Đề thi Đại học môn Tiếng anh khối D năm 2009 mã đề 174

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 from 1 to 10.

Probably the most famous film commenting on the twentieth-century technology is Modern Times, made in 1936. Charlie Chaplin was motivated to make the film by a reporter who, while interviewing him, happened to describe the working conditions in industrial Detroit. Chaplin was told that healthy young farm boys were lured to the city to work on automotive assembly lines. Within four or five years, these young men’s health was destroyed by the stress of work in the factories.

The film opens with a shot of a mass of sheep making their way down a crowded ramp.

Abruptly, the film shifts to a scene of factory workers jostling one another on their way to a factory. However, the rather bitter note of criticism in the implied comparison is not sustained. It is replaced by a gentle note of satire. Chaplin prefers to entertain rather than lecture.

Scenes of factory interiors account for only about one-third of Modern Times, but they contain some of the most pointed social commentary as well as the most comic situations. No one who has seen the film can ever forget Chaplin vainly trying to keep pace with the fast-moving conveyor belt, almost losing his mind in the process. Another popular scene involves an automatic feeding machine brought to the assembly line so that workers need not interrupt their labor to eat. The feeding machine malfunctions, hurling food at Chaplin, who is strapped in his position on the assembly line and cannot escape. This serves to illustrate people’s utter helplessness in the face of machines that are meant to serve their basic needs.

Clearly, Modern Times has its faults, but it remains the best film treating technology within a social context. It does not offer a radical social message, but it does accurately reflect the sentiment of many who feel they are victims of an over-mechanised world.

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 from 11 to 20.

Very few people in the modern world obtain their food supply by hunting and gathering in the natural environment surrounding their homes. This method of harvesting from nature’s provision is the oldest known subsistence strategy and has been practised for at least the last two million years. It was, indeed, the only way to obtain food until rudimentary farming and the domestication of wild animals were introduced about 10,000 years ago.

Because hunter-gatherers have fared poorly in comparison with their agricultural cousins, their numbers have dwindled, and they have been forced to live in marginal environments, such as deserts and arctic wastelands. In higher latitudes, the shorter growing seasons have restricted the availability of plant life. Such conditions have caused a greater dependence on hunting, and on fishing along the coasts and waterways. The abundance of vegetation in the lower latitudes of the tropics, on the other hand, has provided a greater opportunity for gathering a variety of plants. In short, the environmental differences have restricted the diet and have limited possibilities for the development of subsistence societies.

Contemporary hunter-gatherers may help us understand our prehistoric ancestors. We know from the observation of modern hunter-gatherers in both Africa and Alaska that a society based on hunting and gathering must be very mobile. While the entire community camps in a central location, a smaller party harvests the food within a reasonable distance from the camp. When the food in the area has become exhausted, the community moves on to exploit another site. We also notice seasonal migration patterns evolving for most hunter-gatherers, along with a strict division of labor between the sexes. These patterns of behavior may be similar to those practised by mankind during the Paleolithic Period.

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to show the underlined part that needs correction.

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

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 from 31 to 40.

Some time ago, scientists began experiments to find out (31)______ it would be possible to set up a “village” under the sea. A special room was built and lowered (32)______ the water of Port Sudan in the Red Sea. For 29 days, five men lived (33)______ a depth of 40 feet. At a (34)______ lower level, another two divers stayed for a week in a smaller “house”. On returning to the surface, the men said that they had experienced no difficulty in breathing and had (35)______ many interesting scientific observations. The captain of the party, Commander Cousteau, spoke of the possibility of (36)______ the seabed. He said that some permanent stations were to be set up under the sea, and some undersea farms would provide food for the growing population of the world.

The divers in both “houses” spent most of their time (37)______ the bottom of the sea. On four occasions, they went down to 360 feet and observed many extraordinary (38)______ of the marine life, some of which had never been seen before. During their stay, Commander Cousteau and his divers reached a depth of 1,000 feet and witnessed a gathering of an immense (39)______ of crabs which numbered, perhaps, hundreds of millions. They also found out that it was (40)______ to move rapidly in the water in a special vessel known as a “diving saucer”.

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

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that is closest in meaning to each of the following questions.