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 39 to 43
Japanese Girls' Day-also known as the Doll's Festival-is celebrated on March 3 to pray for the health and happiness of young girls in Japan. Hinamatsuri, the name of the celebration in Japan, is marked by families displaying a set of hina dolls in the house and serving special delicacies that are ceremonially beautiful and delicious. Traditionally, parents or grandparents of a newborn girl buy a set of hina dolls for the baby, unless they have special dolls that are inherited from generation to generation. From the end of February to March 3, hina dolls dressed in Japanese ancient costumes are displayed on tiered platforms that are covered with a red carpet. The costumed dolls represent the imperial court of the Heian period (A.D. 794 to 1185] and feature the emperor, empress, attendants, and musicians dressed in traditional garb. The dolls are displayed hierarchically with the emperor and empress at the top, which are set in front of a gilded screen representing the thrown. The number of dolls and their size vary from home to home, but five to seven platforms are common. It is customary to put the dolls away as soon as the festival is over-there is a superstition that if the dolls are left out, a family will have trouble marrying off their daughters. After the festival, some people release paper dolls into the rivers praying that this will send away sickness and bad fortune. (Adapted from https://ivwiv. thespruceeats.com/)
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 44 to 50.
Attracting users to social networking sites and cloud computing sites is all about building trust. However, if recent news is anything to go by, consumers would be right to consider that the trust they have put into the Internet companies that run these services has been betrayed. Between 2006 and the beginning of 2010, search engine giant Google started a project to map and digitally photograph every road in every major city in more than 30 countries for its product Google Street View. But images, it appears, is not all that the Streetview cars collected. It now turns out that Google collected over 600 Gigabytes of data from users of public and unprotected Wi-Fi access routers - which included Web pages visited and emails. All this was collected without the prior knowledge or permission of the router owners. But most criticism surrounding data privacy is currently reserved for Facebook, which has faced an extreme anger from consumers when millions of users suddenly found their private details exposed and searchable on Google, Bing and Yahoo. Facebook, whose privacy policies have come under attack both at home and abroad, now faces a stiff fine for storing non-users' personal data without their permission. Founder Mark Zuckerberg appears to be relenting and is now beefing up security. The issue came to the fore in recent months among concern that Facebook's confusing privacy settings were making it possible for Internet stalkers, cyber criminals and even nosy neighbours to gain a wealth of information about its users without their knowledge or permission. What all these companies deal in is trust. Without trust, we would not allow them access to our private information. Therefore, it's important that they maintain our trust. If social networking becomes increasingly important to companies such as Google, Apple and Microsoft, they will have to be careful not to violate their users' trust in the future. (Adapted from https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2010/07/who-owns-your-personal-data/)
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 34 to 38
Is it possible to buy an IELTS certificate? Buying an IELTS certificate and getting rid of difficulties to achieve a high score tempts many candidates to pay (34) ________ money and avoid the hassle of taking part in the exam! But, unsurprisingly, wherever there is a demand, there are fraudsters (35) ________ are ready to take advantage of the situation in any possible way. Is it possible to buy an IELTS certificate? The short answer is NO! One of the reasons the IELTS exam is recognized as the world's most trustworthy international language test lies in its high-security measures. That's why most (36) organisations and universities around the world have full confidence in the results of this exam. (37) ________ , in recent years, IELTS organisers (IDP and the British Council) have taken more drastic measures to maintain the safety and credibility of this test. Actions such as taking fingerprints and photos on the day of the exam. Therefore, it can be said with absolute certainty that it is impossible to buy the IELTS certificate and whoever claims to sell them is definitely a con artist ready to take (38) ________ of the naivety, and sometimes greediness of candidates. (Adapted from https://ielts.preptical.com)
