Choose the word which has the underlined part pronounced differently from the others.
chamber
patient
danger
ancestor
Choose the word which has the underlined part pronounced differently from the others.
smooth
southern
athlete
leather
Choose the word that differs from the other three in the position of primary stress.
Choose the word that differs from the other three in the position of primary stress
Are there any household chores for _____ men are better _____ than women?
Too many factories dispose _____ their waste by pumping it into rivers and the sea.
Why did Berth ask you _____ a bicycle?
She wondered if they _____ her jeweler and rather hoped that they had.
I cannot bear the noise of my brother’s radio; it _____ me from my work.
-“Is swimming underwater very difficult?”
-“No, it’s just a matter _____ able to control your breathing.”
I am going to the dentist’s tomorrow. I hope I don’t need to _____.
A young girl came on to the stage with a bouquet _____ to the conductor.
_____ I love you, I can’t let you do whatever you like.
He _____ alone a month ago, and _____ of since.
His _____ of the school regulations really can’t be ignored any longer.
Beaches were ______ as police searched for canisters of toxic waste from the damaged ship.
Peter: “_____”
Tim: “What happened?”
- “Don’t forget to look after yourself, Mary!”
- “_____”
Choose the word/phrase that is CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined ones.
When you cross the street, be careful and be on the alert for the bus.
Choose the word(s) CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined word(s).
He was asked to account for his presence at the scene of crime.
Choose the word(s) OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s).
In remote communities, it’s important to replenish stocks before the winter sets in.
Choose the word(s) OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s).
There has been no discernible improvement in the noise levels since lorries were banned.
Choose the underlined part that needs correction.
Salt was once too precious that it was used as money.
Choose the underlined part that needs correction.
There being no evidence against himself, Slade was released.
Choose the underlined part that needs correction.
The skin receives nearly the third of the blood pumped out by the heart.
Choose the sentence that is closest in meaning to this one.
Were it not for the money, this job wouldn’t be worthwhile.
Choose the sentence that is closest in meaning to this one.
At no time did the two sides look likely to reach an agreement.
No matter how hard Fred tried to start the car, he didn’t succeed.
Mark the sentence that best combines each pair of sentences in the following questions.
The new restaurant looks good. However, it seems to have few customers.
Choose the correct sentence that best combines each pair of sentences in the following question.
No one but the experts was able to realize that the painting was an imitation. It greatly resembled the original.
Read the following passage and choose the correct answer to each of the questions.
DESERTIFICATION
Desertification is the degradation of once-productive land into unproductive or poorly productive land. Since the first great urban-agricultural centers in Mesopotamia nearly 6,000 years ago, human activity has had a destructive impact on soil quality, leading to gradual desertification in virtually every area of the world.
It is a common misconception that desertification is caused by droughts. Although drought does make land more vulnerable, well-managed land can survive droughts and recover, even in arid regions. Another mistaken belief is that the process occurs only along the edges of deserts. In fact, it may take place in any arid or semiarid region, especially where poor land management is practiced. Most vulnerable, however, are the transitional zones between deserts and arable land; wherever human activity leads to land abuse in these fragile marginal areas, soil destruction is inevitable.
[1] Agriculture and overgrazing are the two major sources of desertification. [2] Large-scale farming requires extensive irrigation, which ultimately destroys lands by depleting its nutrients and leaching minerals into the topsoil. [3] Grazing is especially destructive to land because, in addition to depleting cover vegetation, herds of grazing mammals also trample the fine organic particles of the topsoil, leading to soil compaction and erosion. [4] It takes about 500 years for the earth to build up 3 centimeters of topsoil. However, cattle ranching and agriculture can deplete as much as 2 to 3 centimeters of topsoil every 25 years - 60 to 80 times faster than it can be replaced by nature.
Salination is a type of land degradation that involves an increase in the salt content of the soil. This usually occurs as a result of improper irrigation practices. The greatest Mesopotamian empires- Sumer, Akkad and Babylon- were built on the surplus of the enormously productive soil of the ancient Tigris- Euphrates alluvial plain. After nearly a thousand years of intensive cultivation, land quality was in evident decline. In response, around 2800 BC the Sumerians began digging the huge Tigris-Euphrates canal system to irrigate the exhausted soil. A temporary gain in crop yield was achieved in this way, but over-irrigation was to have serious and unforeseen consequences. From as early as 2400 BC we find Sumerian documents referring to salinization as a soil problem. It is believed that the fall of the Akkadian Empire around 2150 BC may have been due to a catastrophic failure in land productivity; the soil was literally turned into salt. Even today, four thousand years later, vast tracks of salinized land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers still resemble rock-hard fields of snow.
Soil erosion is another form of desertification. It is a self-reinforcing process; once the cycle of degradation begins, conditions are set for continual deterioration. As the vegetative cover begins to disappear, soil becomes more vulnerable to raindrop impact. Water runs off instead of soaking in to provide moisture for plans. This further diminishes plan cover by leaching away nutrients from the soil. As soil quality declines and runoff is increased, floods become more frequent and more severe. Flooding washes away topsoil, the thin, rich, uppermost layer of the earth’s soil, and leaves finer underlying particles more vulnerable to wind erosion. Topsoil contains the earth’s greatest concentration of organic matter and microorganisms, and is where most of the earth’s land-based biological activity occurs. Without this fragile coat of nutrient-laden material, plan life cannot exist. An extreme case of its erosion is found in the Sahel, a transitional zone between the Sahara Desert and the tropical African rain forests; home to some 56 million people. Overpopulation and overgrazing have opened the hyperarid land to wind erosion, which is stripping away the protective margin of the Sahel, and causing the desert to grow at an alarming rate. Between 1950 and 1975, the Sahara Desert spread 100 kilometers southward through the Sahel.
Which of the following statement is true about desertification?
According to the passage, many people’s understanding of desertification is incorrect because _____.
According to the passage, agriculture furthers desertification through which of the following activities:
Paragraph 4 of the passage serves mainly to do which of the following?
Which following sentence is NOT true about the topsoil layer?
Read the following passage and choose the correct answer to each of the questions.
(1) Iron production was revolutionized in the early eighteenth century when coke was first used instead of charcoal for refining iron ore. Previously the poor quality of the iron had restricted its use in architecture to items such as chains and tie bars for supporting arches, vaults, and walls. With the improvement in refining ore, it was now possible to make cast-iron beams, columns, and girders. During the nineteenth century further advances were made, notably Bessemer’s process for converting iron into steel, which made the material more commercially viable.
(2) Iron was rapidly adopted for the construction of bridges, because its strength was far greater than that of stone or timber, but its use in the architecture of buildings developed more slowly. By 1800 a complete internal iron skeleton for buildings had been developed in industrial architecture replacing traditional timber beams, but it generally remained concealed. Apart from its low cost, the appeal of iron as a building material lay in its strength, its resistance to fire, and its potential to span vast areas. As a result, iron became increasingly popular as a structural material for more traditional styles of architecture during the nineteenth century, but it was invariably concealed.
(3) Significantly, the use of exposed iron occurred mainly in the new building types spawned by the Industrial Revolution: in factories, warehouses, commercial offices, exhibition hall, and railroad stations, where its practical advantages far outweighed its lack of status. Designers of the railroad stations of the new age explored the potential of iron, covering huge areas with spans that surpassed the great vaults of medieval churches and cathedrals. Paxton’s Crystal Palace, designed to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, covered an area of 1.848 feet by 408 feet in prefabricated units of glass set in iron frames. The Paris Exhibition of 1889 included both the widest span and the greatest height achieved so far with the Halle Des Machines, spanning 362 feet, and the Eiffel Tower 1,000 feet high. However, these achievements were mocked by the artistic elite of Paris as expensive and ugly follies. Iron, despite its structural advantages, had little aesthetic status. The use of an exposed iron structure in the more traditional styles of architecture was slower to develop.
What does the passage mainly discuss?
According to the passage, iron was NOT used for beams, columns, and girders prior to the early eighteenth century because _____.
Iron replaced stone and timber in the building of bridges because iron was considered _____.
The word “it” in paragraph 2 refers to_____.
The word “surpassed” is closest in meaning to _____.
According to paragraph 3, the architectural significance of the Halle Des Machines was its _____.
How did the artistic elite mentioned in the passage react to the buildings at the Paris Exhibition?
It can be inferred that the delayed use of exposed iron structures in traditional styles of architecture is best explained by the _____.
Choose the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the blanks.
There has been an outbreak of avian influenza, better known as bird flu in Asia recently. The first (A)____ died two weeks ago in Vietnam and there have been the cases reported since in Thailand, and there are some suspected cases in Cambodia as well as.
Wild birds are affected by a large number of flu viruses, just as the humans and other animals are, but they are normally exclusive to birds. If the viruses manage to mutate, they can to jump the species barrier and infect human beings. The first case (B)____ someone died was in Hong Kong in 1997.
There are the several different forms of bird flu, ranging from mild to very (C)____ infections, which spread rapidly and kill many of the birds they infect. It is spread by wild birds-ducks, in particular – which carries the virus but isn't killed by it. They can spread the virus to farm birds through (D)____ contact or by the contaminating water supplies.
World Health Organization officials have attributed the spread of bird flu to human contact with the droppings of infected birds and (E)____ sanitation. There was no evidence at first that the virus spread from person to person, though there has been a case of this happening being investigated by scientists.
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(E)