What was special about flint enamel?

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 31 to 35.

In the 1960s it took pop and rock groups one or two days to record their songs. Nowadays, it can take months and months. Many rock groups begin by recording only one instrument, for example, the voice. Then they record other instruments- electric piano, synthesizer, guitars and drums.

Next, they might use a computer to add special effects. Finally, they 'mix' all the instruments until they get the sound that they want. This means that a CD or cassette will always sound very different from a live concert.

Music engineers have developed a new computer program that will change the future of music. A computer can analyze a singer's voice. Then if you give the computer the lyrics and music of a song, the computer can 'sing' it in that voice. This means that a singer only needs to record one song and the computer can then sing other songs in the singer's own voice Singers can sing new songs many years after they have died.

Most of us listen to music for pleasure, but for the record companies, music is a product, the same as soap powder. When a record company finds a new group (or "band"), they first try to develop the band's 'profile'. They will try to create an 'image' for the band that they think will attract young people. Instead of allowing the band's full artistic freedom, they will often tell the band what they should wear, what they should say and how they should sing and play.

In recent year, many rock groups have started their own record companies because they say that the big companies are too commercial:

Today, to record songs, it takes_____________.

Due to lacking_____________, they couldn’t open a new shop as scheduled.

Everyone_____________taken to hospital last night. _____________?

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the following questions.

If your invitations are met with repeated_____________, you should just leave him alone.

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 North American colonies, red ware, a simple pottery fired at low temperatures, and stone ware, a strong, impervious grey pottery fired at high temperatures, were produced from two different native clays. These kinds of pottery were produced to supplement imported European pottery. When the American Revolution (1775-1783) interrupted the flow of the superior European ware, there was incentive for American potters to replace the imports with comparable domestic goods, stoneware, which had been simple utilitarian kitchenware, grew increasingly ornate throughout the nineteenth century, and in addition to the earlier scratched and drawn designs, three-dimensional molded relief decoration became popular. Representational motifs largely replaced the earlier abstract decorations. Birds and flowers were particularly evident, but other subjects - lions, flags, and clipper ships - are found. Some figurines, mainly of dogs and lions, were made in this medium. Sometimes a name, usually that of the potter, was die-stamped onto a piece.

As more and more large kilns were built to create the high-fired stoneware, experiments revealed that the same clay used to produce low-fired red ware could produce a stronger, paler pottery if fired at a hotter temperature. The result was yellow ware, used largely for serviceable items; but a further development was Rockingham ware - one of the most important American ceramics of the nineteenth century. (The name of the ware was probably derived from its resemblance to English brown-glazed earthenware made in South Yorkshire.) It was created by adding a brown glaze to the fired clay, usually giving the finished product a mottled appearance. Various methods of spattering or sponging the glaze onto the ware account for the extremely wide variations in color and add to the interest of collecting Rockingham. An advanced form of Rockingham was flint enamel, created by dusting metallic powders onto the Rockingham glaze to produce brilliant varicolored streaks.

Articles for nearly every household activity and ornament could be bought in Rockingham ware: dishes and bowls, of course; also bedpans, foot warmers, cuspidors, lamp bases, doorknobs, molds, picture frames, even curtain tiebacks. All these items are highly collectible today and are eagerly sought. A few Rockingham specialties command particular affection among collectors and correspondingly high prices.

The word "ornate" in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to_____________.

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word whose underlined part differs from the other three in pronunciation in each of the following questions.

After leaving high school, my brother decided to_____________in the army.

When the weather was very hot in summer, sales of bottles of water went_____________the roof.

All_____________we had been told turned out to be untrue.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 26 to 30.

(26) _____________friends is one of the most difficult and worthwhile experiences of human life because it requires time and effort and patience and understanding and acceptance and honesty. Many people (27)_____________friendship with acquaintances and they're not the same at all. Acquaintances are people you (28) _____________with; they're convenient but interchangeable.

Friends are people you actively seek out, people with whom you have something in (29)_____________, and the link is deeper and stronger. It is very possible for one to become the other, and everyone who becomes a friend had to be an acquaintance first. (Friendship can be downgraded, for example, when two people move apart geographically or emotionally or situationally - changing jobs, (30) _____________ status, and so on). If you've taken yourself off house arrest, you've begun making acquaintances. The question then is how to turn an acquaintance into a friend.

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word that differs from the other three in the position of primary stress in each of the following questions.

The book says that the revolution was_____________off by the assassination of the president.

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word whose underlined part differs from the other three in pronunciation in each of the following questions.

"Why don't you complain to the shop, Tim?” said Mary.

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word that differs from the other three in the position of primary stress in each of the following questions.