SỞ GD&ĐT SƠN LA KỲ THI CHỌN ĐỘI TUYỂN HSG QUỐC GIA

NĂM HỌC 2021 - 2022

ĐỀ CHÍNH THỨC Môn thi: TIẾNG ANH
Ngày thi: 18/9/2021
(Đề thi có 16 trang) Thời gian làm bài: 180 phút không kể thời gian phát đề

(THÍ SINH LÀM BÀI TRỰC TIẾP VÀO TẬP ĐỀ THI NÀY)

I. LISTENING (50 points)

Part 1. From questions 1-6. Listen to a recorded message giving tourists travel information in a
large city and complete the table with NO MORE THAN TWO WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for
each answer.Write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided.
Attraction Further information
STOP A: Palace  has lovely (2)______
Main book office:
First boat: 8 a.m
Last boat: (1)______ p.m
STOP B: (3)______  has good (4)______ of city centre
STOP C: Museum  bookshop specializing in the
(5)______ of the local area
STOP D: Entertainment Complex  (6)______ cinema
 bowling alley
 video games arcade

Part 2. You will hear a guide taking a group of visitors around the museum. From questions 7 to
11, write the answer to the following questions with NO MORE TWO WORDS.Write your
answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided.
7. Which organization owns the museum?
___________________________________________________________
8. What is the name of the area for children upstairs?
___________________________________________________________
9. Where can visitors see the woodcuts by German artists?
___________________________________________________________
10. Which equipment can’t be provided by the city now?
___________________________________________________________
11. What adjective does the guide use to describe the Rutland Dinosaur’s room?
___________________________________________________________

Part 3. You will hear two experts, Marion Mason and Kenny Skelton, talking about changes in
the way works of art are bought and sold. For questions 12 - 16, choose the answer (A, B, C or
D) which fits best according to what you hear. Write your answers in the corresponding
numbered boxes provided.
12. Before 1973, the buying and selling of works of art ______
A. attracted little attention from the press.
B. was restricted to professional art dealers.

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 C. involved small sums of money changing hands.
D. was totally dependent on the state of the economy.
13. What did the 1973 auction and the 1997 auction have in common?
A. Both collections belonged to people found guilty of a crime.
B. There was widespread criticism of how they were conducted.
C. The circumstances in which they took place were unpleasant.
D. The buyers were thought to have paid far too much.
14. What was the outcome of the 1997 auction?
A. Works by young artists began to fetch the highest prices.
B. Contemporary art was held in higher regard.
C. Predictions were made about changes in the art world.
D. Every work of art was seen as a good investment.
15. Why is contemporary art now considered a good investment?
A. Everyone who buys it makes a very large profit.
B. The market for it is more certain than other markets.
C. It has become the most valuable art form.
D. Large organizations have expressed an interest in buying it.
16. According to Marion, why do some people complain about the large volume of contemporary
art being produced?
A. They can no longer afford to add to their collections.
B. They have not taken into account the full impact of globalization.
C. They are unable to understand the basic concepts of economics.
D. They have not come to terms with changes in the art market.

Part 4. You will hear a woman called Amy Hemmingway, who serves in the British armed
forces, describing army life. For questions 17 - 25, complete the sentences with NO MORE
THAN TWO WORDS.Write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided.
 Amy admits that some people would consider that being a soldier is too dangerous or would
have (17) ______ to joining the army.
 She says that having colleagues that she holds in high esteem and she feels she can rely on
gives her a great deal of (18) ______.
 Soldiers can participate in some outdoor sports on the (19) ______ programme.
 Amy says that in the armed forces both men and women have the same chances of (20) ______.
 When it comes to work, Amy compares the army to a smaller version of the (21) ______.
 Many accomplished members of the armed forces were (22) ______ when they first joined up.
 When she first joined the army, Amy took some tests and was given (23) ______ in order to
help her choose a particular job.
 Amy and her dog work together to find (24) ______.
 Amy says that it might be hard for (25) ______ to appreciate all of the benefits of military life.
Your answers:
17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25.

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III. READING (50 points)
Part 1. For questions 46-50, read the following passage and think of the word which best fits
each space. Use only ONE WORD in each space.
Ancient Time Keeping
The Aztec and Mayan calendars were very similar. The Aztecs, however, had a more primitive
number system and consequently a (46)__less_____ exact way of calculating dates. A complicated
system of two concurrent calendars existed, one marking the days and the (47)_other______ the
years.
The former was arranged on a 260-day cycle divided into 20 periods and then subdivided again. It
was used as a religious calendar and the priests could (48)___thereby____ decide on important
activities
like going to war or building projects. The latter was based on the much more familiar 365-day
solar count. It was also divided and subdivided but into smaller periods than our own Julian
calendar. Five days, which were not represented at all, were set (49)__aside_____ as a time for
festivities. People would dress up and sing and dance. Sacrifices were also (50)_carried______ out,
of which the majority were human but some could be performed on animals and fruits.
Your answers:

46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

Part 2. For questions 51-55, read the text below and decide which answer best fits each space.
Write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes.
Shopping in Europe
The last self-service stores opened in America in the 1920s but they didn’t catch on in
Europe until later, when the French forged ahead with their massive hypermarkets, Britain (51)
______ behind. Although the first self-service shop and the first supermarket were opened in the
early 1940s, it was thought that British housewives did not particularly want efficiency and speed.
Surveys showed that while American shoppers complained most about delays in check-out queues,
British ones object to being pushed and (52) ______ by other customers.
The (53) ______ of supermarket shopping is impersonality, with no mediating salesman
between shopper and goods, only the silent persuaders of packaging and display. However, there is
a current (54) ______ towards ‘boutiques’, with personal service, within supermarkets – the
butcher, the baker, the fishmonger – and small specialist shops and farmers’ markets are making a
(55) ______ in Britain. In France, when every self-respecting provincial town, ringed by
supermarkets, retains its specialist food shops and weekly street market, the traditional co-exists
with the new.
51. A. dwelled B. clung C. deferred D. lagged
52. A. thrust B. shoved C. heaved D. jerked
53. A. crux B. key C. gist D. essence
54. A. momentum B. trend C. craze D. vouge
55. A. comeback B. rebound C. rally D. pick-up
Your answers:

51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

Part 3. For questions 56-67, read the text and do the tasks that follow.
Geoff Brash
Geoff Brash, who died in 2010, was a gregarious Australian businessman and philanthropist
who encouraged the young to reach their potential.
Born in Melbourne to Elsa and Alfred Brash, he was educated at Scotch College. His sister,
Barbara, became a renowned artist and printmaker. His father, Alfred, ran the Brash retail music
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business that had been founded in 1862 by his grandfather, the German immigrant Marcus Brasch,
specializing in pianos. It carried the slogan “A home is not a home without a piano”.
In his young days, Brash enjoyed the good life, playing golf and sailing, and spending some
months travelling through Europe, having a leisurely holiday. He worked for a time at Myer
department stores before joining the family business in 1949, where he quickly began to put his
stamp on things. In one of his first management decisions, he diverged from his father’s sense of
frugal aesthetics by re-carpeting the old man’s office while he was away. After initially
complaining of his extravagance, his father grew to accept the change and gave his son increasing
responsibility in the business.
After World War II (1939-1945), Brash’s had begun to focus on white goods, such as
washing machines and refrigerators, as the consumer boom took hold. However, while his father
was content with the business he had built, the younger Brash viewed expansion as vital. When
Geoff Brash took over as managing director in 1957, the company had two stores, but after floating
it on the stock exchange the following year, he expanded rapidly and opened suburban stores, as
well as buying into familiar music industry names such as Allans, Palings and Suttons. Eventually,
170 stores traded across the continent under the Brash’s banner.
Geoff Brash learned from his father’s focus on customer service. Alfred Brash has also been
a pioneer in introducing a share scheme for his staff, and his son retained and expanded the plan
following the float.
Geoff Brash was optimistic and outward looking. As a result, he was a pioneer in both
accessing and selling new technology, and developing overseas relationships. He sourced and sold
electric guitars, organs, and a range of other modern instruments, as well as state-of-the-art audio
and video equipment. He developed a relationship with Taro Kekehashi, the founder of Japan’s
Roland group, which led to a joint venture that brought electronic musical devices to Australia.
In 1965, Brash and his wife attended a trade fair in Guangzhou, the first of its kind in China;
they were one of the first Western business people allowed into the country following Mao
Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. He returned there many times, helping advise the Chinese in
establishing a high quality piano factory in Beijing; he became the factory’s agent in Australia.
Brash also took leading jazz musicians Don Burrows and James Morrison to China, on a trip the
reintroduced jazz to many Chinese musicians.
He stood down as Executive Chairman of Brash’s in 1988, but under the new management
debt became a problem, and in 1994 the banks called in administrators. The company was sold to
Singaporean interests and continued to trade until 1998, when it again went into administration. The
Brash name then disappeared from the retail world. Brash was greatly disappointed by the collapse
and the eventual disappearance of the company he had run for so long. But it was not long before he
invested in a restructured Allan’s music business.
Brash was a committed philanthropist who, in the mid-1980s, established the Brash
Foundation, which eventually morphed, with other partners, into the Soundhouse Music Alliance.
This was a not-for-profit organisation overseeing and promoting multimedia music making and
education for teachers and students. The Soundhouse offers teachers and young people the
opportunity to get exposure to the latest music technology, and to use this to compose and record
their own music, either alone or in collaboration. The organisation has now also established
branches in New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland, as well as numerous sites around Australia.
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading
passage? For questions 56-59, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information if
NOT GIVEN there is no information on this

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56. The Brash business originally sold pianos. T
57. Geoff Brash’s first job was with his grandfather’s company. F
58. Alfred Brash thought that his son wasted money. T
59. By the time Geoff Brash took control, the Brash business was selling some electrical products.
T
Your answers:

56. 57. 58. 59.

For questions 60-64, choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS OR A NUMBER from the
passage to answer each question below.
60. Which arrangement did Alfred Brash set up for his employees?
____________________________ (a) share scheme
61. Which Japanese company did Geoff Brash collaborate with?
____________________________ Roland/ Roland group/ the Roland group
62. What type of event in China marked the beginning of Geoff Brash’s relationship with that
country?
____________________________ (a) trade fair
63. What style of music did Geoff Brash help to promote in China?
____________________________ jazz 
64. When did the Brash company finally stop doing business?
____________________________ 1998
Your answers:

60. 61. 62.

63. 64.

For questions 65-67, choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage to complete the note below.
Soundhouse Music Alliance


grew out of the Brash Foundation
a non-commercial organisation providing support for music production and music (65)
______ education

allows opportunities for using up-to-date (66) ______
technology
branches ______ in several

has (67) countries
Your answers:

65. 66. 67.

Part 4. For questions 68-74, you are going to read a magazine article. Seven paragraphs have
been removed from the extract. Choose from paragraphs A-H the one which fits each gap. There
is one extra paragraph you do not need to use.
The Inuit
The way of life of aboriginal peoples the world over has been in decline for decades now, if not
centuries. Slowly but surely, all of it, from its spiritual underpinnings to its actual geographical
homeland, is being whittled away by the developed world. Even now that it is very nearly too late,
the demise of these cultures is seen as just one of many problems needing our generous attention.
Once again, we in positions of power have cast ourselves in the role of teacher with plenty to pass
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on to our needy pupils when, in reality, we are the ones who have much to learn.
68
Their spiritual views, for example, provide the basis for all other activities, lending them in turn a
coherence and meaning that ensure that nothing is taken for granted. They believe that everything
possesses its own spirit – not only people and animals, but also inanimate objects and phenomena
such as the wind. These “inua”, as they are called, have independent existences of their own, and
those that are hosted by particularly strong animals or men can take on a physical presence
whenever they wish.
69
This belief, in turn, influenced other areas, such as art. Weapons like knives and harpoons were
intricately crafted, as this was believed to reflect the hunter’s esteem for the “inua”. Materials
selected for weapons were chosen because they were familiar and comforting to the prey; so, sea
mammals were commonly hunted with weapons made from walrus tusks, showing a concern for the
hunted which bordered on sympathy. Given that a single animal could provide food, oil, clothing,
and even boats – often made out of skins – it is easy to see how it warranted the proffered
reverence.
70
Rather than revealing the folly of peoples we consider more primitive than us, such practices and
tales show a deep awareness of and respect for the true relationship between people and their
environment. As also revealed in Inuit carvings of two-faced creatures, one face human and the
other animal, the relationship is one of mutual interdependence; nature preys on us as we prey on it,
and both factors in the equation need the other.
71
In the mid-nineteenth century, European whalers began to actually live in the Arctic, where they felt
they could better control the whaling industry. Whales were hunted for oil and fuel, as well as for
whalebone, which among other things, was used for making women’s corsets. Inuit men and
women were hired to work on the whalers’ bases and also on the ships, and slowly abandoned their
traditional way of life.
72
Nowadays, our role in the erosion of Inuit tradition has changed, but it continues undebated, if in a more
modern way. To help solve the problems rampant in Inuit society, such as poverty and unemployment,
governments have encouraged the promotion of tourism in Inuit lands, unlikely though this may seem.
Dog-sledding adventures and whaling expeditions are now advertised online. You, too, can experience
life in the frozen north, learn the seventeen words for snow and live in an igloo.
73
Our influence has altered Inuit art, as well. Thanks to collectors’ relentless appetite for ivory, a ban
on the hunting of animals for their tusks has been necessary to preserve these creatures from
extinction, thus depriving the Inuit of materials for their weapons and crafts. Soapstone has taken its
place, as its softness makes it easy to carve. As such, it is especially suitable for mass production,
and today, soapstone carvings are being churned out at breakneck speed, often not even by Inuit
carvers, to meet the demand from collectors.
74
Certainly, it is too late to turn back the clock, but is it too late to learn from the past? The
industrialized nations are often depressingly slow learners, despite all their laudable technological
achievements. But our own irreverent age would undoubtedly benefit from the meaning and
guidance afforded by the traditional Inuit view of nature and the planet.
Missing paragraphs:

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A. The practice of engaging the help of Shamans for hunting purposes testifies to the respect and
fear with which the natural world was viewed. A shaman was thought to have a special spirit,
one which was stronger and in closer contact with others. He was often called upon the
intervene in the hunt and persuade the prey to give itself to the hunters. Inuit legends also
illustrate feelings of awe for the natural world. Sedna, for example, was a drowning girl whose
severed fingers are transformed in the water into whales and seals.
B. Wood was scarce, so Inuit art was generally carved out of ivory, caribou antlers or local stone,
which had to be mined during the warmer months, sometimes at great distances from the
hunting base. The carvings had simple shapes and smooth lines which were reminiscent of the
flowing snowy landscape.
C. Needless to say, these spirits were respected by the Inuit, because they affected their daily
lives in so many ways. The sea, for example, could be bountiful, or it could withhold its gifts.
Animals could be hunted or they could evade the hunters. A whale’s spirit, if offended, could
direct its host well away from the whalers, or, having been shown the proper respect, it could
allow itself to be caught.
D. This attitude is something which could inform our own worldview and form the basis of a
more rational approach to our planet. Unfortunately, we appear to have too much confidence
in our supposed superiority to listen. Feelings like this are nothing new; indeed, we have been
contributing to the decline of the Inuit for quite some time.
E. There are those who will argue that these efforts have benefited the ailing Inuit culture, and
perhaps they are right to some extent. Tourism brings in money, helps raise awareness of Inuit
culture and the problems surrounding its survival, and selling art, however cheapened and
removed from tradition, does the same. We cannot change history, the argument goes, and at
least these are ways to help revive and maintain those few crafts and skills which survive
among the Inuit.
F. Soon, fashions changed and fur was in demand, so the Inuit became trappers. They had
previously hunted big game, which required the combined efforts of the extended family unit,
but trapping foxes was a solitary pursuit, and involvement in this field further eroded their
traditional way of life. By the time the fur trade collapsed in the mid-twentieth century, the
Inuit lifestyle and economy had changed so drastically that it was impossible to revert to the
old way of life.
G. This is particularly true in the case of the native people of the northern polar regions of the
world, who could instruct us mightily if we let them. The Inuit, whose name means ‘living
people’, are believed to have migrated westward from Greenland about a thousand years ago,
merging with or possibly assimilating other, older peoples. Many aspects of their culture
reveal a noble and cohesive world view which shows a deep respect for all living creatures as
well as the natural environment, and acknowledges their interconnectedness.
H. Fortunately, the prohibitive cost and the arduous trek to the far north, which involves several
flights in single-engine aircraft and several hours on a snowmobile, have deterred all but the
most determined travellers from such northern fantasy trips. But it is only a matter of time
before insatiable adventure-seekers look to these regions as the last frontier to visit and
impress their friends with.
Your answers:
68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.
G C A D F H 74. E

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Part 5. You are going to read a newspaper article about young people and technology. For questions
75 - 80, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.
Young People and Technology
Danah Boyd is a specialist researcher looking at how young people use technology.
If there’s one cliche that really grates with Danah Boyd, who had made a career from studying
the way younger people use the web, it’s that of the digital native. “There’s nothing native about
young people’s engagement with technology,” she says, adamantly. She has little time for the
widely held assumption that kids are innately more adept at coping with the web or negotiating the
hurdles of digital lives. “Young people are learning about the social world around them”, she says.
“Today that world has computer-mediated communications. Thus, in order to learn about their
social world, they’re learning about those things too. And they’re leveraging that to work out the
stuff that kids have always worked out: peer sociality, status, etc.”
It’s no surprise she takes exception, really: as one of the first digital anthropologists to dig into
the way people use social networking sites, Boyd has a track record of exposing the truths that
underpin many of our assumptions about the online world. Along the way, she’s gained insights
into the social web – not just by conducting studies of how many kids were using social networking
sites, but by taking a closer look at what was going on.
Lately, her work has been about explaining new ways of interpreting the behaviour we see
online, and understanding that the context of online activity is often more subtle than we first
imagine. She outlined some examples at a recent conference in San Francisco, including the case of
a young man from one of the poorest districts of Los Angeles who was applying to a prestigious
American college. The applicant said he wanted to escape the influence of gangs and violence, but
the admissions officer was appalled when he discovered that the boy’s MySpace page was plastered
with precisely the violent language and gang imagery he claimed to abhor. Why was he lying about
his motivations, asked the university? “He wasn’t,” says Boyd: in his world, showing the right
images online was a key part of surviving daily life.
Understanding what’s happening online is especially pertinent while discussions rage about
how perceptions of privacy are shifting – particularly the idea that today’s teenagers have a vastly
different approach to privacy from their predecessors. Instead, Boyd says, activities that strike
adults as radically new are often more easily understood from the perspective of teenagers. “Kids
have always cared about privacy, it’s just that their notions of privacy look very different from adult
notions,” she says. “Kids often don’t have the kind of privacy adults assume they do. Adults, by and
large, think of the home as a very private space. The thing is, for young people that’s often not the
case because they have little or no control over who has access to it, or under what conditions. As a
result, the online world can feel more private because it feels like there’s more control”.
This concept of control is central to Boyd’s work, and it applies not only to debunking myths
about teenage behaviour, but also to similar ideas that have emerged about the rest of the web.
Unlike some prognosticators who preach unstoppable revolution. Boyd suggests that control
remains, by and large, in the same places it always did. “Technologists all go for the notion of
“techno-utopia”, the web as great democratiser,” she says. “Sure, we’ve made creation and
distribution more available to anyone, but at the same time we’ve made those things irrelevant.
Now the commodity isn’t distribution, it’s attention – and guess what? We’ve not actually
democratising the whole system – we’re just shifting the way in which we discriminate.”
It’s a call to arms that most academic researchers would tend to sidestep, but then Boyd admits
to treading a fine line between academic and activist. After all, she adds, part of her purpose is to
look at the very questions that make us feel uncomfortable. “Part of it is that as a researcher,
everybody’s obsessed with Twitter and Facebook, and we’ve got amateur research all over the
place,” she says. “Plenty of scholars are jumping in and looming at very specific things. The
questions I continue to want to ask are the things that are challenging to me: having to sit down and
be forced to think about uncomfortable social stuff, and it’s really hard to get my head around it,
which means it’s exactly what I should dive in and deal with”.

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75. What point does Danah Boyd make about “computer-meditated communications” (line 6)?
A. They set out to teach the young about social interaction.
B. They are an integral part of a young person’s social interaction.
C. They act as a barrier to wider social interaction amongst young people.
D. They take the place of other sorts of social interaction for young people.
76. In the second paragraph, what do we learn about Danah’s research into social networking sites?
A. It has largely sought to account for their rapid growth.
B. It has tended to question people’s attitudes towards them.
C. It has taken the form of in-depth studies into how they are designed.
D. It has begun to investigate whether they are as influential as people think.
77. What point does Danah’s example of the Los Angeles college applicant illustrate?
A. how easy it is to misinterpret an individual’s online activity
B. how readily somebody’s online activity can be investigated
C. what their online activity can tell us about a person’s sincerity
D. how important it is to check the content of someone’s online activity
78. The phrase “debunking myths” refers to Danah’s view that
A. today’s teenagers are less concerned about privacy than previous generations.
B. teenagers value the idea of privacy more in a domestic environment.
C. teenagers’ attitudes to privacy are changing less than people think.
D. parents tend not to respect teenagers’ need for online privacy.
79. Danah used the term “techno-utopia” to underline her view that
A. her research has resonance for a community of web users of all ages.
B. people have unrealistic expectations about the influence of the web.
C. control of the web remains in much the same hands as before.
D. the web has a largely positive effect on many people’s lives.
80. In the last paragraph, we are given the impression that Danah
A. feels that a lot of research about the web is lacking in sufficient detail.
B. is aware that some issues in her field cannot yet be researched fully.
C. regards herself as being more of a philosopher than a researcher.
D. is willing to take on research challenges others would avoid.
Your answers:
75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80.

Part 6. There are four passages marked A, B, C, and D. For questions 81-95, read the passages
and do the task that follows. Write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided.
Dorothy Who?
The only British woman scientist to win the Nobel prize should be a household name in her own
country, says Georgina Ferry, but she is little known.
A. For the past four years, I have been subjecting friends and acquaintances to the Dorothy
Hodgkin test. It's very simple: when asked what I am working on, I tell them I am writing the
first biography of Dorothy Hodgkin. If their eyes light up, and they say things like 'Surely
there's one already!' they have passed.
Why should people in Britain know about Dorothy Hodgkin? The fact that she is the only
British woman scientist to have won a Nobel prize ought to be enough. Anyone who held the
same distinction in literature would be a household name. But Hodgkin, who died in 1994, was
a remarkable individual by any standards, as many-faceted as the crystals she studied. Her life
reflects some of the greatest upheavals of the 20th century: among them, the advancement of
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 women's education and the globalisation of science.
When I began my research, I set out to read some scientific biographies. One of Hodgkin's
friends recommended a new biography of Linus Pauling. Pauling was a close friend and
contemporary of Hodgkin, worked in the same branch of science and shared a commitment to
campaigning against nuclear weapons. I hurried to the main bookshop in the university town
where I live, only to discover that not a single biography of Pauling was on the shelves. I now
realise I was naive to be surprised that Pauling was not deemed sufficiently interesting to
British readers, even though he was the most influential chemist of the 20th century and a
winner of Nobel prizes for both chemistry and peace.
B. Even scientists themselves have doubted the value of the scientific biography. 'The lives of
scientists, considered as Lives, almost always make dull reading', wrote the late Peter
Medawar, another Nobel laureate, who laid most of the scientific groundwork that now makes
organ transplants possible.
If scientists propagate this negative view, it is hardly surprising if publishers and booksellers
share it. Treating scientists differently from everybody else as biographical subjects is one of
the outstanding symptoms of the 'two cultures' mentality, the belief that there is an
unbridgeable divide of understanding between the arts and sciences, still prevalent in the
literary world. Few but the towering giants of science make it into the biography sections of
bookshops.
Of course it is nonsense to say scientists, as a group, lead less interesting lives than artists and
writers, or actors, or politicians. For some, the fastidiousness involved in maintaining scientific
credibility extends to any kind of media appearance. A leading geneticist once told me he was
happy to be interviewed about his work, but did not want to be quoted directly or
photographed, because he did not want to be perceived as ‘self-promoting’.
C. The avoidance of the personal conveys a false impression of the enterprise of science that
discourages young people from joining in, and fosters more public suspicion than it dispels.
Fortunately, gaps are appearing in the smokescreen. Contemporary scientists now regularly
appear in the public eye in contexts other than the straightforward scientific interview. For
instance, Professor Richard Dawkins presents prizes to winners of a TV quiz, and geneticist
Steve Jones advertises cars on television. No doubt these activities have raised eyebrows in
laboratories but they have done more to make scientists recognisable as people than any
number of academic papers.
The publishing world is also undergoing a transformation. Scientific biographies and
autobiographies, if they appeared at all, used to be rather scholarly but dull and overreverent.
The life which the scientist in question led outside work marriage, children, things most people
regard as fairly central to their existence - was often dismissed in a couple of paragraphs. That
changed with Richard Feynman's Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman?, the hilarious and
affecting memoir of a man who also happened to be one of the century's greatest theoretical
physicists. More recently, even the greatest names in science, such as Isaac Newton, Charles
Darwin, Albert Einstein and Marie Curie have been allowed to appear with all their flaws
clearly visible. To the reader, it does not matter that Einstein's relationship with his family is
'irrelevant' to his General Theory of Relativity. The question of how creative genius copes with
emotional ups and downs, trivial practicalities, the social demands of ordinary life, is
absorbing in its own right.
D. Dorothy Hodgkin was devoted to her scientific work. Her most important successes were
solving the structure of penicillin and vitamin B12, which won her the Nobel prize for
chemistry in 1964, and of insulin, which her group solved in 1969. In each case she pushed the
technique into realms of complexity others deemed unreachable at the time.
But she also had three children to whom she was devoted and was married to a frequently
absent husband with a career as a historian. Her personal life is not strictly relevant to her work
as a scientist, but surely we can all learn from her capacity to unite the disparate threads of her
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 life into a coherent whole. There is much in her life of universal interest, but it would be
disloyal of me to imply that this does not include the science itself. Scientific inquiry was the
passion of Hodgkin's life, as it has to be for any successful scientist. How to communicate the
nature of this passion is the hardest task for the scientific biographer. Most readers are not
equipped with enough fundamental scientific concepts to grasp more complex ideas without a
lot of explanation. Understanding scientific ideas is not really any more difficult than reading
Shakespeare or learning a foreign language it just takes application. It is sad to think that
educated people, who would be embarrassed if they failed to recognise the name of some
distinguished literary or artistic figure, continue to live in happy ignorance of the rich heritage
represented by scientists such as Dorothy Hodgkin.

Which section mentions the following? Your answers:

81.
 the continuing general scarcity of biographies of scientists25 B
82.
 an increase in the number of ways scientists are featured in the media26 C
83.
 certain parallels between the lives of two people27 A
84.
 the fact that science can become accessible to the non-scientist D
85.
 the changing nature of books about scientists C
86.
 an attitude which is common to scientists and people working in the book trade B
87.
 the lack of trust people sometimes have in scientists C
88.
 someone whose scientific research went much further than others had D
believed possible
89.
 someone whose life mirrors historical developments A
90.
 biographies which include the less positive aspects of a scientist's life C
91.
 the lessons to be taken from someone else's life D
92.
 growing public interest in the everyday lives of brilliant people C
93.
 the greatest difficulty in writing the biography of a scientist D
94.
 someone who was modest about the interest of their own life to others B
 an achievement that would gain more general recognition if it were in another 95.
field39 A
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IV. WRITING (60 points)
Part 1. Read the following extract and use your own words to summarize it. Your summary
should be between 100 and 120 words.
In his nearly 30 years studying vaccines, Paul Goepfert, M.D., director of the Alabama Vaccine
Research Clinic at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has never seen any vaccine as effective as
the three COVID vaccines — from Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson — currently available in
the United States. “A 90 percent decrease in risk of infections, and 94 percent effectiveness against
hospitalization for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is fantastic,” he said. But what makes vaccine
experts such as Goepfert confident that COVID vaccines are safe in the long term?
There are several reasons, actually. Vaccines, given in one- or two-shot doses, are very
different from medicines that people take every day, potentially for years. And decades of vaccine
history — plus data from more than a billion people who have received COVID vaccines starting
last December — provide powerful proof that there is little chance that any new dangers will
emerge from COVID vaccines. Goepfert says we already know enough to be confident the COVID
vaccines are safe, starting with the way vaccines work and continuing through strong evidence from
vaccine history and the even stronger evidence from the responses of people who have received
COVID-19 vaccines worldwide over the past six months. “Many people worry that these vaccines
were ‘rushed’ into use and still do not have full FDA approval — they are currently being
distributed under Emergency Use Authorizations,” Goepfert said. “But because we have had so
many people vaccinated, we actually have far more safety data than we have had for any other
vaccine, and these COVID vaccines have an incredible safety track record. There should be
confidence in that.”
https://www.uab.edu/news/health/ite
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Part 2. Describing a graph
The graph below shows the gold medals team Great Britain has won in 4 sports during 6
Olympics. Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make
comparisons where relevant. You should write about 150 words.

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Read the following text from an educational magazine.
Compulsory attendance in university has always been a highly debated subject. Professors view
class attendance as an individual student responsibility. However, many students want to be
given the freedom to decide which classes to attend. Due to the difficulty of regulating a school-
wide attendance policy, most colleges and universities give professors the authority to set their
own attendance rules. Some people believe that university students should be required to attend
classes. Others believe that going to classes should be optional for students.
Write an essay to an educated reader to tell which point of view you agree with.
Include specific reasons and any relevant examples to support your answer

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