MOCK TEST

I. LISTENING (5 POINTS)
HƯỚNG DẪN PHẦN THI NGHE
● Bài nghe gồm 4 phần; mỗi phần được nghe 2 lần, mỗi lần cách nhau 05 giây; mở đầu và kết
thúc mỗi phần nghe có tín hiệu.
● Mở đầu và kết thúc bài nghe có tín hiệu nhạc.
● Mọi hướng dẫn cho thí sinh (bằng tiếng Anh) đã có trong bài nghe.

Part 1: You will hear two biology students called Emma and Jack discussing an experiment they
are going to do together. For questions 1-5, circle the correct answer A, B, C or D.
1. Why is Jack interested in investigating seed germination?
A. He may do a module on a related topic later on.
B. He wants to have a career in plant science.
C. He is thinking of choosing this topic for his dissertation.
D. He wants to know how a seed begins to grow.
2. Jack and Emma agree the main advantage of their present experiment is that it can be __________.
A. described very easily
B. planted in the same way
C. carried out inside the laboratory
D. completed in the time available
3. What do they decide to check with their tutor?
A. whether their aim is appropriate
B. whether the assignment contributes to their final grade
C. whether they are very ambitious
D. whether anyone else has chosen this topic
4. They agree that Graves’ book on seed germination is disappointing because __________.
A. it fails to cover recent advances in seed science
B. its focus is very theoretical
C. it doesn’t include references to the recent findings
D. the content is irrelevant for them
5. What does Jack say about the article on seed germination by Lee Hall?
A. The findings on seed germination after fires are surprising.
B. The diagrams of plant development are useful.
C. The illustrations aren’t very clear.
D. The analysis of seed germination statistics is thorough.
Part 2: You will hear a student called Mara Barnes giving a presentation about the language of
the Piraha people who live in the Amazon basin. For questions 6-12, complete the sentences with a
word or short phrase. Write your answers in the numbered spaces provided.
The language of the Piraha
Mara defines the way of life the Piraha people as fitting into the (6) ______________________
category.
Mara explains that because most speakers of Piraha are (7) ______________________, the language is
not under imminent threat.
Professor Everett was surprised to discover that the Piraha language has no words for ideas like (8)
‘______________________’ or ‘number’.
Mara says that common objects such as (9) ______________________ were used to establish whether
Piraha people could count.
Mara thinks that the Piraha language sounds more like (10) ______________________ than speech.
The (11) ______________________ used in the Piraha language are thought to have originated in
another local language.
Mara uses the term (12) ‘______________________’ for a common concept related to time that Piraha
people seem not to have.
Part 3: Listen to a fitness instructor talking on the radio about different ways of keeping fit.
Choose 6 advantages of the physical activities from the box and write the correct letter A-G in the
spaces provided next to questions 13-18.
Advantages
A. not dependent on season
B. enjoyable
C. low risk of injury
D. fitness level unimportant
E. sociable
F. fast results
G. motivating
Physical activities
13. using a gym ______________
14. running ______________
15. swimming ______________
16. cycling ______________
17. doing yoga ______________
18. training with a personal trainer ______________
Part 4: Listen to a piece of news about green space. For questions 19-25, complete the piece of
news with NO MORE THAN THREE words taken from the news. Write your answers in the
numbered spaces provided.
Green Space May Improve Children's Memory
Most of us know the outdoors are good for your health, but can being near more green space make
kids smarter? According to a new study, children who lived near greener (19) __________________
had stronger memory skills.
Researchers analyzed data from more than four thousand 11-year-olds living in urban parts of
England, comparing where they lived with how they performed on spatial (20) __________________.
They found the children living in areas with less green space had a (21) __________________ where
objects were, and analyzing where they moved.
This (22) __________________ earlier research about brain function and outdoor space. For
example, a US study found spending just twenty minutes in a park (23) __________________ with
ADHD with attention skills. Research has also shown an association between outdoors exposure and
long term cognitive function. 
There are a few reasons why more green space (24) __________________ better memory. For
one, researchers say kids with more space to roam are more likely to explore, and that process helps
with spatial memory. It might also be that with more green space (25) __________________ in air
pollution. Studies have shown this pollution may be damaging our brains, harming our thinking and
reasoning skills.
I. LEXICO-GRAMMAR (2 points)
Part 1: For questions 26-35, choose the correct answer A, B, C or D to each of the following questions
and write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided.
26. After a month, I will _________ the ropes and won't keep bothering you for help.
A. show B. learn C. get D. finish
27. Among our guests tonight, we are fortunate enough to have the _________ environmentalist Kathy
Wong.
A. eminent B. notorious C. prestigious D. monumental
28. She remained very cool, calm and _________ throughout the entire crisis.
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 A. concerned B. co-operative C. collected D. constant
29. As it was getting late, the chairman suggested that any decision be held _________ until the next
day.
A. up B. on C. out D. over
30. The bridge suddenly _________ and they fell into the yawning chasm beneath.
A. gave way B. gave out C. gave down D. gave in
31. The charge of murder brought against Mr. Good was _________.
A. dispelled B. dispensed C. disapproved D. dismissed
32. Anna’s friend knew the casting director, so she pulled a few _________ to arrange an audition.
A. ropes B. wires C. strings D. threads
33. _________ to interfere in your affairs but I would like to give you just one piece of advice.
A. It is far from clear B. Far from it for me
C. Far and wide for me D. Far be it from me
34. The power plant can’t be built here, as diggers uncovered priceless _________ on the premises.
A. artistry B. artwork C. artefacts D. arts
35. Politicians often promise to solve all a country’s problems _________.
A. thick and fast B. at a stroke C. on the whole D. of set purpose
Your answers:
26. 27. 28. 29. 30.
31. 32. 33. 34. 35.
Part 2: For questions 36-45, complete the following passage with the words taken from the box.
You have to change the form of the words. Write your answers in the corresponding numbered
boxes provided.
IDEA STRONG ASSUME DOMINATE BRACE
COLLECT REGARD PRESUME STABLE ETHIC
CONFUCIUS
The Chinese philosopher Confucius lived in the 6th century BC. He is thought to have lived a
rather (36) __________ life, working on farms and as a bookkeeper before becoming a teacher. His
legacy is a (37) __________ of sayings contained in a book called the Analects. His teaching (38)
__________ centres around the individual cultivating their own virtue and personal (39) __________.
This is achieved through devotion to the family and learning rules of proper behavior to (40)
__________the individual (41) __________. With all members of society striving to follow these rules,
the (42) __________ is that society as a whole will function better and be less inclined to stray toward
excess.
Confucius believed in (43) __________ meritocracy, or the advancement of an individual based
on their skills, with wealth or family connections being completely (44) __________. The application of
this belief can be seen in university entrance exams, in which a person’s score is the (45) ___________
means for securing their entry.
Your answers:
36. 37. 38. 39. 40.
41. 42. 43. 44. 45.
III. READING (5 points)
Part 1: For questions 46-55, fill each of the following numbered blanks with ONE suitable word
and write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided.
AIR CONDITIONING THE EARTH
The circulation of air in the atmosphere is activated by convection, the transference of heat
resulting from the fact that warm gases or fluids (46) ________ while cold gases or fluids sink. For
example, if one wall of a room is heated whilst the opposite wall is cooled, air will rise (47) ________
the warm wall and flow across the (48) ________ to the cold wall before descending to flow back across
the floor to the warm wall again.

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 The real atmosphere, however, is like a very long room with a very low ceiling. The distance
from (49) ________ to the pole is 10,000 km, while the “ceiling height” to the beginning of the
stratosphere is only about 10 km. The air therefore splits up into a number of smaller loops or (50)
________ cells. Between the equator and each pole there are three such cells and (51) ________ the
circulation is mainly north-south.
The result of this (52) ________ is a flow of heat energy towards the poles and a levelling out of
the climate so that both equatorial and polar (53) ________ are habitable. The atmosphere generally
retains its state of equilibrium as every north-going air current is counterbalanced by a south-going one.
In the same way depressions at lower levels in the troposphere are vice versa. The atmospheric
transference of heat is closely associated with the (54) ________ of moisture between sea and continent
and between different (55) ________. Moist air can transport much greater quantities of energy than dry
air.
Your answers:
46. 47. 48. 49. 50.
51. 52. 53. 54. 55.
Part 2: You are going to read a newspaper article about solar lighting. Seven paragraphs have
been removed from the extract. Choose from the paragraphs A-H the one which fits each gap (56-
62). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use. Write your answers in the
corresponding numbered boxes provided.
Lighting the way
Just as the spread of mobile phones in poor countries has transformed lives and boosted economic
activity, solar lighting is poised to improve incomes, educational attainment and health across the
developing world.
56.
The same was true of mobile phones which caught on quickly because they provided a substitute for
travel and poor infrastructure, helped traders find better prices and boosted entrepreneurship. For a
fisherman or a farmer, buying a mobile phone made sense because it paid for itself within a few months.
57.
The potential savings in such places are huge. According to a recent study by the International Finance
Corporation, an arm of the World Bank, ten billion dollars a year are spent on kerosene in sub-Saharan
Africa alone to illuminate homes, workplaces and community areas. Globally, the figure has been put at
36 billion dollars. Flexiway, an Australian-Argentinean maker of solar lamps, found in its trials in
Tanzania that households often spent more than ten percent of their income on kerosene, and other
studies have put the figure as high as 25 percent.
58.
Take a look at some of the solar lamps now available in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and their
superiority is immediately apparent. Even the most basic solar lamps outperform kerosene lanterns. A
typical device takes eight to ten hours to charge, and then provides four or five hours of clear, white
light from high-efficiency white LEDs. The number of times solar lamps can be charged before their
internal batteries wear out has improved enormously in recent years, along with their ability to cope
with dust, water and being dropped.
59.
‘The technology end of the solar business is there; now we have to think of the business model,’ says
Nick Hughes, co-founder of M-KOPA, a start-up based in Kenya. He previously helped develop M-
PESA, Kenya’s world-leading mobile-money transfer scheme, which is used by nearly 70 percent of the
adult population and has spawned imitators in many other countries. Mr Hughes now wants to apply the
same thinking to lighting.
60.
As long as they keep up the payments, the system provides light and power, and eventually they own it
outright. Using mobile money as a flexible payment mechanism means that relatives can chip in
remotely and allows farmers to vary the size of payments depending on their cashflow.
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 61.
Eight19, a start-up spun out of Cambridge University, has a similar model in which small payments, like
those used to buy kerosene, allow the purchase of a solar-lighting system to be spread out. Users of its
IndiGo system pay around ten dollars up front. They then buy scratch cards for as little as a dollar each,
and send the number on each card by text message to a central server that responds with an access code
to tap into the IndiGo unit providing a certain number of hours of lighting.
62.
But whichever proves more popular, one thing seems guaranteed: demand for cheap, efficient lighting is
only going to grow. Even in the best-case scenarios, the number of people without electricity will tick
up to one-and-a-half billion by 2030, as population growth outstrips electrification. The rate of
innovation in delivery models, technology and design, in both rich and poor countries, suggests a bright
future for solar lamps - and a slow dimming of kerosene’s flame.
A. And the century-old technology does not merely eat up household income that could be spent on
other things. It is also dangerous because of the fire hazard. The wicks smoke, the glass cracks, and the
light may be too weak to read by, whilst climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions are produced.
B. Again, each payment goes toward buying the system outright, and a typical family will have paid for
it after 18 months of use. Even while paying off the loan with scratch cards, users pay half as much for
each hour of lighting as they did with kerosene. With both models, the lights go out if the payments
stop, providing an incentive to keep paying.
C. As happened with its predecessor, solar lighting is falling in price, improving in quality and
benefiting from new business models that make it more accessible and affordable to those at the bottom
of the pyramid. And its spread is sustainable because it is being driven by market forces, not charity.
D. Despite these advances, the starting price of ten dollars or so is still too high for the poorest
customers to pay, at least up front. But as with mobile phones, prices continue to fall and innovative
solutions are starting to emerge, which could provide new ways of spreading the cost.
E. It also provides a mechanism for the government to provide subsidies for households with infants, or
children studying for exams. In addition, a payment record is produced and it could be used by banks as
a credit history when offering loans or mortgages. The first commercial units went on sale in June.
F. The importance of design should not be overlooked either. Just as mobile phones have become status
symbols, the same could happen with personal solar lamps. That will mean placing more emphasis on
styling and appealing to younger consumers, for whom a device capable of doubling as a torch and desk
light would be particularly useful.
G. The company’s system consists of a base-station with a solar panel, three lamps and a charging kit
for phones - an entire electrical set up for a small house that would normally cost around 200 dollars.
Customers have to find 30 dollars up front and then gradually clear the balance in small instalments
using their mobile phones.
H. The economic case for solar lighting is even clearer: buying a lamp that charges in the sun during the
day, and then produces light at night, can eliminate spending on the kerosene that fuels conventional
lamps. Of the one-and-a-half billion people without access to grid electricity, most live in equatorial
latitudes where the sun sets quickly and there is only a brief period of twilight. But solar lamps work
anywhere the sun shines, even in areas that are off the grid, or where grid power is expensive or
unreliable.

Part 3: Read the following passage and do the tasks that follow.
SAVING THE SOIL
More than a third of the Earth’s top layer is at risk. Is there hope for our planet’s most precious
resource?

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A. More than a third of the world’s soil is endangered, according to a recent UN report. If we don’t slow
the decline, all farmable soil could be gone in 60 years. Since soil grows 95% of our food, and sustains
human life in other more surprising ways, that is a huge problem.
B. Peter Groffman, from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York, points out that soil
scientists have been warning about the degradation of the world’s soil for decades. At the same time, our
understanding of its importance to humans has grown. A single gram of healthy soil might contain 100
million bacteria, as well as other microorganisms such as viruses and fungi, living amid decomposing
plants and various minerals.
That means soils do not just grow our food, but are the source of nearly all our existing antibiotics, and
could be our best hope in the fight against antibiotic-resistance bacteria. Soil is also an ally against
climate change: as microorganisms within soil digest dead animals and plants, they lock in their carbon
content, holding three times the amount of carbon as does the entire atmosphere. Soil also stores water,
preventing flood damage: in the UK, damage to buildings, roads and bridges from floods caused by soil
degradation costs £233 million every year.
C. If the soil loses its ability to perform these functions, the human race could be in big trouble. The
danger is not that the soil will disappear completely, but that the microorganisms that give it its special
properties will be lost. And once this has happened, it may take the soil thousands of years to recover.
Agriculture is by far the biggest problem. In the wild, when plants grow, they remove nutrients from the
soil, but then when the plants die and decay these nutrients are returned directly to the soil. Humans tend
not to return unused parts of harvested crops directly to the soil to enrich it, meaning that the soil
gradually becomes less fertile. In the past we developed strategies to get around the problem, such as
regularly verifying the types of crops grown, or leaving fields uncultivated for a season.
D. But these practices became inconvenient as populations grew and agriculture had to be run on more
commercial lines. A solution came in the early 20 th century with the Haber-Bosch process for
manufacturing ammonium nitrate. Farmers have been putting this synthetic fertilizer on their fields ever
since.
But over the past few decades, it has become clear this wasn’t such a bright idea. Chemical fertilisers
can release polluting nitrous oxide into the atmosphere and excess is often washed away with the
rain, releasing nitrogen into rivers. More recently, we have found that indiscriminate use of fertilisers
hurts the soil itself, turning it acidic and salty, and degrading the soil they are supposed to nourish.
E. One of the people looking for a solution to this problem is Pius Floris, who started out running a tree-
care business in the Netherlands, and now advises some of the world’s top soil scientists. He came to
realise that the best way to ensure his trees flourished was to take care of the soil, and has developed
a cocktail of beneficial bacteria, fungi and humus to do this. Researchers at the University of Valladolid
in Spain recently used this cocktail on soils destroyed by years of fertiliser overuse. When they applied
Floris’s mix to the desert-like test plots, a good crop of plants emerged. They were not just healthy at
the surface, but had roots strong enough to pierce dirt as hard as rock. The few plants that grew in the
control plots, fed with traditional fertilisers, were small and weak.
F. However, measures like this are not enough to solve the global soil degradation problem. To assess
our options on a global scale we first need an accurate picture of what types of soils are out there,
and the problems they face. That’s not easy. For one thing, there is no agreed international system for
classifying soil. In an attempt to unify the different approaches, the UN has created the Global Soil Map
project. Researchers from nine countries are working together to create a map linked to a database that
can be fed measurements from field surveys, drone surveys, satellite imagery, lab analyses and so on
to provide real-time data on the state of the soil. Within the next four years, they aim to have mapped
soils worldwide to a depth of 100 metres, with the results freely accessible to all.
G. But this is only a first step. We need ways of presenting the problem that bring it home to
governments and the wider public, says Pamela Chasek at the International Institute for Sustainable
Development, in Winnipeg, Canada. ‘Most scientists don’t speak language that policy- makers can
understand, and vice versa.’ Chasek and her colleagues have proposed a goal of ‘zero net land
degradation’. Like the idea of carbon neutrality, it is an easily understood target that can help shape
expectations and encourage action.

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For soils on the brink, that may be too late. Several researchers are agitating for the immediate creation
of protected zones for endangered soils. One difficulty here is defining what these areas should
conserve: areas where the greatest soil diversity is present? Or areas of unspoilt soils that could act as a
future benchmark of quality?
Whatever we do, if we want our soils to survive, we need to take action now.
For questions 63-66, complete the summary below. Write ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for
each answer. Write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided.
Why soil degradation could be a disaster for humans
Healthy soil contains a large variety of bacteria and other microorganisms, as well as plant remains and
(63) _________. It provides us with food and also with antibiotics, and its function in storing (64)
_________ has a significant effect on the climate. In addition, it prevents damage to property and
infrastructure because it holds (65) _________.
If these microorganisms are lost, soil may lose its special properties. The main factor contributing to soil
degradation is the (66) _________ carried out by humans.
Your answers:

63. 64. 65. 66.

For questions 67-70, complete the sentence with the correct ending A-F. Write the correct letter
A-F in the spaces provided.
Your answers
67. Nutrients contained in the unused parts of harvested crops ____________
68. Synthetic fertilisers produced with the Haber-Bosch process ____________
69. Addition of a mixture developed by Pius Floris to the soil ____________
70. The idea of zero net soil degradation ____________

A. may improve the number and quality of plants growing there.

B. may contain data from up to nine countries.
C. may not be put back into the soil.
D. may help governments to be more aware of soil-related issues.
E. may cause damage to different aspects of the environment.
F. may be better for use at a global level.
The reading passage has seven sections, A-G. For questions 71-75, write the correct letter A-G in
the numbered boxes provided next to the information which the section contains. You may use
any letter more than once.
Your answers
a reference to one person’s motivation for a soil-improvement project 71
an explanation of how soil stayed healthy before the development of farming 72
examples of different ways of collecting information on soil degradation 73
a suggestion for a way of keeping some types of soil safe in the near future 74
a reason why it is difficult to provide an overview of soil degradation 75
Part 4: You are going to read an article about a company that makes chocolate. For questions 76-
88, choose from the sections (A-D). The articles may be chosen more than once. Write your
answers in the numbered boxes provided.
In which section are the following mentioned? Your answers
visible evidence of Valrhona's popularity 76
assumptions that are not necessarily correct 77
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 the influence of Valrhona on cooking with chocolate 78
the difficulty of doing what Valrhona suggests 79
a contrast between ways of making chocolate 80
a change that Valrhona regretted making 81
an explanation of the term used for a stage in a process 82
a calculation connected with one of the senses 83
the possibility of overdoing something 84
an influence on the quality of an ingredient 85
a description of a book 86
a definition of plain chocolate 87
an explanation of using the present machines 88
The Chocolate Factory
A. The scent of chocolate hangs over the small French town of Tain-l'Hermitage. Wafting from
savoury to toasted, fruity to oily, the aroma emanates from the 89 year-old factory of Valrhona, one of
the most respected chocolate makers in the business. I was inhaling this heady perfume on a trip to find
out about Valrhona's first book, the fabulous Cooking with Chocolate. A vast tome, it's a chocophile's
dream, with pages of chocolate information alongside recipes, from the ultimate sachertorte to
'Bittersweet Chocolate Bars, Salted Butter Caramel and Crystallised Almonds'. Most are mesmerizingly
complex creations strictly for trained chefs or timerich amateurs; mouthwatering for the rest of us.
Best of all are the pages on techniques such as the all-important tempering (a heating and cooling
process that keeps the shine and texture of chocolate when it is remoulded), all minutely described and
carefully illustrated.
B. I'd expect nothing less from Valrhona, which we have to thank for the quiet revolution in
chocolate of the past 25 years. Back in the early 1980s, plain chocolate meant a cocoa solids content
of barely 40 percent. Then, in the early 1990s, cookery writers began telling us to use chocolate with
'minimum 50 percent cocoa solids'. The supermarkets started stocking real cooking chocolate with
escalating levels of cocoa solids. It was Valrhona that first introduced a 70 percent cocoa solids
chocolate bar to the market in 1986. It caused a flurry among chefs, who found that it gave a far more
intense chocolate flavour to their dishes, and it was given star billing on menus. Since then an army of
boutique chocolate makers has been born. They all produce chocolate in a 'bean-to-bar' process,
transforming raw, fermented beans into chocolate themselves. It's an important distinction, as many
other companies buy ready-made chocolate in bulk and re-melt it to form bars and chocolate sweets.
C. Inside Valrhona's newest factory on the outskirts of town, Luce, our elegantly grey-haired guide,
leads us past paintings of the chefs who are fans of Valrhona. The smell grows ever more headier and
sweeter as we enter a windowless, high-ceilinged room with a cream-tiled floor, on which neat rows of
sacks are waiting for processing. Inside are fermented and dried beans, but the dull brown seeds have a
long way to go before they can live up to their botanical name, theobroma: 'food of the gods'. In the next
room that process is beginning, as the beans are roasted in huge rotating drums, then cooled and crushed
to peppercorn-sized pieces. Just across the room, a lone worker is supervising the grinding of the nibs
through pairs of rollers. It's this powder, he explains, which constitutes the 'cocoa solids' in the
chocolate bar, and is mixed with extra cocoa butter (the fatty component of the cocoa bean), sugar,
vanilla and emulsifier, usually soya lecithin, to make plain chocolate. Milk chocolate has milk
powder added as well. They are ground together to make a paste refined to grains no bigger than 17
microns - the tongue can detect nothing below 20 microns. All the machines are thickly coated with
cream-coloured paint and have a vintage air, like a ship's engine room. It turns out they date from the
1960s. 'We bought modem ones, which were much more efficient, but they just didn't produce such
good chocolate, so we went back to these,' explains Luce, as we head to the conching machines. These
huge mixers stir the chocolate ingredients for up to three days, combining them at 60-70C and
developing the flavours.
D. But can a bar ever contain too much cocoa solids? I ask Pierre Costet, head taster for Valrhona,
over a table of chocolate samples. 'Yes'. The blend of beans with cocoa butter and sugar should vary
according to the subtleties of the flavour. Costet also believes the merits of the three varieties of cacao
bean are exaggerated. It is widely accepted that Criollo (mostly from Venezuela) is the connoisseur's
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choice and Trinitario, grown in South and Central America, is the best mainstream variety. Forastero,
grown in Africa, is considered coarse, mass-market stuff. This, Costet tells me, is too simplistic. First,
because cacao trees are grown from seed by the farmers, they may have been cross-pollinated with the
other varieties anyway. Second, how the beans are grown and fermented makes a huge difference, so a
well-looked-after Forestero may well be better than a poorly treated Criollo.
Part 5: For questions 89-95, read the following passage and choose the correct answer A, B, C or
D. Write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided.
IMAGE AND THE CITY
In the city, we are barraged with images of the people we might become. Identity is presented as
plastic, a matter of possessions and appearances; and a very large proportion of the urban landscape is
taken up by slogans, advertisements, flatly photographed images of folk heroes - the man who turned
into a sophisticated dandy overnight by drinking a particular brand of drink, the girl who transformed
herself into a femme fatale with a squirt of cheap scent. The tone of the wording of these advertisements
is usually pert and facetious, comically drowning in its own hyperbole. But the pictures are brutally
exact: they reproduce every detail of a style of life, down to the brand of cigarette-lighter, the stone in
the ring, and the economic row of books on the shelf.
Yet, if one studies a line of ads across from where one is sitting on a tube train, these images
radically conflict with each other. Swap the details between the pictures, and they are instantly made
illegible. If the characters they represent really are heroes, then they clearly have no individual claim to
speak for society as a whole. The clean-cut and the shaggy, rakes, innocents, brutes, home-lovers,
adventurers, clowns all compete for our attention and invite emulation. As a gallery, they do provide
a glossy mirror of the aspirations of a representative city crowd; but it is exceedingly hard to discern a
single dominant style, an image of how most people would like to see themselves.
Even in the business of the mass-production of images of identity, this shift from the general to the
diverse and particular is quite recent. Consider another line of stills: the back-lit, soft-focus portraits of
the first and second generations of great movie stars. There is a degree of romantic unparticularity in
the face of each one, as if they were communal dream-projections of society at large. Only in the
specialised genres of westerns, farces and gangster movies were stars allowed to have odd, knobbly
cadaverous faces. The hero as loner belonged to history or the underworld: he spoke from the perimeter
of society, reminding us of its dangerous edges.
The stars of the last decade have looked quite different. Soft-focus photography has gone, to be
replaced by a style which searches out warts and bumps, emphasises the uniqueness not the
generality of the face. Voices, too, are strenuously idiosyncratic; whines, stammers and low rumbles
are exploited as features of 'star quality'. Instead of romantic heroes and heroines, we have a brutalist,
hard-edged style in which isolation and egotism are assumed as natural social conditions.
In the movies, as in the city, the sense of stable hierarchy has become increasingly exhausted; we
no longer live in a world where we can all share the same values, the same heroes. (It is doubtful
whether this world, so beloved of nostalgia moralists, ever existed; but lip-service was paid to it, the
pretence, at least, was kept up.) The isolate and the eccentric push towards the centre of the stage; their
fashions and mannerisms are presented as having as good a claim to the limelight and the future as those
of anyone else. In the crowd on the underground platform, one may observe a honeycomb of fully-
worked-out worlds, each private, exclusive, bearing little comparison with its nearest neighbour. What is
prized in one is despised in another. There are no clear rules about how one is supposed to manage
one's body, dress, talk, or think. Though there are elaborate protocols and etiquettes among particular
cults and groups within the city, they subscribe to no common standard.
For the new arrival, this disordered abundance is the city's most evident and alarming quality.
He feels as if he has parachuted into a funfair of contradictory imperatives. There are so many people he
might become, and a suit of clothes, a make of car, a brand of cigarettes, will go some way towards
turning him into a personage even before he has discovered who that personage is. Personal identity has
always been deeply rooted in property, but hitherto the relationship has been a simple one - a question of
buying what you could afford, and leaving your wealth to announce your status. In the modern city,

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there are so many things to buy, such a quantity of different kinds of status, that the choice and its
attendant anxieties have created a new pornography of taste.
89. What does the writer say about advertisements in the first paragraph?
A. Certain kinds are considered more effective in cities than others.
B. The way in which some of them are worded is cleverer than it might appear.
C. They often depict people that most other people would not care to be like.
D. The pictures in them accurately reflect the way that some people really live.

90. The writer says that if you look at a line of advertisements on a tube train, it is clear that
________.
A. city dwellers have very diverse ideas about what image they would like to have
B. some images in advertisements have a general appeal that others lack
C. city dwellers are more influenced by images on advertisements than other people are
D. some images are intended to be representative of everyone's aspirations

91. What does the writer imply about portraits of old movie stars?
A. They tried to disguise the less attractive features of their subjects.
B. Most people did not think they were accurate representations of the stars in them.
C. They made people feel that their own faces were rather unattractive.
D. They reflected an era in which people felt basically safe.

92. What does the writer suggest about the stars of the last decade?
A. Some of them may be uncomfortable about the way they come across.
B. They make an effort to speak in a way that may not be pleasant to the ear.
C. They make people wonder whether they should become more selfish.
D. Most people accept that they are not typical of society as a whole.

93. The writer uses the crowd on an underground platform to exemplify his belief that ________.
A. no single attitude to life is more common than another in a city
B. no one in a city has strict attitudes towards the behaviour of others
C. views of what society was like in the past are often inaccurate
D. people in cities would like to have more in common with each other

94. The writer implies that new arrivals in a city may ________.
A. change the image they wish to have too frequently
B. underestimate the importance of wealth
C. acquire a certain image without understanding what that involves
D. decide that status is of little importance

95. What points does the writer make about city dwellers in the final paragraph?
A. They are unsure as to why certain things are popular with others.
B. They are aware that judgements are made about them according to what they buy.
C. They want to acquire more and more possessions.
D. They are keen to be the first to appreciate new styles.
Your answers:
89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95.
IV. WRITING (6 POINTS)
Part 1: Read the following extract from an article about fashion and society. Use your own words
to summarize it. You should write between 130 and 150 words.
FASHION AND SOCIETY
In all societies the body is 'dressed', and everywhere dress and adornment play symbolic and
aesthetic roles. The colour of clothing often has special meaning: a white wedding dress symbolising
purity; or black clothing indicating remembrance for a dead relative. Uniforms symbolise association
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with a particular profession. For many centuries purple, the colour representing royalty, was to be worn
by no one else. And of course, dress has always been used to emphasise the wearer's beauty, although
beauty has taken many different forms in different societies. In the 16th century in Europe, for example,
Flemish painters celebrated women with bony shoulders, protruding stomachs and long faces, while
women shaved or plucked their hairlines to obtain the fashionable egg-domed forehead. These traits are
considered ugly by today's fashion.
The earliest forms of 'clothing' seem to have been adornments such as body painting, ornaments,
scarifications (scarring), tattooing, masks and often constricting neck and waist bands. Many of these
deformed, reformed or otherwise modified the body. The bodies of men and of children, not just those
of women, were altered: there seems to be a widespread human desire to transcend the body's
limitations, to make it what it is, by nature, not.
Dress in general seems to fulfil a number of social functions. This is true of modern as of ancient
dress. What is added to dress as we ourselves know it in the west is fashion, of which the key feature is
rapid and continual changing of styles. The growth of the European city in the 14th century saw the
birth of fashion. Previously, loose robes had been worn by both sexes, and styles were simple and
unchanging. Dress distinguished rich from poor, rulers from ruled, only in that working people wore
more wool and no silk, rougher materials and less ornamentation than their masters.
In modern western societies no form of clothing does not feel the impact of fashion: fashion sets
the terms of all dress behaviour - even uniforms have been designed by Paris dress makers; even the
poor seldom go in rags - they wear cheap versions of the fashions that went out a few years ago and are
therefore to be found in second-hand shops and jumble sales.
However, while fashion in every age is normative, there is still room for clothing to express
individual taste. In any period, within the range of stylish clothing, there is some choice of colour, fabric
and style. Originally, fashion was largely for the rich, but since the industrial period the mass production
of fashionably styled clothes has made possible the use of fashion as a means of self-enhancement and
self-expression for the majority.
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Part 2: The graphs provide information about worldwide energy consumption and the
world oil prices from 2000 to 2005.

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Summarise the information and reporting the main features and make comparisons where
relevant. Write at least 150 words

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Part 3: : In about 350 words, write an essay to express your opinion on the issue:
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 It has now been observed that many high school students are unprepared to respond in acceptable
ways to situations in school, and less so in a wider social environment. Some educators argue that the
school curriculum should emphasize the development of students’ life skills rather than knowledge.
Others are against this proposal because they think knowledge is the most important to career success in
a knowledge-based economy.
In what extent do you agree? You can write about 250 words, using reasons and examples to support
your position.

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THE END

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