LĐ - Reading Full Test 3 - Hs
LĐ - Reading Full Test 3 - Hs
LĐ - Reading Full Test 3 - Hs
VSTEP READING
LUYỆN THI TRỌNG TÂM – CẤP TỐC – ĐẠT CHỨNG CHỈ
Directions: In this section of the test, you will read FOUR different passages, each followed by 10
questions about it. For questions 1-40, you are to choose the best answer A, B, C or D, to each
question. Then, on your answer sheet, find the number of the question and fill in the space that
corresponds to the letter of the answer you have chosen. Answer all questions following a passage
on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage.
You have 60 minutes to answer all the questions, including the time to transfer your answers to the
answer sheet.
PASSAGE 1- Questions 1-10
This rapid transcontinental settlement and these new urban industrial circumstances of the last half
of the 19th century were accompanied by the development of a national literature of great
abundance and variety. New themes, new forms, new subjects, new regions, new authors, new
audiences all emerged in the literature of this half century.
As a result, at the onset of World War I, the spirit and substance of American literature had evolved
remarkably, just as its center of production had shifted from Boston to New York in the late 1880s
and the sources of its energy to Chicago and the Midwest. No longer was itproduced, at least in its
popular forms, in the main by solemn, typically moralistic men from New England and the Old
South; no longer were polite, well-dressed, grammatically correct, middle-class young people the
only central characters in its narratives; no longer were these narratives to be set in exotic places
and remote times; no longer, indeed, were fiction, poetry, drama, and formal history the chief
acceptable forms of literary expression; no longer, finally, was literature read primarily by young,
middle class women.
In sum, American literature in these years fulfilled in considerable measure the condition Walt
Whitman called for in 1867 in describing Leaves of Grass: it treats, he said of his own major work,
each state and region as peers “and expands from them, and includes the world … connecting an
American citizen with the citizens of all nations.” At the same time, these years saw the emergence
of what has been designated “the literature of argument,” powerful works in sociology, philosophy,
psychology, many of them impelled by the spirit of exposure and reform. Just as America learned
to play a role in this half century as an autonomous international political, economic, and military
power, so did its literature establish itself as a producer of major works.
When Daniel Boone died peacefully in bed in his son Nathan's elegant stone Missouri farmhouse on
September 26, 1820, the surge of emigrants along the Oregon Trail was still a generation away. But
Boone already exemplified the pioneer at his best. He was neither the physical giant (five feet nine)
nor the innocent child of nature that legend has made of him. He was an intelligent, soft spoken family
man who cherished the same wife for 57 years. He befriended Indians, preferred company to solitude,
and when he told his wife it was time to move because a newcomer had settled some 70 miles away,
he was joking. Pennsylvania-born, Boone was one of 11 children in a family of Quakers who migrated
to North Carolina. There Boone was recruited at age 40 to undertake a scheme designed to open up
Kentucky to settlers and establish it as a 14th colony. He arranged a deal by which the Cherokees sold
20 million acres for $20,000 worth of goods to Boone's employers, the Transylvania Company. It was
all fair and square the Indians had an attorney, an interpreter, and the sound advice of their squaws.
The deal completed, Boone led a party from Tennessee through the Cumberland Gap, hacked out the
Wilderness Road, and set up a town Boonesboro and a government. Elected a legislator, he introduced
on the first session's first day a bill to protect game against wanton slaughter and a second bill to
"improve the breed of horses." He got 2,000 acres for his work, but after the Revolution in which
Boone won considerable fame as a militia commander-the scheme of the Transylvania Company was
declared illegal and Boone lost his land. Undaunted, he staked out more claims-and lost them because
he impatiently neglected to register his deeds. Ever hopeful, he accepted an invitation from Spanish-
held Missouri to come and settle there and bring others with him. The Spanish gave him 8,500 acres
and made him a judge. But the Louisiana Purchase, which embraced Missouri, again left him but not
his children landless. Old and broke, Boone cheerfully continued hunting and trapping long after his
hands shook. Shortly before he died, he was talking knowledgeably with young men about the joys to
be experienced in settling California.
11. What is the author's purpose in writing this passage?
A. to chronicle the life of a model pioneer
B. to romanticize the legend of Daniel Boone
C. to show Boone's many successes on the frontier
D. to trace Boone's explorations in Kentucky, Missouri, and Louisiana 12. It can be
inferred that one area in which Boone was NOT successful was
A. Politics B. hunting and trapping
C. business D. the military
13. The phrase "fair and square" in lines 16 is closest in meaning to
A. honest
B. simple
C. efficient
D. lucrative
14. It can be inferred from the passage that Boone died ___________.
A. a rich man B. an eternal optimist
C. in California D. a lonely trapper
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VSTEP READING
LUYỆN THI TRỌNG TÂM – CẤP TỐC – ĐẠT CHỨNG CHỈ
The Solar System, as we know it, contains over 178 objects —winch revolve around our central star,
or the Sun. Some of these. Objects can be seen from Earth with the unaided eye or an earth based
telescope, but the majority have only been detected through the development of instruments such as
the Hubble Space Telescope, or unmanned probes like Voyager. These instruments operate outside
Earth’s atmosphere collecting information on the composition and behavior of objects in the Solar
System, which has enabled researchers to hypothesize their origins.
[A] It is generally thought that a cloud of interstellar gas and dust known as a ‘nebula’ was
disturbed by some major event in space, possibly a supernova, about five billion years ago and
began to collapse under its own gravity, forming a cloud. [B] The center of the cloud became so hot
that it eventually exploded into a star with the cooler gases flowing around it. [C] In time, the gases
condensed into dust, metals, and various kinds of ice in the cold outer reaches of space. [D] These
solid particles collided with each other to form larger objects, or asteroids, as they continued to spin
around our central star.
As these asteroids increased in size, their gravity began to pull in all the material in their immediate
surroundings, and the largest of these went on to become planets. The very different composition
of the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) and the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn.
Neptune and Uranus) has led astronomers to hypothesize that their distances from the Sun
caused them to develop at different rates and in different ways. According to the most widely-
held opinions, the planets closest to the Sun, where all the ice particles were vaporized due to the
incredible heat, were formed mostly of rock, silicates, and metals with high melting points. These
particles collided and were pulled together by gravity. These inner planets have thin atmospheres or
none at all, and few, if any, satellites, which would indicate that most of the available material was
either pulled into their own gravity or burned away in the heat of the Sun.
The inner and outer planets are separated by an asteroid belt, consisting of material that was not able
to form into planets due to Jupiter’s immense gravity. Beyond this area, as more dust and ice
particles escaped destruction by the Sun, four larger planets formed over a longer period of time in a
far colder environment as material was thrown out from the center by the spinning star’s centrifugal
force. About a million years after the cooling of the original nebula, the Sun began to emit a stream
of charged protons and elections known as solar wind which blew the remaining gases outwards, to
be sucked in by the outer planets which became gas giants. These planets attracted many objects in
their vast gravity fields, some of which are big enough to be termed ’satellites’, and countless
smaller fragments which formed rings around the planets.
The discovery of more objects in the Solar System in recent times has led to the need for further
classification. Far beyond the outer planets lies Pluto, which was originally considered to be the
ninth planet, but which has since been found to be a binary system of two dwarf planets, the other
being Charon. Pluto’s origins may be in the recently discovered Kuiper Belt, the source of many of
the comets which travel through the Solar System. This theory is based on Pluto’s rock/ice
composition which is similar to that of a comet. At one time, also thought to be a moon of Neptune,
Pluto/Charon was reclassified in 2006 as one of three dwarf planets discovered so far, the others
being Eris and Ceres.
Scientific knowledge is only as good as the ability of scientists to collect evidence, so as new
advances are made in astronomy, the present theories may be disproved, as in the case of Pluto. The
above account represents the consensus of current opinions on the matter.
21. In paragraph 1, what does the author say about the role of the Hubble Space Telescope?
A. It is too defective for our scientists to come up with definite answers to the origin of the universe.
B. Scientists discovered billions of new planets by combining measurements from the Hubble Space
Telescope with Voyager measurements.
C. It solved the age of the universe and measured the age of what may be the youngest galaxy ever
seen in the universe.
D. It has helped unveil many mysteries or queries about our universe.
22. The word “composition” in the passage is closest in meaning to _______.
A. make-up B. musical
C. evolution D. revolution
23. The word “disturbed” in the passage is closest in meaning to _______.
A. broken B. attracted
C. evolution D. revolution
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24. Which of the following best expresses the essential information in the highlighted
sentence in the passage? Incorrect answer choices change the meaning in important ways
or leave out essential information.
A. Planets formed from gases and dust particles after comets collided with the Sun.
B. According to scientists, the manner in which planets developed was wholly dependent on their
distance from Jupiter’s rings.
C. The dissimilar make-up of the planets closest to the Sun and those farthest from the Sun suggests
that their distance from the Sun affected their formation.
D. Scientists believe the Sun evolved from the composition of several older planets in the solar
system.
25. According to paragraph 4, the inner and outer planets ate separated by what?
A. an asteroid belt B. a star
C. comets D. a moon
26. According to the passage, all of the following are true about our solar system EXCEPT
________.
A. Planets nearest the Sun were formed mostly of rock.
B. There continue to be new discoveries as technology improves.
C. Colliding asteroids eventually formed planets.
D. Most of the comets in the solar system can be seen with the naked eye during an annular solar
eclipse.
27. Why does the author mention “Pluto” in paragraph 5?
A. to discuss Pluto’s rock/ ice composition
B. to introduce the concept of planet formation
C. to show that new discoveries are always occurring
D. to introduce the distinction between planets and dwarf planets
28. It can be inferred from the passage that the planets _______.
A. broke off from the rapidly spinning Moon
B. collided more frequently, to spur the formation and growth of protoplanets
C. were initially asteroids
D. were formed by the collision of massive objects circling black hole in eccentric orbits
29. According to the passage, what were the universe’s origins?
A. A nebula collapsed under its gravity.
B. A black hole exploded and merged to create the universe.
C. A super being wished it into existence.
D. The Sun collapsed in on itself.
30. Look at the four squares [ _ ] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to
the passage.
This cloud began to rotate rapidly as it got smaller and denser and heated up to several thousand
degrees, causing some of its elements to vaporize into gas.
Where would the sentence best fit?
A. [A] B. [B]
C. [C] D. [D]
There are certain conditions which have to be met to enable OTEC to work. First, commercial
OTEC facilities must be located in an environment that is stable enough for efficient system
operation. This means that they must be built on land or submerged on the continental shelf. In
addition, the natural ocean thermal gradient necessary for OTEC operation is generally found
between latitudes 20° N and 20° S. The temperature of the surface water must differ from
that of deep water and allowances should be made for a wide- open space. Tropical islands
meet the requirements for a wide space, so they are areas for OTEC development. Land-based
facilities offer advantages. For example, plants do not require extensive maintenance, and they
can be installed in sheltered areas, safe from storms and general bad weather. Land-based sites
allow OTEC plants to function with related industries.
Thermal energy from the ocean was first proposed as far back as 1881. However, it wasn’t until
1930 that a system was built, producing 22kw of electricity. Another was constructed sometime
later, but it was destroyed by waves. In 1980, the U.S department of energy built a site for
OTEC heat exchangers on board a navy ship. Tests revealed that OTEC systems are able to
function on slow moving ships and are of little consequence to the surrounding marine
environment.
In 1981, Japan established a closed-cycle plant in the Pacific Ocean, producing 40,000 watts of
electricity. In May 1993, another 50,000 watts of electricity was produced. However, it was an
impractical energy source as the materials used were expensive. Currently, scientists are
continuing to develop more cost effective and open-cycle QTEC systems. An integrated
OTEC system can help create harmonious, self-sustaining island communities,
independent of imported fossil fuels and their associated costs.
Tidal energy is another form of ocean energy caused by the gravitational pull of the moon and
sun, and the rotation of the Earth. When tides come into shore, they can be trapped in reservoirs
behind dams. Then when the tide lowers, the water behind the dam can be released, functioning
similarly to a hydroelectric power plant Tidal dams can change the tidal level. In the local
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LUYỆN THI TRỌNG TÂM – CẤP TỐC – ĐẠT CHỨNG CHỈ
basin, affecting the navigation. The prime disadvantage is the effect a tidal station has on plants
and animals. However, tidal fences, which are also used to channel the energy of tides, have
less environmental impact than traditional sources of power such as fossil fuels or nuclear
power, and are cheaper to install.
Turbines are devices with blades attached to a central rod that spin when a force hits the blades.
[A] This spinning motion is extremely practical. The first turbine used was the undershot
waterwheel, probably the oldest type of waterwheel dating bade over 2,000 years. [B]
Waterwheels and windmills were the first turbines; their wooden blades captured the power of
wind or rivers to lift water for irrigation or to rotate huge stones to grind grain. [C] It wasn’t
until the 1880s, when the generator was first invented, that people began using turbines to
produce electricity. [D]