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 5 to 9.

In the past, people bought goods using (5) _______. They rarely borrowed money from financial institutions and only when they had saved the money did they buy what they wanted.

Recently, however, there have been great changes in the way people purchase goods. To begin with, some people pay for things by cheque, (6) ______ others prefer monthly installments rather than paying the whole amount at once. Most consumers, though, prefer to buy things using their credit cards. (7) _______, it is thought that there are benefits to having a credit card. Apart from the fact that credit cards are handy, some stores offer bonus points to people making purchases, while others give discounts on certain products.

On the other hand, credit cards must be used wisely because they can prove disastrous. In the long run, consumers find that they can’t (8) _______ without their credit cards and constantly rely on them, as they are “easy money”. As a result, some people lose control of their finances spending more than they should end up not being able to (9) _______. So they end up in debt and have difficulty in paying it back.

Điền ô số 6

A. when 

B. while 

C. why 

D. what 

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D to indicate the correct answer.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded annually and the first woman to win this prize was Baroness Bertha Felicie Sophie von Suttner in 1905. In fact, her work inspired the creation of the Prize. The first American woman to win this prize was Jane Addams, in 1931. However, Addams is best known as the founder of Hull House.

Jane Addams was born in 1860, into a wealthy family. She was one of a small number of women in her generation to graduate from college. Her commitment to improving the lives of those around her led her to work for social reform and world peace. In the 1880s Jane Addams traveled to Europe. While she was in London, she visited a ‘settlement house’ called Toynbee Hall. Inspired by Toynbee Hall, Addams and her friend, Ellen Gates Starr, opened Hull House in a neighborhood of slums in Chicago in 1899. Hull House provided a day care center for children of working mothers, a community kitchen, and visiting nurses. Addams and her staff gave classes in English literacy, art, and other subjects. Hull House also became a meeting place for clubs and labor unions. Most of the people who worked with Addams in Hull House were well educated, middle-class women. Hull House gave them an opportunity to use their education and it provided a training ground for careers in social work.

Before World War I, Addams was probably the most beloved woman in America. In a newspaper poll that asked, “Who among our contemporaries are of the most value to the community?”, Jane Addams was rated second, after Thomas Edison. When she opposed America’s involvement in World War I, however, newspaper editors called her a traitor and a fool, but she never changed her mind. Jane Addams was a strong champion of several other causes. Until 1920, American women could not vote. Addams joined in the movement for women’s suffrage and was a vice president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She was a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and was president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. . Her reputation was gradually restored during the last years of her life. She died of cancer in 1935.

Jane Addams was inspired to open Hull House because:

A. it gave educated women an opportunity to use their education and develop careers in social work

B. she traveled to Europe in the 1880s

C. she visited Toynbee Hall

D. she was invited by a ‘settlement house’ in Chicago

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the underlined part that needs correction in each of the following questions from 12 to 14.

My girlfriend and I drink sometimes coffee in the morning in a café near my school.

A. girlfriend 

B. drink sometimes 

C. in 

D. near my school 

Read the following passage and then choose the best answer for each question by circling the corresponding letter A, B, C or D from 36 to 40.

The modern comic strip started out as ammunition in a newspaper war between giants of the American press in the late nineteenth century. The first full-color comic strip appeared in January 1894 in the New York World, owned by Joseph Pulitzer. The first regular weekly full-color comic supplement, similar to today’s Sunday funnies, appeared two years later, in William Randolph Hearst’s rival New York paper, the Morning Journal.

Both were immensely popular and publishers realized that supplementing the news with comic relief boosted the sale of papers. The Morning Journal started another feature in 1896, the “Yellow Kid”, the first continuous comic character in the United States, whose creator, Richard Outcault, had been lured away from the World by the ambitious Hearst. The “Yellow Kid” was in many ways a pioneer. Its comic dialogue was the strictly urban farce that came to characterize later strips, and it introduced the speech balloon inside the strip, usually placed above the characters’ heads.

The first strip to incorporate all the elements of later comics was Rudolph Dirks’s “Katzenjammer Kids”, based on Wilhelm Busch’s Max and Moritz, a European satire of the nineteenth century. The “Kids” strip, first published in 1897, served as the prototype for future American strips. It contained not only speech balloons, but a continuous cast of characters, and was divided into small regular panels that did away with the larger panoramic scenes of earlier comics.

Newspaper syndication played a major role in spreading the popularity of comic strips throughout the country. Though weekly colored comics came first, daily black-and-white strips were not far behind. The first appeared in the Chicago American in 1904. It was followed by many imitators, and by 1915 blackand-white comic strips had become a staple of daily newspapers around the country. 

The word “incorporate” is closest in meaning to 

A. combine 

B. create 

C. affect 

D. mention 

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 53 to 62.

History books recorded that the first film with sound was The Jazz Singer in 1927. But sound films, or talkies, did not suddenly appear after years of silent screenings. From the earliest public performances in 1896, films were accompanied by music and sound effects. These were produced by a single pianist, a small band, or a full-scale orchestra; large movie theatres could buy sound-effect machines. Research into sound that was reproduced at exactly at the same time as the pictures – called “synchronized sound” – began soon after the very first films were shown. With synchronized sound, characters on the movie screen could sing and speak. As early as 1896, the newly invented gramophone, which played a large disc carrying music and dialogue, was used as a sound system. The biggest disadvantage was that the sound and pictures could become unsynchronized if, for example, the gramophone needle jumped or if the speed of the projector changed. This system was only effective for a single song or dialogue sequence.

In the “sound-on-film” system, sound was recorded as a series of marks on celluloid which could be read by an optical sensor. These signals would be placed on the film alongside the image, guaranteeing synchronization. Short feature films were produced in this way as early as 1922. This system eventually brought us “talking pictures”.

Which of the following is not mentioned as a producer of sound to accompany movies?

A. a jazz singer             

B. single pianist   

C. a small band              

D. a gramophone

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the underlined part that needs correction in each of the following questions.
Miranda still has trauma from the tragic accident, that took away her closest friend.

A. has

B. tragic

C. that

D. closest

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 following questions

          The dream of a canal across the Isthmus of Suez had existed since the time 4,000 years ago when the pharaohs built Egypt's first canal. (It linked the Nile River with the Great Bitter Lake, which then opened onto the Gulf of Suez.) This canal, however, was filled in, and for centuries trade with the Far East was carried overland across Asia. Eventually ships began to sail around the southern tip of Africa to reach the Mediterranean Sea from the Red Sea.

          Then in 1858 a French engineer, Ferdinand de Lesseps, acquired the rights from his friend, Said Pasha, viceroy of Egypt, to organize a company and build a canal. On November 17, 1869, the Suez Canal was opened with great ceremony at the northern terminus, Port Said, which was named for Said Pasha. The 12,400-mile (19,950-kilometer) voyage from London around South Africa to Bombay, India, was shortened to 7,250 miles (11,670 kilometers).

The Suez Canal is 101 miles (163 kilometers) long, or about twice the length of the Panama Canal. The Suez was easier to construct because it crosses flat, sea-level terrain and requires no locks. About 24 miles (39 kilometers) of the canal are channels dredged through lakes. Most of the banks of the other 77 miles (123 kilometers) are reinforced with stone, cement, or steel to help prevent erosion.

The main channels of the canal are dredged to a depth of about 66 feet (20 meters), and the navigational width between buoys is set at 596 feet (180 meters). Double channels, where ships traveling in opposite directions can pass without stopping, have been constructed at four locations and cover a little more than 41 miles (67 kilometers). The largest ships allowed to pass through the canal may have a beam of up to 210 feet (64 meters) wide and a draught (belowwater depth) of up to 53 feet (16 meters).

Ships move through the canal under their own power, but large ships must be accompanied by a tugboat. The trip takes roughly 12 to 18 hours. To prevent accidents, vessels must travel in convoys at fixed speeds, fixed intervals and fixed distances between passing ships. Convoys going in opposite directions are usually timed so they will pass each other in the Great Bitter Lake where there is a long double channel.

Each day two convoys from south to north and one convoy from north to south sail through the canal, with a maximum total of 80 vessels a day. Yearly traffic numbers about 20,000 ships carrying between 300 million and 400 million net tons. Tankers and cargo ships account for nearly all canal traffic, but occasionally passenger liners and warships use the waterway. Northbound cargo is chiefly oil from the Persian Gulf headed for Western Europe. Southbound cargo consists mainly of manufactured goods and grain from Europe and North America destined for the Far East and southern Asia.

Which of the following kinds of ships is not mentioned to pass the Canal in the passage? 

A. Passenger liners 

B. Aircraft carriers 

C. Cargo ships 

D. Tankers

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 53 to 62.

History books recorded that the first film with sound was The Jazz Singer in 1927. But sound films, or talkies, did not suddenly appear after years of silent screenings. From the earliest public performances in 1896, films were accompanied by music and sound effects. These were produced by a single pianist, a small band, or a full-scale orchestra; large movie theatres could buy sound-effect machines. Research into sound that was reproduced at exactly at the same time as the pictures – called “synchronized sound” – began soon after the very first films were shown. With synchronized sound, characters on the movie screen could sing and speak. As early as 1896, the newly invented gramophone, which played a large disc carrying music and dialogue, was used as a sound system. The biggest disadvantage was that the sound and pictures could become unsynchronized if, for example, the gramophone needle jumped or if the speed of the projector changed. This system was only effective for a single song or dialogue sequence.

In the “sound-on-film” system, sound was recorded as a series of marks on celluloid which could be read by an optical sensor. These signals would be placed on the film alongside the image, guaranteeing synchronization. Short feature films were produced in this way as early as 1922. This system eventually brought us “talking pictures”.

According to the passage, gramophones were ineffective because they _________.

A. got out of synchronization with the pictures.           

B. were too large for most movie theaters.

C. were newly invented and still had imperfections       

D. changed speeds when the needle jumped.

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the underlined part that needs correction in each of the following questions.
The office furniture that was ordered last month have just arrived, but we’re not sure whether the manager likes it.

A. that

B. have just arrived

C. whether

D. likes

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 22 to 28.

The Internet started out as a limited network called the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network). It was a network of computers that allowed communication even if computer became non-functioning. It was the academic and scientific community that adopted Internet, using a protocol called TCP/IP. TCP/IP allows a number of different network computers to be connected together. This is called the Internet. The Internet allows the creation the World Wide Web or the Web for short. The Web consists of Internet sites that allow data to be shared by others. Aside from making the Web possible, the Internet also makes e-mail, chat rom and file-sharing and telephoning possible. It even allows people to watch media and play games.

The Web can be read in a browser. A browser is simply a software program that uses HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) data transmission. This will allow you to view Web pages. HTTP let you browser read the text, graphics, animation, video and music that are on the Web page. It also enables you to click on a link on the page using the mouse. The links on a Web page that guide you to go from one Web page to another are called hyperlinks. A Web page usually contains many hyperlinks so that you can “browse” the Internet. It is much like reading a book. You can go from page to page and get new information. One example of a browser is Internet Explorer. In the address box of your browser, you can type in an address called a URL for “uniform resource locator”.

To be able to use the Internet, you must have a computer with an Internet connection and software that lets you view that Web pages. Internet connection is called a dial-up connection. It needs the use of your telephone to connect your computer to an Internet service. A faster type of connection is called broadband. This requires a cable or some other equipment. If you turn on the computer with a broadband connection, it connects you the Internet at a time.

Adapted from http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET

What is the main idea of the passage?

A. The Internet Explorer can be used to browse the Web. 

B. The most popular Internet programs are e-mail, chatting and games. 

C. Equipment is needed to allow a computer to connect to the Internet. 

D. The Internet is an invention that makes sending and receiving data possible.