Rewrite the sentence:
He won the first prize thanks to his good reaction.

 

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Once restricted to space stations and satellites, photovoltaics are now gaining popularity and becoming an increasingly viable option. Every day, the sun releases an enormous amount of energy, far more than the entire population consumes. Being that the sun is a sustainable, renewable, and inexhaustible source for generating electricity, not using it seems almost counter-intuitive, especially considering the social and environmental impacts of other forms of energy generation. But the technology to create electricity from the sun is by no means simple and still has some limitations, the most significant being price. The process of turning the sun’s rays into electrical energy all starts in the so-called photovoltaic cell. These cells are produced with two chemically altered silicon layers of which one is missing elections and the other is electron-overloaded. When the photons from the sunlight reach the surface, these electrons gain the ability to move, generating a flow that creates an electric current. Each cell generates a small amount of energy and a panel is usually made of between 36 and 72 photovoltaic cells. By connecting several panels together, a photovoltaic system is created. Eight to ten panels is enough to power a small house. Evidently, however, this statistic is influenced by some factors, such as the efficiency of the panels, the amount of sunshine in the region, and the energy demand of the residence itself.  Importantly, photovoltaic solar panels produce electricity in the form of direct current, meaning the electricity must pass through an inverter to transform it into alternating current - which is what is normally used in buildings, appliances, sockets, and light bulbs. Photovoltaic systems can facilitate energy generation in remote locations where infrastructural networks do not reach. In these cases, the system uses batteries to store electricity when less energy is used than is consumed, such as at night or on very cloudy days. However, it is also possible to use photovoltaics in systems connected to the power grid. In these cases, the excess energy goes to the electricity grid, creating energy “credits” for the building in question. In some countries, it is even possible to sell surplus energy, making the building a power plant for neighbors and method of paying off the investment more quickly.  
3. According to paragraph 1, why is overlooking solar energy considered such a mistake?

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Hidden beneath the waves of the Tyrrhenian Sea near southwestern Italy lies a newfound volcanic mosaic dotted with geothermal chimneys and flat-topped seamounts. This complex is new to both science and the planet, geologically speaking; it’s only about 780,000 years old. Scientists aren’t particularly surprised to find volcanism in the region, which is home to active volcanoes like Mount Vesuvius and Mount Etna. But the new complex is unusual because it was created by a rare kind of fault, said study leader Fabrizio Pepe. The western Mediterranean is seismically restless because of the collision of three tectonic plates: the African, the Eurasian and the Anatolian. Making matters more complex is a small chunk of crust called the Adriatic-Ionian microplate, which broke off of the African Plate more than 65 million years ago and is now being pushed under the larger Eurasian Plate in a process called subduction. Previously, scientists discovered a series of undersea volcanic arcs created by this tectonic unrest, starting near the Sardinian coast, with increasingly younger arcs southward and eastward. These arcs were like an arrow pointing ever farther eastward, prompting Pepe and his colleagues to search for an even younger arc about 9 miles off the coast of Calabria. There, based on seafloor mapping, seismic data and magnetic anomalies, the researchers found a 772-square-mile region of lava flows, volcanic mountains and hydrothermal chimneys; vents in the seafloor allow hot minerals to spew out and form chimney-like structures. They dubbed the new area the Diamante‐Enotrio‐Ovidio Volcanic‐Intrusive Complex, after three flat-topped seamounts that dominate the seafloor. Those fractures are what allowed magma to rise to the surface at the Diamonte-EnotrioOvidio complex, creating an undersea landscape of lava flows and mountainous volcanoes. These volcanic seamounts are now plateaus because they protruded from the ocean when the sea level was lower, and they eroded into their present, flat-topped shape, Pepe said. The volcanic complex is inactive, but there are small intrusions of lava in some parts of the seafloor there. However, the area could become active in the future, Pepe said, and active volcanism is ongoing on the eastern side of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The researchers are working to build a volcanic risk map of the complex to better understand if it could endanger human life or property. They are also investigating the possibility of tapping the complex to produce geothermal energy.  
2. The word “fault” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to ______

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He ____________ abroad before I met him in Sydney.

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People have five senses. We have a sense of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. Believe (1) _______ , your sense of smell is very important. Our nose tells us about our environment. When your nose smells something, it sends information to our brain. Smells tell us if there is danger nearby, or if there is something to eat. Of course, these tools were more useful in the past, but they still come (2) _______ today. The things you smell can affect your (3) _______ If you smell something nice, you are more likely to be happy. On the other hand, if you smell something unpleasant, you are more likely to be unhappy. That is (4) _______ there are so many businesses that work to create nice scents. Businesses also work on the best ways to deliver scents to people’s noses. Candles (5) _______. a whole room smell better. Oils and soaps also have health benefits.

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Hundreds of years ago, life was harder than it is today. People didn’t have modern machines. Yet life today has brought new problems. One of the biggest is pollution. Water pollution has made our rivers and lakes dirty. It kills our fish and pollutes our drinking water. Noise pollution makes us talk (1)______ and become angry more easily. Air pollution is the most serious kind of pollution to all living things in the world. Cars, planes and factories all pollute our air every day. Sometimes the polluted air is (2)________thick that it is like a quilt over a city. This kind of quilt is called smog. Many countries are making rules to fight pollution. Factories must now (3)______ their water before it is thrown away, and they mustn’t let dirty smoke go into the air. We need to do many other things. We (4)_______ put waste things in the dustbin and do not throw them on the ground. We can go to work by bus with our friends in the (5)________car. If there are fewer people driving, there will be less pollution. Rules are not enough. Every person must help to fight pollution

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The understanding of friendship in children tends to be more heavily focused on areas such as (1)___________ activities, physical proximity, and shared interests. These friendships provide opportunity (2)____________ playing and practicing self-regulation. Most children tend to describe friendship in terms of things like sharing, and children are more likely to share with someone they consider to be a friend. As children mature, they become less individualized and are more aware of others. They gain the ability to (3)_________ with their friends, and enjoy playing in groups. They also experience peer rejection as they move through the middle childhood years. Establishing good friendships at a young age (4)________________ a child to be better acclimated in society later on in their life. Potential benefits of friendship include the opportunity to learn about empathy and problem solving. Coaching from parents can be useful in helping children to make friends. Eileen Kennedy-Moore describes three key ingredients of children’s friendship formation: (1) openness, (2) similarity, and (3) shared fun. Parents can also help children understand social guidelines they haven’t learned on their (5)____________.

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At a time when the younger generation, hooked to the mobiles, TV and internet, is fast-moving away from books, Sundargarh Collector Nikhil Pasan Kalyan has taken it upon himself this particular sacred responsibility. Kalyan on Thursday launched a campaign ‘Sundargarh Bahi Padha’ to promote reading by distributing books among the people in Sundargarh town. He reached out to the people at roadside stalls and engaged with them over cups of tea. While motivating them to read, he gifted books to them. The district administration plans to extend the initiative to schools and villages in the coming six months with focus on improving school and public libraries, and equipping all offices and waiting rooms with books. Further, reading sessions have been scheduled to be conducted every week at the Collector’s residence campus and other places involving people of all ages including students. “Books are the best teachers. To improve morality and openness in the society, everyone has to read. They could be in any genre. Reading is the starting point,” said Kalyan. Chief District Medical and Public Health Officer (CDM-PHO) Dr SK Mishra commented on the present situation: “Youths and students confine themselves to prescribed courses of study and refuse to go beyond that,” he said. Undoubtedly, internet connection and electronic gadgets like computers, laptops and mobile phones provide a sea of information and ready-made knowledge but simultaneously decrease the creativity in individuals, Mishra added. “Social media kills time, creativity and the urge to pick up a book. It may be noted that people with reading habits have lesser chances of suffering from Alzheimer’s,” he said. Presently, of the four Government-run public libraries in the district three are functional, albeit with few readers. Kalyan has sought collective participation to make the initiative a success  
2. According to paragraph 1, what was the ultimate intention of Nikhil Pasan Kalyan’s actions

Choose the best answer:
You should give up ____ your sister.

The National Automobile Show in New York has been one of the top auto shows in the United States since 1900. On November 3 of that year, about 8,000 people looked over the "horseless carriages." It was the opening day and the first opportunity for the automobile industry to show off its wares to a large crowd; however, the black-tie audience treated the occasion more as a social affair than as a sales extravaganza. It was also on the first day of this show that William McKinley became the first U.S. president to ride in a car.
The automobile was not invented in the United States. That distinction belongs to Germany. Nikolaus Otto built the first practical internal-combustion engine there in 1876. Then, German engineer Karl Benz built what are regarded as the first modern automobiles in the mid-1880s. But the United States pioneered the merchandising of the automobile. The auto show proved to be an effective means of getting the public excited about automotive products.

By happenstance, the number of people at the first New York show equaled the entire car population of the United States at that time. In 1900,10 million bicycles and an unknown number of horse-drawn carriages provided the prime means of personal transportation. Only about 4,000 cars were assembled in the United States in 1900, and only a quarter of those were gasoline powered. The rest ran on steam or electricity.

After viewing the cars made by forty car makers, the show's audience favored electric cars because they were quiet. The risk of a boiler explosion turned people away from steamers, and the gasoline-powered cars produced smelly fumes. The Duryea Motor Wagon Company, which launched the American auto industry in 1895, offered a fragrant additive designed to mask the smells of the naphtha that it burned. Many of the 1900 models were cumbersome—the Gasmobile, the Franklin, and the Orient, for example, steered with a tiller like a boat instead of with a steering wheel. None of them was equipped with an automatic starter.

These early model cars were practically handmade and were not very dependable. They were basically toys of the well-to-do. In fact, Woodrow Wilson, then a professor at Princeton University and later President of the United States, predicted that automobiles would cause conflict between the wealthy and the poor. However, among the exhibitors at the 1900 show was a young engineer named Henry Ford. But before the end of the decade, he would revolutionize the automobile industry with his Model T Ford. The Model T, first produced in 1909, featured a standardized design and a streamlined method of production—the assembly line. Its lower costs made it available to the mass market.

Cars at the 1900 show ranged in price from $1,000 to $1,500, or roughly $14,000 to $21,000 in today's prices. By 1913, the Model T was selling for less than $300, and soon the price would drop even further. "I will build cars for the multitudes," Ford said, and he kept his promise

The purpose of the "additive" mentioned in paragraph 4 was to ________

Choose the best answer:
The street/ not/ look/ attractive/ because/ there/ be/ a lot of/ rubbish.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D)
Amy Johnson was born in 1903 and grew up in Hull, England. The pioneering British aviator is one of the inspiring female figurehead of the 20th century. After university, Amy got a badly-paid (1)_____managed to save enough money to take flying lessons. She went on to qualify as a pilot, (2)___ receiving her license in 1929. In 1930, (3)_______only flown for seventy-five hours, she persuaded a rich businessperson to give her money to buy a plane, and set off alone for Darwin, Australia, in the hope of breaking the record for flying solo from England to Australia in fourteen days. Amy was the first woman to make this flight, (4) _______ took her nineteen days. She failed to breathe record, but was welcomed home as a hero. Over the next ten years, Amy made many record-breaking flights. During these years, she was admired for her skill and courage, and she is still fondly remembered as Britain’s first “Queen of the Air”. She is also remembered in many ways, one of which is the British Women Pilot’s Association award - a scholarship to help outstanding women pilots (5)______their careers

Rewrite the sentence:
“Go home.” said the teacher to us.

Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, D):
Pollutants in the air aren’t always visible and come from many different sources. Smog hanging over cities is the most familiar and obvious form of air pollution. But there are different kinds of pollution - some visible, some invisible - that contribute to global warming. Generally any substance that people introduce into the atmosphere that has damaging effects on living things and the environment is considered air pollution. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is the main pollutant that is warming Earth. Though living things emit carbon dioxide when they breathe, carbon dioxide is widely considered to be a pollutant when associated with cars, planes, power plants, and other human activities that involve the burning of fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas. In the past 150 years, such activities have pumped enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to raise its levels higher than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years. Other greenhouse gases include methane - which comes from such sources as swamps and gas emitted by livestock - and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were used in refrigerants and aerosol propellants until they were banned because of their deteriorating effect on Earth’s ozone layer. Another pollutant associated with climate change is sulfur dioxide, a component of smog. Sulfur dioxide and closely related chemicals are known primarily as a cause of acid rain. But they also reflect light when released in the atmosphere, which keeps sunlight out and causes Earth to cool. Volcanic eruptions can spew massive amounts of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, sometimes causing cooling that lasts for years. In fact, volcanoes used to be the main source of atmospheric sulfur dioxide; today people are. Industrialized countries have worked to reduce levels of sulfur dioxide, smog, and smoke in order to improve people’s health. But a result, not predicted until recently, is that the lower sulfur dioxide levels may actually make global warming worse. Just as sulfur dioxide from volcanoes can cool the planet by blocking sunlight, cutting the amount of the compound in the atmosphere lets more sunlight through, warming the Earth. This effect is exaggerated when elevated levels of other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap the additional heat.
4. What is NOT mentioned as a feature of sulfur dioxide?

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The number of people accessing the State’s and community’s priority policies and  programmes is increasing, said Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung. Vietnam has around 6.2 million people over the age of two with disabilities, making up 7.06 per cent of the country’s population. Of those, 28 per cent are severely disabled, 58 per cent female, 28 per cent children and 10 per cent living in poverty. Most live in rural areas and many are victims of Agent Orange.  Minister Dung said in the past, the State, the Party and Vietnamese people had paid much care to people with disability. Vietnam ratified the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of People with Disability in 2014. In March this year, the country ratified the International Labour Organisation’s Convention 159 about jobs for people with disability. It strongly confirmed Vietnam’s commitment ensuring the disabled would not be discriminated at work.  Last month, the Secretariat Committee issued the Instruction 39 about the Party’s leading work on affairs related to people with disability. The National Assembly later ratified the amended Law on Labour with many adjustments relating to disabled people. Dung said that every year, millions of disabled people receive an allowance from the State and all of provinces and cities had rehabilitation centres. Attending the event, Truong Thi Mai, head of the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Mass Mobilisation, said besides the achievements, Vietnam still sees many obstacles. Infrastructure is still limited demand for people with disability and many live below the poverty line depending heavily on their families.  Mai asked organisations to improve education to raise people’s awareness of the meaning of supportive work to people with disability. This year, more than VNĐ17 trillion (US$735.4 million) from the State budget was allocated to provinces and cities to implement policies for people with disability, according to the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.  The Ministry of Planning and Investment on Thursday launched the programme “White stick for Vietnamese visual impaired people”. Its aim is to present one million white sticks to visually impaired people across the country. Training to use the device will also be provided. Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung said the ministry will listen to disabled people’s demands and wishes and put them into its policies. Deputy chairwoman of the National Assembly Tong Thi Phong said Vietnam has committed to developing socioeconomy, taking care of social equality and improving social management ability.  
2. The word “Invalids” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _______

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions:
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the American educational system was desperately in need of reform. Private schools existed, but only for the very rich. There were very
few public schools because of the strong sentiment that children who would grow up to be laborers should not “waste” their time on education but should instead prepare themselves for their life’s work. It was in the face of this public sentiment that educational reformers set about their task. Horace Mann, probably the most famous of the reformers, felt that there was no excuse in a republic for any citizen to be uneducated. As Manager of Education in the state of Massachusetts from 1837 to 1848, he initiated various changes, which were soon matched in other school districts around the country. He extended the school year from five to six months and improved the quality of teachers by instituting teacher education and raising teacher salaries. Although these changes did not bring about a sudden improvement in the educational system, they at least increased public awareness as to the need for a further strengthening of the system.

The word “they” in the passage refers to     .

Choose the best answer:
Some farmers/ still/ use/ buffalo-drawn/ carts/ move crops.

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Advances in technology have generated revolutionary applications that could change the face of education as we know it today. Online learning, also known as electronic learning, may (33)......the future of education thanks to recent developments in the Internet and multimedia technologies.It is anticipated that cyberspace institutions or online universities will replace traditional educational (34) .......Virtual classrooms will be multi-functional, acting simultaneously as learning platforms, forums and (35).......networks. They will be geared towards promoting the acquisition of knowledge as a life- long endeavour, (36)........occurs through global collaboration. Cyberspace institutions can go a long way towards achieving this as they are able to liberate us from the limitations of time and space. Flexibility of time and location makes e-learning a highly accessible, international resource. (37) .........., prospective students will, regardless of age, background or origin, have unlimited access to both formal and informal learning opportunities. The pursuit of knowledge will consequently become an end in itself and not a means to an end

Choose the best answer:
You should weigh up the pros and cons of the ________ living.

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Once restricted to luxury or super-tech buildings, home automation is proving to be an increasingly fundamental and affordable addition to architectural projects. The idea is to connect devices, which in turn connect and talk through a centralized control unit, accessible by computers, tablets, and mobile phones. For example, home automation users can turn the lights on or off at specific times each day, adjust the heater or air conditioner to turn on a few minutes before they arrive home. In addition to these immediate effects, monitoring applications can also provide accurate home information by generating detailed reports on equipment that could be working better or spending less. That is, in addition to smartphones and personal computers, appliances and sensors are able to identify patterns, process information, and perform tasks both through commands and automatically. Although it sounds like a science fiction script, these are technologies that are not so far from us.  Artificial intelligence can be used to automate threat detection and perhaps more proactively alert us if something looks wrong, such as heat sensors and video cameras setting off alarms and calling firefighters in the event of a short circuit. Through facial recognition algorithms on social media, the system itself can tell if someone outside your circle of acquaintances is trying to access your space and send a message to your mobile phone. This type of technology can improve the efficiency of security systems and reduce false alarms. Automation can be useful for people with disabilities and for the elderly. People with Parkinson’s disease or other motor diseases can trigger switches without touching them, and motion sensors can trigger safety lights automatically. Blood pressure sensors and blood sugar levels can be incorporated into these systems, providing peace of mind to close relatives. The ability to automate repetitive housekeeping can free time for more important things. For example, an internet-connected refrigerator can check for missing items and make purchases online. It is important to mention that these systems must be highly protected, as a single attempt to break into this centralized system can lead to the invasion of privacy and the loss of valuable confidential information. Still, most people who have experienced life in an automated space will likely be uncomfortable returning to traditional systems  
6. Which of the following statements is TRUE, according to the passage?

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Nuclear family, also called elementary family, in sociology and anthropology, is a group of people who are united by ties of partnership and parenthood and consisting of a pair of adults and their socially recognized children. Typically, but not always, the adults in a nuclear family are married. Although such couples are most often a man and a woman, the definition of the nuclear family has expanded with the advent of same-sex marriage. Children in a nuclear family may be the couple’s biological or adopted offspring.  Thus defined, the nuclear family was once widely held to be the most basic and universal form of social organization. Anthropological research, however, has illuminated so much variability of this form that it is safer to assume that what is universal is a “nuclear family complex” in which the roles of husband, wife, mother, father, son, daughter, brother, and sister are embodied by people whose biological relationships do not necessarily conform to the Western definitions of these terms. In matrilineal societies, for example, a child may be the responsibility not of his biological genitor but of his mother’s brother, who fulfills the roles typical of Western fatherhood.  Closely related in form to the predominant nuclear-family unit are the conjugal family and the consanguineal family. As its name implies, the conjugal family is knit together primarily by the marriage tie and consists of mother, father, their children, and some close relatives. The consanguineal family, on the other hand, typically groups itself around a unlineal descent group known as a lineage, a form that reckons kinship through either the father’s or the mother’s line but not both. Whether a culture is patrilineal or matrilineal, a consanguineal family comprises lineage relatives and consists of parents, their children, and their children’s. Rules regarding lineage exogamy are common in these groups; within a given community, marriages thus create cross-cutting social and political ties between lineages.  The stability of the conjugal family depends on the quality of the marriage of the husband and wife, a relationship that is more emphasized in the kinds of industrialized, highly mobile societies that frequently demand that people reside away from their kin groups. The consanguineal family derives its stability from its corporate nature and its permanence, as its relationships emphasize the perpetuation of the line.
8. What does the author imply in the last paragraph?