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

In the West, cartoons are used chiefly to make people laugh. The important feature of all these cartoons is the joke and the element of surprise which is contained. Even though it is very funny, a good cartoon is always based on close observation of a particular feature of life and usually has a serious purpose.

Cartoons in the West have been associated with political and social matters for many years. In wartime, for example, they proved to be an excellent way of spreading propaganda. Nowadays cartoons are often used to make short, sharp comments on politics and governments as well as on a variety of social matters. In this way, the modern cartoon has become a very powerful force in influencing people in Europe and the United States.

Unlike most American and European cartoons, however, many Chinese cartoon drawings in the past have also attempted to educate people, especially those who could not read and write. Such cartoons about the lives and sayings of great men in China have proved extremely useful in bringing education to illiterate and semi-literate people throughout China. Confucius, Mencius and Laozi have all appeared in very interesting stories presented in the form of cartoons. The cartoons themselves have thus served to illustrate the teachings of the Chinese sages in a very attractive way.

In this sense, many Chinese cartoons are different from Western cartoons in so far as they do not depend chiefly on telling jokes. Often, there is nothing to laugh at when you see Chinese cartoons. This is not their primary aim. In addition to commenting on serious political and social matters, Chinese cartoons have aimed at spreading the traditional Chinese thoughts and culture as widely as possible among the people.

Today, however, Chinese cartoons have an added part to play in spreading knowledge. They offer a

very attractive and useful way of reaching people throughout the world, regardless of the particular country in which they live. Thus, through cartoons, the thoughts and teachings of the old Chinese philosophers and sages can now reach people who live in such countries as Britain, France, America, Japan, Malaysia or Australia and who are unfamiliar with the Chinese culture.

Until recently, the transfer of knowledge and culture has been overwhelmingly from the West to the East and not vice versa. By means of cartoons, however, publishing companies in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore are now having success in correcting this imbalance between the East and the West.

       Cartoons can overcome language barriers in all foreign countries. The vast increase in the popularity of these cartoons serves to illustrate the truth of Confucius’s famous saying “One picture is worth a thousand words.”

The major differences between Chinese cartoons and Western cartoons come from their________.

A. purposes     

B. nationalities    

C. values    

D. styles

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 36 to 42.

It is commonly believed in the United States that school is where people go to get an education. Nevertheless, it has been said that today children interrupt their education to go to school. The distinction between schooling and education implied by this remark is important.

Education is much more open-ended and all-inclusive than schooling. Education knows no bounds. It can take place anywhere, whether in the shower or on the job, whether in a kitchen or on a tractor. It includes both the formal learning that takes place in schools and the whole universe of informal learning. The agents of education can range from a revered grandparent to the people debating politics on the radio, from a child to a distinguished scientist. Whereas schooling has a certain predictability, education quite often produces surprises. A chance conversation with a stranger may lead a person to discover how little is known of other religions. People are engaged in education from infancy on. Education, then, is a very broad, inclusive term. It is a lifelong process, a process that starts long before the start of school and one that should be an integral part of one's entire life.

Schooling, on the other hand, is a specific, formalized process, whose general pattern varies little from one setting to the next. Throughout a country, children arrive at school at approximately the same time, take assigned seats, are taught by an adult, use similar textbooks, do homework, take exams, and so on. The slices of reality that are to be learned, whether they are the alphabet or an understanding of the workings of government, have usually been limited by the boundaries of the subject being taught. For example, high school students know that they are not likely to find out in their classes the truth about political problems in their communities or what the newest filmmakers are experimenting with. There are definite conditions surrounding the formalized process of schooling.

The passage is organized by ________.

A. listing and discussing several educational problems

B. contrasting the meanings of two related words

C. narrating a story about excellent teacher

D. giving examples of different kinds of schools 

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

A fold culture is small, isolated, cohesive, conservative, nearly self-sufficient group that is homogeneous in custom and race, with a strong family or clan structure and highly developed rituals.

Order is maintained through sanctions based in the religion or family, and interpersonal relationships are strong. Tradition is paramount, and change comes infrequently and slowly. There is relatively little division of labor into specialized duties. Rather, each person is expected to perform a great variety of tasks, though duties may differ between the sexes. Most goods are handmade, and a subsistence economy prevails. Individualism is weakly developed in folk cultures, as are social classes. Unaltered folk cultures no longer exist in industrialized countries such as the United States and Canada. Perhaps the nearest modern equivalent in Anglo-America is the Amish, a German American farming sect that largely renounces the products and labor saving devices of the industrial age. In Amish areas, horse-drawn buggies till serve as a local transportation device, and the faithful are not permitted to own automobiles.

The Amish’s Central religious concept of Demut, “humility”, clearly reflects the weakness of individualism and social class so typical of folk cultures, and there is a corresponding strength of Amish group identity. Rarely do the Amish marry outside their sect. The religion, a variety of the Mennonite faith, provides the principal mechanism for maintaining order.

By contrast, a popular culture is a large heterogeneous group, often highly individualistic and constantly changing. Relationships tend to be impersonal, and a pronounced division of labor exists, leading to the establishment of many specialized professions. Secular institutions, of control such as the police and army take the place of religion and family in maintaining order, and a money-based economy prevails. Because of these contrasts, “popular” may be viewed as clearly difierent from “folk”.

     The popular is replacing the folk in industrialized countries and in many developing nations, Folk- made objects give way to their popular equivalent, usually because the popular item is more quickly or cheaply produced, is easier or time saving to use, or lends more prestige to the owner.

Which of following is NOT given as a reason why folk-made objects are replaced by mass-produced objects?

A. cost    

B. prestige   

C. quality    

D. convenience

A. As he had enjoyed being away from his family for such a long time on his last business trip, Phil hoped that this trip would be even longer. 

B. Phil knew that the business trip he was soon to take would keep him away from his family for less time than the previous one 

C. On this business trip, Phil hoped that he would not be away from his family for as long a time as he had been on the previous one. 

D. No longer wanting to take lengthy business trips because they separated him from his family, Phil preferred not to go on any at all.

Read the following passage taken from the Oxford Advanced Leamer's Dictionary 8th edition and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word for each of the blanks from 41 to 50.

The Thames is the longest and best-known river in Britain. It is 210 miles/338 kilometres________(41)________and flows from the Cotswolds in Central England to the North Sea after through London. Other famous towns on the river________(42)________Oxford, Windsor 1, Henley and Greenwich.________(43)________bridges across the Thames in London are London Bridge, Tower Bridge and Westminster Bridge.

Large ships can sail________(44)________the Thames________(45)________London and smaller ones a further 86 miles/138 kilometres. A large area in the east of London was formerly a major port on the river, but in recent times this Docklands area has been________(46) x.

The Thamcs Barrier is a large barrier________(47)________across the River Thames at Woolwich, east of London, to prevent London from being tlooded. It was completed in 1982 and________(48)________opened in 1984. It consists of ten gates, which________(49)________on the bottom of the river when the barrier is not required. If there is a danger of tlooding, the gates rise to form a solid________(50)________50 feet/15 metres high.

Question45

A. as long as

B. as soon as

C. as much as

D. as far as