Đề thi thử tuyển sinh vào lớp 10 môn Tiếng Anh năm 2015 (Đề 1)

William Shakespeare was the greatest writer in the English language. He was born in 1564 in Stratford- upon- Avon. (1)_______ the age of eighteen he married Anne Hathaway, (2) ________ was eight years older than himself. A few years later he moved to London, where he worked as a actor and a playwright. Shakespeare (3)_______ thirty seven plays and 154 sonnets (a kind of poem). His most famous plays are the four great tragedies - Othelo, Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear. Shakespeare died in Stratford on 23 April 1616, (4)_______ his plays are still very popular today. They have been translated into different languages, and many of them have been (5) ________ into films, both in English and other languages. Shakespeare's plays are about the great issues of life - love, hatred, jealousy, power, ambition, death and so on. So, his plays are just relevant today as they were in the sixteenth century.

Every nation and every country has its own customs and traditions. In Britain traditions play a more important part in the life of the people than in other countries. Englishmen are proud of their traditions and carefully keep them up.

It has been the law for about 300 years that all theaters are closed on Sundays. No letters are delivered, only a few Sunday papers and published.

To this day an English family prefers a house with a garden to a flat in a modern house with central heating. English people like gardens. Sometimes the garden in front of the house is a little square covered with cement painted green in imitation of grass and a box of flowers.

Holidays are especially rich in old traditions and are different in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England. Christmas is a great English national holiday, and in Scotland it is not kept, except by clerks in banks, all shops and factories are working