Đề thi vào lớp 10 môn Anh Chuyên - Sở GD&ĐT Quảng Trị năm 2026

It seems that every company nowadays is touting their 'green' credentials, with promises to save the planet, reduce carbon footprints and protect the environment. 28.1 are these companies really that green, or is it all just a marketing ploy to make more sales? Greenwashing is 28.2 practice of making outlandish or exaggerated claims about a company's environmental practices or products. However, in 28.3, these claims are often misleading or false. Many companies 28.4 using vague or undefined terms such as 'sustainable' or 'eco-friendly' to create the illusion of environmentally friendly products, when 28.5 fact, they are anything but. In contrast, companies that are genuinely committed 28.6 sustainability have crystal-clear messages about their environmental practices. Often, these companies are smaller and may struggle to 28.7 with larger companies' advertising budgets. Companies may encounter legal problems 28.8 they are caught making misleading claims about their products' environmental impact. However, the most significant problem with greenwashing is 28.9 it undermines real efforts to reduce the environmental impact of businesses. Don't be fooled by vague claims about 'green' practices or products. Instead, 28.10 for companies with clear and specific sustainability targets, and support them. The planet depends on it.

In addition to the challenge to be excellent, American schools have been facing novel problems. They must 29.1fightdostaycope with an influx of immigrant children, many of whom speak little or no English. They must respond to demands 29.2thatwhatwhetherwho the curriculum reflect the various cultures of all children. Schools must make sure that students develop 29.3basisbasicsbasebasic skills for the job market, and they must consider the needs of nontraditional students, such as teenage mothers. Schools are 29.4deliveringaddressingdistributingdischarging these problems in ways that reflect the diversity of the US educational system. They are hiring or training large numbers of teachers of English 29.5fromlikeaswith a second language and, in some communities, setting up bilingual schools. They are opening up the traditional European-centered curriculum to embrace material from African, Asian, and 29.6otheranotherthe othersothers cultures. Schools are also teaching cognitive skills to the 29.7slightlymostlyfairlynearly 40 percent of American students who do not go on to higher education. In the 29.8waysdirectionsmindswords of a recent report by the Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, "A strong back, the willingness to work, and a high school diploma were once all that was necessary to 29.9takegetbringmake a start in America. They are no longer. A well-developed mind, a continued willingness to learn and the ability to put knowledge to work are the new keys to the future of our young people, the 29.10successinfluencedecisionchallenge of our business, and the economic well-being of the nation."

Have you ever entered a tropical rainforest? It's a special, dark place completely different from anywhere else. A rainforest is a place where the trees grow very tall. Millions of kinds of animals, insects, and plants live in the rainforest. It is hot and humid in a rainforest. It rains a lot in the rainforest, but sometimes you don't know it's raining. The trees grow so closely together that rain doesn't always reach the ground.

Rainforests make up only a small part of the Earth's surface, about six percent. They are found in tropical parts of the world. The largest rainforest in the world is the Amazon in South America. The Amazon covers 1.2 billion acres, or almost five million square kilometers. The second-largest rainforest is in Western Africa. There are also rainforests in Central America, Southeast Asia, Northeastern Australia, and the Pacific Islands.

Rainforests provide us with many things. In fact, the Amazon Rainforest is called the "lungs of our planet" because it produces twenty percent of the world's oxygen. One-fifth of the world's fresh water is also found in the Amazon Rainforest. Furthermore, half of the world's species of animals, plants, and insects live in the Earth's rainforests. Eighty percent of the food we eat first grew in the rainforest. For example, pineapples, bananas, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, chocolate, coffee, and sugar all came from rainforests. Twenty-five percent of the drugs we take when we are sick are made of plants that grow only in rainforests. Some of these drugs are even used to fight and cure cancer.

With all the good things we get from rainforests, it's surprising to find that we are destroying our rainforests. In fact, 1.5 acres, or 6,000 square meters, of rainforest disappear every second. The forests are being cut down to make fields for cows, to harvest the plants, and to clear land for farms. Along with losing countless valuable species, the destruction of rainforests creates many problems worldwide. Destruction of rainforests results in more pollution, less rain, and less oxygen for the world.

The Marshmallow Test

A psychology experiment carried out with a group of pre-school children in California in 1968 led to the development of ideas that are still relevant today.

A. In 1968, Walter Mischel set a challenge for a group of children aged three to five at the nursery school his daughters attended in California. A researcher offered each of them a marshmallow and then left them alone in the room. If they could resist eating the colourful sweet until the researcher returned up to 15 minutes later, they would be given a second sweet. Some children ate the marshmallow straight away, but most would engage in unintentionally comic attempts to resist temptation. They looked all around the room to avoid seeing the sweet, covered their eyes, wiggled around in their seats or sang to themselves. They pulled funny faces, played with their hair, picked up the marshmallow and just pretended to take a bite. They sniffed it, pushed it away from them or covered it up. If two children were doing the experiment together, they engaged in a conversation about how they could work together to reach the goal of doubling their pleasure. About a third of the children, the researchers reported, managed to wait long enough to get the second treat.

B. What Mischel, a clinical psychologist, wanted was to understand how children learned to deal with temptation. Over the following years, the group of children remained friends. When Mischel chatted to his daughters about their former classmates, he began to notice an interesting pattern: the children who had exhibited the most restraint in the 'marshmallow test' were doing better in life than their peers. He decided to investigate further. For more than 40 years, Mischel followed the lives of the nursery students. His findings were extraordinary. It turns out that being able to resist a treat at the age of five is a strong predictor of success in life: you are more likely to perform well at school and develop self-confidence and less likely to become obese, develop addictions or get divorced.

C. Mischel still teaches psychology at Columbia University and has just written The Marshmallow Test, a book summing up half a century of research. When Mischel was young, his family was forced to move from a comfortable life in Austria to the US. They settled in Brooklyn, where they opened a bargain shopping store. Business was never good and Mischel believes that moving from 'upper middle class to extreme poverty' shaped his outlook. He is concerned with trying to reduce the impact of deprivation on an individual's life chances. The conclusion he draws from his marshmallow research is positive: some people may be naturally disciplined but the ability to resist temptation is a skill that can also be taught. Teach children self-control early and you can improve their prospects.

D. However, no single characteristic — such as self-control — can explain success or failure. Some critics have pointed out that Mischel's original subjects were themselves children of university professors and graduate students — not exactly a representative sample. Other scientists noted that variations in home environment could account for differences: stable homes and one-child families encourage self-control, whereas in less stable homes and those with many children, if you don't grab a marshmallow now there won't be any left in 15 minutes. Mischel answers these critics by noting that studies in a wide variety of schools found similar results. He acknowledges that the environment shapes our ability to resist temptation and observes that genetics plays a role too. But he still believes that the ability to resist temptation can be learnt and encouraged. I asked Mischel whether self-control comes easily to him. 'Not at all,' he said. 'I have great difficulties in waiting. It's still difficult for me to wait in a queue in the bank.'