The couple were finally _____ by the landlord after not paying rent for six months.
Nobody wanted to tell Richard he wasn’t invited, but I drew the short _____ so I had to do it.
Three minutes after the fire started, the house was full of _____ fumes.
My father _____ when he found out that I'd damaged the car.
_____ in the schedule, would you please inform me?
Total weight of ants in the world is much smaller than _____.
For some people, durian is an _____ taste and is not liked at first.
The tennis player couldn't _____ the possibility of withdrawing from the championship because of injury.
We are not known _____ at all, and as we grow, we feel a progressive lack of individual personality.
He has realized too late that he _____ for her for more than 2 hours when her aircraft lands.
The children _____ in the garden because it's raining, so they _____ somewhere else.
The _____ fortress protected the mountain pass for centuries.
Reduction in pollution levels could _____ global warming.
These are very _____ times, and people are very pessimistic about how long before things can return to normal.
It is essential that every student _____ the instructions carefully.
When I was ten years old, I used to sleep with the window _____.
There exist numerous differences among cultures, _____ it is very difficult to integrate into a new community.
In the heart of the ancient forest _____ of unique plants and animals that cannot be found anywhere else.
_____ for the director must have surprised you.
______, cars are widely used as the most popular mode of transport in the United States.
In Con Dao, there are green _______ of forests and fresh meadows and houses with red roofs, which forms the picture of nature with bright colours.
I’m in a real _____ and I just don’t know what to do.
Read the following passage and choose the best answer for each blank.
Legal fight hits music pirates
The global recording industry has launched its largest wave of legal against people suspected of music files on the internet. The latest move by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) 2,100 alleged uploaders using peer-to-peer (P2P) networks in 16 nations the UK, France, Germany and Italy. Thousands of people have agreed to pay compensation since the campaign began. In the US, civil lawsuits have been against more than 15,597 people since September 2003 and there have been 3,590 settlements. 'This is a significant of our enforcement actions against people who are uploading and distributing music on p2p networks,' said IFPI chief John Kennedy. 'Thousands of people - mostly internet-savvy men in their 20s or 30s - have learned to their the legal and financial risks involved in file-sharing copyrighted music in large quantities.' Individual cases are generally brought by the national associations representing the recording industry, and in some cases by the labels, civil complaints. The UK record industry has so far brought 97 cases, with a 65 covered by the latest action. More than 140,000 in compensation has been paid to the British Phonographic Industry by 71 individuals. Those who fail to resolve cases face civil court action.
Read the following passage and choose the best answer for each blank.
If you're an environmentalist, plastic is a word you tend to say with a sneer or a snarl. It has become a symbol of our wasteful, throw-away society. But there seems little it is here to stay, and the truth is, of course, that plastic has brought enormous , even environmental evil - it's the way society chooses to uses and abuse them.
Almost all the 50 or so different kinds of modern plastic are made from oil, gas, or coal-non-renewable natural . We well over three million tonnes of the stuff in Britain each year and, sooner or later, most of it is thrown away. A high of our annual consumption is in the of packaging, and this about seven percent by weight of our domestic . Almost all of it could be recycled, but very little of it is, though the plastic recycling is growing fast.
The plastics themselves are extremely energy-rich they have a higher caloric value than coal and one method of "recovery" strongly favored by the plastic manufacturers is the of waste plastic into fuel.
Fill in each blank with ONE best word.
One day it will seem strange retrospect, that we spent much more thoughts and effort on developing human ability than on making good of it, once we had it. There are innumerable examples. We them in casual conversation and occasionally they catch a journalist’s attention.
Doctors provide a good source of complaints: they to undergo a particularly protracted and detailed training and - at the end of it - many of them spend a substantial part of their day in relatively routine or clerical operations. Has anyone ever considered how much money could be saved by splitting these two aspects of a GP’s job? Nurses have recently reiterated their age-old complaint that their scarce and womanpower is frittered away in quite unskilled work. The educational world is of examples of highly paid specialists typing their own letters with two . We promote top research academics to headships of departments and give them inadequate support services. Even in business, the provision of secretarial help tends to go by seniority and not by the of routine work that has to be done.
Read the following passage then choose the best answer to each question below.
IS THERE MORE TO VIDEO GAMES THAN PEOPLE REALIZE?
1. Many people who spend a lot of time playing video games insist that they have helped them in areas like confidence-building, presentation skills and debating. Yet this way of thinking about video games can be found almost nowhere within the mainstream media, which still tend to treat games as an odd mix of the slightly menacing and the alien. This lack of awareness has become increasingly inappropriate, as video games and the culture that surrounds them have become very big business indeed.
2. Recently, the British government released the Byron report into the effects of electronic media on children. Its conclusions set out a clear, rational basis for exploring the regulation of video games. The ensuing debate, however, has descended into the same old squabbling between partisan factions: the preachers of mental and moral decline, and the innovative game designers. In between are the gamers, busily buying and playing while nonsense is talked over their heads.
3. Susan Greenfield, renowned neuroscientist, outlines her concerns in a new book. Every individual's mind is the product of a brain that has been personalized by the sum total of their experiences; with an increasing quantity of our experiences from very early childhood taking place "on screen" rather than in the world, there is potentially a profound shift in the way children's minds work. She suggests that the fast-paced, second-hand experiences created by video games and the Internet may inculcate a worldview that is less empathetic, more risk-taking and less contemplative than what we tend to think of as healthy.
4. Adam Martin, a lead programmer for an online games developer, says: "Computer games teach and people don't even notice they're being taught. But isn't the kind of learning that goes on in games rather narrow?" A large part of the addictiveness of games does come from the fact that as you play you are mastering a set of challenges. But humanity's larger understanding of the world comes primarily through communication and experimentation, through answering the question "What if?" Games excel at teaching this too."
5. Steven Johnson's thesis is not that electronic games constitute a great, popular art, but that the mean level of mass culture has been demanding steadily more intellectual engagement from consumers. Games, the points out, generate satisfaction via the complexity of their virtual worlds, not by their robotic predictability. Testing the nature and limits of the laws of such imaginary worlds has more in common with scientific methods than with a pointless addiction, while the complexity of the problems children encounter within games exceeds that of anything they might find at school.
6. Greenfield argues that there are ways of thinking that playing video games simply cannot teach. She has a point. We should never forget, for instance, the unique ability of books to engage and expand the human imagination, and to give us the means of more fully expressing our situations in the world. Intriguingly, the video games industry is now growing in ways that have more in common with an old-fashioned world of companionable pastimes than with a cyber future of lonely, isolated obsessives. Games in which friends and relations gather round a console to compete at activities are growing in popularity. The agenda is increasingly being set by the concerns of mainstream consumers – what they consider acceptable for their children, what they want to play at parties and across generations.
7. These trends embody a familiar but important truth: games are human products, and lie within our control. This doesn't mean we yet control or understand them fully, but it should remind us that there is nothing inevitable or incomprehensible about them. No matter how deeply it may be felt, instinctive fear is an inappropriate response to technology of any kind.
8. So far, the dire predictions many traditionalists have made about the "death" of old-fashioned narratives and imaginative thought at the hands of video games cannot be upheld. Television and cinema may be suffering, economically, at the hands of interactive media. But literacy standards have failed to decline. Young people still enjoy sport, going out, and listening to music. And most research – including a recent $1.5m study funded by the US government – suggests that even pre-teens are not in the habit of blurring game worlds and real worlds.
9. The sheer pace and scale of the changes we face, however, leave little room for complacency. Richard Battle, a British writer and game researcher, says "Times change: accept it; embrace it." Just as, today, we have no living memories of a time before radio, we will soon live in a world in which no one living experienced growing up without computers. It is for this reason that we must try to examine what we stand to lose and gain before it is too late.
Much media comment ignores the positive impacts that video games can have on many people's lives.
Read the following passage and complete the tasks.
Bright Children
A By the time Laszlo Polgar’s first baby was born in 1969 he already had firm views on child-rearing. An eccentric citizen of communist Hungary, he had written a book called “Bring up Genius!” and one of his favourite sayings was “Geniuses are made, not born”. An expert on the theory of chess, he proceeded to teach little Zsuzsa at home, spending up to ten hours a day on the game. Two more daughters were similarly hot-housed. All three obliged their father by becoming world-class players. The youngest, Judit, is currently ranked 13th in the world, and is by far the best female chess player of all time. Would the experiment have succeeded with a different trio of children? If any child can be turned into a star, then a lot of time and money are being wasted worldwide on trying to pick winners.
B America has long held “talent searches”, using test results and teacher recommendations to select children for advanced school courses, summer schools and other extra tuition. This provision is set to grow. In his state-of-the-union address in 2006, President George Bush announced the “American Competitiveness Initiative”, which, among much else, would train 70,000 high-school teachers to lead advanced courses for selected pupils in mathematics and science. Just as the superpowers’ space race made Congress put money into science education, the thought of China and India turning out hundreds of thousands of engineers and scientists is scaring America into prodding its brightest to do their best.
C The philosophy behind this talent search is that ability is innate; that it can be diagnosed with considerable accuracy; and that it is worth cultivating. In America, bright children are ranked as “moderately”, “highly”, “exceptionally” and “profoundly” gifted. The only chance to influence innate ability is thought to be in the womb or the first couple of years of life. Hence the fad for “teaching aids” such as videos and flashcards for newborns, and “whale sounds” on tape which a pregnant mother can strap to her belly.
D In Britain, there is a broadly similar belief in the existence of innate talent, but also an egalitarian sentiment which makes people queasy about the idea of investing resources in grooming intelligence. Teachers are often opposed to separate provision for the best-performing children, saying any extra help should go to stragglers. In 2002, in a bid to help the able while leaving intact the ban on most selection by ability in state schools, the government set up the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth. This outfit runs summer schools and master classes for children nominated by their schools. To date, though, only seven in ten secondary schools have nominated even a single child. Last year all schools were told they must supply the names of their top 10%.
E Picking winners is also the order of the day in ex-communist states, a hangover from the times when talented individuals were plucked from their homes and ruthlessly trained for the glory of the nation. But in many other countries, opposition to the idea of singling out talent and grooming it runs deep. In Scandinavia, a belief in virtues like modesty and social solidarity makes people flinch from the idea of treating brainy children differently.
F And in Japan there is a widespread belief that all children are born with the same innate abilities and should therefore be treated alike. All are taught together, covering the same syllabus at the same rate until they finish compulsory schooling. Those who learn quickest are expected then to teach their classmates. In China, extra teaching is provided, but to a self-selected bunch. “Children’s palaces” in big cities offer a huge range of after-school classes. Anyone can sign up; all that is asked is excellent attendance.
G Statistics give little clue as to which system is best. The performance of the most able is heavily affected by factors other than state provision. Most state education in Britain is nominally non-selective, but middle-class parents try to live near the best schools. Ambitious Japanese parents have made private, out-of-school tuition a thriving business. And Scandinavia’s egalitarianism might work less well in places with more diverse populations and less competent teachers. For what it’s worth, the data suggest that some countries like Japan and Finland, see table can eschew selection and still thrive. But that does not mean that any country can ditch selection and do as well.
H Mr Polgar thought any child could be a prodigy given the right teaching, an early start and enough practice. At one point he planned to prove it by adopting three baby boys from a poor country and trying his methods on them. (His wife vetoed the scheme.) Some say the key to success is simply hard graft. Judit, the youngest of the Polgar sisters, was the most driven, and the most successful; Zsofia, the middle one, was regarded as the most talented, but she was the only one who did not achieve the status of grandmaster. “Everything came easiest to her,” said her older sister. “But she was lazy.”
Match the countries (listed A-E) with correct connection below.
| A | Scandinavia |
| B | Japan |
| C | Britain |
| D | China |
| E | America |
Less gifted children get help from other classmates
Attending extra teaching is open to anyone
People are reluctant to favor gifted children due to social characteristics
Both view of innate and egalitarian co-existed
Craze of audio and video teaching for pregnant women.
Five paragraphs have been removed from the passage.
A. Many gyms follow these rules, but some don't. Like other establishments, they either claim poverty or say they are reasonably accessible. However, according to the law, buildings with only two floors don't need a lift. Unfortunately, many gyms are housed in two-storey buildings.
B. No two gyms are exactly alike. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Of all the things a prospective consumer should look at, the principal item is the staff. Do the trainers and assistants have experience working with disabled individuals? The answer is commonly "no".
C. A lot of times, navigating a chair in a fitness centre or gym is difficult. We try to place as much equipment to service as many clients as possible so no one has to wait. Unfortunately, that's a double- edged sword. It means that navigating around the club is often difficult.
D. Standard gyms aside, people with disabilities sometimes prefer to exercise in a place where they know the staff is knowledgeable of their needs. This is why a few speciality gyms are opening up around the country.
E. When you visit a gym, the first thing you see is the layout. The first impression answers many questions that should be asked by prospective consumers with disabilities. Is the gym multi-level? Is there a lift? Is the locker room accessible?
F. Finding appropriate equipment for the centre, however, is not an easy task. Access is limited due to awkward equipment design, making it difficult for people with mobility impairments to transfer onto pieces of equipment that might otherwise provide them with a good workout. Nevertheless, there are people who do build equipment with disabled users specifically in mind.
G. Fortunately, times are changing and people with disabilities are working out in the gym. Markets for special populations like the disabled are growing. Younger people with disabilities aren't willing to just sit at home and the newer club administrators are beginning to understand their needs. Out of necessity, clubs are becoming more aware of how to deal with special populations like the disabled.
H. It is difficult to hold small, privately owned gyms to any kind of standard in terms of physical layout. Chain gyms are somewhat easier to regulate. Most gyms are housed in already existing buildings. They stick to the letter of the law and the rather flimsy definition of "reasonable accommodation".
Read the following passage. Choose from paragraphs (A-H) the one which fits each gap. There is one extra paragraph that you do not need to use.
We live in an exercise-crazy society. Wherever you look, there are people trying to shape up and slim down. Gyms are cropping up all over the place. On the surface, they all look the same and may offer the same services. However, when you peel back the veneer, there are differences people should be aware of.
"The biggest problem is the lack of knowledge and education," says one fitness expert. "There are very few gyms that have staff trained to deal with those with special needs. They'll sign you up but don't know how to help you. A further problem is the unsuitability of the building itself."
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) categorises gyms and fitness centres under the umbrella of places of public accommodation. They must follow the same rules and guidelines as those which apply to hotels and restaurants. For example, their shower facilities must be wheelchair accessible.
Some owners of gyms try to find ways to alleviate this problem. "A number of our facilities are on two levels, but for whatever equipment we have on one level, there's usually a complement on the other level as well," says one owner. "No one has to go to the second level to use a piece of equipment."
"The trouble is in the definition of the phrase," says the legal advisor of an organization that represents 400 health clubs world-wide. "We don't have an easy checklist to determine compliance. It's hard to say what's reasonable for any particular facility."
"The suggestion came from our participants," says the manager of a new fitness centre in New York City. "They wanted to find a place to work out and exercise. They'd been trying to make use of city facilities but had found them inaccessible. We took the idea to some people who we thought might be interested in funding the project."
One such manufacturer says he's had a lot of difficulty trying to sell his equipment to gyms and fitness centres across the country. "There's a lot of red tape involved in selling to gyms. And they're really not interested in having this kind of equipment. They'd rather have their staff members help disabled clients. They disregard the issue because they don't have many members or potential members with disabilities."
"What needs to be done is to educate the public and those who are working in gyms," says the manager of a gym in Venice, California. "We need to better understand the needs of this group. They don't have to stay away from clubs; they don't have to stand out."
Complete the sentence by changing the form of the word in capitals.
Wilkinson went on to become a great athlete, his disability . (STAND)
Complete the sentence by changing the form of the word in capitals.
During the outbreak, hospital beds were scarce and medicines were practically . (EXIST)
Complete the sentence by changing the form of the word in capitals.
England's greatest , Shakespeare, one of whose most read works is Hamlet, is still the dominant role in literature. (PLAY)
Complete the sentence by changing the form of the word in capitals.
What disappoints me most is his selfishness and . (THOUGHT)
Complete the sentence by changing the form of the word in capitals.
Whether you are at home or at school, you are likely to be by objects made of some kind of plastic. (ROUND)
Complete the sentence by changing the form of the word in capitals.
Though many people doubt its accuracy, handwriting analysis, or is used by employment agencies. (GRAPH)
Complete the sentence by changing the form of the word in capitals.
The listed for the pills meant that she couldn't take them because she may be allergic to some of the chemicals in them. (INDICATE)
Complete the sentence by changing the form of the word in capitals.
Multiple were situated in strategic locations along the terraces, capturing the sun's light as it made its daily path. (SUN)
Complete the sentence by changing the form of the word in capitals.
The attack in the city center last night the kind of behavior amongst young people that many object to. (EXAMPLE)
Complete the sentence by changing the form of the word in capitals.
He wrote so many sentences in his essay that I couldn't understand it. (GRAMMAR)
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
Drop in and see us if you ever come to Hanoi. (HAPPEN)
=> Should ...........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
The company was going to take no further action against the thieves. (RESOLVED)
=> The company ..........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
There is no way we can agree to this solution. (QUESTION)
=> This solution ..........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
When it comes to the commodity market, Mark always knows exactly what is happening. (TRICK)
=> Not a ...........
Complete the second sentence using the word given so that it has the same meaning to the first.
Tim made absolutely sure nothing would go wrong when he planned the expedition. (NOTHING)
=> Tim left .............
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.
The manager will not be satisfied unless you apologise immediately. (LESS)
=> Nothing the manager.
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 don't mind you staying out late, but your father does," Robbie's mother told him. (RATHER)
=> "It's you staying out late," Robbie's mother told him.
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.
Her previous novel was far more interesting than her new one. (NOTHING)
=> Her new novel her previous one.
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.
His talent is well-known, and for that reason, his colleagues hold him in high esteem. (SAME)
=> He is known for his talent, and by , he is highly regarded by his colleagues.
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.
Honestly, it was impossible not to laugh when Mrs. Harrison slipped in the corridor. (FACE)
=> Honestly, was impossible when Mrs. Harrison slipped in the corridor.