Listen to the first part of the conversation and complete the notes below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS OR A NUMBER for each answer.
COMMUNITY CENTRE BOOKING FORM
- Reason for choosing this venue: Other venues were either too small for about 70 guests or completely
- Maximum room capacity: The large room can hold at least people comfortably.
- Room booked: The
- Drinks allowed: Because of licensing rules, guests may only have on the premises.
Listen to the rest of the conversation and complete the notes below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS OR A NUMBER for each answer.
- Customer's postcode:
- Customer's mobile number: 07897
- Equipment arrangement: Maria will hire the venue's disco equipment but may bring a spare just in case.
- Food arrangement: Maria turned down the catering offer because of a fairly .
- Payment rule: The remaining must be paid at least two days before the event.
- Cancellation rule: A late cancellation will cost Maria her .
You will hear five short extracts in which people are talking about events and services related to money.
(WHILE LISTENING TO EACH SPEAKER, YOU MUST COMPLETE BOTH TASKS, TASK 1 AND TASK 2 AT THE SAME TIME).
You will listen twice. Write your answers in the boxes provided.
TASK 1. For questions 1-5, choose from the list (A-H) the purpose of each event or service.
A. to teach children formal money skills before they are old enough to manage money independently
B. to collect useful data about shoppers while presenting the scheme as a customer reward
C. to use a free business event to gain publicity and offer paid extras
D. to promote leisure technology by presenting it as a kind of therapy
E. to allow people to buy and sell used personal items through face-to-face bargaining
F. to help children make simple spending choices with their pocket money
G. to use money from a gaming event to support recreation for children in hospital
H. to give regular shoppers savings large enough to make loyalty cards worthwhile
Speaker 1:
Speaker 2:
Speaker 3:
Speaker 4:
Speaker 5:
TASK 2. For questions 6-10, choose from the list (A-H) how each speaker feels about the event or service he or she describes.
A. disappointed after deciding that the customer reward is too small for the effort needed
B. annoyed by repeated technical problems with the event or service being described
C. attracted by the unexpected finds, bargaining and lively atmosphere of a face-to-face market
D. worried that children are being expected to learn adult money skills too early
E. uncomfortable with the organisers' attempts to sell extra services during the event
F. slightly amused after realizing how a free event also serves promotional purposes
G. excited because the activity combines a personal hobby with helping other people
H. relieved to understand why a financially puzzling event could work in practice
Speaker 1:
Speaker 2:
Speaker 3:
Speaker 4:
Speaker 5:
You will hear an interview in which two psychologists called Matthew Partridge and Emma Macedo are talking about the benefits of holidays. Choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which fits best according to what you hear.
What does Matthew suggest about adults' reasons for valuing holidays?
What point does Emma make about the "holiday happiness curve"?
What did Matthew's diary research suggest about tourists' accounts of their holidays?
What do Matthew and Emma agree makes holiday research difficult to interpret?
What advice do Matthew and Emma both support at the end of the interview?
It was the first time in the history of this corporation that the board of directors _________ such a generous year-end bonus to all staff members.
Not until the chief accountant carefully analyzed the quarterly report _________ how serious the company's financial deficit actually was.
The fire alarm _________ accidentally in the middle of the night, waking up all the hotel guests.
Despite the _________ schedule, the delegates managed to cover all the pressing issues on the agenda.
The athlete managed to win the gold medal _________ he was still recovering from a severe knee injury.
The health department requires that all medical equipment _______ thoroughly after each surgical procedure.
We were driving along the highway when a deer jumped in front of our car entirely _____.
Choose the word(s) CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined word(s).
The board of directors holds a strategic meeting semiannually to review the company's financial progress.
Choose the word(s) OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s).
When the major project completely failed, the lead architect was down in the dumps for weeks.
Tom and Mary are discussing the impact of technology.
Tom: I think artificial intelligence will completely change the way we work in the future.
Mary: _________. Most routine tasks in our office are already being automated.
The passage below contains 10 mistakes. Identify and correct the mistakes. Write your answers in the boxes provided.
[content][/content]
Complete the passage by changing the form of the word in capitals.
E-Learning Platforms
E-learning is a digital educational framework that enables students to access virtual courses enriched with interactive quizzes, videos, and discussion forums. The rise of online learning can be attributed to its appeal to modern students who appreciate its flexible interface, (STIMULATE) content and opportunities for self-paced study.
In recent years, e-learning has developed into a (GLOBE) phenomenon, with its use becoming increasingly (WIDE) among learners in both urban and rural areas.
This broad access has made e-learning one of the most convenient educational methods across the country. Its popularity has also accelerated the (EMERGE) of digital educators who use these platforms to reach larger classes and share their academic expertise.
The system is particularly popular among high schoolers and working professionals who value its (CAPABLE) to foster adaptability, critical thinking, and technical skills.
Furthermore, the platform's course (RECOMMEND) feature plays a significant role in this success, allowing users to discover new subjects tailored to their career goals and (EXPECT).
Virtual education's rise has not been without (CRITICAL) however. Critics raise concerns about the system's potential to compromise academic integrity and cause repeated (UNDERSTAND) among students lacking direct teacher supervision.
Despite these concerns, online learning continues to be in (EXTEND) use among learners of different age groups nationwide.
Read the following passage and choose the best answer to indicate the correct word for each of the blanks. Write your answers in the boxes provided.
As the world's population continues to grow, more and more people are migrating to cities. While urban living offers a(n) of opportunities, it can also have a profound impact on our mental well-being. On the one hand, cities are vibrant and culturally rich, providing endless possibilities for entertainment and career advancement. However, the constant noise, pollution, and fast-paced lifestyle can take a on our health. Research has shown that city dwellers are more to stress and anxiety compared to those living in rural areas. The sheer volume of daily stimuli can be leaving individuals feeling exhausted and drained at the end of the day. Furthermore, despite being surrounded by millions of strangers, it is surprisingly easy to feel isolated and in a metropolis. This sense of urban loneliness is a growing concern among psychologists today.
To these negative effects, experts recommend spending regular time in green spaces. Parks and botanical gardens act as an oasis, offering a much-needed from the concrete jungle. Regular exposure to nature has been proven to lower blood pressure and improve overall mood. these findings, modern city planners are increasingly incorporating natural elements into urban design. In addition to green spaces, fostering a sense of community is crucial. urban life definitely has its challenges, it is entirely possible to thrive in a large city we prioritize our mental health and make a conscious effort to stay connected to nature and to each other.
Fill in each blank with ONE best word.
THE FALLIBILITY OF HUMAN MEMORY
Memory is not a faithful recording device but a highly malleable reconstruction. We all harbour an innate desire to trust our recollections, seeking solace in the continuity of our personal narratives. For neuroscientists, unravelling the mechanics of memory is crucial for dispelling the seductive of infallibility. By scrutinizing these cognitive flaws, individuals can learn to utterly divorce themselves from the self-serving narratives to which they have long been and develop a more grounded sense of self.
as we might wish to view memory as a pristine archive, it is perhaps more apt to liken it a constantly shifting kaleidoscope. Contemporary psychologists are striving to definitively render such outdated misconceptions and void, incorporating cognitive behavioural strategies to build resilient psyches.
Pioneering researchers have played an instrumental role in reshaping the to which eyewitness testimony is trusted. Their groundbreaking work the lie to the notion that we can perfectly recall our pasts, making memory a highly contested domain in jurisprudence.
Deciphering memory errors like the Mandela effect necessitates less than a profound re-evaluation of human consciousness. By delving into suggestibility, we can better comprehend modern-day phenomena like the rapid spread of misinformation. all intents and purposes, our recollection of the past is but a perfect ledger; it is a precarious, living tapestry of our present state of mind.
Read the following passage and choose the correct answer to each of the questions.
The Chronopolitical Misreading of Adolescent Sleep
One of the more durable assumptions in modern schooling and parenting is that adolescent lethargy is, at bottom, a failure of discipline. The chronically somnolent teenager is still routinely interpreted as obstinate, indulgent or insufficiently trained into adult habits of punctuality. Yet chronobiology complicates that moral story. During puberty, the adolescent sleep cycle undergoes an ontogenetic phase shift: melatonin secretion is delayed, sleep pressure accumulates differently, and early-morning alertness becomes physiologically harder to achieve. What adults often read as recalcitrance may therefore be better understood as a biological rhythm being forced into an institutionally convenient timetable.
The difficulty is not merely that teenagers go to bed late and wake late. Rather, their internal timing system is repeatedly made to oscillate between incompatible regimes: school-week obligations impose exogenous demands, while weekends allow the endogenous drive to reassert itself. "Catch-up sleep" can reduce the subjective feeling of exhaustion, but it does not necessarily restore temporal stability. Indeed, the very alternation between deprivation and compensation produces what researchers often call social jetlag: a metabolic and cognitive cost generated less by a single late night than by the repeated wrenching of the body clock between competing schedules.
Nor is this phase delay simply a pathology of smartphones or electric light. Evolutionary accounts remain necessarily inferential, but anthropological evidence suggests that staggered sleep patterns may have had adaptive value in pre-industrial communities, where the wakefulness of adolescents could contribute to collective vigilance while older adults slept. Whether or not this explanation is exhaustive, it undercuts the claim that teenage nocturnality is a recent moral decay. Digital culture can certainly intensify the problem, but it amplifies a pre-existing biological disposition rather than inventing it.
That distinction matters because circadian misalignment does not manifest with uniform severity. In communities where artificial light plays a limited role, the symptoms may be less conspicuous; in screen-saturated societies, they may be magnified. Yet mitigation is not eradication. A teenager may develop excellent sleep hygiene, limit evening screen exposure and maintain a consistent bedtime, but such discipline works within the parameters of a shifted biological system. It can reduce friction between biology and schedule; it cannot convert adolescent chronobiology into adult chronobiology on command.
The developmental stakes are considerable. Chronic sleep deprivation often coincides with a period in which the prefrontal cortex is still maturing, and restorative sleep supports memory consolidation as well as emotional regulation. The point is not that adolescents are neurologically defective. It is that a biologically ordinary phase becomes costly when institutions systematically require young people to perform cognitive labour at times when their bodies are least prepared for it. The problem lies in the collision between developmental timing and social timing.
Nevertheless, adult society tends to treat its own timetable as neutral. Early rising is associated with maturity, diligence and moral seriousness, while sleeping late is made to signify carelessness or sloth. This hierarchy is not simply descriptive; it is institutionally reinforced. Corporate hours, school bells and transport systems all confer an aura of normality on adult schedules, making them appear biologically superior when they may merely be socially privileged.
Adult chronotypes themselves are diverse, but that diversity is partly obscured by the fact that institutions are built around adult working rhythms.
This helps explain why school start-time reform remains contentious. Examples such as Edina Public Schools in Minnesota and the Seattle School District are not proof that every reform produces identical outcomes, nor do they abolish the adolescent phase delay itself. Their significance is more modest but more philosophically unsettling: they show that the early timetable is not a law of nature. Institutional arrangements can be altered when they are made to answer to neurobiological evidence rather than inherited habits of adult convenience.
The larger question, then, is not whether teenagers should be excused from responsibility. Sleep hygiene, digital boundaries and personal routines remain important. But a society that treats adolescent biology as a character defect mistakes compliance for maturity and convenience for truth. If education is to be genuinely developmental, it must ask not only how young people can adapt to institutions, but also when institutions should be recalibrated to fit the young people they claim to serve.
According to the first paragraph, what is the author's main objection to the conventional interpretation of adolescent lethargy?
It assumes that teenagers are biologically incapable of developing punctual habits before adulthood.
It moralizes a physiologically grounded delay by recasting it as weakness or poor discipline.
It exaggerates the role of schooling while ignoring the influence of family routines on sleep.
It treats chronobiology as a convenient excuse for adolescents who reject adult expectations.
What does the discussion of "catch-up sleep" and "social jetlag" suggest?
Alternating between imposed schedules and biological rhythms allows the body clock to stabilise around a midpoint over time.
Weekend recovery partially restores cognitive function but creates a cumulative metabolic cost that persists into the school week.
Repeated movement between imposed schedules and biological timing creates a costly instability.
Social jetlag measures the psychological fatigue produced mainly by one severe night of sleep loss.
What role does the evolutionary discussion in paragraph 3 play in the author's argument?
It proves that modern adolescents should maintain the nocturnal duties once required in tribal life.
It demonstrates that digital habits, not biological predisposition, are the primary driver of contemporary adolescent sleep difficulties.
It presents pre-industrial sleep patterns as morally superior to modern educational timetables.
It provides historical evidence that adolescent nocturnality predates modern social conditions.
Which distinction is most important to the author's argument in paragraph 4?
The distinction between mitigating the symptoms of phase delay and abolishing the biological shift itself.
The distinction between adolescents who use screens irresponsibly and those who practise good sleep hygiene.
The distinction between pre-industrial adolescents and modern adolescents as biologically separate groups.
The distinction between sleep hygiene as an individual practice and circadian delay as a scheduling problem.
What is the author's point about the neurological evidence in paragraph 5?
It proves that adolescent sleep delay should be treated as a genuine neurological disorder.
It shows that prefrontal development makes teenagers broadly unfit for academic responsibility.
It explains why forced early performance is especially costly during a normal developmental phase.
It confirms that adolescents with good sleep hygiene develop prefrontal capacity at a normal rate.
Which distinction is most central to the author's argument across the passage?
The distinction between adolescent irresponsibility and adult moral consistency.
The distinction between digital distraction and traditional educational discipline.
The distinction between neurological disorder and culturally conditioned behavioral failure.
The distinction between biological timing and the institutional framing of normality.
Why does the author mention Edina Public Schools and the Seattle School District?
To show that early school schedules are historically contingent rather than biologically inevitable.
To demonstrate that school start-time reform has conclusively solved adolescent sleep deprivation.
To argue that local reforms matter only when they produce identical results in every district.
To show that neurobiological evidence justifies replacing all schedules with individually tailored timetables.
Which statement best captures the author's qualification of school start-time reform?
Reform is valuable because it proves adolescent sleep delay is socially produced, not biological.
Reform cannot abolish phase delay, but it exposes early scheduling as historically contingent.
Reform is unnecessary because disciplined teenagers can overcome circadian delay through sleep hygiene.
Reform is persuasive only if it yields identical academic gains in all participating districts.
Read the following passage and do the tasks below.
THE PERFORMATIVE IDENTITY OF THE DIGITAL ADOLESCENT
Section A
The contemporary adolescent does not merely use digital platforms; increasingly, he or she becomes socially legible through them. Identity is no longer formed only through classroom encounters, family rituals or neighbourhood friendships, but through a semi-public arena in which the self is continuously displayed, interpreted and corrected. Smartphones have collapsed the distinction between private experimentation and public performance: an awkward opinion, an unflattering image or an unguarded joke may be archived, circulated and judged long after the moment has passed. In this sense, social media has become less a communicative accessory than an infrastructure of adolescent selfhood, turning identity formation into a process of perpetual visibility.
Section B
This digital visibility is powerful because it attaches itself to an old biological need. Adolescents have always been unusually sensitive to peer evaluation; evolutionary psychologists often interpret this sensitivity as part of a broader drive toward social belonging and group acceptance. What digital platforms do is not create this need ex nihilo, but translate it into quantifiable signals. Likes, shares, comments and follower counts transform belonging into a dashboard of social worth. The adolescent is therefore not simply "seeking attention" in the crude sense. Rather, a developmentally normal hunger for recognition is converted into a measurable economy of approval, making social status appear both instantly visible and endlessly revisable.
Section C
The result is the emergence of a carefully managed performative self. Digital adolescents learn, often without explicit instruction, to anticipate how a future audience might interpret each image, caption or silence. The online persona must appear spontaneous while being painstakingly curated; it must seem authentic while suppressing precisely those awkward, contradictory and unfinished elements that make adolescence psychologically real. This labour of self-presentation can become corrosive. When the curated avatar begins to diverge too sharply from the lived self, teenagers may experience not simple vanity but a more destabilising dissonance: the sense that the version of themselves most rewarded by others is also the least truthful.
Section D
Yet the constant availability of others does not necessarily produce genuine intimacy. A teenager may be connected to hundreds of acquaintances and still lack relationships grounded in vulnerability, trust and sustained attention. Much online exchange is reciprocal only in the thinnest sense: one visible gesture is exchanged for another, while little emotional risk is actually taken. Such interactions can simulate recognition without requiring the depth of mutual presence on which intimacy depends. The paradox is therefore not that adolescents are isolated because they lack contact, but that they may be lonely precisely within networks that provide abundant contact while impoverishing its quality.
Section E
The psychological strain is intensified by the design of the platforms themselves. Their architecture is not neutral: it is calibrated to keep attention returning through variable rewards, intermittent reinforcement and dopaminergic feedback loops. These neurochemical mechanisms matter, but they are not the whole explanation. What makes the system especially insidious is that adolescent susceptibility is embedded in a commercial model that profits from prolonged engagement. Insecurity, curiosity and the fear of exclusion become monetisable resources. The compulsive scroll is therefore not merely a weakness of adolescent willpower; it is also the predictable outcome of environments engineered to make disengagement difficult.
Section F
A serious educational response cannot consist simply of confiscation or moral panic. Strict bans may reduce exposure in the short term, but they do little to teach young people how to interpret, challenge or resist the systems they will inevitably encounter. The more demanding task is to cultivate algorithmic literacy, metacognitive awareness and ethical digital agency. Adolescents need to understand how platforms rank information, manipulate attention and convert behaviour into data. Only then can they move from being passive objects of digital validation to critical participants capable of using technology without allowing it to define the terms of their self-worth.
Reading Passage has 6 sections, A-F. Choose the correct headings for sections A-F from the list of headings below. Write the correct number i-viii in answer boxes 1-6.
| List of Headings |
|---|
| i. Commercialising neurochemical vulnerability through attention capture |
| ii. Critical agency as an alternative to protective prohibition |
| iii. Selfhood made accountable to an enduring digital audience |
| iv. Evolved belonging translated into visible, revisable metrics |
| v. The authenticity paradox of curated self-presentation |
| vi. Autonomy restored by limiting dependence on digital platforms |
| vii. Abundant contact as a substitute for mutual vulnerability |
| viii. Neurochemical reinforcement as a sufficient account of compulsion |
1. Section A:
2. Section B:
3. Section C:
4. Section D:
5. Section E:
6. Section F:
Read the passage and decide if the following statements are TRUE, FALSE, or NOT GIVEN.
The passage suggests that digital platforms do not generate adolescents' need for recognition from nothing, but alter its social force by making approval measurable, visible and revisable.
Read the passage and decide if the following statements are TRUE, FALSE, or NOT GIVEN.
The performative self is presented as harmful chiefly because adolescents deliberately falsify their identities in order to secure social dominance over their peers.
Read the passage and decide if the following statements are TRUE, FALSE, or NOT GIVEN.
Adolescents who maintain strong offline social relationships are suggested to develop a more stable sense of identity than those whose primary social interactions are digital.
Read the passage and decide if the following statements are TRUE, FALSE, or NOT GIVEN.
The passage presents neurochemical reinforcement as fully accounting for compulsive digital engagement, leaving no explanatory role for the commercial incentive structures of platforms.
Read the passage and decide if the following statements are TRUE, FALSE, or NOT GIVEN.
The author's objection to strict bans is not that they can never reduce exposure, but that they leave adolescents without the interpretive capacities needed for an unavoidable digital environment.
Read the passage and decide if the following statements are TRUE, FALSE, or NOT GIVEN.
The passage reports that schools teaching algorithmic literacy have reduced students' dependence on likes, comments and follower counts more effectively than schools relying on device restrictions.
Write a new sentence as similar as possible in meaning to the original sentence, using the word given. This word must not be altered in any way. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word given.
He resented the way she spoke to him.
=> He she spoke to him. (EXCEPTION)
Write a new sentence as similar as possible in meaning to the original sentence, using the word given. This word must not be altered in any way. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word given.
Everyone was in a deep sleep when the fire started.
=> Everyone broke out. (SOUND)
Write a new sentence as similar as possible in meaning to the original sentence, using the word given. This word must not be altered in any way. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word given.
The century-old firm may not survive if the impending economic recession deepens.
=> The century-old firm's as the impending economic recession deepens. (BALANCE)
Write a new sentence as similar as possible in meaning to the original sentence, using the word given. This word must not be altered in any way. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word given.
They accused John of breaking the window.
=> They the window. (PUT)
Write a new sentence as similar as possible in meaning to the original sentence, using the word given. This word must not be altered in any way. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word given.
The dense clouds parted just long enough for me to see the majestic comet briefly.
=> I merely the majestic comet before the clouds closed in again. (FLEETING)
A popular national educational magazine, Youth & Future, recently published an editorial arguing that all secondary schools should strictly ban the use of AI tools, such as ChatGPT, in order to prevent cheating and protect students' critical thinking. The magazine has invited student readers to submit letters sharing their views on this controversial issue.
Write a letter of at least 200 words to the Editor responding to their article.
In your letter, you should:
- explain why completely banning AI is not a wise solution in today's technology-driven world;
- suggest better ways for schools to teach and assess students' use of AI;
- persuade readers that using AI responsibly can prepare students better for future study and work.
Use your name and address as Thao Duong - 32 Minh Khai Street, Thanh Vinh Ward, Nghe An Province.
Dear Editor,
...
Yours faithfully,
Thao Duong
Write an essay of at least 300 words on the following topic:
Some people argue that parents should organize their teenagers' after-school time with extra classes and planned activities to guarantee their success in a highly competitive world. Others, however, believe that without completely free, unstructured time, teenagers will never learn how to manage themselves or discover their true passions.
Discuss both views and give your own opinion.
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.