ĐỀ THI CHỨNG CHỈ B2 VÀ C1 CHUẨN CHÂU ÂU MÔN ĐỌC HIỂU SỐ 58

ĐỀ THI CHỨNG CHỈ B2 VÀ C1 CHUẨN CHÂU ÂU MÔN ĐỌC HIỂU SỐ 58 Passage 1 The railroad industry could not have grown as large as it did without steel.. Then the inventor Henry Bessemer disco

ĐỀ THI CHỨNG CHỈ B2 VÀ C1 CHUẨN CHÂU ÂU

MÔN ĐỌC HIỂU SỐ 58 Passage 1

The railroad industry could not have grown as large as it did without steel

The first rails were made of iron But iron rails were not strong enough to support heavy trains running at high speeds Railroad executives wanted to replace them with steel rails because steel was ten or fifteen times stronger and lasted twenty

times longer Before the 1870's, however, steel was too expensive to be widely

used It was made by a slow and expensive process of heating Stirring, and

reheating iron ore

Then the inventor Henry Bessemer discovered that directing a blast of air

at melted iron in a furnace would burn out the impurities that made the iron

brittle As the air shot, through the furnace, the bubbling metal would erupt in

showers of sparks When the fire cooled, the metal had been changed, or

converted, to steel The Bessemer converter made possible the mass production

of steel Now three to five tons of iron could be changed into steel in a matter of

minutes

Just when the demand for more and more steel developed, prospectors

discovered huge new deposits of iron ore in the Mesabi Range, a 120-mile-long

region in Minnesota near Lake Superior The Mesabi deposits were so near the

surface that they could be mined with steam' shovels

Barges and steamers carried the iron ore through Lake Superior to depots or: the southern shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Erie With dizzying speed

Gary, Indiana, and Toledo, Youngstown, and Cleveland, Chic, became major

steel-manufacturing centers Pittsburgh was the greatest steel city of all

Steel was the basic building material of the industrial age Production

skyrocketed from seventy-seven thousand tons in 1870 to over eleven million

tons in 1900

1 Which of the following is the best title for the passage

(C) Changing Iron into Steel (D) Steel Manufacturing Centers

2 According to the passage, the railroad industry try preferred steel to iron because steel was

(A) cheaper and more plentiful (B) lighter, and easier to mold (C) cleaner And easier to mine (D) stronger and more durable

3 According to the passage, how did the Bessemer method make the mass production of

steel possible?

(A) It directed air at melted iron in a furnace removing all impurities

(B) It slowly heated iron ore then stirred it and heated it again

(C) It changed iron ore into iron, which was a substitute for steel

(D) It could quickly find deposits of iron ore under the ground

4 The furnace that Bessemer used to process iron into steel was called a

shower

5 According to the passage where were large deposits of iron one uncovered?

6 In line 17 the words 'Barges and steamers could best be replaced by which of the

following?

7 It can be inferred from the passage that the mass production of steel caused

(A) a decline in the railroad industry (B) a revolution in the industrial world

(C) an increase in the price of steel (D) a feeling of discontent among steel work

Passage 2

The origins of the horse go back to eohippus the "dawn horse" of me

Eocene only 10 to 20 inches tall Like its relatives the ancient tapir and

rhinoceros, eohippus had four toes on its front feet, three on the rear, and teeth

adapted to a forest diet of soft leaves Eohippus died out about 5.1 million years ago in both North America and Europe

Late ancestral horse types moved from their forest niche out onto the

grassy plains Their teeth ac to accommodate to hard siliceous grass No longer could these protohorses slip away through thick forest when dancer threatened Escape now demanded speed and endurance Limbs crew longer Extra toes

became vestiges that were not visible externally

1 The passage mainly discusses the

(A) evolution of the horse (B) size of eohippus

(C) animals of the Eocene (D) plight of endangered species

2 The author states that eohippus was related to the

3 What did the eohippus eat?

4 In what way did predators present less of a threat to eohippus than to later proto horses

(A) Eohippus was hidden by the forest (B) Eohippus could run farther (C) Eohippus was not edible (D) Eohippus was larger and stronger

5 The paragraph following the passage most probably discusses

(A) other changes that the rhinoceros has undergone

(B) more reasons for the extinction of eohippus

(C) further development of early horse types

(D) the diet of eohippus

Passage 3

In terrestrial affairs we think of "big" as being complicated; a city is more intricate than a village, an ocean more complicated than a puddle For the

universe, the reverse seems to be the case bigger is simpler Galaxies have

some puzzling features, but on the whole, they are scarcely more complicated than the stars that compose them Beyond the galaxies, in the hierarchy of the

cosmos, there are clusters of galaxies; these clusters are loosely bound by the gravity of their largest members and tend to look very much the same in all

directions Simplest of all is the universe at large, it is far less complicated than the Earth, one of its most trivial members The universe consists of billions of

galaxies flying apart as if from an explosion that set it in motion, it is not lopsided, nor does it rotate The more thoroughly scientists investigate the universe, the

more clearly its simplicity shines through

1 What is the main point made in the passage?

(A) The Earth is more complicated than the solar system

(B) The universe is filled with puzzling materials

(C) The universe is a relatively simple phenomenon

(D) Galaxy clusters are an illusion

2 According to the passage, clusters of galaxies are

(A) indiscernible in the cosmos B) held together by gravity

(C) made up of only one or two galaxies D) created when stars explode

3 According to the passage, which of the following is the most complicated?

4 It can be inferred from the passage that future research will support which of the following

statements?

(A) Scientists in the past have been misled by the apparent simplicity of the universe (B) The chaos and confusion of the universe will never be understood

(C) Findings will confirm the belief that the universe is simple

(D) Billions of galaxies are predicted to explode, adding to universal complexity

Passage 4

Arid regions in the southwestern United States have become increasingly inviting playgrounds for the growing number of recreation seekers who own

vehicles such as motorcycles or powered trail bikes and indulge in hill-climbing contests or in carving new trails in the desert But recent scientific studies show that these off-road vehicles can cause damage to desert landscapes that has

long-range effects on the area’s water-conserving characteristics and on the

entire ecology, both plant and animal Research by scientists in the western

Mojave Desert in California revealed that the compaction of the sandy arid soil resulting from the passage of just one motorcycle markedly reduced the

infiltration ability of the soil and created a stream of rain runoff water that eroded the hillside surface In addition, the researchers discovered that the soil

compaction caused by the off-road vehicles often killed native plant species and resulted in the invasion of different plant species within a few years The native perennial species required many more years before they showed signs of

returning The scientists calculated that roughly a century would be required for the infiltration capacity of the Mojave soil to be restored after being compacted

by vehicles

1 What is the main topic of the passage?

(A) Problems caused by recreational vehicles

(B) Types of off-road vehicles

(C) Plants of the southwestern desert

(D) The increasing number of recreation seekers

2 According to the passage, what is being damaged?

(C) Roads through the desert (D) New plant species

3 According to the passage, the damage to plants is

(A) unnoticeable (B) superficial (C) long-lasting (D) irreparable

4 According to the passage, what happens when the soil is compacted?

(A) Little water seeps through (B) Better roads are made

5 What is happening to the desert hillsides?

(A) The topsoil is being eroded

(B) The surface is being irrigated

(C) There are fewer types of plants growing on them

(D) There are fewer streams running through them

6 According to the passage, what is happening to native plants in these areas?

(A) They are becoming more compact (B) They are adapting

(C) They are invading other areas (D) They are dying

7 It can be inferred that which of the following people would probably be most alarmed by

the scientists' findings?

Ecologists

Passage 5

Certainly one of the most intelligent and best educated women of her day,

Mercy Otis Warren produced a variety of poetry and prose Her farce The Group

( 1776) was the hit of revolutionary Boston, a collection of two plays and poems

appeared in 1790, and he three-volume History of the Rise, Progress, and

Termination of the American Revolution Interspersed with Biographical and

Moral, Observations appeared in 1805 She wrote other farces, as well as

anti-Federalist pamphlet Observations on the New Constitution, and on the Federal

and State Conventions (1788) There is no modern edition of her works, but

there are two twentieth-century biographies, one facsimile edition of The Group,

and a generous discussion of her farces and plays in Arthur Hubson Quinn's A

History of the American Drama From the Beginning to the Civil War Of her

non-dramatic poetry, critics rarely speak Mercy Otis was born into a prominent family

in Barnstable, Massachusetts In 1754, she married James Warren, a Harvard friend of James Otis and John Adams, comes Warren was to become a member

of the Massachusetts legislature just before the war and a financial aide to

Washington during the war with the rank of major general The friendship of the Warrens and Adamses was lifelong and close: Abigail Adams was one of Mercy Warren's few close friends Following the war James Warren reentered politics

to oppose the Constitution because he feared that it did not adequately provide for protection of individual rights Mercy Warren joined her husband in political battle, out the passage of the Bill of flights marked the end of their long period of political agitation

In whatever literary form Warren wrote, she had but one theme-liberty In her farces and history, it was national and political freedom In her poems, it was intellectual freedom In her anti-Federalist pamphlet, it was individual freedom Throughout all of these works, moreover, runs the thread of freedom (equal

treatment) for women Not militant, she nevertheless urged men to educate their daughters and to treat their wives as equals

1 Which of the following is the main topic of the Passage?

(A) Mercy Otis Warren and other poets of the Revolutionary War period

(B) The development of Mercy Otis Warren’s writing style

(C) Mercy Otis Warren’s contributions to American literature and society

(D) The friends and acquaintances of Mercy Otis Warren

2 In what year was Warren's pamphlet about the Constitution written?

3 Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a kind of writing done by Warren?

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4 The author implies that Mercy Otis Warren felt the Constitution would fail to Protect

5 In line 21 the word "but" could best be replaced by which of the following?

however

6 According to the passage the kind of liberty emphasized in Warren's poems was

religious

7 In lines 24-25, the author refers to Warren as "not militant" to indicate that she

(A) remained politically aloof

(B) did not continue agitating for a Bill of flights

(C) did not campaign aggressively for women's rights

(D) did not support military conscription