Đề thi thử Đại học môn Tiếng Anh năm 2014 trường THPT Chuyên Nguyễn Quang Diệu

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

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the word or phrase that is CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined part in each of the following questions.

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

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

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D to show the underlined part that needs correction in each of the following questions.

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on you answer sheet to indicate the sentence that best combines each pair of sentences in the following questions.

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.

 

    Accustomed though we are to speaking of the films made before 1927 as “silent”, the film has never been, in the full sense of the word, silent. From the very beginning, music was regarded as an indispensable accompaniment; when the Lumiere films were shown at the first public film exhibition in the United States in February 1896, they were accompanied by piano improvisations on popular tunes. At first, the music played bore no special relationship to the films; an accompaniment of any kind was sufficient. Within a very short time, however, the incongruity of playing lively music to a solemn film became apparent, and film pianists began to take some care in matching their pieces to the mood of the film.

   As movie theaters grew in number and importance, a violinist, and perhaps a cellist, would be added to the pianist in certain cases, and in the larger movie theaters small orchestras were formed. For a number of years the selection of music for each film program rested entirely in the hands of the conductor or leader of the orchestra, and very often the principal qualification for holding such a position was not skill or taste so much as the ownership of a large personal library of musical pieces. Since the conductor seldom saw the films until the night before they were to be shown (if, indeed, the conductor was lucky enough to see them then), the musical arrangement was normally improvised in the greatest hurry.

   To help meet this difficulty, film distributing companies started the practice of publishing suggestions for musical accompaniments. In 1909, for example, the Edison Company began issuing with their films such indications of mood as “pleasant’, “sad”, “lively”. The suggestions became more explicit, and so emerged the musical cue sheet containing indications of mood, the titles of suitable pieces of music, and precise directions to show where one piece led into the next.

   Certain films had music especially composed for them. The most famous of these early special scores was that composed and arranged for D. W. Griffith’s film Birth of a Nation, which was released in 1915.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct word for each of the blanks.

NEIGHBORS INFLUENCE BUYING DECISIONS

    However objective we believe ourselves to be, most of us do not judge a product solely on its merits, considering quality, value and style before making a decision. (61)___, we are easily influenced by the people around us.

   There is nothing (62)____ with this. It is probably a smarter way to make decisions than (63)___ on only our own opinions. But it does make life hard for companies. They have long understood that groups of friends and relatives tend to buy the same products, but understanding the reasons has been tricky. It is because they are so similar with (64)____ to how much money they make and what television ads they watch that they independently (65)___ at the same decision? Or do they copy one another, perhaps (66)___ envy or perhaps because they have shared information about the products?

   Research in Finland recently found overwhelming evidence that neighbours have a big influence on buying decisions. When one of a person’s ten nearest neighbours bought a car, the chances that that person would buy a car of the same brand during the next week and a half (67)____ by 86 per cent. The researchers argued that it was not just a (68)__ of envy. Used cars seemed to attract neighbours even more than new cars. This suggested that people were not trying to (69)___ up with their neighbours, they were keen to learn from them. Since used cars are less reliable, a recommendation of one can (70)____influence a buying decision.

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.

   Glass is a remarkable substance made from the simplest raw materials. It can be colored or colorless, monochrome or polychrome, transparent, translucent, or opaque. It is lightweight impermeable to liquids, readily cleaned and reused, durable yet fragile, and often very beautiful Glass can be decorated in multiple ways and its optical properties are exceptional. In all its myriad forms – as table ware, containers, in architecture and design –glass represents a major achievement in the history of technological developments.

   Since the Bronze Age about 3,000 B.C., glass has been used for making various kinds of objects. It was first made from a mixture of silica, line and an alkali such as soda or potash, and these remained the basic ingredients of glass until the development of lead glass in the seventeenth century. When heated, the mixture becomes soft and malleable and can be formed by various techniques into a vast array of shapes and sizes. The homogeneous mass thus formed by melting then cools to create glass, but in contrast to most materials formed in this way (metals, for instance), glass lacks the crystalline structure normally associated with solids, and instead retains the random molecular structure of a liquid. In effect, as molten glass cools, it progressively stiffens until rigid, but does so without setting up a network of interlocking crystals customarily associated with that process. This is why glass shatters so easily when dealt a blow. Why glass deteriorates over time, especially when exposed to moisture, and why glassware must be slowly reheated and uniformly cooled after manufacture to release internal stresses induced by uneven cooling.

  Another unusual feature of glass is the manner in which its viscosity changes as it turns from a cold substance into a hot, ductile liquid. Unlike metals that flow or “freeze” at specific temperatures glass progressively softens as the temperature rises, going through varying stages of malleability until it flows like a thick syrup. Each stage of malleability allows the glass to be manipulated into various forms, by different techniques, and if suddenly cooled the object retains the shape achieved at that point. Glass is thus amenable to a greater number of heat-forming techniques than most other materials.