Choose the word or phrase among A, B, C or D that best fits the blank space in the following

passage.

If dancing isn't your thing, perhaps you ...(34)... singing? Everyone knows that karaoke comes from Japan, but it is not the Japanese for 'drunk and tone-deaf' as you might think. It actually means 'empty orchestra'. It all started in a small music ...(35)... in the city of Kobe. One night, when usual guitarist didn't turn ...(36)..., the desperate bar owner recorded some music and invited his ...(37)... to sing instead. The craze soon spread and special karaoke machines were invented.

The idea was that, however badly you sang everyone applauded at the end and it proved the perfect ... (38)...for stressful Japanese businessmen to relax. Today, you can find karaoke bars all over the world. It is so ...(39)... in China that restaurants normally have several karaoke machines going at the same time. As one karaoke fan ...(40)..., it's something everyone should try at least once in their life.

Read the following passage and choose the best answers A, B, C, or D.

Many people think that we can learn a lot about the culture of a foreign country simply by living in that country. However, this is not necessarily true. Often, the longer we stay in a foreign country, the more we realize how little we actually know about the culture of that country.

Books and talks about other people’s culture can even be dangerous because they concentrate on cultural differences and exaggerate national character, and sometimes a lot of information they contain is untrue.

In a study recently carried out in Britain, people were asked to make a list of anything that they thought was typical of Britain and would interest a foreign visitor there. Most mentioned Shakespeare, the Queen, villages inns, English folk dancing, English castles, and fish chips wrapped in newspaper. Although all of these characters can be found in British culture, they do not show the real interests of ordinary British people: (They are, in fact, simply stereotype - that is, general character which people wrongly think are typical.) What is surprising is that they were suggested by British people themselves as representing their culture. If people have such a wrong impression of their own culture, how much false would their

impression of other culture be!

Which of the following is true?

I .......there once a long time ago and.......back since.

We are a very close-knit family and very supportive........one another.

My mother reminded me to remember to water her house plants.

It is difficult to write rules that tell exactly when we should apologize, and it is not difficult to learn how.

Mathematics.........my most difficult subject so far this year.