Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word whose underlined part differs from the other three in pronunciation in each of the following questions.
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word which differs from the other three in the position of the main stress in each of the following questions.
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the following questions.
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word(s) CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined word(s) in each of the following questions.
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.
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the most suitable response to complete each of the following exchanges.
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the underlined part that needs correction on each of the following questions.
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that is closest in meaning to the sentence given in each of the following questions.
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.
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 34 to 38.
Exploration has changed a lot over time. In the past, only adventurers who were willing to take (34) __________ were considered explorers. In contrast, anyone can be an explorer today thanks to modern technology.
In the past, when explorers traveled the world, people back home had to wait for months to hear about their adventures. Explorers kept (35) __________ and wrote letters about their experiences. They would only be able to tell (36)__________what they saw after they returned. By the end of the nineteenth century, explorers were also able to take photos in the same way (37)__________ they do today. However, they were unable to see the photos right away. It often took a long time for them to get photos printed.
(38) __________, today’s explorers can travel around the globe and can send back live, real-time images. Thanks to high-tech devices and the Internet, anyone can interact with them. When a discovery is made, we can see photos on social media and read blog posts the same day. We may not be there, but we still take part in the adventure.
(Adapted from Thomas Fast, 2017)
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 39 to 43.
When I surveyed over 5,000 middle grade students for my book, kids were already reminding me of the technology gap between them and their parents. They claimed that parents “didn’t have a clue” as to what they were experiencing on screens. While generation gap is often characteristic of adolescence in any generation, it is even wider because of rapidly changing technology.
Even the guidelines I prescribed six years ago would be impossible to implement for this generation of tablets, cellphones and notebooks that travel in children’s backpacks. Setting and enforcing guidelines early for children is helpful. Taking technology away at bedtime is still possible and at least allows them a good night’s rest. Cautioning your children about not sharing real names, addresses or phone numbers in chatrooms or for any emails protects them somewhat. Making sure your hardworking home is balanced by non-screen family fun can be enormous protection. Beware of over-consequencing and over-punishing for small problems. We don’t want your children to think of their parents as enemies in a battle of wills.
Tell your children how wise and experienced you are and how much you love them at least five times a week. They need to know they can count on you in this complex, fast-moving world even if they know more about technology than you do. Like every generation, your children will grow up and hopefully find responsible directions for their own lives. Technology skills are valued in the work force and technology is here to stay. Learning as much about it as possible will help you stay tuned-in to what your children aren’t saying.
(Source: https://www.wdtimes.com/)
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 50.
If we really care about nature, then surely conservation has to be practical; it needs to work. Everything we hear on the news seems to say the opposite: nature continues to go down the tube; extinction rates are increasing; new threats like climate change are emerging; and beautiful places are being destroyed before our eyes. All this is true; and yet…
If things are getting worse, it is obvious that conservation is failing. Well, no. In 2006, scientists at BirdLife International showed that conservation action had prevented 16 bird species from going extinct during the 1994-2004 time period. In 2014, scientists from the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust found that sustained conservation action from 1988 to 2012 resulted in eight species being down-listed to lower categories of threat on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In a pivotal study in 2015, a group of researchers from the IUCN Species Survival Commission found that without conservation action that took place between 1996 and 2008, the status of the world’s ungulates (deer, antelopes, cattle and their relatives) would have been nearly eight times worse than was actually observed. In 2017, researchers were able to quantify how conservation investments made between 1996 and 2008 reduced biodiversity loss in 109 countries by 29% per country on average.
Once again, this suggests that although too little was spent on conservation, it had a significant level of success. As a result, decision-makers are now in a position, for the first time, to forecast what the positive impacts of any increase in conservation spending are likely to be in relation to different scenarios of human development pressure, and then compare these forecasts to their policy targets.
There is one clear conclusion from these and similar studies: conservation does work, but we do not do anywhere close to enough of it. The threats to nature are certainly growing and this means that we have to spend more on conservation just to stand still. On the other hand, if some of the commitments made by the world’s governments are actually acted upon, such as the 2010 Aichi Biodiversity Targets and the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals, then the number of resources to be allocated to conservation is set to increase. Let’s hope that this will indeed be the case.
(Source: https://www.synchronicityearth.org/)
