READING 

You are going to read an article about a national vote for people’s favourite tree. Six sentences have been removed from the article. Choose from the sentences A-G the one which fits each gap (65-70). There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.

                       TREE OF THE YEAR

The aim of the national Tree of the Year competition is to promote and celebrate the most interesting trees around the country. Images and descriptions of a shortlist of 28 trees are put online and the public are asked to vote for their favourite.

The four trees that gain the most votes before 5 p.m. on 5th October will be given a grant of £1,000. In addition, all trees that receive 1,000 or more votes will get a grant of £500. The grants may be spent on a tree health check or advice from a tree expert, or an educational event, for example. (65) ………………. 

Among the 28 shortlisted trees there are a wide range of tree species, each with its own unique, fascinating story. For example, the ‘Ding Dong’ tree is a copper beech tree growing in a primary school playground. It was named the ‘Ding Dong’ tree because of a game pupils invented in which they race to touch its trunk, shouting ‘Ding Dong!’ The protective space underneath the 50-year-old tree is used as a magical outdoor classroom, while the indoor classroom displays pictures of the tree through each season of the year. (66) ……………….

Many of the other trees in the competition are remarkable for their age alone. The Craigends Yew, for example, is thought to be up to 700 years old, making it one of the oldest in Scotland. It is an amazing sight as many of its branches have layered. (67) ………………. As a result of these extra growths, the total size when measured around the tree’s crown (the main body of its leaves and branches) is a massive 100 metres.

Another very old tree, the Holm Oak in Kilbroney Park, Northern Ireland, is much loved by local people. It measures 3.6 metres around the trunk, and its beautiful bark looks like the skin of a snake. (68) ………………. The advantage of this lack of uprightness is that young children can climb safely and easily on it. Kilbroney Park is home to many remarkable trees, but this tree was chosen as the favourite by community members.

A 500-year-old veteran oak tree stands in the ancient woodland pasture at Carngafallt in Wales. One of the interesting things about this twisted, hollow tree is that it has several ‘air trees’ growing out of it. An ‘air tree’ is one growing without its roots touching the ground. (69) ………………. It extends its roots down inside the oak’s hollow trunk.

The original Bramley apple tree in Nottinghamshire is younger than many in this competition, but is the famous parent of all modern Bramley apple trees. (70) ………………. Many years later, Matthew Bramley, the new owner of the tree, was carrying some of his fruit when he met a gardener called Henry Merryweather. Henry asked if he could take some cuttings from Matthew's trees to grow his own trees. Mr Bramley agreed, provided they were named ‘Bramley's Seedling’.

Part 3: A. You are going to read an article about learning from mistakes. Four sentences have been removed from the article. Choose from the sentences A-D the one which fits each gap (1-4). ( 4 points)

A. Learn to talk about your mistakes, at work and at home.

B. They fail to see them as part of the learning process.

C. Then they restart the computer and experiment again. 

D. People who achieve great success then have more to lose when things go wrong.

LEARNING FROM MISTAKES

Have you ever noticed how children are always making mistakes? They do it all the time, and it doesn’t seem to bother them. You don’t learn to walk without falling over. You don’t learn to speak without mispronouncing lots of words. You don’t learn to juggle without dropping balls. But if you create an environment where mistakes are not accepted, then people become frightened of them.(1)......... In these kinds of environment people learn to hide their mistakes, and not to celebrate them as a good thing. If you’re not making mistakes then you’re not learning anything valuable. 

Do you remember the first time you touched a computer? You didn’t want people to watch you as you started to touch the keys. You worried that if you touched the wrong button, you would delete all the important files. Children aren’t like that. They experiment with all the buttons, just to see what will happen. (2)......... And they are learning from every move they make. 
        The fear of success comes later, and we can see this often in successful professionals and leaders. (3).......... So they start to worry, and decide not to take risks. Don’t let this happen to you. (4)........... See what opportunities can arise from you the mistakes you make, and soon you’ll feel happier about yourself.

B. Find words or expressions in the text which mean: (6 points)

1. fall on the ground                                                                        ...................................................

2. say something with the wrong pronunciation                         ...................................................

3. throw and catch three or more balls together              ...................................................

4. the buttons on a computer                                              ...................................................

5. do things that could cause problems                            ...................................................

6. possibilities for things you can do                                ...................................................

• You are going to read the article below. Five sentences have been removed from the text. Choose from line sentences      A - F the one which fits each gap (1 - 5).

                                                                                       SOCIAL MEDIA AND FRIENDSHIP

   Having too many friends does not sound like the kind of thing anyone should really be too concerned about. After all, what can be wrong with having a wider group of people to hang out with? According to the latest figures, the average number of friends people have with social media is somewhere between 200 and 300. (1) __________ But is this a realistic amount? Is it feasible to maintain meaningful relationships with so many people, in particular those you may never actually meet in person? 

   Nowadays, we are just one click away from making new friends on social media. (2) __________ For instance, when I see that a friend has updated their profile with snaps from their latest holiday, I'd typically reply with a comment like “Wow, looks great!” even though in actual fact, it doesn’t. The unwritten agreement is that the next time I post, that friend will respond with a similarly appreciative comment, so I’ll feel better about myself. 

   Not long ago, I got chatting to someone at a concert, who told me that she loved going to gigs. We got along pretty well that evening, even though the music was so loud! We even swapped numbers and added each other on social media. Now, I see her pop up in my feed now and again and I ‘like’ her photos from various gigs she’s been to, but I’m pretty certain that we’ll never arrange to meet up in real life. 

   (3) __________ That being said, we’re living in a time where we expect things to happen instantly, so is it really all that surprising that the way we form friendships has adapted to this trend? Perhaps it shows how social media has made friendships less sincere, reducing them to a series of meaningless ‘adds’ and ‘likes’. 

   Real friendships, on the other hand, take time to build. My most important relationships haven’t grown out of a few trivial online exchanges. (4) __________ And these for me - and I believe for most other people too - are much more valuable and meaningful. It’s something that cannot be replicated on social media, no matter how many times you have ‘liked’ a person’s posts. 

   It has been suggested that technology is ruining our relationships with other people. (5) __________ However, it seems undeniable that it has now altered people’s priorities, and transformed the way that we manage our friendships in the most fundamental ways. Ultimately, though, it’s up to us to decide how real and meaningful those friendships truly are.

+ SENTENCES:

A. Personally I wouldn't go so far as to say that.

B. Research suggests that this figure is actually higher for teenagers. 

C. Social media has made this kind of problem increasingly more common.

D. It's taken years of shared experiences to develop strong and lasting bonds.

E. This has led some people to question just how sincere the friendship is.

F. It could be argued that this is just another example of how life has changed in recent years.

You are going to read an article about fitness website on the internet. Seven sentences have been removed from the article. Choose from the A-H the one which fits each gap (1-7). There is an extra sentence which you do not need to use.

The benefits of fitness online training

                  Thanks to Internet you can now get into shape dressed in your pyjamas. By Lucy Atkins

Fitness experts these days generally agree that “natural exercise” is the answr to our unhealthy lifestyles. An activity such as stair- climbing or running for the bus, they say, gets the heart rate going for five or ten minutes, several times a day, without the boredom of going to a gym or jogging round the park.

But thanks to the Internet it is now at least theorically possible to get into great shape without even changing out of your pyjamas. The web is packed with creative, instant and varied excercises that are often avalablefree. Just start typing and watch the kilos disappear.

Joanna Hall is a fitness expert who has set up a walking club on the Internet. At her Walkative website, she promises that in six weeks you can achieve a 25% increase in fitness levels by following her activity programme based entirely on walking. “These days people are used to finding that what they need online,” she says.

 Perhaps the best way to deal with this problem is just to have a look around and see what’s out there

One click of your mouse can take you, for instance, straight into an aerobics, dance and yoga class, or introduce you to a variety of other lively activities. You can put together your own strength training programmes, concentrate on particularly week body parts or learn new ways of getting fit.

There are so many possibilities that you could spend the entire day sitting on your chair just surfing the websites and chatting with all these new friends you have made.

Quality, however, can be hardeer to find. Some sites try to attempt you into buying DVDs after they’ve started you off with free beginners” programmes.

 Sometimes the quality of the picture or the sound can be extremely poor.

You have to put up with advertisements that suddenly appear on the screen, and there is the annoying tendency of some computers suddenly to pause in the middle of an activity, then return to the the beginning of the video when you start clicking the mouse.

“ Online programmes allow you to fit your training times around other things you have to do, such as going to collge or work,´says Hall. “They can be a very effective and achievable way to exercise, something you can do all year round.” You can use them any time of the day or night, in an office, hotel room or at home. In addition, you do not have to

turn up at a gym or studio on time, wear embreassing clothing, or deal with  annoyingly fit people.

If a particular fitness programme doesn’t fit you, the website may suggest ways of adjusting it to your own needs. It should also, most importantly, offer advice on healthier living in general.

 Some sites will help you brig this about by providing charts showing how much change you can expect for a given amount of exercise. They may even encourage you to keep to your training programme by sending you regular emails, perhaps including a daily “fit tip”

All that is fine, but the trouble is that you do also need to have a certain amount of self-displine to ensure that you keep going once you have started. 

There’s also the danger that family, friends or colleagues could some in and start laughing at you at any time. And there is a risk of injury if you don’t follow the more comples instructions ( though this issue arises with exercise DVDs and poorly taught classes too). Still, if you want a cheap, possibly fuuny and definitely varied ways to get fit, then sit back and surf.

• You are going to read a short text. Six sentences have been removed from the text. Choose from line sentences A-G the one which fits each gap (1 - 3).

                                                                              Volunteer tourism

It is hard to argue that the actual contribution to development amounts to a great deal directly. (1) __________, they have usually paid a significant fee for the opportunity to be involved in this work: money that, if donated to a local community directly, could potentially pay for a greater amount of labor than the individual volunteer could ever hope to provide. (2) __________. Hence, it is unsurprising that many academic studies allude to the moral issue of whether gap year volunteering is principally motivated by altruism – a desire to benefit the society visited – or whether young people aim to generate ‘cultural capital’ which benefits them in their careers. (3) __________.

SENTENCES:

A. Whilst volunteer tourists can get involved in building homes or schools

B. At its worst, international volunteering can be imperialist

C. Yet it also bypasses the democratic imperative of representative government and reduces development to individual acts of charity

D. However, if volunteering is largely limited to individuals of means from wealthier areas of the world

E. This is especially so in the case of gap years, in which the level of technical skill or professional experience required of volunteers is negligible

F. However, where volunteer tourism is talked up as sustainable development and the marketing of the gap-year companies merges into development thinking

G. However, the projects may play a role in developing people who will, in the course of their careers and lives, act ethically in favor of those less well-off

I. Read the following article. Ten sentences or parts of a sentence have been removed form the article. Choose from the list (A-L) the one which best fits each gaps (1-10). There are two extra options which you do not need to use.                                                PARENT TALK

It is well known that (1)____ . One of the most common things that parents do is (2)____. In fact, over 40% of what parents say to their young children is questions. This is much, much more question asking than you will hear (3)____ . Parent – child questioning falls into a few different categories. Most common is a “test question”. Parents often ask this kind of questions to find out (4)____ . For example, a father may ask, “what’s that?” when a child picks up a toy. Obviously, the father knows the answer; he just asks to see (5)____ . Very young children enjoy and benefit from questions like such. These questions are different from “request for information”. (6)____ is when a child is in the living room and the mother is in the kitchen and asks, “What are you doing?”(7)____. “Directives” are often stated (8)____. For example, a parent might say, “can you put these toys away?” or “Put these toys away, OK?” (9)____ but simply to follow the direction. “Interaction markers” are also common.(10)____. For example, if a father doesn’t understand what a child is saying, he might say, “what?” Or if the child doesn’t answer, he might say, “Huh?” Some language experts think that asking a lot of all these types of questions helps children to learn language more quickly.

List of sentences/ parts of sentences

A. if the child knows what it is

B. Parents ask these types of questions in order to keep a conservation going C. as a request or as a command in question form

D. so that everything is clear

E. The parent actually wants to know

F. An example of this type of question

G. what a child knows

H. young children learn a lot from their parents

I. The child can always understand them

J. The parent does not expect the child to answer

K. when adults talk to adults

L. ask their children questions
GIÚP MÌNH VỚI MỌI NGƯỜI

XI. You are going to read an article about a sailing race. Choose the most suitable heading from the list A - H for each paragraph from 1 – 5 of the article. There are two extra headings which you do not need to use. There has been an example for you.  

          EX:      Paragraph 0: D

A. The consequences of poor performance E. Benefiting from the power of nature

B. An unexpectedly demanding way of life F. Cooperating to overcome the power of nature

C. A solution that seems to work G. It’s not what people think

D. The terrible consequences of making a mistake H. No way out if you don’t like it

Paragraph 0: 

Imagine for a moment, spending the night on board of a large yacht, being roughly woken in the pitch dark and ordered on deck. Every so often you will be totally drenched, very suddenly, in salt water. You will be sharing the same cramped space with 14 other people for a whole year. Your stomach, when not affected by seasickness, will be hit by the competitive tension and nervousness that afflicts all sportspeople. You will be obliged to concentrate without cease. The slightest loss of focus could cost someone their life.

Paragraph 1: 

For the eight crews taking part in the Round-the-world yachting race, this has been daily life since they left Britain eleven months ago. Now, after racing 50,000 across kilometers of ocean, they are soon due home. While most of us have worked, slept, taken a holiday, these crews have sailed and sailed, day after day, night after night, in weather conditions that would test any human. This is the reality of ocean yacht racing, which bears little resemblance to the popular image of sailing - the quick sprint around a lake before returning ashore for a meal and a warm bath.

Paragraph 2: 

Racing 20-metre yachts around the world is a story of unrelenting hard work, pushing yourself to the limits of endurance. But it is also a story of the vastness and beauty of the sea, of seeing the sun rise and set on hundreds of desolate horizons, and of the supreme satisfaction of arriving somewhere knowing that wind alone has taken you there.

XI. You are going to read an article about a sailing race. Choose the most suitable heading from the list A - H for each paragraph from 1 – 5 of the article. There are two extra headings which you do not need to use. There has been an example for you.  

          EX:      Paragraph 0: D

A. The consequences of poor performance   E. Benefiting from the power of nature

B. An unexpectedly demanding way of life  F. Cooperating to overcome the power of nature

C. A solution that seems to work  G. It’s not what people think

D. The terrible consequences of making a mistake  H. No way out if you don’t like it

Paragraph 0: 

Imagine for a moment, spending the night on board of a large yacht, being roughly woken in the pitch dark and ordered on deck. Every so often you will be totally drenched, very suddenly, in salt water. You will be sharing the same cramped space with 14 other people for a whole year. Your stomach, when not affected by seasickness, will be hit by the competitive tension and nervousness that afflicts all sportspeople. You will be obliged to concentrate without cease. The slightest loss of focus could cost someone their life.

Paragraph 1: 

For the eight crews taking part in the Round-the-world yachting race, this has been daily life since they left Britain eleven months ago. Now, after racing 50,000 across kilometers of ocean, they are soon due home. While most of us have worked, slept, taken a holiday, these crews have sailed and sailed, day after day, night after night, in weather conditions that would test any human. This is the reality of ocean yacht racing, which bears little resemblance to the popular image of sailing - the quick sprint around a lake before returning ashore for a meal and a warm bath.

Paragraph 2: 

Racing 20-metre yachts around the world is a story of unrelenting hard work, pushing yourself to the limits of endurance. But it is also a story of the vastness and beauty of the sea, of seeing the sun rise and set on hundreds of desolate horizons, and of the supreme satisfaction of arriving somewhere knowing that wind alone has taken you there.

Paragraph 3: 

Unlike the captains, who are professional sailors, the crews all consist of amateur volunteers who have actually paid for the privilege of taking a year off from their work and enduring these difficult conditions. On board London Light the ages range from 21 to 65. For the youngest member, Susan Porter, the trip is about the excitement of both the racing and the elements “Being able to pitch yourselves as a team against a storm gives you a huge sense of achievement”, she says

Paragraph 4: 

Jerry Wallace, a marketing director, found sailing a refreshing change from the selfish individualism of business. Although he was prepared for the discomfort, the mental stress of long distance racing was not what he has anticipated, “A grand Prix driver has a few hours of focus, a footballer 90 minutes, but we have been racing for 11 months. This is something I didn’t really appreciate before I start.”

Paragraph 5: 

Inevitably, there are tensions. The kind of people who choose to take part in races like this tend to motivated and strong-willed. On a trivial level, there are the usual arguments about things like cleaning, tidying, personal hygiene, even the way people snore. Row on a boat must be addressed immediately. Left to develop, they get much worse. On London Light they have done this by having a meeting where problems can be discussed and resolved by majority vote. Cooperation is the key, and everyone can have their say. The London is one of the few boats that has never lost any crew early because of a personality clash.

You are going to read an article about a sailing race. Choose the most

suitable heading from the list A - H for each paragraph from 1 – 5 of the article. There

are two extra headings which you do not need to use. There has been an example for you.  (10 pts)

          EX:      Paragraph 0: D

Paragraph 0:         D

Imagine for a moment, spending the night on board of a large yacht, being roughly woken in the pitch dark and ordered on deck. Every so often you will be totally drenched, very suddenly, in salt water. You will be sharing the same cramped space with 14 other people for a whole year. Your stomach, when not affected by seasickness, will be hit by the competitive tension and nervousness that afflicts all sportspeople. You will be obliged to concentrate without cease. The slightest loss of focus could cost someone their life.

Paragraph 1:

For the eight crews taking part in the Round-the-world yachting race, this has been daily life since they left Britain eleven months ago. Now, after racing 50,000 across kilometers of ocean, they are soon due home. While most of us have worked, slept, taken a holiday, these crews have sailed and sailed, day after day, night after night, in weather conditions that would test any human. This is the reality of ocean yacht racing, which bears little resemblance to the popular image of sailing - the quick sprint around a lake before returning ashore for a meal and a warm bath.

Paragraph 2:

Racing 20-metre yachts around the world is a story of unrelenting hard work, pushing yourself to the limits of endurance. But it is also a story of the vastness and beauty of the sea, of seeing the sun rise and set on hundreds of desolate horizons, and of the supreme satisfaction of arriving somewhere knowing that wind alone has taken you there.

Paragraph 3:

Unlike the captains, who are professional sailors, the crews all consist of amateur volunteers who have actually paid for the privilege of taking a year off from their work and enduring these difficult conditions. On board London Light the ages range from 21 to 65. For the youngest member, Susan Porter, the trip is about the excitement of both the racing and the elements “Being able to pitch yourselves as a team against a storm gives you a huge sense of achievement”, she says

Paragraph 4:

Jerry Wallace, a marketing director, found sailing a refreshing change from the selfish individualism of business. Although he was prepared for the discomfort, the mental stress of long distance racing was not what he has anticipated, “A grand Prix driver has a few hours of focus, a footballer 90 minutes, but we have been racing for 11 months. This is something I didn’t really appreciate before I start.”

Paragraph 5:

Inevitably, there are tensions. The kind of people who choose to take part in races like this tend to motivated and strong-willed. On a trivial level, there are the usual arguments about things like cleaning, tidying, personal hygiene, even the way people snore. Row on a boat must be addressed immediately. Left to develop, they get much worse. On London Light they have done this by having a meeting where problems can be discussed and resolved by majority vote. Cooperation is the key, and everyone can have their say. The London is one of the few boats that has never lost any crew early because of a personality clash.