HỘI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN KÌ THI HỌC SINH GIỎI

VÙNG DUYÊN HẢI VÀ NĂM HỌC 2018 - 2019

ĐỒNG BẰNG BẮC BỘ MÔN THI: TIẾNG ANH LỚP 11
TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN Thời gian làm bài: 180 phút
LÊ QUÝ ĐÔN – BÌNH ĐỊNH (không kể thời gian giao đề)
ĐỀ THI ĐỀ XUẤT (Đề thi gồm 22 trang)

A. LISTENING (50 pts)

HƯỚNG DẪN PHẦN THI NGHE HIỂU

 Bài nghe gồm 4 phần, mỗi phần được nghe 2 lần, mỗi lần cách nhau 15 giây, mở đầu và
kết thúc mỗi phần nghe có tín hiệu.
 Mở đầu và kết thúc bài nghe có tín hiệu nhạc. Thí sinh có 3 phút để hoàn chỉnh bài trước
tín hiệu nhạc kết thúc bài nghe.
 Mọi hướng dẫn cho thí sinh (bằng tiếng Anh) đã có trong bài nghe.

Part 1. (10 pts) You are going to hear a speech given at a poetry award ceremony. For
questions 1-5, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which fits best according to what you
hear. Write your answer in the space provided.

1. What significant event happened in 2006?

A. Antonia Watson won the award for the first time.

B. The award was presented twice.

C. The Poetry Award was first instituted.

D. The Poetry competition was cancelled.

2. The Antonia Watson Memorial Poetry Award's second prize is £ .............. .?

A. £1.500 B. £2.250 C. £500 D. £250

3. What is the relationship between Thomas and Antonia Watson?

A. He is one of Antonia Watson’s siblings.

B. He is her neighbor.

C. He is the close friend of Antonia Watson’s flatmate.

D. He is her cousin.

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4. What was the name of the first poem Antonia Watson published?

A. Be Kind B. Love Barks C. Triad Children D. Love Bird

5. What did Antonia Watson suffer from after her grandfather passed away?

A. Pneumonia B. Writer’s block

C. Overwork D. Too much stress

Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Part 2. (10 pts) You will hear a discussion between two students. For questions 6-10,
listen and decide whether the following sentences are true (T) or false (F).

6. Jess wants to start the meeting by reviewing the objectives for the project
7. Matt and Jess are planning to study old photos.
8. The plots are supposed to be 10 meters apart.
9. The bamboo sticks can be purchased at gardening centres.

10. The instructions sound complicated because there are so many squares.

Your answers:
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Part 3. (10 pts) You will hear a radio interview with a spokesman from a dolphin
conservation organisation. For questions 11-15, listen and answer the following questions
with NO MORE THAN FIVE WORDS. Write your answer in the space provided.

11. According to the recording, what do we seem to feel about dolphins?

____________________________________

12. What are people believed to benefit from interacting with dolphins?

____________________________________

13. What may people want to do if they are informed about dolphins?

____________________________________

14. Why are dolphins forced to look for new homes?

____________________________________

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15. What do tourists often do when dolphins surface to breathe?

____________________________________

Part 4. (20 pts) You will hear a piece of news. For questions 16-25, listen and complete
the summary with NO MORE THAN FOUR WORDS. Write your answer in the space
provided.

T. Berry Brazelton, one of the 16. _______________ to parents and children, a pediatrician
and a child psychiatrist passed away this week, but he will be remembered most for teaching
the world and especially parents about babies.
Brazelton, 17. _______________ the Baby Whisperer, became a rock star to 18.
_______________ new parents. He once told NPR's Steve Inskeep a family story that led him
to be a pediatrician. He hated his younger brother because his mother was 19.
_______________ his younger brother. But his grandmother valued him, and she let him take
care of all his younger cousins, thanks to which he wanted to be just what he is - a pediatrician
who works with parents. For generations of parents, Brazelton was the expert. But when it 20.
_______________, he struggled. He said he really felt that 21. _______________ was
learning from your mistakes, not from your success.
Brazelton's work we view babies and young children. During his more than 50-year career, he
encouraged the world to see them 23. _______________. Here he is in a 2010 interview.
“What I dream of is that every parent will have an opportunity to give her and his child the
best future that they can dream of and that every child will be ready to accept that and 24.
_______________. there. And I think we can do that.”

T. Berry Brazelton died on 25. _______________Tuesday his 100th birthday.

B. VOCABULARY AND GRAMMAR (30 pts)

Part 1. (10 pts) Choose the word/ phrase that best completes each of the following
sentences. Write your answer in the space provided.

1. The breakwater ____________ into the sea.

A. prodded out B. jutted out C. waved out D. hollowed out

2. My house is a mile from here, as the ______________ flies, but two miles following the
old road.
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A. bird B. falcon C. sparrow D. crow

3. His opponent called him a traitor, which really ____________ his patriotism.
A. cast aspersions on B. dumped asperity on

C. hurled insults D. drew integrity from

4. His smirk suggested some vicious _____________, which terrified everyone at the meeting.

A. subtleties B. allusions C. insinuations D. inertia

5. Jean, have you seen the ______________ in your stocking?

A. ladder B. blade C. spade D. spatula

6. The old lady was becoming increasingly affected by ________________.

A. masculinity B. senility C. virility D. audacity

7. She does her homework on Fridays to save herself from the ____________ of having to do
it during the weekend.

A. blast B. drudgery C. furnace D. callousness

8. From the result of your test, it’s evident that you were paying _______ attention to the
lecture.

A. scanty B. meager C. frugal D. scant  

9. It’s curious that he _______ her to come after they had that bitter quarrel last week.

A. should ask B. would ask C. might ask D. asked

10. Arthur’s skills as a businessman are _______ to his position at the company. The boss
hired him because he wanted a regular golf partner.

A. adventurous    B. apposite C. adventitious      D. arrant  

Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Part 2. (5 pts) Read the text and find 5 mistakes and correct them. You should indicate
in which line the mistake is. Write your answer in the space provided.

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Asking people to think of a Viking and the image they would most likely conjure upon is one
of a huge, flame-haired Norseman in a horn helmet and brandishing a battleaxe. In fact, such
ideas stem from romanticized tales that took hold in the 18th century and which have evolved
into the two-dimensional caricatures we are familiar with today. They may be captivating, but
dismiss them we must. These myths have acquired such power that certain modern historians
appear to have been unable to resist turning asserts into fact, attributing purposes to relics for
which there is no support, and imposing their interpretations of ritual when there is no truly
reliable record. What has to be recognized above all else is the Vikings' technological ability
in boatbuilding and navigation, to which sea-faring nations owe a debt of disgrace whether
they realize it or not.

Your answers

Number Line Mistake Correction

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Part 3. (5 pts) Complete each of the following sentences with a suitable preposition or
particle. Write your answer in the space provided.

1. The Vietnamese national team has clocked _______ 8 gold medals in the Martial arts
events.

2. If the school reins _______its expenditure on research and development, the quality, as a
whole, will be affected.

3. It’s generally agreed that the primary responsibility for the child’s education should
rest_______ the family.

4. During the violent storm, the little boats strained _______ their anchors at the mercy of the
breaking waves.

5. Students are demanding equal rights for men and women, and several newspapers have
taken _______ their cause.

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Part 4. Complete the text by writing the correct form of the word in capitals. (10 pts)

Our council members, a hopeless group who demonstrated remarkable (0. COMPETENCE)
___ incompetence ____ in the design process of Hillside Road, are now busily working on
plans for the rest of Bayview, again behind (1. CLOSE) _______ doors. Only when these
people finish will the public be 'invited' to submit comments, by which point none of these
will make a difference. The council will simply go ahead despite our concerns. Where is the
(2. TRANSPARENT) _______ in this process? When has anyone from the council ever taken
responsibility for the vast sums of money wasted when their schemes fail? And now we have
to prepare for further (3. WASTE) _______ as the council use taxpayers' money to 'develop'
Bayview in ways that no local desires. The reason for this tirade is that, in my view, the
problems we are faced with – the escalation of (4. RISE) _______ housing in single-storey
areas, the road design, the connection to our city, these issues have to be addressed before our
beautiful environment is damaged beyond repair.

The council has announced its intention to spend a figure approaching $20 million over the
next few years improving facilities and transport in Bayview. This is not before time.
Furthermore, they have (5. APPEAR) _______ set aside further funds to improve traffic flow
on Hillside Road, and to finance the design and building of an exhibition centre and
renovation of the library. People who live and work here will have to face the inconvenience
of noise, dust and (6. BLOCK) _______ pavements as roads are widened and car parks are
extended in downtown Bayview, but this is something we must tolerate if we aim to attract the
tourist dollar and encourage residents to use local services and retail facilities. The housing
issue is another matter altogether and council plans for introducing (7. CHARACTER)
_______ multi-storey buildings to the suburb have been ill thought out.

As a suburb that draws more tourists than any other in the city, Bayview deserves the
considerable investment that the council has proposed. However, it is not for the council to
force upon us developments that people here object to, and which we recognize are
fundamentally detrimental to the community. Many of us have asked the council for details
concerning the anticipated population figures, should their high-density housing projected be
(8. ACT) _______ , but they appear reluctant to (9. CLOSE) _______ them. We have thus
been forced to work it out for ourselves. It has been estimated that by building apartment
blocks of four to five storeys, the council will facilitate an (10. EXPONENT) _______ and

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undesirable growth in population: 400 homes are likely to rise to 1200 in the North Bayview
area and 700 cars could turn into 2100; with the increased population impacting heavily on
Hillside Road traffic.

Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

C. READING COMPREHENSION (60 pts)

Part 1. (10 pts) For each gap, choose the correct answer A, B, C or D which best fits the
context. Write your answer in the space provided.

The Return of El Nino

Aside from the seasons, El Nino and its twin, La Nina, are the two largest single (0)
___C____ of variability in the world's climate from year to year. Both are dictated by
(1) _______ in water temperature in the tropical Pacific basin between Australia and
South America. (2) _______ after the Spanish words for "Christ child" and "the girl"
because of their (3) _______to Christmas, they lead to dramatic shifts in the entire
system of oceanic and atmospheric factors from air pressure to currents.
A significant rise in sea temperature leads to an El Nino event whereas a fall in
temperature leads to La Nina. The cause of the phenomenon is not fully understood but
in an El Nino "event" the pool of warm surface water is forced eastwards by the loss of
the westerly trade winds. The sea water evaporates, (4) _______ in drenching rains over
South America, as well as western parts of the United States, such as California. The
effects can (5) _______ for anything from a few weeks to 8 months, causing extreme
weather as far (6) _______ as India and East Africa. The correlation with global
warming is as (7) _______unclear. Archaeological evidence shows El Ninos and La Ninas
have been (8) _______ for 15,000 years. But scientists are investigating whether climate
change is leading to an increase in their intensity or duration.
The weather pattern is already having early and intense effects and El Nino could bring
extreme rainfall to parts of east Africa which were last year (9) _______ by a cycle of
drought and floods. It's difficult to (10) _______ what will happen to the weather in the

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British Isles, but it will probably add to the likelihood of record-breaking temperatures
in the UK.
0. A. methods B. theories C. causes D. consequences
1. A. shifts B. drops C. alternatives D. downfall
2. A. Elected B. Called C. Nominated D. Named
3. A. proximity B. neighborhood C. attachment D. bond
4. A. producing B. resulting C. stemming D. refreshing
5. A. persist B. keep C. conserve D. assert
6. A. ahead B. afield C. along D. alongside
7. A. still B. yet C. present D. now
8. A. dawning B. obtaining C. occurring D. securing
9. A. hit B. shoved C. punctured D. punched
10. A. predict B. imply C. entail D. point
Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Part 2. (10 pts) Read the text below and think of one word which best fits each space. Use
only ONE WORD for each space. Write your answer in the space provided.

Moths count!
Renowned conservationist Sir David Attenborough is launching a campaign today called
'Moths Count', to halt the drastically declining number of Britain's native moths and improve
their poor image. A report (1) _______ 'The State of Britain's Larger Moths' revealed last year
that in some areas, the moth population has almost (2) _______since 1968. This has led the
charity, 'Butterfly Conservation', of which Sir David is president, to develop a new strategy
which will provide opportunities for real (3) _______ to broaden their (4) _______ and also
generate appreciation among the wider public. Moths, he insists, play an essential role in the
environment. Their loss (5) _______the species of birds, bats and small mammals that (6)
_______ on them, and the plants they (7) _______. 'Moths Count' campaigner Richard Fox
says 'Currently there's an image problem, partly because there's a (8) _______ that moths are
night creatures, although many are day-flying and only about half a dozen of Britain's 2500

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species damage clothes.' Reasons for their decline include climate change and loss of habitat.
Although the (9) _______ of moths has increased with the establishment of new species in
Britain, overall their numbers have dropped, and for some, extinction now seems sadly (10)
_______.
Your answers:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Part 3. (15 pts) Read the passage and choose the best answer to each of the questions.
Write your answer in the space provided.

How to rebuild your own brain

It’s not the kind of thing you would ever forget. When Barbara Arrowsmith-Young started
school in Canada in the early 1950s, her teacher told her mother – in her presence – that she
would never be able to learn. Having helped over 4,000 children overcome exactly the same
diagnosis, she can laugh at it. But she didn’t at the time. Today Arrowsmith-Young holds a
master’s degree in psychology and has published a groundbreaking book called The Woman
Who Changed Her Brain. But until she was in her mid-twenties, she was desperate, tormented
and often depressed. She didn’t know what was wrong.
On the one hand, she was brilliant with near-total auditory and visual memory. ‘I could
memorise whole books.’ On the other hand, she was a dolt. ‘I didn’t understand anything,’ she
says. ‘Meaning just never crystallised. Everything was fragmented, disconnected.’
In exams, she sometimes got 100 percent but whenever the task involved reasoning and
interpretation she would fail dismally. ‘The teachers didn’t understand,’ she says. ‘They
thought I wasn’t trying and I was often punished.’ To help her, her mother devised a series of
flash cards with numbers and letters and, after much hard work, she achieved literacy and
numeracy of a sort, even getting into university, where she disguised her learning disabilities
by working twenty hours a day: ‘I used to hide when the security guards came to close the
library at night, then come back out and carry on.’
The breakthrough came when she was twenty-six. A fellow student gave her a book by a
Russian neuropsychologist, Aleksandr Luria. The book contained his research on the writings
of a highly intelligent Russian soldier, Lyova Zazetsky, who had been shot in the brain during
a battle, and recorded in great detail his subsequent disabilities.

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For the first time, Arrowsmith-Young says, ‘I recognised somebody describing exactly what I
experienced. His expressions were the same: living life in a fog. His difficulties were the
same: he couldn’t tell the time from a clock, he couldn’t tell the difference between the
sentences The boy chases the dog and The dog chases the boy. I began to see that maybe an
area of my brain wasn’t working.’
The bullet had lodged in a part of the brain where information from sight, sound, language and
touch is synthesised, analysed and made sense of. Arrowsmith-Young began to realise that, in
all probability, this was the region of her own brain that had been malfunctioning since she
was born.
Then she read about the work of Mark Rosenzweig, an American researcher who found that
laboratory rats given a rich and stimulating environment developed larger brains. Rosenzweig
concluded that the brain continues developing rather than being fixed at birth: a concept
known as ‘neuroplasticity’. Arrowsmith-Young decided that if rats could grow bigger and
better brains, so could she.
She started devising exercises for herself to work the parts of her brain that weren’t
functioning. She drew 100 two-handed clockfaces on cards and wrote the time each told on
the back. Then she started trying to tell the time from each. She did this eight to ten hours a
day, gradually becoming faster and more accurate.
‘I was experiencing mental exhaustion like I had never known,’ she says, ‘so I figured
something was happening. After three or four months of this, it really felt like something had
fundamentally changed in my brain. I watched an edition of a news programme and I got it. I
read pages from ten books, and understood every single one. It was like stepping from
darkness into light.’
She developed more exercises, for different parts of her brain, and found they worked, too.
Now almost 30, she was finally beginning to function normally.
It was revolutionary work, and not just for her. ‘At that time,’ she says, ‘all the work around
learning disabilities involved compensating for what learners couldn’t do. It all started from
the premise that they were unchangeable.’
Faced with little receptivity for her ideas, Arrowsmith-Young decided to found her own
school in Toronto in 1980; she now has thirty-five such schools. Thousands of children
dismissed as impossible to teach, have attended Arrowsmith schools and gone on to academic
and professional success.

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‘So much human suffering is caused by cognitive mismatches with the demands of the task,’
says Arrowsmith-Young. ‘So many wrong diagnoses get made, so many children get written
off, so many people take wrong decisions and end up in lives and careers they did not choose
for themselves but were chosen for them by cognitive limitations that can be identified and
strengthened. There is hope for these people.’
1. What do we learn about Barbara Arrowsmith-Young in the first paragraph?
A. She has learned over the years how to help her own child.
B. When she was a child, it was thought that she would grow out of her problems.
C. Her particular problem went undiagnosed until she was a young woman.
D. She believes that children need to be told if they are likely to find school difficult.
2. How did her problem manifest itself?
A. She could understand the meaning of difficult words.
B. She found it hard to remember anything.
C. She had amazing eyesight.
D. She could seem quite stupid at times.
3. Her teachers at school _______ .
A. thought she was just being lazy.
B. set exams that were too difficult.
C. helped her with special lessons.
D. said that she would be unable to pass university entrance exams.
4. When Barbara was twenty-six years old, she _______ .
A. was studying neuropsychology in Russia.
B. discovered that she was not the only person in the world with her problem.
C. started to write a book about her disabilities.
D. wrote to a Russian soldier who had the same problems as she did.
5. What do we learn about the Russian soldier?
A. His language skills were those of a young child.
B. He knew that his injury had caused damage to his sight.
C. He believed that brain damage might be the cause of his problem.
D. His interpretation of his problem was slightly different from Barbara’s.
6. According to Mark Rosenzweig, _______ .
A. rats have much larger brains than people think

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 B. neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to keep on growing
C. Barbara would not be able to do anything to improve her brain
D. the brain requires regular and frequent stimulation to function normally
7. Barbara’s attempt at improving her brain _______ .
A. ended up with her giving up from extreme tiredness
B. made her feel as if her personality was changing
C. included spending a long time focusing on speed tests
D. failed to help her make connections she had always found difficult
8. What do we learn about the traditional attitude towards people with learning disabilities?
A. It was impossible to improve the performance of the brain.
B. People were taught how to live with the problem.
C. Brain exercises have always been a part of dealing with learning disabilities.
D. They would never be able to function in a modern society.
9. What does the phrase “the same diagnosis” in the first paragraph refer to?
A. The master’s degree in psychology.
B. 4000 children.
C. Learning disability.
D. Barbara Arrowsmith-Young.
10. What does the word “these” in the last paragraph refer to?
A. People who make wrong diagnoses.
B. People who choose their own careers.
C. Scientists who try to help learning-impaired people.
D. People whose careers are chosen by cognitive limitations.

Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Part 3. (15 pts) You are going to read part of an article about the psychological effect
that money has on our behaviour. Six paragraphs have been removed from the extract.
Choose from the paragraphs A-G the one which fits each gap (1-6). There is one extra
paragraph which you do not need to use.
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Money - that's what I want!
Money has a far more complex hold on us than most economists are willing to admit. Mark
Buchanan tries to find out why.

Cash, currency, greenbacks, dosh. Just words, you might say, but they carry an eerie
psychological force. Chew them over for a few moments, and you will become a different
person. Simply thinking about money seems to make us more self-reliant and less inclined to
help others. And it gets weirder; just handling cash can take the sting out of social rejection
and even diminish physical pain, according to recent psychological studies.

Yet money stirs up more stress and envy than any other tool ever could. We just can't seem to
deal with it rationally. But why? Our relationship with money has many facets. Some people
seem addicted to accumulating it, whilst others can't help maxing out their credit cards and
find it impossible to save for a rainy day. As we come to understand more about money's
effect on us, it is emerging that some people's brains can react to it as they would to a drug,
while to others it is like a friend.

On the surface, this might seem unnecessary. Surely money is just cold, unemotional stuff?
We know already that it takes a variety of forms, from feathers of old, through gold coins, and
dollar bills to data in a bank's computer. The value of $100 is supposed to lie in how much
food or fuel it can purchase and nothing else. You should no more care about being short-
changed $5 at the supermarket checkout than losing the same amount when borrowing money
to buy a $300 000 house.

To understand how this affects our behaviour, some economists are starting to think more
like evolutionary anthropologists. Daniel Ariely of the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology
is one of them. He suggests that modern society presents us with two distinct sets of
behavioural rules. Social standards of behaviour, which are 'warm and fuzzy', are designed to
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foster long-term relationships, trust and cooperation.

Economic exchange has been going on throughout human history, so it is possible that our
ancestors evolved an instinctive capacity for recognizing the difference between situations
suited to these different behavioural rules, and that this could have developed well before the
invention of money. Alternatively, we may have learnt the distinction.

Kathleen Vohs and colleagues at the University of Minnesota got student volunteers to
complete an activity in which they had to arrange a series of discs into two patterns. But
before doing this, they were asked to make sensible phrases either from a group of words that
had nothing to do with money or from a group of money-related words.

Vohs suggests there is a simple dynamic at work here. 'Money makes people feel self-
sufficient; she says. 'They are more likely to put forth effort to attain personal goals, and they
also prefer to be separate from others.'The touchy-feely side of us may disapprove of such
behaviour, but it is useful for survival.

A. In reality we are not that rational. Instead of treating cash simply as a tool to be
wielded with objective precision, we allow money to reach inside our heads and tap
into the ancient emotional parts of our brain, often with unpredictable results.
B. This is all the stranger when you consider what money is supposed to be: nothing
more than a medium of exchange that makes economic life more efficient. Just as an
axe allows us to chop down trees, money allows us to have markets that, traditional
economists tell us, dispassionately set the price of anything from a loaf of bread to a
painting by Picasso.
C. The trick is to get the correct balance between these two mindsets. Psychological
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 studies have found a general trade-off between the pursuit of extrinsic aspirations such
as wealth and fame and intrinsic ones, such as building and maintaining relationships.
D. Either way, we appear immediately and subconsciously to recognize the cues associated
with the realm of market norms. Experiments published recently reveal that even a
passing contact with concepts linked to money puts us into a market-oriented mentality,
making us think and behave in characteristic ways.
E. Then there is a set of market norms. These revolve around money and competition,
and encourage individuals to put their own interests first.
F. And, of course, whichever way we regard it, having a pile of money means that you can
buy m ore things, so it is virtually synonymous with status - so much so that losing it
can lead to severe depression. In these cash-strapped times, perhaps by developing an
insight into the psychology of money, we can improve the way we deal with it.
G. It turned out that those who had been primed with the latter set worked on the main task
for far longer before asking for help. In a related experiment, these individuals were
also significantly less likely to help anyone asking for assistance.

Part 4: Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B-G from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-x, next to Questions 1-6.

List of Headings

i The prevalence of numerical 'codes' in modern life

ii How RSA works
iii A brief history of keeping things safe
iv 'New math' vs 'medieval math'
v Proof that RSA is effective
vi The illusion of security
vii Cryptography: the modern key for the lock
viii Cryptography: the modern key for the lock
ix In defence of medieval security systems
x A new approach to system security

Example Answer

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Paragraph A iii

1. Paragraph B

2. Paragraph C

3. Paragraph D

4. Paragraph E

5. Paragraph F

6. Paragraph G

Your answers:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Using Mathematics to Secure Our Money

A

Up until very recently people's wealth, mostly coins and jewels, was kept safe under lock and
key. Rich medieval families would keep a strong box with a large key, both of which were
carefully hidden in different places. Later the box may have been kept in a bank. In either
case, potential thieves would need to find both the box and the key. A similar principle was
used for sending secret diplomatic and military messages. The messages were written in code
with both the sender and the receiver having the key to the code. Thus, while the message
could be discovered its meaning could only be found if the 'key' was also known. And so
began a long-running battle between code-makers who tried to make better keys, and code-
breakers who sought ways of finding them.
B

Nowadays, cryptography is central to how our money is kept secure, even though we may not
be aware of it. Our money is no longer in a tangible form, but in the form of information kept
with our banks. To keep everyone involved happy, the messages initiated by our plastic cards
have to be sent and received safely and the entire operation must be carried out with a high
level of confidentiality and security.
C

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On a practical level, it is clear that the work of code-makers has been introduced into our daily
financial lives. Our credit cards have 16-digit numbers on the front and a 3-digit number on
the back. They also contain a 'chip' that can do all sorts of mysterious operations with these
numbers. Finally, we also have a Personal Identification Number which we all need to
memorize. All these numbers form a type of cryptographic key. However, as we shall see, the
modern crypto systems are very different in the way the keys are used.
D

The main feature of the traditional systems was that only one key was needed by both the
sender and the receiver to understand the message. However the main problem was that the
key itself needed to be communicated to both parties before they could use it. Obviously a
major security risk. A very different approach was developed in the 1970s, based on a
different way of using the keys. Now the main idea is that the typical user, let us call him
Amir, has two keys; a 'public key' and a 'private key'. The public key is used to encrypt
messages that other people wish to send to Amir, and the private key is used by Amir to
decrypt these messages. The security of the system is based on keeping Amir's private key
secret.
E

This system of public-key cryptography, known as RSA- from the names of the developers
(Ronald Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman) - was developed in the late 1970s and is
based on a collection of several mathematical algorithms. The first is a process that allows the
user, Amir, to calculate two numerical keys: private and public, based on two prime numbers.
To complete the RSA system, two more algorithms are then needed: one for encrypting
messages and one for decrypting them.

The effectiveness of RSA depends on two things. It is efficient, because the encryption and
decryption algorithms used by participants are easy, in a technical sense they can be made
precise. On the other hand, it is believed to be secure, because no one has fund an easy way of
decrypting the encrypted message without knowing Amir's private key.
G

When the RSA system was first written about in Scientifc American, the strength of the
system was shown by challenging the readers to find the prime factors -the two original
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numbers - of a certain number with 129 digits. It took 17 years to solve this problem, using the
combined efforts of over 600 people. So clearly it is a very secure system. Using mathematics
in this way, scientists and technologists have enabled us to keep our money as secure as the
rich medieval barons with their strong boxes and hidden keys.

Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage?
In boxes 7-10, write
YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOTGIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thank about this

7 Online banking makes most people nerous

8 The way keys are used in modern cryptograph is quite different from the past
9 The main problem with traditional cryptography systems is that neither party can
decode the message.
10 The RSA system represents the most secure cryptography we are ever likely to
develop
Your answers:
7. 8. 9. 10.

D. WRITING (60 pts)

Part 1. (15 pts) Read the following article and use your own words to summarise it. Your
summary should be roughly 140 words long.
Can we always trust the information we find on the Internet? Is there a reason for the saying
“Don’t believe everything you read”?
Where do you go to get reliable information? If you’re a student and need some
background information on an author or political movement, your first port of call may well
be the internet. If you are working in media, you will most certainly refer to different sources
on the internet. Gone are the days when you had to leaf through countless books to find what
you were looking for. One of the biggest online fonts of knowledge is Wikipedia.
Wikipedia can be best described as an online encyclopaedia, created for and by the
general public. It was founded by Jimmy Wales. He wanted to bring information to the masses

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at no cost. In 2003, Wales set up Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) and then came Wikipedia.
Wikipedia attracts nearly 700 million visitors a year and is continuing to expand.
The main appeal is that you can find almost anything about anything. There are a wide
range of subjects from a bio of barack Obama to obscure facts on the British city of
Wolverhampton to trivia about the commonplace object the spoon. What makes Wikipedia
unique is that anyone can write and share their “expertise” on any given subject, however
trivial. For example, if you know, or think you know, everything there is to know about a rare
species of bird, you can write and submit a 20,000 word article on the subject. All you need is
a registered user name and a topic which is deemed “encyclopaedic”. You might be asking
yourself “what’s the point?” Well, the point is, according to the philosophy of Wikipedia, that
everyone has at least one subject on which they are an expert. So, why not grant them a small
platform of cyberspace on which to demonstrate this particular talent?
One of Wikipedia’s defining weaknesses (or strengths – depending on your point of
view) as a reference website is that any entry in Wikipedia can be erased, altered, corrected or
falsified by any other member of the public. This makes Wikipedia an easy target for critics.
The main flaw of Wikipedia is that however much you think you know about any given
subject, there is always one crucial element which gets overlooked through laziness or plain
ignorance. How can we possibly trust the boy / girl next door for complete accuracy on the
law of relativity, for example? Critics would argue that we can’t and shouldn’t.
Wikipedia might not be perfect, but there is no denying that it is one of the most popular
websites in the world. Wales describes a pivotal moment in this revelation when he met a
young man from India on his travels. This man had used Wikipedia in order to pass 11th
grade. Wikipedia has also made the ranking in the Guardian’s “Most Useful Websites” poll.
Easy, accessible and helpful, Wikipedia is a worthwhile point of reference. But, like with all
resources, you can’t believe everything you read.
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Part 2. (15 pts) The table below shows the value of goods imported into Freedonia in the
years 2016 and 2017. Describe the information in the table and make comparisons where
relevant. You should write about 150 words.

2016 2017
Goods
(in USD million) (in USD million)
Electronic equipment 535 770
Ceramic products 150 151
Garments and footwear 420 290
Petrol 526 1,300
Glass and glassware 95 94

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Part 3. (30 pts) Write an essay of 300-350 words on the following topic:
There is a widespread belief among secondary school students that nothing but a
university degree is a passport to later success in life.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with this belief? Give reasons and examples to
support your opinion(s).
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-The end-

Giáo viên biên soạn: Nguyễn Minh Hà

Võ Hoàng Thi

ĐT: 0944294555

Email: thivolqd19@gmail.com

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