CLOZE TEST 2

OPEN CLOZES: Fill in each numbered blank with ONE suitable word.
A. Energy profile of the Czech Republic
The Czech Republic’s on energy imports has been quite (1) ________________ to date (32% of energy demand
is met by imports); however, it is structurally unbalanced. The country’s dependence on oil is about 95%, and in
the case of natural gas, it is about 98%. The Czech Republic also imports nuclear power, but the primary
resource, uranium ore, is available and produced (2) ________________. In 2006, some 260,000 tonnes of oil
and 150 mcm* of natural gas came from indigenous resources. However, the country’s dependence on energy
imports is expected to grow (to almost 50% by 2020). A number of direct and indirect measures must be (3)
_____________ to slow the rate at which the Czech Republic’s dependence on energy imports is increasing. (4)
________________ measures include those geared towards promoting energy efficiency, supporting renewable
energy resources in areas where they are effective in (5) _________________ with the government’s energy
policy: 8% by 2010 and 16,9% by 2030), supporting nuclear energy (zero-emission energy sources) and
improving the availability and (6) _______________ the life span of the hidden potential of indigenous solid fuels,
(7) __________________ brown coal.
*mcm = million cubic meters
B. US energy crisis deepens with about 5 million in the dark
The energy crisis that (1) ____________________ Texas’s power system and sent energy prices soaring to
record levels is deepening with at least 5 million people across the US taking turns being plunged into darkness
to avoid a total collapse of their (2) ____________________.
Homes and businesses from North Dakota to Texas are losing power in the middle of an (3)
____________________ deep freeze that has broken daily temperature records in hundreds of places. Grid
managers can’t say exactly when the (4) ____________________ will end with the cold forecast to remain
through Wednesday.
Medical centers are rushing to administer vaccines before they go bad. Flights are grounded. More than a million
barrels a day of oil and 10 billion cubic feet of gas production are shut while pipelines have declared force
majeure and massive refineries have halted gasoline and diesel (5) ____________________. US President Joe
Biden approved an emergency declaration for Texas, making more resources available to help.
“I’ve been following energy markets and grid issues for a while, and I cannot recall an extreme weather event that
impacted such a large swath of the nation in this manner — the situation is critical,” said Neil Chatterjee, a
member of the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The cold (6) ____________________ is just the latest in a chain of extreme weather events that have brought
down power grids and upended energy markets globally from Japan to Pakistan and France in recent months.
They’ve all (7) ____________________ how vulnerable the world has become in the face of increasingly
unpredictable weather brought on by climate change and are raising questions about the global push to (8)
____________________ everything from transportation to heating and cooling.
More than 4.3 million homes and businesses were without power across Texas on Monday, based on utility
outage data compiled by Poweroutage.us. Another 4,00,000 were down in a swathe of States stretching from
Louisiana to Ohio and Virginia. More than 300,000 (9) ____________________ hit Oregon, and even the New
York City suburbs were affected, with nearly 24,000 outages in New Jersey’s Sussex County.
In Mexico, over 4.7 million homes and businesses went dark after Texas’s shortages triggered (10)
____________________ failures. But about 65 per cent of those affected in Mexico had seen their power
restored by midday, according to grid operator Canace.
While temperatures are forecast to rise, the weather across the central US will remain extremely cold this week.
Dallas, which was forecast to see a low of 2 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 17 degrees Celsius) late Monday, will
reach a high of 29 by Wednesday, the National Weather Service said. But by late Thursday, readings will drop
back into the teens.

1 Compiled by Le Ngoc Tran

Such weather conditions are extremely rare, especially in parts of Texas. In Houston, the state’s largest city,
roads were iced over and people braved long lines to refill household propane canisters. Traffic and street lights
are down. Firewood is selling out. Grocery stores have run out of essentials including milk.
Besides the human impact, the cold is wreaking (11) ____________________ on the energy industry itself. US
oil production has dropped by anywhere from 1.5 million to 1.7 million barrels a day, helping US crude prices
trade above $60 a barrel for the first time in more than year. The region’s refining complex – which produces
almost half of the nation’s fuel – is struggling to limp along without power. Some of the largest oil refineries have
shut altogether, threatening to reduce supplies of gasoline and diesel across the country.
Dan Woodfin, a senior director for grid manager Electric Reliability Council of Texas said Monday that the (12)
____________________ blackouts will probably last “all day tomorrow.” The grid operator for the US Midwest
also said demand had nearly exceeded supply Monday night, urging conservation to avoid blackouts.
Traders are drawing (13) ____________________ between the energy shortages now gripping the central US
and the 2000-2001 energy crisis in the western US, as well as a 1998 run-up in power prices in the Midwest. Just
months ago, California was forced to institute its first rolling blackouts in two decades when extreme heat pushed
power demand beyond capacity.
This week’s cold front caught Texas’s highly (14) ____________________ electricity market especially by
surprise. The region’s grid is designed for hot summers, not ice-cold winters. Utilities there haven’t had to carry
out rolling blackouts since 2011. Power plants with a combined capacity of more than 34 gigawatts were forced
offline overnight, (15) ____________________ nuclear reactors, coal and gas generators and wind farms,
Woodfin said. It’s not yet clear why.
Wind power generators were among the (16) ____________________ of the cold weather, with turbine blades
rendered (17) ____________________ due to ice – a phenomenon that (18) ____________________ efficiency
and can ultimately stop them from spinning. Texas estimated that more than half of its wind power capacity had
come offline.
At times, parts of Texas were colder than Alaska, according to the National Weather Service. In the Dallas-Fort
Worth area it was 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Houston may pick up as much as 2 inches (5 centimeters) of snow
overnight, along with ice and sleet, the National Weather Service said. It will get hit by another storm bringing ice
and (19) ____________________ rain Wednesday.
“The southern plains are in a cold (20) ____________________,” said David Roth, a senior branch forecaster at
the US Weather Prediction Center. “It is going to take a while for them to break out of it.”
C. No laughing matter
Sohphie Petit-Zerman
This interview was first published in the British journal New Scientist. When it was (1) __________________ in
the Utne Reader in September-October 2002, it had the subheading: Too Few Laughs Can Have Consequences
For Your Health.
Humans don’t have a (2) __________________ on laughter, says Silvia Cardoso, a behavioral biologist at the
State University of Campinas in Brazil. Cardoo says laughing is a (3) _________________ reflex common to
most animals. Even rats laugh. In this interview with British weekly New Scientist, the discusses other discoveries
from her research with laughter.
SO WHY DO PEOPLE LAUGH SO MUCH?
Only 10 to 20 percent of laughing is a (4) _________________ to humor. Most of the time it’s a message we
send to other people – communicating a joyful (5) _________________, a willingness to bond, and so on.
DOES LAUGHTER DIFFER BETWEEN THE SEXES?
Women smile more than laugh, and are particularly (6) _________________ at smiling and laughing with men as
a kind of ‘social lubrication”. It might even be possible that this has a biological origin, because women don’t or
can’t use use their physical size as a threat, which men do, even if unconsciously.
AND BETWEEN CULTURES?
2 Compiled by Le Ngoc Tran
Cultural differences are certainly part of it. Loud, (7) _________________ laughter with exaggerated movements
and expressions is considered “unfeminine” in most cultures, and is much more common among men, particularly
if they’re with other men. Socially dominant individuals, from bosses to tribal chiefs, use laugter to (8)
_________________ their surbodinates. When the boss laughs, their (9) _________________laugh too.
Laughter might be a form of asserting power by controlling the emotional (10) _________________ of the group,
and it also has a dark side. There are theories that laughter and aggression have common origins; some kinds of
laughter in primates apparently are threatening – just look at the way they (11) _________________ their teeth.
That might explain why being laughed at is so unpleasant.
IS IT TRUE THAT LAUGHING CAN MAKE US HEALTHIER?
It’s undoubtedly the best medicine. For one thing, it’s exercise. It activates the cardiovascular system, so heart
(12) _________________ and blood pressure increase, then the arteries (13) _________________, causing
blood pressure to fall again. Repeated, short, strong contractions of the chest muscles, diaphragm, and abdomen
increase blood flow into our (14) _________________ organs, and forced respiration – the ha! ha! - makes sure
that this blood is (15) _________________ oxygenated. Muscle (16) _________________ decreases, and
indeed we may temporarily lose control of our limbs, as in the expression, “weak with laughter”.
It may also (17) _________________ brain endorphins, reducing sensitivity to pain and (18)
_________________ endurance and pleasurable sensations. Some studies suggest that laughter affects the
immune system by reducing the production of hormones (19) _________________ with stress, and that when
you laugh, the immune system produces more T-cells. But no rigorously controlled studies have confirmed these
(20) _________________.
Laughter’s social role is definitely important. I’m very concerned that today’s children may be heading for a whole
lot of social ills because their play and leisure time is so isolated, and the lose out on lots of chances for laughter.
WHY?
Starting at computer screens rather than laughing with each other is at (21) _________________ with what’s
natural for children. Natural social behavior in children is playful, and in such situations laughter indicates that
make-believe aggression is just fun, not for real. This is an important way in which children from positive
emotional bonds, gain new social skills and generally start to move from (22) _________________ to adulhood.
Parents need to be careful to (23) _________________ that their children play in groups, with both peers and
adults, and laugh more.
D. Believing in the True Self
Gloria Steinem (p. 56)
Gloria Steinem has been a campaigner for women’s rights since the 1960s. In 1972, she founded Ms., a
magazine (1) ________________ on women’s issues. In her book, Revolution form Within: A Book of Self-
Esteem, she discusses how and why we develop, or don’t develop, self-esteem. “Believing in the True Self” is an
(2) __________________ from her book.
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within
you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” – Jesus, The Gnostic Gospels
Why does one baby reach for certain toys, while (3)_______________ doesn’t? Why does one respond more to
touch and another to sound? Or one thrive on company and another on calm? No one knows – but we do know
that frequent frustration of these preferences will make an infant (4) ______________ and angry, then uncertain,
passive and finally unlikely to initiate anything at all.
Why does one child choose to color with paints while another builds with blocks? Why does one create
adventures in the imagination while another (5) ______________ them in the outside world? No one knows – but
we do know that children who are encouraged to (6) ______________ their own interests actually learn more,
internalize and (7) ______________ that learning better, become more creative, and have healthier and more
durable self-esteem than those who are motivated by (8) ______________, punishment, or competition with
other children.

3 Compiled by Le Ngoc Tran

Why do some adults (9) ______________ information better by hearing it than seeing it? Why does one sibling
remember stories and ideas while another remembers names and numbers? Why are some people (10)
______________ at languages, and still others drawn to anything mechanical? Why do some have perfect pitch
and others have “green thumbs”? Why are some of us alert in the morning and others hopleless until noon; some
gregarious and others shy; some sexually attracted to the same gender, some to the opposite gender, and some
to the individual regardless of gender? No one knows. But we do know that, like children, adults whose inner-
most feelings and preferences are ignored, ridiculed, punished, or repressed come to believe that there is
something profoundly, innately “wrong” with them. And (11) ______________, those who are able to honor these
inner prompting know what it is to feel at home with themselves.

4 Compiled by Le Ngoc Tran