The thief _____ the watch into his pocket when he thought no one was looking.
Between 1950 and 1970, the seal population of Canada had been ______ by between 50% and 75%.
More than five million people die from ______ diseases each year.
I'll be ______ all day if I don't have a cup of coffee when I wake up.
A: These two cars are exactly alike, aren't they?
B: Well, they are different ______ is quicker.
It turned out that the business tycoon was in _____ with local law enforcement to have the investigation dropped.
A.I. is bringing about a _____ shift in what is normally considered ‘skilled, intellectual, creative’ fields.
K-pop superstar Rose has joined U.S. first lady Jill Biden at a mental health event to talk about how even famous people _____ emotional struggles.
These ______ office cubicles are drab, plain, and depressing to work in.
_____, Edison didn't have much schooling and he was taught by his mother.
You _____ so much on CDs. You'll have problems getting to the end of the month now.
The museum acquired _____ believed to depict a forgotten god.
_____ when they learned that the chairman would not be able to join the meeting.
The company stipulates that employees ____ personal phone calls during business hours.
I would rather you _____ with your friends in the park, instead of the garden.
It is difficult to _____ how bad the situation has become.
Three American fishermen were rescued today after _____ at sea for nine months.
_____ referred to by these theorists as "the perfect social order" turned out to be just an illusion.
The _____ of the situation was made evident when we spotted our professor walking angrily towards us.
_____ to the unaided eye, ultraviolet light can be detected in a number of ways.
Read the following passage and complete the tasks.
Unexpected Benefits to Human Brain
James Paul Gee, professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, played his first video game years ago when his six-year-old son Sam was playing Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It’s Dark Outside. He wanted to play the game so he could support Sam’s problem-solving. Though Pajama Sam is not an “educational game”, it is replete with the types of problems psychologists study when they study thinking and learning. When he saw how well the game held Sam’s attention, he wondered what sort of beast a more mature video game might be.
Video and computer games, like many other popular, entertaining and addicting kids’ activities, are looked down upon by many parents as time-wasters, and worse, parents think that these games rot the brain. Violent video games are readily blamed by the media and some experts as the reason why some youth become violent or commit extreme anti-social behavior. Recent content analyses of video games show that as many as 89% of games contain some violent content, but there is no form of aggressive content for 70% of popular games. Many scientists and psychologists, like James Paul Gee, find that video games actually have many benefits – the main one being making kids smart. Video games may actually teach kids high-level thinking skills that they will need in the future.
“Video games change your brain,” according to University of Wisconsin psychologist Shawn Green. Video games change the brain’s physical structure in the same way as learning to read, playing the piano, or navigating using a map. Much like exercise can build muscle, the powerful combination of concentration and rewarding surges of neurotransmitters like dopamine, which strengthens neural circuits, can build the player’s brain.
Video games give your child’s brain a real workout. In many video games, the skills required to win involve abstract and high-level thinking. These skills are not even taught at school. Some of the mental skills trained by video games include: following instructions, problem-solving, logic, hand-eye coordination, fine motor, and spatial skills. Research also suggests that people can learn iconic, spatial, and visual attention skills from video games. There have been even studies with adults showing that experience with video games is related to better surgical skills. Jacob Benjamin, doctor from Beth Israel Medical Center NY, found a direct link between skill at video gaming and skill at keyhole or laparoscopic surgery. Also, a reason given by experts as to why fighter pilots of today are more skillful is that this generation’s pilots are being weaned on video games.
The players learn to manage resources that are limited and decide the best use of resources, the same way as in real life. In strategy games, for instance, while developing a city, an unexpected surprise like an enemy might emerge. This forces the player to be flexible and quickly change tactics. Sometimes the player does this almost every second of the game giving the brain a real workout. According to researchers at the University of Rochester, led by Daphne Bavelier, a cognitive scientist, games simulating stressful events such as those found in battle or action games could be a training tool for real-world situations. The study suggests that playing action video games primes the brain to make quick decisions. Video games can be used to train soldiers and surgeons, according to the study. Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today’s Popular Culture, says gamers must deal with immediate problems while keeping their long-term goals on their horizon. Young gamers force themselves to read to get instructions, follow storylines of games, and get information from the game texts.
James Paul Gee, professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says that playing a video game is similar to working through a science problem Like students in a laboratory, gamers must come up with a hypothesis. For example, players in some games constantly try out combinations of weapons and powers to use to defeat an enemy. If one does not work, they change hypothesis and try the next one. Video games are goal-ven experiences, says Gee, which is fundamental to learning. Also, using math skills is important to win in many games that involve quantitative analysis like managing resources. In higher levels of a game, players usually fail the first time around, but they keep on trying until they succeed and move on to the next level.
Many games are yed online and involve cooperation with other online players in order to win. Video and computer games also help children gain self-confidence and many games are based on history, city building, and governance and so on. Such games indirectly teach children about aspects of life on earth.
In an upcoming study in the journal Current Biology, authors Daphne Bavelier, Alexandre Pouget, and C. Shawn Green report that video games could provide a potent training regimen for speeding up reactions in many types of real-life situations. The researchers tested dozens of 18- to 25-year-olds who were not ordinarily video game players. They split the subjects into two groups. One group played 50 hours of the fast-paced action video games “Call of Duty 2” and “Unreal Tournament,” and the other group played 50 hours of the slow-moving strategy game “The Sims 2.” After this training period, all of the subjects were asked to make quick decisions in several tasks designed by the researchers. The action game players were up to 25 percent faster at coming to a conclusion and answered just as many questions correctly as their strategy game-playing peers.
Match the people (listed A-F) with opinions or deeds below.
| A | The writer’s opinion |
| B | James Paul Gee |
| C | Shawn Green |
| D | Daphne Bavelier |
| E | Steven Johnson |
| F | Jacob Benjamin |
Brain is ready to make decisions without hesitation when players are immersed in playing stressful games.
Video games as other daily life skills alter the brain’s physical structure.
The purpose-motivated experience that video games offer plays an essential role in studying.
Players are good at tackling prompt issues with future intensions.
It helps children broaden their horizon in many aspects and gain self-confidence.
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage?
| TRUE | if the statement agrees with the information |
| FALSE | if the statement contradicts the information |
| NOT GIVEN | if there is no information on this |
Most video games are popular because of their violent content.
The action game players minimized the percentage of making mistakes in the experiment.
It would be a good idea for schools to apply video games in their classrooms.
Those people who are addicted to video games have lots of dopamine in their brains.
Read the following newspaper article about technology and personal privacy, then choose the best answer for each question below.
WHAT PRICE PRIVACY?
Don’t blame technology for threatening our privacy: it’s the way the institutions choose to use it.
The most depressing moment of my day is first thing in the morning, when I download my overnight batch of emails. Without fail, it will contain dozens of messages from people who, knowing my interest in the subject, write to me describing violations of their personal privacy. Throughout the day, the stream continues, each message in my inbox warning of yet another nail in the coffin of personal privacy. In other centuries, such invasions of liberty would have arisen from religious persecution or the activities of tax collectors. Nowadays, the invasions take place through the use of information technology.
So, when those of us who value personal privacy are asked for their view, we will invariably speak in disparaging terms about such technologies. In an effort to stem the speed and force of the invasion, we will sometimes argue that the technologies themselves should simply be banned. ‘Just stop using the cursed technology,’ we cry, ‘then there won’t be any privacy issue.’ Of course, things are not so simple. Even the strongest advocate of privacy recognises that technology can offer enormous benefits to individuals and to society. To prohibit a technology on the grounds that it is being used to invade privacy would also be to deny society the benefits of that innovation.
The sensible perspective is that technology does not necessarily have to invade privacy. The reality is that it invariably does. Companies may well argue that customers are prepared to ‘trade off a little privacy in return’ for better service or a cooler and more sophisticated product. They say that this is a matter of free choice. I doubt that there is any genuine free choice in the matter. Whether I go with Orange or Vodafone is indeed a free choice. But I have no choice over whether my communications data will or will not be stored by my communications provider. They know the location of my mobile and the numbers from which I received calls, and the emails I send are routinely stored by all providers, whether I like it or not.
CCTV also gives me no free choice. Its purpose may be to keep me secure, but I have no alternative but to accept it. Visual surveillance is becoming a fixed component in the design of modern urban centres, new housing areas, public buildings and even, in Britain at least, throughout the road system. Soon, people will expect spy cameras to be part of all forms of architecture and design. Of course, there is another side to the coin, many technologies have brought benefits to the consumer with little or no cost to privacy. Encryption is one that springs to mind. Many of the most valuable innovations in banking and communications could never have been deployed without this technique.
The problem with privacy is not technology, but the institutions which make use of it. Governments are hungry for data, and will use their powers to force companies to collect, retain and yield personal information on their customers. In recent years, governments have managed to incorporate surveillance into almost every aspect of our finances, communication and lifestyle. While acknowledging the importance of privacy as a fundamental right, they argue that surveillance is needed to maintain law and order and create economic efficiency. The right to privacy, it is always claimed, should not be allowed to stand in the way of the wider public interest. This argument is sound in principle, but there seems little intellectual or analytical basis for its universal and unquestioned application.
When the UK government introduced the RIP legislation in 2000, it originally intended to allow an unprecedented degree of communications interception on the grounds that the dangers of crime on the Internet warranted increased surveillance. At no time did anyone produce much evidence for this crime wave, however, nor did anyone in government seem to think any was required. It was left to an eleventh-hour campaign by civil rights activists to block the more offensive elements of the legislation from a personal privacy point of view. Such lack of prior justification is a common feature of privacy invasion for law enforcement and national security purposes.
As I’ve said, technology does not have to be the enemy of privacy. But while governments insist on requiring surveillance, and while companies insist on amassing personal information about their customers, technology will continue to be seen as the enemy of privacy.
From the first paragraph, we understand that the writer _____.
The writer feels that some companies _____.
The writer gives encryption as an example of a technology which _____.
In the fifth paragraph, the writer suggests that governments are _____.
The phrase "nail in the coffin" is CLOSEST in meaning to _____.
Fill each of the following blanks with ONE suitable word.
When he was made four years ago, John Spencer set up his own business dealing in and second-hand books. "I didn't expect to lose my job," he said. "It happened very suddenly and I knew it would be difficult to find another one. I'd always been interested in books; so that seemed a good to choose. I run the business from home and send and books by post so I don't need my own premises. Sometimes I travel to book fairs and sometimes I have a stall in the market. It was a bit frightening at first, being , but I've got used to it now and I really appreciate the feeling of independence I get from "be my own boss". John got some advice from his bank manager about the financial of his business and also took a small loan to buy stock. After only two years the business was making a profit. The secret of success, according to John, is to in a certain area (detective fiction and cooker in his case) so that you always have the book the serious collector is looking for. John posts books to his consumers and then waits for them to send . At first, he wasn't sure whether people would pay up promptly. In fact, this hasn't been the problem I thought it might be. Most customers are very and it's only the occasional one that causes problems.
Fill each of the following blanks with ONE suitable word.
For over two hundred years, scholars have shown an interest in the way children learn to speak and understand their language. Several small-scale studies were carried out, especially towards the end of the nineteenth century, data recorded in parental diaries. But detailed, systematic investigation did not begin until the middle decades of the twentieth century when the tape recorder into routine use. This made it possible to keep a permanent record of samples of child speech so that analysts could listen repeatedly to obscure and thus produce a detailed and accurate description. The problems that have when investigating child speech are quite different from encountered when working with adults. It is not possible to carry out certain kinds of experiments, because aspects of children's cognitive development, such as their ability to attention or to remember instructions, may not be sufficiently advanced. is it easy to get children to systematic judgments about language — a task that is virtually impossible below the age of three. Moreover, anyone who has tried to make a tape recording of a representative sample of a child's speech knows how frustrating this can be. Some children, it seems, are innately programmed to off as soon as they notice a tape recorder switched on.
Read the following passage and choose the best answer for each blank.
Why is it that parents are so often egocentric when it comes to matters concerning their children? Although their are undoubtedly altruistic, they assume that the choices they make for their offspring are the right ones. Take the of colour, for example. Who decides what colour of trousers to buy for young Jimmy? Who chooses the colours for his bedroom or bedclothes?
parents condition their child's perception of colour from a very early age. Choosing a pair of pink trousers for their six-year-old son runs counter to most parents' idea of how to dress a boy, and they would be to decorate their daughter's bedroom in brown. In a similar way, a small child seen drawing a red tree may be quietly told that trees should be green. Yet the underlying criticism in that can be detrimental to the child's of the world around them.
Psychologists believe that allowing children to choose their own colours increases their self-confidence and their ability to express themselves. They use colour as a(n) of helping children to identify their feelings and discuss them. For instance, have shown that after listening to a sad story, children tend to draw in dark brown, black or grey, whereas one with a happy ending will a response in yellow or orange. So, a mother should be delighted to see her four-year-old drawing an orange tree or a yellow house, and perhaps be concerned if the child only uses grey. children free rein to choose colours for themselves may help parents to understand them better.
Read the text and choose the best answer to fill in the blanks.
THE TRUTH BEHIND A SMILE
People smile a great deal, and we seem to know instinctively that some smiles are more genuine than others. But is there any scientific for this? Recent research suggests that a mechanism in the brain can help us whether a smile is really heartfelt - or whether it is just being on for show.
to various long-held traditions, a genuine smile involves the eyes as well as the mouth. In the nineteenth century, a French anatomist to prove this. He used electrodes to stimulate the facial muscles of volunteers, creating false smiles. He found that real smiles were always with the contraction of muscle around the eye, but that his artificially induced ones were not.
During more recent research, volunteers were shown a variety of human facial expressions, and the reactions to these were monitored. When they were shown a happy face, 35% of the volunteers immediately started looking at the eye area, checking for tell-tale crinkles that would that the smile was genuine, but when shown a sad or neutral face, they did not. So why did the human brain evolve to between real and false smiles? It could be that this ability to a quick assessment of a smile has an important role to play in successful communication. A genuine smile serves as a gesture of conciliation in conflict, and it's important to know whether we are really being offered a truce or not.
Read the text below. Use the word given in capitals to form a word that fits in the gap of the following questions.
The American painter George Wesley Bellows (1882-1925) was the only son of an elderly couple who (EXAMPLE) the Midwestern values of honest business practice and strict morality.
From earliest childhood, he seemed determined to become an artist. Before graduating from Ohio State University, and in the face of stiff parental (OPPOSE) he moved to New York to study art. There he was strongly influenced by "The Eight", or American Ashcan School. For the (REMAIN) of his life, his work was characterized by realist subject matter, (LIE) which was a traditional approach to composition. He was also fascinated by the various systems of color (RELATE) that painters were using at the time, and studied them in detail. The truly outstanding work that he produced in these early days (SHADOW) and contributed to much of his later painting.
Despite his identification with common, even low-life themes, he was elected an associate of the (PRESTIGE) National Academy at the exceptionally early age of 27. One of the reasons the Academy honored Bellows, while (HOLD) approval from many of the other members of “The Eight", was the fact that there were unmistakable references to the old masters in Bellows' work. He was one of the few artists who (INSTINCT) combined a modern verve and energy with an appreciation of (ART) tradition, and his almost universal appeal was therefore not surprising.
You are going to read an article about facial expressions. Six paragraphs have been removed from the article. Choose from the paragraphs A – G the one which fits each gap. There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.
A. But once he had spotted the first one, he soon found three more examples in that same interview. ‘And that,’ says Ekman, ‘was the discovery of microexpressions; very fast, intense expressions of concealed emotion.’
B. Ekman, incidentally, professes to be ‘a terrible liar’ and observes that although some people are plainly more accomplished liars than others, he cannot teach anyone how to lie. ‘The ability to detect a lie and the ability to lie successfully are completely unrelated,’ he says. But how can what he has learned help crime-solving?
C. But how reliable are Ekman’s methods? ‘Microexpressions,’ he says, ‘are only part of a whole set of possible deception indicators. There are also what we call subtle expressions. A very slight tightening of the lips, for example, is the most reliable sign of anger. You need to study a person’s whole demeanor: gesture, voice, posture, gaze and also, of course, the words themselves.’
D. You also know, of course, that psychiatric patients routinely make such claims and that some, if they are granted temporary leave, will cause harm to themselves or others. But this particular patient swears they are telling the truth. They look, and sound, sincere. So here’s the question; is there any way you can be sure they are telling the truth?
E. Generally, though, the lies that interest Ekman are those in which ‘the threat of loss or punishment to the liar is severe: loss of job, loss of reputation, loss of spouse, loss of freedom’. Also those where the target would feel properly aggrieved if they knew.
F. ‘Suppose,’ Ekman posits, ‘my wife has been found murdered in our hotel. How would I react when the police questioned me? My demeanor might well be consistent with a concealed emotion. That could be because I was guilty or because I was extremely angry at being a suspect, yet frightened of showing anger because I knew it might make the police think I was guilty.’
G. The facial muscles triggered by those seven basic emotions are, he has shown, essentially the same, regardless of language and culture, from the US to Japan, Brazil to Papua New Guinea. What is more, expressions of emotion are involuntary; they are almost impossible to suppress or conceal. We can try, of course.
Do fleeting changes of facial expression show whether someone is telling lies?
Forty years ago, research psychologist Dr Paul Ekman was addressing a group of young psychiatrists in training when he was asked a question whose answer has kept him busy pretty much ever since. Suppose you are working in a psychiatric hospital like this one and a patient who has previously been aggressive comes to you. ‘I’m feeling much better now,’ the patient says. ‘Can I have a pass out for the weekend?’
It set Ekman thinking. As part of his research, he had already recorded a series of twelve-minute interviews with patients at the hospital. In a subsequent conversation, one of the patients told him that she had lied to him. So Ekman sat and looked at the film. Nothing. He slowed it down and looked again. Slowed it further. And suddenly, there, across just two frames, he saw it: a vivid, intense expression of extreme anguish.
Over the course of the next four decades, Ekman successfully demonstrated a proposition first suggested by Charles Darwin: that the ways in which we express anger, disgust, contempt, fear, surprise, happiness and sadness are both innate and universal.
However, particularly when we are lying, ‘micro expressions’ of powerfully felt emotions will invariably flit across our faces before we get a chance to stop them. Fortunately for liars, as many as ninety-nine percent of people will fail to spot these fleeting signals of inner torment. But given a bit of training, Ekman says, almost anyone can develop the skill.
The psychologist’s techniques, he concedes, can only be a starting point for criminal investigators applying them. ‘All they show is that someone’s lying,’ he says. ‘You have to question very carefully because what you really want to know is why they are lying. No expression of emotion, micro or macro, reveals exactly what is triggering it.’ He gives an example.
Plus there are lies and lies. Ekman defines a lie as being a deliberate choice and intent to mislead, and with no notification that this is what is occurring. ‘An actor or a poker player isn’t a liar,’ he says. ‘They’re supposed to be deceiving you – it’s part of the game. I focus on serious lies: where the consequences for the liar are grave if they’re found out.’
Just read micro expressions and subtle expressions correctly, however, and Ekman reckons your accuracy in detecting an attempt at deception will increase dramatically. However, when it comes to spotting really serious lies – those that could, for example, affect national security – he says simply that he ‘does not believe we have solid evidence that anything else works better than chance.’ Is he lying? I couldn’t tell.
Complete the second sentence in each pair so that it has a similar meaning to the first one. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word given. DO NOT change this given word.
The accusation was that the Prime Minister made his statement less forceful because of public opinion. (WATERING)
=> The Prime Minister was accused because of public opinion.
Complete the second sentence in each pair so that it has a similar meaning to the first one. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word given. DO NOT change this given word.
Getting upset over Michael's departure is pointless. (TEARS)
=> There's no over Michael's departure.
Complete the second sentence in each pair so that it has a similar meaning to the first one. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word given. DO NOT change this given word.
The effects of the gale were felt mainly along the south coast. (BRUNT)
=> The south coast the gale.
Complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first one, using the word in brackets. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word given. Do NOT change the word given.
I can’t cope at all with my new job, and that bothers me. (DEPTH)
=> I wish I my new job.
Complete the second sentence in each pair so that it has a similar meaning to the first one. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word given. DO NOT change this given word.
They have very little money to live on now she is unemployed. (HAND)
=> They have been living her job.
Complete the second sentence in each pair so that it has a similar meaning to the first one. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word given. DO NOT change this given word.
Paul meant well so you mustn’t be offended by his comments. (AMISS)
=> Please because he meant well.
Complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first one, using the word in brackets. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word given. Do NOT change the word given.
You didn't enter the competition, so you had no chance of winning. (MIGHT)
=> If you had gone won.
Complete the second sentence in each pair so that it has a similar meaning to the first one. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word given. DO NOT change this given word.
You probably won’t find a better deal for a holiday. (CHANCES)
=> The find a better deal for a holiday.
Complete the second sentence in each pair so that it has a similar meaning to the first one. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word given. DO NOT change this given word.
The stranded climber would never have been rescued if his brother hadn’t had an ingenious plan. (INGENUITY)
=> But plan, the stranded climber would never have been rescued.
Complete the second sentence in each pair so that it has a similar meaning to the first one. You must use between THREE and EIGHT words, including the word given. DO NOT change this given word.
“I’m going to enjoy myself now the exams are over,” said Heidi. (HAIR)
=> Heidi said she now the exams were over.