Choose the word which has the underlined part pronounced differently from the others.
salmon
halve
calve
dilemma
Choose the word which has the underlined part pronounced differently from the others.
pour
flour
scour
sour
Choose the word that differs from the rest in the position of the main stress.
Choose the word that differs from the rest in the position of the main stress.
Choose the word that differs from the rest in the position of the main stress.
Donald Trump's pledge to rip up existing trade deals with Mexico would _____ substantial damage on the US economy and kill the region's competitiveness on the world stage, according to the Mexican economist who led the country's trade talks with the US.
Discontent among the ship's crew finally led to the _____.
Obama expressed regret as a U.S drone strike has _____ killed innocent hostages.
At the meeting, someone _____ the idea that there should be a student representative on the committee.
Read the following passage and choose the best answer for each blank.
If you're an environmentalist, plastic is a word you tend to say with a sneer or a snarl. It has become a symbol of our wasteful, throw-away society. But there seems little it is here to stay, and the truth is, of course, that plastic has brought enormous , even environmental evil - it's the way society chooses to uses and abuse them.
Almost all the 50 or so different kinds of modern plastic are made from oil, gas, or coal-non-renewable natural . We well over three million tonnes of the stuff in Britain each year and, sooner or later, most of it is thrown away. A high of our annual consumption is in the of packaging, and this about seven percent by weight of our domestic . Almost all of it could be recycled, but very little of it is, though the plastic recycling is growing fast.
The plastics themselves are extremely energy-rich they have a higher caloric value than coal and one method of "recovery" strongly favored by the plastic manufacturers is the of waste plastic into fuel.
Fill each of the following blanks with ONE suitable word.
IS HONEST THE BEST POLICY?
Radical honesty therapy as it is known in the US, is the latest thing to be held up as the key to happiness and success. It involves telling the truth all the time, no exceptions for hurt feelings. But this is not as easy as it may . Altruistic lies, rather than the conniving, self-aggrandizing variety are an essential of polite society.
We all lie mad. It wears us out. It is the major source of all human stress, says Brad Blanton, psychotherapist and founder of the Centre for Radical Honesty. He has become a name in the US, where he spreads his message via day-time television talk shows. He certainly has his work out for him. In a recent survey of Americans, 93 percent admitted to lying regularly, and habitually in the workplace. Dr. Blanton is typically blunt about the consequences of being deceitful. 'Lying people,' he says.
Dr. Blanton is adamant that minor inconveniences are at all compared with the huge benefits of truth-telling. 'Telling the truth, especially after hiding it for a long time, takes guts. It isn't easy. But it is better than the . 'This, he believes, is the stress of living in the prison of the mind,' which results in depression and ill health. 'Your body stays tied up in and is susceptible to illness," he says. 'Allergies, high blood pressure, and insomnia are all made worse by lying. Good relationship skills, parenting skills, and management skills are also dependent on telling the truth.
Read the following passage and do the tasks.
Bovids
A. The family of mammals called bovids belongs to the Artiodactyl class, which also includes giraffes. Bovids are a highly diverse group consisting of 137 species, some of which are man’s most important domestic animals.
B. Bovids are well represented in most parts of Eurasia and Southeast Asian islands, but they are by far the most numerous and diverse in the latter. Some species of bovid are solitary, but others live in large groups with complex social structures. Although bovids have adapted to a wide range of habitats, from arctic tundra to deep tropical forest, the majority of species favour open grassland, scrub or desert. This diversity of habitat is also matched by great diversity in size and form: at one extreme is the royal antelope of West Africa, which stands a mere 25 cm at the shoulder; at the other, the massively built bison of North America and Europe, growing to a shoulder height of 2.2m.
C. Despite differences in size and appearance, bovids are united by the possession of certain common features. All species are ruminants, which means that they retain undigested food in their stomachs, and regurgitate it as necessary. Bovids are almost exclusively herbivorous: plant-eating “incisors: front teeth herbivorous”.
D. Typically their teeth are highly modified for browsing and grazing: grass or foliage is cropped with the upper lip and lower incisors** (the upper incisors are usually absent), and then ground down by the cheek teeth. As well as having cloven, or split, hooves, the males of ail bovid species and the females of most carry horns. Bovid horns have bony cores covered in a sheath of horny material that is constantly renewed from within; they are unbranched and never shed. They vary in shape and size: the relatively simple horns of a large Indian buffalo may measure around 4 m from tip to tip along the outer curve, while the various gazelles have horns with a variety of elegant curves.
E. Five groups, or subfamilies, may be distinguished: Bovinae, Antelope, Caprinae, Cephalophinae and Antilocapridae. The subfamily Bovinae comprises most of the larger bovids, including the African bongo, and nilgae, eland, bison and cattle. Unlike most other bovids they are all non-territorial. The ancestors of the various species of domestic cattle banteng, gaur, yak and water buffalo are generally rare and endangered in the wild, while the auroch (the ancestor of the domestic cattle of Europe) is extinct.
F. The term 'antelope' is not a very precise zoological name – it is used to loosely describe a number of bovids that have followed different lines of development. Antelopes are typically long-legged, fast-running species, often with long horns that may be laid along the back when the animal is in full flight. There are two main sub-groups of antelope: Hippotraginae, which includes the oryx and the addax, and Antilopinae, which generally contains slighter and more graceful animals such as gazelle and the springbok. Antelopes are mainly grassland species, but many have adapted to flooded grasslands: pukus, waterbucks and lechwes are all good at swimming, usually feeding in deep water, while the sitatunga has long, splayed hooves that enable it to walk freely on swampy ground.
G. The sub-family Caprinae includes the sheep and the goat, together with various relatives such as the goral and the tahr. Most are woolly or have long hair. Several species, such as wild goats, chamois and ibex, are agile cliff – and mountain-dwellers. Tolerance of extreme conditions is most marked in this group: Barbary and bighorn sheep have adapted to arid deserts, while Rocky Mountain sheep survive high up in mountains and musk oxen in arctic tundra.
H. The duiker of Africa belongs to the Cephalophinae subfamily. It is generally small and solitary, often living in thick forest. Although mainly feeding on grass and leaves, some duikers – unlike most other bovids – are believed to eat insects and feed on dead animal carcasses, and even to kill small animals.
I. The pronghorn is the sole survivor of a New World sub-family of herbivorous ruminants, the Antilocapridae in North America. It is similar in appearance and habits to the Old World antelope. Although greatly reduced in numbers since the arrival of Europeans, and the subsequent enclosure of grasslands, the pronghorn is still found in considerable numbers throughout North America, from Washington State to Mexico. When alarmed by the approach of wolves or other predators, hairs on the pronghorn’s rump stand erect, so showing and emphasizing the white patch there. At this signal, the whole herd gallops off at speed of over 60 km per hour.
In which region is the biggest range of bovids to be found?
Most bovids have a preference for living in _____.
Which of the following features do all bovids have in common?
Match each characteristic with the correct subfamily, A, B, C or D.
|
List of subfamilies A. Antelope B. Bovinae C. Caprinae D. Cephalophinae |
NB You may use any letter more than once
can endure very harsh environments
includes the ox and the cow
may supplement its diet with meat
can usually move a speed
does not defend a particular area of land
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
What is the smallest species of Bovid called?
Which species of Bovinae has now died out?
What facilitates the movement of the sitatunga over wetland?
What sort of terrain do barbary sheep live in?
What is the only living member of the Antilocapridae subfamily?
Read the following passage and choose which of the headings from A - L match the blanks. There are two extra headings, which do not match any of the paragraphs.
A. The problems with the Julian calendar
B. The calendar in Eastern fun
C. Early adoption of the Gregorian calendar
D. The problems with the early Roman calendar
E. Why some countries were late to change their calendars
F. Priests and the calendar
G. How the Julian calendar works
H. The problem with the solar year
I. Current rules for leap years
K. The development of the Gregorian calendar
L. The length of a year
Calendars Through the Years
1.
How many days are there in a year? You might say 365, with an extra 'leap day' added to the end of February every four years. This averages out to a quarter of a day every year, so that every year is 365.25 days. This is because the actual length of a solar year - that is, the time it takes for the Earth to complete a full rotation of the Sun - is a little bit more than 365 days. Throughout history, most calendars have tried to match their year to the length of a solar year, with varying degrees of accuracy.
2.
The calendar used in much of the world today is based on the one used by the Romans. Because Romans thought that even numbers were unlucky, the earliest Roman calendar had months of 29 or 31 days, with 28 days in February. Since the year had 355 days, they would add a leap month of 27 days between February and March every 3 to 5 years, as determined by priests called pontifices. As a result, the average year was anywhere from 360 to 364 days, so it is no surprise that the calendar very quickly deviated from the solar year.
3.
Julius Caesar decided that the calendar should be based on the solar year, following a special year of 445 days in 46 BC that readjusted the months to their proper seasons. From 45 BC onwards, the months were given the current lengths of 30 or 31 days, retaining 28 for February but adding the 29th February every four years to account for the accumulated extra quarter days. The names of the months used by the Romans remain in English today, either with a slight adjustment to spelling (e.g., they called it Aprilis, we call it April) or in the exact same form (e.g., they also called September, October, November and December by those very names).
4.
The calendar used from 45 BC onwards - known as the Julian calendar, after the man who imposed it on the world - is far more accurate than any earlier calendar. Even so, the Julian calendar deviates from the solar year by 1 day every 128 years. This is because the exact length of the solar year is actually 365.2422 days, or about 11 minutes shorter than the 365.25 days calculated by the Romans.
5.
By the 16th century AD, the discrepancy between the solar year and the Julian calendar was notable enough that something had to be done. It took several decades of consultation among mathematicians and astronomers until it was finally decided to end the Julian calendar and move to a new system of calculating leap years. Pope Gregory XIII decreed that the Julian calendar would end on Thursday 4th October 1582 and that the following day would be Friday 15th October. This would remove the 10 days that had been added in error by the Julian system for leap years, and readjust the calendar to the seasons in the solar year.
6.
The Gregorian calendar was put into use immediately in Italy, Portugal, Spain, Poland and most of France, and in Austria, Hungary and much of Germany in the next few years. However, the new calendar was not implemented by the United Kingdom and its overseas territories, such as the colonies that are known today as Canada and the United States, until 1752. By then, the adjustment required was 11 days, so the Parliament decided that the British would go to bed at the end of the day on 2nd September 1752 and wake up the next morning on 14th September. Sweden followed the British in moving to the Gregorian calendar the next year.
7.
An even longer adjustment was required when the Gregorian calendar was adopted by Japan in 1872, and in the early 20th century by China, Bulgaria, Estonia, Russia, Greece and Turkey. Many of these countries that were among the last to adopt the Gregorian calendar for civic purposes used the Byzantine calendar, a variant of the Julian calendar, prior to the change. Many people in these same nations continue to use the Eastern Orthodox calendar (also based on the Julian calendar) for religious feasts and festivals. Similarly, in China and Japan, a traditional calendar is still used to select dates for weddings, funerals and new ventures. These last two countries did not exactly delay the move to the Gregorian calendar; rather, they started using it once it became beneficial, due to the more extensive connections with other countries on that calendar.
8.
As we can see from this brief history of calendars, one of the key challenges in making any calendar is the decision about how to account for the variations between the calendar year and the solar year, since the latter includes a fraction of a day. The Gregorian calendar improved considerably on the Julian calendar, limiting the discrepancy to one day every 3,336 years. While it is commonly believed that every fourth year is a leap year, the actual rule imposed in 1582 is slightly more complicated: we add a day to February in years that are divisible by 4, but not in years divisible by 100 unless they can be divided by 400. Thus, 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not leap years, but 1600 and 2000 were. This adjustment means that the average calendar year is only 26 seconds longer than a solar year, so it won't be an issue again until the year 4918.
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
Finally, the new prime minister has been appointed. (LAST)
=> The ..........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
It doesn't make any difference if they paint the board white or yellow. (MATTER)
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
Our representatives have been criticizing the new concept. (CRITICAL)
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
Jerry had terrible problems with solving the riddle. (HARDLY)
=> ..........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
George won't lend his tape recorder to you if you don't promise to bring it back by Saturday. (GIVE)
=> Unless ...........
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
You pay $20 a month for a period of one year.
=> You pay in ............
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
He didn't mention our previous conversation at all.
=> He made ..........
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
It's a pity that you wrote that letter.
=> I .....
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
Success in the academic field depends on your ability to amass qualifications.
=> The ............
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
The president's bodyguards stood behind him watching.
=> Watchfully .....
Write a paragraph of approximately 140 words to answer the following question.
What is more important to people in their twenties - friends or family?