1 KỲ THI HỌC SINH GIỎI VÒNG TỈNH THPT ĐỀ THI THỬ HSG TỈNH SỐ 01 Môn thi TIẾNG ANH Thời gian thi 120 phút (không kể thời gian giao đề) I PHONETICS Part 1 Choose the word whose underlined part is pronounced differently from the others 26 A failed B reached C absorbed D solved 27 A loses B houses C rises D shoes 28 A says B pays C stays D bays 29 A scheme B parachute C architect D psychology 30 A mahout B foul C poultry D drought Part 2 Choose the word which is stressed differently from the others.
Trang 11
KỲ THI HỌC SINH GIỎI VÒNG TỈNH THPT
Thời gian thi: 120 phút (không kể thời gian giao đề)
I PHONETICS
Part 1 Choose the word whose underlined part is pronounced differently from the others
Part 2 Choose the word which is stressed differently from the others
32 A preferential B congratulate C development D preservative
Your answers
II LEXICO-GRAMMAR
Part 1 For questions 36-55, choose the correct answer A, B, C or D to each of the following questions and write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided
36 Standing on the tip of the cape,
A people have seen a lighthouse far away B lies a lighthouse in the middle of the sea
C a lighthouse can be seen from the distance D we can see the lighthouse in the distance
37 John: “Do you think we should use public transport to protect our environment?”
Laura: “ ”
38 visit the British Museum while you are in London, you mustn't forget to look at the famous Rosetta Stone
39 Paul: “ I was late because I got caught in traffic.”
Kevin: “ , lateness will not be tolerated in this office.”
40 The hostage was released unharmed by the kidnappers, but they were never caught and charged with
41 On his first day in the Milanese office, the German executive experienced on the part of the employees in the office, who saw him as a threat
42 The only room available was, to say the least There was no carpet, no curtains, and the only furniture was a bed and a small bedside table
43 Regional parliaments allow for remote parts of the country or islands far from the capital
A self-government B self-sufficiency C self-regulation D self-support
44 Zoe’s plan to study at university when she didn’t get the required grades in her school leaving exams
45 It’s not advisable to buy goods from street vendors – there’s a good chance you’ll be
46 We all agreed to cover some of the cost – so come on, !
Trang 22
47 I ate some tinned sardines that had expired and ended up feeling so sick that I all the food
I had eaten
48 He was too sure of himself to pay to the warnings against the danger
49 All nations should hands to work out a plan to solve the problem of global warming
50 At the age of 11, Taylor Swift was already trying to a record deal in Nashville
51 Please these figures to memory, so that you will be able to answer the investors’ questions easily and confidently
52 He’s sometimes bad-tempered but he’s a good fellow
53 When it comes to the , Alice always support her friends
54 Although he came to work the day before his retirement, everyone knew he was just
55 I had a this morning when a tractor trailer unexpectedly swerved into my lane
Your answers
Part 2 For questions 56-60, write the correct form of each bracketed word in the numbered space provided
Whilst 56. (urban) was characteristic of an earlier era, many young people are choosing to do exactly the opposite of their forebears As a result of financial 57. (stable) in the city and worries about inadequate public services, numerous educated, young individuals, either alone or with their families are willingly moving back to smaller towns and villages in search of a better and more 58. (afford) way of life
When families are 59. (root) from their homes, there are a lot of negative repercussions; educated graduates may face competition from skilled workers, who, while having no formal qualifications, have been working the land for years, and city children may find themselves 60. (margin) at school
Your answers
Part 3 For questions 61-65, write the correct form of each bracketed word in the numbered space provided
61 The discussions reached a new level of (intense) and by lunchtime the exchanges were becoming very heated
62 Alvin met the genial master poet Langston Hughes, who became a lifelong friend and (confide)
63 There is an (speak) recognition of a certain disposition or habitus among the social classes
64 It has to be said it was rather (genus) of him to ask a complete stranger to look after his luggage
65 Sometimes a sympathetic friend can be a constant source of discouragement, all (know)
Your answers
Part 4 For questions 66-75, find and correct 10 mistakes in the passage Write them in the numbered boxes provided
Trang 33
The huge mountain of Kilimanjaro is one of the most distinct entities within the severe land of the African wilderness Rivers carry life to the forests and jungles below flow from beneath the eminence, whereas in the endless plains of this continent an astonishing diversity of animal species have evolved to take advantage of the immense African habitat They have adapted and survived in their different shapes and sizes Some of them are big, some small, some eat plans and some live by meat There are those which wander alone, unlike the others which gather in herd The multiplying millions of herbivores are balanced by the frightened meat eaters - carnivores whose body build has been shaped for speed and for the strength indispensable to outmanoeuvre their prey These superior predators which have conducted their daily struggle for survival in the harsh African environment all live in unfavourable surroundings where the punishment for weakness is often dead The reality
of Africa best pictures the exciting cruelty of nature towards the weakness of individual animals as only the existence of the whole species is essential However, big predators like lions or tigers don't usually tolerate with company and might, then, be exposed to mortal danger, were it not for their perfect attributes and an uncomparable skill at killing They should never be judged by human standards It is obvious they don't kill out of hatred, but for the simple reason of remaining lively during their lone struggle in this hostile habitat
Your answers
III READING
Part 1 For questions 76-85, fill each of the following numbered blanks with ONE suitable word and write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided
A number of scientists around the world are investigating a phenomenon called synaesthesia that may affect as 76. as one in 2,000 people The name 77. from the Greek words for together and perception and means that some people’s senses work in combination For example, some people see colour when they hear particular 78. Similarly, a smell or taste may be perceived as a 79. to information received from the eyes However, the most common form of synaesthesia occurs 80. people who associate certain letter of words with colours Scientists at Cambridge University conducted experiments to determine whether this is actually a product of mental activity or if some individuals are just highly 81. They discovered that synaesthetes, people 82. experience synaesthesia, consistently associate the same letters or words with the same colours Brain scans revealed unusual activity in the brain when subjects were listening to words, suggesting that it is a 83. condition The 84. plausible explanation is that synaesthetes have slightly different connections between the areas of the brain which control their senses Synaesthesia is not a medical problem, however, and synaesthetes often 85. from an unusually good memory, probably because they have extra information to help them recall things like names and numbers
Your answers
Part 2 For questions 86-95, read the text below and decide which answer A, B, C or D best fits each gap Write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided
When LL Zamenhof constructed the auxiliary language of Esperanto in the late 1880s, he did so with certain key goals in mind: to 86. the study of language easier and more learner-friendly; and to develop a universal language as a means of international communication and as a 87. _ for promoting concord and understanding in a 88. world His goals were influenced very much by his own experiences of growing up in Bialystok, which is part of modern-day Poland A multitude of different ethnic groups lived there
at the time and were constantly 89. with each one another It was this at which Zamenhof despaired, and he reasoned that the 90. cause of dispute was the barriers to communication present on account
of the lack of a common language Therefore, he set out to create one: Esperanto
Trang 44
His goals were incredibly ambitious, but was the new language a success? Well, in so far as it is the most widely spoken artificial one in existence today, with an estimated two-plus-million people worldwide fluent to some 91. , you would have to say yes However, the fact remains that Esperanto has not 92. English as the lingua franca of international communication, nor has it been nearly so widely 93. as Zamenhof himself would have hoped
Therefore, judged against Zamenhof’s own 94. ambitions for the language, the conclusion could not
be in the affirmative That said, his intentions in building an entirely new language were incredibly noteworthy and that the language has 95. even to the extent that it has done, with millions of active speakers, is,
in and of itself quite remarkable
Your answers
Part 3 For questions 96-108, read the following passage and do the tasks that follow
The Mystery of Sleep Sleep takes up precious time and leaves us vulnerable, so why do we do it?
A The question of why we sleep has been on people’s minds at least since the time of Aristotle, who believed
that the warming and cooling of the body as a result of digestion caused sleep Though we know this is incorrect today, other early theories have held up better The possibility of a ‘sleep toxin’ – a substance that built up during the day, causing drowsiness, and was subsequently relieved by sleep – was put forward by Henri Pieron in the early 1900s, and this concept is not unlike some contemporary ideas about sleep that researchers are pursuing today It was not until 1953 that Nathaniel Kleitman and his colleagues identified two different kinds of sleep; REM and non-REM sleep Many say that this breakthrough paved the way for modern sleep research But since then, despite the great deal of effort that has been made to better understand sleep, it is still largely a mysterious phenomenon
B Among living things, sleep is practically universal Even jellyfish, which have no brains, experience something
called sleep pressure – the need to rest longer after being kept awake Tiny worms, with only a few neurons, spend time in a sleep-like state and die more quickly when exposed to stress if this state is prevented Sharks and dolphins, which must keep moving at all times in order to breathe, have the ability to sleep with one hemisphere
of the brain at a time Yet, when an animal sleeps, it cannot protect itself from danger, it cannot eat or reproduce Sleep is high-risk and costly, so why is it such a universal phenomenon? Clearly, it must be important
C One theory about the reason for sleep is that it arose simply as a way to save energy If there were times when
it was difficult or hazardous for an animal to move around, then it might make sense for them to simply enter a sleep state when all of their physical systems slow down That way, they would require less food, and could hide away from danger The observation that animals with few natural predators, lions, for example, sleep up to 15 hours a day, while small prey animals seldom sleep more than 5 hours a day, seems to contradict this, however In addition, the objection has been raised that sleep only lowers the metabolism by 10-15 per cent, so not much energy is, in fact, saved According to Serge Daan, a researcher who studied arctic ground squirrels, something else must be taking place He found that the ground squirrels would periodically come out of their suspended-animation-like state of hibernation in order to sleep For these animals, sleep was actually energetically expensive, so it must serve some other essential purpose
D It is well established that the act of sleeping is important for essential brain functions such as memory and
learning A rapidly increasing body of cognitive research suggests that sleep allows us to consolidate and process
Trang 55
information that has been acquired during the day Sleep scientist Matthew Walker used MRI scans to visualise
activity in the brains of people who were learning a series of finger movements One group was allowed to sleep
and the other was not He found differences in the areas of the brain that were activated when they recalled the
movements; the group that had slept showed less activity in the brain, and better recollection of the task In other
words, the way the memory was stored had become more efficient Walker believes that this could explain why
toddlers, who are constantly learning new motor skills, require so much more sleep than adults Furthermore, Ted
Abel, while assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, found that mice deprived of sleep for the first
five hours after learning did not remember their physical surroundings, while their memory of facts and events
was not affected This result allowed him to specify that sleep regulates memory in a specific part of the brain, the
hippocampus, which is responsible for memories related to spatial and contextual information But despite
numerous studies, there are still more questions than answers on the role of sleep in memory and learning
E Another theory about the role of sleep is that it is essential for cleanup and repair in the brain and body
Support for this theory is provided by research that shows periods of REM sleep increase following periods of
sleep deprivation and strenuous physical activity During sleep, the body also increases its rate of cell division and
protein synthesis, further suggesting that repair and restoration occurs during sleeping periods Recently, new
evidence supporting the repair and restoration theory has been uncovered Research has shown that the cellular
structure of the brain is altered during sleep, and more space forms between cells This allows fluid to move
between the cells and flush out toxic waste products It is believed that these toxins increase in the central nervous
system during waking times, and the restorative function of sleep is a consequence of their removal
F It may seem that all of this new evidence is not making the question of why we sleep any clearer; indeed, the
evidence seems to point to different explanations In this context, it seems important to remember that there may
not be one correct answer, but instead it could be a combination While the idea that sleep is a method of energy
conservation seems to be falling out of favour, it seems more and more likely that benefits for memory and
learning, the cleanup of the brain and the repair of the body can all be attributed to a good night’s sleep
Questions 96-101: There are six paragraphs marked A-F in the passage In which paragraph is the following
mentioned? Write your answers in the corresponding numbered box provided
96 how researchers can see what is happening inside the brain
97 how many reasons for sleep there might realistically be
98 an example of lack of sleep being deadly
99 a particular discovery that was essential for how we view sleep today
100 how sleep might have arisen from threatening conditions
101 how the brain physically changes during sleep
Your answers
Questions 102-104: Look at the following statement and the list of researchers below Match each statement
with the correct researcher, A-E Write your answers in the corresponding numbered box provided
A Henri Pieron
B Nathaniel Kleitman
C Serge Daan
D Matthew Walker
E Ted Abel
102 Sleep is essential for the recollection only of certain types of memory
103 The fact that sleep requirements vary with age alludes to its role
104 A chemical that promotes sleep accumulates throughout the day
Your answers
Questions 105-106: Choose TWO letters, A-E Which TWO theories does the writer question the validity of?
Write your answers in the corresponding numbered box provided
A Sleep pressure is proof of the necessity of sleep
Trang 66
B Animals’ sleeping habits are related to their place on the food chain
C Sleep is related to changes in body temperature
D Sleep prevents the unnecessary burning of calories
E There are different types of sleep with different functions
Questions 107-108: Choose TWO letters, A-E Which TWO points does the writer mention in support of the importance of sleep for memory? Write your answers in the corresponding numbered box provided
A During sleep, unimportant memories are removed
B Sleep makes recollection more effortless
C Sleep results in more activity throughout the brain
D The function of a specific brain region is affected by sleep
E Sleep duration modifies learning
Your answers
Part 4 For questions 109-118, read the following passage and choose the answer A, B, C or D that fits best according to the text Write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided
Forget global terrorism - for most of the world's population, ticking time bombs like earthquakes, supervolcanoes and hurricanes pose a far greater threat Natural disaster expert Bill McGuire reveals a
few of the top catastrophes waiting to happen
With NASA's eminent climate scientist, Jim Hansen, concerned that collapsing polar ice sheets could result in sea
levels rising 1-2m this century and several more in the next, prospects for the Earth's coastal zones are bleak A 1m rise would threaten one-third of the world's agricultural land, while a 4m rise would maroon Miami 60km
offshore Rising sea levels is not the only threat to coastal regions The Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Canary Island of La Palma is slowly creeping seawards During a future eruption, this gigantic landslide will plunge into the ocean, pushing up a bulge of water close to a kilometre high, spawning a mega-tsunami capable of devastating all the coastal areas surrounding the
North Atlantic
Coastal regions also face the menace of desertification By 2030, over half a billion people living around the
shores of the Mediterranean will be viewing the encroaching desert with increasing panic An area bigger than the
UK, and home to 16 million people, is threatened - by the end of the century - with transformation from a green and pleasant land to a baking wilderness of sand and rock
However, these disasters seem pale in comparison to the mega-catastrophes waiting to happen like supervolcanoes, for instance Every 50 millennia or so, a colossal volcanic blast expels sufficient ash and gas to cover a continent and block the Sun's rays for years on end, heralding a bitter volcanic winter At Yellowstone in Wyoming, US, two such super-eruptions have shattered the crust in the last 2.1 million years and the volcano
there remains restless An asteroid attack is another threat which would have devastating consequences A total
of 713 asteroids with diameters of 1km or more, and the potential to clobber the Earth at some future date, have been identified A 2km asteroid would load the atmosphere with dust and trigger a sustained global freeze Harvests would fail and billions would die Fortunately, such collisions only happen every couple of million years
109 Which best serves as the title for the passage?
A Disasters in Waiting B Threats to the Earth’s Coastal Zones
C The Mega-catastrophes That Could End the World D Surprising Facts about Supervolcanoes
110 According to the passage, what poses an imminent threat to us?
A the increase of global terrorism
B the rise in the world's population
C the consequences of climate change and natural disasters
D time bombs waiting to go off
111 The word “bleak” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to
112 Which aspect of the Cumbre Vieja eruption will have the worst effects?
113 The word “maroon” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to
114 The process of desertification threatening the shores of the Mediterranean will occur
Trang 77
C to an area not quite as big as the UK D all of a sudden
115 The word “menace” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to
116 How often does a supervolcano take place?
C once every couple of million years D once every 50 million years
117 The word “there” in paragraph 4 refers to
118 Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
A Terrorism is the most challenging issue facing the world
B Rising sea levels wreak greater havoc on coastal regions than volcanoes do
C The UK is one of the countries most heavily affected by desertification
D Both supervolcanoes and asteroid attacks lead to extremely cold weather conditions
Your answers
Part 5 In the passage below, seven paragraphs have been removed For questions 119-125, read the passage and choose from the paragraphs A-H the one which fits each gap There is ONE extra paragraph which you
do not need to use Write your answers in the corresponding numbered box provided
Living in a Dream World
Daydreaming can help solve problems, trigger creativity, and inspire great works of art and science By Josie
Glazier
Most people spend between 30 and 47 per cent of their waking hours spacing out, drifting off, lost in thought, wool-gathering or building castles in the air Yale University emeritus psychology professor Jerome L Singer defines daydreaming as shifting attention “away from some primary physical or mental task toward an unfolding sequence of private responses” or, more simply, “watching your own mental videos.” He also divides daydreaming styles into two main categories: “positive-constructive,” which includes upbeat and imaginative thoughts, and “dysphoric,” which encompasses visions of failure or punishment
119
Such humdrum concerns figured prominently in one study that rigorously measured how much time we spend mind wandering in daily life In a 2009 study, Kane and his colleague Jennifer McVay asked 72 students to carry Palm Pilots that beeped at random intervals eight times a day for a week The subjects then recorded their thoughts at that moment on a questionnaire The study found that about 30 per cent of the beeps coincided with thoughts unrelated to the task at hand and that mind wandering increased with stress, boredom or sleepiness or in chaotic environments and decreased with enjoyable tasks That may be because enjoyable activities tend to grab our attention
120
We may not even be aware that we are daydreaming We have all had the experience of “reading” a book yet absorbing nothing—moving our eyes over the words on a page as our attention wanders and the text turns into gibberish “When this happens, people lack what I call ‘meta-awareness,’ consciousness of what is currently going on in their mind,” he says But aimless rambling can be productive as they can allow us to stumble on ideas and associations that we may never find if we intentionally seek them
121
Trang 88
So, why should daydreaming aid creativity? It may be in part because when the brain is floating in unfocused mental space it serves a specific purpose It allows us to engage in one task and at the same time trigger reminders
of other, concurrent goals so that we do not lose sight of them There is also the belief that we can boost the creative process by increasing the amount of daydreaming we do or replaying variants of the millions of events
we store in our brains
122
The mind's freedom to wander during a deliberate tuning out could also explain the flash of insight that may coincide with taking a break from an unsolved problem A study conducted at the University of Lancaster in England into this possibility found that if we allow our minds to ramble during a moderately challenging task, we can access ideas that are not easily available to our conscious minds Our ability to do so is now known to depend
on the normal functioning of a dedicated daydreaming network deep in our brain
123
It was not until 2007, however, that cognitive psychologist Malia Fox Mason, discovered that the default network
— which lights up when people switch from an attention-demanding activity to drifting reveries with no specific goals, becomes more active when mind wandering is more likely She also discovered that people who daydream more in everyday life show greater activity in the default network while performing monotonous tasks
124
The conclusion reached in this ground-breaking study was that the more complex the mind wandering episode is, the more of the mind it is going to consume This inevitably leads to the problem of determining the point at which creative daydreaming crosses the boundary into the realms of compulsive fantasising Although there is often a fine dividing line between the two, one question that can help resolve the dilemma relates to whether the benefits gained from daydreaming outweigh the cost to the daydreamer’s reputation and performance
125
On the other hand, there are psychologists who feel that the boundary is not so easily defined They argue that mind wandering is not inherently good or bad as it depends to a great extent on context When, for example, daydreaming occurs during an activity that requires little concentration, it is unlikely to be costly If, however, it causes someone to suffer severe injury or worse by say, walking into traffic, then the line has been crossed
A Although these two findings were significant, mind wandering itself was not measured during the scans As a
result, it could not be determined exactly when the participants in her study were “on task” and when they were daydreaming In 2009 Smallwood, Schooler and Kalina Christoff of the University of British Columbia published the first study to directly link mind wandering with increased activity in the default network Scans on the participants in their study revealed activity in the default network was strongest when subjects were unaware they had lost focus
B However, intense focus on our problems may not always lead to immediate solutions Instead allowing the
mind to float freely can enable us to access unconscious ideas hovering underneath the surface — a process that can lead to creative insight, according to psychologist Jonathan W Schooler of the University of California, Santa Barbara
C Yet to enhance creativity, it is important to pay attention to daydreams Schooler calls this “tuning out” or
deliberate “off-task thinking.”, terms that refer to the ability of an individual to have more than just the
Trang 9mind-9
wandering process Those who are most creative also need to have meta-awareness to realise when a creative idea has popped into their mind
D On the other hand, those who ruminate obsessively—rehashing past events, repetitively analyzing their causes
and consequences, or worrying about all the ways things could go wrong in the future - are well aware that their thoughts are their own, but they have intense difficulty turning them off The late Yale psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema does not believe that rumination is a form of daydreaming, but she has found that in obsessive ruminators, the same default network as the one that is activated during daydreaming switches on
E Other scientists distinguish between mundane musings and extravagant fantasies Michael Kane, a cognitive
psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, considers “mind wandering” to be “any thoughts that are unrelated to one's task at hand.” In his view, mind wandering is a broad category that may include everything from pondering ingredients for a dinner recipe to saving the planet from alien invasion Most of the time when people fall into mind wandering, they are thinking about everyday concerns, such as recent encounters and items on their to-do list
F According to Schooler, there are two steps you need to take to make the distinction First, notice whether you
are deriving any useful insights from your fantasies Second, it is important to take stock of the content of your daydreams To distinguish between beneficial and pathological imaginings, he adds, “Ask yourself if this is something useful, helpful, valuable, pleasant, or am I just rehashing the same old perseverative thoughts over and over again?” And if daydreaming feels out of control, then even if it is pleasant it is probably not useful or valuable
G Artists and scientists are well acquainted with such playful fantasizing Filmmaker Tim Burton daydreamed his
way to Hollywood success, spending his childhood holed up in his bedroom, creating posters for an imaginary horror film series Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006, imagined
“another world,” to which he retreated as a child, Albert Einstein pictured himself running along a light wave—a reverie that led to his theory of special relativity
H Like Facebook for the brain, the default network is a bustling web of memories and streaming movies, starring
ourselves “When we daydream, we're at the center of the universe,” says neurologist Marcus Raichle of Washington University in St Louis, who first described the network in 2001 It consists of three main regions that help us imagine ourselves and the thoughts and feelings of others, draw personal memories from the brain and access episodic memories
Your answers
IV WRITING
Rewrite the following sentences using the words given
126 The reason they did not give him the job was because he could not use a computer (inability)
Had it not
127 If there is a fire, people should not use the lift (event)
In
128 Harry knows about the new regulations so let’s ask him (brains)
Let’s
129 I managed to persuade John not to resign (talk)
I managed
130 Why did you have to cause so much trouble over something so unimportant? (dance)
Why did you have to ?
THE END