The word “this” in paragraph 2 refers to _____.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to

indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.

Most of the early houses built in America were suited to farm life, as it was not until cities became manufacturing centers that colonists could survive without farming as their major occupation. Among the earliest farmhouses in America were those built in Plymouth Colony. Generally they consisted of one large rectangular room on the ground floor, called a hall or great room and having a fireplace built into one of the walls, and a loft overhead. Sometimes a lean-to was attached alongside the house to store objects such as spinning wheels, firewood, barrels, and tubs. The furnishings in the great room were sparse and crudely built. Tabletops and chest boards were split or roughly sawed and often smoothed only on one side. Benches took the place of chairs, and the table usually had a trestle base so it could be dismantled when extra space was required. One or two beds and a six-board chest were located in one corner of the room. The fireplace was used for heat and light, and a bench often placed nearby for children and elders, in the area called the inglenook.

The original houses in Plymouth Colony were erected within a tall fence for fortification. However, by 1630 Plymouth Colony had 250 inhabitants, most living outside the enclosure. By 1640, settlements had been built some distance from the original site. Villages began to emerge throughout Massachusetts and farmhouses were less crudely built. Windows brought light into homes and the furnishings and décor were more sophisticated.

As more diversified groups of immigrants settled the country, a greater variety of farmhouses appeared, from Swedish long-style houses in the Delaware Valley to saltbox houses in Connecticut, Dutch-Flemish stone farmhouses in New York, and clapboard farmhouses in Pennsylvania. From Georgian characteristics to Greek revival elements, farmhouses of varied architectural styles and building functions populated the landscape of the new frontier.

Question 23: The main idea of the passage is  

The word "it" in paragraph 1 refers to

On what did the ancient Egyptians base their calculations?

The word “trigger” as used in the first paragraph is closest in meaning to which of the following?

It can be inferred from the passage that

According to the passage, which of the following is NOT a possible cause of any heart attacks?

According to the passage, which planet typically shines the most brightly?

What do the second and the third paragraphs of the passage mainly discuss?

Read the following passage and mark letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions

Until recently, hunting for treasure from shipwrecks was mostly fantasy; with recent technological advances, however, the search for sunken treasure has become more popular as a legitimate endeavor. This has caused a debate between those wanting to salvage the wrecks and those wanting to preserve them.

Treasure hunters are spurred on by the thought of finding caches of gold coins or other valuable objects on a sunken ship. One team of salvagers, for instance, searched the wreck of the RMS Republic, which sank outside the Boston harbor in 1900. The search party, using side-scan sonar, a device that projects sound waves across the ocean bottom and produces a profile of the sea floor, located the wreck in just two and a half days. Before the use of this new technology, such searches could take months or years. The team of divers searched the wreck for two months, finding silver tea services, crystal dinnerware, and thousands of bottles of wine, but they did not find the five and a half tons of American Gold Eagle coins they were searching for.

Preservationists focus on the historic value of a ship. They say that even if a shipwreck's treasure does not have a high monetary value, it can be an invaluable source of historic artifacts that are preserved in nearly mint condition. But once a salvage team has scoured a site, much of the archaeological value is lost. Maritime archaeologists who are preservationists worry that the success of salvagers will attract more treasure-hunting expeditions and thus threaten remaining undiscovered wrecks. Preservationists are lobbying their state lawmakers to legally restrict underwater searches and unregulated salvages. To counter their efforts, treasure hunters argue that without the lure of gold and million-dollar treasures, the wrecks and their historical artifacts would never be recovered at all.

Question 8: What is the main idea of this passage?

According to paragraph 3, teachers can recognize plagiarism because ______.

Read the passage and mark A, B, C or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.

Jupiter is the largest and most massive planet and is fifth in order of distance from the sun. It is well placed for observation for several months in every year and on average is the brightest of the planets apart from Venus, though for relatively brief periods Mars may outshine it. Jupiter‟s less than 10 hour rotation period gives it the shortest day in the solar system in so far as the principal planets are concerned. There are no true seasons on Jupiter because the axial inclination to the perpendicular of the orbital plane is only just over 3°-less than that for any other planet.

The most famous mark on Jupiter is the Great Red Spot. It has shown variations in both intensity and color, and at times it has been invisible, but it always returns after a few years. At its greatest extent it may be 40,000 kilometers long and 14,000 kilometers wide, so its surface area is greater than that of Earth. Though the latitude of the Red Spot varies little, it drifts about in longitude. Over the past century the total longitudinal drift has amounted to approximately 1200°. The latitude is generally very close to -22°. It was once thought that the Red Spot might be a solid or semisolid body floating in Jupiter‟s outer gas. However, the Pioneer and Voyager results have refuted that idea and proven the Red Spot to be a phenomenon of Jovian meteorology. Its longevity may well due to its exceptional size, but there are signs that it is decreasing in size, and it may not be permanent. Several smaller red spots have been seen occasionally but have not lasted.

Question 37: It can be inferred from the passage