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 43 to 50.

Long before they can actually speak, babies pay special attention to the speech they hear around them. Within the first month of their lives, babies' responses to the sound of the human voice will be different from their responses to other sorts of auditory stimuli. They will stop crying when they hear a person talking, but not if they hear a bell or the sound of a rattle. At first, the sounds that an infant notices might be only those words that receive the heaviest emphasis and that often occur at the ends of utterances. By the time they are six or seven weeks old, babies can detect the difference between syllables pronounced with rising and falling inflections. Very soon, these differences in adult stress and intonation can influence babies' emotional states and behavior. Long before they develop actual language comprehension, babies can sense when an adult is playful or angry, attempting to initiate or terminate new behavior, and so on, merely on the basis of cues such as the rate, volume, and melody of adult speech. Adults make it as easy as they can for babies to pick up a language by exaggerating such cues. One researcher observed babies and their mothers in six diverse cultures and found that, in all six languages, the mothers used simplified syntax, short utterances and nonsense sounds, and transformed certain sounds into baby talk. Other investigators have noted that when mothers talk to babies who are only a few months old, they exaggerate the pitch, loudness, and intensity of their words. They also exaggerate their facial expressions, hold vowels longer, and emphasize certain words.

More significant for language development than their response to general intonation is observation that tiny babies can make relatively fine distinctions between speech sounds. In other words, babies enter the world with the ability to make precisely those perceptual discriminations that are necessary if they are to acquire aural language.

Babies obviously derive pleasure from sound input, too: even as young as nine months they will listen to songs or stories, although the words themselves are beyond their understanding. For babies, language is a sensory-motor delight rather than the route to prosaic meaning that it often is for adults

According to the author, why do babies listen to songs and stories, even though they cannot understand them?

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined word in each of the following questions.

The repeated commercials on TV distract many viewers from watching their favourite films

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word(s) OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s) in each of the following questions.

His boss has had enough of his impudence, and doesn’t want to hire him any more

Most Americans don’t object _____ being called by their first names.

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the following questions

The existence of many stars in the sky _______ us to suspect that there may be life on another planet

The new school complex cost ______ the city council had budgeted for.

I had a red pen but I seem to have lost it; I think I’d better buy ______ one.

I would be very rich now ________ working long ago

For this recipe to be successful, you _____ cook the meat for at least two hours in a moderate oven

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the underlined part that needs correction in each of the following questions

No matter what different, various music types have one thing in common: touching the hearts of  listeners

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.

“Why don’t you ask your boss for a rise?” he asked me 

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.

Charles: “Thanks so much for looking after the children!”

Lisa: “__________________” 

There is a huge amount of _______ associated with children’s TV shows today.

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 from 31 to 35.

DO SMALLER CLASSES REALLY HELP?

 In an experiment in Canada, ten-year-old children were put in classes of four sizes: 16, 23, 30 and 37 children in (31)____ class. Their teachers said that the smaller classes would result in more individual attention and better marks. However, when the children were (32)____, those in the smaller classes didn’t get higher marks than the others, except in mathematics. Moreover, children in the larger classes said they liked school (33)____ as much. Perhaps the most surprising result was the difference between what teachers expected and the actual results obtained. More than 90% of the teachers expected the smaller classes to (34)____ well. After teaching these smaller classes, over 80% of the teachers thought the pupils had done better. However, according to the researchers, nothing of the (35)____ happened. Class size seemed to make a difference only to the teachers’ own attitudes - and not to the results they obtained. (Source: “Longman Tests in Contexts” by J.B. Heaton)

Điền ô số 32

Such ________________ that we didn’t want to go home

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the underlined part that needs correction in each of the following questions

Tony has not rarely missed a play or concert since he was seventeen years old.