15000 bài tập tách từ đề thi thử môn Tiếng Anh có đáp án (Phần 48)

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 first each of the numbered blanks from 501 to 505.

Nowadays people are more aware that wildlife all over the world is in (501)________. Many species of animals are threatened, and could easily become (502)________. if we do not make an effort to protect them. In some cases, animals are hunted for their fur or for other valuable parts of their bodies. Some birds, such as parrots, are

caught (503)________. and sold as pets. For many animals and birds the problem is that their habitat - the place

where they live - is disappearing. More land is used for farms, for houses or industry, and there are fewer open spaces than there once were. Farmers use powerful chemicals to help them to grow better crops, but these chemicals pollute the environment and (504)________. wildlife. The most successful animals on earth - human beings - will soon be the only ones (505)________., unless we can solve this problem.

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As heart disease continues to be the number-one killer in the United States, researchers have become increasingly interested in identifying the potential risk factors that trigger heart attacks. High-fat diets and "life in the fast lane" have long been known to contribute to the high incidence of heart failure. But according to new studies, the list of risk factors may be significantly longer and quite surprising.

Heart failure, for example, appears to have seasonal and temporal patterns. A higher percentage of heart attacks occur in cold weather, and more people experience heart failure on Monday than on any other day of the week. In addition, people are more susceptible to heart attacks in the first few hours after waking. Cardiologists first observed this morning phenomenon in the mid-1980, and have since discovered a number of possible causes. An early-morning rise in blood pressure, heart rate, and concentration of heart stimulating hormones, plus a reduction of blood flow to the heart, may all contribute to the higher incidence of heart attacks between the hours of 8:00 A.M. and 10:00 A.M.

In other studies, both birthdays and bachelorhood have been implicated as risk factors. Statistics reveal that heart attack rates increase significantly for both females and males in the few days immediately preceding and following their birthdays. And unmarried men are more at risk for heart attacks than their married counterparts. Though stress is thought to be linked in some way to all of the aforementioned risk factors, intense research continues in the hope of further comprehending why and how heart failure is triggered .

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Until recently, hunting for treasure from shipwrecks was mostly fantasy; with recent technological advances, however, the search for sunken treasure has become more popular as a legitimate endeavor. This has caused a debate between those wanting to salvage the wrecks and those wanting to preserve them.

Treasure hunters are spurred on by the thought of finding caches of gold coins or other valuable objects on a sunken ship. One team of salvagers, for instance, searched the wreck of the RMS Republic, which sank outside the Boston harbor in 1900. The search party, using side-scan sonar, a device that projects sound waves across the ocean bottom and produces a profile of the sea floor, located the wreck in just two and a half days. Before the use of this new technology, such searches could take months or years. The team of divers searched the wreck for two months, finding silver tea services, crystal dinnerware, and thousands of bottles of wine, but they did not find the five and a half tons of American Gold Eagle coins they were searching for.

Preservationists focus on the historic value of a ship. They say that even if a shipwreck's treasure does not have a high monetary value, it can be an invaluable source of historic artifacts that are preserved in nearly mint condition. But once a salvage team has scoured a site, much of the archaeological value is lost. Maritime archaeologists who are preservationists worry that the success of salvagers will attract more treasure-hunting expeditions and thus threaten remaining undiscovered wrecks. Preservationists are lobbying their state lawmakers to legally restrict underwater searches and unregulated salvages. To counter their efforts, treasure hunters argue that without the lure of gold and million-dollar treasures, the wrecks and their historical artifacts would never be recovered at all.

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

American  folk  music  originated  with  (521)  ________  people  at  a  time  when  the  rural  population  was isolated  and  music  was  not  (522)  ________  spread  by  radio,  records,  or  music  video.  It  was  (523)  _______  by  oral traditional and is noted for its energy, humor, and emotional impact. The major source of early American folk songs was music from the British Isles, but songs from Africa as songs of the American Indians have significant part  in  its  heritage.  Later  settler  from  other  countries  also  contributed  songs.  In  the  nineteenth  century, composer Steven Foster  wrote some of the most enduringly popular of all American songs, (524) _________ soon became part of the folk tradition. Beginning in the 1930s, Woody Guthrie gained great popularity by adapting melodies and lyrics and supplying new ones as well. In the 1950s and 1960s, singer – composers such as Peter Seeger,  Bob  Dylan,  Joan  Baez  continued  this  tradition  by  urban’ folk music. Many of these songs deal (525) ________ important social issue, such as racial integration and the war in Vietnam.

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One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Great Pyramid of Giza was a monument of wisdom and prophecy built as a tomb for Pharaoh Cheops in 2720 B.C. Despite its antiquity, certain aspects of its construction makes it one of the truly wonders of the world. The thirteen- acre structure near the Nile river is a solid mass of stone blocks covered with limestone. Inside are the number of hidden passageways and the burial chamber of the Pharaoh. It is the largest single structure in the world. The four sides of the pyramid are aligned almost exactly on true north, south, east and west-an incredible engineering feat. The ancient Egyptians were sun worshippers and great astronomers, so computations for the Great Pyramid were based on astronomical observations.

Explorations and detailed examinations of the base of the structure reveal many intersecting lines. Further scientific study indicates that these represent a type of timeline of events – past, present and future. Many of the events have been interpreted and found to coincide with known facts of the past. Others are prophesied for future generations and are currently under investigation. Many believe that pyramids have supernatural powers and this one is no exception. Some researchers even associate it with extraterrestrial beings of ancient past.

Was this superstructure made by ordinary beings, or one built by a race far superior to any known today?

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Overpopulation, the situation of having large numbers of people with too few resources and too little space, is closely associated with poverty. It can result from high population density, or from low amounts of resources, or from both. Excessively high population densities put stress on available resources. Only a certain number of people can be supported on a given area of land, and that number depends on how much food and other resources the land can provide. In countries where people live primarily by means of simple farming, gardening, herding, hunting, and gathering, even large areas of land can support only small numbers of people because these labor-intensive subsistence activities produce only small amounts of food.

In developed countries such as the United States, Japan, and the countries of Western Europe, overpopulation generally is not considered a major cause of poverty. These countries produce large quantities of food through mechanized farming, which depends on commercial fertilizers, large-scale irrigation, and agricultural machinery. This form of production provides enough food to support the high densities of people in metropolitan areas.

A country’s level of poverty can depend greatly on its mix of population density and agricultural productivity. Bangladesh, for example, has one of the world’s highest population densities, with 1,147 persons per sq km. A large majority of the people of Bangladesh engage in low-productivity manual farming, which contributes to the country’s extremely high level of poverty. Some of the smaller countries in Western Europe, such as the Netherlands and Belgium, have high population densities as well. These countries practice mechanized farming and are involved in high-tech industries, however, and therefore have high standards of living.

At the other end of the spectrum, many countries in sub-Saharan Africa have population densities of less than 30 persons per sq km. Many people in these countries practice manual subsistence farming; these countries also have infertile land, and lack the economic resources and technology to boost productivity. As a consequence, these nations are very poor. The United States has both relatively low population density and high agricultural productivity; it is one of the world’s wealthiest nations.

High birth rates contribute to overpopulation in many developing countries. Children are assets to many poor families because they provide labor, usually for farming. Cultural norms in traditionally rural societies commonly sanction the value of large families. Also, the governments of developing countries often provide little or no support, financial or political, for family planning; even people who wish to keep their families small have difficulty doing so. For all these reasons, developing countries tend to have high rates of population growth.

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SOCIAL NETWORK

A  16-year-old  girl  from  Essex  has  been  sacked  after  describing  her  job  as  boring  on  the  social  networking website, Facebook. The teenager, who had been working (541) _________  an administrative assistant at a marketing company for just three weeks, didn’t feel very enthusiastic about the duties she was asked to do. (542) _________  of moaning  to  her  friends  she  decided  to  express  her  thoughts  on  her  Facebook  page  to  a  colleague,  who  (543) _________  the  boss’s  attention  to  it.  He  immediately  fired  her  on  the  (544)  _________  that  her  public  display  of dissatisfaction made it impossible for her to continue working for the company. She later told newspapers she had been treated totally unfairly, especially as she hadn’t  even mentioned the company’s name. She claimed she’s  been  perfectly  happy  with  her  job  and  that  her  light-hearted  comments  shouldn’t  (545)  _________  taken seriously. A spokesperson from a workers’ union said the incident demonstrated two things: firstly, that people need to protect their privacy online and secondly, that employers should be less sensitive to criticism.

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 546 to 552.

Therapeutic cloning

Reproductive cloning involves implanting a cloned embryo into a uterus in the hope of producing a healthy foetus. A company called Clonaid claims to have successfully cloned thirteen human babies. They say that all  of the babies are healthy and are in various location including Hong Kong, UK, Spain and Brazil. Clonaid states that they are using human cloning to assist infertile couples, homosexual couples and families who have lost a beloved relative.

The same technology can be used for animal cloning. If endangered species such as the giant panda and Sumatran tiger could be cloned, they could be saved from extinction. Livestock such as cows could also be cloned to allow farmers to reproduce cattle that produce the best meat and most milk. This could greatly help developing countries where cows produce significantly less meat and milk.

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 553 to 560.

THE PRAISE OF FAST FOOD

The media and a multitude of cookbook writers would have us believe that modern, fast, processed food is a disaster, and that it is a mark of sophistication to bemoan the steel roller mill and sliced white bread while yearning for stone-ground flour and a brick oven. Perhaps, we should call those scorn industrialised food, culinary Luddites, after the 19th-century English workers who rebelled against the machines that destroyed their way of life. Instead of technology, what these Luddites abhor is commercial sauces and any synthetic aid to flavouring our food.

Eating fresh, natural food was regarded with suspicion verging on horror; only the uncivilised, the poor, and the starving resorted to it. The ancient Greeks regarded the consumption of greens and root vegetables as a sign of bad times, and many succeeding civilizations believed the same. Happiness was not a verdant garden abounding in fresh fruits, but a securely locked storehouse jammed with preserved, processed foods.

What about the idea that the best food is handmade in the country? That food comes from the country goes without saying. However, the idea that country people eat better than city dwellers is preposterous. Very few of our ancestors working the land were independent peasants baking their own bread and salting down their own pig. Most were burdened with heavy taxes and rent, often paid directly by the food they produced. Many were ultimately serfs or slaves, who subsisted on what was left over; on watery soup and gritty flatbread.

The dishes we call ethnic and assume to be of peasant origin were invented for the urban, or at least urbane, aristocrats who collected the surplus. This is as true of the lasagna of northern Italy as it is of the chicken korma of Mughal Delhi, the moo shu pork of imperial China, and the pilafs and baklava of the great Ottoman palace in Istanbul. Cities have always enjoyed the best food and have invariably been the focal points of culinary innovation.

Preparing home-cooked breakfast, dinner, and tea for eight to ten people 365 days a year was servitude. Churning butter or skinning and cleaning rabbits, without the option of picking up the phone for a pizza if something went wrong, was unremitting, unforgiving toil. Not long ago, in Mexico, most women could expect to spend five hours a day kneeling at the grindstone preparing the dough for the family's tortillas.

In the first half of the 20th century, Italians embraced factory-made pasta and canned tomatoes. In the second half, Japanese women welcomed factory-made bread because they could sleep a little longer instead of getting up to make rice. As supermarkets appeared in Eastern Europe, people rejoiced at the convenience of readymade goods. Culinary modernism had proved what was wanted: food that was processed, preservable, industrial, novel, and fast, the food of the elite at a price everyone could afford. Where modern food became available, people grew taller and stronger and lived longer.

So the sunlit past of the culinary Luddites never existed and their ethos is based not on history but on a fairy tale. So what? Certainly no one would deny that an industrialised food supply has its own problems. Perhaps we should eat more fresh, natural, locally sourced, slow food. Does it matter if the history is not quite right? It matters quite a bit, I believe. If we do not understand that most people had no choice but to devote their lives to growing and cooking food, we are incapable of comprehending that modern food allows us unparalleled choices. If we urge the farmer to stay at his olive press and the housewife to remain at her stove, all so that we may eat traditionally pressed olive oil and home-cooked meals, we are assuming the mantle of the aristocrats of old. If we fail to understand how scant and monotonous most traditional diets were, we fail to appreciate the 'ethnic foods' we encounter.

Culinary Luddites are right, though, about two important things: We need to know how to prepare good food, and we need a culinary ethos. As far as good food goes, they've done us all a service by teaching us how to use the bounty delivered to us by the global economy. Their ethos, though, is another matter. Were we able to turn back the clock, as they urge, most of us would be toiling all day in the fields or the kitchen, and many of us would be starving.

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 561 to 565.

The invention of the mobile phone has undoubtedly revolutionized the way people communicate and influenced every aspect of our lives. The issue is whether this technological innovation has done more harm than good.

In order to (561)______ the question, we must first turn to the type of consumer. Presumably, most parents buy mobile phones for their teenagers to track their whereabouts and ensure their safety. We can also assume that most teenagers want mobile phones to avoid missing out (562)______ social contact. In this context, the advantages are clear. However, we cannot deny the fact that text messages have been used by bullies to intimidate fellow students. There is also (563)______ evidence that texting has affected literacy skills.

 The ubiquitous use of the mobile phone has, (564)______ question, affected adult consumers, too. What employee, on the way home from work, would be reluctant to answer a call from their boss? Apparently, only 18% of us, according to a recent survey, are willing to switch off our mobile phones once we’ve left the office.

Admittedly, mobile phones can be intrusive but there are obvious benefits to possessing one. Personally speaking, they are invaluable when it comes to making social or business arrangements at short (565)______. According to a recent survey, they also provide their owners with a sense of security in emergency situations.

In conclusion, mobile phones do have their drawbacks, but these are outweighed by the benefits. I would argue that it is not the tool that chooses its purpose, but the user.