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 55 to 64.

              Are you interested in seeing the beautiful fall foliage of New England but tired of traffic jams and overbooked hotels? Then this year forget the crowds in New England and see the beautiful colors of autumn in the Catskills.

              These rugged mountains in New York State, just 90 miles northwest of New York City, are famous for the legendary tales of Rip Van Winkle, and more recently for the summer hotels that sprang up in the region during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Families trying to escape the heat of New York City found the Catskills to be the perfect place to stay for a month or so each summer. By the late 1950s there were over 500 resorts and hotels offering nighttime entertainment as well as all kinds of outdoor activities. Famous comedians like Jackie Gleason, Joan Rivers, and Sid Caesar all got their start touring the hotel clubs here. Since the introduction of air-conditioning and cheaper air travel, however, families have stopped coming to the Catskills in such large numbers, choosing instead more distant locations at different times of the year. Many of the Catskill hotels closed in the 1970s, but some remain and have expanded and changed their facilities to meet the needs of today's visitors.

              Currently, there are many activities available to the traveler besides witnessing the changing colors of the leaves. There is an all-organic sheep farm where visitors can see how a traditional sheep farm operates. There are also hundreds of miles of scenic drives in the area. Route 42, for instance, is an excellent site for spotting bald eagles. For more information on vacations in the Catskills, call the Office of Public Information.

Which of the following is closest in meaning to the word "legendary" in paragraph 2?

A. foolish

B. perplexing

C. mythical

D. humorous

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 35 to 42.

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.

According to paragraph 2, which of the following is true?

A. One effect of commercialism is news stories with more complex content.

B. The ABC network owns Disney Studios.

C. Some news broadcasts are shown without advertisements.

D. More time is devoted to news on TV now than 50 years ago.

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.

        It is commonly believed 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 difference between schooling and education implied by this remark is important.

         Education is much more open-ended and all-inclusive than schooling. Education knows no limits. It can take place anywhere, whether in the shower or on the job, whether in the kitchen or on the tractor. It includes both the formal learning that takes place in school and the whole universe of informal learning. The agent (doer) of education can vary from respected grandparents to the people arguing about politics on the radio , from a child to a famous 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 receive 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 a necessary 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 about the same time, take the assigned seats, are taught by an adult, use similar textbooks, do homework, take exams, and so on. The pieces of reality that are to be learned, whether they are the alphabet or an understanding of the workings of governments, have been limited by the subjects 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 society or what the newest filmmarkers are experimenting with. There are clear and undoubted conditions surrounding the formalized process of schooling.

According to the passage, the doers of education are _____.

A. only respected grandparents

B. mostly famous scientists

C. mainly politicians

D. almost all people

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 45 to 50.

The Atmosphere of Venus

          Venus, also called the Morning Star and Evening Star, is the second-closest planet to the sun and the brightest object in the night sky. The planet orbits the sun every two hundred and twenty four Earth-days and is sometimes referred to as Earth’s sister planet because the two share both a similar size and bulk. What is not similar, however, is Venus’s atmosphere in comparison to Earth’s atmosphere.

          The atmosphere on Venus is much heavier and has a higher density than that of Earth. Venus’s atmosphere also expands significantly higher than Earth’s atmosphere although a thick cloud cover makes the surface of Venus nearly impossible to see unless observed through radar mapping.

          While the pressure and temperature of Venus’s upper atmosphere are comparable to those of Earth, the heat and pressure of the lower atmosphere are not unlike a furnace. Venus’s atmosphere is very thick due to a composition consisting mainly of carbon dioxide, and a small amount of nitrogen. If man could survive the extreme heat of Venus’s surface (400 degrees Celsius), then he would have to contend with a surface pressure that is more than 90 times that of Earth. Venus’s extremely high temperature is thanks to the greenhouse effect caused by such a large amount of carbon dioxide. The greenhouse effect is a process by which the sun’s infrared radiation is more readily absorbed by the atmosphere. Just like in a real greenhouse used to grow plants years round, the proliferation of carbon dioxide traps radiation and warms Venus’s atmosphere. Due to this phenomenon, Venus boasts a higher atmospheric temperature than Mercury, even though Venus is twice the distance from the sun.

          However, scientists postulate that Venus’s atmosphere was not always so hot. Studies show that large bodies of water were once on Venus’s surface but that eventually evaporation of all the water caused the runaway greenhouse effect which regulates the planet today.Thus Venus has become a critical study for today’s scientists, as human being are only beginning to struggle with the early stages of the greenhouse effect. Our problems do not stem from evaporated water supplies but from a propagation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases due to industrial and automobile emissions.

          Another interesting characteristic to note regarding Venus’s atmosphere is that its daytime temperatures and nighttime temperatures are not that far removed from each other. This is due to the thermal inertia, the ability of a substance to store heat despite changing temperatures and the transfer of heat by Venus’s strong winds. Although winds on the surface of Venus move slowly in comparison with Earth’s winds, Venus’s air is so dense that a slow-moving there can move large obstructions and even skip stones along the planet’s surface.

          In 1966, humankind made its first attempt at sending a recording instrument into Venus’s atmosphere. The Venera 3 probe did collide with Venus surface; however, the abrupt impact caused its communication system to fail, and it was unable to send and feedback. In 1967, Venera 4 successfully enter Venus’s atmosphere and was able to take many readings, one of which recorded that Venus’s atmosphere was between ninety and ninety-five percent carbon dioxide. Subsequent Venera probes were sent into Venus’s atmosphere, but most of them succumbed to the crushing air pressure.

In paragraph 4, the author of the passage implies that Earth

A. might suffer the same greenhouse effect as Venus

B. once had an atmosphere similar to Venus’s

C. has bodies of water similar to those on Venus today

D. is experiencing a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions

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.

        It is commonly believed 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 difference between schooling and education implied by this remark is important.

         Education is much more open-ended and all-inclusive than schooling. Education knows no limits. It can take place anywhere, whether in the shower or on the job, whether in the kitchen or on the tractor. It includes both the formal learning that takes place in school and the whole universe of informal learning. The agent (doer) of education can vary from respected grandparents to the people arguing about politics on the radio , from a child to a famous 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 receive 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 a necessary 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 about the same time, take the assigned seats, are taught by an adult, use similar textbooks, do homework, take exams, and so on. The pieces of reality that are to be learned, whether they are the alphabet or an understanding of the workings of governments, have been limited by the subjects 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 society or what the newest filmmarkers are experimenting with. There are clear and undoubted conditions surrounding the formalized process of schooling.

What does the writer mean by saying “education quite often produces surprises”?

A. Educators often produce surprises.

B. Informal learning often brings about unexpected results.

C. Success of informal learning is predictable.

D. It’s surprising that we know little about other religions.

Mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the following questions.
When he came to the counter of pay, he found that he had _______ cash _______ his credit card with him.

A. either/or

B. neither/nor

C. both/and

D. not/neither

Mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the following questions.
_________, we tried our best to complete it.

A. Thanks to the difficult homework

B. Despite the homework was difficult

C. Difficult as the homework was

D. As though the homework was difficult

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 35 to 42.

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.

Why does the author mention Mickey Mouse in paragraph 2?

A. To indicate that ABC shows entertaining news stories

B. To give an example of news stories that are also advertisements

C. To contrast ABC's style with that of CBS

D. To give an example of news content that is not serious

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 55 to 64.

              Are you interested in seeing the beautiful fall foliage of New England but tired of traffic jams and overbooked hotels? Then this year forget the crowds in New England and see the beautiful colors of autumn in the Catskills.

              These rugged mountains in New York State, just 90 miles northwest of New York City, are famous for the legendary tales of Rip Van Winkle, and more recently for the summer hotels that sprang up in the region during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Families trying to escape the heat of New York City found the Catskills to be the perfect place to stay for a month or so each summer. By the late 1950s there were over 500 resorts and hotels offering nighttime entertainment as well as all kinds of outdoor activities. Famous comedians like Jackie Gleason, Joan Rivers, and Sid Caesar all got their start touring the hotel clubs here. Since the introduction of air-conditioning and cheaper air travel, however, families have stopped coming to the Catskills in such large numbers, choosing instead more distant locations at different times of the year. Many of the Catskill hotels closed in the 1970s, but some remain and have expanded and changed their facilities to meet the needs of today's visitors.

              Currently, there are many activities available to the traveler besides witnessing the changing colors of the leaves. There is an all-organic sheep farm where visitors can see how a traditional sheep farm operates. There are also hundreds of miles of scenic drives in the area. Route 42, for instance, is an excellent site for spotting bald eagles. For more information on vacations in the Catskills, call the Office of Public Information.

Which of the following most reflects the author's tone in this passage?

A. light and encouraging

B. informative and scientific

C. humorous and skeptical

D. regretful and reminiscent

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

HOW TO AVOID MISCOMMUNICATION IN THE WORKPLACE

        As a small-business owner, you can avoid many problems simply by improving communication in your office. By clarifying everyone's expectations and roles, you'll help to (30) _______greater trust and increase productivity among employees. Here are a few tips for doing so. 

       Practice active listening. The art of active listening includes (31)_______ close attention to what another person is saying, then paraphrasing what you've heard and repeating it back. Concentrate (32)_______ the conversation at hand and avoid unwanted interruptions (cell phone calls, others walking into your office, etc.). Take note of how your own experience and values may color your perception.

        Pay attention to non-verbal cues. We don't communicate with words alone. Every conversation comes with a host of non-verbal cues - facial expressions, body language, etc. - that may (33)_______ contradict what we're saying. Before addressing a staff member or (34)_______ a project conference, think carefully about your tone of voice, how you make eye contact, and what your body is "saying." Be consistent throughout. Be clear and to the point. Don't cloud instructions or requests with irrelevant details, such as problems with past projects or issues with long-departed personnel. State what you need and what you expect. Ask, "Does anyone have any questions?" Demonstrate that you prefer questions up-front as opposed to misinterpretation later on.

Điền vào số (30)

A. set up

B. establish

C. create

D. build