When the post finally fell _________. They offered it to Brian. 

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 81 to 92.
Setting up and running a car company was an expensive business and required a lot of workers. A company that makes its money out of a smart app requires less capital, doesn't have to pay (81)  storage or transport in the way that car companies do and (82) virtually no extra costs as the number of users increases.
In the jargon of economics, the marginal costs per unit of output tend towards zero and the returns to scale are high. This explains why tech entrepreneurs can get very rich very young. Technological change has always been (83) There was a polarization of income and wealth in the first wave of industrialization at the beginning of the 19th century, and this gave rise to political and institutional change over the 100 years between 1850 and 1950: the spread of democracy; the emergence of trade unions; progressive taxation and the development of social safety nets. These helped create bigger markets for the consumer goods that were spawned by the second Industrial Revolution: TVs, radios, vacuum cleaners and the like. (84) over the past four decades a political model that both facilitated the spread of technology and provided some protection against its disruptive consequences has come under attack. Welfare states have become less generous, levels of long-term unemployment are much higher, taxation has become less progressive, and politics has increasingly been dominated by those with the deepest pockets (85) who can lobby the loudest.

(82)...................

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   The system of higher education had its origin in Europe in the Middle Ages, when the first universities were established. In modern times, the nature of higher education around the world, to some extent, has been determined by the models of influential countries such as France and Germany.

   Both France and Germany have systems of higher education that are basically administered by state agencies. Entrance requirements for students are also similar in both countries. In France, an examination called the baccalauréat is given at the end of secondary education. Higher education in France is free and open to all students who have passed this baccalauréat. Success in this examination allows students to continue their higher education for another three or four years until they have attained the first university degree called a licence in France.

   Basic differences, however, distinguish these two countries’ systems. French educational districts, called académies, are under the direction of a rector, an appointee of the national government who is also in charge of universities in each district. The uniformity in curriculum throughout the country leaves each university with little to distinguish itself. Hence, many students prefer to go to Paris, where there are better accommodations and more cultural amenities for them. Another difference is the existence in France of prestigious higher educational institutions known as grandes écoles, which provide advanced professional and technical training. Most of these schools are not affiliated with the universities, although they too recruit their students by giving competitive examinations to candidates. The grandes écoles provide rigorous training in all branches of applied science and technology, and their diplomas have a somewhat higher standing than the ordinary licence.

   In Germany, the regional universities have autonomy in determining their curriculum under the direction of rectors elected from within. Students in Germany change universities according to their interests and the strengths of each university. In fact, it is a custom for students to attend two, three, or even four different universities in the course of their undergraduate studies, and the majority of professors at a particular university may have taught in four or five others. This high degree of mobility means that schemes of study and examination are marked by a freedom and individuality unknown in France.

   France and Germany have greatly influenced higher education systems around the world. The French, either through colonial influence or the work of missionaries, introduced many aspects of their system in other countries. The German were the first to stress the importance of universities as research facilities, and they also created a sense of them as emblems of a national mind.

Which of the following about grandes écoles in France is NOT stated in paragraph 3?

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Dolphins are one of the most intelligent species on the planet, which makes them a very interesting animal to scientists. In their natural habitats, dolphins use various vocalization techniques. They whistle and squeak to recognize members of their pod, identify and protect their young, and call out warnings of danger. They also make clicking sounds used for echolocation to find food and obstacles in dark and murky waters.
Amazingly, the whistling sound that the bottlenose dolphin makes has been found to have a similar pattern to human language. They always make conversational sounds when they greet each other. If you listen to dolphins' squeaks and squeals, it will sound like they are having a conversation.
Dolphins usually use both sound and body language to communicate with each other. It is through gesture and body language, however, that most of their communication with humans comes. Dolphins can be trained to perform complicated tricks. This suggests they have a high level of intelligence and communication capacity. If they work for a long time with a trainer, they are able to recognize and understand human commands.
A lot of dolphin communication has been studied using dolphins in captive environments. These studies have been criticized because some marine biologists believe that dolphins living in aquariums or research centers cannot be considered "normal." Even so, most believe that studying dolphin communication in captivity is useful for beginning to understand the complexity of dolphin communication. After all, dolphins are one of the most intelligent animals. Their ability to communicate is impressive and worthy of study.

It can be inferred from what the write said in the last paragraph that     .

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One of the factors contributing to the intense nature of twenty-first-century stress is our continual exposure to media – particularly to an overabundance of news. If you feel stressed out by the news, you are far from alone. Yet somehow many of us seem unable to prevent ourselves from tuning in to an extreme degree.
The further back we go in human history, the longer news took to travel from place to place, and the less news we had of distant people and lands altogether. The printing press obviously changed all that, as did every subsequent development in transportation and telecommunication.
When television came along, it proliferated like a poplulation of rabbits. In 1950, there were 100,000 television sets in North American homes; one year later there were more then a million. Today, it’s not unusual for a home to have three or more television sets, each with cable access to perhaps over a hundred channels. News is the subject of many of those channels, and on several of them it runs 24 hours a day.
What’s more, after the traumatic events of Sptember 11, 2001, live newcasts were paired with perennial text crawls across the bottom of the screen – so that viewers could stay abreast of every story all the time.
Needless to say, the news that is reported to us is not good news, but rather disturbing images and sound bytes alluding to diasater (natural and man-made), upheaval, crime, scandal, war, and the like. Compounding the proplem is that when actual breaking news is scarce, most broadcasts fill in with waistline, hairline, or very existence in the future. This variety of story tends to treat with equal alarm a potentially lethal flu outbreak and the bogus claims of a wrinkle cream that overpromises smooth skin.
Are humans meant to be able to process so much trauma – not to mention so much overblown anticipation of potetial trauma – at once? The human brain, remember, is programmed to slip into alarm mode when danger looms. Danger looms for someone, somewhere at every moment. Exposing ourslves to such input without respite and without perspective cannot be anything other than a source of chronic stress.

Which of the following is NOT true, according to the passage?

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Modern technologies have changed the way that people communicate with one another. These technologies provide new and innovative ways for people to communicate -- text messaging, email, chat and social networks. They allow faster and more efficient communication and can help build relationships. However, modern technologies can also have negative effects such as limiting personal contact and straining relationships. The nature of the effect depends in large part on the type of relationship.
Modern technologies limit the amount of separation between work and home. With the advent of computers, the Internet and cell phones people can -- and are often expected to -- address work issues from home. This can limit family interactions and cause conflict between family members. The use of Internet and television by children and teenagers also limits the amount time spent with family and can increase conflict between children and their parents.
Young people use modern technologies in increasing numbers to communicate with their friends. Text messaging and online chats have become the preferred method of youth communication. A California State University and UCLA study indicates that for young people face-to-face interactions are less desirable than modern modes of communication. This preference could cause an inability to form lasting friendships or difficulty understanding social cues. Others believe that modern technologies increase communication and therefore strengthen friendships.
Starting new relationships -- romantic and otherwise -- can be difficult. Modern technologies allow people to make new connections without the fears characteristic of face-to-face contact. The anonymity and low risk is what makes Internet dating and social networks popular ways of meeting people. However, this anonymity can also be dangerous. In April 2011, a woman sued an online dating site after allegedly being raped by a man she met online.
Modern technologies allow couples to be in contact with each other more than ever before. This can lead to increased expectations and conflict. With the increasing use of cell phones and email, people often expect an instant reply to communication. A delayed reply -- or none at all -- can lead to suspicion and anger. The use of social networks can also affect relationships. Information that was once private -- such as relationship conflicts -- is now part of the public sphere.

The word “straining” in the first paragraph mostly means _________.

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Australia has a well-organized and well-structured education system. The education starts at the age of five or six, but it may differ by a narrow margin between states. It starts with the preschool education which is not compulsory and can be offered within a school or separately. The primary and secondary school encompasses the compulsory education for Australians. There are a large number of primary and high school across the country with most of them being public schools. It is estimated that public schools amount to 60% of scholars as opposed to 40% in private settings. All these education providers must be licensed by the government and must fulfill certain requirements including infrastructure and teaching. Universities, on the other hand, are mainly public institutions.
The Australian education system has established a standard curriculum so all scholars will be given the same quality of education. Despite there may be some states at which this curriculum is modified a bit, but the change is not that significant. The actual curriculum set out in Australia education system is based on important abilities one must have in his life: Literacy, Numeracy, Information and communication technology, Critical and creative thinking, personal and social capability, ethical understanding, intercultural understanding.
Vocational and Technical schools prepare students that want to skip the university and want to move directly to the job market. Actually, here it stands the difference between universities and colleges: the Vocational and Technical Schools are more oriented in teaching practical skills while university courses are mainly theory-based to lead students to different academic careers. There are hundreds of other schools out there that provide technical and further education (TAFE) and vocational education and training (VET). These schools offer short courses, certificates I through IV, diplomas, and advanced diplomas. They focus on training their students in a particular vocation or just to help their students get out into the workplace. These schools offer a wide variety of courses and qualifications attained by these courses can lead to different career pathways to follow afterward.
Australian higher education modernity and reputation relies on a huge number of educational providers including universities and different training organizations. Currently, there are 43 universities across the country. The vast majority of universities are public except two private universities. The world-class teaching offered is surely undisputed. Seven Australian universities are traditionally found at the top 100 best universities in the world which is a sufficient indicator to highlight their quality.
Besides universities, more than 5,000 training organizations are registered and accredited. Actual figures show that the number of enrolled students is around 3.8 million with international students sharing more than half a million. There are also 3 self-accrediting higher education institutions. Furthermore, dozens of smaller schools do not grant any degrees or have an accreditation – these are private schools that focus on theology, business, information technology, natural therapies, hospitality, health, law, and accounting.

What is the curriculum of the Australian education system based on?

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       The (1) _________over vending machines in schools is not new. For a long time, regional governments and public schools have been deliberating on whether or not it is a good idea to have vending machines in schools. In America, (2) ______, only one state has banned these machines in its public schools. Around the country, however, most state schools have different rules about how many and how often vending machines should be accessible to students. Although some people believe that having these drink and snack machines in schools is a good idea, others (3)_________ that there are many disadvantages, too.
      Doctors and other health workers, for instance, suggest that the main disadvantage of having vending machines in schools is based on health and (4)________. They cite statistics that show school – aged children have poorly balanced diets, often due to eating too much fast food. If vending machines are introduced to schools, children will have yet another option for eating unhealthy foods. In a survey of vending machines sales across the country, it was found that sweet drinks like colas and sugary snacks like candy bars were the biggest sellers. Sugary foods and drinks commonly cause obesity in consumers. Opponents of vending machines in schools worry that we are teaching children to be obese. (5)__________the problem of childhood obesity, it is plausible to say that children’s health problems will only get worse if vending machines are followed in schools.

(4)....................

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In today's competitive world, what responsible parent would not want to give their children the best possible start in life? For this reason, many parents want their children, often as young as ten months old, to become familiar with computers. They seem to think that if their children grow up with computers, they will be better equipped to face the challenges of the future.
No one has proved that computers make children more creative or more intelligent. The truth may even be the opposite. Educational psychologists claim that too much exposure to computers, especially for the very young, may negatively affect normal brain development. Children gain valuable experience of the world from their interaction with physical objects. Ten–month–old babies may benefit more from bumping their heads or putting various objects in their mouths than they will from staring at eye–catching cartoons. A four–year–old child can improve hand–eye coordination and understand cause and effect better by experimenting with a crayon than by moving a cursor around a computer screen. So, as educational psychologists suggest, instead of government funding going to more and more computer classes, it might be better to devote resources to music and art programs.

It is ludicrous to think that children will fall behind if they are not exposed to computers from an early age. Time is too precious to spend with a "mouse". Now is the time when they should be out there learning to ride a bike. There will be time later on for them to start banging away at keyboards.

Children who spend a lot of time on their computers     .

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The human criterion for perfect vision is 20/20 for reading the standard lines on a Snellen eye chart without a hitch. The score is determined by how well you read lines of letters of different sizes from 20 feet away. But being able to read the bottom line on the eye chart does not approximate perfection as far as other species are concerned. Most birds would consider us very visually handicapped. The hawk, for instance, has such sharp eyes that it can spot a dime on the sidewalk while perched on top of the Empire State Building.
It can make fine visual distinctions because it is blessed with one million cones per square millimeter in its retina. And in water, humans are farsighted, while the kingfisher, swooping down to spear fish, can see well in both the air and water because it is endowed with two foveae - areas of the eye, consisting mostly of cones, that provide visual distinctions. One fovea permits the bird, while in the air, to scan the water below with one eye at a time. This is called monocular vision. Once it hits the water, the other fovea joins in, allowing the kingfisher to focus both eyes, like binoculars, on its prey at the same time.
A frog’s vision is distinguished by its ability to perceive things as a constant motion picture. Known as “bug detectors”, a highly developed set of cells in a frog’s eyes responds mainly to moving objects. So, it is said that a frog sitting in a field of dead bugs wouldn’t see them as food and would starve. The bee has a “compound” eye, which is used for navigation. It has 15,000 facets that divide what it sees into a pattern of dots, or mosaic. With this kind of vision, the bee sees the sun only as a single dot, a constant point of reference. Thus, the eye is a superb navigational instrument that constantly measures the angle of its line of flight in relation to the sun. A bee’s eye also gauges flight speed. And if that is not enough to leave our 20/20 “perfect vision” paling into insignificance, the bee is capable of seeing something we can’t - ultraviolet light.
Thus, what humans consider to be “perfect vision” is in fact rather limited when we look at other species. However, there is still much to be said for the human eye. Of all the mammals, only humans and some primates can enjoy the pleasures of color vision.

The phrase “without a hitch” is closest in meaning to    .

 _________anyone call, would you please ask them to call back later?

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The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law in 1990. This law extends civil rights protection to persons with disabilities in private sector employment, all public services, and in public accommodations, transportation and telecommunications. A person with a disability is defined as someone with a mental or physical impairment that substantially limits him or her in a major life activity, such as walking, talking, working, or self-care. A person with a disability may also be someone with a past record of such impairment, for example, someone who no longer has heart disease but is discriminated against because of that history.
The ADA states that employers with fifteen or more employees may not refuse to hire or promote a person because of a disability if that person is qualified to perform the job. Also, the employer must make reasonable accommodations that will allow a person with a disability to perform essential functions of the job.
All new vehicles purchased by public transit authorities must be accessible to people with disabilities. All rail stations must be made accessible, and at least one car per train in existing rail systems must be made accessible.
It is illegal for public accommodations to exclude or refuse persons with disabilities. Public accommodations are businesses and services such as restaurants, hotels, grocery stores and parks. All new buildings must be made accessible, and existing facilities must remove barriers if the removal can be accomplished without much difficulty or expense.
The ADA also stipulates that companies offering telephone service to the general public must offer relay services to individuals who use telecommunications devices for the deaf, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

The author mentions grocery stores as an example of     .

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Very few people in the modem world obtain their food supply by hunting and gathering in the natural environment surrounding their homes. This method of harvesting from nature’s provision is the oldest known subsistence strategy and has been practised for at least the last two million years. It was, indeed, the only way to obtain food until rudimentary farming and the domestication of wild animals were introduced about 10,000 years ago.
Because hunter-gatherers have fared poorly in comparison with their agricultural cousins, their numbers have dwindled, and they have been forced to live in marginal environments, such as deserts and arctic wastelands. In higher latitudes, the shorter growing seasons have restricted the availability of plant life. Such conditions have caused a greater dependence on hunting, and on fishing along the coasts and waterways. The abundance of vegetation in the lower latitudes of the tropics, on the other hand, has provided a greater opportunity for gathering a variety of plants. In short, the environmental differences have restricted the diet and have limited possibilities for the development of subsistence societies.
Contemporary hunter-gatherers may help US understand our prehistoric ancestors. We know from the observation of modem hunter-gatherers in both Africa and Alaska that a society based on hunting and gathering must be very mobile. While the entire community camps in a central location, a smaller party harvests the food within a reasonable distance from the camp. When the food in the area has become exhausted, the community moves on to exploit another site. We also notice seasonal migration patterns evolving for most hunter-gatherers, along with a strict division of labor between the sexes. These patterns of behavior may be similar to those practised by mankind during the Paleolithic Period.

In the lower latitudes of the tropics, hunter-gatherers     .

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The modem comic strip started out as ammunition in a newspaper was between giants of the American press in the late nineteenth century. The first full-color comic strip appeared in January 1894 in the New York World, owned by Joseph Pulitzer. The first regular weekly full- color comic supplement, similar to today's Sunday funnies, appeared two years later, in William Randolph Hearst's rival New York paper, the Morning Journal.
Both were immensely popular, and publishers realized that supplementing the news with comic relief boosted the sale of papers. The Morning Journal started another feature in 1896, the "Yellow Kid," the first continuous comic character in the United States, whose creator, Richard Outcault, had been lured away from the World by the ambitious Hearst. The "Yellow Kid" was in many ways a pioneer. Its comic dialogue was the strictly urban farce that came to characterize later strips, and it introduced the speech balloon inside the strip, usually placed above the characters' heads.
The first strip to incorporate all the elements of later comics was Rudolph Dirks's "Katzenjammer Kids", based on Wilhelm Busch's Max and Moritz, a European satire of the nineteenth century. The "Kids" strip, first published in 1897, served as the prototype for future American strips. It contained not only speech balloons, but a continuous cast of characters, and was divided into small regular panels that did away with the larger panoramic scenes of the earliest comics.
Newspaper syndication played a major role in spreading the popularity of comic strips throughout the country. Though weekly colored comics came first, daily black-and-white strips were not far behind. They first appeared in the Chicago American in 1904. It was followed by many imitators, and by 1915 black-and-white comic strips had become a staple of daily newspaper; around the country.

The word "prototype" in line 13 is closest in meaning to .

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      Though the conservation movement had European roots, many observers maintain that the United States has emerged as the world's leader in environmentalism.
       The transcendentalism of the early 1800s and its celebration of the natural world arrived just in time to be trampled underfoot by the ravages of the Industrial Revolution. As forests disappeared under the ax of reckless timber barons, coal became a popular source of energy. Unfettered use of coal in homes and factories resulted in horrific air pollution in cities like London, Philadelphia, and Paris.
      In the 1850s, a carnival huckster named George Gale heard about an immense California redwood that was over 600 years old when Jesus was born. Upon seeing the magnificent tree, nicknamed The Mother of the Forest, Gale hired men to cut the tree down so that its bark could be displayed in his sideshow. The reaction to Gale's stunt, however, was swift and ugly: "To our mind, it seems a cruel idea, a perfect desecration, to cut down such a splendid tree ... what in the world could have possessed any mortal to embark in such a speculation with this mountain of wood?," wrote one editor.
       The growing realization that human industry was obliterating irreplaceable wilderness -- and endangering human health -- resulted in the earliest efforts at managing natural resources. In 1872, Yellowstone National Park was created, the first of what became one of America's best ideas: a network of national parks that were strictly off-limits to exploitation.

The word “ravages” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ______.

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The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law in 1990. This law extends civil rights protection to persons with disabilities in private sector employment, all public services, and in public accommodations, transportation and telecommunications. A person with a disability is defined as someone with a mental or physical impairment that substantially limits him or her in a major life activity, such as walking, talking, working, or self-care. A person with a disability may also be someone with a past record of such impairment, for example, someone who no longer has heart disease but is discriminated against because of that history.
The ADA states that employers with fifteen or more employees may not refuse to hire or promote a person because of a disability if that person is qualified to perform the job. Also, the employer must make reasonable accommodations that will allow a person with a disability to perform essential functions of the job.
All new vehicles purchased by public transit authorities must be accessible to people with disabilities. All rail stations must be made accessible, and at least one car per train in existing rail systems must be made accessible.
It is illegal for public accommodations to exclude or refuse persons with disabilities. Public accommodations are businesses and services such as restaurants, hotels, grocery stores and parks. All new buildings must be made accessible, and existing facilities must remove barriers if the removal can be accomplished without much difficulty or expense.
The ADA also stipulates that companies offering telephone service to the general public must offer relay services to individuals who use telecommunications devices for the deaf, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

It can be inferred from the passage that     .

Choose the underlined word or phrase (A, B, C or D) that is incorrect and needs to be changed: The education system in my country is not the same with in other places

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.
  GETTING TO THE ROOT OF BONSAI CRIME
Bonsai trees have always been a source of great fascination to people. They are perfect miniatures, grown in pots small enough to sit on a windowsill. You have to keep reminding yourself that these frees are actually real and identical to their larger cousins in all (1)..... except their size. Rather like other small and perfectly-formed artifacts, bonsai trees command quite a high price in the marketplace and so it doesn't come as a great surprise to find that they also (2)........ the attention of thieves. It seems that quite a flourishing business has evolved,  in which they are stolen from the homes of growers and collectors, then repotted and trimmed by unscrupulous dealers, to  be  sold on, at good prices, to (3)..... buyers.
One of Britain's top collectors of bonsai trees, Paul Widdington, believes that he has found a solution, however. After losing his life's work, valued at £250,000, when burglars broke into his home one night, Paul decided to (4)....... the possibilities of electronically tagging the trees he bought as a replacement. This involves injecting a microchip the size of a grain of rice into the trunk of each tree. Each chip is a laser-etched with information which is stored in a central register held by the police. Paul is quite aware that this kind of data-tagging doesn't (5)......... thieves from stealing the trees in the first place, although it may increase the chances of getting them back. So he's also installing a security alarm system complete with infra-red detectors, in his home.
(2).........................

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Sharks have gained an unfair reputation for being fierce predators of large sea animals. Humanity's unfounded fear and hatred of these ancient creatures is leading to a worldwide slaughter that may result in the extinction of many coastal shark species. The shark is the victim of a warped attitude of wildlife protection; we strive only to protect the beautiful, non-threatening parts of our environment. And, in our efforts to restore only non-threatening parts of our earth, we ignore other important parts.
A perfect illustration of this attitude is the contrasting attitude toward another large sea animal, the dolphin. During the 1980s, environmentalists in the United States protested the use of driftnets for tuna fishing in the Pacific Ocean since these nets also caught dolphins. The environmentalists generated enough political and economic pressure to prevent tuna companies from buying tuna that had been caught in driftnets. In contrast to this effort on behalf of the dolphins, these same environmentalists have done very little to help save the Pacific Ocean sharks whose population has decreased nearly to the point of extinction.
Sharks are among the oldest creatures on earth, having survived in the seas for more than 350 million years. They are extremely efficient animals, feeding on wounded or dying animals, thus performing an important role in nature of weeding out the weaker animals in a species. Just the fact that species such as the Great White Shark have managed to live in the oceans for so many millions of years is enough proof of their efficiency and adaptability to changing environments. It is time for US humans, who may not survive another 1,000 years at the rate we are damaging the planet, to cast away our fears and begin considering the protection of sharks as an important part of a program for protection of all our natural environment.

The phrase “to cast away” means most nearly     .

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In the Native American Navajo nation which sprawls across four states in the American south-west, the native language is dying. Most of its speakers are middle-age or elderly. Although many students take classes in Navajo, the schools are run in English. Street sign, supermarket goods and even their own newspaper are all in English. Not surprisingly, linguists doubt that any native speakers of Navajo will remain in a hundred years' time.

Navajo is far from alone. Half the world's 6,800 languages are likely to vanish within two generations - that's one language lost every ten days. Never before has the planet's linguistic diversity shrunk at such a pace. Isolation breeds linguistic diversity as a result, the world is peppered with languages spoken by only a few people. Only 250 languages have more than a million speakers, and at least 3,000 have fewer than 2,500. It is not necessarily these small languages that are about to disappear. Navajo is considered endangered despite having 150,000 speakers. What makes a language endangered is not that the number of speakers, but how old they are. If it is spoken by children it is relatively safe. The critically endangered languages are those that are only spoken by the elderly, according to Michael Krauss, director of the Alaska Native Language Center, in Fairbanks.

Why do people reject the language of their parent? It begins with a crisis of confidence, when a small community finds itself alongside a larger, wealthier society, says Nicholas Ostler of Britain's Foundation for Endangered Languages, in Bath. “People lose faith in their culture” he says. "When the next generation reaches their teens, they might not want to be induced into the old tradition.” The change is not always voluntary. Quite often, governments try to kill off a minority language by banning its use in public or discouraging its use in school, all to promote national unity. The former US policy of running Indian reservation in English, for example, effectively put languages such as Navajo on the danger list. But Salikoko Mufwene, who chairs the Linguistics Department at the University of Chicago, argues that the deadliest weapon is not government policy but economic globalisation. "Native Americans have not lost pride in their language, but they have had to adapt to socio-economic pressures" he says. “They cannot refuse to speak English if most commercial activity is in English."

However, a growing interest in cultural identity may prevent the direct predictions from coming true. ‘The key to fostering diversity is for people to learn their ancestral tongue, as well as the dominant language' says Doug Whalen, founder and president of the Endangered Language Fund in New Haven, Connecticut. “Most of these will live without a large degree of bilingualism” he says.

The word these in paragraph 5 refers to ____.

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Most people can remember a phone number for up to thirty seconds. When this short amount of time elapses, however, the numbers are erased from the memory. How did the information get there in  the first place? Information that makes its way to the short term memory (STM) does so via the sensory storage area. The brain has a filter which only allows stimuli that is of immediate interest to pass on to the STM, also known as the working memory.
There is much debate about the capacity and duration of the short term memory. The most accepted theory comes from George A. Miller, a cognitive psychologist who suggested that humans can remember approximately seven chunks of information. A chunk is defined as a meaningful unit of information, such as a word or name rather than just a letter or number. Modern theorists suggest that one can increase the capacity of the short term memory by chunking, or classifying similar information together. By organizing information, one can optimize the STM, and improve the chances of a memory being passed on to long term storage.
When making a conscious effort to memorize something, such as information for an exam, many people engage in "rote rehearsal". By repeating something over and over again, one is able to keep a memory alive. Unfortunately, this type of memory maintenance only succeeds if there are no interruptions. As soon as a person stops rehearsing the information, it has the tendency to disappear. When a pen and paper are not handy, people often attempt to remember a phone number by repeating it aloud. If the doorbell rings or the dog barks to come in before a person has the opportunity to make a phone call, he will likely forget the number instantly. Therefore, rote rehearsal is not an efficient way to pass information from the short term to long term memory. A better way is to practice "elaborate rehearsal". This involves assigning semantic meaning to a piece of information so that it can be filed along with other pre-existing long term memories.
Encoding information semantically also makes it more retrievable. Retrieving information can be done by recognition or recall. Humans can easily recall memories that are stored in the long term memory and used often; however, if a memory seems to be forgotten, it may eventually be retrieved by prompting. The more cues a person is given (such as pictures), the more likely a memory can be retrieved. This is why multiple choice tests are often used for subjects that require a lot of memorization.

The word “elapses” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to     .