skills include setting clear goals, breaking your goals down into several steps, and reviewing your progress towards your goals.

Why do last year students build up stress?  

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.

   It is commonly believed in the United States that school is where people go to get an education. Nevertheless, it has been said that today children interrupt their education to go to school. The distinction between schooling and education implied by this remark is important.

   Education is much more open-ended and all-inclusive than schooling. Education knows no bounds. It can take place anywhere, whether in the shower or on the job, whether in a kitchen or on a tractor. It includes both the formal learning that takes place in schools and the whole universe of informal learning. The agents of education can range from a revered grandparent to the people debating politics on the radio, from a child to a distinguished scientist. Whereas schooling has a certain predictability, education quite often produces surprises. A chance conversation with a stranger may lead a person to discover how little is known of other religions. People are engaged in education from infancy on. Education, then, is a very broad, inclusive term. It is a lifelong process, a process that starts long before the start of school, and one that should be an integral part of one's entire life.

   Schooling, on the other hand, is a specific, formalized process, whose general pattern varies little from one setting to the next. Throughout a country, children arrive at school at approximately the same time, take assigned seats, are taught by an adult, use similar textbooks, do homework, take exams, and so on. The slices of reality that are to be learned, whether they are the alphabet or an understanding of the workings of government, have usually been limited by the boundaries of the subject being taught. For example, high school students know that they are not likely to find out in their classes the truth about political problems in their communities or what the newest filmmakers are experimenting with. There are definite conditions surrounding the formalized process of schooling.

The passage supports which of the following conclusions?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Tulips are Old World, rather than New World, plants, with the origins of the species lying in Central Asia. They became an integral part of the gardens of the Ottoman Empire from the sixteenth century onward, and, soon after, part of European life as well. Holland, in particular, became famous for its cultivation of the flowers. A tenuous line marked the advance of the tulip to the New World, where it was unknown in the wild. The first Dutch colonies in North America had been established in New Netherlands by the Dutch West India Company in 1624, and one individual who settled in New Amsterdam (today's Manhattan section of New York City) in 1642 described the flowers that bravely colonized the settlers' gardens. They were the same flowers seen in Dutch still-life paintings of the time: crown imperials, roses, carnations, and of course tulips. They flurished in Pennsylvania too, where in 1698 William Penn received a report of John Tateham's "Great and Stately Palace," its garden full of tulips. By 1760, Boston newspapers were advertising 50 different kinds of mixed tulip "roots." But the length of the journey between Europe and North America created many difficulties. Thomas Hancock, an English settler, wrote thanking his plant supplier for a gift of some tulip bulbs from England, but his letter the following year grumbled that they were all dead. Tulips arrived in Holland, Michigan, with a later wave of early nineteenth-century Dutch immigrants who quickly colonized the plains of Michigan. Together with many other Dutch settlements, such astheone at Pella, Iowa, they established a regular demand for European plants. The demand was bravely met by a new kind of tulip entrepreneur, the traveling salesperson. One Dutchman, Hendrick van de Schoot, spent six months in 1849 traveling through the United States taking orders for tulip bulbs. While tulip bulbs were traveling from Europe to the United States to satisfy the nostalgic longings of homesick English and Dutch settlers, North American plants were traveling in the opposite direction. In England, the enthusiasm for American plants was one reason why tulips dropped out of fashion in the gardens of the rich and famous 
3. The passage mentions that tulips were fist found in which of the following regions?

The ideas of John Dewey, philosopher and educator, have influenced American thought for over one hundred years. Dewey was born in Vermont in 1859, and throughout hi life he kept the respect for experience, individuality, and fair play that shaped the character of the nineteenth century Vermonter. He viewed his own life as a continuously reconstructive process with experience and knowledge building on each other. By the 1930s, Dewey had simplified his theory of experience to its essence. As the intellectual leader of the progressive schools, he asserted that there was danger in rejecting the old unless the new was rooted in a connect idea of experience. He held that experience is an interaction between what a person already knows and the situation at hand. Previous knowledge interacting with the present environment influences future experience. Dewey be1ieved that experience could not be equated with education because all experiences as not necessarily educative. Experience is educative only when it contributes to the growth of the individual, but it can be miseducative if it distorts the growth of further experience. It is the quality of experience that matters. Thus, productive experience is both the means and the goal of education. Furthermore, since education is a social process, truly progressive education involves the participation of the learner in directing the learning experience.During his long life, Dewey lectured and published prolifically. These writings were influential both during his lifetime and after his death at the age of ninety-two. He viewed his whole life as an experiment which would produce knowledge that would lead to further experimentation. The range and diversity of Dewey’s writings and his influence on society place him among American’s great thinkers.

The author implies that Dewey’s Vermont background_____.

Marriage nowadays is a choice people make on their own, but this has not always been the case in society. Thousands of years ago, the average lifespan was shorter than it is today. A man usually lived until he was about 40 years old, while women died even sooner because of childbirth. There were many wars and illnesses, and people had to protect themselves by having more children while they were still young. The parents lived through their children.

Marriage was not so much a romantic love story but a business transaction, or deal. Most marriages were arranged between parents while their children were still very young. It was the custom that the fathers made the decision on whom their children were going to marry. The mothers had little say in it since they rarely made any decisions outside the household. The fathers would meet to arrange the wedding date and the money given for the bride on her wedding date. The more money and land a girl had, the more chances she had to marry well. Therefore, it was important that her father choose the bridegroom very well. Usually, it was someone who came from a good family or who was rich too. It was very unlikely that people married outside their social class. A few well-off and rich merchants got to marry poorer noblewomen and became King’s business advisors. In a way, poor peasants had an easier choice as it was less important whom they married.

The practice of arranged marriage is still common in some countries in the Middle East, such as India or Pakistan. Here, social classes are still strongly divided and very well-kept. Often, however, arranged marriages are a sign that people do not want to let go of the past, which gives them comfort and security in an ever-changing world.

What does the passage mainly discuss?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Most forms of property are concrete and tangible, such as houses, cars, furniture or anything else that is included in one’s possessions. Other forms of property can be intangible and copyright deals with intangible forms of property. Copyright is a legal protection extended to authors of creative works, for example, books, magazine articles, maps, films, plays, television shows, software, paintings, photographs, music, choreography in dance and all other forms of intellectual or artistic property. Although the purpose of artistic property is usually public use and enjoyment, copyright establishes the ownership of the creator. When a person buys a copyrighted magazine, it belongs to this individual as a tangible object. However, the authors of the magazine articles own the research and the writing that went into creating the articles. The right to make and sell or give away copies of books or articles belongs to the authors, publishers, or other individuals or organizations that hold the copyright. To copy an entire book or a part of it, permission must be received from the copyright owner, who will most likely expect to be paid. Copyright law distinguishes between different types of intellectual property. Music may be played by anyone after it is published. However, if it is performed for profit, the performers need to pay a fee, called a royalty. A similar principle applies to performances of songs and plays. On the other hand, names, ideas, and book titles are accepted. Ideas do not become copyrighted property until they are published in a book, a painting or a musical work. Almost all artistic work created before the 20th century is not copyrighted because it was created before the copyright law was passed. The two common ways of infringing upon the copyright are plagiarism and piracy. Plagiarizing the work of another person means passing it off as one’s own. The word plagiarism is derived from the Latin plagiarus, which means “abductor”. Piracy may be an act of one person, but, in many cases, it is a joint effort of several people who reproduce copyrighted material and sell it for profit without paying royalties to the creator. Technological innovations have made piracy easy and anyone can duplicate a motion picture on videotape, a computer program, or a book. Video cassette recorders can be used by practically anyone to copy movies and television programs, and copying software has become almost as easy as copying a book. Large companies zealously monitor their copyrights for slogans, advertisements, and
brand names, protected by a trademark.
5: Which of the following properties is NOT mentioned as protected by copyright?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Amid the hum and heat of Berlin’s Reuter thermal power station stands a shining contraption that looks out of place in the decades-old machine hall. Its silver pipes and vats contain a substance that the company Vattenfall, the plant’s operator, says could become a key ingredient for a fossil fuel-free future. The energy company, together with a Swedish start-up, is testing the use of salt to store heat, which accounts for more than half the power consumed in Germany. If it works well, the system could help solve a problem posed by renewable energy sources like wind and solar: unreliability, meaning they sometimes generate too much, and sometimes too little power. “Germany currently has enough installed renewable energy capacity to produce twice as much as it needs, it’s just not constant,” says Hendrik Roeglin, who oversees the salt storage project for Vattenfall. At the Reuter power plant in Berlin, which supplies 600,000 households in the capital with heat, the solution involves the use of calcium oxide, also known as quicklime. Vattenfall and Swedish start-up SaltX have been taking advantage of a simple chemical reaction that occurs when quicklime becomes wet: the salt-like grains soak up the water, becoming calcium hydroxide and releasing large amounts of heat in the process. By removing the water again, the substance turns back into calcium oxide. The process essentially mirrors how batteries work, except that instead of electricity, the system stores heat. Roeglin says the process can absorb ten times more energy than water, which is currently used for power- to-heat facilities. And unlike tanks of hot water, which slowly cool down over time, the system can retain the chemically-trapped energy for far longer. Need heat? Just add water. The pilot project in Berlin can currently store enough energy to heat about 100 large houses. But SaltX says the facility could easily be scaled up and provide heat to any of the homes or offices already connected to the capital’s district heating system. Such networks — consisting of pipes pumping hot water or steam from power plants to consumers — exist in many European countries, Canada, the United States, Japan and China. SaltX also notes that the calcium oxide currently mined in Finland could be safely recycled, giving it an edge over some battery technologies that use rare or toxic materials. “If your ambition is to be fossil-free within a generation, you have to consider various alternatives to reach that,” a representative of SaltX, Simon Ahlin, said during a visit to the facility. “This is an effective solution that’s available in a short time frame.”
2. Which of the following is TRUE about the new method of using salt to store heat at the Reuter power plant?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
You can usually tell when your friends are happy or angry by the looks on their faces or by their actions. This is useful because reading their emotional expressions helps you to know how to respond to them. Emotions have evolved to help us respond to important situations and to convey our intentions to others. But does raising the eyebrows and rounding the mouth say the same thing in Minneapolis as it does in Madagascar ? Much research on emotional expressions has centered on such questions. According to Paul Ekman, the leading researcher in this area, people speak and understand substantially the same “facial language”. Studies by Ekman’s group have demonstrated that humans share a set of universal emotional expressions that testify to the common biological heritage of the human species. Smiles, for example, signal happiness and frowns indicate sadness on the faces of people in such far-flung places as Argentina, Japan, Spain, Hungary, Poland, Sumatra, the United States, Vietnam, the jungles of New Guinea, and the Eskimo villages north of Artic Circle. Ekman and his colleagues claim that people everywhere can recognize at least seven basic emotions: sadness, fear, anger, disgust, contempt, happiness, and surprise. There are, however, huge differences across cultures in both the context and intensity of emotional displays – the so-called display responses – expecially negative ones – while many American children are encouraged to express their feelings more openly. Regardless of culture, however, emotions usually show themselves, to some degree, in people’s behavior. From their first days in life, babies produce facial expressions that communicate their feelings. The ability to read facial expressions develops early, too. Very young children pay close attention to facial expressions, and by age five, they nearly equal adults in their skill at reading emotions on people’s faces. This evidence all points to a biological underpinning for our abilities to express and interpret a basic set of human emotions. Moreover, as Chales Dawin pointed out over a century ago, some emotional expressions seem to appear across species boundaries. Cross-cultural psychologists tell us that certain emotional responses carry different meanings in diferrent cultures. For example, what emotion do you suppose might be conveyed while sticking out your tounge ? For American, this might indicate disgust, while in China it can signify surprise. Likewise, a grin on an American face may indicate joy, while on a Japanese face it may just as easily mean embarrassment. Clearly, culture influences emotional expressions.
10: The best title for the passage is: 

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Many of the most damaging and life-threatening 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.
5. The word "they" in paragraph 2 refers to: 

Choose the best anwers for the following questions.

The generation gap, which refers to a broad difference between one generation and another, especially between young people and their parents, usually leads to numerous conflicts. Such family conflicts can seriously threaten the relationship between parents and children at times.
 
It goes without saying that, however old their children are, parents still regard them as small kids and keep in mind that their offspring are too young to protect themselves cautiously or have wise choices. Therefore, they tend to make a great attempt to help their children to discover the outside world. Nevertheless, they forget that as children grow up, they want to be more independent and develop their own identity by creating their own opinions, thoughts, styles and values about life.

One common issue that drives conflicts is the clothes of teenagers. While teens are keen on wearing fashionable clothes which try to catch up with the youth trends, parents who value traditional clothes believe that those kinds of attire violate the rules and the norms of the society. It becomes worse when the expensive brand name clothes teens choose seem to be beyond the financial capacity of parents.

Another reason contributing to conflicts is the interest in choosing a career path or education between parents and teenagers. Young people are told that they have the world at their feet and that dazzling future opportunities are just waiting for them to seize. However, their parents try to impose their choices of university or career on them regardless of their children's preference.

Indeed, conflicts between parents and children are the everlasting family phenomena. It seems that the best way to solve the matter is open communication to create mutual trust and understanding.

Why do most parents still treat their teenage children like small kids?

Read the passage then choose the best answer to fill in each gap.

The human …….. (16) is only one small species in the living world. Many ……. (17) species exist on this planet. However, human beings have great influence on the rest of the world. ………..(18) are changing the environment by building cities and villages where forests once stood. They are …………(19) the water supply by using water for industry and agriculture. They are changing weather conditions by cutting down trees in the forests, and they are destroying the air by adding ……….. (20) to it.

18: ........................

Read the text and answer the questions.

Friendship is a big statement. Lots of people are lovers but are not friends. Lots of people are relatives and are not friends. Lots of people who work together are not friends. You can appreciate or admire someone, but that does not mean that you make him or her a friend.

When I had my near-death illness last year and the following long recuperation, I had a lot of time to think about what makes someone a friend. If they are scared of you when you need help, sorry, that is not friendship. If their attitude is “for better or worse,” if they stick to you through troubles and difficulties, it is the time when you can tell it is true friendship. I do have some friends, but not as many as I thought. And there was a time, in the late 80s when my friend, Ken, really needed me but I did not come through for him. I remember hanging out in my happy suburban house in Menlo Park, and not coming to help him through the loss of his wife. Luckily, I got to apologize for that but Ken said he did not mind.

I do not have a tidy answer about Ken and me and friendship. Sometimes we were friends, and other times, clearly, not. But I guess there is something remarkable in two people overcoming the barriers to friendship to find some real communication at some point.

The writer did not come to help Ken ___________

Read the passage and choose the correct answer:

The proverb 'A friend in need is a friend indeed.' means that we shall know who our real friends are when we are in need. Those who desert us when we are in difficulty are just unfaithful friends.

A true friend would remain with us whether we are rich or poor. Some people be friend the rich, simply for the sake of getting benefits from them.

It is useless to have insincere friends because these friends remain with us as long as we are rich or powerful. It is better to have one or two good friends rather than having hundreds of insincere ones.

A true friend will stand by us in our trials and tribulations. He will be a great source of consolation and comfort in our troubles. So we must be careful in choosing our friends. It is difficult to choose a sincere friend overnight; it takes years for us to find a sincere friend.

Real friends share everything we need.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
According to anthropologists, people in preindustrial societies spent 3 to 4 hours per day or about 20 hours per week doing the work necessaryfor life. Modern comparisons of the amount of work performed per week, however, begin with the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840) when 10- to 12-hour workdays with six workdays per week were the norm. Even with extensive time devoted to work, however, both incomes and standards of living were low. As incomes rose near the end of the Industrial Revolution, it became increasingly common to treat Saturday afternoons as a half-day holiday. The half-day holiday had become standard practice in Britain by the 1870's, but did not become common in the United States until the 1920's. In the United States, the first third of the twentieth century saw the workweek move from 60 hours per week to just under 50 hours by the start of the 1930s. In 1914 Henry Ford reduced daily work hours at his automobile plants from 9 to 8. In 1926 he announced that henceforth his factories would close for the entire day on Saturday. At the time, Ford received criticism from other firms such as United States Steel and Westinghouse, but the idea was popular with workers. The Depression years of the 1930s brought with them the notion of job sharing to spread available work around; the workweek dropped to a modem low for the United States of 35 hours. In 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act mandated a weekly maximum of 40 hours to begin in 1940, and since that time the 8-hour day, 5-day workweek has been the standard in the United States. Adjustments in various places, however, show that this standard is not immutable. In 1987, for example, German metal workers struck for and received a 37.5-hour workweek; and in 1990 many workers in Britain won a 37-hour week. Since 1989, the Japanese government has moved from a 6- to a 5-day workweek and has set a national target of 1,800 work hours per year for the average worker. The average amount of work per year in Japan in 1989 was 2,088 hours per worker, compared to 1,957 for the United States and 1,646 for France.
4: The word "henceforth" in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to: