Đề thi học sinh giỏi Tiếng Anh lớp 10 tỉnh Vĩnh Phúc năm học 2011 - 2012

Three hundred and fifty years before the first men looked down on the amazingly beautiful surface of the moon from close quarters, Galileo’s newly built telescope (1) (ABLE)_________ him to look at the edge of the hitherto mysterious sphere. He saw that the apparently (2) (LIVE)_________ surface was not divinely smooth and round, but bumpy and imperfect. He realized that although the moon might appear (3) (ACT)_______, resembling a still life painted by the hand of a cosmic (4) (ART)____________, it was a real world, perhaps not very different from our own. This amounted to a great (5) (ACHIEVE)_________ hardly to be expected in his day and age, although nowadays his (6) (CONCLUDE)_________ may appear to some to be trivial and (7) (SIGNIFY)_____________. Not long after Galileo lunar’s observations, the skies which had previously been so (8) (ELUDE)_____________ revealed more of their extraordinary mysteries. Casting around for further wonders, Galileo focused his lens on the (9) (STRIKE)_____________ planet of Jupiter. Nestling next to it, he saw four little points of light circling the distant planet. Our moon it appeared, perhaps (10) (FORTUNE)____________ in the eyes of those fearful of what the discovery might mean, was not alone!

In recent years, there has been a remarkable increase into happiness. The researchers have come up a number of factors which contribute to a definition of happiness.

First of all, there is, in some people, a moderate genetic predisposition to be happy, in other words, happiness (1)_______ in families. And happiness seems to correlate quite strongly with the main dimensions of personalities: extroverts are generally happier, neurotics are less so.

Second, people often report good social relations as a reason for their happiness. In particular, friends are a great (2) ______ of joy, partly because of the agreeable things they do together, partly because of the way friends use positive non-verbal (3) ______ such as caressing and touching, to affirm their friendship. Marriage and similar (4) ______ relationships can also form the basis of lasting happiness.

Third, job satisfaction undoubtedly (5) ______ overall satisfaction, and vice versa - perhaps this is why some people are happy in boring jobs: it (6) ______ both ways. Job satisfaction is caused not only by the essential nature of the work, but (7)_____ by social interactions with co-workers. Unemployment, on the contrary, can be a serious cause of unhappiness.

Fourth, leisure is important because it is more under individual (8) ______ than most other causes of happiness. Activities (9) _____ sport and music, and participation in voluntary work and social clubs of various kinds, can give great joy. This is partly because of the (10) ______themselves, but also because of the social support of other group members – it is very strong in the case of religious groups.

Scientists have established that influenza viruses taken from man can cause disease in animals. In addition, man can catch the disease from animals. In fact, a greater numbers of wild birds seem to carry the virus without showing any evidences of illness.

Some scientists conclude that a large family of influenza virus may have evolved in the bird kingdom, a group that has been on earth 100 million years and is able to carry the virus without contracting the disease. There is even convincing evidence to show that virus strain are transmitted from place to place and from continent to continent by migrating birds.

It is known that two influenza viruses can recombine when both are present in an animal at the same time. The result of such recombination is a great variety of strains containing different H and N spikes. This raises the possibility that a human influenza virus can recombine with an influenza virus from a lower animal to produce an entirely new spike. Research is underway to determine if that is the way major new strains come into being. Another possibility is that two animal influenza strains may recombine in a pig, for example, to produce a new strain which is transmitted to man

Several hundred million years ago, plants similar to modern ferns covered vast stretches of the land. Some were as large as trees, with giant fronds bunched at the top of trunks as straight as pillars. Others were the size of bushes and formed thickets of undergrowth. Still others lived in the shade of giant club mosses and horsetails along the edges of swampy lagoons where giant amphibians swam.

A great number of these plants were true ferns, reproducing themselves without fruits or seeds. Others had only the appearance of ferns. Their leaves had organs of sexual reproduction and produced seeds. Although their “flowers” did not have corollas, these false ferns (today completely extinct) ushered in the era of flowering plants. Traces of these floras of the earliest times have been preserved in the form of fossils. Such traces are most commonly found in shale and sandstone rocks wedged between coal beds.

Today only tropical forests bear living proof of the ancient greatness of ferns. The species that grow there are no longer those of the Carboniferous period, but their variety and vast numbers, and the great size of some, remind us of the time when ferns ruled the plant kingdom.

As swimming became a popular recreation in England during the 1860s and 1870s, several (1) ______ sports developed, roughly patterned after land sports. (2) ______ them were water football (or soccer), water rugby, water handball, and water polo, in which players rode on floating barrels, painted to look (3) ______ horses, and struck the ball with a stick.

Water rugby became most popular of these sports, but somehow the water polo name became attached to it, and it's been attached (4) ______ since.

As played in England, the object of the sport was for a player to touch the ball, with both (5) ______, at the goal end of the pool. The goaltender stood on the pool deck, ready to dive on any opponent who was about to score.

Water polo quickly became a very rough sport, filled (6) ______ underwater fights away from the ball, and it wasn't unusual for players to pass out for lack of air.

In 1877, the sport was tamed in Scotland by the addiction of goalposts. The Scots also replaced (7) ______ original small, hard rubber ball with a soccer ball and adopted (8) ______ that prohibited taking the ball under the surface or, "tackling" a player unless he had the ball.

The Scottish game, which emphasized swimming speed, passing, and (9) ______ work, spread to England during the early 1880s, to Hungary in 1889, to Austria and Germany in 1894, to France in 1895, and (10) ______ Belgium in 1900.

Water polo was the first team sport added to the Olympic program, in 1900.