Grade A

1 The U.S. population is going gray. A rising demographic tide of aging baby boomers—those
born between 1946 and 1964—and increased longevity have made adults age 65 and older the
fastest growing segment of today’s population. In thirty years, this segment of the population will
be nearly twice as large as it is today. By then, an estimated 70 million people will be over age 65.

5 The number of “oldest old”— those age 85 and older—is 34 times greater than in 1900 and likely
to expand five-fold by 2050.
This unprecedented “elder boom” will have a profound effect on American society,
particularly the field of healthcare. Is the U.S. health system equipped to deal with the demands of
an aging population? Although we have adequate physicians and nurses, many of them are not

10 trained to handle the multiple needs of older patients. Today we have about 9,000 geriatricians
(physicians who are experts in aging related issues). Some studies estimate a need for 36,000
geriatricians by 2030.
Many doctors today treat a patient of 75 the same way they would treat a 40–year-old
patient. However, although seniors are healthier than ever, physical challenges often increase with

15 age. By age 75, adults often have two to three medical conditions. Diagnosing multiple health
10
problems and knowing how they interact is crucial for effectively treating older patients.
Healthcare professionals—often pressed for time in hectic daily practices—must be diligent about
asking questions and collecting “evidence” from their elderly patients. Finding out about a
patient’s over-the-counter medications or living conditions could reveal an underlying problem.
20 Lack of training in geriatric issues can result in healthcare providers overlooking illnesses or
10
conditions that may lead to illness. Inadequate nutrition is a common, but often unrecognized,
problem among frail seniors. An elderly patient who has difficulty preparing meals at home may
become vulnerable to malnutrition or another medical condition. Healthcare providers with
training in aging issues may be able to address this problem without the costly solution of
admitting a patient to a nursing home.
25
30
10 Depression, a treatable condition that affects nearly five million seniors, also goes
10
undetected by some healthcare providers. Some healthcare professionals view depression as “just
part of getting old.” Untreated, this illness can have serious, even fatal consequences. According to
the National Institute of Mental Health, older Ameri- cans account for a disproportionate share of
suicide deaths, making up 18% of suicide deaths in 2000. Healthcare providers could play a vital

35
10
 role in preventing this outcome—several studies have shown that up to 75% of seniors who die by
suicide visited a primary care physician within a month of their death.
Healthcare providers face additional challenges to providing high quality care to the aging
population. Because the numbers of ethnic minority elders are growing faster than the aging
population as a whole, providers must train to care for a more racially and ethnically diverse

40 population of elderly. Respect and understanding of diverse cultural beliefs are necessary to
10
provide the most effective healthcare to all patients. Providers must also be able to communicate
complicated medical conditions or treatments to older patients who may have a visual, hearing, or
cognitive impairment.
As older adults make up an increasing proportion of the healthcare caseload, the demand for
45 aging specialists must expand as well. Healthcare providers who work with the elderly must
10
understand and address not only the physical but mental, emotional, and social changes of the
aging process. They need to be able to distinguish between “normal” characteristics associated
with aging and illness. Most crucially, they should look beyond symptoms and consider ways that
will help a senior maintain and improve her quality of life.
1. The author uses the phrase going gray (line 1) in order to
A. maintain that everyone’s hair loses its color eventually.
B. suggest the social phenomenon of an aging population.
C. depict older Americans in a positive light.
D. demonstrate the normal changes of aging.
E. highlight the tendency of American culture to emphasize youth.

2. The tone of the passage is primarily one of

A. bemused inquiry.
B. detached reporting.
C. informed argument.
D. hysterical plea.
E. playful speculation.

3. The author implies that doctors who treat an elderly patient the same as they would a 40–year-
old patient (line 13)
A. provide equitable, high-quality care.
 B. avoid detrimental stereotypes about older patients.
C. encourage middle-age adults to think about the long-term effects of their habits.
D. do not offer the most effective care to their older patients.
E. willfully ignore the needs of the elderly.

4. The author cites the example of untreated depression in elderly people (line 32-34) in order to
A. prove that mental illness can affect people of all ages.
B. undermine the perception that mental illness only affects young people.
C. support the claim that healthcare providers need age-related training.
D. show how mental illness is a natural consequence of growing old.
E. illustrate how unrecognized illnesses increase the cost of healthcare.

5. In the last paragraph of the passage the author’s tone is one of

A. unmitigated pessimism.
B. personal reticence.
C. hypocritical indifference.
D. urgent recommendation.
E. frenzied panic

If droughts, floods and wildfires are the criminal, climate change is the accomplice. This is how
the population must begin regarding global warming, experts said at a session at the annual American
Academy for the Advancement of Science meeting here. Although extreme weather events, from the
creeping drought that scorched last years' corn crop to Superstorm Sandy, are worrisome,
automatically and simplistically tying them to the scientific phenomenon of climate change could be
misleading.
Last year's drought in Texas, for example, could not be specifically tied to climate change, said
John Nielsen-Gammon, the Lone star State's climatologist. Over the past century there has been an
increase in rainfall -not a tendency toward dryness _ over most of Texas by about 10 percent.
"Changing climate has not contributed to the lack of rainfall over the long term, as of yet," he said.
Last year's drought much like the famed Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s and another significant
drought in the 1950s, is tied to rising sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean_ the weather event
known as la Nina. "Until we see a long -term decrease in rainfall in Texas, it will be hard to say that
climate change has caused a decrease," Nielsen - Gammon said.
Temperatures have rines in Texas, meaning the increased rainfall is being evaporated at a more
rapid rate, he added. But for the drought, which continues to seize more than half of the lower 48
states, het was a drought accelerant but not the main cause.
6. About climate change, the author assumes that ...
A. The rainfall significantly turns up after Dust Bowl drought
B. Climate change continues to extensively progress elsewhere
C. Research on climate change is expected to grow in Texas
D. La Nina is famed for the weather event in the Pacific Ocean
E. Climate change is the result of raising sea surface temperature

Education is often viewed as school in a traditional, formal sense. Many people believe that
true learning can only take place in formal classroom setting. Others feel education occurs in many
different forms and environments. There may not be a definitive answer to the question of, ‘What is
education?' However, we can start thinking about the purpose of education.
In 1990, UNESCO launched EFA, the movement to provide quality education for all children,
youth, and adults by the year of 2015. The unfortunate reality is that for many countries, larger issues
come before improving the quality of education. How can we achieve the goals of EFA when the
numerous countries around the world are faced with challenges that seem far too impossible to
overcome? The answer lies in attempting to bridge some of the gaps that prevent developing nations
to compete with developed nations. One example is that of providing greater access to technology and
narrowing the ever-widening digital divide. In many ways, the most basic access to technology can
serve as a valuable educational tool. Individuals who are not afforded this access are at disadvantage
when trying to grasp opportunities to make life better for themselves, their families, and their
community.
7. The situation the author shows in the passage above is best described as follows
A. quality education fundamentally ensures quality living in all sectors
B. education is essentially everyone's right yet it still has its challenges
C. there are problems in education in spite of it significant role
D. as long as nations compete, education cannot progress
E. absence of an exact definition causes problems in education
 Everyone likes to group thimngs. Language students group word as verbs, nouns and so on;
collections of words are classified as phrases, or clauses, or sentences, and these again are reclassified
according to their function. In the same way, botanistsw classify plants as algae, or fungi, or
gymnosperms, etc. Zoologysts classify animals as vertrebrates and investibrates. The vetrebrates can
be further classified as mammals, reptiler, birds, fish, etc. Classification enables us to keep hold of
more information and, if it is based on the right data, enables us to understand better the ideas we are
studying.
Chemists are no exception. The chemical classification of materials, if it is based on a good
system, should enable us to understand better the many substances which exist in our word. What is to
be the basis of our classification? Perhaps the most obvious one is appearance. Materials could be
classified as solid, liquid or gas with some mixed types as, for example, mud being solid/liquid
material and steam a liquid/gas material. Appearance could enable us to subdivide our main
classification groups a little further; the solid may be green, or black, powdery or crystalline; the
liquid may be colored, oily, thick, or free flowing; the gas may be colored. However, we soon realize
that many probably quite different materials have the same appearance. Both air and the deadly
carbon-monoxide gas, are colorless, odorless gases, but we would not like to group them as the same
thing. Many different liquids are colorless, water-like materials.
8. How does the author organize the ideas ?
A. Putting the main idea with examples.
B. Presenting causes followed by effects
C. Interpreting different ways of classifying
D. Presenting the strengths ways of classifying
E. Exposing supporting details chronologically

Situated on steep slopes, montane and watershed forest are especially important in ensuring
water flow and inhibiting erosion. Yet, during the 1980s, montane formations suffered the highest
deforestation rate of tropical forest.
When the forests are cut down, less moisture is evapotranspired into the atmosphere resulting in
the formation of fewer rain clouds. Subsequently there is a decline in rainfall, subjecting the area to
drought. Today Madagascar is largely a red, treeless, desert from generations of forest clearing with
fire. River flows decline and smaller amounts of quality water reach cities and agricultural lands.
Colombia, one second in the world with freshwater reserves, has fallen to 24'h due to its extensive
deforestation over the past 30 years. Excessive deforestation around the Malaysia capital of Kuala
Lumpur, combined with the dry conditions created by el Nino, triggered strict water rationing in 1998,
and for the first time the city had to import water.
There is serious concern that widespread deforestation could lead to a significant decline in
rainfall and trigger a positive-feedback process of increasing desiccation for neighboring forest cover.
The newly desiccated forest becomes prone to devastating fires. Such fires materialized in 1997 and
1998 in conjunction with the dry conditions created by el Nino. Millions of acres burned as fires
swept through Indonesia, Brazil, Colombia, Central America, Florida, and other places. The Woods
Hole Research Center warned that more than 400,00 square kilometers of Brazilian Amazon were
highly vulnerable to fire in 1998.
9. What is the writer's attitude like toward deforestation…
A. Positive
B. Worried
C. Ignorant
D. Indifferent
E. Concerned

Over the last two decades, the use of ICT has been an important topic in education. On the one
hand, studies have shown that ICT can enhance teaching and learning outcomes. For example, in
science and mathematics education, scholars have documented that the use of ICT can improve
students’ conceptual understanding, problem solving, and team working skills. Consequently, most
curriculum documents state the importance of ICT and encourage schoolteachers to use them.
However, teachers need to be specifically trained in order to integrate ICT in their teaching.
Schools are known to be resistant to innovation and change, however, the spread of ICT is
beginning to affect how teachers teach. One of the current issues about the use of ICT is how it is
integrated into the curriculum. The curriculum document provides arguments for introducing ICT in
the school setting. Therefore, schools expect that graduates from teacher education programs have a
reasonable knowledge of how to use ICT. However, this may not be the case because most current
teachers’ pre-service preparation, and subsequent in-service courses were designed by using
traditional educational technology and settings. Thus, the participants in these courses are not familiar
with the processes, interaction patterns, features, and possibilities of teaching learning processes based
on ICT.
Effective development of pre-service teachers’ ICT proficiency does not seem to be a direct
process, but is the one asking for a careful, complex approach. First, a need assessment is important to
find out what ICT skills and knowledge teachers need at schools. Second, designers of teacher
education programs should know the pre-service teachers’ perceptions of ICT and their attitudes
toward ICT integration into curriculum. Third, teacher education programs need to consider the two
typical arguments that support the ICT use in schools.
10. With the statement 'One of the Current issues about the use of KT is how it is integrated into the
curriculum’ In line paragraph 2, the author intends to ....
A. Emphasize the need for teachers with good literacy in technology
B. Explore the reasons for including ICT in the curriculum document
C. Explain the curriculum documents for KT introduction in education
D. Argue that current teachers already have good knowledge of using ICT
E. Show that teacher education programs have been running expected ICT curriculum

The real attractions of the Hollowell farm, to me, were: its complete retirement, being, about
two miles from the village, half a mile from the nearest neighbor, and separated from the highway by
a broad field; its bounding on the river, which the owner said protected it by its fogs from frosts in the
spring, though that was nothing to me; the gray color and ruinous state of the house and barn, and the
dilapidated fences, which put such an interval between me and the last occupant; the hollow and
lichen-covered apple trees, nawed by rabbits, showing what kind of neighbors I should have; but
above all, the recollection I had of it from my earliest voyages up the river, when the house was
concealed behind a dense grove of red maples, through which I heard the house-dog bark. I was in
haste to buy it, before the proprietor finished getting out some rocks, cutting down the hollow apple
trees, and grubbing up some young birches which had sprung up in the pasture, or, in short, had made
any more of his improvements. To enjoy these advantages I was ready to carry it on; like Atlas, to
take the world on my shoulders—I never heard what compensation he received for that—and do all
those things which had no other motive or excuse but that I might pay for it and be unmolested in my
possession of it; for I knew all the while that it would yield the most abundant crop of the kind I
wanted, if I could only afford to let it alone. But it turned out as I have said.
11. The author of the passage valued the Hollowell farm mostly because of
 A. old memories of travelling past the farm, although he hadn’t been able to see it very well
B. its good neighbors, although they were a half mile away
C. it was a good place to retire and to raise abundant crops
D. the improvements, especially the ones recently completed
E. the fact that it was bordered by a river that produced romantic fog

12. After buying the farm, the author intended to

A. finish removing the birch trees and rocks in the pasture
B. conceal the house with red maples as it had been in days gone by
C. harvest an abundant crop of apples
D. establish a good relationship with the dog
E. change the farm as little as possible

13. Why did the author like the gray color and ruinous state of the house and barn, and the
dilapidated fences?
A. because they meant he could get a good price on the farm, and he wasn’t going to use the
barn or fences in any case
B. because they indicated he wouldn’t have to keep up appearances for the sake of the faraway
neighbor
C. because he thought it made the farm look charmingly rustic
D. because it meant he could build a new house where the birch trees were growing
E. because they were more a reflection of the nature he values than of the personalities of the
previous human owners

Education is often viewed as school in a traditional, formal sense. Many people believe that
true learning can only take place in a formal classroom setting. Others feel education occurs in many
different forms and environments. There may not be a definitive answer to the question of, 'What is
education?' However, we can start thinking about the purpose of education. Is it to educate youth to be
responsible citizens? Is it to develop individuals, as well as society, in order to ensure a society's
economic success? Or is it to simply focus on developing individual talents and intelligence? Perhaps
it is the balance of all three that defines education? While our answers may differ, we can perhaps
agree that education is a basic human right. When that right is granted growth and development, the
society as a whole is more likely to improve in areas such as health, nutrition, general income and
living standards and population fertility rates.
As global citizens it is our responsibility to critically think about the issues and attempt to come
up with solutions to the problems plaguing education. In 1990 UNESCO launched EFA, the
movement to provide quality education for all children, youth, and adults by the year 2015. The
unfortunate reality is that for many countries, larger issues some before improving the quality of
education. How can we achieve the goals of EFA when numerous countries around the world are
faced with challenges that seem far too impossible to overcome? The answer lies in attempting to
bridge some of the gaps that prevent developing nations to compete with developed nations. One
example is that of providing greater access to technology and narrowing the ever widening digital
divide. In many ways the most basic access to technology can serve as a valuable educational tool.
Individuals who are not afforded this access are at a disadvantage when trying to grasp opportunities
to make life better for themselves, their families, and their community.
14. The author's main concern in the first paragraph of the passage is that.........
A. there is no exact definition about education.
B. education is a fundamental individual's right.
C. everyone has the right to get quality education.
D. education occurs in any place not just schools.
E. development can be gained through education.

15. The following sentences reflect the author's opinions in the passage, EXCEPT .......
A. everyone has the right to get education.
B. education cannot be easily defined.
C. EFA provides quality education by 2015.
D. education is basic to human development.
E. The EFA goals are faced with serious challenges.