You will hear an interview with a financial expert.
For each question, choose the correct answer. You can listen to the audio twice.
What is the main purpose of Moneyspot?
What does Alison say about teenagers in the past?
Alison says that many parents today _____.
Most teenagers' money today is spent on _____.
What difference does Alison say the internet has made?
Alison suggests that parents generally _____.
Alison suggests teenagers work part-time even though _____.
Complete the notes.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS OR A NUMBER for each answer.
| 1000 years ago |
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| Princes Park |
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| Neighborhood Parks |
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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 which has the underlined part pronounced differently from the others.
orchid
earache
architect
bachelor
Choose the word which has the underlined part pronounced differently from the others.
flown
clown
drown
crown
The hotel staff were very _____ and respectful of their guests' privacy.
We cannot have people _____ photos here while the movie is playing.
_____ while I was sleeping like a log in my bedroom last night.
The principal said that he would penalize the student's mischief but then he just went through the _____ and let this student get away with it.
Tina would rather you _____ your son as she is too tired after the three-day conference.
The _____ performance by the orchestra received a standing ovation from the audience.
The vice director is supposed to _____ when her boss is gone away on business. She will be responsible for solving all the company’s affairs during this period.
Orphan elephants need _____ the same companionship as they would have received from their mothers in the wild.
There are several habits that man takes from his childhood and continues to use even after he reaches and _____ maturity.
The highway accident led to a terrible _____ of over 50 vehicles and 100 casualties including deaths.
Choose the word(s) OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s).
Traditionally, the costume is comprised of a wooden goat mask and a suit made of goat skin.
Choose the word(s) OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s).
His career in the illicit drug trade ended with the police raid this morning.
Choose the word(s) CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined word(s).
The economy prospered under his administration.
Choose the word(s) CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined word(s).
Many scientists agree that global warming poses great threats to all species on Earth.
Choose the correct answer.
| do away with | bank on | take on | put on | come off | pass down |
1. Mathew is busy with two important projects, so he can't extra work.
2. Thanks to our careful preparation, the year-end party very well.
3. You can always Jane to give you sound advice. She is a caring and helpful person.
4. She believes that all countries should the death penalty as it is inhumane.
5. The local council has decided to a concert to raise money for cancer charities.
Read the text and choose the best answer to fill in the blanks.
There can be no that online shopping is of huge benefit to consumers. Far from becoming , online shoppers are very demanding. Overpriced merchants with poor services should beware. Gone are the days when stores could charge what they liked for goods and get away with it. The same, too, for shady manufacturers: smarter consumers know which products have a good and which do not, because online they now read not only the sales but also reviews from previous purchasers. And if customers are disappointed, a few clicks of the mouse will take them to places where they can let the world know. Nowadays there is nothing more damning than a flood of negative comments on the internet.
However, the big boys, as always, are ahead of the game. Some companies are already adjusting their business models to take account of these trends. The stores run by Sony and Apple for instance are more like brand showrooms than shops. They are there for people to try out and to ask questions to knowledgeable staff. Whether the products are ultimately bought online or offline is of secondary importance.
Online traders must also adjust. Amazon, for one, is turning from being primarily a bookseller to becoming a mass retailer by letting other companies sell products on its site, rather like a marketplace. During America's Thanksgiving weekend last November, Amazon's sales of consumer electronics in the United States its book sales for the first time in its history. Other transformations in the retail business are to follow.
Complete the text by changing the form of the word in capitals.
FENG SHUI
Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese art of bringing balance to one's immediate surroundings. It aims to harness energy flow within the home to make it a nice, (HEALTH) place in which to live. Although in the West it has only recently gained (ACCEPT) , in China it is considered (DISPENSE) to consult a Feng Shui practitioner before (LOCATE) house or establishing a business. On a mundane level, it is the art of furniture placement, but under stricter (SCRUTINIZE) , meaningful philosophical and religious roots are found (PIN) this venerable art form. The Taoist philosophy out of which it grew sees the world as made up of potent but invisible energy which it calls 'chi'. Feng Shui aims to divert this hidden flow to create a harmonious environment. Although this is an unfamiliar concept to the Western world, the rise of Feng Shui continues (ABATE) . Feng Shui offers some basic rules with which to augment the potential of one's environment. Removal of clutter is said to promote feelings of (LUCID) and calmness. The utilisation of plants (ACT) the detrimental effect of machinery, computers and so on. Finally, because chi energy enters through the front door, it is provident to keep one's door in perfect condition to remove any (IMPEDE) to the passage of entering chi energy.
Read the passage below and fill in each blank with ONE suitable word.
Global warming may be threatening one of the world’s most important crops: rice. Increased nighttime temperatures are associated with significant declines in crop , according to a study conducted by researchers at the International Rice Institute. The researchers analyzed twelve years of rice production along with twenty-five years of temperature data. This study, a direct measurement of yields produced normal field conditions, using methods that good farmers normally employ, has confirmed previous simulations and suggests that temperature increases due to global warming will make it increasingly difficult to feed the Earth’s growing population. Average daytime temperatures, which increased 0.35 degrees Celsius over the of the study, have little effect on rice production. However, a strong correlation exists between warmer nighttime temperatures, have risen an average of 1.1 degrees, and decreasing rice yields. Although the underlying cause of this relationship is unknown, researchers speculate that plants work harder to maintain themselves in response to the warmer nights and consequently divert energy growth. Thus, an average increase of just one degree Celsius can in a ten percent reduction in yields. Similar findings have been reported for corn and soybean yields in the United States.
Read the passage below and fill in each blank with ONE suitable word.
The invention of the camera has had a profound impact on human attitudes and perspectives. We might scoff primitive peoples who were reluctant to allow themselves to be photographed for fear of losing their spirit but, for better or worse, society lost much of its innocence with the advent of photography.
Previously, images of people were in the form of drawn or painted portraits, where artists' albeit flattering interpretations probably showed more of a subject's personality photographs ever could. Society had to forgo the romantically pleasing image and replace it with the bare realism of a fraction of a second, while art itself, no a source of information, but simply aesthetics, experienced a transformation.
In days of , war was glorified by artists who might never have actually seen battle themselves, and exercised more than a little artistic licence when depicting their subjects' heroics. Then the lens unleashed the horrors of war on an unsuspecting public. Front pages cried out with real images, and pretence and illusion came crashing down under the weight of a harsh truth: war is romantic nor glorious.
We gleefully immortalise our fleeting personal moments with holiday snapshots or family photographs but, in so doing, don't allow our memories to mellow with forgetfulness. They are frozen in time with a hard reality that will shock us in the years to . "How we've changed. I'd forgotten ..."
Read the following passage and complete the tasks.
The intense rate of change in the world
A. The intense rate of change in the world gives rise to numerous new products – many of them electronic. What is brand new and state-of-the-art one month is quickly relegated to old model status the next. Within the world of computing, this frenetic pace of change has led to millions of out-dated, worthless products. Keystone, an American-based research company reported, 'In 2005, one computer became obsolete for every new one introduced in die market. By the year 2010, experts estimate that in the USA there will be over 500 million obsolete computers. Most of these computers will be destined for landfills, incinerators or hazardous waste exports.' Old, outdated keyboards, monitors and hard drives all combine to produce what is now widely known as ‘e-waste’ and the way to appropriately dispose of them is proving to be a challenge.
B. Most computers are a complicated assembly of hundreds of different materials, many of which are highly toxic. Most computer users are unaware that these toxic metals, acids, plastics and other substances have been shown to be the cause of various blood diseases and cancers. Amongst workers involved in the recycling of computer products, there has been a proliferation of blood diseases. Printed circuit boards, for example, contain heavy metals such as antimony, silver, chromium, zinc, lead, tin and copper. Environmentalist Kieran Shaw estimates there is hardly any other product for which the sum of the environmental impacts of raw material, extraction, industrial refining and production, use and disposal is so extensive as for printed circuit boards.
C. Workers involved in the disposal of computers via incineration are themselves being exposed to significantly high levels of toxicity. Copper, for example, is a catalyst in the release of harmful chemicals when exposed to the high tempera lures of incineration. In US and Canadian environments, incineration is one of the greatest sources of heavy metal contamination of the atmosphere. Unfortunately, another form of incineration, smelting, can present dangers similar to incineration. Concerns have been expressed that the Noranda Smelter in Quebec, Canada is producing atmospheric pollutants from the residual presence of plastics in the e-scrap.
D. In an effort to explore other alternatives, landfills have been tried, studies have shown, however, that even the best landfills are not completely safe. In feet, the shortcomings of dealing with waste via modern landfills are well documented. The main ‘offender’ in the area of metal leaching is mercury. In varying degrees, mercury escapes or leaches from certain electronic devices such as circuit breakers, condensers and computer circuit boards into the soil. According to Phil Stevenson, managing director of CleanCo a recycling plant in the UK, 'Everyone knows that landfills leak – it has become common knowledge. Even the best, state-of-the-art landfills are not completely tight throughout their lifetimes, to one degree or another, a certain amount of chemical and metal leaching occurs. The situation is far worse for older or less stringent dump sites. If uncontrolled fires are allowed to burn through these landfill areas, other toxic chemicals such as lead and cadmium are released.'
E. An overwhelming majority of the world’s hazardous e-waste is generated by the industrialised market economies. Because labour costs are cheap and government regulations in some countries are decidedly lax, the exporting of e-waste has been practiced as another method to deal with its disposal. In the USA, for example, Datatek, a research company, estimated that it was 12 times cheaper to ship old computer monitors to China than it was to recycle them. Data on the prevalence of this activity is scarce due to past bad publicity and dealers of e-scrap not bothering to determine the final destination of the products they sell. In 1989 the world community established the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste for final Disposal to stop the industrialised nations of the OECD from dumping their waste on and in less-developed countries.
F. Europe has taken the lead on e-waste management by requiring governments to implement laws controlling the production and disposal of electrical products. The European Union (EL) lias drafted legislation on Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (the WEEE Directive) based on a concept known as Extended Producer Responsibility (EFR). Essentially, EFR places the responsibility of the production and disposal squarely on the shoulders of the producers of electronic products, it requires that producers consider carefully the environmental impact of the products they bring to the marketplace. The aim of EPR is to encourage producers of electrical equipment to prevent pollution and reduce resource and energy use at each stage of the product file cycle. The lead in Europe has been necessary because WEEE is about three times higher than the growth of any other municipal waste streams.
G. WEE legislation will phase out the use of toxic substances such as mercury, cadmium and lead in electronic and electrical goods by the year 2008. It will require producers of electrical equipment to be responsible financially for the collection, recycling and disposal of their products. It has stipulated that products containing any lead, mercury, cadmium and other toxic substances must not be incinerated. It encourages producers to integrate an increasing quantity of recycled material in any new products they produce. In fact, between 70% and 90% by weight of all collected equipment must be recycled or re-used. These directives will go a long way toward improving the e-waste problem in Europe and other governments of the world should look seriously at implementation of some or all of the legislation.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
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List of headings i. Exporting e-waste ii. The hazards of burning computer junk iii. Blame developed countries for e-waste iv. Landfills are not satisfactory v. Producer’s legal responsibility vi. The dangers of computer circuit boards vii. Electronic changes bring waste viii. European e-waste laws ix. The dangerous substances found in computers x. Landfills and mercury leaching xi. New products must contain recycled products |
Paragraph A:
Paragraph B:
Paragraph C:
Paragraph D:
Paragraph E:
Paragraph F:
Paragraph G:
Classify the following features as belong to
| A. Noranda Smelter |
| B. Datatek |
| C. Keystone |
| D. CleanCo |
Waste sites without strict dumping rules leads to big problems.
E-waste should be re-located to other countries.
Most old computers will be buried or burned.
It is impossible to contain metal waste in soil.
According to the information in the text, which THREE of the following pollution laws have been proposed in Europe?
Read the passage below and answer the following questions.
In the last few decades, wine has gained a reputation for being good for our health. What is less well-known is that research has found strong links between alcohol and cancer. One bottle of wine per week is associated with an increased cancer risk for non-smokers of 1% for men and 1.4% for women. This equates one bottle of wine per week to five cigarettes for men, or 10 for women. "While a lot of work has been done to communicate the link between smoking and cancer, this is less so for alcohol because public health officials control messaging for smoking, whereas with alcohol, it's largely been up to the alcohol industry to communicate this itself," says Mark Bellis, director of policy, research and international development at Public Health Wales.
The idea that a tipple can be beneficial dates back to the 1970s, when scientists found that French people were less likely to have heart disease than other populations, despite eating more saturated fat. There was a clear relationship between lower levels of heart disease and wine consumption. This came to be known as the French paradox - a conundrum which scientists are still untangling today. We have since been led to believe that moderate wine-drinking can reduce our risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and weight gain. As a result, for a long time, the consensus was that abstaining from alcohol is unhealthier than consuming moderate amounts of alcohol (equivalent to one or two drinks a day).
However, it is now widely understood that a lot of this data could be flawed: people abstaining from alcohol may be doing so because they're unwell, rather than becoming unwell because they're abstaining. In one 2019 study, researchers took a different approach to determine whether moderate alcohol intake really is linked to lower risk of heart disease. "Those with no defects can drink as much as they like. But those with a dysfunctional enzyme can't tolerate alcohol at all," says Zhengming Chen, one of the study's authors and professor of Epidemiology, at the University of Oxford's Nuffield Department of Population Health. Researchers also found that the more people drank, the more likely they were to experience high blood pressure and stroke - and there was no reduced risk among people who drank one to two units per day. There was no association either way with heart attacks. As a result, while there was a clear link between alcohol consumption and stroke risk, something in alcohol may protect us against heart attacks. It's important to note that the researchers converted all alcoholic drinks into standard alcoholic units, so the results aren't specific to wine. However, Chen argues wine wouldn't have shown any different results.
What does the author mean when saying "What is less well-known is that research has found strong links between alcohol and cancer." in paragraph 1?
Why does the author mention "cigarettes" in paragraph 1?
What does the word "this" in paragraph 1 refer to?
What does the author mean by "the French paradox" in paragraph 2?
What is the word "untangling" in paragraph 2 closest in meaning to?
Which of the following best paraphrases this statement: "the consensus was that abstaining from alcohol is unhealthier than consuming moderate amounts of alcohol" in paragraph 2?
What is NOT TRUE about the 2019 study?
What is the purpose of the passage?
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
I think you should confront your boss right now with how you feel about this. (OUT)
=> Why don't you ..........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
Apparently, a lot of employees will be made redundant when the 21st Century Fox is taken over. (HEAP)
=> Apparently, many an ...........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
I can't understand this complicated puzzle. (TAIL)
=> I ..........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
I would have appreciated it if you hadn't pretended to support my view. (LIP)
=> I would sooner ...........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
To pass the time, I looked through some magazines. (WHILED)
=> I ..........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
Don't make a fuss over such trivial things. (MOUNTAIN)
=> Don't ..........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
If the local people were more responsible for their environment, certain species would not become nearly extinct. (EDGE)
=> Were the local people ....................
Write an academic essay of about 250 words on the following topic.
Nowadays, many school students are experiencing serious mental health problems such as anxiety, stress, and depression. What do you think are the causes of their mental health problems? How can these problems be solved?
Use relevant examples and explanations to support your ideas.