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.
One of my favorite movies is When Harry Met Sally. I can watch it again and again and love it every single time - maybe even more than I did before. There’s a scene that will be familiar to any of the movie’s fans: Harry and Sally have just set off on their drive to New York City and Harry starts telling Sally about his dark side. He mentions one thing in particular: whenever he starts a new book, he reads the last page first. That way, in case he dies while reading it, he’ll know how it ends.
Harry will know how it ends, true, but doesn’t that also ruin the book? If you know the ending, how can you enjoy the story? As it turns out, easily. A study in this month’s issue of Psychological Science comes to a surprising conclusion: spoilers don’t actually spoil anything. In fact, they may even serve to enhance the experience of reading.
Over 800 students from the University of California San Diego took part in a series of three experiments, where they read one of three types of short story: a story with an ironic twist (such as Roald Dahl), a mystery (such as Agatha Christie), and a literary story (such as Raymond Carver). For each story, there was a spoiler paragraph that revealed the outcome.
The students read the stories either with or without the spoiler. Time to reconsider, it seems, what we call a spoiler. The so-called “spoiled” stories were actually rated as more enjoyable than those that were “unspoiled,” no matter what type of story was being read. Knowing the ending, even when suspense was part of the story’s goal, made the process of reading more, not less, pleasurable.
Why would this be the case? Perhaps, freed from following the plot, we can pay more attention to the quality of the writing and to the subtleties of the story as a whole. Perhaps we can be more attuned to those signs that foreshadow the unfolding of the action and take pleasure in our ability to identify them. Whatever the case may be, it may not be as urgent as we think it is to avoid spoilers. Indeed, it might be just fine to embrace them openly. Harry might have the right idea after all. In fact, he might be getting at the very thing that lets me watch him meet Sally over and over and over again, and enjoy the process every single time.
(Adapted from New English File Advanced by Christina Latham-Koenig, Clive Oxeden and Jerry Lambert)
Which best serves as the title for the passage?
Chọn A
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This tour has been organised in _______ with the Natural History Museum.
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 the primary stress in each of the following questions.
The more frequently droughts happen, _______ our life will become.
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the most suitable response to complete each of the following exchanges.
Gothen is at Pauline’s house.
- Gothen: “Thanks for inviting me to your party.”
- Pauline: “_______”
She got out of the exam room. She realised that she had forgotten to submit her paper.
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.
When you wake up in the morning, do you assume that you're going to have a great day or that you're going to have a difficult day? If you normally have positive expectations, you might consider yourself an optimist, and if your expectations are usually negative, you may be a pessimist.
According to research done by the Mayo Clinic, optimism can have a strong positive effect on your health. Their research shows that optimists may live longer, get colds less often, and be less likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease. Optimists may even deal with stress better than pessimists do. If you think you might be a pessimist and would like to try to be more optimistic, pay attention to what some call “self-talk.” The term “self-talk” refers to the automatic thoughts that go through your head all the time. You know-the ideas, worries, beliefs, and hopes that run through your mind as you're driving, washing dishes, folding laundry. Are those thoughts negative like, “Everyone knows so much more than I do,” or positive like, “I'm learning a lot at this job”?
If your self-talk is negative, there are some things you can do to steer it in a more positive direction. First, you can simply stop your negative self-talk. Every time you catch yourself thinking something negative, you can stop yourself by actually saying, “Stop,” out loud. Alternatively, you can revise your self-talk. For example, if you catch yourself saying, “I’m terrible at giving presentations,” revise that to a question like, “How can I improve my presentation skills?” Another idea is to think of yourself as a friend.
When you “hear” a negative sentence go through your mind, think about whether or not you would feel comfortable saying it to a friend. If the sentence seems too mean to say to a friend, think about what would sound better.
(Adapted from Select Readings by Linda Lee and Jean Bernard)
Which could be the best title for the passage?
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.
The dress is too expensive for her to buy.
According to paragraphs 1, what is stated regarding “When Harry Met Sally”?