ĐỌC HIỂU – VSTEP READING Test 5
Thời gian: 60 phút
Số câu hỏi: 40
Directions: In this section of the test, you will read FOUR different passages, each followed by 10 questions about it. For questions 1-40, you are to choose the best answer A, B, C, or D for each question. Then, on your answer sheet, find the number of the question and fill in the space that corresponds to the letter of the answer you have chosen. Answer all questions following a passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage.
You have 60 minutes to answer all the questions, including the time to transfer your answers to the answer sheet.
PASSAGE 1 – Questions 1-10
The influx of Americans into Oregon in the 1840s ignited a dispute between Britain and the United States that, in its more intemperate phases, was accompanied by shrill demands in both countries for war. The argument originated in the fact that the boundaries of Oregon had never been clearly fixed. The name vaguely embraced the territory west of the Rockies between the northern boundary of Mexican-held California and the southern edge of Russian-held Alaska, which at the time extended south to parallel 54° 40'. In 1818, when America proposed a boundary at the 49th parallel an extension of the border with Canada that already existed east of the Rockies and the British suggested a line farther south, statesmen of both nations avoided the resulting impasse by agreeing to accept temporary "joint occupancy".
But by the early 1840s, the issue could no longer be avoided. Oregon fever and Manifest Destiny had become potent political forces. Though many eastern Americans considered Oregon country too remote to become excited about, demands for its occupation were shouted with almost religious fervor. Senator Thomas Hart Benton, for one, urged Congress to muster "thirty or forty thousand American rifles beyond the Rocky Mountains that will be our effective negotiators."
The Democratic Party made "54°40' or fight", an issue of the 1844 Presidential election and just managed to install James K. Polk, an ardent expansionist, in the White House. But despite their seeming intransigence, neither Polk nor the British government wanted to fight. And just about the time that Polk learned that the land lying north of the 49th parallel was useless for agriculture, the British decided the American market for goods was worth far more than Oregon's fast-dying fur trade. So they quietly settled for the 49th parallel, the boundary that the United States had proposed in the first place.
What is the main idea of this passage?
- A. The disagreement over the boundaries of Oregon was peacefully solved.
- B. The United States wanted more land than it needed.
- C. Politicians in 1840 favored war with Britain.
- D. The United States ended up by sharing Oregon with Canada.
- A. untimely
- B. initial
- C. immoderate
- D. uninformed
- A. repaired
- B. adjusted
- C. built
- D. established
- A. far away
- B. dangerous
- C. large
- D. uninteresting
- A. more people were living in Oregon at that time
- B. the expansionists made the situation a political issue
- C. more people were united in favoring the expansion and settlement of Oregon
- D. the Democratic Party
- A. superficial
- B. enthusiastic
- C. old
- D. moderate
- A. the Americans
- B. the British and the Americans
- C. the British
- D. the Democratic Party
- A. was a temperate man
- B. supported the occupation of Oregon by force
- C. felt negotiation was the best policy
- D. proposed and approved the final boundary decision
- A. the dying fur trade in Oregon
- B. the attraction of the American market for goods
- C. the condition of the land north of 49°
- D. the desire for a good fight
- A. got the land that it had originally demanded
- B. got less land than it had originally demanded
- C. got more land than it had originally demanded
- D. had no interest in the land involved in the dispute
PASSAGE 2 – Questions 11-20
For all their great diversity of shapes and sizes, glaciers can be divided into two essential types: valley glaciers, which flow downhill from mountains and are shaped by the constraints of topography, and ice sheets, which flow outward in all directions from domelike centers of accumulated ice to cover vast expanses of terrain. Whatever their type, most glaciers are remnants of great shrouds of ice that covered the earth eons ago. In a few of these glaciers the oldest ice is very ancient indeed; the age of parts of the Antarctic sheet may exceed 500,000 years.
Glaciers are born in rocky wombs above the snow line, where there is sufficient winter snowfall and summer cold for snow to survive the annual melting. The long gestation period of a glacier begins with the accumulation and gradual transformation of snowflakes. Soon after they fall, the snowflakes are reduced to compact, roughly spherical ice crystals, the basic components of a glacier. As new layers of snow and ice, snow that survives the melting of the previous summer, accumulate, they squeeze out most of the air bubbles trapped within and between the crystals below. This process of recrystallization continues throughout the life of the glacier.
The length of time required for the creation of glacier ice depends mainly upon the temperature and the rate of snowfall. In Iceland, where snowfall is heavy and summer temperatures are high enough to produce plenty of meltwater, glacier ice may come into being in a relatively short time say, ten years. In parts of Antarctica, where snowfall is scant and the ice remains well below its melting temperature year-round, the process does not become a glacier until it moves under its own weight, and it cannot move significantly until it reaches a critical thickness the point at which the weight of the piled-up layers overcomes the internal strength of the ice and the friction between the ice and the ground. This critical thickness is about 60 feet. The fastest moving glaciers have been gauged at between two and a half miles per year, and some cover less than 1/100 inch in that same amount of time. But no matter how infinitesimally slow, that movement distinguishes a glacier from a mere mass of ice.
This passage mainly discusses _____________.
- A. the size and shape of glaciers
- B. the formation of glaciers
- C. why glaciers move
- D. two types of glaciers
- A. restrictions
- B. height
- C. beauty
- D. speed
- A. It is a slow-moving glacier.
- B. One would expect glaciers in this part of the world.
- C. It contains some of the oldest ice in existence.
- D. It is an example of a well-formed ice sheet.
- A. birth
- B. snowflakes
- C. crystals
- D. Iceland
- A. air bubbles being trapped below
- B. snow and ice compressing the ice crystals
- C. formation of ice from snow that is about to melt
- D. Iceland
- A. enclosed
- B. hunted
- C. formed
- D. stranded
- A. Ice sheets move faster than valley glaciers.
- B. While valley glaciers move down a slope, ice sheets flow in all directions.
- C. Valley glaciers are thicker than ice sheets because of the restricting land formations.
- D. Valley glaciers are not as old as ice sheets.
- A. glacier
- B. weight
- C. critical thickness
- D. ice
- A. quickly
- B. naturally
- C. thoroughly
- D. notably
- A. the critical thickness of the ice
- B. the amount of ice accumulated
- C. the movement of the ice
- D. the weight of the ice
