Before the invention of e-mail and the Internet in 1972, (A) it took people (B) at least one day to (C) cause hand-written letters sent to the (D) recipients’ homes.

The government is trying not to ____________ the money they are spending on vocational training.

Hoa: “Mom, I’ve got the first rank in class this semester!” - Mom: “____________”

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t open the door.

In this throw-away society, (A) instead of having an old (B) electronics device (C) fixed, people (D) tend to toss it away and buy a new one.

The more carefully humans mind their daily activities, _____________ on the environment.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 26 to 30.

Nowadays, everybody knows Apples and almost everybody knows that the company was founded by Steve Jobs, an American inventor and entrepreneur. He is (26) _______ recognized as a pioneer in the field of microcomputer revolution. He helped design the first Macintosh computer, (27) _______ a small computer graphics company into Pixar, the company behind Toy Story and The Monster Inc.

His countercultural lifestyle and philosophy was a product of the time and place of his (28) ________. Jobs was adopted and raised in San Francisco Bay Area during the 1960s. In 1972, Jobs attended Reed College from which he dropped out in next to no time. Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 in order to sell Apple I personal computer. At that moment, he might hardly imagine that only a year later the company tasted impressive victory with Apple II, one of the first highly successful (29) _______ personal computers. Unfortunately, in 1985, following a long power struggle, Jobs was forced out of Apple. After leaving Apple, Jobs took a few of its members with him to found NeXT, a computer development company which was then bought by Apple. The purchase (30) _______ Jobs to become the company’s CEO once again.

At that moment, he might hardly imagine that only a year later the company tasted impressive victory with Apple II, one of the first highly successful (29) _______ personal computers.