(2024) Đề minh họa tham khảo BGD môn Tiếng Anh có đáp án (Đề 35)

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 31 to 35.

                                          Many countries are concerned about TikTok's security 

The US

       The United States took one more step towards becoming the possible first country to ban the social media app TikTok over privacy concerns. On Tuesday, April 23, Congress approved legislation which would force the Chinese owner of the app ByteDance to sell the platform within nine months or face a ban.

       Several countries have banned it on government devices, fearing that sensitive information could be exposed TikTok disputes accusations that it collects more user data than other social media companies and has called the bans "basic misinformation," saying these had been decided with "no deliberation or evidence". 

TikTok is owned by the Chinese technology company Bytedance but it insists it is run independently and does not share data with the Chinese government. It is currently carrying out a project to store US user data in Texas, which it says will put it out of China’s reach. However, many countries remain cautious about the platform and its ties to China. Western technology companies, including Airbnb, Yahoo, and LinkedIn, have also been leaving China or downsizing operations there because of Beijing's strict privacy law, which specifies how companies can collect and store data.

Australia

       On April 4, Australia banned TikTok from all federal government-owned devices over security concerns.

A notice issued by the Attorney General’s Department said TikTok poses security and privacy risks due to the "extensive collection of user data and exposure to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government that conflicts with Australian law". Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said in a statement that based on intelligence and security agencies’ advice, the ban would come into effect "as soon as practicable".

The UK

     On March 16, Oliver Dowden, the UK Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office, announced in a statement to the UK's House of Commons an immediate ban of the app on government official devices. "This is a precautionary move. We know that there is already limited use of TikTok across government, but it is also good cyber hygiene," the minister said in his address to MPs. The ban is based on a report by the UK's National Cyber Security Centre, which found "there could be a risk around how sensitive government data is accessed and used by certain platforms".

     In short, many countries worry about TikTok's safety. The US might ban it, and Australia and the UK already banned it on government devices. Even though TikTok says it's safe and plans to store US data in the US, people are still unsure because it's owned by a Chinese company. This shows how countries are being careful about Chinese tech companies and protecting their data.

                                                                                                                           ( Source from euronews )

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 36 to 42.

                                                                     Counting the Jobless

                                             Measuring unemployment is not as simple as it sounds

      Few economic indicators are as politically charged as unemployment rates. Britain's Conservative goberment is often accused of having changed its definitions of unemployment to reduce the published rate. Unemployment rates are also used to judge the tightness of labour markets: declining rates signal a tight market for labour and hence, eventually, pres-sure for higher wages. And they are used to assess the degree of social pressure that is caused by joblessness. To many politicians, particularly in continental Europe, persistently high unemployment rates are a constant reminder of the failure of their economic policies. Yet official measures of unemployment, based on surveys of the labour market, may not be as useful as many think.

      To qualify as unemployed in industrialized countries, a person must be without a job, taking active measures to find one and available to start work ( usually immediately ). Some maintain that this definition of unemployment is too loose. They point out that some of those counted as unemployed by official number crunchers may actually be working in the black economy. So high official unemployment rates may not necessarily mean that there is little upward pressure on wages. Others complain that the definition is too restrictive. Many people, such as those who are no longer actively looking for work, are classified as being out of the labour market. In fact, they may still be a big part of the jobless problem. One solution to this would be to use “non-employment” instead. This measure includes not just the unemployed, but other economically inactive people as well. It would capture those who has simply “dropped out” of the labour force, and might be a better guide to the impact of joblessness than standard rates.

       The snag with such a measure is that it is too broad to be useful. The “non-employed” include retired people, housewives, students and others who may not be able to work, or may not wish to. Thus, an increase in “non-employment” could even be a good thing – if, for example, it mean that more people were staying on longer in education.

       An alternative approach is to try to supplement the coverage of the standard unemployment rate. Many economists reckon that two groups of people, in particular, should be added. These are “discouraged workers” ( those who would like to work, but are not actively seeking a job because they do not think any suitable positions are available ), and “involuntary part-time workers” ( those who are working fewer hours than they would like, or who can find only a part-time job when they want a full time one). Once such discouraged workers added in, the argument goes, the unemployment rate will provide a better measure of any excess supply of labour. 

                                                                                          (  Adapted from Reading Strategies for the IELTS  )