Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 1 to 5.

 The placebo effect is far more powerful than most people realize. It's fascinating, and it has been (1) _____ studied by medical science. We know that four placebo sugar pills a day will clean up an illness quicker than two sugar pills, we know that an injection is a more effective treatment for pain than a pill, we know that green pills are more effective (2) _____ stress than red pills, and we know that brand packaging on painkillers increases pain relief.

 But if homeopathy users are being deceived by the placebo effect, is that so bad? Maybe not. There are often situations (3) _____ people want treatment but medicine has little to offer - back pain, stress at work, medically unexplained fatigue, and (4) _____ commonly colds. Trying every known medication will only give you side effects. A sugar pill in these circumstances seems a very (5) _____ option.

(Adapted from Unlimited B2 - student's book)

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 from 44 to 50.

 In 1902, a volcano in the Caribbean island of Martinique blew up. A French naval officer was on the scene, Lt. George Hébert managed to coordinate the rescue of over 700 people, both indigenous and European. He noticed, as he did so, how people moved, some well, some badly, around the obstacles in their path, and how this affected their chances of survival. Hébert had travelled widely and was well aware of skills many indigenous people exhibited in being able to traverse the natural environment. From these experiences, Hébert developed a training discipline which he called ‘the natural method' in which climbing, jumping and running techniques were used to negotiate obstacles. His method was adopted by the French military and became the basis for all their training. In time, it became known as parcours du combattant - the path of the warrior.

 Raymond Belle was a practitioner of parkour in Vietnam in the 1950s. He had great athletic ability, and the skills and agility he had learnt through parkour earned him a reputation as an agile and elite soldier. In later life, he returned to France and passed on his skills to his son, David (David Belle), who combined what he had learnt from his father with his own knowledge of martial arts and gymnastics, and in time, the sport of parkour was born.

 Parkour involves a range of ‘moves', although none are official. They involve vaulting, jumping and landing accurately on small and narrow features, catching ledges, traversing high walls and landing with a rolling impact to absorb impacts.

 Belle formed a group of traceurs called the Yamikasi, meaning strong man, strong spirit, that included his friend, Sebastian Foucan. In time, the two of them started to follow different paths. Belle concentrated on the art of getting from place to place in the most efficient way possible, while Foucan developed his own style which involved more self-expression. This he termed free running.

 From the late 1990s, the art and sport of parkour spread worldwide. Both Belle and Foucan gave interviews and appeared on television. In 2003, filmmaker Mike Christie made the film Jump London, and urban freerunning, or freeflow, began to dominate the London scene. But it was the arrival of YouTube in 2005 that really brought freerunning to a global audience. People around the world began to post their videos online, making freerunning a mainstream sport, and in 2007, the first major freerunning and parkour competition was held in Vienna.

 Since parkour values freedom, there are few facilities dedicated to the practice. Traceurs use both rural and urban areas, typically parks, offices and abandoned buildings. Traceurs generally respect the environment they practice in, and since part of their philosophy is 'leave no trace', there have been few concerns over damage to property. However, law enforcement and fire and rescue teams argue that free runners are risking their lives needlessly, especially when they practice at height. However, practitioners argue that injuries are rare, because they rely on their own hands and feet rather than things out of their immediate control, such as ice and wheels, as is the case with skiing and race-driving.

(Source: https://www.examenglish.com)

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.

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 36 to 40.

 In 2010, the planetary defence team at NASA had (36) _____ and logged 90 percent of the asteroids near Earth measuring one kilometre wide. These 'near-Earth objects', or NEOs, are the size of mountains and include anything within 50 million kilometres of Earth's orbit. With an estimated 50 left to log, NASA says none of the 887 (37) _____ it knows about are a significant danger to the planet.

 Now NASA is working towards logging (38) _____ of the smaller asteroids, those measuring 140 metres wide or more. Of the 25,000 estimated asteroids of this size, so far about 8,000 have been logged, leaving 17,000 unaccounted for. Considering that a 19-metre asteroid that exploded above the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia in 2013 injured 1,200 people, these middle-sized asteroids would be a serious danger if they enter Earth's orbit.

 Whether NASA can find the remaining middle-sized NEOs depends on getting the money to build NEOCam, a 0.5-metre space telescope which would use infrared light to (39) _____ asteroids. If it did get the money, it could probably achieve its goal in ten years. (40) _____ logged, the planetary defence team would still need to work out how to defend the planet against being hit by the truly worrying asteroids - the PHAS.

(Source: https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org)

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 from 31 to 35.

 A Plastic Ocean is a film to make you think. Think, and then act. We need to take action on our dependence on plastic. We've been producing plastic in huge quantities since the 1940s. Drink bottles, shopping bags, toiletries and even clothes are made with plastic. We live in a world full of plastic, and only a small proportion is recycled. What happens to all the rest? This is the question the film A Plastic Ocean answers. It is a documentary that looks at the impact that plastic waste has on the environment. Spoiler alert: the impact is devastating.

 The film begins as a journey to film the largest animal on the planet, the blue whale. But during the journey the filmmakers (journalist Craig Leeson and environmental activist Tanya Streeter) make the shocking discovery of a huge, thick layer of plastic floating in the middle of the Indian Ocean. This prompts them to travel around the world to look at other areas that have been affected. In total, they visited 20 locations around the world during the four years it took them to make the film. The documentary premiered in 2016, and is now on streaming services such as Netflix.

 It's very clear that a lot of research went into the film. There are beautiful shots of the seas and marine life. These are contrasted with scenes of polluted cities and dumps full of plastic rubbish. We see how marine species are being killed by all the plastic we are dumping in the ocean. The message about our use of plastic is painfully obvious.

 But the film doesn't only present the negative side. In the second half, the filmmakers look at what we can do to reverse the tide of plastic flowing around the world. They present short-term and long-term solutions. These include avoiding plastic containers and ‘single-use’ plastic products as much as possible. Reuse your plastic bags and recycle as much as you can. The filmmakers also stress the need for governments to work more on recycling programmes, and look at how technology is developing that can convert plastic into fuel.

 We make a staggering amount of plastic. In terms of plastic bags alone, we use five hundred billion worldwide annually. Over 300 million tons of plastic are produced every year, and at least 8 million of those are dumped into the oceans. The results are disastrous, but it isn't too late to change. Once you've seen A Plastic Ocean, you'll realise the time is now and we all have a role to play.

(Source: https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org)

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.

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to show the underlined part that needs correction.

 It's like being in one big TV show, as everywhere look just a little bit familiar.

Silas is talking to his roommate, Salah, about the Olympic Games.

- Silas: “Do you think our country can host the Olympic Games some day in the future?"

- Salah: “___________. We can't afford such a big event.”

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that best completes each of the following exchanges.

 John is driving and he sees Mary walking on the pavement.

- John: “_____________”

Mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word(s) OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s) in each of the following questions.

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

When she was _______ grade 11, she wished to have someone who would stand beside her through thick and thin.

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

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.

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.