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.

The United States of America, due to its immense size and diverse heritage, has one of the most complex cultural identities in the world. Millions of immigrants from all over the globe have journeyed to America (96)________ the Europeans discovered and generalized the land back in the 17th and 18th centuries. The blending of cultural (97)________ and ethnicities in America led to the country becoming known as a “melting pot.” As the third largest country in both area and population, America’s size has enabled the formation of subcultures within the country. These subcultures are often geographical as a result of settlement(98)_______ by non-natives as well as regional weather and landscape differences. While there are countless ways to divide the U.S. into regions, here we have referenced the four regions that are West, Midwest, North East and South. People from (99)_______ region may have different lifestyles, cultural values, business practices and dialects. While there are qualities and values (100)______most Americans commonly share, it is important not to generalize or assume that all Americans think or act the same way.

(Adapted from https://www.londonschool.com/)

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 48.

Sylvia Earle is an underwater explorer and marine biologist, who was born in the USA in 1935. She became interested in the world's oceans from an early age. As a child, she liked to stand on the beach for hours and look at the sea, wondering that it must be like under the surface. When she was 16, she finally got a chance to make her first dive. It was this dive that inspired her to become an underwater explorer. Since then, she has spent more than 6,500 hours under water, and has led more than seventy expeditions worldwide. She has also made the deepest dive ever, reaching a record-breaking depth of 381 meters.

In 1970, she became famous around the world when she became the captain of the first all-female team to live under water. The team spent two weeks in an underwater "house". The research they carried out showed the damage that pollution was causing to marine life, and specially to coral reefs. Since then she has written several books and magazine articles in which she suggests ways of reducing the damage that is being done to the world's oceans. One way, she believes, is to rely on fish farms for seafood, and reduce the amount of fishing that is done the out at sea.

(Adapted from Complete IELTS by Rawdon Wyatt)

By then, the elite performers had all totaled 10000 hours of practice over the (43) ________of their lives, the merely good students 8000 hours and the future music teachers just over 4000 hours.