SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO KỲ THI CHỌN HỌC SINH GIỎI LỚP 12-VÒNG 1

LONG AN Ngày thi: 23/10/2012

MÔN THI: TIẾNG ANH- Bảng A
ĐỀ CHÍNH THỨC Thời gian làm bài: 180 phút
(Không kể thời gian
phát đề)

Lưu ý: Thí sinh làm bài trên giấy thi, không làm trên đề thi này.

A. LISTENING (20 points)

You will hear the conversation and the questions twice. Each question in this part
has four answer choices. Choose the best answer A, B, C or D (there is one that has 2
answers). Write your answer(s) on your answer sheet.
1. What can be implied from the student’s initial request?
A. A student is seeking guidance for his thesis project.
B. The student is seeking advice on how to become a TA.
C. The professor is giving a student the school’s new rules and regulations.
D. The professor is advising the student on how to get into a tutoring program.
2. What can be inferred about how the student feels about himself?
A. The student feels he is very capable.
B. The student feels sorry for the professor.
C. The student feels hungry and will talk later.
D. The student feels the new rules can be a problem.
3. What does the professor tell the student?
A. He tells the student all about a TA’s duties.
B. He tells the student to study hard for the TA exam.
C. He tells the student that they don’t need anymore TAs.
D. He tells the student that TAs get low pay and no respect.
4. According to the professor, what are some of the duties a teaching assistant
performs? Choose 2 answers.
A. Grader B. Test writer
C. Lecture writer D. Tutorial leader
5. Listen again to part of the conversation. Then answer the question.
What does the professor imply about a teaching assistant position?
A. The student should have more credentials.
B. The department is not interested in hiring TAs.
C. The department can always use bright grad students as TAs.
D. The student should reapply when he starts the next semester.
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B. READING AND WRITING (80 points)
I. Read the following passage and answer the questions. Write your answer(s)
on your answer sheet. (20 points)
In the late 1960's, many people in North America turned their attention to
environmental problems and new steel-and-glass skyscrapers were widely criticized.
Ecologists pointed out that a cluster of tall buildings in a city often overburdens public
transportation and parking lot capacities.
Skyscrapers are also lavish consumers, and wasters, of electric power. In one
recent year, the addition of 17 million square feet of skyscraper office space in New York
City raised the peak daily demand for electricity by 120, 000 kilowatts-enough to supply
the entire city of Albany, New York, for a day.
Glass- walled skyscrapers can be especially wasteful. The heat loss (or gain)
through a wall of half-inch plate glass is more than ten times that through a typical
masonry wall filled with insulation board. To lessen the strain on heating and air-
conditioning equipment builders of skyscrapers have begun to use double glazed panels
of glass, and reflective glasses coated with silver or gold mirror films that reduce glare as
well as heat gain. However, mirror-walled skyscrapers raise the temperature of the
surrounding air and affect neighboring buildings.
Skyscrapers put a severe strain on a city’s sanitation facilities, too. If fully
occupied, the two World Trade Center towers in New York City would alone generate
2.25 million gallons of raw sewage each year-as much as a city the size of Stamford,
Connecticut, which has a population of more than 109,000.
Skyscrapers also interfere with television reception, block bird flyways, and
obstruct air traffic. In Boston in the late 1960's, some people even feared that shadows
from skyscrapers would kill the grass on Boston Common.
Still, people continue to build skyscrapers for all the reasons that they have always
built them – personal ambition, civic pride, and the desire of owners to have the largest
possible amount of rentable space.
1. What is the main purpose of the passage?
2. What is one disadvantage of skyscrapers that have mirrored walls?
3. Which aspect of skyscrapers were some residents of Boston concerned with in the late
1960’s?
4. Why do people keep on building skyscrapers despite their disadvantages?
5. Where in the passage does the author compare the energy consumption of skyscrapers
with that of a city?
II. Read the text and decide which answer A, B, C or D best fits each space.
Write your answer(s) on your answer sheet. (10 points)
THE PRICE OF FAME
Charlotte Church looks like a normal teenager, but she is far from average. She
has an amazing voice. Her fans stand in (1)_______ for hours to get tickets for her
concerts and she is often on television. Charlotte’s singing (2)_______ began when she
performed on a TV show at the age of 11. The head of a record company was so

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impressed by her voice that he (3)_______ her up on the spot. Her first album rose to
number one in the charts.

Charlotte still attends school in her home town when she can. (4)_______, she is
often away on tour for weeks at a time. She doesn’t miss out on lessons, though, because
she takes her own tutor with her! She (5)_______ three hours every morning with him.
Her exam results in all the (6)________ she studies are impressive.

But how does she (7)_______ with this unusual way of life? She (8)_______that
she has the same friends as before. That may be true, but she can no longer go into town
with them because everybody stops her in the streets to ask for her (9)________. It seems
that, like most stars, she must learn to (10)________these restrictions and the lack of
privacy. It’s the price of fame!
1. A. rows B. queues C. ranks D. files
2. A. professions B. job C. labour D. career
3. A. signed B. wrote C. made D. picked
4. A. Although B. While C. For D. However
5. A. takes B. utilises C. spends D. uses
6. A. titles B. materials C. subjects D. lessons
7. A. cope B. adjust C. bear D. tolerate
8. A. denies B. refuses C. insists D. complains
9. A. signature B. autograph C. sign D. writing
10. A. look down on B. make do with C. put up with D. run out of
III. Read the text and choose the option best fits each of the spaces. Write your
answer(s) on your answer sheet. (10 points)
for facts inform however other occupy called defined absent
leaders
THINKING ABOUT THE FAMILY LIFE
Family life continues to (1)_____ a somewhat ambiguous position in public debate
and policy in Britain today. On the one hand, references to the importance of the family,
however (2)_____ or understood, are rarely (3)_____ from speeches at political party
conferences or statements from religious (4)_____ . On the (5)______ hand, in contrast to
some other European countries, we do not have a minister with special responsibilities
(6)______ “the family” and nor do we have anything like a coherent programme that
could be (7)______ a family policy.
Some sociologists might lend their support to particular programmes or social
policies, on the basis of the evidence as they see it. More often, (8)_______, the popular
impression would seem to be that the sociologists provide the (9)______ about family life
and that these facts, thus “discovered”, provide the basis for public statements or,
possibly, public policy. For instance, sociologists may provide facts about the
circumstances of lone mothers and their children and these studies may (10)______
policy-makers.

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 IV. Read the text and think of the word which best fits each space. Use only
one word in each space. Write your answer(s) on your answer sheet. (30 points)
PANAMA HATS
When summer (1)______ and the sun appears, it’s (2)______ to have a hat. Many
people have traditionally gone for the panama hat. Stylish, light and cool on the head,
these palm leaf hats are flexible enough to roll up and (3)______ in a pocket or bag.
Nowadays, panamas can be found in fashionable shops (4)______ over the world,
sometimes at exorbitant (5)_______ . However, the hat itself originated in rather humble
(6)______ in the jungles of South America. In a long tradition (7)_______ down from
generation to generation, the palm leaves are (8)______ by the men and the hats are
woven by the women. It can (9)______ up to 12 palm leaves to make a (10)______
quality hat. Each leaf is split up to 25 times to obtain a straw that is fine enough to be
woven into a hat. The women’s job is dictated by the weather and visibility : there must
be enough light for them to (11)______ the fine straw, but the air must be moist enough
for it to (12)______ flexible. This means that the women can usually only work in the
(13)______ morning. (14)______ panama hats are expensive, back in the villages the
craftsmen and women are struggling to keep the tradition (15)______ and often receive
only a fraction of the price you pay in the shops.
V. Read the text and find 10 mistakes in the text. Write your answer(s) on
your answer sheet. (10 points)
Sample answer: 0. Line 1: by
A TIDY HOME
There were eight of us in my family. We lived by in a very small house. It was
always untidy because we left our toys lying down around. At first our parents picked our
things up of for us. But eventually they decided not to put up with our untidiness any
longer. They worked out an original way to make us tidier. They placed one big box by
on the front door for all the things that we dropped by on our way into the house from the
garden. Each of us had our own personal box indoors, too. So when anyone tidied the
house, they could put by things into boxes instead of taking them upstairs. Our parents
made us pay a fine if we didn’t pick up to our things. We hated this punishment more
than being told it off. We didn’t get much pocket money and didn’t want to waste it on
fines. So, we sat down and worked out a schedule for tidying the house. We took off
turns cleaning and made out sure the house was tidy when our parents came home. We
have all grown it up and left home now but we agree that our parents definitely had the
right idea.

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