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 36 to 43.

Reading to oneself is a modern activity which was almost unknown to the scholars of the classical and medieval worlds, while during the fifteenth century the term “reading” undoubtedly meant reading aloud. Only during the nineteenth century did silent reading become commonplace.

One should be wary, however, of assuming that silent reading came about simply because reading aloud was a distraction to others. Examinations of factors related to the historical development of silent reading have revealed that it became the usual mode of reading for most adults mainly because the tasks themselves changed in character.

The last century saw a steady gradual increase in literacy and thus in the number of readers. As the number of readers increases, the number of potential listeners decline and thus there was some reduction in the need to read aloud. As reading for the benefit of listeners grew less common, so came the flourishing of reading as a private activity in such public places as libraries, railway carriages and offices, where reading aloud would cause distraction to other readers.

Towards the end of the century, there was still considerable argument over whether books should be used for information or treated respectfully and over whether the reading of materials such as newspapers was in some mentally weakening. Indeed, this argument remains with us still in education. However, whatever its virtues, the old shared literacy culture had gone and was replaced by the printed mass media on the one hand and by books and periodicals for a specialized readership on the other.

By the end of the twentieth century, students were being recommended to adopt attitudes to books and to use reading skills which were inappropriate, if not impossible, for the oral reader.

The social, cultural and technological changes in the century had greatly altered what the term “reading” implied.

All of the following might be the factors that effected the continuation of the old shard literacy culture EXCEPT ____ 

A. the specialized readership 

B. the inappropriate reading skills

C. the diversity of reading materials

D. the print mass media

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 36 to 42.

We live in a world of tired, sleep deprived people. In his book Counting Sheep, Paul Martin – a behavioural biologist – describes a society which is just too busy to sleep and which does not give sleeping the importance it deserves.

          Modern society has invented reasons not to sleep. We are now a 24/7 society where shops and services must be available all hours. We spend longer hours at work than we used to, and more time getting to work. Mobile phones and email allow us to stay in touch round the clock and late-night TV and the Internet tempt us away from our beds. When we need more time for work or pleasure, the easy solution is to sleep less. The average adult sleeps only 6.2 hours a night during the week, whereas research shows that most people need eight or even eight and a half hours’ sleep to feel at their best. Nowadays, many people have got used to sleeping less than they need and they live in an almost permanent state of ‘sleep debt’.

          Until the invention of the electric light in 1879 our daily cycle of sleep used to depend on the hours of daylight. People would get up with the sun and go to bed at nightfall. But nowadays our hours of sleep are mainly determined by our working hours (or our social life) and most people are woken up artificially by an alarm clock. During the day caffeine, the world’s most popular drug, helps to keep us awake. 75% of the world’s population habitually consume caffeine, which up to a point masks the symptoms of sleep deprivation.

What does a chronic lack of sleep do to us? As well as making us irritable and unhappy as humans, it also reduces our motivation and ability to work. This has serious implications for society in general. Doctors, for example, are often chronically sleep deprived, especially when they are on ‘night call’, and may get less than three hours’ sleep. Lack of sleep can seriously impair their mood, judgment, and ability to take decisions. Tired engineers, in the early hours of the morning, made a series of mistakes with catastrophic results. On our roads and motorways lack of sleep kills thousands of people every year. Tests show that a tired driver can be just as dangerous as a drunken driver. However, driving when drunk is against the law but driving when exhausted isn’t. As Paul Martin says, it is very ironic that we admire people who function on very little sleep instead of criticizing them for being irresponsible. Our world would be a much safer, happier place if everyone, whatever their job, slept eight hours a night.

New English File Upper-intermediate by Clive Oxenden and Christina Latham-Koenig, OUP

The phrase “round the clock” in the second paragraph is similar in meaning to______.

A. surrounded with clocks

B. all day and night

C. during the daytime 

D. having a round clock

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

The strike was caused by the_________ of two workers. 

A. dismiss 

B. dismissing 

C. dismissed 

D. dismissal 

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

A: Do you mind if we schedule the meeting for 11 o’clock?

B: Well, actually, I ____ earlier 

A. will prefer it 

B. would prefer it to be 

C. am preferring 

D. should prefer it will be 

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that best combines each pair of sentences in the following questions.

Transportation has been made much easier thanks to the invention of cars. However, cars are the greatest contributor of air pollution

A. The invention of cars has made transportation much easier, but cars are among the greatest contributors of air pollution

B. Although the invention of cars has made transportation much easier, people use cars to contribute to the pollution of air

C. Although the invention of cars has made transportation much easier, cars are the greatest contributor of air pollution

D. However easier the invention of cars has made transportation, it is cars that are among the greatest contributors of air pollution

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.

Being that he was a good swimmer, Tom managed to rescue the child.

A. that he was

B. that he was

C. rescue

D. child

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that best combines each pair of sentences in the following questions.

There is an important difference between humans and chimpanzees. Chimpanzees walk on four legs.

A. There is an important difference between humans and chimpanzees that walk on four legs. 

B. Chimpanzees walk on four legs, so they are importantly different from humans. 

C. An important difference between humans and chimpanzees is that chimpanzees walk on four legs. 

D. There are important differences between humans and chimpanzees one of which is that chimpanzees walk on four legs.

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

The forest from which Man takes his timber is the tallest and most impressive plant community on Earth. In terms of Man’s brief life, it appears permanent and unchanging, save for the season growth and fall of the leaves, but to the forester, it represents the climax of a long succession of events.

No wooded landscape we see today has been forest for all time. Plants have minimum requirements of temperature and moisture and, in ages past, virtually every part of Earth’s surface has, at some time, been either too dry or too cool for plants to survive.

However, as soon as climatic conditions change in favor of plant life, a fascinating sequence of changes, called a primary succession, occurs first to colonize the barren land and the lichen surviving on bare rock. Slowly, the acids produced by these organisms crack the rock’s surface, plants debris accumulate and mosses establish shallow root-holes. Ferns may allow and, with short grasses and shrubs, gradually form a covering of plant life. Roots broke even deeper into the developing soil and eventually large shrubs give way to the first trees. These grow rapidly, cutting off sunlight from the smaller plants, and soon establish complete domination - closing their ranks and forming a climax community which may endure for thousands of years. Yet even this community is not everlasting. Fire may destroy it outright and settlers may cut it down to gain land for pasture or cultivations. If the land is then abandoned, a secondary succession will take over, developing much faster on the more hospitable soil. Shrubs and trees are among the early invaders, their seeds carried by the wind, by birds and lodged in the coat of mammals.

For as long as it stands and strives, the forest is a vast machine storing energy and the many elements essential for life.

What conditions are needed for shrubs to become established?

A. More soil must accumulate.

B. The ground must be covered with grass.

C. Smaller plants must die now.    

D. Ferns must take root.