Reading comprehension for Gifted sts

Discrimination against women in business, the demands of caring for families, and lack of business training had kept the number of women entrepreneurs small.. As Carolyn Doppelt Gray, an

Đọc đoạn văn sau và trả lời các câu hỏi:

In the early 1800s, to reach the jump-off point for the West, a family from the East of the United States could either buy steamboat passage to Missouri for themselves, their wagons, and their livestock or-as happened more often-simply pile everything into a wagon, hitch up a team, and begin their overland trek right in their front yard Along the macadamized roads and turnpikes east of the Missouri River, travel was

comparatively fast, camping easy, and supplies plentiful Then, in one river town or another, the neophyte emigrants would pause to lay in provisions For outfitting

purposes, the town of Independence had been preeminent ever since 1827, but the rising momentum of pioneer emigration had produced some rival jump-off points.

Westport and Fort Leavenworth flourished a few miles upriver St Joseph had sprung

up 55 miles to the northwest; in fact, emigrants who went to Missouri by riverboat could save four days on the trail by staying on the paddle-wheelers to St Joe before striking overland

At whatever jump-off point they chose, the emigrants studied guidebooks and

directions, asked questions of others as green as themselves, and made their final decisions about outfitting They had various, sometimes conflicting, options For

example, either pack animals or two-wheel carts or wagons could be used for the

overland crossing A family man usually chose the wagon It was the costliest and slowest of the three, but it provided space and shelter for children and for a wife who likely as not was pregnant Everybody knew that a top-heavy covered wagon might blow over in a prairie wind or be overturned by mountain rocks, that it might mire in river mud or sink to its hubs in desert sand-but maybe if those things happened on this trip, they would happen to someone else Anyway, most pioneers, with their farm background, were used to wagons.

1 What is the topic of this passage?

(A) Important river towns

(B) Getting started on the trip west

(C) The advantages of traveling by wagon

(D) Choosing a point of departure

2 All of the following can be inferred from the passage about travel east of the Missouri EXCEPT that it

(A) was faster than in the West

(B) was easier than in the West

(C) took place on good roads

(D) was usually by steamboat

3 The phrase "jump-off point" in lines 1, 13 and 18 is closest in meaning to

(A) a bridge across a river

6 The author implies in the passage that the early emigrants

(A) knew a lot about travel

(B) were well stocked with provisions when they left their homes

(C) left from the same place in Missouri

(D) preferred wagon travel to other types of travel

7 The word "neophyte" in line 9 is closest in meaning to

10 The expression "green" in line 19 is closest in meaning to

12 In line 28, the phrase "those things" refers to

(A) the types of transportation

(B) the belongings of the pioneers

(C) the problems of wagon travel

(D) the overland routes

C

C

C

Đọc đoạn văn sau và trả lời các câu hỏi: Until recently, most American

entrepreneurs were men Discrimination

against women in business, the demands of caring for families, and

lack of business training had kept the number of women entrepreneurs

small Now, however, businesses owned by women account for more than

5 $40 billion in annual revenues, and this figure is likely to continue

rising throughout the 1990s As Carolyn Doppelt Gray, an official

of the Small Business Administration, has noted, "The 1970s was the

decade of women entering management, and the 1980s turned out to

be the decade of the woman entrepreneur".

10

What are some of the factors behind this trend? For one thing, as

more women earn advanced degrees in business and enter the corporate

world, they are finding obstacles Women are still excluded from

most executive suites Charlotte Taylor, a management consultant,

15 had noted, "In the 1970s women believed if they got an MBA and worked

hard they could become chairman of the board Now they've found out

that isn't going to happen, so they go out on their own".

In the past, most women entrepreneurs worked in "women's" fields: cosmetics

20 and clothing, for example But this is changing Consider ASK Computer

Systems, a $22-million-a-year computer software business It was

founded in 1973 by Sandra Kurtzig, who was then a housewife with

degrees in math and engineering When Kurtzig founded the business,

her first product was software that let weekly newspapers keep tabs

25 on their newspaper carriers-and her office was a bedroom at home,

with a shoebox under the bed to hold the company's cash After she

succeeded with the newspaper software system, she hired several bright

computer-science graduates to develop additional programs When these

were marketed and sold, ASK began to grow It now has 200 employees,

30 and Sandra Kurtzig owns $66.9 million of stock.

Of course, many women who start their own businesses fail, just as

men often do They still face hurdles in the business world, especially

problems in raising money; the banking and finance world is still

35 dominated by men, and old attitudes die hard Most businesses owned

by women are still quite small But the situation is changing; there

are likely to be many more Sandra Kurtzigs in the years ahead.1 What is the main idea of this passage?

(A) Women today are better educated than in the past, making them more

attractive to the business world.

(B) The computer is especially lucrative for women today.

(C) Women are better at small businesses than men are.

(D) Women today are opening more businesses of their own.

2 The word "excluded" in line 13 is closest in meaning to

(A) not permitted in

D

A

(B) often invited to

(C) decorators of

(D) charged admission to

3 All of the following were mentioned in the passage as detriments to women

in the business world EXCEPT

(A) women were required to stay at home with their families

(B) women lacked ability to work in business

(C) women faced discrimination in business

(D) women were not trained in business

4 In line 17, "that" refers to

(A) a woman becomes chairman of the board

(B) women working hard

(C) women achieving advanced degrees

(D) women believing that business is a place for them

5 According to the passage, Charlotte Taylor believes that women in the

1970s

(A) were unrealistic about their opportunities in business management

(B) were still more interested in education than business opportunities

(C) had fewer obstacles in business than they do today

(D) were unable to work hard enough to succeed in business

6 The author mentions the "shoebox under the bed" in the third paragraph in order to

(A) show the frugality of women in business

(B) show the resourcefulness of Sandra Kurtzig

(C) point out that initially the financial resources of Sandra Kurtzig's business were limited

(D) suggest that the company needed to expand

7 In line 20, the word "this" refers to

(A) women becoming entrepreneurs

(B) women buying cosmetics and clothing

(C) women working in "women's fields"

(D) women staying at home

8 The expression "keep tabs on" in line 24-25 is closest in meaning to

(A) recognize the appearance of

(B) keep records of

(C) provide transportation for

(D) pay the salaries of

9 The word "hurdles" in line 33 can be best replaced by

(A) women prefer a small intimate setting

(B) women can't deal with money

(C) women are not able to borrow money easily

(D) many women fail at large businesses

11 The author's attitude about the future of women in business is

Đọc đoạn văn sau và trả lời các câu hỏi: While most desert animals will drink water

if confronted with it,

for many of them the opportunity never comes Yet all living things

must have water, or they will expire The herbivores find it in desert

plants The carnivores slake their thirst with the flesh and blood

5 of living prey One of the most remarkable adjustments, however,

has been made by the tiny kangaroo rat, who not only lives without

drinking but subsists on a diet of dry seeds containing about 5%

free water Like other animals, he has the ability to manufacture

water in his body by a metabolic conversion of carbohydrates But

10 he is notable for the parsimony with which he conserves his small

supply by every possible means, expending only minuscule amounts

in his excreta and through evaporation from his respiratory tract.

Investigation into how the kangaroo rat can live without drinking

15 water has involved various experiments with these small animals.

Could kangaroo rats somehow store water in their bodies and slowly

utilize these resources in the long periods when no free water is

available from dew or rain? The simplest way to settle this question

was to determine the total water content in the animals to see if

20 it decreases as they are kept for long periods on a dry diet If

they slowly use up their water, the body should become increasingly

dehydrated, and if they begin with a store of water, this should

be evident from an initial high water content Results of such experiments

with kangaroo rats on dry diets for more than 7 weeks showed that

25 the rats maintained their body weight There was no trend toward

a decrease in water content during the long period of water deprivation.

When the kangaroo rats were given free access to water, they did

not drink water They did nibble on small pieces of watermelon, but

this did not change appreciably the water content in their bodies,

30 which remained at 66.3 to 67.2 during this period.

This is very close to the water content of dry-fed animals (66.5),

and the availability of free water, therefore, did not lead to any

"storage" that could be meaningful as a water reserve This makes

35 it reasonable to conclude that physiological storage of water is

not a factor in the kangaroo rat's ability to live on dry food.1 What is the topic of this passage?

(A) Kangaroo rats

(B) Water in the desert

(C) Desert life

(D) Physiological experiments

2 The word "expire" inline 3 is closest in meaning to

(A) become ill

(B) die

A

B

(C) shrink

(D) dehydrate

3 Which of the following is NOT a source of water for the desert animals?

(A) Desert plants

(B) Metabolic conversion of carbohydrates in the body

(C) The blood of other animals

(D) Streams

4 The word "it" in line 3 refers to

(A) a living thing

(A) the economy with which it uses available water.

(B) living without drinking water.

(C) breathing slowly and infrequently.

(D) manufacturing water internally.

6 The word "parsimony" in line 10 is closest in meaning to

(A) less need for water than other animals.

(B) many opportunities for them to find water.

(C) their ability to eat plants.

(D) their ability to adjust to the desert environment.

8 The word "deprivation" inline 26 is closest in meaning to

(D) withholding.

9 According to the passage, the results of the experiments with kangaroo rats showed that

(A) kangaroo rats store water for use during dry periods.

(B) kangaroo rats took advantage of free access to water.

(C) there was no significant change in body weight due to lack of water or

accessibility to water.

(D) a dry diet seems detrimental to the kangaroo rat's health.

C

Đọc đoạn văn sau và trả lời các câu hỏi: "The economic history of the United

States", one scholar has written,

"is the history of the rise and development of the capitalistic system."

The colonists of the eighteenth century pushed forward what those

of the seventeenth century had begun: the expansion and elaboration

5 of an economy born in the great age of capitalist expansion.

Our excellent natural resources paved the way for the development

of abundant capital to increase our growth Capital includes the

tools-such as machines, vehicles, and buildings-that make the outputs

10 of labor and resources more valuable But it also includes the funds

necessary to buy those tools If a society had to consume everything

it produced just to stay alive, nothing could be put aside to increase

future productions But if a farmer can grow more corn than his family

needs to eat, he can use the surplus as seed to increase the next

15 crop, or to feed workers who build tractors This process of capital

accumulation was aided in the American economy by our cultural heritage.

Saving played an important role in the European tradition; it contributed

to Americans' motivation to put something aside today for the tools

to buy tomorrow.

20

The great bulk of the accumulated wealth of America, as distinguished

from that which was consumed, was derived either directly or indirectly

from trade Though some manufacturing existed, its role in the accumulation

of capital was negligible A merchant class of opulent proportions

25 was already visible in the seaboard cities, its wealth the obvious

consequence of shrewd and resourceful management of the carrying

trade Even the rich planters of tidewater Virginia and the rice

coast of South Carolina finally depended for their genteel way of

life upon the ships and merchants who sold their tobacco and rice

30 in the markets of Europe As colonial production rose and trade expanded,

a business community emerged in the colonies, linking the provinces

by lines of trade and identity of interest.1 With what subject is this passage mainly concerned?

(A) Geography

(B) Finance

(C) Economics

(D) Culture

2 The phrase "paved the way for" in line 7 is closest in meaning to

(A) paid for

(A) Training workers who produce goods

(B) Studying the cultural history of the country

(C) Consuming what is produced

(D) Planting more of a crop than is needed

8 It can be inferred from the passage that the European ancestors of early Americans

(A) sent many tools to America

(B) taught their skills to their offspring

(C) were accustomed to saving

(D) were good farmers

9 According to the passage, the emergence of a business community in the colonies was a result of

(A) efficient saving

(B) the immigration of wealthy bankers (C) the success of production and trade (D) the existence of manufacturing

A new trick

The conjurer was arranging a new stage trick, and on the day before its introduction

he asked his young son to help him "When I ask for a boy to come on the stage, you must come at once But you must not do anything or say anything that will make the audience think that you know me."

The boy said he understood everything and when the conjurer asked for help, he came forward quickly and was invited on the stage When he got there, the conjurer said:

"Look at this boy! He has never seen me before, have you, my boy?"

"No, father!" answered the boy

Sender: Pham Thuy Linh <thuylinh@vol.vnn.vn>

source: vnn.vn

I didn't see

A woman called in a repairman to fix her television Just as he

finished, the woman heard her husband's key in the lock

"Hurry!" she said to the repairman, "You'll have to hide my

husband is insanely jealous."

There was no time to run out the back door, so the repairman

hid inside the TV console

The husband walked in and sat down in his favorite chair to

watch some football Meanwhile, the repairman was inside the

TV, all squashed up, and getting hotter and hotter Finally, he

couldn't stand it anymore He climbed out, marched across the

room and out the front door

The husband looked at the TV set, looked at his wife, then

looked back at the TV set again, and said, "I didn't see the

referee send that guy off the field, did you?

Why are men and women so different ?

"Why are men and women so different?"

A woman has the last word in any argument

Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument