Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.

How is the news different from entertainment? Most people would answer that news is real but entertainment is fiction. However, if we think more carefully about the news, it becomes clear that the news is not always real. The news does not show us all the events of the day, but stories from a small number of chosen events. The creation of news stories is subject to specific constraints, much like the creation of works of fiction. There are many constraints, but three of the most important ones are. commercialism, story formulas, and sources. Newspapers, radio, and TV stations are businesses, all of which are rivals for audiences and advertising revenue. The amount of time that the average TV station spends on news broadcasts has grown steadily over the last fifty years - largely because news is relatively cheap to produce, yet sells plenty of advertising. Some news broadcasts are themselves becoming advertisements. For example, during one week in 1996 when the American CBS network was airing a movie about the sinking of the Titanic, CBS news ran nine stories about that event (which had happened 84 years before). The ABC network is owned by Disney Studios, and frequently runs news stories about Mickey Mouse. Furthermore, the profit motive drives news organizations to pay more attention to stories likely to generate a large audience, and to shy away from stories that may be important but dull. This pressure to be entertaining has produced shorter, simpler stories. more focus on celebrities than people of substance, more focus on gossip than on news, and more focus on dramatic events than on nuanced issues.

As busy people under relentless pressure to produce, journalists cannot spend days agonizing over the best way to present stories. Instead, they depend upon certain story formulas, which they can reuse again and again. One example is known as the inverted pyramid. In this formula, the journalist puts the most important information at the beginning of the story, than adds the next most important, and so on. The inverted pyramid originates from the age of the telegraph, the idea being that if the line went dead halfway through the story, the journalist would know that the most crucial information had at least been relayed. Modern journalists still value the formula for a similar reason. Their editors will cut stories if they are too long. Another formula involves reducing a complicated story into a simple conflict. The best example is "horse race" election coverage. Thorough explication of the issues and the candidates' views is forbiddingly complex. Journalists therefore concentrate more on who is winning in the opinion polls, and whether the underdog can catch up in the numbers than on politicians' campaign goals.

Sources are another constraint on what journalists cover and how they cover it. The dominant sources for news are public information officers in businesses and government offices. The majority of such officers try to establish themselves as experts who are qualified to feed information to journalists. How do journalists know who is an expert? In general, they don't. They use sources not on the basis of actual expertise, but on the appearance of expertise and the willingness to share it. All the major news organizations use some of the same sources (many of them anonymous), so the same types of stories always receive attention. Over time, the journalists may even become close friends with their sources, and they stop searching for alternative points of view. The result tends to be narrow, homogenized coverage of the same kind.

It can be inferred from paragraph 1 that the author of the passage thinks _______.

A. that most people don't pay enough attention to the news

B. that watching or reading the news is extremely boring

C. that most news stories are false

D. that most people don't realize how different news is from reality

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 44 to 55.

         Panel painting, common in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Europe, involved a painstaking, laborious process. Wooden planks were joined, covered with gesso to prepare the surface for painting, and then polished smooth with special tools. On this perfect surface, the artist would sketch a composition with chalk, refine it with inks, and then begin the deliberate process of applying thin layers of egg tempera paint (egg yolk in which pigments are suspended) with small brushes. The successive layering of these meticulously applied paints produced the final translucent colors.

         Backgrounds of gold were made by carefully applying sheets of gold leaf, and then embellishing of decorating the gold leaf by punching it with a metal rod on which a pattern had been embossed. Every step in the process was slow and deliberate. The quick-drying tempera demanded that the artist know exactly where each stroke be placed before the brush met the panel, and it required the use of fine brushes. It was, therefore, an ideal technique for emphasizing the hard linear edges and pure, fine areas of color that were so much a part of the overall aesthetic of the time. The notion that an artist could or would dash off an idea in a fit of spontaneous inspiration was completely alien to these deliberately produced works.

         Furthermore, making these paintings was so time-consuming that it demanded assistance. All such work was done by collective enterprise in the workshops. The painter or master who is credited with having created the painting may have designed the work and overseen its production, but it is highly unlikely that the artist’s hand applied every stroke of the brush. More likely, numerous assistants, who had been trained to imitate the artist’s style, applied the paint. The carpenter’s shop probably provided the frame and perhaps supplied the panel, and yet another shop supplied the gold. Thus, not only many hands, but also many shops were involved in the final product.

         In spite of problems with their condition, restoration, and preservation, many panel paintings have survived, and today many of them are housed in museum collections. 

According to the passage, what was the first step in making a panel painting?

A. Mixing the paint

B. Making ink drawings

C. Preparing the panel

D. Buying the gold leaf

Mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word(s) OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s) in each of the following questions.

Take your time, think the matter over carefully, and then tell me what you’ve decided.

A. Keep calm

B. Hurry

C. Come on

D. Don’t hesitate

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 35 to 44.

         Reference books are not designed to be read from the first page to the last but rather to be consulted to answer the questions and provide both general and specific pieces of information.

         One of the most (35) ______ used reference books is a dictionary, which provides information about words. It lists meanings and spellings, (36) ______ how a word is pronounced, gives (37) ______ of how it is used, may reveal its origins and also lists synonyms and (38) ______. To help you find the words faster, there are guide words at the top of each page showing the first and last words on that page and of course it (39) ______ to know the alphabet!

         There may be numerous special sections at the back with (40) ______ about famous people and places, lists of dates and scientific names, etc. There is usually a section at the front (41) ______ how to use the dictionary, which includes the special abbreviations or signs.

         An atlas is also a reference book and (42) ______ charts, tables and geographical facts, as well as maps. Political maps locate countries and cities, physical maps show the formation of the land with its mountains and valleys, and economic maps show industries and agriculture. To find a specific place, you need to look in the (43) ______ at the back of the atlas and the exact position on the map. There are numerous map (44) ______ that you need to know in order to be able to read a map-almost like a special language-and these are explained at the front of the atlas.

Điền vào ô 42

A. composes

B. Includes

C. Consists

D. contains

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.

Farming has come a long way since the days of horse-drawn plows, and now it’s heading swiftly into the twenty-first century. Research at Indiana’s Purdue University uses the Navistar Global Positioning System (GPS) to help increase crop yields and reduce chemical use. GPS uses satellite signals to determine location within inches. Under Purdue’s scheme, a farmer out in the field would use a GPS receiver mounted on his vehicle to pinpoint his position. A computer linked to the receiver and programmed with the field’s soil conditions – which can vary widely from one area to another – would tell the farmer precisely where the plant and how much pesticide and fertilizer to use at that specific site. “Currently the number one cost to the famer is chemicals” say Gary Kurtz, a Professor of Agriculture Engineering at Purdue. Site-specific farming can increase yields while reducing chemical use.

But the cost of this new technology may be too high for the small farmer. The cost of taking and testing soil samples every few feet in a farmer’s field is a limiting factor. Soil tests can run $7 to  $8 each. Mark Morgan, assistant Professor of Agriculture Engineering at Purdue and his graduate assistants are working on a sensor to be attached to the front of a farm implement, enabling the farmer to perform his own soil tests on the go.

According to the passage, the phrase “on the go” has the meaning of ______.

A. sensing the time is right

B. while driving a plow

C. preparing the soil

D. at the same time as planting

Mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the answer to the following question. 

You looked exhausted. I think you've _____ more than you can handle.

A. taken up 

B. turned up 

C. turned on 

D. taken on 

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 35 to 44.

         Reference books are not designed to be read from the first page to the last but rather to be consulted to answer the questions and provide both general and specific pieces of information.

         One of the most (35) ______ used reference books is a dictionary, which provides information about words. It lists meanings and spellings, (36) ______ how a word is pronounced, gives (37) ______ of how it is used, may reveal its origins and also lists synonyms and (38) ______. To help you find the words faster, there are guide words at the top of each page showing the first and last words on that page and of course it (39) ______ to know the alphabet!

         There may be numerous special sections at the back with (40) ______ about famous people and places, lists of dates and scientific names, etc. There is usually a section at the front (41) ______ how to use the dictionary, which includes the special abbreviations or signs.

         An atlas is also a reference book and (42) ______ charts, tables and geographical facts, as well as maps. Political maps locate countries and cities, physical maps show the formation of the land with its mountains and valleys, and economic maps show industries and agriculture. To find a specific place, you need to look in the (43) ______ at the back of the atlas and the exact position on the map. There are numerous map (44) ______ that you need to know in order to be able to read a map-almost like a special language-and these are explained at the front of the atlas.

Điền vào ô 37

A. evidence

B. roof 

C. Examples

D.  cases

Mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word(s) OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s) in each of the following questions.

It might not be a surprise to find that life in affluent cities is improving, but what about cities that aren’t rich

A. busy

B. wealthy

C. Overcrowded

D. poor

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that is best made up from the prompts.

They/ not answer/phone/ this morning, so/ must/ out/.

A. They hasn't answered the phone this morning so they must have been out

B. They didn't answer the phone this morning so they must be out

C. They didn't answer the phone this morning so they must have gone out

D. They hasn't answered the phone this morning so they must go out