The word it in paragraph 1 refers to ________ .

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to choose the word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 34 to 38.

LIVING AND LEARNING ON AN ISLAND

Children living on remote islands and in other areas (34) ________ the population is very small often end up being educated in very small schools, sometimes with no more than fifty students. Herm, (35) ________ , is one of the smallest of Britain's Channel Islands. It has a school that has fewer than ten pupils of primary school age, and a teacher who is (36) ________ to come over from the larger island of Guernsey every day. Children over the age of ten ought to live, as well as study, at a secondary school on Guernsey, even though many would prefer to live at home.

Small schools such as Herm are often threatened with closure - because compared to bigger schools, they are expensive to (37) ________ . When schools close, the teachers lose their jobs and pupils are sent to (38) ________ school which is often far away. This often turns out to be disruptive for the pupils’ education.

(Adapted from Oxford Exam Trainer Helen Weale)

Ms. Nhung handed in her notice ________ .

The reigning champion has been undergoing a punishable exercise regime with the hope of successfully defending his title.

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 44 to 50.

Something the size of a postage stamp, costing just a penny a piece, could be a medical breakthrough that will save millions of lives. According to biotechnology scientist Hayat Sindi, this tiny piece of paper has the same power as an entire diagnostic laboratory. ‘My mission is to find simple, inexpensive ways to monitor health,’ Sindi says. She believes technology pioneered by a team at Harvard University will make it possible, and she co-founded the charity ‘Diagnostics For All’ to produce and distribute the innovation.

In the developing world, powerful drugs are used to combat diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and hepatitis. But these medicines can cause liver damage. In developed countries, doctors monitor liver function frequently and change the medication if they detect problems. But in isolated, rural corners of the world, health monitoring simply doesn’t exist. The tragic result is that millions of people are dying from the same drugs intended to save them. The small piece of paper is a low-tech tool which detects disease by analysing bodily fluids. Positive results, which show up in less than a minute, are indicated by a change in colour on the paper.

Sindi’s determination to solve daunting problems should come as no surprise. Despite coming from a modest background, never travelling outside Saudi Arabia or speaking a word of English, she moved to England to attend university. Alone, homesick, and worried that she would fail and dishonour her family, she learned English by watching BBC news. She studied up to 20 hours a day for college entrance exams. Against the odds, she became the first Saudi woman to study biotechnology at Cambridge University. She went on to get a PhD and become a visiting scholar at Harvard University.

Sindi’s passion and accomplishments have made her a role model for young women across the Middle East, an inspiration to a new generation. ‘I want all women to believe in themselves and know they can transform society. When I lecture at schools, the first thing I ask children is to draw a picture of a scientist. 99.9% of them draw an old bald man with glasses. When I tell them I’m a scientist, they look so surprised.’ A new foundation that she has launched gives guidance and money to encourage young women who attend university abroad to bring their skills back to their homelands.

(Adapted from Life by Helen Stephenson, John Hughes, and Paul Dummett)

Thomas Edison is famous for inventing the light bulb. But not many people know that in the 1920s he invented the first employment test to recruit staff for his research laboratory. It had questions in it like, ‘Who killed President Lincoln?’ and ‘Where is the Sargasso Sea?’. It was difficult to answer the questions and only a few people managed to pass the test. Nowadays we would ask: Is it really necessary to know things like this if you want to work for an inventor?

Now, a hundred years later, employment tests are still used by companies, but are very different in what they test. The way that companies recruit new staff has also changed. One recent trend in recruitment is ‘gamification’. Gamification, in general, means using characteristics of games (e.g. scoring points, competing with others and rules of play) to add some fun to situations that are usually more serious. One of the first companies which has used gamification to recruit new staff is the cosmetics company, L'Oréal. L'Oréal created an online computer game called Reveal, where you try to solve real-life problems in a virtual environment. The best players were invited for an interview.

Another company, the international hotel group Marriott, developed a Facebook game, My Marriott HotelTM to attract young people to a career in the hotel industry. In the game, players managed a virtual hotel kitchen. The game could be played in English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Mandarin. It was designed to recruit staff in markets outside the USA. The game was a great success and brought thousands of people to the Marriott Facebook career page. Experts believe gamification is likely to become so common in recruitment that perhaps we should all train as games designers!

(Adapted from Navigate by Caroline Krantz and Julie Norton)

Trang isn’t at home now. I really need her help.

Tung has worked out at this fitness centre for 2 years.