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

      At 7 pm on a dark, cold November evening, thousands of people are making their way across a vast car park. They're not here to see a film, or the ballet, or even the circus. They are all here for what is, bizarrely, a global phenomenon: they are here to see Holiday on Ice. Given that most people don’t seem to be acquainted with anyone who's ever been, the show's statistics are extraordinary: nearly 300 million people have seen Holiday on Ice since it began in 1943; it is the most popular live entertainment in the world.

      But what does the production involve? And why are so many people prepared to spend their lives travelling round Europe in caravans in order to appear in it? It can't be glamorous, and it's undoubtedly hard work. The backstage atmosphere is an odd mix of gym class and workplace. A curtained-off section at the back of the arena is laughably referred to as the girls' dressing room, but is more accurately described as a corridor, with beige, cracked walls and cheap temporary tables set up along the length of it. Each girl has a small area littered with pots of orange make-up, tubes of mascara and long false eyelashes.

      As a place to work, it must rank pretty low down the scale: the area round the ice-rink is grey and mucky with rows of dirty blue and brown plastic seating and red carpet tiles. It's an unimpressive picture, but the show itself is an unquestionably vast, polished global enterprise: the lights come from a firm in Texas, the people who make the audio system are in California, but Montreal supplies the smoke effects; former British Olympic skater Robin Cousins is now creative director for the company and conducts a vast master class to make sure they're ready for the show's next performance.

      The next day, as the music blares out from the sound system, the case start to go through their routines under Cousins' direction. Cousins says, 'The aim is to make sure they're all still getting to exactly the right place on the ice at the right time - largely because the banks of lights in the ceiling are set to those places, and if the skaters are all half a metre out they'll be illuminating empty ice. Our challenge, ' he continues, 'is to produce something they can sell in a number of countries at the same time. My theory is that you take those things that people want to see and you give it to them, but not in the way they expect to see it. You try to twist it. And you have to find music that is challenging to the skaters, because they have to do it every night.'

      It may be a job which he took to pay the rent, but you can’t doubt his enthusiasm. 'They only place you'll see certain skating moves is an ice show,' he says, 'because you're not allowed to do them in competition. It's not in the rules. So the ice show word has things to offer which the competitive world just doesn't. Cousins knows what he's talking about because he skated for the show himself when he stopped competing - he was financially unable to retire. He learnt the hard way that you can't put on an Olympic performance every night. I'd be thinking, these people have paid their money, now do your stuff, and I suddenly thought, "I really can't cope. I'm not enjoying it".' The solution, he realized, was to give 75 per cent every night, rather than striving for the sort of twice-a-year excellence which won him medals.

          To be honest, for those of us whose only experience of ice-skating is watching top-class Olympic skaters, some of the movements can look a bit amateurish, but then, who are we to judge? Equally, it's impossible not to be swept up in the whole thing; well, you'd have to try pretty hard not to enjoy it.

What is meant by 'the hard way'?

The majority of nurses are women, but in the higher ranks of the medical profession women are in a_________.

Read the passage carefully and choose the correct answer.

Family conflict

The generation gap, which refers to a broad difference between one generation and another, especially  between young people and their parents, usually leads to numerous conflicts. Such family conflicts can seriously threaten the relationship between parents and children at times. It goes without saying that, however old their children are, parents still regard them as small kids and keep in mind that their offspring are too young to protect themselves cautiously or have wise choices. Therefore, they tend to make a great attempt to help their children to discover the outside world. Nevertheless, they forget that as children grow up, they want to be more independent and develop their own identity by creating their own opinions, thoughts, styles and values about life. One common issue that drives conflicts is the clothes of teenagers. While teens are keen on wearing fashionable clothes which try to catch up with the youth trends, parents who value traditional clothes believe that those kinds of attire violate the rules and the norms of the society. It becomes worse when the expensive brand name clothes teens choose seem to be beyond the financial capacity of parents. Another reason contributing to conflicts is the interest in choosing a career path or education between parents and teenagers. Young people are told that they have the world at their feet and that dazzling future opportunities are just waiting for them to seize. However, their parents try to impose their choices of university or career on them regardless of their children's preference. Indeed, conflicts between parents and children are the ever lasting family phenomena. It seems that the best way to solve the matter is open communication to create mutual trust and understanding.

Which can be the best title for the passage?

Đọc đoạn văn sau và trả lời các câu hỏi. (0,8điểm)

If you would like to go to a beautiful, faraway place, you should choose the Hawaiian Islands. Located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in 1959 the islands became the 50th state of the U.S. Of all the Hawaiian Islands, Kauai is the best place for vacation as it is called a tropical paradise. With increasing tourist attraction, its population is getting higher especially in hot seasons. Because thick green rainforests cover the island, the air makes your skin soft and smooth. There is little air pollution here, and no stress. The beaches of Kauai are large part of its beauty; they are all peaceful clean white sands. If you want to meet colourful undersea creatures, you will have to take a short course for diving. You need an enrolment to get training from professional divers. They also make wide explanations for the characteristics of the ocean. As soon as you make up your mind, reserve your place, buy your ticket and say goodbye to your stressful city!

 Where is Hawaii located?

Phuong: “I’m taking my TOEFL test tomorrow.”

Daisy: “_________”

Read the passage and choose the best answer among A, B, C, or D.

Throughout the United States, the number of places where people are allowed to smoke has gradually ecome smaller and smaller. First, it was banned on trains, buses and plancs, then in public places such as theatres and airports. Now you can’t smoke in any workplace. Nonsmokers are definitely winning the battle. “Why should we breathe their smoke ?”, they say.

If they are lucky, smokers can still find some bars and restaurants where they can light up a cigarette, but it may soon be banncd there , too. Anti-smoking groups even think that smoking ought to be banned in people’s homes.

Under new plans you won’t be able to smoke where there are more than ten visitors in a week, or where there are children. In 1996, nicotine was classed as drug, like cocaine or heroin. In the country that gave tobacco to the world, smoking might one day be illegal

Which of the following sentences is true according to the passage?

Read the following passage and blacken the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to the following questions. 

     South Pole explorer Ernest Shackleton never reached his goal of crossing Antarctica, but the circumstances that prevented him from reaching that goal pushed him to achieve an even more amazing feat. In January 1915 Shackelton’s ship Endurance became trapped in the ice of Antarctica. He and his crew of twenty-seven lived on the ship trapped in the ice floes for nine months, until they had to abandon the ship when the ice crushed it. The day the ship sank, Shackleton wrote his new goal: “The task is to reach land with all members of the expedition.” The group camped on the ice floes for six months, until the ice broke up and they took small lifeboats to nearby uninhabited Elephant Island. During their time on the ship, ice, and island, Shackleton’s group endured temperatures as low as twenty degrees below zero and had no daylight from May to July. They had to hunt scarce seals and penguins for food, and were hunted themselves by killer whales and sea leopards, which would rise through the ice in search of prey. Throughout this time, Shackleton demonstrated his leadership by rationing food, rotating use of warmer sleeping bags, and keeping a calm, positive attitude that helped morale. 

          He also showed great courage as he and five of his men crossed eight hundred miles of dangerous ocean to the nearest inhabited island to seek help. Despite no maps and terrible weather, Shackeleton’s small boat reached the island where Shackleton and an even smaller group crossed unexplored, jagged mountains to reach a whaling station. He organized a rescue party to retrieve the rest of his crew, and despite the perils of living in south polar waters for almost two years, all twenty-seven men came back from the expedition. Shackleton never crossed the South Pole, but he completed the task of bringing back all of his crew alive

When did the expedition crew leave the Endurance?

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

It is estimated that by 2050 more than two-thirds of the world's population will live in cities, up from about 54 percent today. While the many benefits of organized and efficient cities are well understood, we need to recognize that this rapid, often unplanned urbanization brings risks of profound social instability, risks to critical infrastructure, potential water crises and the potential for devastating spread of disease. These risks can only be further exacerbated as this unprecedented transition from rural to urban areas continues.

 How effectively these risks can be addressed will increasingly be determined by how well cities are governed. The increased concentration of people, physical assets, infrastructure and economic activities mean that the risks materializing at the city level will have far greater potential to disrupt society than ever before.

 Urbanization is by no means bad by itself. It brings important benefits for economic, cultural and societal development. Well managed cities are both efficient and effective, enabling economies of scale and network effects while reducing the impact on the climate of transportation. As such, an urban model can make economic activity more environmentally-friendly. Further, the proximity and diversity of people can spark innovation and create employment as exchanging ideas breeds new ideas.

 But these utopian concepts are threatened by some of the factors driving rapid urbanization. For example, one of the main factors is rural-urban migration, driven by the prospect of greater employment opportunities and the hope of a better life in cities. But rapidly increasing population density can create severe problems, especially if planning efforts are not sufficient to cope with the influx of new inhabitants. The result may, in extreme cases, be widespread poverty. Estimates suggest that 40% of the world's urban expansion is taking place in slums, exacerbating socio-economic disparities and creating unsanitary conditions that facilitate the spread of disease.

 The Global Risks 2015 Report looks at four areas that face particularly daunting challenges in the face of rapid and unplanned urbanization: infrastructure, health, climate change, and social instability. In each of these areas we find new risks that can best be managed or, in some cases, transferred through the mechanism of insurance.

Which statement is TRUE, according to the passage?

Complete the reading passage. Write ONE suitable word in each blank.

A Grade 7 student and his friends have an idea of collecting  (1) ___________ for homeless children in his town. They call it the “Book Birthday Party”. Every month they will select a birthday of a friend in his class or a child in his neighbourhood to celebrate (2) ___________ special birthday party. It is just a simple party. Everyone who comes to the party should bring some healthy food, drink, and a book (3) ___________ any kinds: storybook, textbook, notebook, comic, etc. Those who cannot bring books will help with the collecting and sending books to the homeless children. They believe that the healthy food and drink will help them stay (4) __________ and the books will help homeless children with their study. Everyone will be (5) ___________!

A Grade 7 student and his friends have an idea of collecting  (1) ___________ for homeless children in his town

Choose the word or phrase (A, B, C, or D) that best completes each sentence

Lan is very tired. ________, she has to finish her assignment before going to bed

It can be inferred from the passage that______.

Are you ready, Kate? There’s not much time left._________

Rewrite the following sentences so that they have the same meaning as the original ones.

After all job applicants had already finished their interviews, I arrived.

→ Before I _______________________________________________.

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.

In the 1960s, The Beatles were probably the most famous pop group in the whole world. Since then, there have been a great many groups that have achieved enormous fame, so it is perhaps difficult now to imagine how sensational The Beatles were at that time. They were four boys from the north of England and none of them had any training in music, They started by performing and recording songs by black Americans and they had some success with these songs, Then they started writing their own songs and that was when they became really popular. The Beatles changed pop music. They were the first pop group to achieve great success from songs they had written themselves. After that it became common for groups and singers to write their own songs. The Beatles did not have a long career. Their first hit record was in 1963 and they split up in 1970. They stopped doing live performances in 1966 because it had become too dangerous for them - their fans were so excited that they surrounded them and tried to take their clothes as souvenirs! However, today some of their songs remain as famous as they were when they first came out Throughout the world many people can sing part of a Beatles song if you ask them.

The Beatles stopped their live performances because

… you stay in bed late at the weekend?