AMBROSIA

MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. The authority is ______ the campaign for encouraging Vietnamese students to study in other Asian
countries.
A. procuring B. solidifying C. spearheading D. fulfilling
2. In February 2022, many bombs were dropped on a city in the southern of Ukraine, killing
thousands of citizens and almost ______ parts of cities.
A. overthrowing B. annulling C. eradicating D. annihilating
3. Mike hasn’t got a job, and isn’t trying to get one. He just ______ his acquaintances.
A. meddles with B. sponges on C. tarts up D. sweeps along
4. Unfortunately, ______ stamping out the wood trade, these programs are simply forcing timber
smugglers to move into more inaccessible regions.
A. besides B. rather than C. as for D. in converse to
5. The bevy of swans, hiding among the bushes, ______ by people walking in the park, despite the
gloomy camouflage of the surroundings.
A. were easily seen B. was easily seen C. seen D. being seen
6. My mother was ______ mad when she found out about my loss of passport two days prior to the
flight to Vietnam.
A. barking B. hopping C. skipping D. shouting
7. In front of the door______.
A. a dog sat B. was seated a dog C. seated a dog D. was a dog seating
8. But regardless, now Olivia feels ______ by the overly protective nature of her father's attention.
A. smothered B. espoused C. circumscribed D. suffocated
9. All my confidence ______ me when I stand on a great stage giving a speech to more than one
thousand people.
A. landlocked B. terraced C. deserted D. swamped
10. Tommy’s girlfriend gesture infuriated him and he let out a stream of ______.
A. complement B. pantry C. invective D. ascension
1. C 2. D 3. B 4. B 5. B 6. B 7. B 8. A 9. B 10. C
GAPPED TEXT
You are going to read an article about palaeoanthropology. Seven paragraphs have been removed
from the article. Choose from the paragraphs A-H the one which fits each gap (1-7). There is one
extra paragraph which you do not need to use.
IF THESE BONES COULD TALK ...

To a palaeoanthropologist, the past is an open book, but one that fails to tell the whole story. The
covers are missing. The first chapters may never be found. There are hardly any pages, and most are
so smeared and crumpled, so foxed and faded, that the text could mean almost anything. The cast of
characters is confusing and narrative thread anybody's guess. Is it a detective story, a clifhanger, or a
romance? Can there be a happy ending?
1.
Homo floresiensis was the mysterious survivor unearthed from a cave on the island of Flores in
Indonesia: a pygmy descendant, perhaps, of Homo erectus, perhaps even connected to an earlier
human species, but with this special feature: the bones were only 18,000 years old. So Homo sapiens,
Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalis and Homo floresiensis must have all shared the planet at the same
time, tantalisingly recently: within the last 100,000 years perhaps. Now only Homo sapiens survives.
2.
Stringer, 57, is head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London. One of
palaeoanthropology's big players, he has spent his career in pursuit of Homo neanderthalis and is also
one of the great proselytisers of the Out-of-Africa theory, the one that says the human story begins on
just one continent. Homo floresiensis, however, astonished him.
3.
'Nature is constantly experimenting. I think a lot of people thought that humans were somehow
different; that we had this all embracing culture and this unifying adaptation, which meant that human
evolution progressed in a somewhat different way, because of our technology and the way we
probably vainly think we are partly controlling the world now. So people project backwards and think
that humans are somehow special. The evidence shows us that our evolution was as complex and as
undirected, I suppose, as that of any other species we have studied.'
4.
Modern humans probably popped up within the last 200,000 years, but the things that make modern
humans so distinctive in the fossil record - symbolic art, pottery and jewellery - bloomed only about
50,000 years ago. Nobody in the world of palaeoanthropology considers modern humanity to be the
flower of creation, either. A temporary bloom, maybe.
5.
Genetic evidence suggests humans may have come close to extinction a number of times in the past.
Modern humans shared the Middle East with Homo neanderthalis 120,000 years ago, and as Cro-
Magnons became the sole tenants of Europe 30,000 years ago, a terrain held successfully by the
Neanderthals for more than 100,000 years. Did they compete? Did they co-exist? Did they trade, or
cohabit?
6.
'I still tend to the view that the primary message would have been: different. They would have had a
different body language, a completely different way of communication; they would have had different
behaviours.'
7.
He and his co-author Peter Andrews - a former head of human origins at the Natural History Museum,
and an expert on the early part of the human story - tried to tell the story of human evolution not just
through time, but through its context, Stringer says: how you set about excavating a site, what a piece
of tooth or jaw can tell you about ancient human behaviour. In that, the title of the book means what it
says: complete.
Missing paragraphs:
A. It's humbling, Stringer says.'We shouldn't see ourselves as the summit of the perfection of
whatever evolution is trying to achieve. We seem to be very successful at the moment in terms of our
numbers but, looking at it on a geological timescale, how successful will we look in 50,000 years,
which is a very short time, geologically speaking?'
B. These people were capable of making tools and butchering large beasts like rhinos. They may not
have killed these beasts themselves - they were, after all, dangerous animals – but even if they were
just scavenging, it must have taken some degree of cooperation and organisation to have driven off
the lions or wolves, and secured the carcass for themselves.
C. Here is the orthodoxy, pieced together over a century or more by Darwin's disciples: primate
creatures with a capacity for walking upright emerged perhaps twenty million years ago. From these
emerged the ancestors of all gorillas, all chimpanzees and all humans. There is no line of evolution:
think, instead, of foliage, and the surviving humans and two species of chimpanzees are just nearby
buds at the ends of twigs dose together on the tree of life.
D. 'Neanderthals were certainly human and evolved as us in their own way, but they were different.
They had several hundred thousand years of evolving their own anatomy and behaviour. But when
these people met in Europe would they have seen each other as people? Or as someone different?' he
says.
E. He thinks the Neanderthals perished at a moment of maximum stress in the stop-go, hot-cold
pattern of climate during the last ice age. Though they left their mark in the Pyrenees, they never got
to Britain at all.But then the human occupation of Britain itself is a bit of a riddle. There is evidence
of it, most of it indirect, of little pulses of human occupation, and then a gap of 100,000 years when
no humans appeared to have visited Britain at all. Modern humans finally moved in and stayed only
12,000 years ago.
F. There is a story-so-far, but that potted version of events is forever being revised, and nobody knows
that better than Chris Stringer, one of he authors of a book published today called The Complete
World of Human Evolution. Complete? Stringer spent eight years on the text. Then, late last year, he
had to sit down in one night and compose an entirely new chapter to incorporate the discovery of
Homo floresiensis, also known as the Hobbit.
G. What stories could these bones tell? And who could have dreamed, before their discovery that
some tree-climbing, pygmy-elephant- hunting human candidate could have survived on a tropical
island while Homo sapiens moved into the Fertile Crescent, preparing to invent agriculture,
civilisation and global terrorism?
H. 'Until that turned up, we had no idea that ancient humans had ever reached as far as Flores. We
certainly had no idea that there was a completely new kind of human - or is it even human? That is
still being argued about – living there, and the fact that it was still around there when modern people
passed through the region. Each of those is astonishing and that shows how little we knew about
human evolution in that part of the world. We are building up the pieces of a huge, complex jigsaw,
and we still have a lot of spaces to fill in,' he says.
Authentic Listening 12/08/2022
Link listening file: https://bit.ly/3dpSWfl
For questions 1-10, listen to a recorded material about colors and fill in the gaps to complete the
summary below, use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each gap. You will hear the recording
TWICE.
History’s deadliest colors

White
• Originated in 4th century BC, made from the lead of ancient
Greek
• Lead penetrates into human blood cells, soft tissues, and (1) ______, causing damage to the body.
• Artists who used the pigment experienced various symptoms including palseys, (2) ______,
coughing, enlarged retinas, and blindness
• Due to its distinct advantages, Vermeer and (3) ______ continued using the chemical despite its
harms.
Green
(4) ______ were much more vivid compared to natural ones.
• Arsenic from green dye can obstruct the process by which cells (5) ______.
• The toxic nature of this pigment remained (6) ______ until the 1820s.
• In the 20th century, this chemical re-emerged as a(n) (7) ______.
Orange
• This pigment (8) ______ dangerous radiation that can cause cancer.
• In WWII, uranium was (9) ______ for military reasons.
• Due to the loosening of uranium restrictions, several ceramic products still (10) _____ for
radioactivity to date.
Keys: 1. Mineralized tissues 2. Melancholy 3. The Impressionists 4. Synthetic green
5. Communicate and function 6. Under wraps 7. Insecticide 8. Emits 9. Confiscated 10. Read positive
LISTENING https://tinyurl.com/yc5nrxpp
Listen to a piece of news record talking about sexual assaults in Australia and decide whether
the following statement is True (T), False (F), or Not Given (NG).
1. One victim of Tully’s abuse said that she was too young to understand what was going on.
2. The women who sued Cameron Tully for sexual assaults did not get to present their evidences
directly.
3. Tully was officially charged with four sexual abuse cases which were brought by Alice.
4. Alice felt discontented at the handling of sexual assaults in her country.
5. Australia is seriously lacking in ways to deal with crime victims.
SENTENCE TRANSFORMATION
1. The situation was so urgent that the commander asked us to be ready for action all the time.
(TOE) -> Such was _____________________________________________________.
2. The council recent decision is really insensible. (RHYME)
 The decision _______________________________________________________________.
3. The group leader wasn’t very willing to accept anybody else’s suggestion, which was not what
people commonly expected. (TAKE KINDLY)
 Contrary to _______________________________________________________________.
4. We were all surprised when Tina could finish her performance before time. (CLOCK)
 To our ______________________________________________________________________.
5. Dick was expelled after he had made a terrible mistake. (DOOR)
 Having _____________________________________________________________________.
KEY: 1. Such was the urgency of the situation that the commander kept us on our toes all the time.
2. The decision recently made by the council is (really) no / without rhyme or reason.
3. Contrary to what people commonly expected the group leader didn't take kindly to anybody else's
suggestions.
4. To our surprise, Tina could finish her performance against the clock.
5. Having made a terrible mistake, Dick was showed the door.

READING COMPREHENSION
Read the following passage and choose the correct letter A, B, C or D that indicates the best answer
for the questions.
METEORITE IMPACT AND DINOSAUR EXTINCTION

There is increasing evidence that the impacts of meteorites have had important effects on Earth,
particularly in the field of biological evolution. Such impacts continue to pose a natural hazard to life
on Earth. Twice in the twentieth century, large meteorite objects are known to have collided with
Earth.
If an impact is large enough, it can disturb the environment of the entire Earth and cause an
ecological catastrophe. The best-documented such impact took place 65 million years ago at the end
of the Cretaceous period of geological history. This break in Earth’s history is marked by a mass
extinction, when as many as half the species on the planet became extinct. While there are a dozen or
more mass extinctions in the geological record, the Cretaceous mass extinction has always intrigued
paleontologists because it marks the end of the age of the dinosaurs. For tens of millions of years,
those great creatures had flourished. Then, suddenly, they disappeared.
The body that impacted Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period was a meteorite with a mass of
morethan a trillion tons and a diameter of at least 10 kilometers. Scientists first identified this impact
in 1980 from the worldwide layer of sediment deposited from the dust cloud that enveloped the planet
after the impact. This sediment layer is enriched in the rare metal iridium and other elements that are
relatively abundant in a meteorite but very rare in the crust of Earth. Even diluted by the terrestrial
material excavated from the crater, this component of meteorites is easily identified. By 1990
geologists had located the impact site itself in the Yucatán region of Mexico. The crater, now deeply
buried in sediment, was originally about 200 kilometers in diameter.
This impact released an enormous amount of energy, excavating a crater about twice as large as
the lunar crater Tycho. The explosion lifted about 100 trillion tons of dust into the atmosphere, as can
be determined by measuring the thickness of the sediment layer formed when this dust settled to the
surface. Such a quantity of material would have blocked the sunlight completely from reaching the
surface, plunging Earth into a period of cold and darkness that lasted at least several months. The
explosion is also calculated to have produced vast quantities of nitric acid and melted rock that
sprayed out over much of Earth, starting widespread fires that must have consumed most terrestrial
forests and grassland. Presumably, those environmental disasters could have been responsible for the
mass extinction, including the death of the dinosaurs.
Several other mass extinctions in the geological record have been tentatively identified with
large impacts, but none is so dramatic as the Cretaceous event. But even without such specific
documentation, it is clear that impacts of this size do occur and that their results can be catastrophic.
What is a catastrophe for one group of living things, however, may create opportunities for another
group. Following each mass extinction, there is a sudden evolutionary burst as new species develop to
fill the ecological niches opened by the event.
Impacts by meteorites represent one mechanism that could cause global catastrophes and
seriously influence the evolution of life all over the planet. [A] According to some estimates, the
majority of all extinctions of species may be due to such impacts. [B] Such a perspective
fundamentally changes our view of biological evolution. [C] The standard criterion for the survival of
a species is its success in competing with other species and adapting to slowly changing
environments. [D] Yet an equally important criterion is the ability of a species to survive random
global ecological catastrophes due to impacts.
Earth is a target in a cosmic shooting gallery, subject to random violent events that were
unsuspected a few decades ago. In 1991 the United States Congress asked NASA to investigate the
hazard posed today by large impacts on Earth. The group conducting the study concluded from a
detailed analysis that impacts from meteorites can indeed be hazardous. Although there is always
some risk that a large impact could occur, careful study shows that this risk is quite small,
(The Official Guide to the TOEFL Test_2018)

1. In paragraph 2, why does the author include the information that dinosaurs had flourished for tens
of millions of years and then suddenly disappeared?
A. To support the claim that the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous is the best-documented
of the dozen or so mass extinctions in the geological record
B. To explain why as many as half of the species on Earth at the time are believed to have become
extinct at the end of the Cretaceous
C. To explain why paleontologists have always been intrigued by the mass extinction at the end of the
Cretaceous
D. To provide evidence that an impact can be large enough to disturb the environment of the entire
planet and cause an ecological disaster
2. Which of the following can be inferred from paragraph 3 about the location of the meteorite impact
in Mexico?
A. The location of the impact site in Mexico was kept secret by geologists from 1980 to 1990.
B. It was a well-known fact that the impact had occurred in the Yucatán region.
C. Geologists knew that there had been an impact before they knew where it had occurred.
D. The Yucatán region was chosen by geologists as the most probable impact site because of its
climate.
3. According to paragraph 3, how did scientists determine that a large meteorite had impacted Earth?
A. They discovered a large crater in the Yucatán region of Mexico.
B. They found a unique layer of sediment worldwide.
C. They were alerted by archaeologists who had been excavating in the Yucatán region.
D. They located a meteorite with a mass of over a trillion tons.
4. The word “excavating” in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to _____.
A. digging out B. extending C. destroying D. covering up
5. According to paragraph 4, all of the following statements are true of the impact at the end of the
Cretaceous period EXCEPT ______.
A. A large amount of dust blocked sunlight from Earth.
B. Earth became cold and dark for several months.
C. New elements were formed in Earth’s crust.
D. Large quantities of nitric acid were produced.
6. The phrase “tentatively identified” in paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to ______.
A. identified after careful B. study identified without certainty
C. occasionally identified D. easily identified
7. Paragraph 6 supports which of the following statements about the factors that are essential for the
survival of a species?
A. The most important factor for the survival of a species is its ability to compete and adapt to gradual
changes in its environment.
B. The ability of a species to compete and adapt to a gradually changing environment is not the only
ability that is essential for survival.
C. Since most extinctions of species are due to major meteorite impacts, the ability to survive such
impacts is the most important factor for the survival of a species.
D. The factors that are most important for the survival of a species vary significantly from one species
to another.
8. Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the following sentence?
Earth is a target in a cosmic shooting gallery, subject to random violent events that were
unsuspected a few decades ago.
A. Until recently, nobody realized that Earth is exposed to unpredictable violent impacts from space.
B. In the last few decades, the risk of a random violent impact from space has increased.
C. Since most violent events on Earth occur randomly, nobody can predict when or where they will
happen.
D. A few decades ago, Earth became the target of random violent events originating in outer space.
9. According to the passage, who conducted investigations about the current dangers posed by large
meteorite impacts on Earth?
A. Paleontologists B. Geologists C. The United States Congress D. NASA
10. Look at the four letters (A, B, C, and D) that indicate where the following sentence could be added
to the passage in paragraph 6.
This is the criterion emphasized by Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.
A. Option [A] B. Option [B] C. Option [C] D. Option [D]

1. C 2. C 3. B 4. B 5. C 6. B 7. B 8. A 9. D 10. C

OPEN CLOZE
Members of the Vietnamese national women’s football team have just returned home after earning a
berth at the FIFA Women’s World Cup for the first time and (1) _____ fifth at the recently concluded
2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup. This goes to (2) ______ that women’s football has (3) ______
miracles after more than three decades of establishment and development. Although many players
tested positive for COVID-19 in late 2021, the team did not (4) ______ to the challenge and qualified
for the quarterfinals of the 2022 AFC Asian Cup. After losing 1-3 to China, Vietnam had to compete
in the play-off round to vie (5) ______ a ticket to the 2023 World Cup. The team showed dominance
against Thailand with a 2-0 victory, and gained a convincing 2-1 win against Chinese Taipei, making
(6) ______ for having the first appearance in the Women’s World Cup. With this outstanding
achievement, the team, (7)_____ head coach Chung, has been presented with the Labour Orders.
Meanwhile, the officials of VFF have also promised to create the best (8) _____ for the squad to train
and compete abroad.

1. finishing 2. prove/show 3. worked/performed 4. succumb/yield/surrender

WORD FORMATION
1. As midnight strikes close, Victon feels extremely __________. (EYELID)
2. He is considered a(n) _________ in his family, never cherishing his own heritage despite
everyone’s apparent disapproval. (LIE)
3. “Chinese New Year ” is a bit of a(n) __________ to refer to the holiday that has been celebrated for
thousands of years in various eastern and southeastern Asian countries besides China. (NAME)
4. It is forbidden to record any activities inside this part of the building __________ without
permission. (PHOTO)
5. There have been many __________ who spread fall claims about the traditional dishes of the
region. (FEAR)
6. Although customs and traditions are to be preserved, there are certain __________ and
superstitious beliefs that we should abandon. (FOUND)
7. According to a famous Vietnamese myth, Son Tinh is the __________ of Thuy Tinh and he never
lets go of the desire for revenge. (ENEMY)
8. There are always__________ who oppose the conservation of historical buildings. (SAY)
9. Every Lunar New Year, my grandparents will decorate the front doors with __________ curtains
and wallpaper. (FLOWER)
10. Many __________ like countdown parties are created with the sole aim of getting media
coverage. (EVENT)
11. My grandparents had lived a hard life __________ and always felt grateful for everything they
had. (COMPLAIN)
12. In a world where communication and cooperation are essential, it is no exaggeration to say that
__________ skills are the foundation for success. (PERSON)
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. Today is October 20th, the exam starts _____, which means we only have seven days to revise
eight chapters of Geography.
A. today week B. a week’s today C. today’s a week D. in week’s a day
2. Last month, I had my identity stolen by _____ certain Mr. Broil, of whom I know nothing about.
A. that B. The C. Some D. a
3 Granger’s dad had _____ her to help prepare foods and drinks for the football team members so that
she could make more friends.
A. immolated B. Apprenticed C. Acquiesced D. volunteered
4 His theory for extracurricular activities took nearly 18 years in _____ before it was finally published
in 1981.
A. incubation B. Maturity C. Gestation D. cocoon
5 Although Alex’s campaign team had assiduously _____ the media before the election, there seemed
to be no chances of him being appointed the Mayor.
A. proffered B. Couched C. Buttered D. courted
6 It is important to set goals to strive for in life; however, make sure they are attainable, otherwise
they are nothing more than just_____ dreams.
A. pipe B. Cloud C. Drain D. tube
7 Some patients are real _____, they keep doubting my prescriptions and talk as if they were the
doctor.
A. pen pushers B. armchair critics C. couch judges D. smart cookies
8 Be careful not to be led up the _____ path by online advertisements, some might appear extremely
convincing.
A. dreamy B. Garden C. Mountain D. rocky
9 The incident, which is a shame for the club, became something that every member wants to draw
the _____ over.
A. cloak B. Cover C. Veil D. shroud
10 After a long fight with cancer, my poor old teacher can finally leave this _____ behind and rest in
peace now.
A. vale of tears B. chapter of accidents C. plight of miseries D. road of thorn

1. A 2. D 3. D 4. C 5. D 6. A 7. B 8. B 9. C 10. A

SENTENCE TRANSFORMATION
1. The influx of tourists in Vietnam is expected to increase rapidly in the following months after
coming to a halt due to the Covid-19 pandemic.  → Although____________ (BALLOON)
2. At the end of the meeting, the board of directors collectively accepted his proposals to cut
down on budget.  → _______________________ (ASSENTED)
3. I made an excuse for not finishing the homework, which my teacher was completely
convinced. → My teacher __________________________________________________
(HOOK)
4. Fortunately, the group were able to make it to the departure gate just before the door was
closed.→ The group _______________________________________________________
(HOUR)
5.  Roger Federer is often regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time as a result of
decades of being in the game and winning prestigious titles.→ Decades
___________(TOWERING)
6. She usually gets infuriated in class because she doesn’t have enough sleep at night. 
→ Her __________________________________________________________ (HATTER)
7. To avoid contracting coronavirus, I always wear face masks whenever I go out. 
→ ____________________________________________________________ (LEST)
8. I really enjoy playing online games with my friends as a way to de-stress after hours of hitting
the books. 
→ I ____________________________________________________________ (DERIVE)
 1. Although the influx of tourists came to a halt due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it is expected to
balloon in the following months.
2. At the end of the meeting, the board of directors assented to his proposals to cut down on
budget.
3. My teacher believed/ bought/ fell for my excuse for not finishing the homework hook, line, and
sinker.
4. They were able to make it to the departure gate at the eleventh hour.
5. Decades of being in the game and winning prestigious titles, Roger Federer is often regarded as
a towering figure in tennis.
6. Her lack of sleep at night usually makes her as mad as a hatter in class.
7. I always wear face masks whenever I go out lest I should contract/ contract coronavirus.
8. I derive great pleasure/ comfort from playing online games with my friends as a way to destress
after hours of hitting the books.

OPEN CLOZE
The huge stone figures of Easter Island have beguiled explorers, researchers and the wider world
(1)_______ centuries, but now experts say they have cracked one of the biggest mysteries: why the
statues are where they are. Researchers say they have analysed the locations of the megalithic
platforms (2) _________ which many of the statues known as moai sit, as well as scrutinising sites of
the island’s resources, and have discovered the structures are typically found in close (3) __________
to sources of fresh water. This led to the belief that such constructions could be tied to the abundance
and quality of the supplies. Prof Carl Lipo from Binghamton University in New York commented that
(4) ________ is important about the findings is that the statue locations seem to carry a symbolic
meaning to them while integrating into the lives of the community, rather than being a weird ritual
place.Easter Island has more than 300 megalithic platforms, (5) _________ of which might have been
made by a separate community. The first of these are believed to have been constructed in the 13th
century. It is thought the monuments represent ancestors and were linked to ritual activity, forming a
focal point for communities, (6) __________ the reason for their locations was (7) __________
unsolved. While studies have suggested the sites might have been chosen because of a link to key
resources, the team says the latest research is the first attempt to scrutinise such claims. The team (8)
__________ on the east of the island, where various resources have been well mapped, and looked at
the distribution of 93 megalithic platforms constructed (9) _________ European sailors arrived later
in the 18th century.After finding (10) __________ link to the proximity of rock used for tools or for
the monuments, they looked at whether the statues were found near other important resources:
gardens spread with stones in which crops like sweet potatoes were grown, fishing sites, and sources
of freshwater.
1. FOR 2. ON 3. PROXIMITY 4. WHAT 5. EACH
6. BUT 7. PREVIOUSLY 8. FOCUSED 9. BEFORE 10. NO

GUIDED CLOZE
Passage A:
Fifteen hundred years ago, Ilopango, a caldera volcano in what is now El Salvador, erupted in
one of the largest events of its (1) __________ in recorded history. Known as the Tierra Blanc
Joven eruption, it shot 10.5 cubic miles’ (2) __________of tephra—pumice and ash—into the air,
more than 100 times the amount produced by the Mount St. Helens eruption of 1980. The solids
that resettled blanketed the valley below; those that didn’t are thought to have (3) __________ to
a cooler climate throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The eruption has long been (4)
__________ with hastening the end of the ancient Maya civilization that flourished throughout
Mexico and Central America. But a new study in the journal Antiquity suggests that the eruption
didn’t portend doom. (5) __________, it enabled the swift construction of a massive Maya
pyramid that signaled the resilience of those who built it. “Events like eruptions and drought have
often been (6) __________ the main factor in ancient collapse, abandonment, or decline,” says
study author Akira Ichikawa, a postdoctoral associate at the University of Colorado, Boulder who
suggests ancient people were more resilient, flexible, and innovative.” Ichikawa (7)_______
excavations in San Andrés, a Maya settlement in the Zapotitán Valley near what is now San
 Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. There lie the ruins of the Campana structure, a towering
pyramid that at the time would have dwarfed everything else in the valley. As the team dug
several excavation trenches, they (8) __________ eight layers of building materials until they hit
some 16 feet of pure white tephra that contained only a few shards of ceramics and other
materials, suggesting the builders had carefully sifted through the ash and pumice before using it
to build.

1. A. type B. kind C. sort D. group

2. A. worth B. amount C. weight D. volume

3. A. added B. attributed C.bestowed D. contributed

4. A. assigned B. credited C. accredited D. tampered

5. A. Moreover B. However C. Instead D. In turn

6. A.regarded B. considered C. viewed D. recognized

7. A. conducted B. operated C. led D. executed

8. A. unlocked B. unloaded C. unburied D. uncovered

Passage B:
Long before Julia Child and Emeril Lagasse, Antonin Carême (1) __________ international fame,
cooking for kings and writing cookbooks that brought haute cuisine into 19th-century homes.From
restaurant empires to countless cookbooks to cooking shows, celebrity chefs are everywhere in the
modern world. Many credit television (2) __________ its invention; while TV may have (3)
__________ the visibility of celebrity chefs, it did not invent them:19th-century France did. In the
decades following the French Revolution, Antonin Carême (4) __________the world’s first culinary
empire—with shops, (5) __________for royalty, and best-selling cookbooks. He published his first
one in 1815, a combination of the encyclopedic and practical that (6) __________ his organized
approach to cooking, which was the first comprehensive guide to the preparation of many classics of
the French repertoire. Like modern-day professional chefs, he combined the roles of artist, scholar,
and scientist, all generously (7) __________ with self-promotion. Carême is best (8) __________
today, however, for his brilliant pastries in the form of buildings and exotic landscapes made of spun
sugar and almond paste, called pièces montées or extraordinaires. They served as the grandiose
centerpieces that were still required on the tables of the post-revolutionary French aristocracy. Despite
such lavish productions, Carême acted as a (9) __________ between the elaborate grand cuisine (10)
__________ by royalty and the more modern, simpler approach that he formulated for the growing
middle class in his cookbooks. Until Carême, no one had used the phrase “You can try this at home.”

1. A. secured B. obtained C. gained D. procured

2. A. with B. for C. to D. on

3. A. increased B. enhanced C. boosted D. heightened

4. A. erected B. shaped C. created D. built

5. A. catering B. restricting C. dedicating D. categorizing

6. A. embodied B. exemplified C. epitomized D. elucidated

7. A. decorated B. associated C. garlanded D. garnished

10. A. selected B. recommended C. favored D. beloved

MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. Although he announced retirement last year, he periodically returns to the stage but only as a
__________ player.
A. bit B. Piece C. chip D. slice
2. He promised to make the city a safer place but that optimism soon gave __________ to doubt
as the crime rate continued to rise.
A. space B. room C. way D. place
3. After half an hour hearing the same story over and over, the students’ interest began to ______.
A. tire B. bush C. flag D. wilt
4. The way Professor Harry ___________ about historical events in his lectures really shows his
passion for the field.
A. rhapsodizes B. eulogizes C. lionizes D. subsidizes
5. Since he was still unsure whether he was really into Nana or not, Jeno was rather __________
when talking about his feelings.
A . unequivocal B. taciturn C. reticent D. apathetic
6. It is hoped that the new administration will place agricultural production on a more
environmentally friendly __________ within the next 5 years.
A. footing B. heading C. base D. ground
7. My ideas often meet _________ reception from my team members since I don’t really get
along well with them.
A. freezing B. frostbite C. frosty D. frozen
8. Already convinced the board, he even __________ the message home further by showing
estimated figures if the strategy is implemented .
A. drove B. mailed C. sent D. delivered
9. The children actually were never taught the songs, they just listened to other children singing
them repeatedly and learned them by __________.
A. osmosis B. synthesis C. appellation D. morphosis
10. Felix is 40 now and I haven’t seen him go out with any woman. I assume he is not a marrying
__. A. type B. kind C. set D. class