Smart Reading: Test 12

 Part I. Grammar＆Vocabulary (40％)

(   ) 1. Mike was grateful for the _____ his neighbors showed him after his house burned down.

(A) nonsense             (B) prejudice             (C) supervision   (D) hospitality

(   ) 2. The compound is surrounded on all four sides by a 25-foot-tall _____ wall that's reinforced with steel beams.

(A) amateur               (B) concrete              (C) eloquent       (D) stubborn

(   ) 3. The city set a monument at the _____ of the terrorist attack in memory of the innocent victims.

(A) site                      (B) genre                   (C) filter             (D) ritual

(   ) 4. If you don’t take your job more _____, you're destined to get yourself fired.

(A) dense                   (B) naively                (C) seriously       (D) ironically

(   ) 5. With a GPS device, drivers can now easily _____ of their way through any city.

(A) engage                (B) prolong               (C) navigate        (D) evacuate

(   ) 6. The of space in the room was created by the use of white paint and mirrors.

(A) emission              (B) illusion                (C) collision       (D) precision

(   ) 7. The riverfront property we're interested in _____ a beautiful park and flower garden.

(A) overhears            (B) overcomes          (C) overturns      (D) overlooks

(   ) 8. After several of his friends died from lung cancer, Joe made a _____ to quit smoking.

(A) reservation          (B) resolution            (C) revolution     (D) repetition

(   ) 9. We all share a _____ responsibility to protect the planet and ensure its existence for future generations.

(A) collective             (B) skeptical              (C) luxurious      (D) miniature

(   ) 10. Instead of _____ your old furniture, you should donate it to people who can reuse the pieces.

(A) slowing down     (B) tossing out          (C) dropping out of   (D) cracking down on

 

Part II. Fill-in-the-Blank (40%)

(A) feast             (B) cliff              (C) distinct         (D) fort               (E) shelf life

(F) bloom           (G) highly          (H) brighten       (I) dissolved       (J) disposed of

(   ) 11. There's no _____ for paper products like napkins because they won't go bad like food.

(   ) 12. _____ suspicious of everyone and everything, the paranoid man rarely leaves his house.

(   ) 13. You're in for a visual _____ with that film because it's filled with amazing special effects.

(   ) 14. The boys built a small _____ in their backyard and pretended they were defending their lands.

(   ) 15. The sugar that I put in my hot coffee _____ when I stirred it.

(   ) 16. One of the advantages of living on a tropical island is that flowers _____ all year round.

(   ) 17. After encouragement from his friends, Marcus dove from the edge of the _____ and into the sea.

(   ) 18. It turned out the wildfire was caused by a camper who hadn't properly _____ his cigarette butt.

(   ) 19. Needing something to _____ up his life, Josh signed up for a scuba diving course.

(   ) 20. Two _____ voices, one deep and male and the other melodic and female, were heard singing.

 

Part III. Reading Comprehension (20%)

Are you just like me and guilty of flushing expired medication down the toilet? I never used to give much thought to the consequences of my actions because I thought the drugs would just be taken care of at waste treatment plants. While my thinking was not wrong, it's not completely correct, either.

A large portion of the medication that gets flushed down sinks and toilets gets filtered out, but when the quantities are excessively high, there's no way to prevent some of the harmful substances from entering our water supply. Similarly, drugs that are dumped at landfills break down when it rains and make their way into our rivers, lakes, and oceans via the groundwater. These chemicals pose an immediate risk to the creatures and plants that call these bodies of water home. Fish populations have been affected by ibuprofen, a drug people take to relieve pain. Furthermore, the ratios of male to female fish have changed with the introduction of hormones taken by humans. Some fish have even been found with both male and female sex characteristics.

The next time you want to chuck your unused medicine down the toilet, don't. Instead, contact your local health department to find out how to discard them properly or pass them on to a pharmacy or hospital that will gladly take them off your hands.

(   ) 21. How has medicine in the water supply impacted the natural world, according to the article?

(A) Sea creatures have lost the sensation of pain.

(B) Fish with sexual organs from both genders now exist.

(C) The ratio of human males to females has been altered.

(D) Water-based plants have grown larger thanks to human hormones.

(   ) 22. What does "chuck" in the last paragraph mean?

(A) Call off             (B) Send for              (C) Hand over        (D) Throw away

(   ) 23. Which of the following is the proper way of discarding unwanted medicine?

(A) Burying it at a landfill.                       (B) Donating it to a charity.

(C) Giving it to a medical facility.            (D) Forcing it down the drain.

(   ) 24. What is implied about the author?

(A) He no longer tosses his medication away.

(B) He only gets his hormones from a hospital.

(C) He still flushes medicine down the toilet.

(D) He has kicked his drug habit.