Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word for each of the blanks.
Why did you decide to read this and will you keep reading to the end? Do you expect to understand every single part of it and will you remember anything about it in a fortnight’s time? Common sense (41) _________ that the answers to these questions depend on “readability’’ whether the (42) _________ matter is interesting, the argument clear and the layout attractive. But psychologists are discovering that to (43) _________ why people read, and often don’t read technical information, they have to examine so much the writing as the reader.
Even the most technically confident people often (44) _________ instructions for the video on home computer in favor of hands-on experience. And people írequently 45) __________ little consumer information, whether on nutritional labels or in the small print of a contract. Psychologists researching reading (46) _________ to assume that both beginners and competent readers read everything put in front of them from start to finish. There are arguments among them about the (47) _________ of eyes, memory and brain during the process. Some believe that fluent readers take (48) _________ every letter or word they see, others (49) _________ that readers rely on memory or context to carry them from one phrase to another. But they have always assumed that the reading process is the same: reading starts, comprehension (50) _________ then reading stops.
Note:
- hands-on (adj): involved
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.
PAPER
Paper is everywhere. We use it for homework, money, checks, books, letters, wallpaper, and greeting cards. We have paper towels, napkin plates, cups, and tissues. We print the news every day on nevvspapers. Our history and knowledge is written on paper. Without paper, our lives would be eompletely different.
From the beginning of time, people have tried to record their thoughts and lives. The earliest humans drew pictures on cave walls. Later, people use large pieces of clay to write on. Almost 5,000 years ago, the Egyptians wrote on pieces of plants called papyrus. Papyrus was used throughout the ancient world of the Mediterranean for thousands of years. Eventually, it was replaced by parchment. Parchment vvas made from animal skins. It was stronger and lasted longer than any other material.
The Chinese rrade the first reading paper in the year AD 105. They mixed tree bark and small pieces of old cloth with water. They used a screen to remove the thin, wet picce of paper. Then they let the paper dry in the sun. The Chinese kept papermakina a secret until after 751, in that year there was a war between the Chinese and the Muslims. Many Chinese papermakers were taken away from China to live in Muslim countries. The art of papermaking soon spread throughout the Muslim world. Finally, by the end of the twelfth century, papermaking reaclied Europe. The first paper made in Europe was in Spain in 1151.
The first important improvement on the Chinese method of papermaking was in France in 1798. A man named Nicholas Louis Robert invented a machine for making paper. His machine could make paper much faster than one person could by hand. However, his machine was not very successful. About ten years later, an Englishman improved on Robert's machine and began producing paper.
The most important improvement in papermaking also happened in France. A scientist observed a wasp making its nest. The wasp chewed up pieces of wood, mixed it with the chemicals in its mouth, and made a paper nest. The scientist realized that peopie could make paper from wood, too.
Finally, a machine was invented for grinding wood into pulp to use for making paper. Today, the principal ingredient in paper is wood pulp. It is made by machine. There are also other kinds of paper made from rice, wheat, cotton. corn, and other plants. Paper from wood pulp is the most common. Canada and the United States are the world leaders in paper production, due to the qưantity of wood that is available in the forests of these two countries.
Because paper is made of wood, many people are becoming concemed that too many trees are being chopped down every year in order to produce paper. Trees are an important part of the environment. As a result, many companies that produce paper are using old paper instead of new wood pulp to make paper. This method of using old products again instead of simply throwing them away is called recycling. Recycling paper helps reduce the number of trees that are used every year. Many people also try to use less paper in their daily lives. They use both sides of a sheet paper instead of just one. They use cloth handkerchiefs instead of paper tissues. There are also special containers in many schools and public places where people can put used paper instead of throwing it into the garbage can. Then this paper is collected to be recycled.
Whether we use it a little or a lot, paper has an important place in our lives. The books we read and write are made of paper. Our history and scientific and scientific inventions have all been recorded on paper. This, however, is changing. Other methods of storing information are becoming common. Computer faxes, electronic mail and the Internet are only three examples of technology that have replaced paper. Who knows, perhaps one day people will not use paper to write at all!
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct anstver to each of the questions.
In addition to the greatest ridges and volcanic chains, the oceans conceal another form of undersea mountains: the flat-topped seamount. No marine geologist even suspected the existence of these isolated mountains until they were discovered by geologist Harry H. Hess in 1946. He was serving at the time as a naval officer on a ship equipped with a fathometer. Hess named these truncated peaks after the nineteenth-century Swiss-born geologist Arnold Guyot, who had served on the faculty of Princeton University for thirty years. Since then hundreds of guyots have been discovered in every ocean but the Arctic. Like offshore canyons, guyots present a challenge to oceanograpliic theory. They are believed to be extinct volcanoes. Their flat tops indicate that they once stood above or just below the surface, where the action of waves leveled off their peaks. Yet today, by definition, their summits are at least 600 feet below the surface, and some are as deep as 8,200 feet. Most lie between 3,200 and 6,500 feet deep. Their tops are not really flat but slope upward to a low pinnacle at the center dredeing from the tops of guyots which have recovered basalt and coral rubble, and that would be expected from the eroded tops of what were once islands. Some of this material is over 80 million years old. Geologists think the drowning of the guyots involved two processes: the great weight of the volcanic mountains depressed by the sea íloor rose beneath them, and the level of the sea rose a number of times, especially when the last Ice Age ended, some 8,000 to 11,000 years ago.
Notes:
- seamount (n): is a mountain rising from tlie ocean sea floor that does not reach to the water’s surface (sea level).
- guyot (n): an isolated underwater volcanic mountain (seamount), with
a flat top over 200 meters below the surface of the sea.
- pinnacle (n): the top part of a mountain.