Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.

The modern comic strip started out as ammunition in a newspapaer war between giants of the American press in the late nineteenth century. The first full-color comic strip appeared in January 1894 in the New York World, owned by Joseph Pulitzer. The first regular weekly full-color comic supplement, similar to today’s Sunday funnies, appeared two years later, in William Randolph Hearst’ rival New York paper, the Morning Journal.

Both were immensely popular and publishers realized that supplementing the news with comic relief boosted the sale of papers. The Morning Journal started another feature in 1896, the “Yellow Kid”, the first continuous comic character in the United States, whose creator, Richard Outcault, had been lured away from the World by the ambitious Hearst. The “Yellow Kid” was in many ways a pioneer. Its comic dialogue was the strictly urban farce that came to characterize later strips, and it introduced the speech baloon inside the strip, usually placed above the characters’ heads.

The first strip to incorporate all the elements of later comics was Rudolph Dirks’s “Katzenjammer Kids”, based on Wilhelm Busch’s Max and Moritz, a European satire of the nineteenth century. The “Kids” strip, first published in 1897, served as the prototype for future American strips. It contained not only speech baloons, but a continuous cast of characters, and was divided into small regular panels that did away with the larger panoramic scenes of earlier comics.

Newspaper syndication played a major role in spreading the popularity of comic strips throughout the country. Though weekly colored comics came first, daily black-and-white strips were not far behind. The first appeared in the Chicago American in 1904. It was followed by many imitators, and by 1915 black-and-white comic strips had become a staple of daily newspapers around the country.

The passage suggests that comic strips were popular for which of the following reasons?

A. Readers enjoyed the unusual drawings

B. They were about real-life situations

C. Readers could identify with the characters

D. They provided a break from serious news stories

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.

Advertising helps people recognize a particular brand, persuades them tro try it, and tries to keep them loyal to it. Brand loyalty is perhaps the most important goal of consumer advertising. Whether they produce cars, canned foods or cosmetics, manufacturers want their customers to make repeated purchases. The quality of the product will encourage this, of course, but so, too, will affect advertising.

Advertising relies on the techniques of market research to identify potential users of a product. Are they homemakers or professional people? Are they young or old? Are they city dwellers or country dwellers? Such questions have a bearing on where and when ads should be played. By studying readership breakdowns for newspapers and magazines as well as television ratings and other statistics, an advertising agency can decide on the best way of reaching potential buyers. Detailed research and marketing expertise are essential today when advertising budgets can run into thousands of millions of dollars.

Advertising is a fast-paced, high-pressure industry. There is a constant need for creative ideas that will establish a personality for a product in the public’s mind. Current developments in advertising increase the need for talented workers.

In the past, the majority of advertising was aimed at the traditional white family – breadwinner father, non- working mother, and two children. Research now reveals that only about 6 percent of American households fit this stereotype. Instead, society is fragmented into many groups, with working mothers, single people and older people on the rise. To be most successful, advertising must identify a particular segment and aim its message toward that group.

Advertising is also making use of new technologies. Computer graphics are used to grab the attention of consumers and to help them see products in a new light. The use of computer graphics in a commercial for canned goods, for instance, gave a new image to the tin can.

The phrase “in a new light” in bold type in paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to _______ .

A. differently

B. with the use of color enhancement

C. more distinctly

D. in a more energy-efficient way

Tiến hành các thí nghiệm sau:

(a) Sục khí CO₂ dư vào dung dịch BaCl₂.

(b) Cho dung dịch NH₃ dư vào dung dịch AlCl₃.

(c) Cho dung dịch Fe(NO₃)₂ vào dung dịch AgNO₃ dư.

(d) Cho hỗn hợp Na₂O và Al₂O₃ (tỉ lệ mol 1 : 1) vào nước dư.

(e) Cho dung dịch Ba(OH)₂ dư vào dung dịch Cr₂(SO₄)₃.

(f) Cho hỗn hợp bột Cu và Fe₃O₄ (tỉ lệ mol 1 : 1) vào dung dịch HCl dư.

Sau khi các phản ứng xảy ra hoàn toàn, số thí nghiệm thu được kết tủa là

A. 4

B. 2

C. 3

D. 5

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word(s) CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined word(s) in each of the following questions.

I don’t like him. There is a sneaky look on his face.

A. furious   

B. humorous         

C. dishonest          

D. guilty

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word(s) OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s) in each of the following questions.

Keeping animals in these conditions is unbelievably cruel. The farmer ought to be prosecuted.

A. clever

B. reasonable

C. gentle

D. brutal

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word(s) CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined word(s) in each of the following questions.

Are you certain that you are cut out for that kind of job?

A. are determined to take

B. don’t want to take

C. are offered

D. have the necessary skills for

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word that differs from the other three in the position of primary stress in each of the following questions

A. equipment

B. sympathy

C. poverty

D. character

Tính chất nào sau đây không biến đổi tuần hoàn theo chiều tăng của điện tích hạt nhân của các nguyên tố trong bảng tuần hoàn

A. Nguyên tử khối

B. Độ âm điện

C. Năng lượng ion hóa

D. Bán kính nguyên tử