READING PRACTICE TEST 8

PASSAGE 1 – Questions 1-10

STREET VENDORS STRUGGLE AMIDST GLOBAL INTEGRATION
HA NOI (VNS) — As the country is integrating deeper into the world market, a
number of street vendors who come to pursue their dream in cities might lose their jobs,
experts have warned. With the ASEAN Economic Community formed at the end of this year
and the conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, goods from other countries
will flood Viet Nam's market, forming a wide range of products for supermarkets and store
chains. As a result, street vendors in urban areas will have fewer customers and finally
disappear, said Nguyen Thi Lan Huong, director of the Institute of Labour Science and Social
Affairs. [A]
Nguyen Thi Lan, a street vendor from Thai Binh province, said that her business met
many difficulties due to the increased number of stores and supermarkets. "We used to make
between VND6 million (nearly US$270) and VND7 million (nearly $315) monthly but now
our income has been unstable as we have fewer customers."[B]
Nguyen Anh Tuan, 30, who lives in the Old Quarter said that he usually buys fruits and
small items like scissors and cotton swabs from street vendors. "It is really convenient and
quick. I can just stand at the front door and call for the food while going to stores or
especially to the supermarket takes me a lot of time. Moreover, I can bargain with the street
vendors – one thing which you cannot do in the supermarkets."[C]
Nguyen Thi Thanh Na, 28, a migrant worker in Ha Noi wants to buy fruits and other
items from street vendors for another reason. "I come from rural areas so I sympathize with
people who have to leave their hometowns and make ends meet in the city. They have to
walk around the 20 streets all day to find customers and sometimes, they are chased and their
goods are confiscated by local police."[D]
Lessons from developed countries show that informal workers like street vendors will
be negatively affected or even disappear in the integration process; therefore, authorised
agencies need to provide them with vocational training to help them adapt to the new
situation, Vu Huu Kien, a 25 senior lecturer of international labour organisation said.
Sharing his opinion, Nguyen Thi Lan Huong, director of the Institute of Labour Science and
Social Affairs said that street vendors should be trained to find jobs in industrial parks and in
financial and personal service sectors.

1. The word "their" in paragraph 1 refers to

A. street vendors'
B. jobs'
C. experts'
D. cities'
2. What is NOT mentioned as a result of the formed ASEAN community?
A. products from neighboring countries will overflow domestic market.
B. goods in supermarkets and store chains will be abundant.
C. street sellers may lose their jobs.
D. street vendors can better their lives in big cities.
3. Why does Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan frequently buy products from street vendors?
A. because of their high quality goods
B. because he spends a lot of time finding the supermarket
C. because he can buy them more easily and probably with a cheaper price
D. because of his living in the Old Quarter
4. The phrase "make ends meet" in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to:
A. work
B. earn money
C. live
D. walk
5. The word "confiscated " in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to:
A. given C. offered
B. taken D. bought
6. Who might be involved in the training of labour workforce?
A. Nguyen Thi Lan Huong C. Nguyen Thi Thanh Na
B. Vu Huu Kien D. Nguyen Thi Lan
7. The word "them" in paragraph 5 refers to
A. informal workers C. customers
B. authorised agencies D. goods
8. What could be a solution for street vendors in the integration process?
A. authorised agencies provide them with new jobs
B. vocational training should be adjusted to suit these informal workers
C. more jobs in industrial parks should be available to untrained informal workers
D. training should be given to street vendors to help them find new jobs.
9. In which space (marked A, B, C and D in the passage) will the following sentence fit?
"Poor and low-income people cannot compete and are likely to lose jobs in the service
sectors" She added.
A. [A] C. [C]
B. [B] D. [D]
10. In which paragraph does the author mention about the difficulties the street vendors
meet in their daily business?
A. paragraph 2
B. paragraph 3
C. paragraph 4
D. paragraph 5
PASSAGE 2 – Questions 11-20

MY FIRST LOVE
During the baking hot months of the summer holidays, my mother and I used to escape
to one of the scattered lakes north of Prince Albert. In its magic surroundings, we used to
spend the long summer days in the open air, swimming and canoeing or just lying dreaming
in the sun. In the evening, the lake was always a bright, luminous grey after the unbelievable
sunset colours had faded.
The last summer before we returned to England was particularly enchanted. For one
thing, I was in love for the first time. No one will ever convince me that one cannot be in love
at fifteen. I loved then as never since, with all my heart and without doubts or reservations or
pretence.
My boyfriend Don worked in Saskatoon, but the lake was "his place" — the strange and
beautiful wilderness drew him with an obsessive urgency, so I suspected it was not to see me
that he got on his motorcycle as many Fridays as he possibly could, and drove three hundred-
odd miles along the pitted prairie roads to spend the weekends at our place.
Sometimes he couldn't come, and the joy would go out of everything until Monday, when I
could start looking forward to Friday again. He could never let us know in advance, as we
were too far from civilization to have a phone or even a telegraph service. Besides, Don was
hard up, and sometimes worked overtime at weekends.
One Friday night a storm broke out. I lay in bed and listened to the thunder and the rain
beating on the roof. I tried not to expect Don that night hoping he would have enough sense
to wait until the storm ended. Yet in my frightened thoughts, I couldn't help imagining Don
fighting the storm. His motorbike seemed, in my thoughts, frail enough to be blown onto its
side by the first gust that struck it. I thought of Don pinned under it, skidding, his face
pressed into the mud.
I crawled back into bed, trying to close my throat against the tears. But when my
mother, prompted by the deep sympathy and understanding between us, came in to me, she
kissed my cheek and found it wet. "Don't get upset, Jane," she said softly. "He may still
come."
When she had tucked me in and gone, I lay thinking about Don, about the danger of the
roads — you couldn't ride or walk along them safely after heavy rain; your feet would
slip from under you. The roads in Northern Canada are not like the friendly well-populated
English ones, where there are always farmhouses within walking distance and cars driving
along them day and night.
It was hours later that I suddenly realized the sound of the roaring engine was real. The
storm was dying. I lay absolutely still, relief and pain fighting for ascendancy within me,
each in itself overwhelming enough to freeze the breath in my lungs as I heard Don's heavy
tired footsteps on the wooden stairs.
11. Every summer, Jane used to spend:
A. in the camp
B. by the sea side
C. near the lake
D. in the village
12. The word "faded" in the first paragraph is closest in meaning to:
A. clear
B. brightened
C. darken
D. disappeared
13. The last summer was particularly fascinating for Jane because she
A. spent it in the magic surroundings.
B. had a lot of fun in the open air.
C. enjoyed unbelievable sunset by the lake.
D. first loved someone.
14. Jane believes love at fifteen is
A. a sincere deep feeling.
B. associated with doubts.
C. full of reservations.
D. connected with pretence.
15. Don travelled three hundred-odd miles every weekend because he was
A. desperate to see the author before she left.
B. fond of riding his motorcycle.
C. attracted by the beauty of the lake.
D. fond of spending weekends with his friends.
16. Sometimes Don didn’t come to see Jane and her mother because he
A. thought that they were too far from civilization
B. worked to make some extra money.
C. had given up hope of seeing the author.
D. hated travelling in exhausting conditions.
17. The word "it" in paragraph 5 refers to
A. the motorbike
B. the first gust
C. the storm
D. the mud
18. Mother came into Jane’s room during the storm because she
A. felt Jane was afraid of the thunder.
B. felt Jane was worried about Don.
C. heard Jane walking in the room.
D. heard Jane crying in her bed.
19. According to the author the roads in Northern Canada were
A. slippery.
B. muddy.
C. lonely.
D. busy.
20. “…relief and pain fighting for ascendancy within me‖ in the last paragraph means that
the author felt
A. overwhelming pain.
B. relief and pain alternately.
C. relief as a prevailing emotion.
D. neither relief nor pain

PASSAGE 3 – Questions 21-30

KETCHUP
The sauce that is today called ketchup (or catsup) in Western cultures is a tomato-based
sauce that is quite distinct from Eastern ancestors of this product. A sauce called ke-tjap was
in use in China at least as early as the 17th century, but the Chinese version of the sauce was
made of picked fish, shellfish, and spices. The popularity of this Chinese sauce spread to
Singapore and Malaysia, where it was called kechap. The Indonesian ketjab derives its name
from the same source of the Malaysian sauce but is made from very different ingredients. The
Indonesian ketjab is made by cooking black soy beans, fermenting them, placing them in a salt
brine for at least a week , cooking the resulting solution further, and sweetening it heavily; this
process results in a dark, thick and sweet variation of soy sauce.
Early in the 18th century, sailors from the British navy came across this exotic sauce
on voyages to Malaysia and Singapore and brought samples of it back to England on return
voyages. English chefs tried to recreate the sauce but were unable to do exactly because key
ingredients were unknown or unavailable in England; chefs ended up substituting ingredients
such as mushrooms and walnuts in an attempt to recreate the special taste of the original Asian
sauce. Variations of this sauce became quite the rage in the 18th century England, appearing
in a number of recipe books and features as an exotic addition to menus from the period.
The English version did not contain tomatoes, and it was not until the end of the 18th
century that tomatoes became a main ingredient in the ketchup of the United States. It is quite
notable that tomatoes were added to the sauce and that tomatoes had previously been
considered quite dangerous to health. That tomato had been cultivated by the Aztecs, who had
called it tomato; however, early botanists had recognized that tomato was a member of the
Solanecaea family, which does include a number of poisonous plants. The leaves of the
tomato plant are poisonous, though of course the fruit is not.
[A] Thomas Jefferson, who cultivated the tomato in his gardens at Monticello and served
dishes containing tomatoes at lavish feasts, often receive credit for changing the reputation of
the tomato. [B] Soon after Jefferso had introduced the tomato to American society, recipes
combining the new fashionable tomato with the equally fashionable and exotic sauce known
as ketchup began to appear. [C] By the middle of the 19th century, both of the tomato and
tomato ketchup were stables of the American kitchen. [D]

Tomato ketchup, popular though it was, was quite time-consuming to prepare. In 1876,
the first mass-produced tomato ketchup, a product of German-American Henry Heizn, went
on sale and achieved immediate success. From tomato ketchup, Heizn branched out into a
number of other products, including various sauces, pickles, and relishes.

21. The word "ancestors" in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to:

A. predecessors
B. descendents
C. creators
D. ingredients
22. It is not stated in paragraph 1 that
A. the Chinese sauce was in existence in the 17th century
B. the Malaysian sauce was similar to the Chinese sauce
C. the Chinese sauce was made from seafood and species
D. the Indonesian sauce was similar to the Chinese sauce
23. The word ―it in paragraph 1 refers to
A. a salt brine
B. a week
C. the resulting solution
D. this process
24. The expression "came across" in paragraph 2 could be best replaced by
A. traversed
B. discovered
C. transported
D. described
25. What ingredient is not used to make Indonesian sauce?
A. soy beans
B. sugar
C. salt
D. mushrooms
26. It can be inferred from the second paragraph that mushrooms and walnuts were
A. difficult to find in England
B. not part of the original Asian recipe
C. not native to England
D. transported to England to Asia
27. The phrase ―became quite the rage in paragraph 2 means
A. became an anger
B. became strange
C. became popular
D. became a protest
28. The author mentions "the English version" at the beginning of the third paragraph in order
to
A. indicate what will be discussed in the coming paragraph
B. explain why tomatoes were considered dangerous
C. make a reference to the topic of the previous paragraph
D. provide an example of a sauce using tomatoes
29. According to the paragraph 3, the tomato plant
A. was considered poisonous plants
B. is related to some poisonous plants
C. has edible leaves
D. has fruit tat is sometimes quite poisonous
30. Where in paragraph 4 can the following sentence go in?
“It turned from very bad to exceedingly good”
A. at the beginning of the paragraph 4
B. before the sentence ― Soon after Jefferson …‖
C. before the sentence ―By the middle of the 19th century …‖
D. at the end of the paragraph 4

PASSAGE 4 – Questions 31-40

FOOD CHAINS
Originally, the idea of a "food chain" was developed by a scientist named Charles Elton
in1927. Elton described a general food chain in terms of where plants and animals get their
energy. He started with plants, which get energy from sunlight. Next, plant-eating animals get
their energy from eating other plants. At the next level of the chain, meat-eating animals get
their energy from eating other animals. Elton's idea of a "chain" related to the concept that all
these animals are linked together by what they eat. Anything that affects one part of the chain
affects all of the other parts in the chain. The first part of the chain, plants, is called the
producer. All of the parts of the chain above the producer are called consumers.
Here is a simple example of a food chain. Grass uses sunlight to produce sugars and
proteins so that it can grow. Rabbits eat the grass and get energy from it. Foxes eat rabbits
and get energy from them. Foxes are at the "top" of this food chain because nothing eats
them. Now imagine that a farmer plows up the field of grass where the rabbits usually eat.
Some of the rabbits might die. Others will probably move to another location to find food. In
either case, there are fewer rabbits. This means less food for the foxes. Thus, the foxes
depend on the grass in a way, even though they don't eat the grass directly.
 [A] In the natural world, of course, there are no simple food chains like this. Rabbits eat
lots of plants besides grass. [B]. Foxes eat lots of things besides rabbits. [C]. Additionally,
there are lots of other things in nature that eat grass and rabbits! [D]
However, that does not mean the idea of a simple food chain is not important. Food
chains are still a useful concept to consider, even if they are an oversimplification of reality.
Take, for example, the case of DDT's effect on animals. In the 1960s, DDT, a common
pesticide at that time, was used a lot by farmers. Farmers only used a little at a time, so large
animals were not harmed. However, once DDT was used in a field, it did not go away.
Whenever it was used, DDT just stayed in the environment. Eventually, rain washed it into
rivers and lakes. Plankton, a tiny water 25 organism, absorbed the DDT. Then, fish ate the
plankton. There was not much DDT in one bit of plankton, but small fish consumed many
little bits of plankton. Then, larger fish ate lots of the smaller fish. So, the concentration of
DDT in the larger fish became higher. Then, birds such as the osprey ate large quantities of
the larger fish.
In the end, compared to the concentration of DDT in plankton, the concentration of DDT in
osprey was 10 million times greater! The DDT did not kill the osprey, though. It just made
the female osprey lay eggs with very thin shells. The shells were so thin that when the mother
sat on the eggs, they broke. Thus the osprey population became greatly reduced before
rebounding to today's levels.

31. According to the passage, which of the following is true about Elton's idea of food chains?
A. He only looked at plants and animals near his home.
B. Other scientists at the time rejected Elton's idea.
C. The chains started with plants.
D. They measured the energy stored in food.
32. As used in paragraph 2, what is the meaning of the word "field"?
A. A piece of land for plants
B. An area of study
C. A place for playing games
D. A region that is visible
33. What does "others" in paragraph 2 refer to?
A. farmers
B. food chains
C. foxes
D. rabbits
34. The expression "depend on" in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to
A. count on
B. have a relation to
C. need
D. trust
35. In paragraph 3, what does the author imply?
A. Animals that do not eat other animals
B. How simple food chains are limited
C. The relationship of rabbits and foxes
D. Ways to teach food chains to children
36. Why does the author mention DDT in reference to food chains?
A. To compare this chemical's effect on producers and consumers
B. To explain why consumers sometimes become extinct
C. To illustrate the true complexity of nature
D. To show how the simple concept of food chains could be useful
37. All of the following are mentioned in the passage EXCEPT
A. a simple example of a food chain
B. consumers and producers in the jungle
C. how a food chain helped explain a problem
D. who came up with the idea of food chains
38. Why did large fish in rivers and lakes have high concentrations of DDT in their bodies?
A. The large fish ate small fish with DDT in them
B. The large fish laid eggs in plankton with DDT in it
C. The large fish naturally produced DDT
D. The large fish swam in water with DDT in it
39. What can be inferred from the last paragraph about osprey?
A. They became extinct.
B. They began laying more eggs.
C. They were helped before all of them died.
D. They stopped eating fish.
40. Where would the following sentence best fit in paragraph 3?
Therefore, when trying to describe the real world, it is more appropriate to think of food
webs rather than food chains.
A. [A]
B. [B]
C. [C]
D. [D]