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 27 to 31

People talk about the generation gap as a kind of division between young people and their parents. It is something (27) ________ is generally a problem when children enter their teenage years, and results in complaints on both sides. Parents, (28) ________, can often be heard to say that young people are disrespectful and disobedient and in addition, tend to be irresponsible when spending because they don't (29) ________ the value of money. Adolescents, on the other hand, complain that their parents don't understand them.

What has gone wrong? One explanation lies in how society has changed. In the past, children would typically continue the way of life of their parents. In today's world, parents are very (30)________ for their children because they want them to achieve more than they did. The problem is that the children often don't agree with their parents' plans. Teenagers also reach maturity at an earlier age than they used to and want their independence sooner. The resulting conflict is painful to (31)________ sides.

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.