Đề thi thử THPT Quốc gia năm 2016 môn Tiếng Anh trường THPT Đoàn Thượng, Hải Dương (Lần 1)

Why is it that many teenagers have the energy to play computer games until late at night but can’t find the energy to get out of bed (35) ________ for school? According to a new report, today’s generation of children are in danger of getting so (36)_______ sleep that they are putting their mental and physical health at (37)_______. Adults can easily survive on seven to eight hours’ sleep a night, (38)_______teenagers require nine or ten hours. According to medical experts, one in five youngsters (39)________ anything between two and five hours’ sleep a night less than their parents did at their age.

This (40) _____ serious questions about whether lack of sleep is affecting children’s ability to concentrate at school. The connection between sleep deprivation and lapses in memory, impaired reaction time and poor concentration is well (41) _______. Research has shown that losing as little as half an hour’s sleep a night can have profound effects (42) ______how children perform the next day. A good night’s sleep is also crucial for teenagers because it is while they are asleep (43)______ they release a hormone that is essential for their ‘growth spurt’ (the period during teenage years when the body grows at a rapid rate). It’s true that they can, to some (44) ______, catch up on sleep at weekends, but that won’t help them when they are dropping off to sleep in class on a Friday afternoon.

By Tim Falla and Paul A.Davies, Solutions Advanced. OUP

The countryside of Britain is well known for its beauty and many contrasts: its bare mountains and moorland, its lakes, rivers and woods, and its long, often wild coastline. Many of the most beautiful areas are national parks and are protected from development. When British people think of the countryside they think of farmland, as well as open spaces. They imagine cows or sheep in green fields enclosed by hedges or stone walls, and fields of wheat and barley. Most farmland is privately owned but is crossed by a network of public footpaths.

Many people associate the countryside with peace and relaxation. They spend their free time walking or cycling there, or go to the country for a picnic or a pub lunch. In summer people go to fruit farms and pick strawberries and other fruit. Only a few people who live in the country work on farms. Many commute to work in towns. Many others dream of living in the country, where they believe they would have a better and healthier lifestyle.

The countryside faces many threats. Some are associated with modern farming practices, and the use of chemicals harmful to plants and wildlife. Land is also needed for new houses. The green belt, an area of land around many cities, is under increasing pressure. Plans to build new roads are strongly opposed by organizations trying to protect the countryside. Protesters set up camps to prevent, or at least delay, the building work.

America has many areas of wild and beautiful scenery, and there are many areas, especially in the West in states like Montana and Wyoming, where few people live. In the New England states, such as Vermont and New Hampshire, it is common to see small farms surrounded by hills and green areas. In Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and other Midwestern states, fields of corn or wheat reach to the horizon and there are many miles between towns.

Only about 20% of Americans live outside cities and towns. Life may be difficult for people who live in the country. Services like hospitals and schools may be further away and going shopping can mean driving long distances. Some people even have to drive from their homes to the main road where their mail is left in a box. In spite of the disadvantages, many people who live in the country say that they like the safe, clean, attractive environment. But their children often move to a town or city as soon as they can.

As in Britain, Americans like to go out to the country at weekends. Some people go on camping or fishing trips, others go hiking in national parks

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, almost nothing was written about the contributions of women during the colonial period and the early history of the newly formed United States. Lacking the right to vote and absent from the seats of power, women were not considered an important force in history. Anne Bradstreet wrote some significant poetry in the seventeenth century, Mercy Otis Warren produced the best contemporary history of the American Revolution, and Abigail Adams penned important letters showing she exercised great political influence over her husband, John, the second President of the United States. But little or no notice was taken of these contributions. During these centuries, women remained invisible in history books.

Throughout the nineteenth century, this lack of visibility continued, despite the efforts of female authors writing about women. These writers, like most of their male counterparts, were amateur historians. Their writings were celebratory in nature, and they were uncritical in their selection and use of sources.

During the nineteenth century, however, certain feminists showed a keen sense of history by keeping records of activities in which women were engaged. National, regional, and local women’s organizations compiled accounts of their doings. Personal correspondence, newspaper clippings, and souvenirs were saved and stored. These sources from the core of the two greatest collections of women’s history in the United States one at the Elizabeth and Arthur Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College, and the other the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College. Such sources have provided valuable materials for later Generations of historians.

Despite the gathering of more information about ordinary women during the nineteenth Century, most of the writing about women conformed to the “great women” theory of History, just as much of mainstream American history concentrated on “great men.” To demonstrate that women were making significant contributions to American life, female authors singled out women leaders and wrote biographies, or else important women produced their autobiographies. Most of these leaders were involved in public life as reformers, activists working for women’s right to vote, or authors, and were not representative at all of the great of ordinary woman. The lives of ordinary people continued, generally, to be untold in the American histories being published.