I. Vocabulary & Grammar   (30%) 

Directions: There are 30 sentences in this section. Beneath each sentence there   are four words or phrases marked A, B, C and D. Choose ONE answer that best   completes the sentence. Write your answers on the Answer Sheet.

1. This problem   should be discussed first, for it takes ________   over all the other issues.

   A. precedence             B. prosperity          C. presumption                D. probability 

2. When you prepare   for your speech, be sure to cite ________ qualified   sources of information and examples. 

   A.   manipulated               B.  unbiased                C. distorted         D. conveyed

3. Turning   cultivated land back into forests or pasture is a fundamental way to stem   soil ________ and desertification in the   long run.

   A. erosion                B. depletion                    C. violation                  D. delusion

4. In that   country, a person who marries before legal age must have a parent’s ________ to obtain a license. 

   A. sanction               B. warrant                  C. malignance                D. affirmation 

5. The   discrepancy in the company accounts is so ________ that   no auditor could have failed to notice it. 

   A. spontaneous        B. conspicuous        C.   notorious          D. superfluous 

6. Furthermore,   if I were to leave him, he would ________,   for he cannot endure to be separated from me for more than one hour.

   A. prevail                 B. preside             C. perish                 D.   persecute

7. Childhood can   be a time of great insecurity and loneliness, during which the need to be   accepted by peers ________ great   significance.                                                  

   A. takes on                       B. works out

   C. brings about                    D.   gives in

8. The book might   well have ________ had it been less   expensive.                                                

    A. worked out               B. gone through        C. caught on        D. fitted in

9. I’ll have to ________ this dress a bit before the wedding next   week.                                

A. let off            B. let   go                C. let loose                  D. let out

10. The   integration of staff for training has led to a good exchange of ideas,   greater enthusiasm, and higher staff ________.

   A. moral           B. mortal         C. morale           D. mores

11. Artificial   intelligence deals partly with the ________ between   the computer and the human brain.

   A. profile        B. mighty           C. analogy           D. leakage

12. These   natural resources will be ________ sooner or   later if the present rate of exploitation continues.

A. depleted      B.   deployed        C.   inclined         D. mingled

13. It   is not ______much the language as the background that makes the book   difficult to understand. A. that            B. as                    C.   so              D. very

14. Human   choice, not the intrinsic content of science, determines the outcome and   scientists, as human beings, therefore have a special responsibility to   provide council rooted in ________.
     A. expiration      B. explanation      C. expertise        D. expenditure

15. Stocks are   not goods – they merely are ________, exchanging current cash flows from   future ones.

A. conducts        B. conduction          C. conduits            D.   products

16. A product is   to be regarded as being ________ when introduced into another country at less   than its normal value.  

A. discharged     B. discarded      C. disposed      D. dumped

17. The   government decided to take a ________ action to strengthen the market management.  

A. diverse      B. durable       C. epidemic       D. drastic  

18. Inflation   will reach its highest in a decade across most of Asia this year, threatening   to ________ recent productivity gains. 

A. reverse           B. reserve          C.   retrieve          D. revise

19. The students   seldom wash their own clothes; ________ they help their parents do some   housework.

A. rather than do            B. much less do 

C. much more do            D. much less

20. In linking   geographically disparate people, the Internet is arguably helping millions of   spontaneous communities to bloom: communities defined by common interests   rather than by the accident of ________.

A. affluence      B. reciprocity     C. contemporariness      D.   proximity

21. Mr. Brown’s   condition looks very serious and it is doubtful if he will ________.

A. pull back         B. pull through        C. pull up           D. pull out

22. Probably no   man had more effect on the daily lives of most people in the United States ________   Henry Ford, a pioneer in automobile production.

A. as was      B. than was         C. than did     D. as did

23. A ________ negative attitude of the engineers toward   projects funded by his company is the cause of the delay of signing the   contract.

A. perpetual     B. pernicious     C. preventive      D. pervasive

24. ________, domesticated   grapes grow in clusters, range in color from pale green to black, and contain   sugar in varying quantities. 

A. Their botanical classification as   berries          

B. Although their botanical   classification as berries   

C. Because berries being their botanical   classification

D. Classified botanically as berries

25.  Nothing   is so uncertain as the fashion market where one style ________ over another   before being replaced.

A. dominates          B. manipulates      C. overwhelms      D. prevails

26. Some of the   paintings formerly ________ the Italian   Renaissance artist are now thought to have been created by one of his   students.

A. submitted to        B. adapted from      C. denied by    D. attributed to

27. It is   absolutely essential that William ________ his study in spite of some   learning difficulties. 

A. will continue        B. continued     C. continue       D.   continues

28. People   who suffer from ________, for example, tend to have difficulties gauging   facial cues, so their attention is less influenced by where somebody is looking.  

A. autism        B. assertiveness        C.   extroversion       D. sociability

29. We’re   starting to realize that magicians have a lot of implicit knowledge about how   we perceive the world around us because they have to deceive us in terms of   controlling attention, exploiting the ________ we make when we do and don’t   notice a change in our environment.

A. imaginations       B. conceptions      C.   perceptions     D. assumptions

30.   The hospital denies there is any connection between the disciplinary action   and Dr. Reid’s ________ about health problems.

A. allegiance       B. alliance    C. allegations     D. alliteration

II. Reading   Comprehension (40%)

Directions: This part consists of two sections.   In Section A, there are four passages followed by a total of 20   multiple-choice questions. In Section B, there is one passage followed by a   total of 5 short-answer questions. Read the passages and write your answers   on the Answer Sheet.

Section A  Multiple-Choice   Questions (30%)

Passage 1

Questions 31   to 35 are based on the following passage.

Three hundred years ago news travelled by word of   mouth or 1etter, and circulated in taverns and coffee houses in the form of   pamphlets and newsletters. “The coffee houses particularly are very roomy for   a free conversation, and for reading at an easier rate all manner of printed news,”   noted one observer. Everything changed in 1833 when the first mass-audience   newspaper, The New York Sun, pioneered the use of advertising to   reduce the cost of news, thus giving advertisers access to a wider audience. The   penny press, followed by radio and television, turned news from a two-way   conversation into a one-way broadcast, with a relatively small number of   firms controlling the media.

Now, the news industry is returning to something   closer to the coffee house. The internet is making news more participatory, social   and diverse, reviving the discursive characteristics of the era before the   mass media. That will have profound effects on society and politics. In much   of the world, the mass media are flourishing. Newspaper circulation rose   globally by 6% between 2005 and 2009. But those global figures mask a sharp   decline in readership in rich countries.

Over the past decade, throughout the western world, people   have been giving up newspapers and TV news and keeping up with events in   profoundly different ways. Most strikingly, ordinary people are increasingly   involved in compiling, sharing, filtering, discussing and distributing news. Twitter   lets people anywhere report what they are seeing. Classified documents are   published in their thousands online. Mobile phone footage of Arab uprisings   and American tornadoes is posted on social-networking sites and shown on   television newscasts. Social-networking sites help people find, discuss and   share news with their friends.

And it is not just readers who are challenging the   media elite. Technology firms including Google, Facebook and Twitter have   become important conduits of news. Celebrities and world leaders publish   updates directly via social networks; many countries now make raw data available   through “open government” initiatives. The internet lets people read   newspapers or watch television channels from around the world. The web has   allowed new providers of news, from individual bloggers to sites, to rise to   prominence in a very short space of time. And it has made possible entirely   new approaches to journalism, such as that practiced by WikiLeaks, which   provides an anonymous way for whistleblowers to publish documents. The news   agenda is no longer controlled by a few press barons and state outlets.

In principle, every liberal should celebrate this. A   more participatory and social news environment, with a remarkable diversity   and range of news sources, is a good thing. The transformation of the news   business is unstoppable, and attempts to reverse it are doomed to failure. As   producers of new journalism, individuals can be scrupulous with facts and   transparent with their sources. As consumers, they can be general in their   tastes and demanding in their standards. And although this transformation   does raise concerns, there is much to celebrate in the noisy, diverse, vociferous,   argumentative and stridently alive environment of the news business in the   ages of the internet. The coffee house is back. Enjoy it.

31. According to the passage, what initiated the   transformation of coffee-house news to mass-media news?

A. The appearance of big mass media firms.

B. The emergence of advertising in newspapers.

C. The popularity of radio and television.

D. The increasing number of newspaper readers.

32. Which of the following statements best supports “Now,   the news industry is returning to something closer to the coffee house”?

A. Newspaper circulation rose globally by 6％between 2005 and 2009.

B. People in the Western world are giving up   newspapers and TV news.

C. Classified documents are published in their   thousands online.

D. More people are involved in finding, discussing   and distributing news.

33. According to the passage, which is NOT a role   played by information technology?

A. Challenging the traditional media.

B. Planning the return to coffee-house news.

C. Providing people with access to classified files.

D. Giving ordinary people the chance to provide news.

34. In “The coffee house is back”, coffee house best   symbolizes ________.

A. the changing characteristics of news audience

B. the more diversified means of news distribution

C. the participatory nature of news

D. the more varied sources of news

35. The author’s tone in the last paragraph towards   new journalism is ________.

A. optimistic and cautious   B. supportive   and skeptical

C. doubtful and reserved    D. ambiguous   and cautious

Passage 2

Questions 36   to 40 are based on the following passage.

The Welsh language has always been the ultimate   marker of Welsh identity, but a generation ago it looked as if Welsh would go   the way of Manx, once widely spoken on the Isle of Man but now extinct.   Government financing and central planning, however, have helped reverse the   decline of Welsh. Road signs and official public documents are written in   both Welsh and English, and schoolchildren are required to learn both   languages. Welsh is now one of the most successful of Europe’s regional   languages, spoken by more than a half-million of the country’s three million   people.

The revival of the language, particularly among   young people, is part of a resurgence of national identity sweeping through this   small, proud nation. Last month Wales marked the second anniversary of the   opening of the National Assembly, the first parliament to be convened here   since 1404. The idea behind devolution was to restore the balance within the   union of nations making up the United Kingdom. With most of the people and   wealth, England has always had bragging rights. The partial transfer of   legislative powers from Westminster, implemented by Tony Blair, was designed   to give the other members of the club – Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales   – a bigger say and to counter centrifugal forces that seemed to threaten the   very idea of the union.

The Welsh showed little enthusiasm for devolution.   Whereas the Scots voted overwhelmingly for a parliament, the vote for a Welsh   assembly scraped through by less than one percent on a turnout of less than   25 percent. Its powers were proportionately limited. The Assembly can decide   how money from Westminster or the European Union is spent. It cannot, unlike   its counterpart in Edinburgh, enact laws. But now that it is here, the Welsh   are growing to like their Assembly. Many people would like it to have more   powers. Its importance as figurehead will grow with the opening in 2003, of a   new debating chamber, one of many new buildings that are transforming Cardiff   from a decaying seaport into a Baltimore-style waterfront city. Meanwhile a   grant of nearly two million dollars from the European Union will tackle   poverty. Wales is one of the poorest regions in Western Europe – only Spain,   Portugal, and Greece have a lower standard of living.

Newspapers and magazines are filled with stories   about great Welsh men and women, boosting self-esteem. To familiar faces such   as Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton have been added new icons such as   Catherine Zeta-Jones, the movie star, and Bryn Terfel, the opera singer.   Indigenous foods like salt marsh lamb are in vogue. And Wales now boasts a   national airline, Awyr Cymru. Cymru, which means “land of compatriots,” is   the Welsh name for Wales. The red dragon, the nation’s symbol since the time   of King Arthur, is everywhere – on T-shirts, rugby jerseys and even cell   phone covers.

“Until very recent times most Welsh people had this   feeling of being second-class citizens,” said Dyfan Jones, an 18-year-old   student. It was a warm summer night, and I was sitting on the grass with a   group of young people in Llanelli, an industrial town in the south, outside   the rock music venue of the National Eisteddfod, Wales’s annual cultural   festival. The disused factory in front of us echoed to the sounds of new   Welsh bands.

“There was almost a genetic tendency for lack of   confidence,” Dyfan continued. Equally comfortable in his Welshness as in his   membership in the English-speaking, global youth culture and the new federal   Europe, Dyfan, like the rest of his generation, is growing up with a sense of   possibility unimaginable ten years ago. “We used to think. We can’t do   anything, we’re only Welsh. Now I think that’s changing.”

36. According to the passage, devolution was mainly   meant to ________.

  A. maintain   the present status among the nations

  B. reduce   legislative powers of England

  C. create a   better state of equality among the nations

  D. grant   more say to all the nations in the union

37. The word “centrifugal” in the second paragraph   means ________.

   A.   separatist    B. traditional       C.   feudal      D. political

38. Wales is different from Scotland in all the   following aspects EXCEPT ________.

  A. people’s   desire for devolution

  B. powers of the legislative body

  C. status of   the national language

D. locals’ turnout for the voting

39. Which of the following is NOT cited as an   example of the resurgence of Welsh national identity?

  A. Welsh has   witnessed a revival as a national language.

  B.   Poverty-relief funds have been allocated by the European Union.

  C. A Welsh   national airline is currently in operation.

  D. The   national symbol has become a familiar sight.

40. According to Dyfan Jones, what has changed is ________.

  A. people’s   mentality     B. pop culture

  C. town’s   appearance     D. possibilities for the people

Passage 3

Questions 41   to 45 are based on the following passage.

Just how much does the Constitution protect your   digital data? The Supreme Court will now consider whether police can search   the contents of a mobile phone without a warrant if the phone is on or around   a person during an arrest.

California has asked the justices to refrain from a   sweeping ruling, particularly one that upsets the old assumptions that   authorities may search through the possessions of suspects at the time of   their arrest. It is hard, the state argues, for judges to assess the   implications of new and rapidly changing technologies.

The court would be recklessly modest if it followed   California's advice. Enough of the implications are discernable, even   obvious, so that the justice can and should provide updated guidelines to   police, lawyers and defendants.

They should start by discarding California’s lame   argument that exploring the contents of a smartphone – a vast storehouse of   digital information – is similar to, say, going through a suspect’s purse. The   court has ruled that police don’t violate the Fourth Amendment when they go   through the wallet or pocketbook of an arrestee without a warrant. But   exploring one’s smartphone is more like entering his or her home. A   smartphone may contain an arrestee’s reading history, financial history,   medical history and comprehensive records of recent correspondence. The   development of “cloud computing,” meanwhile, has made that exploration so   much easier.

Americans should take steps to protect their digital   privacy. But keeping sensitive information on these devices is increasingly a   requirement of normal life. Citizens still have a right to expect private   documents to remain private and protected by the Constitution’s prohibition   on unreasonable searches.

As so often is the case, stating that principle   doesn’t ease the challenge of line-drawing. In many cases, it would not be   overly onerous for authorities to obtain a warrant to search through phone   contents. They could still invalidate Fourth Amendment protections when   facing severe, urgent circumstances, and they could take reasonable measures   to ensure that phone data are not erased or altered while a warrant is   pending. The court, though, may want to allow room for police to cite   situations where they are entitled to more freedom.

But the justices should not swallow California’s   argument whole. New, disruptive technology sometimes demands novel   applications of the Constitution’s protections. Orin Kerr, a law professor,   compares the explosion and accessibility of digital information in the 21st   century with the establishment of automobile use as a digital necessity of   life in the 20th: The justices had to specify novel rules for the new   personal domain of the passenger car then; they must sort out how the Fourth   Amendment applies to digital information now.

41. The Supreme Court will work out whether, during   an arrest, it is legitimate to ________.

　　A. search   for suspects’ mobile phones without being authorized

　　B.   check suspects’ phone contents without being authorized

　　C.   prevent suspects from deleting their phone contents

　　D.   prohibit suspects from using their mobile phones

42. The author’s attitude toward California’s   argument is one of ________.

　　A. disapproval

　　B. neutrality

　　C. tolerance

　　D. cautiousness

43. The author believes that exploring one’s phone   contents is comparable to ________.

　　A. getting   into one’s residence

　　B.   handing one’s historical records

　　C.   scanning one’s correspondences

　　D.   going through one’s wallet

44. In Paragraphs 5 and 6, the author shows his   concern that ________.

　　A.   principles are hard to be clearly expressed

　　B. the   court is giving police less room for action

　　C.   phones are used to store sensitive information

　　D.   citizens’ privacy is not effectively protected

45.Orin Kerr’s comparison is quoted to indicate that   ________.

　　A. the   Constitution should be implemented flexibly

　　B. new   technology requires reinterpretation of the Constitution

　　C. California’s   argument violates principles of the Constitution

　　      D. Principles of the Constitution should never be altered

Passage 4

Questions 46   to 50 are based on the following passage.

Many things make people think artists are weird and   the weirdest may be this: artists’ only job is to explore emotions, and yet   they choose to focus on the ones that feel bad.

This wasn’t always so. The earliest forms of art,   like painting and music, are those best suited for expressing joy. But   somewhere in the 19th century, more artists began seeing happiness as   insipid, phony or, worst of all, boring as we went from Wordsworth’s daffodils   to Baudelaire’s flowers of evil.

You could argue that art became more skeptical of   happiness because modern times have seen such misery. But it’s not as if   earlier times didn’t know perpetual war, disaster and the massacre of   innocents. The reason, in fact, may be just the opposite: there is too much   damn happiness in the world today.

After all, what is the one modern form of expression   almost completely dedicated to depicting happiness? Advertising. The rise of   anti-happy art almost exactly tracks the emergence of mass media, and with   it, a commercial culture in which happiness is not just an ideal but an   ideology.

People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders   of misery. They worked until exhausted, lived with few protections and died   young. In the West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful   mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers that their souls were   in peril and that they would someday be meat for worms. Given all this, they   did not exactly need their art to be a bummer too.

Today the messages your average Westerner is   bombarded with are not religious but commercial, and forever happy. Fast-food   eaters, news anchors, text messengers, all smiling, smiling. Our magazines   feature beaming celebrities and happy families in perfect homes. And since   these messages have an agenda – to lure us to open our wallets – they make   the very idea of happiness seem unreliable. “Celebrate!” commanded the ads for   the arthritis drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increase the risk   of heart attacks.

What we forget – what our economy depends on is   forgetting – is that happiness is more than pleasure without pain. The things   that bring the greatest joy carry the greatest potential for loss and   disappointment. Today, surrounded by promises of easy happiness, we need   someone to tell us as religion once did, Memento mori: remember that you will   die, that everything ends, and that happiness comes not in denying this but   in living with it. It’s a message even more bitter than a clove cigarette,   yet, somehow, a breath of fresh air.

46. By   citing the example of poets Wordsworth and Baudelaire, the author intends to   show that ________.

　　A. poetry is not as expressive of joy as   painting or music

　　B. art grows out of both positive and   negative feeling

　　C. poets today are less skeptical of   happiness

　　D. artists have changed their focus of   interest

47. The   word “bummer” (Line 5, Paragraph 5) most probably means something ________.

　　A. religious         B. happy     C. entertaining       D. unpleasant

48. In   the author’s opinion, advertising ________.

　　A. emerges in the wake of the anti-happy art

　　B. is a cause of disappointment for the   general peer

　　C. replaces the church as a major source   of information

　　D. creates an illusion of happiness   rather than happiness itself

49.   Which of the following is true of the text?

　　A. Religion once functioned as a reminder   of misery.

　　B. Art provides a balance between   expectation and reality.

　　C. People feel disappointed at the   realities of morality.

　　D. mass media tend to cover disasters and   deaths.

50. We   can learn from the last paragraph that the author believes ________.

　　A. happiness more often than not ends in   sadness

　　B. the anti-happy art is distasteful but   refreshing

　　C. misery should be enjoyed rather than   denied

　　D. the anti-happy art flourishes when   economy booms

Section B Short-Answer   Questions (10%)

Passage 5

Questions 51 to   55 are based on the following passage.

From 2007 to 2010, American households lost $l1   trillion in real estate, savings, and stocks. More than half of all U.S. workers   either lost their jobs or were forced to take cuts in hours or pay during the   recession. The worst may be behind them now, but the shocking losses of the   past few years have reshaped nearly every facet of their lives – how they   live, work and spend – even the way they think about the future.

For Cindy, the recession began when her husband was   relocated to Rhinelander, Wisconsin by his company forcing the family to move   in a hurry. The couple bought a new house but were unable to sell their   two-bedroom home in Big Lake, Minnesota. With two mortgages and two young   children to care for, Cindy couldn’t imagine how to stretch her husband’s   paycheck to keep her family fed.

Then she stumbled upon an online community called   Blotanical, a forum for gardeners, many with an interest in sustainability. “The   more I read and discussed these practices, the more I realized this would   help not only our budget but also our health,” she says.

Cindy admits that before the recession, she was a   city girl with no interest in growing her own dinner. “I grew flowers mostly –   I didn’t think about plants that weren’t visually interesting.” But to   stretch her budget, she began putting in vegetables and fruit – everything   from strawberry beds to apple trees – and as her first seedlings grew, her   spirits lifted. She no longer thinks of gardening and making her own jams as   just a money saver; they’re a genuine pleasure. “It’s brought us closer   together as a family, too,” she says. Her kids voluntarily pitch in with the   garden work, and the family cooks together instead of eating out. The food   tastes better – it’s fresher and organic – and the garden handily fulfills   its original purpose: cost cutting. Now she spends about $200 to $300 a month   on groceries, less than half of the $650 a month that she used to lay out.

After discovering how resourceful she can be in   tough times, Cindy is no longer easily discouraged. “It makes me feel proud   to be able to say I made it myself,” she says. “I feel accomplished, and I’m   more confident about attempting things I’ve never done before.” Now she   avoids convenience stores and has begun learning to knit, quilt and make her   own soap. “I don’t think I would have ever begun this journey if it weren’t   for the recession,” she says. “I have a feeling that from now on, it will   affect my family’s health and happiness for the better.”

51. What can you learn about the impact of the   recession from the first paragraph?

52. What made the family’s financial situation even   worse?

53. What did Cindy grow in her garden?

54. Why does Cindy view gardening as a genuine   pleasure?

55. What does Cindy think of the difficult times she   has gone through?

III.   Writing (30%)

Directions: In this part you are going to write an   essay of about 400-500 words within 60 minutes related to the following   topic. Write your essay on the Answer Sheet.

Actors from the Shanghai Kun Opera Troupe perform The   Orphan of Zhao, at the 1^st Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao   Greater Bay Area Chinese Opera Culture Festival, on Nov 5, 2020. The festival   was unveiled on Thursday in the Macao special administrative region. Peking   opera, Kun opera, Yu opera and Cantonese opera are all featured at the event,   collectively displaying the essence and charm of Chinese theater. 

How should traditional Chinese culture go global? Please develop your   point of view into an essay of about 400-500 words.