Choose the word that differs from the rest in the position of the main stress.
Choose the word that differs from the rest in the position of the main stress.
Choose the word that differs from the rest in the position of the main stress.
Choose the word which has the underlined part pronounced differently from the others.
counterfeit
courtesy
drought
astound
Choose the word which has the underlined part pronounced differently from the others.
attach
chemistry
architect
stomach
We suggested that you _____ to the organization.
They _____ the idea of celebrating the aniversary with a concert.
We had a _____ of a time at Jason's party yesterday.
All that was left for breakfast were some _____ rolls and tea.
The schoolboy's excuse wasn't _____ at all. Nobody in the classroom believed in the far-fetched story he told.
Only thoroughly unpleasant people leave the _____ of their picnics to spoil the appearance of the countryside.
The thief _____ into the house through a window. They were all closed.
_____ for the director must have surprised you.
We have already discovered that there are many kinds of metals, _____ its special properties.
_____ many times I tell him, he always never passes on the phone message.
Read the following passage and choose the best answer for each blank.
PEER PRESSURE
One of the strongest influences on children today is that of their peers. What their classmates think, how they dress and how they act in class and out of it affect the behaviour of nearly every child at school. In their not to be different, some children go so far as to hide their intelligence and ability in case they are made fun of. Generally, children do not want to stand out from the crowd. They want to in, to be accepted. In psychological the importance of peer pressure cannot be overemphasised. There is a lot of evidence that it has great on all aspects of children’s lives, from the clothes they wear, the music they listen to and their to study to their ambition in life, their relationships and their of self-worth. However, as children grow up into adolescents, individuality becomes more acceptable, even, and in their for their own personal style, the teenager and young adult will begin to experiment and be more willing to the risk of rejection by the group. Concern about intellectual prowess and achieving good exam results can dominate as the atmosphere of competition develops and worries about the future any fears of appearing too brainy.
Read the following passage then choose the best answer to each question below.
THE SEARCH FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Robert Matthews, a leading UK researcher, outlines his mission
It is one of the most evocative phrases in the lexicon of science: artificial intelligence, "AI", the creation of machines that can think. Just the mention of it conjures up images of HAL, the all-too intelligent computer in 2021: A Space Odyssey, and C3PO, the chatty, batty robot from Star Wars.
For over half a century, computer scientists have been working towards creating such machines, spending billions of pounds in the attempt. And hanging over their efforts has been a challenge set by a British mathematician widely regarded as the father of Slan research: Alan Turing.
During the 1930s, Turing showed, in theory at least, that a "universal machine" could be built, capable of performing all the tasks of any special-purpose computing machine. After war-time work in code-breaking. Turing helped to turn his discovery into the reality of an electronic computer. But he also believed his proof meant that computers could mimic the action of the human mind.
In 1951, Turing published a prediction: by the end of the century, computers would be able to hold a five-minute conversation with humans and fool 30 percent of them into believing they were dealing with another human being.
It is a deadline that has come and gone, along with huge amounts of funding. Yet no computer is remotely close to passing the “Turing Test”. What went wrong? Why has no one succeeded in creating AI?
In fact, Al is already here, earning its keep in banks, airports, hospitals, factories - even our own home and car. It may not be quite what many were led to expect, but then the story of real-life Al is one of misplaced dreams, bitter feuds and grant-grabbing hype.
Today's computer scientists divide into two broad camps on the issue of Al. The pragmatists see Al as a means to creating machines that do for thinking what engines have done for physical labor- taking on tasks we human would prefer not to do: spending endless hours scouring heaps of market data for trends or scanning piles of medical images for signs of disease.
Then there are the visionaries, still wedded to Turing's challenge and trying to bring the sci-fi image to life. For them, Al is all about computerized “assistants” that solve your printer problems and cheeky-chappy robots that talk to strangers. There are some who even see Al as the route to understanding the workings of the human mind.
Without doubt, it is the visionaries who have done most to get Al research on TV shows such as Tomorrow's World. It is the pragmatists, however, who have got Al out of the door and into successful applications: the neural network cooking controls of microwave ovens, for example, or the expert system that vets credit card transactions.
When current Al technology is pushed closer to its sci-fi image, the results can be more irritating than impressive: witness Microsoft's Paperclip Assistant, and the Al -based “help-desks” of some high-tech companies. Even now, 50 years after work began on intelligent machines, only the bravest customers trust the automated telephone ticketing system at their local cinema.
Even so, visionary Al researchers working away from the mainstream have pulled off some striking achievements. Herbert Simon's 1957 prediction that a computer would make a mathematical discovery came to pass 20 years later, when a logic-based program named AM, developed by Douglas Lenat at Stanford University, discovered that every even number greater than four seemed to be the sum of two odd primes. In fact, AM had been pipped to this discovery by the Prussian mathematician Christian Goldbach in the 18 century: nevertheless the rediscovery of “Goldbach's Conjecture” by AM caused a stir within the AI community.
Simon’s prediction that a computer would become world chess champion also came to pass in a manner of speaking in 1997, when IBM's Deep Blue computer beat Garry Kasparov, the greatest human exponent of the game.
Most likely it will be one of the Al visionaries who finally creates a computer that passes Turing’s 50-year-old test. For many in the mainstream Al community, however, beating the Turing Test is viewed as little more than a party trick. They are hard at work addressing far more basic issues in Al like convincing computers to hand over the cinema tickets you've paid for.
According to the writer, the term “artificial intelligence” _____.
Turing believed that _____.
Computer scientists today _____.
What is the writer's view of the Microsoft Paperclip assistant?
The discovery made by Lenat's computer program _____.
According to the writer, what do many mainstream Al researchers think is most important?
The word “mimic” used in the third passage closest in meaning to _______.
Fill each of the following blanks with ONE suitable word.
DO I LOOK OK?
Dolls and plenty of toys were once ...the... sole requirement for a happy childhood. Not any . These days, style matters even in the playground, which means that an image obsession can strike children are barely out of nappies. Eavesdrop on a conversation at a primary school and it is just likely to revolve around the latest fashions as favorite cartoon characters. But is the darker side to this preoccupation with appearance that is causing concern among some experts. Research carried over the past two years has highlighted a dangerous body-image trend in children as young as three and four. dissatisfied are some with how they look that they are prepared to diet and restrict food intake in order to change their appearance. A degree of weight awareness is evident the age of two upwards and by the time they start school, many children have developed definite insecurities about how they perceived. Significantly, the children who are most concerned weight are almost consistently those parents are most controlling about what is eaten at home.
The Reading Passage has seven paragraphs 1-7. Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of heading below.
List of Headings
A. The problem of dealing with emergencies in space
B. How space biomedicine can help patients on Earth
C. Why accidents are so common in outer space
D. What is space biomedicine?
E. The psychological problems of astronauts
F. Conducting space biomedical research on Earth
G. The internal damage caused to the human body by space travel
H. How space biomedicine first began
I. The visible effects of space travel on the human body
K. Why space biomedicine is now necessary
SPACE TRAVEL AND HEALTH
1.
Space biomedicine is a relatively new area of research both in the USA and in Europe. Its main objectives are to study the effects of space travel on the human body, identifying the most critical medical problems and finding solutions to those problems. Space biomedicine centres are receiving increasing direct support from NASA and/or the European Space Agency (ESA).
2.
This involvement of NASA and the ESA reflects growing concern that the feasibility of travel to other planets, and beyond, is no longer limited by engineering constraints but by what the human body can actually withstand. The discovery of ice on Mars, for instance, means that there is now no necessity to design and develop a spacecraft large and powerful enough to transport the vast amounts of water needed to sustain the crew throughout journeys that may last many years. Without the necessary protection and medical treatment, however, their bodies would be devastated by the unremittingly hostile environment of space.
3.
The most obvious physical changes undergone by people in zero gravity are essentially harmless, in some cases, they are even amusing. The blood and other fluids are no longer dragged down towards the feet by the gravity of Earth, so they accumulate higher up in the body, creating what is sometimes called “fat face”, together with the contrasting “chicken legs” syndrome as the lower limbs become thinner.
4.
Much more serious are the unseen consequences after months or years in space. With no gravity, there is less need for a sturdy skeleton to support the body, with the result that the bones weaken, releasing calcium into the bloodstream. This extra calcium can overload the kidneys, Ieading ultimately to renal failure. Muscles too lose strength through lack of use. The heart becomes smaller, losing the power to pump oxygenated blood to all parts of the body, while the lungs lose the capacity to breathe fully. The digestive system becomes less efficient, a weakened immune system is increasingly unable to prevent diseases and the high levels of solar and cosmic radiation can cause various forms of cancer.
5.
To make matters worse, a wide range of medical difficulties can arise in the case of an accident or serious illness when the patient is millions of kilometres from Earth. There is simply not enough room available inside a space vehicle to include all the equipment from a hospital's casualty unit, some of which would not work properly in space anyway. Even basic things such as a drip depend on gravity to function, while standard resuscitation techniques become ineffective if sufficient weight cannot be applied. The only solution seems to be to create extremely small medical tools and “smart” devices that can, for example, diagnose and treat internal injuries using ultrasound. The cost of designing and producing this kind of equipment is bound to be, well, astronomical.
6.
Such considerations have led some to question the ethics of investing huge sums of money to help a handful of people who, after all, are willingly risking their own health in outer space, when so much needs to be done a lot closer to home. It is wow clear, however, that every problem of space travel has a parallel problem on Earth that will benefit from the knowledge gamed and the skills developed from space biomedical research. For instance, the very difficulty of treating astronauts in space has led to rapid progress in the field of telemedicine, which in turn has brought about developments that enable surgeons to communicate with patients in inaccessible parts of the world. To take another example, systems invented to sterilize wastewater onboard spacecraft could be used by emergency teams to filter contaminated water at the scene of natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes. In the same way, miniature monitoring equipment developed to save weight in space capsules will eventually become tiny monitors that patients on Earth can wear without discomfort wherever they go.
7.
Nevertheless, there is still one major obstacle to carrying out studies into the effects of space travel: how to do so without going to the enormous expense of actually working in space. To simulate conditions in zero gravity, one tried and tested method is to work underwater, but the space biomedicine centres are also looking at other ideas. In one experiment, researchers study the weakening of bones that results from prolonged inactivity. This would involve volunteers staying in bed for three months, but the centre concerned is confident there should be no great difficulty in finding people willing to spend twelve weeks lying down. All in the name of science, of course.
Use the word in brackets to form a word that fits in the space.
Frankenstein's Real Creator
In these days of (GENE) genetic engineering, it is not unusual to hear the name Frankenstein invoked by those who fear the consequences when humans seek to create a being in their own (LIKE) .
Often overlooked, however, is the fact that the tale originated, not as a folk legend, still less as a wildly original film script, but as a literary (MASTER) . Even today, to read the chilling story of an inventor and the uncontrollable monster he created is at once both a thought-provoking and an (SETTLE) experience. What's more, the (ENDURE) popularity of the novel, and its modern-day relevance are all the more remarkable when we remember it was written almost 200 years ago, by an 18-year-old woman called Mary Shelley. Over the decades, (NUMBER) films have attempted to capture the full horror of her story, but none have come close to equalling the power of Mary Shelley's frightening prose. Amongst (ACADEMY) and commentators, Frankenstein has long been (KNOWLEDGE) as a powerful piece of gothic fiction, representing as it does an (ORDINARY) fusion of contemporary philosophy literary skill and (IMAGINE) vision. It is only recently, however, with increased media attention devoted to the philosophical issues the novel raises, that there has been a more general (REVIVE) of interest in Mary herself.
Fill in the blank with a suitable preposition or particle.
The police arrived immediately after the call and caught the burglar the spot.
Fill in the blank with a suitable preposition or particle.
How could you stand and watch him beat the children like that?
Fill in the blank with a suitable preposition.
The only way one can tell the twins is by their haircuts.
Fill in the blank with a suitable preposition or particle
The doctor thinks he'll pull now. His temperature has gone down.
Fill in the blank with a suitable preposition or particle.
When the police discovered his history of drunk driving, they took his driver's license.
Complete the second sentence, using the word given so that it has a similar meaning to the first sentence. Do NOT change the word given in brackets in any way.
Police reported that a man had been helping them with their inquiries. (WAS)
=> A man .......... police with their inquiries.
Complete the second sentence, using the word given so that it has a similar meaning to the first sentence. Do NOT change the word given in brackets in any way.
All the witnesses said that the accident was my fault. (BLAME)
=> All the witnesses said that .......... the accident.
Complete the second sentence, using the word given so that it has a similar meaning to the first sentence. Do NOT change the word given in brackets in any way.
It was childish of him not to accept my apologies. (REFUSED)
=> He .......... of him.
Complete the second sentence, using the word given so that it has a similar meaning to the first sentence. Do NOT change the word given in brackets in any way.
No one listened to what the politician was saying last night. (EARS)
=> What .......... last night.
Complete the second sentence, using the word given so that it has a similar meaning to the first sentence. Do NOT change the word given in brackets in any way.
She thought it was too difficult for her to come to the class on time. (FOUND)
=> She .......... the class on time.
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
We couldn't relax until all the guests had gone home.
=> Only .........
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
His second attempt on the world record was successful.
=> He broke .........
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
I write to him almost every day.
=> Hardly .........
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
The northwest of Britain has more rain each year than the southeast.
=> The annual .........
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning to the first.
When he won the scholarship, Alan began to realise just how lucky he was.
=> It began to dawn ………...
Write a paragraph of around 140 words about the following topic.
Is it better to sometimes give yourself some unhealthy food as a treat or to avoid unhealthy food for as long as you can?