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ĐỀ THI CHÍNH THỨC QUỐC GIA LỚP 12 THPT NĂM HỌC 2016-2017
Môn thi: Tiếng Anh - Vòng II
SỐ BÁO DANH:…………… (Khóa ngày 14 tháng 9 năm 2016)
Thời gian làm bài: 180 phút (không kể thời gian giao đề)
Đề có 11 trang
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Part 2. You will hear part of a talk by a writer who has written a book
about bread. For questions 7-14, complete the sentences.
Supermarket (7) ___________ believe that baking bread on the premises
attracts customers. About (8) ___________ of bread in Britain is no longer baked in
the old-fashioned way. In the past, it took (9) ___________ for the yeast to ferment.
Nowadays, the fermentation process is faster, and less
(10) ___________ is used. Unless salt is added, bread baked in the modern way is
(11) ___________. Calcium propionate can be sprayed on the bread to prevent it
from going (12) ___________. The speaker believes certain (13) ___________ may be
caused by modern bread-making methods. Supermarkets (14) ___________ on the
sale of bread.
Part 3. You will hear an interview with the television presenter Dan
Heckmond. For questions 15-20, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which
fits best according to what you hear.
15. Dan was particularly attracted to the idea of working on the programme
because…
A. it was a way of continuing his academic studies.
B. he agreed with the approach adopted by the team.
C. it involved working with experts in their subjects.
D. he welcomed the chance to visit interesting places.
16. How does Dan feel about the way topics are selected for the programme?
A. keen to ensure that his opinions are taken into account
B. worried that he hasn’t time to focus on the issues
C. sorry to play rather a minor role in the process
D. content to leave the main decisions to others
17. Dan says that any topic accepted for the programme must…
A. involve filming in a place with many picturesque views.
B. have at its heart a well-known mystery from the past.
C. give him the chance to engage in exciting activities.
D. require only a small amount of additional research.
18. When asked about those who criticise the series, Dan says that…
A. they may misunderstand its aims.
B. they are unfair to judge it by its style.
C. they underestimate how much it can achieve.
D. they might learn something from its methods.
19. What does Dan suggest about the first programme in the new series?
A. It was lucky to reach a conclusion.
B. It will fulfil the viewer’s limited expectations.
C. It should have addressed a much wider question.
D. It could make a valuable contribution to ongoing research.
20. How does Dan feel about including scenes where things go wrong?
A. certain that it will become a popular regular feature
B. unsure whether it’s the best use of programme time
C. worried that it might show his colleagues in a bad light
D. hopeful that it will provide insights into everyday archaeology
Part 3. For questions 46-50, fill each blank with a suitable preposition or
particle.
46. He showed great ingenuity ___________ solving the problem.
47. Don’t let him lure you ___________ agreeing.
48. You’re silly not to avail yourself ___________ this good opportunity.
49. The speaker made many allusions ___________ the new scheme.
50. Stop wasting time! Get to my office ___________ the double.
Part 4. For questions 51 -55, fill the following sentences with suitable
words in the box.
51. We must ___________ catch the 7.30 train. Otherwise, we won’t get to the
meeting in time.
52. She loved tennis and could watch it until the ___________ came home.
53. When I was growing up in Wales, a girl was considered to be ___________ if she
wasn’t married by the time she was twenty - five.
54. You need to have a strong ___________ to work in a slaughterhouse.
55. Don’t believe a word he says; it’s just another of his ___________ stories.
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use them interchangeably as (59) ___________ they mean the same thing, (60)
___________ they are not the same.
Although modern in (61) ___________ usage, the two words are derived from
ancient Latin. The word “civilization” is (62) ___________ on the Latin civis,
“inhabitant of a city.” Thus civilization, in its most essential meaning, is the ability
of people to live (63) ___________ harmoniously in cities, in social groupings. From
this definition it would seem that certain (64) ___________, such as ants or bees,
are also civilized. They live and work together in social groups. So (65) ___________
some microorganisms. But there is more to civilization, and that is (66)
___________ culture brings to it. So, civilization is (67) ___________ from culture.
The word culture is (68) ___________ from the Latin verb colere, “to till the
soil” (its past participle is cultus, associated with cultivate). But colere also has a
wider range of meanings. It may, like civis, (69) ___________ inhabiting a town or
village. But (70) ___________ of its definitions suggest a process of starting and
promoting growth and development.
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negligence
80. A. impeded B. choked C. hindered D. congested
81. A. records B. testimonies C. constructions D.
monuments
82. A. done B. worked C. customised D.
converted
83. A. equipped B. supplied C. drawn D. powered
84. Paragraph A __
85. Paragraph B __
86. Paragraph C __
87. Paragraph D __
88. Paragraph E __
89. Paragraph F __
90. Paragraph G __
ROBOTS
Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning
tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, onerous, or just plain nasty.
That compulsion has culminated in robotics - the science of conferring various
human capabilities on machines.
A. The modern world is increasingly populated by quasi-intelligent gizmos
whose presence we barely notice but whose creeping ubiquity has removed much
human drudgery. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our
banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with rote politeness
for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robo-drivers. Our
mine shafts are dug by automated moles, and our nuclear accidents - such as
those at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl - are cleaned up by robotic muckers fit
to withstand radiation.
Such is the scope of uses envisioned by Karel Capek, the Czech playwright
who coined the term ‘robot’ in 1920 (the word ‘robota’ means ‘forced labor’ in
Czech). As progress accelerates, the experimental becomes the exploitable at
record pace.
B. Other innovations promise to extend the abilities of human operators.
Thanks to the incessant miniaturisation of electronics and micro-mechanics, there
are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery
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with submillimeter accuracy - far greater precision than highly skilled physicians
can achieve with their hands alone. At the same time, techniques of long-distance
control will keep people even farther from hazard. In 1994, a ten-foot-tall NASA
robotic explorer called Dante, with video-camera eyes and with spiderlike legs,
scrambled over the menacing rim of an Alaskan volcano while technicians 2,000
miles away in California watched the scene by satellite and controlied Dante’s
descent.
C. But if robots are to reach the next stage of labour-saving utility, they will
have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few
decisions for themselves - goals that pose a formidable challenge. ‘While we
know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error,’ says one expert, ‘we can’t yet
give a robot enough common sense to reliably interact with a dynamic world.’
Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence (AI) has produced very mixed
results. Despite a spasm of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s, when it
appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to perform in
the same way as the human brain by the 21st century, researchers lately have
extended their forecasts by decades if not centuries.
D. What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human brain’s
roughly one hundred billion neurons are much more talented-and human
perception far more complicated-than previously imagined. They have built
robots that can recognise the misalignment of a machine panel by a fraction of a
millimeter in a controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse
a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 per cent that is
irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the woodchuck at the side of a winding
forest road or the single suspicious face in a tumultuous crowd. The most
advanced computer systems on Earth can’t approach that kind of ability, and
neuroscientists still don’t know quite how we do it.
E. Nonetheless, as information theorists, neuroscientists, and computer
experts pool their talents, they are finding ways to get some lifelike intelligence
from robots. One method renounces the linear, logical structure of conventional
electronic circuits in favour of the messy, ad hoc arrangement of a real brain’s
neurons. These ‘neural networks’ do not have to be programmed. They can
‘teach’ themselves by a system of feedback signals that reinforce electrical
pathways that produced correct responses and, conversely, wipe out connections
that produced errors. Eventually the net wires itself into a system that can
pronounce certain words or distinguish certain shapes.
F. In other areas, researchers are struggling to fashion a more natural
relationship between people and robots in the expectation that some day
machines will take on some tasks now done by humans in, say, nursing homes.
This is particularly important in Japan, when the percentage of elderly citizens is
rapidly increasing. So experiments at the Science University of Tokyo have
created a ‘face robot’ - a life-size, soft plastic model of a female heat with a video
camera imbedded in the left eye - as a prototype. The researchers’goal is to
create robots that people feel comfortable around. They are concentrating on the
face because they believe facial expressions are the most important way to
transfer emotional messages. We read those messages by interpreting
expressions to decide whether a person is happy, frightened, angry, or nervous.
Thus, the Japanese robot is designed to detect emotions in the person it is
‘looking at’ by sensing changes in the spatial arrangement of the person’s eyes,
nose, eyebrows, and mouth. It compares those configurations with a database of
standard facial expressions and guesses the emotion. The robot then uses an
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ensemble of tiny pressure pads to adjust its plastic face into an appropriate
emotional response.
G. Other labs are taking a different approach, one that doesn’t try to mimic
human intelligence or emotions. Just as computer design has moved away from
one central mainframe in favour of myriad individual workstations - and single
processors have been replaced by arrays of smaller units that break a big
problem into parts that are solved simultaneously - many experts are now
investigating whether swarms of semi-smart robots can generate a collective
intelligence that is greater than the sum of its parts. That’s what beehives and
ant colony do, and several teams are betting that legions of mini-critters working
together like an ant colony could be sent to explore the climate of planets or to
inspect pipes in dangerous industrial situations.
Questions 91-95. Do the following statements agree with the information given
in the Reading Passage ? In boxes 91-95 on your answer sheet write
YES if the statement agrees with the information
NO if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this in the passage
91. Karel Capek successfully predicted our current uses for robots. __
92. Lives were saved by the NASA robot, Dante. __
93. Robots are able to make fine visual judgements. __
94. The internal workings of the brain can be replicated by robots. __
95. The Japanese have the most advanced robot systems. __
Questions 96-98
Complete the summary below with words taken from paragraph F. Use NO MORE
THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
The prototype of the Japanese ‘face robot’ observes humans through a (96)
___________ which is planted in its head. It then refers to a (97) ___________ of
typical ‘looks’ that the human face can have, to decide what emotion the person
is feeling. To respond to this expression, the robot alters its own expression using
a number of (98) ___________ .
Part 3. You are going to read an extract from a magazine article. Six
paragraphs have been moved from the extract. Choose from the
paragraphs A-G the one which fits each gap(99-104).There is one
extra paragraph you do not need to use.
NATURAL TALENTS
In the mere seven million years since we humans separated from
chimpanzees, we haven’t had time to develop any differences: genetically
we’re still more than 98 per cent identical to chimps.
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That’s a large burden to place on a relative handful of genes. It should
come as no surprise, then, that modern studies of animal behaviour have
been shrinking the list of attributes once considered uniquely human, so
that most differences between us and animals now appear to be only matters
of degree.
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100
The earliest art forms may well have been wood carvings or body painting.
But if they were, we wouldn’t know it, because those materials don’t get
preserved. Not until the Cro-Magnons, beginning around 35,000 years
ago, do we have unequivocal evidence for a distinctly human art, in the
form of the famous cave paintings, statues, necklaces and musical instruments.
101
First, as Oscar Wilde said, “All art is quite useless”. The implicit meaning
a biologist sees behind this quip is that human art doesn't help us
survive or pass on our genes - the evident functions of most animal
behaviours. Of course, much human art is utilitarian in the sense that the
artist communicates something to fellow humans, but transmitting one’s
thoughts or feelings isn’t the same as passing on one’s genes. In
contrast, birdsong serves the obvious functions of defending a territory
or wooing a mate, and thereby transmitting genes. By this criterion human
art does seem different.
102
As for human art’s third distinction - that it’s a learned rather than an
instinctive activity - each human group does have distinctive art styles
that surely are learned. For example, it’s easy to distinguish typical
songs being sung today in Tokyo and in Paris. But those stylistic
differences aren’t wired into the singer’s genes. The French and Japanese
often visit each other’s cities and can learn each other’s songs. In
contrast, some species of birds inherit the ability to produce the
particular song of their species. Each of those birds would sing the right
song even if it had never heard the tune. It’s as if a French baby adopted
by Japanese parents, flown in infancy to Tokyo and educated there,
began to sing the French national anthem spontaneously.
103
Yet even connoisseurs would mistake the identity of two mid-twentieth
century artists named Congo and Betsy. If judged only by their works, they
would probably be identified as lesser-known abstract expressionists. In
fact the painters were chimpanzees. Congo did up to 33 paintings and
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drawings in one day, apparently for his own satisfaction, and threw a tantrum when his
pencil was taken away.
104
These paintings by our closest relatives, then, do start to blur some
distinctions between human art and animal activities. Like human
paintings, the ape paintings served no narrow utilitarian functions; they
were produced not for material regard but only for the painter’s
satisfaction. You might object that human art is still different because
most human artists intend their art as a means of communication. The
apes, on the other hand, were so indifferent to communicating with other
apes that they just discarded their paintings. But that objection doesn’t
strike me as fatal, since even some human art that later became famous
was created by artists for their private satisfaction.
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hybrid car propelled by a combination of an electric motor and petrol
engine may be the best compromise for those who want to help save the
planet and still have the convenience of a car. When you start the
hybrid car and when you are driving normally, power is provided by the
electric motor, which works with a battery. However, when the battery
starts to go flat, the petrol engine starts automatically and drives a
generator to recharge the battery. Similarly, when the car needs extra
power - in order to accelerate, for instance - the petrol engine provides
that power. This vehicle performs respectably, though not spectacularly: it
can go from 0 to about 100 kph in around 10 seconds, has a top speed of
165 kph, and below average fuel consumption.
C. And what of cars powered solely by electricity? Here the main
stumbling block has always been storing the electricity: batteries may
have come a long way, but they are still bulky and have to be charged
for long periods. The latest completely electric car, for example, has a top
speed of 60 kph and a range of 60 kilometres. It takes 6 hours to charge
the battery fully. But the makers claim this is perfectly acceptable for city
driving, when people are unable to go much faster or further in any case.
Many cities provide benefits such as free parking for drivers of electric
cars. But these vehicles are virtually confined to urban settings, which is
off-putting, and most people find electric cars have a toy-like appearance
which is definitely not appealing. Moreover, environmentalists point out
that while the car itself may not emit poisonous fumes, as is the case
with petrol-driven vehicles, this is of little real benefit to the
environment if the electricity used to drive the car has been generated by
coal or oil power stations, as is generally the case.
D. First developed for use in missions to the moon, fuel cells appear to
be the most serious challenger to the internal combustion engine as an
alternative source of energy for both mobile and stationary applications. A
fuel cell uses relatively straightforward technology that converts
chemical energy into electrical energy with benign by-products. In fact, the
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only by-products are water, which is harmless, and heat. The other
advantage is that fuel cells have no complex moving parts that need to
be cooled or lubricated. But rather than replacing the internal combustion
engine as the source of power for the vehicle itself, the fuel cell - in the
view of some manufacturers - will only replace the battery and alternator,
supplying electricity to vehicle systems, operating independently of the
engine. The actual drive power for the vehicle itself would still be provided
by the combustion engine. However, while fuel cells certainly hold a great
deal of promise, there are some drawbacks. They need a steady supply of
hydrogen, which needs to be extracted from some source, such as
methanol gas, and this process can be cumbersome. In one model that
uses fuel cells, the reformer required to extract the hydrogen from methanol
takes up so much space that the vehicle can only seat the driver and one
passenger,
E. Another possibility is represented by turbines. Gas turbines have
long been considered a possible mobile and smaller stationary power
source, but their use has been limited for a variety of reasons, including
cost, complexity and size. These large turbines shine when in steady-
state applications but are not as efficient when speed and load are
continually changing. However, a new generation of turbines -
microturbines - has been developed in large measure for use in
vehicles. They are small, high-speed engine systems that typically
include the turbine, compressor and generator in a single unit with all the
other vital components and control electronics. A different possibility in
terms of energy supply for cars is household gas. A special device
installed in a garage can compress the gas, which is then fed into the
car. A gas car is cheaper to run, as well as being cleaner than a
conventional car. On the other hand, the vehicle itself is expensive
because the technology is new, and environmentalists argue that a gas
car will produce only a little less carbon dioxide than petrol-driven
vehicles.
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F. In the meantime, various compromises are being employed as
temporary measures. For example, most diesel cars can now be converted
to run on biodiesel fuel, which is made from used vegetable oils and animal
fats. However, the environment lobby is not convinced that biodiesel helps
cut local air pollution by any significant amount. Many experts believe that
the ultimate solution to the problem of reducing dangerous emissions
ultimately lies with electric vehicles once the battery technology has
improved. Some experts even believe that the future may lie with steam cars,
and since the first genuine ‘automobile’ - a vehicle capable of moving itself
- was powered by steam more than two centuries ago, it could be that the
wheel is coming full circle.
SECTION FOUR: WRITING (35/ 200 points)
Part 1. For each of the sentences below, write a new sentence as
similar as possible in meaning to the original sentence, using the word
given. This word must not be altered in any way.
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