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 following questions.

It’s often said that we team things at the wrong time. University students frequently do the minimum of work because they’re crazy about a good social life instead. Children often scream before their piano practice 5 because it’s so boring. They have to be given gold stars and medals to be persuaded to swim, or have to be bribed to take exams. But the story is different when you’re older.

Over the years, I’ve done my share of adult learning. At 30, I went to a college and did courses in History and English. It was an amazing experience. For starters, I was paying, so there was no reason to be late - I was the one frowning and drumming my fingers if the tutor was late, not the other way round. Indeed, if I could persuade him to linger for an extra five minutes, it was a bonus, not a nuisance. I wasn’t frightened to ask questions, and homework was a pleasure not a pain. When I passed an exam, I had a big meal, not for my parents or my teachers. The satisfaction I got was entirely personal.

Some people fear going back to school because they worry that their brains have got rusty. But the joy is that, although some parts have rusted up, your brain has learnt all kinds of other things since you were young. It has learnt to think independently and flexibly and is much better at relating one thing to another. What you lose in the rust department, you gain in the maturity department.

In some ways, age is a positive plus. For instance, when you’re older, you get less frustrated. Experience has told you that, if you’re calm and simply do something carefully again and again, eventually you’ll get the hang of it. The confidence you have in other areas - from being able to drive a car, perhaps - means that if you can’t, say, build a chair instantly, you don’t, like a child, want to destroy your first pathetic attempts. Maturity tells you that you will, with application, eventually get there.

I hated piano lessons at school, but I was good at music. And coming back to it, with a teacher who could explain why certain exercises were useful and with musical concepts that, at the age of ten. I could never grasp, was magical. Initially, I did feel a bit strange, thumping out a piece that I’d played for my school exams, with just as little comprehension of what the composer intended as I’d had all those years before. But soon, complex emotions that I never knew poured out from my fingers, and suddenly I could understand why practice makes perfect.

The phrase “For starters” in paragraph 2 could best be replaced by ______

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that best combines each pair of sentences in the following questions

We cut down many forests. The Earth becomes hot

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that best combines each pair of sentences in the following questions

He is very intelligent. He can solve all the problems in no time

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that is closest in meaning to each of the following questions

Had she read the reference books, she would have been able to finish the test

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that is closest in meaning to each of the following questions

“I will pay back the money, Gloria.” Said Ivan

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that is closest in meaning to each of the following questions

It started to rain at 2 o’clock and it is still raining

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the underlined part that needs correction in each of the following questions

I don’t mind waiting for other ten minutes, but will you please keep me company? 

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the underlined part that needs correction in each of the following questions

Caroline has worn her new yellow dress only once since she buys it

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the underlined part that needs correction in each of the following questions

The police told us to refrain from touching the furniture in case they would need to look for fingerprints

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 35 to 42 

     Many ants forage across the countryside in large numbers and undertake mass migrations; these activities proceed because one ant lays a trail on the ground for the others to follow. As a worker ant returns home after finding a source of food, it marks the route by intermittently touching its stinger to the ground and depositing a tiny amount of trail pheromone – a mixture of chemicals that delivers diverse messages as the context changes. These trails incorporate no directional information and may be followed by other ants in either direction. 

     Unlike some other messages, such as the one arising from a dead ant, a food trail has to be kept secret from members of other species. It is not surprising then that ant species use a wide variety of compounds as trail pheromones. Ants can be extremely sensitive to these signals. Investigators working with the trail pheromone of the leafcutter ant Atta Texana calculated that one milligram of this substance would suffice to lead a column of ants three times around Earth. 

          The vapor of the evaporating pheromone over the trail guides an ant along the way, and the ant detects this signal with receptors in its antennae. A trail pheromone will evaporate to furnish the highest concentration of vapor right over the trail, in what is called a vapor space.  In following the trail, the ant moves to the right and left, oscillating from side to side across the line of the trail itself, bringing first one and then the other antenna into the vapor space. As the ant moves to the right, its left antenna arrives in the vapor space. The signal it receives causes it to swing to the left, and the ant then pursues this new course until its right antenna reaches the vapor space. It then swings back to the right, and so weaves back and forth down the trail

According to the passage, the highest amount of pheromone vapor is found _____ 

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 35 to 42 

     Many ants forage across the countryside in large numbers and undertake mass migrations; these activities proceed because one ant lays a trail on the ground for the others to follow. As a worker ant returns home after finding a source of food, it marks the route by intermittently touching its stinger to the ground and depositing a tiny amount of trail pheromone – a mixture of chemicals that delivers diverse messages as the context changes. These trails incorporate no directional information and may be followed by other ants in either direction. 

     Unlike some other messages, such as the one arising from a dead ant, a food trail has to be kept secret from members of other species. It is not surprising then that ant species use a wide variety of compounds as trail pheromones. Ants can be extremely sensitive to these signals. Investigators working with the trail pheromone of the leafcutter ant Atta Texana calculated that one milligram of this substance would suffice to lead a column of ants three times around Earth. 

          The vapor of the evaporating pheromone over the trail guides an ant along the way, and the ant detects this signal with receptors in its antennae. A trail pheromone will evaporate to furnish the highest concentration of vapor right over the trail, in what is called a vapor space.  In following the trail, the ant moves to the right and left, oscillating from side to side across the line of the trail itself, bringing first one and then the other antenna into the vapor space. As the ant moves to the right, its left antenna arrives in the vapor space. The signal it receives causes it to swing to the left, and the ant then pursues this new course until its right antenna reaches the vapor space. It then swings back to the right, and so weaves back and forth down the trail

The word “oscillating” in line 17 is closest in meaning to