_______ the distance was too far and the time was short, we decided to fly there instead of going there by train.

Mark the letter A, B, C or D to indicate the word(s) CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined word(s) in each of the following questions.

Computers are becoming much more sophisticated machines.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the answer to each of the question.

More than 200 reindeer have died of starvation on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, with scientists blaming their deaths on climate change. The wild deer carcasses were found on the Arctic islands this summer by researchers from the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI), which said it had never logged so many deaths at once in 40 years of monitoring the animals’ population level. “It’s scary to find so many dead animals,” project leader Ashild Onvik Pedersen told state broadcaster NRK. “This is an example of how climate change affects nature. It is just sad.”

Svalbard’s capital Longyearbyen, the northernmost town on earth, is thought to be warming quicker than any other settlement on the planet, climate scientists warned earlier this year. The milder temperatures in the region led to unusually heavy rainfall in December, leaving a thick layer of ice when the precipitation froze. This meant the reindeer could not dig through the hardened tundra to reach the vegetation they graze on in their usual pastures, the NPI said. Svalbard’s reindeer have been observed eating seaweed and kelp when food is scarce, but these are less nutritious and cause them stomach problems.

A relatively high number of calves born last year increased the death toll, as the youngest and weakest are often the first to die in harsh conditions. “Some of the mortality is natural because there were so many calves last year. But the large number we see now is due to heavy rain, which is due to global warming,” said Ms Onvik Pedersen.

A team of three scientists spent 10 weeks investigating population of the Svalbard reindeer earlier this year. Researchers warned the decline of reindeer would cause unwanted plant species, currently kept in check by the animals’ grazing, to spread across Arctic ecosystems in Europe, Asia and North America.

Arctic reindeer and caribou populations have declined 56 per cent in the last two decades, a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said last year. The report said food security was partly to blame for falling herd numbers, while warmer summers could also put the animals at greater risk of diseases spread by flies and parasites. The average temperature in Longyearbyen has risen by 3.7C since 1900, more than three times the global average increase of about 1C. In 2016, the entrance to the town’s “Doomsday” seed vault – which stores specimens of almost all the world’s seeds – was flooded following heavy rainfall.

(Adapted from https://www.independent.co.uk/)

Which could best serve as the title of the passage?

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the answer to each of the question.

There was a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away. The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall. When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.

The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted. The second son said no – it was covered with green buds and full of promise. The third son disagreed, he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen. The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfilment.

The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but one season in the tree’s life. He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of whom they are – and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life – can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up. If you give up when it’s winter, you will miss the promise of your spring, the beauty of your summer, fulfilment of your fall.

Don’t judge a life by one difficult season. Don’t let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest.

(source: https://www.beliefnet.com)

Which best serves as the title for the passage?

We were all in___________of the fact that the new manager was our oldfriend Duncan.

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

Women no longer have to do hard work nowadays as they used to, _______?

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each the numbered blanks.

Wind is a clean source of renewable energy that produces no air or water pollution. And since the wind is free, operational costs are nearly zero (26) ______ a turbine is erected. Mass production and technology advances are making turbines cheaper, and (27) ______ governments offer tax incentives to spur wind-energy development.

Drawbacks include complaints from (28) ______ that wind turbines are ugly and noisy. The slowly rotating blades can also kill birds and bats, but not nearly as many as cars, power lines, and high-rise buildings do. The wind is also variable: If it's not blowing, there's no electricity generated.

Nevertheless, the wind energy industry is (29) ______. Thanks to global efforts to combat climate change, such as the Paris Agreement, renewable energy is seeing a boom in growth, in (30) ______ wind energy has led the way. From 2000 to 2015, cumulative wind capacity around the world increased from 17,000 megawatts to more than 430,000 megawatts. In 2015, China also surpassed the EU in the number of installed wind turbines and continues to lead installation efforts.

                                                                             (Adapted from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/)

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

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