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.

20: .....................

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
There are many theories about the beginning of drama in ancient Greece. The one most widely accepted today is based on the assumption that drama evolved from ritual. The argument for this view goes as follows. In the beginning, human beings viewed the natural forces of the world, even the seasonal changes, as unpredictable, and they sought, through various means, to control these unknown and feared powers. Those measures which appeared to bring the desired results were then retained and repeated until they hardened into fixed rituals. Eventually stories arose which explained or veiled the mysteries of the rites. As time passed some rituals were abandoned, but the stories, later called myths, persisted and provided material for art and drama. Those who believed that drama evolved out of ritual also argue that those rites contained the seed of theater because music, dance, masks, and costumes were almost always used. Furthermore, a suitable site hard to be provided for the performances, and when the entire community did not participate, a clear division was usually made between the “acting area” and the “auditorium”. In addition, there were performers, and since considerable importance was attached to avoiding mistakes in the enactment of rites, religious leaders usually assumed that task. Wearing masks and costumes, they often impersonated other people, animals, or supernatural beings, and mimed the desired effect- success in hunt or battle, the coming rain, the revival of the Sun as an actor might. Eventually such dramatic representations were separated from religious activities. Another theory traces the theater’s origin from the human interest in storytelling. According to this view, tales (about the hunt, war or other feats) are gradually elaborated, at first through the use of impersonation, action, and dialogue by a narrator and then through the assumption of each of the roles by a different person. A closely related theory traces theater to those dances that are primarily rhythmical and gymnastic or that are imitation of animal movements and sounds.
10: Where in the passage does the author discuss the separation of the stage and the audience?

Read the passage about tourism in Wales and circle the best option (A, B, C, or D) to fill in each numbered blank. An example has been done for you.

It is estimated that in north Wales 30 per cent of all jobs can be directly attributed to tourism, but the fact that visitors spend their money in a variety of ways has a beneficial effect (26)____________ other things too. Many village shops would have to close if they were not supported by income from tourists, and the money spent on local souvenirs can (27)____________ local industries from going out of business.
Unfortunately, tourism also has disadvantages. (28)____________, many of the roads in the Snowdonia area are extremely narrow and tourist cars cause traffic jams. Some farmers and local merchants complain that they make it difficult for them (29)____________ their work as car parks full up during busy periods and many visitors cause obstructions by parking across gateways, etc. In addition, in the summer, thousands of people use the network of footpaths across Snowdon and its foothills. Often the grassy surface is (30)____________, leaving rough stone or mud. This makes the paths hard to see, and it can be dangerous to walk on.

Question 28. ...................

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
A useful definition of an air pollutant is a compound added directly or indirectly by humans to the atmosphere in such quantities as to affect humans, animals vegetations, or materials adversely. Air pollution requires a very flexible definition that permits continuous change. When the first air pollution laws were established in England in the fourteenth century, air pollutants were limited to compounds that could be seen or smelled-a far cry from the extensive list of harmful substances known today. As technology has developed and knowledge of the health aspects of various chemicals has increased, the list of air pollutants has lengthened. In the future, even water vapor might be considered an air pollutant under certain conditions. Many of the more important air pollutants, such as sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides, are found in nature. As the Earth developed, the concentrations of these pollutants were altered by various chemical reactions; they became components in biogeochemical cycle. These serve as an air purifiation scheme by allowing the compounds to move from the air to the water or soil on a global basis, nature's output of these compounds dwarfs that resulting from human activities. However, human production usually occurs in a localized area, such as a city. In this localized regions, human output may be dominant and may temporarily overload the natural purifiation scheme of the cycle. The result is an increased concentration of noxious chemicals in the air. The concentrations at which the adverse effects appear will be greater than the concentrations that the pollutants would have in the absence of human activities.The actual concentration need not be large for a substance to be a pollutant; in fact the numerical value tells US little until we know how much of an increase this represents over the concentration that would occur naturally in the area. For example, sulfur dioxide has detectable health effects at 0.08 parts per million (ppm), which is about 400 times its natural level. Carbon monoxide, however, has a natural level of 0.1 ppm and is not usually a pollutant until its level reaches about 15 ppm.
7: The word "noxious" in line 19 in the passage is closest in meaning to: 

Read the passage and choose the best option to fill in each blank.

An important part of being an adult is becoming more independent from your parents. _____(24)_____ independent, you'll need to focus on your living situation, your financial resources, your budgeting behavior and possibly how you interact with your parents in your day-to-day life.

Make sure you are living somewhere other than your parents' house or in a residence that your parents have paid ____(25)____. If you want to be independent and make your own decisions about how you live, you will need to obtain your own housing that is completely separate from your parents both physically and financially.

One of the main challenges in becoming independent as an adult is acquiring a sufficient income to allow you to live without the financial ____(26)____of your parents. This can be particularly difficult if you are still a university student, but it is not impossible. Seek scholarships and part-time jobs. If you are ___(27)____ a student, find employment that offers a salary that can cover your expenses. Avoid relying on your parents as the first option for help of any kind. Although your parents will always be an important source of social support in your life, your parents should not be the first people you approach with requests for help, or requests for financial assistance. This means that you may never ask your parents for help again, it just means that as an independent adult, there should be ___(28)____ sources of support within your life that you can turn to when necessary.

Question 26..................

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
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, hydrogen, 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.
6: Where in the passage does the author explain how living light occurs?

Read the following passage and choose the correct answer to each of the questions.

Welcome to Get Involved! our weekly programme about inspirational young people. Today, I’ll tell you the amazing story of an outstanding young person with a disability. Nguyen Anh was born with “glass-born disease”, a genetic disorder causing fragile bones, and had fractured bones over 30 times. She is unable to run around like her friends, and has to use a wheelchair. Despite her disability, she always has a smile on her face. She believes that she is luckier than other people with disabilities because she has many supportive friends and teachers.

Nguyen Anh has been interested in singing since an early age. Eager to join Charitable campaigns, she has been using her talent to perform at Voice of Viet Nam since she was eight. She has taken part in broadcasting radio messages to rural villagers. She has been honoured by UNICEF as an outstanding child with disabilities. Now, as a Friend of UNICEF Viet Nam, she continues to inspire others, and use her talent and determination to help children with disabilities.

She became a success when she auditioned for the television show VietNam’s Got Talent. She immediately received national and international recognition.

Her smile and kind voice will definitely continue to encourage people with disabilities to fulfill their potential. Her inspiring words are what we would like you to think about. "You can do a lot of things if people believe in you and actually treat you equally.”  

The lesson we can learn from the story is that everyone can succeed if they are ____    

Read the text and choose the best option to fill in each blank numbered:
Keeping your distance
Personal space is a term that refers (1)_______  the distance we like to keep between ourselves and other people. When (2) _______ we do not know well gets too close we usually begin to feel uncomfortable. If a business colleague comes closer than 1.2 meters, the most common response is to move (3)______ Some interesting (4)______ have been done in libraries. If strangers come too close, many people get up and leave the building; others use different methods such as turning their back on the intruder. Living in cities has made people develop new skills for dealing with situations where they are very close to strangers. Most people on crowded trains try not to look at strangers; they avoid skin contact, and apologize if hands touch by mistake. People use newspapers (5)_______ a barrier between themselves and other people, and if they do not have one, they stare into the distance, making sure they are not looking into anyone’s eyes.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Fiberscopes are one of the most are one of the most important outcomes of he science of fiber optics. Fibers made of glass and transparent acrylic plastic are capable of conveying light energy, and when thousands of these fibers are combined in what is called a fiberscope, they can transmit images. The most common fiberscopes contain about 750,000 fibers, each 0.001 centimeter, or 10 microns, in diameter. For certain uses, the diameter of the fiber may be as small as 5 microns. Fiberscopes have a wide range of applications. In the medical field, physicians use fiberscopes to examine internal organs and as an aid in delicate surgeries. Miniature probes have also been developed to view muscle fiber, skin tissue, and blood cells. Fiberscopes have also found varied uses in industry, particularly to inspect or control operations in inaccessible areas. Bundles of fiberscopes fused together in a solid plate, called a faceplate, are being used in the manufacture of television tubes and other cathode- ray tube devices. The most far reaching applications of fiber-optic technology are in communication. Optical fibers carry voice messages for telephone service. The sound of the voice is electronically broken down into thousands of pulses per second, which causes a transmitting laser to send coordinated pulses of light through the optical fibers. At the receiving end, the light pulses are converted to electrical signals and the voice message is reconstructed. Light-wave communication systems can handle an immensely greater number of telephone calls and television programs than the current system, and they will form the basis of the “electronic superhighway” expected to crisscross the nation in the near future of the information age.
8. Fiberscopes are used to do all of the following EXCEPT: 

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?

Choose the correct answer to complete the  following passage.

"In a healthy relationship, both partners respect, trust and embrace (1) ____ differences. Both partners are able to communicate (2) ____ their needs and listen to their partner, and work to resolve conflict in a rational and (3) ____ way. But maintaining a healthy relationship (4) ____ for skills many young people are never taught. A lack of these skills, and (5) ____ up in a society that sometimes celebrates violence or in a community that experiences a high (6) ____ of violence, can lead to unhealthy and even violent relationships among youth.

Dating violence (7) ____ psychological or emotional violence, such as controlling behaviours or jealousy; physical violence, such as hitting or punching. More than 20 per cent of all adolescents report having experienced (8) ____ psychological or physical violence from an intimate partner - and underreporting remains a concern.

Adolescents, (9) ____ older adolescents, often have romantic relationships, which are long-term, serious, and intimate. Society has a responsibility to provide young people with the resources, skills, and space (10) ____ to safeguard their physical and emotional well being in these relationships. Youth-serving professionals, educators, and parents can help young people in need access services to (11) ____ dating abuse victimisation. Research also has shown that programmes intended to prevent dating violence can be (12) ____."

11. Youth-serving professionals, educators, and parents can help young people in need access services to (11) ____ dating abuse victimisation.

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 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 
4. The word "flurished" in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to: 

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Simply being bilingual doesn’t qualify someone to interpret. Interpreting is not only a mechanical process of converting one sentence in language A into the same sentence in language B. Rather, its a complex art in which thoughts and idioms that have no obvious counterparts from tongue to tongue - or words that have several meanings must be quickly transformed in such a way that the message is clearly and accurately expressed to the listener. At one international conference, an American speaker said, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sows ear”, which meant nothing to the Spanish audience. The interpretation was, “A monkey in a silk dress is still a monkey” - an idiom the Spanish understood and that expressed the same idea. There are 2 kinds of interpreters, simultaneous and consecutive. The former, sitting in a separated booth, usually at a large multilingual conference, speaks to listeners wearing headphones, interpreting what a foreign language speaker says - actually a sentence behind. Consecutive interpreters are the ones most international negotiations use. They are employed for smaller meetings without sound booths and headphones. Consecutive interpretation also requires two-person teams. A foreign speaker says his piece while the interpreter, using a special shorthand, takes notes and during a pause, tells the client what was said. 
4. What would a simultaneous interpreter be most in need of?

Read the passage below and anwser the following question.

"Let's see if you can correctly answer the following question: At what age are Latter-day Saint youth allowed to date? Of course, you probably immediately said, "16". OK, then, how about this one: At what age are you allowed to have a boyfriend or girlfriend? You may be thinking, “Um, 16. Didn't I just answer that?" Well, if that was your answer, then, even though you aced the first question, you missed the second one. Just because you can date when you turn 16 doesn't mean you should immediately start looking for a steady boyfriend or girlfriend.

To begin with, there are two different types of dating: casual dating and steady (or serious) dating. The distinction between the two has to do with exclusivity. With casual dating, there is no exclusivity. The two people aren't “a couple” or “an item”, and they don't refer to each other as a “boyfriend” or “girlfriend”. They don't pair off. People who are casually dating are simply friends. This is the kind of dating the Church encourages you to do after you turn 16. You should put aside a need to find a “one and only”. If you're dating casually, you don't expect a relationship to become a romance. You have fun; you do a variety of things with a variety of people. On the other hand, steady dating means the couple is exclusive with one another. They expect each other not to date anyone else or to be emotionally or physically close with other people. Couples who date seriously consider the future, because there is a real possibility they could stay together. This is the kind of dating the Church encourages young adults (generally, people in their 20s) to progress toward, because that's the age when they should be thinking of marrying."

3: According to the passage, what is NOT true about casual dating?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Continents and ocean basins represent the largest identifiable bodies on Earth. On the solid portion of the planet, the second most prominent features are flat plains, elevated plateaus, and large mountain ranges. In geography, the term "continent" refers to the surface of continuous landmasses that together comprise about 29.2% of the planet's surface. On the other hand, another definition is prevalent in the general use of the term that deals with extensive mainlands, such as Europe or Asia,that actually represent one very large landmass. Although all continents are bounded by the water bodies or high mountain ranges, isolated mainlands, such as Greenland and India-Pakistan areas are called subcontinents. In some circles, the distinction between continents and large islands lies almost exclusively in the size of a particular landmass. The analysis of compression and tension in the earth's crust has determined that continental structures are composed of layers that underlie continental shelves. A great deal of disagreement among geologists surrounds the issue of exactly how many layers underlie each landmass because of their distincive mineral and chemical composition. It's also quite possible that the ocean floor rests on top of unknown continents that have not yet been explored. The continental crust is believed to have been forrmed by means of a chemical reaction when lighter materials separated from heavier ones,thus settling at various levels within the crust. Assisted by the measurements of the specifics within crust formations by means of monitoring earthquakes, geologists can speculate that a chemical split occured to form the atmosphere, sea water and the crust before it solidified many centuries ago. Although each continent has its special features, all consist of various combinations of components that include shields,moutain belts, intracratonic basins, margins, volcanic plateaus, and blockvaulted belts. The basic differences among continents lie in the proportion and the composition of these features relative to the continent size. Climatic zones have a crucial effect on the weathering and formation of the surface features, soil erosion, soil deposition, land formation, vegetation, and human activities. Moutian belts are elongated narrow zones that have a characteristic folded sedimentary organization of layers. They are typically produced during substabtial crustal movements, which generate faulting and moutain building. When continental margins collide, the rise of a marginal edge leads to the formation of large moutain ranges, as explained by the plate tectonic theory. This process also accounts for the occurrence of mountain belts in ocean basins and produces evidence for the ongoing continental plate
evolution.
5. The word "specifics" is closest in meaning to: 

Read the passage and choose one correct answer for each question.

My name’s Mandi. Three months ago, I went to disco where I met a boy called Tom. I guessed he was older than me, but I liked him and thought it didn’t matter. We danced a couple of times, then we chatted. He said he was 18, then asked how old I was. I told him I was 16. I thought that if I told him my real age, he wouldn’t want to know me, as I’m only 13.

After the dicso we arranged to meet the following weekend. The next Saturday we went for a burger and had a real laugh. Afterwards he walked me to my street and kissed me goodnight. Things went really well. We see each other a couple of times a week, but I’ve had to lie to my parents about where I’m going and who with. I’ve always got on with them, but I know if they found out how Tom was they’d stop me seeing him.

Now I really don’t know what to do. I can’t go on lying to my parents every time I go out, and Ton keeps asking he can’t come around to my house. I’m really worried and I need some advice.

Why has Mandi written this?

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
If any of the inmates at Yancheng prison are considering an escape attempt, they’d better do it soon. The Chinese prison is currently wrapping up months of construction on a new “smart” surveillance system designed to monitor prisoners at every moment, including while they are in their cells. According an official, this will make prison breaks virtually impossible — but it might also wreak havoc on prisoners’ psyches. According to the South China Morning Post, the facility is almost finished installing a network of cameras and sensors capable of constantly tracking inmates. These cameras and sensors will feed into an AI system that uses facial identification and movement analysis technologies to monitor each individual inmate at the Chinese prison, producing a daily report about each one and flagging any unusual behavior. “For instance,” project representative Meng Qingbiao told SCMP, “if an inmate has been spotted pacing up and down in a room for some time, the machine may regard the phenomenon as suspicious and suggest close-up checks with a human guard.” This isn’t the first example we’ve seen of prison officials attempting to make facilities “smart”. In February, Hong Kong’s Correctional Services Department announced the implementation of several technologies designed to help prisoners stay safe during their imprisonment. However, Zhang Xuemin, a physiology professor at Beijing Normal University, told SCMP the new system will “definitely affect” the prisoners’ mental state. And while he didn’t elaborate on what that effect might be, past research has shown that constant surveillance can increase a person’s stress and anxiety levels, while decreasing their trust in others — meaning the trade off for an escape-proof “smart” prison might be the mental health of its inmates.
 2. According to the passage, past reasearch revealed that constant surveillance can affect all of the following EXCEPT .

Read the text and choose the best option to fill in each blank numbered.

Global warming is the rise in the average temperature of the earth (19) _____the increase of greenhouse gases. Climate scientists now believe that (20) ______ are mainly responsible for this. The burning of fossil fuels and the cutting down of large areas of forests have contributed to the (21) _______ of a large amount of harmful gases into the atmosphere in recent years. The thick layer of these gases traps more heat from the sun, which leads to the increase in the earth’s temperature.
Global warming (22) _______climate change and catastrophic weather patterns such as heat waves, floods, droughts, and storms, which can affect human lives. Hundreds of millions of people may suffer (23) _____  famine, water shortages, and extreme weather conditions if we do not reduce the rate of global warming.

Question 22...................

Children all around the world love to read comic books. Maybe they like to read the kind of comic books that come out once a month, like Spiderman or Batman, or maybe they like manga-style comic books. That means that publishers who make comic books need to keep in touch with the things young people like to do. One thing that many young people today are interested in is technology, so of course kids want to read digital comic books on electronic devices.
Let's take Japanese manga as an example. There are lots of people around the world who enjoy reading manga. However, in the past, it was difficult to find translated versions of manga in comic bookstores. But that did not stop manga fans. Some fans who could translate Japanese into their own language started translating manga themselves. Then they scanned the pages of manga books and uploaded the scanned pages to the Internet with their translation. This practice has become so popular. People in the comic book industry made up a name for it. By combining the words scan and translation, they call it "scanlation", and it is a big problem today. The people who do scanlation usually share their manga for free, so readers do not buy manga books. Writers, artists, and publishers all end up losing money because of scanlation. Another problem is piracy in the comic book industry. Illegal copies of old and brand new comics alike have been hurting comic book sales.
Despite the progress made in converting comics to digital formats, hardcopy comic books are still by far the most popular format among fans. In the meantime, comic book publishers and stores will just have to keep an eye on their buyers' habits. As the popularity of digital books for e-readers and tablets grows, the popularity of digital comic books will grow as well.

According to paragraph 1, Spiderman is the name of ______.

Read the passage and choose the best answers

In many aspects of life, effective communication skills are extremely important. With good communication skills, people can enjoy better interpersonal relationships with friends and family. The following are some guides that can help you improve your communication skills.

Learn to listen

Listening is not the same as hearing; you should learn to listen not only to the words being spoken but also how they are being spoken and the non-verbal messages sent with them. You shouldn't think about what to say next while listening; instead clear your mind and focus on the message being received. Your friends, colleagues and other acquaintances will appreciate your good listening skills.

Try to understand other people's emotions

To understand other people's emotions, you should be sympathetic to other people's misfortunes and congratulate them on their achievements. To do this, you need to be aware of what is going on in other people's lives. It's crucial to maintain eye contact and do not be afraid to ask others for their opinions as this will help to make them feel valued.

Encourage

It's advised that you offer words and actions of encouragement, as well as praise, to others, which make other people feel welcome, valued and appreciated in your communications. If you let others know that they are valued, they are much more likely to give you their best. You should also try to ensure that everyone get involved in an interaction or conversation by using effective body language and open questions.

Why are effective communication skills important in our lives?