Read the reading below carefully, and then complete it with the best option A, B, C or D given below:
The Prime Minister's comments yesterday on education spending miss the point, as the secondary education system also needs a major overhaul. Firstly, the system only views the weakest learners as having special (1)...... .The brightest and most (2)....... students are not encouraged to develop to their full potential. Secondly, there's too much testing and not enough learning. My fifteen-year-old daughter, for example, has just spent the last month or so (3)_____ for exams. These aren't even real, important exams, as her GCSEs will be next year. They're just (4)....  exams. Is the work she's been doing really going to make her more (5)..... about her subjects, or will she forget it all tomorrow? I suspect the latter. Thirdly, the standard (6)_____ doesn't give students any (7)....... in developing practical work-related, living and social skills, or in skills necessary for higher education. How many students entering university have the first idea what the difference is between (8)....... someone else's work and making good use of someone else's ideas? Shouldn't they have been taught this at school? How many of them are really able to go about (9).......a  skill that's essential at university because there are no teachers to tell you what to do - in an efficient way? Indeed, hoe many students (10)....... from university totally unable to spell even simple English words correctly? The system is letting our children down

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions form 31 -35

Tourism will always have an impact on the places visited. Sometimes the impact is good, but often it is negative. For example, if lots of people visit one place, then this can damage the environment. The question is - how can we minimize the problems without preventing people from travelling and visiting places? 

The main aim of ecotourism is to reduce the negative impact that tourism has on the environment and local people. The idea is to encourage tourists to think about what they do when they visit a place. 

It's great to talk about protecting the environment, but how do you actually do this? There are a number of key points. Tourists shouldn't drop litter, they should stay on the paths, they shouldn't interfere with wildlife and they should respect local customs and traditions. 

Some people see ecotourism as a contradiction. They say that any tourism needs infrastructure - roads, airports and hotels.The more tourists that visit a place, the more of these are needed and, by building more of these, you can't avoid damaging the environment. 

But, of course, things aren't so black and white. Living in a place of natural beauty doesn't mean that you shouldn't benefit from things like better roads. As long as the improvements benefit the local people and not just the tourists, and the local communities are consulted on plans and changes, then is there really a problem? 

In 2002 the United Nations celebrated the "International Year of Ecotourism". Over the past twenty years, more and more people have started taking eco-holidays. In countries such as Ecuador, Nepal, Costa Rica and Kenya, ecotourism represents a significant proportion of the tourist industry. 

According to the passage, what does the ecotourism aim at

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 people are looking for a great way to (1)_________ themselves of boredom, videos found on the Internet are often the perfect solution. Such websites as YouTube, Dailymotion, and Vimeo have become so popular that they are known to get millions of visits each day. YouTube is known for allowing people to create their own videos and share them with the world. It is (2)________ YouTube that enormous amounts of interest in certain videos can be created. So many people watch them that the interest (3)________ from person to person is almost exponential. Another site that is similar to YouTube is called Vimeo. Although it (4)_________ as a direct competitor to YouTube, Vimeo has more of a concentration on longer videos. However, the (5)_________ is the same in which the service allows users to share their videos with a very wide audience on the Internet.

Our new neighbors are quite nice _____ they are sometimes talkative.

(297)_______

Choose the best answer:
It’s/ fantastic/ spend/ a day/ New York.

Choose the best answer:
Television/ a tool/ gain/ education/ information.

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
Ocean Currents and the Turning of the Tide
If you take a seat at the beach and look out across the water, you’ll soon notice that oceans have a rhythm of their own. Throughout the course of the day, sea levels will rise and fall, and water will flow through routes and end up in different places. But how does it all work? One force at play is tides, which are the alternating water levels of the ocean. There are two major gravitational forces which cause tides: the sun and the moon. The moon’s force has a tugging effect on oceans which causes them to bulge outwards on opposite sides of the planet. Solar tides operate according to the same principles. However, they are only about 50 percent as strong due to the distance between the sun and the earth. As tides rise and fall, they create tidal currents. The strongest tidal currents occur at the height of both high and low tides. Unlike other currents, they do not flow in a continuous stream. Far from shore, tidal currents don’t have much of an effect. Yet when they pass through narrow area, like harbours and bays, tidal currents can displace plants, animals, and sediment. Although they may certainly shake things up, not all of the damage is negative. Tidal currents can spread fish eggs across long distances to assist fertilization, in addition to transporting key nutrients. Another category of currents is ocean currents. These currents occur near the top of the water, and are mainly powered by the wind. One example of these is coastal currents, which are those beachgoers encounter when going for a swim. One of the strongest and most well-known currents is the Gulf Stream, which brings warm water from the Gulf of Mexico all the way to Western Europe. Meanwhile, Deep Ocean currents are a powerful force in the depths of oceans. The strongest of these has been nicknamed the global conveyor belt, and it moves much slower than surface currents. Although we can’t see it in operation, it’s about 16 times as powerful as all the earth’s rivers put together. As the global conveyor belt pushes water around the planet, it carries nutrition and carbon dioxide to places that truly need them. In the end, although there are several currents working on oceans simultaneously, they each seem to perform a necessary function that creates balance for life in the sea.
4. What can he said about the global conveyor belt?

Choose the best answer:
Each nation has its own way of ______ the New Year.

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
Ocean Currents and the Turning of the Tide
If you take a seat at the beach and look out across the water, you’ll soon notice that oceans have a rhythm of their own. Throughout the course of the day, sea levels will rise and fall, and water will flow through routes and end up in different places. But how does it all work? One force at play is tides, which are the alternating water levels of the ocean. There are two major gravitational forces which cause tides: the sun and the moon. The moon’s force has a tugging effect on oceans which causes them to bulge outwards on opposite sides of the planet. Solar tides operate according to the same principles. However, they are only about 50 percent as strong due to the distance between the sun and the earth. As tides rise and fall, they create tidal currents. The strongest tidal currents occur at the height of both high and low tides. Unlike other currents, they do not flow in a continuous stream. Far from shore, tidal currents don’t have much of an effect. Yet when they pass through narrow area, like harbours and bays, tidal currents can displace plants, animals, and sediment. Although they may certainly shake things up, not all of the damage is negative. Tidal currents can spread fish eggs across long distances to assist fertilization, in addition to transporting key nutrients. Another category of currents is ocean currents. These currents occur near the top of the water, and are mainly powered by the wind. One example of these is coastal currents, which are those beachgoers encounter when going for a swim. One of the strongest and most well-known currents is the Gulf Stream, which brings warm water from the Gulf of Mexico all the way to Western Europe. Meanwhile, Deep Ocean currents are a powerful force in the depths of oceans. The strongest of these has been nicknamed the global conveyor belt, and it moves much slower than surface currents. Although we can’t see it in operation, it’s about 16 times as powerful as all the earth’s rivers put together. As the global conveyor belt pushes water around the planet, it carries nutrition and carbon dioxide to places that truly need them. In the end, although there are several currents working on oceans simultaneously, they each seem to perform a necessary function that creates balance for life in the sea.
7. The word “these” in paragraph 4 refers to __________

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
Schools in the United States have not always had a large number of libraries. As recently as 1958 about half of the public schools in the United States had no libraries at all. The (1)........ of public school libraries increased dramatically when the federal government passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which provided funds for school districts to improve their education programs  and facilities, including their  libraries. (2).......... , many educators claim that since the legislation was passed federal spending has not increased sufficiently to meet the rising cost of new library technologies such as computer databases and Internet access.
Because the federal government provides  only  limited  funds  to  schools,  individual  school  districts (3)............. on funds from local property taxes to meet the vast majority of public schools tend to reflect the financial capabilities of the communities in which they are located. Districts in wealthy suburbs often have  fully  staffed  libraries  (4)........... abundant resources, spacious facilities, and curricular and instructional  support. In (5)....................... school districts in many poor areas house their libraries in ordinary classrooms or in small rooms. The libraries in such areas are generally staffed by volunteers, who organize and maintain books that are often out-of-date, irrelevant, or damaged.

(5)..............................

People should eat _____ and do ________ to reduce the risk of heart disease.

(447)_____

MANCHESTER (10 April) – Sparkle Pro Enterprises, a leading Belgium-based ---143--- of cleaning products, is expanding its territory. The company has just opened its first plant in the United States, in Indianapolis. For more than forty years, Sparkle Pro has been making and distributing household and industrial cleaners to a wide range of vendors, including retail outlets and hotel chains, throughout Europe. ---144---.
The Indianapolis facility will require the company to hire 300 additional employees ---145--- the end of this year in order for it to achieve full capacity. According to Egan Bretz, the new director of North American operations, Sparkle Pro is confident that it will be able to train a large number of personnel quickly. Mr. Bretz expects no significant ---146--- in meeting these needs.

144.................

Choose the best answer:
Oil spills are having a ______ effect on coral reefs in the ocean.

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
Clean, Convenient, and Cheap
Big cities like New York and London have a lot of great things. They have museums, parks, shopping centres, and a huge variety of restaurants. However, there are a lot of annoying things in big cities. The most common problems are air pollution and noise. Traffic is the main cause of air pollution and noise. For example, drivers in New York are famous for honking their horns and shouting. That noise drives many visitors crazy – it even drives a lot of the locals crazy, too. Other big cities have similar problems with their traffic. City governments have a lot of pressure to solve these problems. The most common solution is public transportation. Public transportation is a form of travel provided by the government. For example, New York’s biggest form of public transportation is the subway. Public transportation helps reduce these problems, but it is not enough. Another solution is bicycle sharing. This is a system that provides cheap bicycles. In cities that have bicycle sharing programmes, there are spots that have parked public bikes. People borrow the bikes and use them. They can _drop off_ the bike at the same spot where they borrowed it, or they can drop it off at another spot. Bicycle sharing programmes are different in each city. In some cities, the bikes are completely free. They are not even locked. In other cities, you have to pay a small deposit. You get the deposit back when you return the bike. In still other cities, you need to have a membership with the bicycle sharing programme. Once you have a membership with the bicycle sharing programme, you can use a bike at any time you want. Bicycle sharing is hugely popular all over the world. People love this system because it is cheap, clean, and easy to use. There are bicycle sharing systems in dozens of countries and hundreds of cities. In total, there are more than 530 bicycle sharing systems around the world, and that number is going up all the time.
7. What is the main idea of the passage?

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.

William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), who wrote under the pseudonym of O. Henry, was born in North Carolina. His only formal education was to attend his Aunt Lina’s school until the age of fifteen, where he developed his lifelong love of books. By 1881 he was a licensed pharmacist. However, within a year, on the recommendation of a medical colleague of his Father’s, Porter moved to La Salle County in Texas for two years herding sheep. During this time, Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary was his constant companion, and Porter gained a knowledge of ranch life that he later incorporated into many of his short stories. He then moved to Austin for three years, and during this time the first recorded use of his pseudonym appeared, allegedly derived from his habit of calling “Oh, Henry” to a family cat. In 1887, Porter married Athol Estes. He worked as a draftsman, then as a bank teller for the First National Bank.

In 1894 Porter founded his own humor weekly, the “Rolling Stone”, a venture that failed within a year, and later wrote a column for the Houston Daily Post. In the meantime, the First National Bank was examined, and the subsequent indictment of 1886 stated that Porter had embezzled funds. Porter then fled to New Orleans, and later to Honduras, leaving his wife and child in Austin. He returned in 1897 because of his wife’s continued ill-health, however she died six months later. Then, in 1898 Porter was found guilty and sentenced to five years imprisonment in Ohio. At the age of thirty five, he entered prison as a defeated man; he had lost his job, his home, his wife, and finally his freedom. He emerged from prison three years later, reborn as O. Henry, the pseudonym he now used to hide his true identity. He wrote at least twelve stories in jail, and after re-gaining his freedom, went to New York City, where he published more than 300 stories and gained fame as America’s favorite short Story writer. Porter married again in 1907, but after months of poor health, he died in New York City at the age of forty-eight in 1910. O. Henry’s stories have been translated all over the world.

The word “pseudonym” in the passage refers to ___________.

Choose the best answer:
The monitor always goes to class on time _________ a good example for the class.

Choose the best answer:
The musical club “Heartstrings” is definitely for the students who ________ .

Choose the best answer:
It's time governments ______ something to limit population growth.

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
Billboards that Recognize You
Have you ever felt you were being watched? Some new technologies might make you feel that way. Digital billboards are being created that have the ability to recognize certain characteristics. These high-tech devices have cameras pointed at the people on the street, and software that tries to recognize people by age and gender. A computer inside the billboard then uses this information to display ads that are directed at the people who are looking at the billboard. For example, if a man passes a billboard featuring an ad for cosmetics, the computer can change the ad to something that is more likely to catch the man’s attention, such as a restaurant, or sporting goods. While advertisers see this as a great opportunity to reach their target customers, some people feel that this kind of profiling is an invasion of their privacy. People are now much more aware of how information is exposed, shared, bought, and sold on the Internet. Now this debate will include technologies such as these “smart” billboards. But advertisers claim that they are sensitive to people’s concern about privacy – companies that have tested the billboards in Japan and the US assure consumers that the billboards can only guess your age and gender, but they will not be able to recognize your face or obtain any personal information about you. Until recently, this kind of “personal” advertising has been mostly limited to the Internet. Search engines like Google and Bing can follow what we search for because each computer that connects to those sites has a unique identity. Companies then pay search engines to use this information to display ads for products and services that you have searched for. So if you search for travel information, you are likely to see ads for airlines and hotels. This kind of advertising has proven to be much more effective and valuable than traditional advertising. In addition to taking steps to deliver more personalized messages, advertisers are using billboards to offer more useful information. Digital billboards can connect to the Internet to display information such as the time, weather, and news headlines. In the future, this technology could be used to reflect activity on social media sites or to broadcast ads that relate to local events. In today’s world, people ignore thousands of ads every day. Advertisers are trying to change that trend by personalizing the experience of seeing an ad. So pay attention the next time you see a billboard – it could be talking to you.
8. What is the reason for advertisers making high-tech billboards?

Read the passage below carefully, and then choose the best answer:
Explosions in the Sky
If you attend a major outdoor event in the evening, whether it is in Paris, Beijing, or New York City, there is a good chance that it will end in a sensational way. After all of the other activities have concluded, the sky will be lit up by a colourful firework display. Although the show may only last for a few minutes, during that time every eye will look on with amazement as they work their magic in the air. Fireworks were invented in the seventh century by the Chinese. They were quickly absorbed into the culture and became a part of many celebratory events and festivals. Eventually, emperors would organize large firework displays to entertain and impress their subjects. Fireworks didn’t become big in Europe until the mid-17th century. People became interested in fireworks after reading accounts from monks and travellers who saw them while in China. Once they did arrive, it was obvious they were there to stay. Fireworks were frequently paired with triumphant classical symphonies to celebrate the end of wars and other great victories. As time went on, the fireworks continued to evolve and get better in many ways. Fireworks now come in every colour imaginable. The colour comes from different chemicals that are placed inside of each firework. Thanks to modern technology, it is also possible to create firework arrangements in the shape of hearts, smiley faces, and even the planet Saturn. This is because of the way that the aerial shells, or casings, of fireworks are constructed. The cases are packed with exploding pellets and a piece of cardboard. The cardboard enables the designers to arrange the pellets in pattern or shape of the object of their choice. The first time this technology was used was in Washington DC, during a celebration to welcome home American troops who fought in the Gulf War. The visual aspect is only part of the reason fireworks are appealing. The sounds that fireworks make also add a healthy dose of excitement to the display. There are several noises that fireworks can make. The most common is the “bang” which sounds a lot like a gunshot. Fireworks can also crackle, hum, and whistle as they streak across the night sky. The world’s largest firework show was held in Kuwait in 2012. 77,282 fireworks exploded during the incredible 64-minute show. But with people’s love for fireworks at an all-time high, who knows how long that record will last?
4. Which of the following best matches the meaning of the phrase “become big” in paragraph 2?

Rewrite the sentence
My smart phone is so convenient that I bring it everywhere.