When we were in England last year, I went fishing with my friend, Peter. Early in the morning we were sitting quietly by the side of the lake when we had an unpleasant surprise. We saw a duck come along with three ducklings padding cheerfully behind her. As we watched them,  there was a sudden swirl in the water. We caught a glimpse of the vicious jaws of a pike – a fish  which is rather like a freshwater shark – and one of the ducklings was dragged below the surface. 
This incident made Peter furious. He vowed to catch the pike. On three successive  mornings we returned to the vicinity and used several different kinds of bait. On the third day Peter was lucky. Using an artificial frog as bait, he managed to hook the monster. There was a  desperate fight but Peter was determined to capture the pike and succeeded. When he had got it  ashore and killed it, he wieghed the fish and found that it scaled nearly thirty pounds – a record for that district. 

To what does surprise in line 2 probably refer? 

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 46 to 50.
We all want to live in a clean and green world and breathe pollution free air. For this kind of environment we desperately need a fossil fuel free world. Scientists are toiling hard to come up (46) alternative fuels which can replace conventional fuels. One such study was presented at the 237th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society. This study throws interesting light on the first economical, eco- friendly process to (47) algae oil into biodiesel fuel. The scientists are quite hopeful that one day America will become independent (48)  fossil fuels. Ben Wen is the (49)      researcher and vice president of United Environment and Energy LLC, Horseheads, N.Y. According to him, “This is the first economical way to produce biodiesel from algae oil. It costs much less than conventional processes because you would need a much smaller factory, there (50) no  water disposal costs, and the process is considerably faster.
(47)...............

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best option for each of the blanks from 11 to 15.
Women are much healthier when they (11) it easy, reveals a new survey. Those who work long hours are more likely than men to (12) in unhealthy behavior such as eating snacks, smoking and drinking caffeine. (Long hours have no such impact on men). One positive benefit of long hours for both sexes, however, is that alcohol (13) is reduced.
The study (14)  by the Economic and  Social Research Council is part of a wider study by psychologists from the University of Leeds into the effects of stress on eating. “Stress causes people to
(15) for unhealthy high fat and high-sugar snacks in preference to healthier food choice” says researcher Dr. Daryl of the University of Leeds.
(11)........................

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.
Advertising helps people recognize a particular brand, persuades them to try it, and tries to keep  them loyal to it. Brand loyalty is perhaps the most important goal of consumer advertising. Whether they produce cars, canned foods or cosmetics, manufacturers want their customers to make repeated purchases. The quality of the product will encourage this, of course, but so, too, will affect advertising.
Advertising relies on the techniques of market research to identify potential users of a product. Are they homemakers or professional people? Are they young or old? Are they city dwellers or country dwellers? Such questions have a bearing on where and when ads should be placed. By studying readership breakdowns for newspapers and magazines as well as television ratings and other statistics, an advertising agency can decide on the best way of reaching potential buyers. Detailed research and marketing expertise are essential today when advertising budgets can run into thousands of millions of dollars.
Advertising is a fast-paced, high-pressure industry. There is a constant need for creative ideas that will establish a personality for a product in the public's mind. Current developments in advertising increase the need for talented workers.
In the past, the majority of advertising was aimed at the traditional white family - breadwinner father, non- working mother, and two children. Research now reveals that only about 6 percent of American households fit this stereotype. Instead, society is fragmented into many groups, with working mothers, single people and older people on the rise. To be most successful, advertising must identify a particular segment and aim its message toward that group.
Advertising is also making use of new technologies. Computer graphics are used to grab the attention of consumers and to help them see products in a new light. The use of computer graphics in a commercial for canned goods, for instance, gave a new image to the tin can.

According to the passage, most advertising used to be directed at ...........

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.
It is a well-known fact that Japanese people have a longer life expectancy than the population of most other countries. A (1)..................report shows that the Japanese also expect to remain healthier for longer. Scientists are trying to work out what keeps elderly Japanese people so healthy, and whether there is a lesson to be learnt from their lifestyles. Should we (2).........any changes to our eating habits, for instance, or go jogging each day before breakfast? Is there some secret (3)........ in the Japanese diet that is particularly beneficial for the human body? Although the prospect of a longer , healthier life is a good thing for the individual, it can actually create a social problem. The number of people over the age of 65 in the population has doubled in the last 50 years and that has increased pension and medical costs. Japan could soon be (4)........... an economic problem: there are more elderly people who need to be looked after. And relatively fewer younger people working and paying taxes to support them. One solution could be to (5)............ retirement age from 65 to 70 . After all, the elderly have a great deal to contribute. If they continue to be active in society, younger generations will have the chance to learns more from their wisdom and experience.
(1).............................

Choose the item among A, B, C or D that best answers the question about the passage:

"Until recently, the ‘Science of the future’ was supposed to be electronics and artificial intelligence. Today it seems more and more likely that the next breakthrough in technology will be brought about through a combination of those
two Sciences with organic chemistry and genetic engineering. This Science is the combination of biotechnology.
 Organic chemistry enables us to produce marvelous synthetic materials. However, it is still difficult to manufacture anything that has the capacity of wool to conserve heat and also to absorb moisture. Nothing that we have been able to produce so far comes anywhere near the combination of strength, lightness, and flexibility that we find in the bodies of ordinary insects.
 Nevertheless, scientists in the laboratory have already succeeded in ‘growing’ a material that has many of the characteristics of human skin. The next step may well be ‘biotech heart and eyes’ which can replace diseased organs in human beings. This will not be rejected by the body, as in the case with organs from humans.
 The application of biotechnology to energy production seems even more promising. In 1996, the famous science-fiction writer Arthur c. Clarke, many of whose previous predictions have come true, said that we may soon be able to develop remarkably cheap and renewable sources of energy. Some of these power sources will be biological. Clarke and others have warned us repeatedly that sooner or later we will have to give up our dependence on non-renewable power sources. Coal, oil and gas are indeed convenient. However, using them also means creating dangerously high levels of pollution. It will be impossible to meet the growing demand for energy without increasing that pollution to catastrophic levels unless we develop power sources that are both cheaper and cleaner."

3. According to the text, it may soon be possible …….

Animation traditionally is done by hand-drawing or painting successive frame of an object,  each slightly different than the proceeding frame. In computer animation, although the computer  may be the one to draw the different frames, in most cases the artist will draw the beginning and  ending frames and the computer will produce the drawings between the first and the last drawing.  This is generally referred to as computer-assisted animation, because the computer is more of a  helper than an originator. 
In full computer animation, complex mathematical formulas are used to produce the final  sequences of pictures. These formulas operate on extensive databases of numbers that defines the  objects in the pictures as they exist in mathematical space. The database consists of endpoints,  and color and intensity information. Highly trained professionals are needed to produce such  effects because animation that obtains high degrees of realism involves computer techniques from three-dimensional transformation, shading, and curvatures. 
High-tech computer animation for film involves very expensive computer systems along  with special color terminals or frame buffers. The frame buffer is nothing more than a giant image  memory for viewing a single frame. It temporarily holds the image for display on the screen. 
A camera can be used to film directly from the computer’s display screen, but for the  highest quality images possible, expensive film recorders are used. The computer computers the  positions and colors for the figures in the picture, and sends this information to the recorder,  which captures it on film. Sometimes, however, the images are stored on a large magnetic disk  before being sent to the recorder. Once this process is completed, it is replaced for the next frame.  When the entire sequence has been recorded on the film, the film must be developed before the  animation can be viewed. If the entire sequence does not seem right, the motions must be  corrected, recomputed, redisplayed, and rerecorded. This approach can be very expensive and time – consuming. Often, computer-animation companies first do motion tests with simple computer  generated line drawings before selling their computers to the task of calculating the high resolution, realistic-looking images.

According to the passage, the frame buffers mentioned in the third paragraph are used 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 from 41 to 45.
Working as a novelist is not really a career like being a doctor or a scientist. Although a fewwell-known ones, like Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling, have become wealthy, most writers find it difficult even to make a living from their book sales. Novels take a long time towrite, and authors can get into financial (41)     if they don’t have money coming in regularly from another job. But for those determined to     write novels, it is without (42) one of the most enjoyable kinds of work to do. The writer has to be creative, thinking up completely new stories, and (43)      , meaning they put all their time and effort     into their work. They also need to be able to cope in a crisis, as nobody else can write their book for them. For this, a good sense of (44) often helps. Or the thought that maybe their novel might one day be turned into a film and become a Hollywood (45)          !
(42)........................

Fill in each numbered blank with one suitable word or phrase.

Robots are already a part of our lives. Industrial robots widely used in manufacturing. Military and police organizations use robots to (1) _____ in dangerous situations. Robots can (2) _____ be found from vacuuming the floors in your home to exploring the surface of Mars.

Within a few more years a whole host of robotic adaptations will be running many aspects' of our lives. "I think in (3) _____ next thirty years, we are going to see a transformation between the industrial sorts of robots to personal robots," says Brooks from Brooks' company, IRobot, markets floor cleaning robots for homes.

"The advances in robotics make it clear that many household (4) ____ will be easily handled by a robot in the near future," says Bob Christopher, who works for a robotic technology company that is marketing a toy robot (5) _____ Pleo. "We have only one child but I could easily (6) _____ five or six robots in the home as well."

Within the next 10 years one will be able to (7) _____, to lease or purchase a domestic robot that not only does the household cleaning and prepare and serve his meals, (8) _____ also can carry him to the bathtub if he cannot walk.

Demographic changes, such as a rapidly aging population and a shrinking workforce, will drive forward the application of new (9) ___. There is going to be a real pull for increasing the productivity of working age people. So there is going to be a real push for robotics to help people. (10) _____ addition it is likely that in the near future we will see robots- taking on some of the care functions elderly, or long-term ill people.

(3)...............................

Basic to any understanding of Canada in the 20 years after the Second World War is the country’s impressive population growth. For every three Canadians in 1945, there were over five in 1966. In September 1966 Canada’s population passed the 20 million mark. Most of this surging growth came from natural increase.  The depression of the 1930s and the war had held back marriages, and the catching-up process  began after 1945. The baby boom continued through the decade of the 1950s, producing a population increase of nearly fifteen percent in the five years from 1951 to 1956. This rate of increase had been exceeded only once before in Canada’s history, in the decade before 1911, when  the prairies were being settled. Undoubtedly, the good economic conditions of the 1950s  supported a growth in the population, but the expansion also derived from a trend toward earlier marriages and an increase in the average size of families. In 1957 the Canadian birth rate stood at  28 per thousand, one of the highest in theworld. 
After the peak year of 1957, the birth rate in Canada began to decline. It continued falling  until in 1966 it stood at the lowest level in 25 years. Partly this decline reflected the low level of births during the depression and the war, but it was also caused by changes in Canadian society. Young people were staying at school longer, more women were working; young married couples  
were buying automobiles or houses before starting families; rising living standards were cutting down the size of families. It appeared that Canada was once more falling in step with the trend  toward smaller families that had occurred all through the Western world since the time of the  IndustrialRevolution. 
Although the growth in Canada’s population had slowed down by 1966 (the increase in the  first half of the 1960s was only nine percent), another large population wave was coming over the horizon. It would be composed of the children who were born during the period of the high birth  rate prior to 1957.

The word “trend” in bold is closest in meaning to .....................

Choose the best answer: 
The two countries agreed to ______ in certain sections of the economy.

Choose the best answer: 
In the western customs ...(18)...hands is the customary form of greeting, but in China a nod of the head or slight bow is sufficient. Hugging and kissing when greeting are uncommon. Business cards are often ...(19)... and yours should be printed in your own language and in Chinese. Also, it is more respectful to present your card or a gift or -any other article using both hands. The Chinese are ...(20)...  applauders. You may be greeted with group clapping, even by small children. When a person is applauded in this practice it is the custom for that person to return the applause or a "thank you." When walking in public places, direct eye contact and staring is uncommon in the larger cities, especially in those areas accustomed to foreign visitors. ...(21)... , in smaller communities, visitors may be the subject of much curiosity and therefore you may notice some stares. Generally speaking, the Chinese are not a touch-oriented society, especially true for visitors. So, avoid ...(22)... or any prolonged form of body contact. Public displays of affection are very rare. On the other hand, you may 3note people of the same sex walking hand-in-hand, which is simply a gesture of friendship.

   Do not worry about a bit of pushing and shoving in stores or when groups board public buses or trains. In this case, Apologies are neither offered or expected. The Chinese will stand much closer than Westerners.

19:

Read the passage below and choose the best answer (A, B, C or D ) to each question.

Sometimes you know things about people the first time you see them, for example, that you want to be friends with them or that you don't trust them. But perhaps this kind of intuition isn't as hard to explain as may seem. For instance, people give out body language signals all the time. The way you hold your body, head and arms tells people about your mood. If you hold your arms tightly at your sides, or fold them across your chest, people will generally feel that you are being defensive. Holding your head to one side shows interest in the other, while an easy, open posture indicates that you are self-confident. All this affects the way you feel about someone.

Also, a stranger may remind you of a meeting with someone. This may be because of something as simple as the fact that he or she is physically similar to someone who treated you well or badly. Your feelings about a stranger could be influenced by a smell in the air that brings to mind a place where you were happy as a child. Since even a single word can bring back a memory such as that, you may never realize it is happening.

What influences your impression of a person you meet the first time?

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 first each of the numbered blanks from 1 to 5.
Humans are destroying the earth‟s tropical rain forests. About 80,000 square kilometers are being destroyed every year. About a quarter of the (1)_______ comes from people cutting trees for fuel. Another quarter is to make grassland for their cattle. The (2)_______ trees are cut down to sell the wood to start farms.
The population in cities all over the world is growing, and more and more wood is needed to build huge new buildings. For example, 5,000 trees from Sarawak rain forest in Malaysia were used to build just one tall building. (3)_______ people continue cutting down that many trees in Sarawak rain forest, all the trees could be gone in eight years.
The world needs more food, and it (4)_______ like a good idea to clear the rain forests and use the land for agriculture. Many people think that the land under these huge, thick forests must be in rich nutrients, but it isn't. This is another surprising thing about rain forests. Most of the land in tropical rain forest is very(5) _______ .
(5)....................

Read the passage below and choose the best answer (A, B, C or D ) to each question.

The movement of people towards cities has accelerated in the past 40 years, particularly in the less developed regions, and the share of the global population living in urban areas has increased from one third in 1960 to 47% (2.8 billion people) in 1999. The world's urban population is now growing by 60 million persons per year, about three times the increase in the rural population.

Increasing urbanisation results about equally from births in urban areas and from the continued movement of people from the rural surround. These forces are also feeding the sprawl of urban areas as formerly rural peri-urban settlements become incorporated into nearby cities and as secondary cities, linked by commerce to larger urban centres, grow larger.

The proportion of people in developing countries who live in cities has almost doubled since 1960 (from less than 22% to more than 40%), while in more-developed regions the urban share has grown from 61% to 76%. There is a significant association between this population movement from rural to urban areas and declines in average family size.

Asia and Africa remain the least urbanised of the developing regions (less than 38% each). Latin America and the Caribbean is more than 75% urban, a level almost equal to those in Europe, Northern America and Japan (all are between 75 and 79%).

Urbanisation is projected to continue well into the next century. By 2030, it is expected that nearly 5 billion (61%) of the world's 8.1 billion people will live in cities. The less-developed regions will be more than 57% urban. Latin America and the Caribbean will actually have a greater percentage of inhabitants living in cities than Europe will.

Globally, the number of cities with 10 million or more inhabitants is increasing rapidly, and most of these new 'megacities' are in the less-developed regions. In 1960, only New York and Tokyo had more than 10 million people. By 1999, there were 17 cities of more than 10 million people around the world, 13 of these were in less-developed regions. It is projected that there will be 26 megacities by 2015, 22 in less-developed regions (18 will be in Asia); more than 10% of the world's population will live in these cities, up from just 1.7% in megacities in 1950.

What does the word "who" in paragraph 3 refer 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.

INTERNSHIPS

In many countries going through difficult economic times, job openings for new graduates can be few and far between. In this competitive environment, relevant work experience can help job seekers stand out from the crowd, and (1) ______ organisations now offer temporary placements, called internships. The problem with numerous internships, (2) ______, is that they are unpaid, and this often puts young people off applying for them.

Employers and interns sometimes come to mutually beneficial arrangements, however. Dinesh Pathan, applying for an internship with an IT company, negotiated a deal in which he would be given travel (3) ______ only for two weeks, and then, as long as he could show his marketing work was adding value, he would be paid a wage. The arrangement worked well: Dinesh had a(n) (4) ______ to work hard, and he ended up feeling "not so much an intern as a temporary staffer". HR consultant Denise Baker says similar arrangements are common. What is more, "if interns do well, employers would often rather make them full employees than recruit people (5) ______ they don't know".

(Adapted from Exam Essential Practice Tests - Cambridge English by Tom Bradbury and Eunice Yeates)

(1) ______

Choose the best answer: 
Archaeological records ― paintings, drawings, and carvings of humans engaged in activities involving the use of hands ― indicate that humans have been predominantly right-handed for more than 5,000 years. In ancient Egyptian artwork, for example, the right-hand is depicted as the dominant one in about 90percent of the examples. Fracture or wear patterns on tools also indicate that a majority of ancient people were right-handed. Cro-Magnon cave paintings some 2,000 years old commonly show outlines of human hands made by placing one hand against the cave wall and applying paint with the other. Children today make similar outlines of their hands with crayons on paper. With few exceptions, left hands of Cro-Magnons are displayed on cave walls, indicating that the paintings were usually done by right- handers. Anthropological evidence pushes the record of handedness in early human ancestors back to at least 1.4 million years ago. One important line of evidence comes from flaking patterns of stone cores used in toolmaking: implements flaked with a clockwise motion (indicating a right-handed toolmaker) can be distinguished from those flaked with a counter-clockwise rotation (indicating a left-handed toolmaker). Even scratches found on fossil human teeth offer clues. Ancient humans are thought to have cut meat into strips by holding it between their teeth and slicing it with stone knives, as do the present-day Inuit. Occasionally the knives slip and leave scratches on the users' teeth. Scratches made with a left-to-right stroke direction (by right-handers) are more common than scratches in the opposite direction (made by left-handers). Still other evidence comes from cranial morphology: scientists think that physical differences between the right and left sides of the interior of the skull indicate subtle physical differences between the two sides of the brain. The variation between the hemispheres corresponds to which side of the body is used to perform specific activities. Such studies, as well as studies of tool use, indicate that right- or leftsided dominance is not exclusive to modern Homo sapiens. Populations of Neanderthals, such as Homo erectus and Homo habilis, seem to have been predominantly right-handed, as we are.
2.The word "other" in paragraph 2 refers to

Choose the best answer:
My city has been changing since the municipal authority had a plan to renovate the canal systems. The project cost a huge amount of money which was from the support of the world bank and the city’s budget. Before the renovation, the canal was the dirtiest place full of rubbish along its sides. Many ramshackle shacks were built to be shelters of the impoverished working families migrating to this city to earn their living. Household wastes were directly dumped into the canal, resulting in the very contaminated environment. It was said that the very unpleasant smell releasing from the canal was unable to be eliminated, and the living condition there would not be better. However, thanks to the advanced technology and methods as well as the city authority’s effort, everything has been changing. There is no longer the disgusting smell or shabby houses along both sides of the canal. Instead, the road running parallel to the canal is now full of shade of greenery and the water now is so clean that it is a friendly habitat for a variety of fish. The residents now can walk or do morning exercise on the sidewalks along the banks to enjoy the fresh atmosphere. Former inhabitants are also relocated in new apartments with much better living conditions than before. The canal creates not only a beautiful urban landscape, but also brings a lot of economic benefits to local dwellers. Because of its reformation, the city is changing fast too.

5. What benefit can the canal bring to the city?

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.
Advertising helps people recognize a particular brand, persuades them to try it, and tries to keep  them loyal to it. Brand loyalty is perhaps the most important goal of consumer advertising. Whether they produce cars, canned foods or cosmetics, manufacturers want their customers to make repeated purchases. The quality of the product will encourage this, of course, but so, too, will affect advertising.
Advertising relies on the techniques of market research to identify potential users of a product. Are they homemakers or professional people? Are they young or old? Are they city dwellers or country dwellers? Such questions have a bearing on where and when ads should be placed. By studying readership breakdowns for newspapers and magazines as well as television ratings and other statistics, an advertising agency can decide on the best way of reaching potential buyers. Detailed research and marketing expertise are essential today when advertising budgets can run into thousands of millions of dollars.
Advertising is a fast-paced, high-pressure industry. There is a constant need for creative ideas that will establish a personality for a product in the public's mind. Current developments in advertising increase the need for talented workers.
In the past, the majority of advertising was aimed at the traditional white family - breadwinner father, non- working mother, and two children. Research now reveals that only about 6 percent of American households fit this stereotype. Instead, society is fragmented into many groups, with working mothers, single people and older people on the rise. To be most successful, advertising must identify a particular segment and aim its message toward that group.
Advertising is also making use of new technologies. Computer graphics are used to grab the attention of consumers and to help them see products in a new light. The use of computer graphics in a commercial for canned goods, for instance, gave a new image to the tin can.

It can be inferred from paragraph 2 that advertisers must ..........

Choose the best answer: 
....................... you count from one to ten when you ....................... two?
 

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.
One of the most interesting authors of the twentieth century, J.R.R Tolkien, achieved fame through his highly inventive trilogy. The Lord of the Rings. Born in 1892, Tolkien received his education from Oxford and then served in World War I. After the war, he became a professor of Anglo -Saxon and English language and literature at Oxford University.
Although published in 1965, the three books that comprise the Lord of the Rings were written in intervals from 1936 to 1949. This was mainly due to Tolkien's responsibilities as a professor and the outbreak of World War II. By the late 1960s, this fascinating trilogy had become a sociological phenomenon as young people intently studied the mythology and legends created by Tolkien.
The trilogy is remarkable not only for its highly developed account of historical fiction but also its success as a modern heroic epic. The main plot describes the struggle between good and evil kingdom as they try to acquire a magic ring that has the power to rule the world. The novels, which are set in a time called Middle Earth, describe a detailed fantasy world. Established before humans populated the Earth, Middle Earth was inhabited by good and evil creatures such as hobbits, elves, monsters, wizards, and some humans. The characters and the setting of Middle Earth were modeled after mythological stories from Greece and Northern Europe.
Although readers have scrutinized the texts for inner meaning and have tried to connect the trilogy with Tolkien's real life experiences in England during World War II, he denied the connection. He claims that the story began in his years as an undergraduate student and grew out of his desire to create mythology and legends about elves and their language.
Tolkien was a masterful fantasy novelist who used his extensive knowledge of folklore to create a body of work that is still read and enjoyed throughout the world today.

The word "scrutinized” in the fourth paragraph could be replaced by .........