SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO HÀ TĨNH 

ĐỀ THI CHÍNH THỨC

 KỲ THI CHỌN ĐỘI TUYỂN DỰ THI HỌC SINH GIỎI  QUỐC GIA THPT  

 NĂM HỌC 2024 – 2025 

 Môn thi: TIẾNG ANH 

 (Đề thi có 16 trang) 

Thời gian làm bài: 180 phút (không kể thời gian giao đề) Ngày thi: 19/9/2024 

– Thí sinh không được sử dụng tài liệu 

– Cán bộ coi thi không giải thích gì thêm.  

SECTION 1: LISTENING  

– The listening section is in FOUR parts. You will hear each part TWICE. At the beginning of  each part, you will hear a sound. 

– There will be a piece of music at the beginning and at the end of the listening section. You will  have TWO minutes to check your answers at the end of the listening section. 

Part 1. For questions 1-5, listen to part of a report about life expectancy, and decide whether each of  the following statements is True (T), False (F), or Not Given (NG) according to what you hear. Write  T, F, or NG in the corresponding numbered boxes provided. 

1. If we use the same method of calculating the average age of death, the life expectancy of humans will  be about 72 years, dogs 14 and loggerhead sea turtles 80. 
2. Life Expectancy After Babyhood is the method that is applied to calculate the life expectancy of  dogs, which excludes those that die prematurely. 
3. Maximum Life Expectancy, which takes into consideration the oldest member of a species, is applied  to turtles only. 
4. The infant mortality rate is higher among dogs and sea turtles than among humans, depending on the  extent of care that parents give to babies. 
5. While humans and dogs suffer from health deterioration in old age, a great many sea turtles, on the  contrary, can be sickness-resistant and survive well into seniorhood. 

Your answers: 

Part 2. For questions 6-10, listen to part of a talk about waste recycling and answer the following  questions. Write NO MORE THAN FOUR WORDS taken from the recording for each answer  6. What is important to encourage consumers to consider diverting the waste item from the landfill? _____________________________________ 

7. What is the trashcan – the first place to make a difference in waste recycling – called? _____________________________________ 
8. Where is AT&T deployed, apart from inside several stadiums for NFL, NBA and NHL? _____________________________________ 
9. Apart from creating a better understanding of material flows inside the arena, what is the system able  to do for the venue to ensure the funding of the recycling programs all the year round? _____________________________________ 
10. According to the speaker, the future of bettering the environment has never been brighter for all  technology, all recyclers, all venues and for whom? 

_____________________________________ 

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Part 3. You will hear an extract from a radio discussion about the possibility of space tourism. Write  the letter A, B, C, or D in the numbered boxes provided to indicate the correct answer to each of the  following questions according to what you hear. 

11. Ben says that commercial interests are  

 A hindering serious scientific research projects.  

 B trying to take over national space stations.  

 C increasingly involved in space travel research.  

 D likely to exploit tourists by overcharging.  

12 What is likely to be the main attraction of the suborbital trips?  

 A the inclusion of specialized training  

 B the chance to meet other risk-takers  

 C a completely new physical experience  

 D a chance to see the Earth from a new viewpoint  

13 Which aspect of the suborbital trip concerns Ben most?  

 A medical B psychological  

 C financial D professional  

14 He says that trips in the second stage might be for  

 A wedding venues. B older people.  

 C children’s adventure holidays. D company hospitality. 

15 The speakers agree that space tourism  

 A could have serious consequences for the Earth.  

 B should follow environmental guidelines.  

 C could destroy signs of life on other planets.  

 D needs more research before it should be allowed. 

Your answers: 

Part 4. For questions 16-25, listen to part of a talk about transparent solar panels, and complete the  following sentences. Write NO MORE THAN FOUR WORDS taken from the recording for each  blank. Write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided. 

Since transparent solar panels make it easy for us to harvest solar energy, architects are thinking of  covering the future high-rises with advanced panes of this 16____________________________ . Transparent luminescent solar concentrators or TLSC are comprised of 17______________________  which absorb invisible portions of natural light – infra-red and ultraviolet. 

According to researchers, it’s not the 18__________________________, but the potential scale for  development that matters most with transparent solar. 

As the potential for growth in see-through solar is obvious, several startups across the globe, such as  Ubiquitous Energy, ClearVue, Solar Gaps, are competing for a slice of this 19___________________ . ClearVue, a solar company based in Western Australia, has developed a technology using a spectrally  selective polyvinyl butyral interlayer, which has now been installed in the 20_____________________  of a shopping mall in the suburb of Perth. 

The panels that are used on the Swiss strawberry farm not only 21________________________ for  power generation but also affect the extent of their tint to boost the level of light getting through to the  precious plants inside. Basically using the same 22_________________________________, this  innovation helps those delicious crops photosynthesize and produce better yields. At Incheon National University, South Korea, a research team led by Professor Joondong Kim has  managed to invent a technology that creates power at phone-sized scales by blending 23 ______________________ and ____________________ . 

Although there is little likelihood that transparent solar will be a 24_____________________________,  combined with other clean energy sources, it can at least contribute to carbon neutrality, preserving the  25______________________________ of 21st century architecture.

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1. LEXICO-GRAMMAR  

Part 1. For questions 26-45, write the letter A, B, C, or D in the numbered boxes provided to indicate  the correct answer to each of the following questions. 

26. The military vehicles moved ______ through the rugged terrain, maintaining a tight formation for  safety and efficiency during their mission. 
27. in convoy B. on target C. in limbo D. on tap 27. When the celebrity scandal broke, it was all ______ of the tabloid newspapers. A. a bit on the side B. a spoke in the wheel C. grist to the mill D. par for the course 28. The uptight boss was aware that a lack of supervision would give employees ______ to slack off. A. autonomy B. license C. leeway D. agency 29. Julia feared that her 6-month hiatus from playing the piano would cause her musical skills to _____. A. atrophy B. align C. reconcile D. disseminate 30. Walter’s ______ was beginning to annoy his coworkers; although they appreciated the thought he  gave to his decisions, his inability to make up his mind was growing tiresome. 
28. vacillation B. solicitation C. rejuvenation D. admonishment  31. Although direct, forceful stances usually appeal to voters on the campaign trail, candidates usually  resort to ______ during debates to avoid alienating any potential supporters. 
29. pontification B. circumlocution C. logic D. exaggeration  32. Marullus’ reference to “chimney-tops” during his monologue in Julius Caesar is considered by  some historians ______, since such things are unlikely to have existed in Rome in the first century BC. A. a miscalculation B. an anachronism C. an idiom D. an interlocutor  33. The letter “h” at the end of Pittsburgh is ______ of American sentiments soon after World War I; it  was added as part of a movement during that time to make the names of American cities sound less  German. 
30. an inference B. an analogy C. a vestige D. an anomaly 34. Rather than endeavoring to write timeless fiction with lasting value, many novelists cater to the  ____ tastes of those modern readers who read a book once and then discard it. 
31. immoral B. fleeting C. valuable D. solid  35. In most modern societies, athletes are ______ in the same way that successful warriors were  celebrated by civilizations in years past. 
32. invoked B. repudiated C. lionized D. vilified  36. With the success of their new product, the company must be ______ it ______ with al the sales and  profits pouring in. 
33. sprucing … up B. hacking … off C. raking … in D. flipping … on 37. He was ____________ we had expected. 
34. by far much more efficient at written work than B. not more efficient in writing than  C. not nearly as efficient at working as a writer as D. efficiently working like 38. _______ when they learned that the chairman would not be able to join the meeting. A. When they realized why they were all there in that early time of the day 
35. Hardly had the committee learned the reason of the meeting 
36. However professional they tried to be seen 
37. It wasn’t until they got a phone call about an urgent meeting the next day 
38. As a seasoned magician, he also has a unique _____ for pickpocketing. 
39. dexterity B. acuity C. facility D. perspicacity 40. The renewed interest in vinyl records was a much needed _____ for the dying industry. A. shot in the arm B. breath of fresh air C. paragon of virtue D. baptism of fire 41. Social scientists believe that _____ from sounds such as grunts and barks made by early ancestors  of human beings.

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42. the very slow development of language B. language developed very slowly C. language, which was very slow to develop D. language, very slowly developing 42. Most critics agree that rather little ______ done by the artist after his illness has any great value. A. of what was B. of that was C. of that what was D. which has been 43. He ______safety goggles, but he wasn’t and, as a result, the hot steel badly damaged his eyes. A. could have been wearing B. must have been wearing  C. should wearing D. ought to have been wearing 44.______, Mrs. White went back to her room. 
43. There was no cause for alarm B. Without having a cause for alarm C. There being no cause for alarm D. Being no cause for alarm 45. Dobson’s overconfident and arrogant manner during press conferences was beginning to irritate his  associates; there was no need to be _____ about the success of an endeavor that had yet to be launched. A. capricious B. pious C. deferential D. supercilious 

Part 2. The passage below contains 05 grammatical mistakes. For questions 46-50, UNDERLINE  the mistakes and WRITE YOUR CORRECTIONS in the numbered space provided in the column on  the right. The first one has been done as an example. 

Part 3. For questions 51-55, write the correct form of each bracketed word in the numbered space  provided. The first one has been done as an example. 

Australia said it will fine internet platforms up to 5% of their global revenue for failing to prevent the  spread of misinformation online, joining a worldwide push to rein in (0. BORDER)________ tech  giants but angering free speech advocates. 

The government said it would make tech platforms set codes of conduct governing how they stop  dangerous (51. FALSE)__________ spreading, to be approved by a regulator. The regulator would set  its own standard if a platform failed to do so, then fine companies for (52. COMPLY)___________. The legislation, to be introduced in parliament on Thursday, targets false content that hurts election  integrity or public health, calls for denouncing a group or injuring a person, or risks disrupting key  infrastructure or emergency services. 

The bill is part of a wide-ranging regulatory (53. CRACK)___________ by Australia, where leaders  have complained that foreign-domiciled tech platforms are (54. RIDE)_____________ the country’s  sovereignty, and comes ahead of a federal election due within a year. 

Already Facebook owner Meta has said it may block professional news content if it is forced to pay (55.  ROYAL)___________, while X, formerly Twitter, has removed most content moderation since being  bought by billionaire Elon Musk in 2022. 

Your answers: 0. borderless

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III. READING  

Part 1. For questions 56-65, read the passage and fill in each of the following numbered blanks with  ONE suitable word. Write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes provided. 

Despite the near constant buzz in linguistics about endangered languages over the past 10 years, the  field has accomplished depressingly (56)__________. “You would think that there would be some  organized response to this dire situation, some attempt to determine which language can be saved and  which should be documented before they disappear,” says Sarah G. Thomason, a linguist at the  University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. “But there isn’t any (57)_________ effort organized in the  profession. It is only recently that it has become fashionable enough to work on endangered languages.”  Six years ago, (58)____________ Douglas H. Whalen of Yale University, “when I asked linguists who  was raising money to deal with these problems, I mostly got (59)________ stares.” So Whalen and a  few other linguists founded the Endangered Languages Fund. In the five years to 2001 they were able to  collect only $80,000 for research grants. A similar foundation in England, directed by Nicholas Ostler,  has raised just $8,000 since 1995. 

But there are encouraging signs that the field has turned the (60)________. The Volkswagen  Foundation, a German charity, just issued its second (61)_________ of grants totaling more than $2  million. It has created a multimedia archive at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the  Netherlands that can house recordings, grammars, dictionaries and other data on endangered languages.  To fill the (62)_________, the foundation has dispatched field linguists to document Aweti (100 or so  speakers in Brazil), Ega (about 300 speakers in Ivory Coast), Waima’a (a few hundred speakers in East  Timor), and a dozen (63)________ so other languages unlikely to (64)______ the century. The Ford  Foundation has also edged into the arena. Its contributions helped to reinvigorate a master-apprentice  program created in 1992 by Leanne Hinton of Berkeley and Native Americans worried about the  imminent (65)______ of about 50 indigenous languages in California 

Your answers: 

Part 2. Read the following passage and do the tasks that follow. 

Environmentally-friendly Vehicles 

1. In the early 1990s, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the government of California’s “clean  air agency”, began a push for more fuel-efficient, lower emissions vehicles, with the ultimate goal being  a move to zero-emissions vehicles such as electric vehicles. In response, automakers developed electric  models, including the Chrysler TEVan, Ford Ranger EV pickup truck, GM EV1 and S10 EV pickup,  Honda EV Plus hatchback, Nissan lithium-battery Altra EV miniwagon and Toyota RAV4 EV. Ford  Fusion is manufactured at Ford’s Hermosillo Stamping & Assembly plant, located in Sonora Mexico. I  thought going green was supposed to provide the US with more jobs. 
2. The automakers were accused of pandering to the wishes of CARB in order to continue to be allowed  to sell cars in the lucrative Californian market, while failing to adequately promote their electric vehicles  in order to create the impression that the consumers were not interested in the cars, all the while joining  oil industry lobbyists in vigorously protesting CARB’s mandate. GM’s program came under particular  scrutiny; in an unusual move, consumers were not allowed to purchase EVls, but were instead asked to  sign closed-end leases, meaning that the cars had to be returned to GM at the end of the lease period, with  no option to purchase, despite lesser interest in continuing to own the cars. Chrysler, Toyota, and a group  of GM dealers sued CARB in Federal court, leading to the eventual neutering of CARB’s ZEV Mandate. 
3. After public protests by EV drivers’ groups upset by the repossession of then cars, Toyota offered the  last 328 RAV4-EVS for sale to the general public during six months, up until November 22, 2002. Almost  all other production electric cars were withdrawn from the market and were in some cases seen to have  been destroyed by the manufacturers. Toyota continues to support the several hundred Toyota RAV4-EV 

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in the hands of the general public and in fleet usage. GM famously de-activated the few EVls that were  donated to engineering schools and museums. 

1917. Throughout the 1990s, appeal of fuel-efficient or environmentally friendly cars declined among  Americans, who instead favored sport utility vehicles, which were affordable to operate despite their poor  fuel efficiency thanks to lower gasoline prices. American automakers chose to focus their product lines  around the truck-based vehicles, which enjoyed larger profit margins than the smaller cars which were  preferred in places like Europe or Japan. In 1999, the Honda Insight hybrid car became the first hybrid to  be sold in North America since the little-known Woods hybrid of 1917. 
1918. In 1995, Toyota debuted a hybrid concept car at the Tokyo Motor Show, with testing following a year  later. The first Prius, model NHW10, went on sale on December 10,1997. It was available only in Japan,  though it has been imported privately to at least the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The  first generation Prius, at its launch, became the world’s first mass-produced gasoline electric hybrid car.  The NHW10 Prius styling originated from California designers, who were selected over competing  designs from other Toyota design studios. 
1919. In the United States, the NHW11 was the first Prius to be sold. The Prius was marketed between the  smaller Corolla and the larger Camry. The published retail price of the car was US$19,995. The NHWU  Prius became more powerful partly to satisfy the higher speeds and longer distances that Americans drive.  Air conditioning and electric power steering were standard equipment. The vehicle was the second mass 

produced hybrid on the American market, after the two seat Honda Insight. While the larger Prius could  seat five, its battery pack restricted cargo space. 

1. Hybrids, which featured a combined gasoline and electric powertrain, were seen as a balance, offering  an environmentally friendly image and improved fuel economy, without being hindered by the low range  of electric vehicles, albeit at an increased price over comparable gasoline cars. Sales were poor, the lack  of interest attributed to the car’s small size and the lack of necessity for a fuelefficient car at the time. The  2000s energy crisis brought renewed interest in hybrid and electric cars. In America, sales of the Toyota  Prius jumped, and a variety of automakers followed suit, releasing hybrid models of their own. Several  began to produce new electric car prototypes, as consumers called for cars that would free them from the  fluctuations of oil prices. 
2. In 2000, Hybrid Technologies, later renamed Li-ion Motors, started manufacturing electric cars in  Mooresville, North Carolina. There has been increasing controversy with Li-ion Motors though due to  the ongoing ‘Lemon issues’ regarding their product. And their attempt to cover it up. California electric  car maker Tesla Motors began development in 2004 on the Tesla Roadster, which was first delivered to  customers in 2008. The Roadster remained the only highway-capable EV in serial production and  available for sale until 2010. Senior leaders at several large automakers, including Nissan and General  Motors, have stated that the Roadster was a catalyst which demonstrated that there is pent-up consumer  demand for more efficient vehicles. 

GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said in 2007 that the Tesla Roadster inspired him to push GM to develop  the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid sedan prototype that aims to reverse years of dwindling market share  and massive financial losses for America’s largest automaker. In an August 2009 edition of The New  Yorker, Lutz was quoted as saying, “All the geniuses here at General Motors kept saying lithium-ion  technology is 10 years away, and Toyota agreed with US — and boom, along comes Tesla. So I said, ‘How  come some tiny little California startup, run by guys who know nothing about the car business, can do  this, and we can’t?’ That was the crowbar that helped break up the logjam.” 

Question 66-69: Choose the correct letter, A, B, c or D. 

66. What does the author think of the factory in Sonora in Mexico where the ford fusion is  manufactured? 
67. The factory should be helpful in the US soil business! 
68. Employment of US will be created as consumers change their awareness. 
69. More competitive cars will be introduced into the market! 
70. this issue is hard to give a predict. 
71. In 1990s, what dropped in America for the environmentally friendly vehicles? A. production B. Attractiveness C. Announcement D. Expectation

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68. What did GM notably send to engineering schools and museums? 
69. EV 1 B. CARB C. RAV4 D. MINI E 69. Nissan and GM high level leaders declared the real reason for the popularity of Roadster is its A. legendary concept B. huge population in market  C. bursting demand D. artistic design 

Questions 70-74: Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage In  boxes 70-74, write 

70. Some automakers mislead and suppressed the real demand for electric cars of keeping profit in certain  market by luring the want of CARB. 
71. Toyota started to sell 328 RAV4-EVS for taking up the market share. 
72. In some countries, American auto-makers would like grab opportunity to earn money in vehicle of  bigger litre engine cars rather than smaller ones 
73. Hybrids cars are superior vehicles that combine impression of an environmentally friendly electric  power engine and a lower price in unit sale. 
74. an inspiration to make effort to produce hybrid cars is to coping with economic difficulties result from  an declining market for General Motors. 

Questions 75-78: Complete the summary using the of words, A-K below. 

Write the correct letter, A-K in boxes 75-78. 

A ………75………. was firstly introduced by Car maker Toyota in 1995. Then it started for sale in 1997  with a new first generation model. Not only in Japan, but included other countries such as ………76………. and Oceania in which the Prius was imported to. The first generation Prius was the first car in mass  production which is powered by………77………..The model NHW10 was designed by a winning  Californian designer The innovated NHW 11 Prius has considerably higher running velocity and longer  distances than American counterparts. Still, the load capacity of current Prius version was 

limited in its ………78………. 

A electric car B United Kingdom C Market D concept car  E Emissions F battery G Consumers  

H gasoline-electricity I inspiration J cargo space K orientation 

Your answers: 

Part 3. For questions 79-88, read a passage adapted from President John F. Kennedy’s 1962 speech,  which has come to be called “We Choose to Go to the Moon.” Kennedy delivered the speech at Rice  University in Texas. Write A, B, C, or D in the corresponding numbered boxes provided to indicate  the correct answer which fits best according to what is stated or implied in the text. 

We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength, and  we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and  fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our  ignorance unfolds. . . .  

No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years  of man’s recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little  about the first forty years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals  to cover them. Then about ten years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct  other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity 

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began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago,  during this whole fifty-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power.  Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and  airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power,  and now if America’s new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.  

This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new  ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and  hardships, as well as high reward.  

So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this  city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited  and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward  — and so will space.  

William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and  honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome  with answerable courage.  

If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and  progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join  in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time. . . .  

This generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be  a part of it — we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the  planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but  by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of  mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding. 

Yet the vows of this nation can only be fulfilled if we in this nation are first. … In short, our leadership in  science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others,  all require us to make this effort … to become the world’s leading space-faring nation. We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and  they must be won and used for the progress of all people ….  

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all.  Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never  come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why  climb the highest mountain? Why, thirty-five years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? (1) 

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not  because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure  the best of our energies and skills. . . .  

(1) ‘This is a college sports reference. Kennedy’s audience (at Rice University) would have understood  the University of Texas at Austin to be the challenging athletic opponent of Rice.  79. Which statement best describes Kennedy’s purpose for giving this speech? 

1. To present a chronology of human achievements  
2. To explain the threat that other countries pose to the United States  
3. To encourage students to support the United States in the race to reach the moon   D. To promote increased funding for NASA and space exploration  
4. The word vistas in paragraph 4 most nearly means _______ 
5. palettes B. ceremonies C. scenarios D. undertakings 81. As used in paragraph 6, “enterprised” most nearly means  
6. undertaken. B. funded. C. promoted. D. determined.  82. What does Kennedy suggest about the motivations of other countries attempting to reach the moon?   A. They wish to embarrass the United States by reaching the moon first.  
7. They are trying to advance technology for the good of humanity.  
8. They want to use the moon for hostile military actions.  
9. They lack the scientific knowledge to accomplish their goals.  
10. Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?   A. (“Only last . . . tonight”) in paragraph 3 B. (“This is . . . new dangers”) in paragraph 4  C. (“We have . . . understanding”) in paragraph 8 D. (“We set . . . all people”) in paragraph 9 84. As used in paragraph 8, “founder” most nearly means 

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85. begin. B. innovate. C. dissolve. D. sink.  85. According to the passage, what does Kennedy say is true of progress?  
86. It creates new problems as it solves old ones.  
87. It was minimal until the invention of written language.  
88. It must be accomplished cooperatively with other countries.  
89. It leads to an increase in global hostilities.  
90. The statement in paragraph 9 (“In short, . . . space- faring nation”) supports the overall argument of  the passage in its suggestion that  
91. the monetary rewards for space exploration are too great to pass up.  
92. the U.S. military will never use space for strategic operations.  
93. the United States is better equipped than other nations to ensure that space remains a peaceful  frontier.  
94. the space race is an opportunity to solidify the position of the United States as a military  superpower.  
95. Based on the information in the passage, to what group can Kennedy’s audience best be compared?   A. Soldiers who were drafted for service and bravely served their country  
96. Farmers who have worked in the field for months and now see their harvest   C. Students who are studying and preparing for graduation  
97. Pioneers who are about to embark on a difficult but important journey  
98. Kennedy’s main purpose of including paragraphs 2 and 3 was to  
99. persuade the audience to fund the race to the moon.  
100. frame space exploration as a logical next step in human progress.  
101. warn of the potential hazards of technological advances.  
102. encourage audience members to be leaders of their generation.  

Your answers: 

Part 4. In the passage below, seven paragraphs have been removed. For questions 89-95, read the  passage and choose from paragraphs A-H the one which fits each gap. There is ONE extra  paragraph which you do not need to use. Write the letters A-H in the corresponding numbered boxes  provided. 

In 2023, the network now known as X began sharing ad revenues with its “premium” users, and I joined  Threads (which is owned by Meta), but all I ever see on it is strangers confessing to boring  misdemeanours. I remained on X, where everything got darker. People get paid, indirectly through  advertising, for engagement. Even that is a bit murky, since it’s described as “revenue sharing”, but you  don’t get to see which ads’ revenues were shared with you, so can’t measure revenue-per-impression. Is  X sharing it 50/50? Or 10/90? Are they actually paying you to generate hatred? 

As a result of these changes, says Joe Mulhall, head of research at Hope Not Hate, “the platform has been  flooded by individuals who were previously de-platformed, ranging from extreme niche accounts to  figures like Tommy Robinson and Andrew Tate”. We saw the real-life effects of this when  misinformation over the identity, ethnicity and faith of the killer of three young girls in Southport incited  explicitly racist unrest across the UK this August, such as hasn’t been seen since the 70s. X, Mulhall says,  “was a central hub not only for creating the climate for the riots, but also the organisation and distribution  of content that led to riots”. 

Governments, meanwhile, have no reliable redress, even when, as Mulhall puts it, “decisions made on  the west coast of America are demonstrably affecting our communities”. In April, Brazil’s president, Luiz  Inácio Lula da Silva, sought suspensions of fewer than 100 X accounts, for hate speech and fake news – mainly supporters of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, disputing the legitimacy of his defeat. X refused, 

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and declined to represent itself in court. On Monday, the Brazilian supreme court unanimously upheld a ban on the entire platform, arguing that it “considered itself above the rule of law”. 

“It’s not the first time we’ve had extremist content online,” says Saperia. “There are lots of bad platforms,  lots of bad things happen on them.” X’s problem may not be that its regulations are bad, but that its  enforcement is bad, he points out, and it is not alone in that. “Have you looked at the UK court system  lately? There are cases being heard from five years ago. If you don’t have laws, you don’t have a society.” 

Nevertheless, Hope Not Hate separates far-right online activism into three strains: mainstream platforms  – X, Instagram, Facebook – which aren’t into fascism but struggle to snuff it out, and arguably don’t  invest enough in moderation and regulation; co-opted platforms, such as Discord and Telegram, which  start off as chat sites or messaging services, and maybe due to their superior privacy or encryption,  become the favourite chat apps of the far right; and bespoke platforms, such as Rumble (part-funded by  the fundamentalist libertarian and billionaire Peter Thiel), or Gab (which became a nidus of primarily  antisemitic hatred after the perpetrator of the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting posted his manifesto there)  

Musk’s commitment to free speech is jaw-droppingly unconvincing: he used it to reject Lula’s demands  in Brazil, yet readily acceded to Narendra Modi’s demands in India, and suspended hundreds of accounts linked to farmers’ protests there in February this year. “Things like free speech are instruments  to Musk, rather than principles,” Mulhall says. “He’s a tech utopian with no attachment to democracy.” 

Governments look pretty powerless in the face of these massive tech companies. “Race hatred and  attempted murder is incubated on these platforms,” Mulhall says, “and people don’t even think it’s  possible to get Musk in front of parliament.” 

In Paris, the founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, is being formally investigated for his app’s alleged role  in organised crime, and Musk has been named in a cyberbullying lawsuit brought by the gold medallist Imane Khelif. The boxer, who was born female and has never identified as either trans or intersex, was  

subjected to libellous claims about her gender by numerous public figures – British politicians, JK  Rowling, Donald Trump – all on X.  

The EU has been more successful than the US in at least conceiving of social media giants as having the  same corporate responsibility as, say, a pharmaceutical or oil company, but regulation still races to catch  up with the changing reality, in which divisions are migrating faster than ever from the virtual to the real  world. 

MISSING PARAGRAPHS: 

1. After the race riots in August it transpired that one man, “keyboard warrior” Wayne O’Rourke,  convicted for inciting racial hatred on social media, was earning £1,400 a month from his activities on  X. The blowhard Laurence Fox declared last month that he earns a similar amount from posting on X.  O’Rourke had 90,000 followers; Tommy Robinson has more than a million, and it’s likely that he’s  making far more. 
2. Global civil society, though, finds it incredibly difficult to reject the free speech argument out  of hand, because the alternative is so dark: that a number of billionaires – not just Musk but also Thiel  with Rumble, Parler’s original backer, Rebekah Mercer (daughter of Robert Mercer, funder of Breitbart),  and, indirectly, billionaire sovereign actors such as Putin – are successfully changing society, destroying  the trust we have in each other and in institutions. It’s much more comfortable to think they’re doing that  by accident, because they just love “free speech”, than that they’re doing that on purpose. 
3. Back in 2016, the company then known as Twitter made video a key focus of its growth strategy,  which included the major step of signing exclusive contracts with the MLB, NFL and NBA to broadcast 

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games directly in the app. That also saw Twitter launch dedicated apps for Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV,  and Xbox One, enabling people to consume Twitter’s video content on their home TV sets. 

1. X might be both spur and muster point for civil unrest, from the January 6 US Capitol attack  to Southport and beyond, but we should also keep in mind, Saperia says, that “politics is moving to the  right, not just because of the media environment, but for complex economic reasons: the middle-class  west is getting poorer”. Donald Trump may have shocked the US legacy media by speaking directly to  voters with coarse, increasingly unhinged messaging, but if we think a contented population, secure in a  prosperous future, would have embraced his authoritarian lurch, we’re dreaming. 
2. Andrew Tate, meanwhile, may have been charged by the Romanian authorities with human  trafficking and rape, but his online misogynist fantasies of women as a slave caste, which have immense  global reach, have attracted no censure greater than de-platforming, by YouTube, Insta, TikTok and  Facebook – while the impact of these bans was lessened, even undone, by his freedom to operate on X.  
3. “Twitter has broken the mould,” Mulhall says. “It’s ostensibly a mainstream platform which  now has bespoke moderation policies. Elon Musk is himself inculcated with radical right politics. So it’s  behaving much more like a bespoke platform, created by the far right. This marks it out significantly from  any other platform. And it’s extremely toxic, an order of magnitude worse, not least because, while it still  has terms of service, they’re not necessarily implementing them.” 
4. “What we’ve seen,” says Ed Saperia, dean of the London College of Political Technology, “is  controversial content drives engagement. Extreme content drives engagement.” Creating toxic content  became a viable livelihood, which my 16-year-old, on football X, noticed way before I did: people saying  patently wrong things for hate-clicks. You might get a couple of thousand likes for noticing that David  Cameron looks like Catherine the Great, but that’s nothing like the engagement you’ll get for attacking  trans people, say. Those high-attention tweets go straight to the top of the For You feed, driven by a  “black box algorithm designed to keep you scrolling”, as Rose Wang, COO of another rival, Bluesky,  puts it, but the user experience is screeds of repetition on topics tailored to annoy you. 
5. So is it moral to remain on a platform that does so much to bring the politics of division and  hatred off the keyboard and into real life? Is X any worse than Facebook, or TikTok, or (for God’s sake!)  YouTube? And is it worse on purpose, which is to say, are we watching the unfolding of a Musk  masterplan? 

Your answers: 

Part 5. You are going to read an article about Captain Cook. For questions 96-105, choose from  the sections (A – D). The sections may be chosen more than once. 

In which section are the following mentioned? 

96 …….. Cook’s voyages enhancing knowledge in a range of fields  

97 …….. Cook’s fateful decision to challenge a figure of authority  

98 …….. the concept of giving up one’s life for a greater good  

99 …….. meticulous methodology being crucial to Cook’s achievements  

100 …….. remarkable coincidences facilitating Cook’s purpose 

101 …….. a change in circumstances clouding a situation 

102 …….. the abandonment of an enlightened approach 

103 …….. the privileged seeking to reinforce an image  

104 …….. the possibility of Cook being passed for a divinity  

105 …….. asking if Cook merely performed his duty or actively shaped regional policy  

The Changing Faces of Captain Cook 

A 

In the painting by Johann Zoffany which depicts the death of Captain James Cook – the tireless  eighteenth-century explorer – the captain is shown lying on the ground, mortally wounded and surrounded  by an angry group of half-naked warriors. The painting, in keeping with others of the late eighteenth  century, contributed to the growing demand for stylised depictions of heroic deaths of British officers.  This fashion reinforced the viewpoint that the British elite, at that time, were selflessly willing to sacrifice 

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themselves in the name of enlightenment and progress. During his career in the navy, Cook made three  important voyages into the Pacific. A quick look at a map of that area today will show reminders of that  time – for example, the Cook Islands, and Mount Cook on the South Island of New Zealand. B 

There is some controversy as to whether Cook should be regarded simply as part of the process which  led to Europe spreading its influence and strength into the Pacific or whether he played a more active  role. Either way, the significance of his discoveries remains immense. His expeditions contributed greatly  to the study of botany, anthropology, navigation, exploration, cartography, and medicine. In fact, his  greatest accomplishments probably stemmed from his thorough approach to whatever he undertook,  which led him to be able to consolidate the work of earlier explorers. Cook’s first two voyages into the  Pacific were characterised by his tolerance and forbearance towards the inhabitants of the islands he  visited and the importance he placed on the physical well-being of his crew. His recognition of the fact  that there was a huge cultural difference between his men and the islanders influenced his dealings with  the latter and the commands issued to the former. By contrast, his third and last voyage saw a different,  more irritable Cook, a man who frequently punished his own men for minor misdemeanors. Flogging  became a relatively common event and some crew members even began to plot mutiny. 

C 

On 16th January, 1779, Cook’s ships put in at Kealakekua Bay on Hawaii having first slowly  circumnavigated the island. He had decided that they should pass the winter in a warm region before  sailing to the west coast of America to restock the ships. The arrival of the ships coincided with the rituals  surrounding the worship of the god Lono. By landing at the bay where the temple of the god was situated  in this particular season, the expedition managed to fulfil with amazing precision the various legends  associated with Lono. Even the ship’s masts and sails bore some resemblance to the emblem of the god.  Speculation has it that the inhabitants of the island may have supposed Cook to actually be the god,  visiting them in human form, or that he was a human representative of the god. Either way, they welcomed  him with open arms and gave him help in stocking his ships with food. 

D 

The expedition’s departure happened to coincide with the end of this season of worship, no doubt further  adding to the islanders’ conviction that Cook was a man of importance to them. Unfortunately, the  expedition had to return to the bay after one of the ships suffered storm damage. On the island, it was  now a period dedicated to the worship of the god Ku, a deity opposed to Lono. Cook’s return was therefore  contradictory and confusing, and potentially upset the delicate relationship that had been previously  established. Events took a turn for the worse with his decision to confront the Hawaiian king after the  theft of one of his boats. This served to incur the wrath of the islanders and triggered a series of events  that led to his being killed by them on the beach of the bay while trying to flee from the island. 

Your answers: 

1. WRITING 

Part 1. Read the following extract and use your own words to summarise it. Your summary should be  between 100 and 120 words. 

In much-vaunted rhetoric, the eleventh of September 2001 has gone down in history books as ‘the day  the world changed forever’. This was seen as a positive change, with the majority of nations supporting  a clamp-down on terrorism on an international basis, and calling for more co-operation between  intelligence agencies and police forces. 

Unfortunately, a more sinister force was unleashed, and democratic countries that formerly valued the  freedom of the individual suddenly became the targets of criticism for non-governmental organisations  (NGOs) such as Amnesty International and civil liberties campaigners like Statewatch, an independent  group which monitors threats to privacy and civil liberties in the European Union. 

In some countries, civil liberties had already been compromised. Many Europeans had been living with  closed circuit television cameras in public places for many years, for example, and accepted their  existence as a necessary evil which would reduce the risk of street crimes, thus assuring the safety of the  majority. However, after the September 11th attacks, governments hastily dusted off and revived ancient 

statutes or drafted sweeping new acts which were aimed at giving themselves and the police considerably  more powers with a view to cracking down on terrorists, wherever they were to be found. In the decade prior to 2001, government policies were put in place which aimed to provide citizens with  access to information. People were empowered to check their personal data to ensure its accuracy  wherever the data was held (ie. – in banks, local government offices, etc). Now, though, draconian  measures were suddenly proposed, which included the storing of personal communications, including all  emails and phone calls, for at least one year, with all telecommunications firms having to keep records of  the names and addresses of their clients as well as the numbers and addresses of calls and emails sent by  them. Governments argued, quite convincingly, that such measures were necessary to combat terrorism,  and other benefits were also played up, such as improved ability to track child abductors. While balking  at the idea of telephone-tapping and uncontrolled information swapping among government agencies, the  public, by and large, have been receptive to other such measures, but they may yet live to regret their  compliance. 

Part 2. The graph below provides information about iPhone sales data in 2023.  

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons  where relevant. You should write about 150 words.

Part 3. Write an essay of 350 words on the following quote: 

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge and  experience.