Complete the sentences below.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
French TGV locomotives pull the T6V trains from both ends using a .
Japanese ground is unsuitable for the TGV type of train because it is and the tracks frequently curve horizontally and vertically.
An extra advantage of the Japanese electric car system is that it can act as a .
Even after the power supply is cut off in the electric car system, electricity is still produced by .
Huge improvements in power, operability and safety administration have been made possible by advances in .
Listen and choose the best answer for each question.
Students entering the design competition have to _____.
John chose a dishwasher because he wanted to make dishwashers _____.
The stone in John's "Rockpool" design is used _____.
In the holding chamber, the carbon dioxide _____.
At the end of the cleaning process, the carbon dioxide _____.
Choose the word which has the bold part pronounced differently from the others.
resign
packaging
origin
germ
Choose the word which has the underlined part pronounced differently from the others.
hypothesize
hypocrite
hybrid
hydropower
Choose the word whose primary stress is placed differently from that of the others.
Choose the word whose stress is placed differently from that of the others.
Choose the word that differs from the rest in the position of the main stress.
If you want to make it in the field of technology, study hard and be ahead of the _____.
Showing no genuine contrition and _____, the heretic was handed over to the civil power for imprisonment.
Due to the lack of _____ evidence for its efficacy, the new approach is questionable.
The company lost money during the first four years, but now it is _____ thanks to a new investment.
The business has been thriving in the past year. Long _____ it continue to do so.
To complete our work, we need to _____ the computer problem preventing us from retrieving necessary data.
The chef prepared a _____ feast, featuring a variety of delicious dishes.
_____ I'd like to help you out, I'm afraid I just haven't got any spare money at the moment.
There are _____ that not only governments but also individuals should join hand to tackle.
_____ Paul realize that he was on the wrong flight.
Two friends are talking about the university entrance examination.
Peter: My parents gave me no choice but to study business.
Danny: _____
Two high school students, Jane and John, are talking about their plans after graduation.
Jane: _____
John: As far as I’m concerned, there’s no doubt about it.
Choose the word(s) CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined word(s).
Stay away from the boss today - he's spitting blood over that printing mishap.
Choose the word(s) CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined word(s).
Originally the builders gave me a price of $5,000, but now they say they underestimated it, and now it’s going to be at least $8,000.
Choose the word(s) CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined word(s).
Their arguments are getting pointless, so they decided to just bury the hatchet and forget what happened.
Choose the word(s) OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s).
Most universities have trained counselors who can reassure and console students who have academic or personal problems.
Choose the word(s) OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s).
There has been insufficient rainfall over the past two years, and farmers are having trouble.
Choose the word(s) OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s).
The cadet was too wet behind the ears to be in charge of such a challenging mission.
Form the collocations using the verbs and the prepositions from the boxes. Complete each sentence using a collocation in the appropriate form. You must use each verb and each preposition ONCE only.
[tie | back| draw | swing | bombard | steal | open]
[up| out | down | off | with | around |away]
My brother prefers to take temporary work because he hates the idea of being .
She was interfering, so I told her to and let me deal with it on my own.
The new shopping center will all sorts of job opportunities.
I when I heard my name and saw Jude running towards me.
The reporters the Minister questions.
Read the text below. Use the word given in capitals to form a word that fits in the gap. There is an example at the beginning.
Healthy eating and keeping physically active are (0. PARTICULAR) --- particularly --- important for children and (ADOLESCENCE) . Their nutrition and lifestyle have a direct impact on their (GROW) and development. Moreover, worldwide trends in obesity in children and teenagers are becoming (INCREASE) worrying. Being overweight or obese has been linked to a greater (OCCUR) of various health complaints later in life. One way to improve the dietary habits of schoolchildren is to make (ADJUST) to the food served for lunch. Several leading UK chefs have launched campaigns to improve the (NUTRITION) quality of the food on school menus. Despite (CONSIDER) publicity, the improvements to school dinners have not really (MATERIAL) . Attention has now turned to reducing excess sugar in foods and beverages. Some local authorities are introducing a tax on drinks with more than a permitted amount of sugar. (MANUFACTURE) have already begun decreasing the quantity of sugar in their drinks. Health campaigners are delighted with this reduction and also with the news that (COME) raised from tax will go towards school sports.
Read the text and choose the best answer to fill in the blanks.
Greenhouse gases are being released into the atmosphere 30 times faster than the time when the Earth experienced a episode of global warming. A study comparing the rate at which carbon dioxide and methane are being now, compared to 55 million years ago when global warming also occurred, has found dramatic differences in the speed of release.
James Zachos, professor of earth sciences at the University of, California, Santa Cruz, said the speed of the present buildup of greenhouse gases is far greater than during the global warming after the of the dinosaurs. "The emissions that caused this past episode of global warning probably lasted 10.000 years." Professor Zachos told the American Association for the Advancement of Science at a meeting In St. Louis. "By burning fossil fuels, we are likely to emit the same amount over the next three centuries." He warned that studies of global warming events in the geological past indicate the Earth's climate passes a beyond which climate change accelerates with the help of positive feedbacks - circles of warming. professor Zachos is a leading authority on the episode of global warming known as the paleocene-eocene thermal maximum when average global temperatures increased by up to 50C due to a massive release of carbon dioxide and methane.
His research into the deep ocean suggests at this time that about 4.5 billion tons of carbon entered the atmosphere over 10.000 years. "This will be the same amount of carbon released into the atmosphere from cars and industrial emissions over the next 300 years if present trends continue", he said. Although carbon can be released suddenly and naturally into the atmosphere from volcanic activity, it takes many thousands of years for it permanently by natural processes. The ocean is capable of removing carbon, and quickly, but this natural capacity can be easily overwhelmed which is probably what happened 55 million years ago. "It will take tens of thousands of years before atmospheric carbon dioxide to preindustrial levels," the professor said. Even after humans stop burning fossil fuels, the effects will be long-lasting.
Read the passage and answer the question.
YOUTH WORKS
As the pace of today's working life blurs the line between personal time and work time, so it increasingly mixes personal lifestyle and work style. And as companies concentrate on attracting and keeping a younger workforce for its technical skills and enthusiasm for change, office culture is becoming an extension of youth culture. This may be no bad thing. Along with the company games room come things that matter deeply to young people; opportunity, responsibility, respect. For most of human history the middle-aged have ruled. With years came wisdom, experience, connections and influence. Rarely did they change jobs, years of loyal service counted most. However, in the future, older workers will not disappear, or even reduce in numbers, but they will have to share power with fresh-faced youths.
There have been a number of reasons for this change; the most dramatic of these is technology. Children have always been more expert than their parents at something, but usually a game or a fashion, not the century's most important business tool. The Internet has triggered the first industrial revolution in history to be led by the young. This is the age group that created Netscape, the first commercial web browser, Napster, the music-sharing technology that shocked the music industry; Yahoo! and many of the other web giants. Though there have been youth revolutions before, none of them made the leap from teen bedroom to boardroom the way the Internet has. Throughout the twentieth century, had a young person wanted to enter corporate America they needed to leave their youth behind. They got a haircut, and probably a suit or at least a tie. Now the same hair, same clothes, even nearly the same hours apply to office and home.
Had it not been for the Internet, this change could not have happened. However, it did not happen because of the Internet only, the corporate restructuring of the 1980s and 90s broke down traditional hierarchies. In many companies, rigid seniority-based hierarchies have given way to hierarchies based on merit. No longer are the abilities to navigate internal bureaucracies and please your superiors the most valued skills. Today's employees are free agents who stay with companies only as long as they feel challenged and rewarded; moving from job to job is now a sign of ambition and initiative. Today's young people are valued as workers for different reasons than their predecessors: they welcome change; they think differently, they are independent; they are entrepreneurial; they want opportunity more than money and security and finally, they demand respect.
This revolution is not just about the young. Youth itself is being redefined. Increasingly, 35-year-olds listen to the same music as 20-year-olds, dress like them and even look almost like them. Never before has there been a time when there was so little difference between age groups. Imagine a society converging on an age somewhere between 20 and 30, and you have a fair picture of New York or San Francisco now, with other American cities not far behind.
The rise of the young is a good thing, not least because it gives people at their most creative stage in life more opportunity to put their ideas and energy into practice. But will there be a takeover by the young? A good place to look for an answer is Microsoft. Microsoft's most important employees are not its managers, but individual programmers. They have great independence in choosing how to do their job. By and large, the managers' task is not to tell the programmers what to do, but to clear obstacles from the path they choose. Microsoft workers are valued most for their ability to think for themselves, they are trusted to find their own solutions to business problems. Managers hold back, knowing that the more specific their order, the more it is likely to undermine their employees' ability to find creative solutions. So they concentrate on the diplomatic tasks that most of the independent young programmers are not much good at: coordinating with other teams, resolving conflicts, motivating people and ensuring that everybody is happy. Microsoft starts to look like a model for the workplace of the future: programmers tend to be in their twenties and early thirties, whereas the managers are about a decade older. Many of the managers are former programmers who reached a point where they no longer wanted to sleep under their desk. The effect of all this is that youth and youth qualities apparently dominate, but the experience and maturity of older employees is put to good use too.
Decide whether the statements reflect the claims of the writer. Choose
|
YES if the statement reflects the claims of the writer. NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer. NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this. |
1. The number of older workers in companies will decline.
2. The Internet is the most important development since the industrial revolution.
3. In many companies, the ability to make the superiors pleased is not one of the most valued skills any longer.
4. Microsoft's most important employees are individual programmers.
Complete the summary below. Use NO MORE THAN THREE words or a number.
In today's workplace and work are becoming mixed and older workers are losing power in their companies. The most important reason for this is which has allowed fresh-faced youths to enter the workplace and make changes. A second reason was the changes made to company in the 80s and 90s which emphasized over seniority. The final reason is that values have changed. Today's workers want opportunity more than Another effect is that older people are behaving like younger people with society's average age between 20 and 30 in some US cities. At Microsoft, the manager's role is not to give workers orders but to from their way and help them discover solutions to business problems.
Read the passage and answer the questions:
There has been much debate over the past few decades concerning fears that automation will lead to robots replacing human workers on a massive scale. The increasing use of robotics, computers and artificial intelligence is a reality, but its full implications are far from cut and dried. Some forecasts present the future in a utopian way, claiming that robots will take over the tedious heavy work, thus freeing time and potential, allowing for more creativity and innovation. At the other end of the spectrum are those who foresee an employment apocalypse, predicting that almost fifty percent of all American jobs could vanish within the next few decades. Former Microsoft chairman Bill Gates stated that in 20 years robots could be in place in a number of job categories, particularly those at the lower end of the scale in terms of skills.
The bottom line is that while the future is always uncertain, robots are a fixture of our society, which is not going to disappear. As with the Industrial Revolution, where machines were utilized in many tasks in place of manual laborers and social upheaval followed, the Digital Revolution is likely to place robots in various jobs. In spite of that, many of today's jobs were not in existence before the Industrial Revolution, such as those of programmers, engineers and data scientists. This leads other experts to criticize this alarmist approach of robot scare-mongering, which is invariably compared to the 19th-century "Luddites". This group was textile workers who feared being displaced by machines and resorted to violence, burning down factories and destroying industrial equipment - their rejection of inevitable progress has come to symbolize mindless ignorance.
Needless to say, exactly what new kinds of jobs might exist in the future is difficult to envision at present. Therefore, the crux of the issue is not whether jobs will be lost, but whether the creation of new vacancies will outpace the ever-increasing number of losses and what skills will be required in the future.
It is clearly not all doom and gloom, as demand for employees with skills in data analysis, coding, computer science, artificial intelligence and human-machine interface is rising and will continue to do so. Furthermore, the demand for skills in jobs where humans surpass computers, such as those involving care, creativity and innovative craftsmanship, are likely to increase considerably. Ultimately, the key lies in the adaptation of the workforce, through appropriate education and training, to keep pace with our world's technological progress.
What is the modern-day view of the Luddites?
Complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first one, using the word in brackets. Do NOT change the word given.
I'm not enthusiastic about the technology project. (WORK)
=> I the technology project.
Complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first one, using the word in brackets. Do NOT change the word given.
I tried as hard as I could to make sure that this problem would not arise. (POWER)
=> I this problem from arising.
Complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first one, using the word in brackets. Do NOT change the word given.
They have very little money to live on now she is unemployed. (HAND)
=> They have been living her job.
Complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first one, using the word in brackets. Do NOT change the word given.
He disliked it when his friend often sang karaoke loudly. (SINGING)
=> He objected karaoke loudly.
Complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first one, using the word in brackets. Do NOT change the word given.
Winter will be here shortly and the days will become depressingly short. (UPON)
=> Winter and the days will become depressingly short.
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
I think you should be tolerant of other people's weaknesses.
=> I think you should make ..........
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
The fact that he will never race again is something he cannot accept.
=> He can’t come to ...............
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
Linda isn't to blame for her child's misbehavior by any means.
=> By no means ..........
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
In spite of her initial reluctance to take the job, she's got on very well.
=> Reluctant ...............
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
It is a widespread assumption that George was wrongly accused.
=> George ...............