Đề ôn thi HSG môn tiếng Anh 1

PRACTICE TEST 2 (7.4.22)
LEXICO-GRAMMAR
1. As courageous as he seems to be, Falstaff is nothing but a _____ coward who would flee first in the
face of threat.
A stoic
B spineless
C deviant
D shrewd
2. The game turned into a _____ when Harry caught the golden snitch, with the Gryffindor winning by
180 to 40.
A rout
B shutout
C fit
D bash
3. “Under the hawthorn” is a(n) _____ tale of pure young love set during the Cultural Revolution that
has brought many people to tears.
A amorous
B poignant
C mordant
D doting
4. When the school year ends and I won’t have to meet my annoying deskmate again, I will definitely
tell her the _____!
A Ps and Qs
B home truth
C good grief
D nuts and bolts
5. I had an ambition of getting the First prize in the National Contest, but I knew it was just a _____ in
the sky.
A pig
B star
C buffalo

D pie
6. After having a whale of a time at my wedding yesterday, my colleague was looking a little _____ when
he came to work this morning.
A around the bend
B in a fog
C off his trolley
D green around the gills
7. Temporarily, the number of COVID-19 cases has ceased to increase, but I can see more problems
_____.
A carrying the day
B coming down the pike
C arriving on the scene
D drifting with the tide
8. The authority seems powerless to _____ of violence across the city after the new law was
implemented.
A beat the air
B hold the fire
C stem the tide
D step off the curb
9. The small-scale demonstration later escalated into a _____ battle with the police, involving more than
800 protesters and causing serious traffic congestion across the city.
A pitched
B racked
C heaped
D scrap
10. What this government is doing to its female citizens is clearly gender discrimination under the
_____ of religion.
A gown
B coat
C cape

D cloak
11. In the system of constitutional monarchy, the Queen may have privilege but she has no real
political _____.
A loft
B swathe
C clout
D nought
12. The needs of today's children cannot be met by the traditional _____ of education we’re using, in
which emphasis is placed solely on theoretical knowledge.
A prototype
B paradigm
C emblem
D epitome
13. Newspapers _____ tributes to Professor Albus Dumbledore after his heroic sacrifice in the battle
against the evils.
A bristled with
B hedged in
C plucked at
D talked into
14. My parents thought the costs of the trip would only remain in their calculations, but unexpected
additional expenses later _____ their budget.
A drank in
B gobbled up
C harped on
D copped out

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15. Scout decided that her brother Jem needed some time to _____ after a terrible night so she tried to

keep some distance from him.
A cry off
B drill down
C come off
D simmer down
Word form
1. Many gun shops offer ____gunsmith____ services on the premises for customers to buy, custom and
fix right at the shop. (GUN)
2. The science fair is an annual event of this school and is regarded as a(n) _____ of their scientific
superiority. (SHOW)
3. With so many areas of ancient ____woodland____ being cut down, many rare species are put under
threat of habitat loss and extinction. (WOOD)
4. My children always take pride in their grandmother, who is a(n) _____ of the Vietnam People’s Navy
with lots of old stories to tell. (SERVICE)
5. My whole family has agreed on the living room design but wood ____flooring___ is still something
that requires consideration due to its cost. (FLOOR)
READING
Part 1. For questions 1-13, read the following passage and do the tasks that follow.
Bismarck: A master of political and diplomatic juggling?
A. Otto Von Bismarck’s rise up the political ladder was swift and relentless. Having entered parliament
in 1847, he always harboured lofty ambitions, chief among them perhaps being the reunification of
Germany into one strong, centrally controlled state, though his own personal thirst for power was
arguably even stronger. On becoming Prussian Chancellor, he set about fulfilling his ambitions and in
doing so proved himself to be a diplomat of some considerable skill. Victory in the Austro-Prussian
war effectively ended Austria as a factor in German affairs. His political and military juggling was
taken a step further when he orchestrated a situation where France declared war on Germany in
1870, making the French seem responsible for a conflict he had always intended to create. And
following another swift military triumph, this time over the French, the German empire was
proclaimed in January 1871.
B. In little more than nine years, Bismarck realised his lifelong ambition, steering Germany to

reunification. And by defeating Austria and France in quick succession, he also created a power
vacuum on mainland Europe, which he was determined to fulfill himself. This was another
opportunity for Bismarck to demonstrate his political and diplomatic cunning. He set about creating a
dictatorial Germany in which he, as head of the Prussian parliament, would automatically become
chancellor of the German empire. He drafted a new German constitution to suit his own purposes and,
despite maintaining a veneer of democracy, the German parliament was effectively powerless to
oppose him. Provinces that were slow to support him were enticed with bribes and before long the
German empire was his to command.
C. It is a testament to his political skill that Bismarck achieved so much so quickly. At this point in his
colourful political career, he did appear, for all intents and purposes, a master of political and
diplomatic juggling. But challenges lay ahead and Bismarck’s next target was the Catholic church,
which he deemed too powerful and a threat to his political dominance. He proceeded to enact a series
of laws that seriously eroded the power of the church. However, his plans backfired and Bismarck was
forced to make a political U-turn. Though here again, he somehow managed to save face. The damage
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to his reputation was limited and indeed by the late 1870s, he had even managed to win over the
church whose support he now needed.
D. Bismarck viewed the growing popularity of the Socialist Democratic Party as a serious threat. He
bided his time and used the attempted assassination of the Kaiser as an excuse to attack the socialists
in 1878, blaming them for the attempt on the Kaiser’s life. He immediately arrested the leaders,
banned party meetings, and suppressed socialist newspapers. But despite his efforts to destroy the
socialist movement, its popularity had trebled by 1890. Just as his interventions with the church had
not gone as planned, Bismarck once again failed to achieve his objective; though, to his credit, he held
on to power.
E. His domestic position was relatively secure after 1871, Bismarck devoted a lot of his time to foreign
policy. Having used war to unite Germany and make her great, Bismarck now believed that his
ambitions were best served by peace. His plan to isolate a hostile France would require all his
considerable diplomatic skills. The Dreikaiserbund agreement of 1873 between Germany, AustriaHungary, and Russia was a first step towards doing just that. The Balkan crisis, a conflict involving

Russia and Austria-Hungary, severely tested his diplomatic credentials, but his answer was to offer
himself as an ‘honest broker’ to help resolve the dispute. The subsequent Congress of Berlin which he
hosted was an outstanding success and only served to reinforce Bismarck’s reputation as a shrewd
diplomat. Bismarck’s foreign policy would continue in this vein throughout his reign as Chancellor. He
built up strategic alliances with the big powers, Russia, Italy, and Austria-Hungary, in the hope that he
could keep his main threats, France and Britain, isolated.
F. In truth, Bismarck’s reign as chancellor of the German empire does seem to confirm him as a
shrewd and wily diplomat and politician, one whose objectives were broadly achieved. Does this
mean his so-called juggling was a success? Perhaps, but Bismarck left a less than perfect legacy. He
created a Germany in which the Kaiser had the ultimate say in domestic affairs and enjoyed far too
much power should he choose to wield it. This meant that the future of the empire largely depended
on the strength and character of just one man, the Kaiser. A weak Kaiser would be disastrous for the
country’s welfare, and so it would soon prove. In the final analysts, Bismarck put Germany back on the
map again as a great power during his reign, but we should not forget that he created the political
situation that would be the downfall of his country in the end. His political and diplomatic juggling,
therefore, simply cannot be considered a total success.
Questions 1-6
Reading passage has six paragraphs A-F.
Choose the correct heading, i - ix, from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number i-ix in the boxes 1-6.
i The pace at which Bismarck advanced his ambitions
ii Separating church and state
iii A change of mind
iv Unexpected ramifications of socialist threat
v Unremitting efforts to create a virtual dictatorship
vi External objectives and activities
vii Abortive attempts to curb a movement
viii Political power on the wane
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ix A critical analysis
1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
3. Paragraph C
4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
6. Paragraph F
Your answers
1. i
2. v

3. iii

4. iv

5. vi

6. ix

Questions 7-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?
In boxes 7-13, write
TRUE

if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE

if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
7. Germany defeated France and Austria successively to claim the dominant position in Europe.
8. The Congress of Berlin was a great personal success for Bismarck.
9. After Bismarck enacted laws to weaken the Catholic Church, he was forced to change his policy and
made a church an ally.
10. The Socialist Democratic Party took power from Bismarck in 1890.
11. Bismarck’s foreign policy was to wage war with all countries that posed a military threat.
12. Bismarck considered his reign as German chancellor a failure.
13. It can be concluded that Bismarck was not actually a master of political juggling.
Your answers
7. T
8. T

9. T

10. NG

11. F

12. NG

13. T

Part 2. For questions 14-23, read an extract from an article and choose the answer A, B, C or D
that fits best according to the text. Write your answers in the corresponding numbered boxes
provided
SUPER MEMORISERS
There are people in this world who are innately possessed of an ability to remember things with quite
an extraordinary degree of detail and exactness. These super memorisers, as they are known, typically

possess a brain naturally and distinctively wired to maximize its memorizing potential. They are
gifted such that they require no particular training or effort to sharpen their memories; they
remember things just as effortlessly as most people forget them. Few of us are born with such gifts,
sadly, but there is much cause for optimism yet for those looking to improve their brain’s performance
tangibly in this area; a fact which Boris Konrad is testament to.
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Konrad is a champion memoriser who, in winning gold in the German Memory Championships one
year recognized and recalled the names of 195 people in just fifteen minutes. [ ■] His powers of] His powers of
recollection, then, are as admirable as they are undisputed, but Konrad is self-trained and started out
with a recall capacity that was unremarkable. [■] His powers of] Instead, he spent years developing memory
strategies and employing those strategies to improve in the area through practice and dedication. [ ■] His powers of]
He, then, is a living proof that the average Joe with a gift for forgetfulness can reinvent himself in the
area. [■] His powers of]However, his example is as much a reminder of the extent of devotion that is required to
reach this level as it is of the possibilities if one is prepared to put in the effort, and there are not many
people prepared to expend a similar level of effort to this end, which is what really makes Konrad
unique.
That said, whilst you may not become a super memoriser overnight, new research suggests that it is
possible to tangibly improve your memory in a relatively short space of time by devoting roughly half
an hour of your every day to the process. It is necessary to learn and employ memorizing strategies
such as the Memory Palace technique Konrad uses, though, to yield such results; otherwise, you
might be as well be doing something else. In one recent study, for example, participants spent one
month training their memories in the aforementioned technique for 30 minutes every day, which
more than doubled their ability to remember list of information after just 40 days. More impressively,
recall performance remained high whether or not training continued at the end of one month, which
suggests after rewiring of the brain can be permanent.
Even innately gifted memorisers use such mnemonic techniques to enhance their recall ability, and,
of the recall methods which exist, the methods of loci, which has already been referred to here as the
Memory Palace method, is the most prevalent one adopted as revealed by a recent study of 35

memory champions. Indeed, at a more rudimentary level, this method has been employed by orators
and others required to remember long strings of interconnected information for some time, and it
actually dates back to Ancient Greece, where it was first conceived of, remaining prevalent right
through to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It is only a new method then, today, in the sense that
the skill had been lost as such to most people for a very long time. Indeed, many of today’s super
memorisers employed it intuitively rather than in a conscious effort to enhance their recall powers.
Participants in the study was separated into three distinct groups, with one group receiving no
memory training whatsoever and making no notable recall gains during the process. The second
group dedicated time and effort to upping their recall capacity, but employed an everyday technique.
However, those using the Memory Palate technique more than doubled their initial recall capacity by
the process’s end. What’s more, their brain functions actually changed and their brain patterns began
to bear more of a likeness to those of innate super memorisers, leading researchers to speculate that a
total rewire might well be possible over time, such that a normal individual’s recall capacity could
match that of any memory champion. The conclusion, therefore, was that memory is not necessarily
an innately bestowed gift you either are possessed of or not. Most of us have the potential to hone and
expand our memories very meaningfully indeed.
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14. According to the first paragraph, people with marvelous power of retention usually
A. undergo rigorous practice to become that way.
B. demonstrate brain functions resembling anyone else.
C. throw in little effort to commit things to memory.
D. be tangibly more intelligent than other people.
15. Why are Konrad’s achievements mentioned in paragraph two?
A. To underline the excellence of inborn super memorisers
B. To demonstrate the disparity between laymen and super memorisers
C. To prove that almost every individual can make a significant enhancement in their retention
powers
D. To show how even innate super memorisers have to exert themselves

16. What does the writer mean in the phrase ‘you might as well be doing something else’ in
paragraph three?
A. It is futile to invest time in improving recall capacity.
B. People should concentrate on their strengths.
C. The Memory Palace technique is not universally suitable.
D. Progress is only visible if you train in the right way.
17. What did the study mentioned in the third paragraph conclude?
A. The implication of moderate brain exercises can be enduring.
B. The maintenance of a decent recall capacity requires continuous training.
C. Your recall ability can more than double within one month.
D. Progress is only noticeable with at least 30 minutes spent on brain training.
18. What do we learn about the method of loci?
A. It is superior to the Memory Palace method.
B. Most skillful memorisers purposefully adopt it.
C. It has evolved from methods first employed in Ancient Greece.
D. It has been widely used among super memorisers.
19. What did the results of the study mentioned in the final paragraph reveal?
A. How the brains of super memorisers function is inimitable.
B. The application of appropriate technique exerts a tremendous influence on the brain.
C. Memory training is futile unless employing a confirmed technique.
D. Most super memorisers are not talented at memorizing at birth.
20. The word "mnemonic techniques” in paragraph 4 mostly means
A. gimmicks used to improve brain functions.
B. endowed talents of super memorisers.
C. tips specifically designed to aid the process of retaining information.

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D. skills adopted by super memorisers to avoid absent-mindedness.

21. Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to
the passage.
Indeed, after just 30 seconds, examination, he is able to retain the order of an entire deck of
cards.
Where would the sentence best fit?
A. First square
B. Second square
C. Third square
D. Fourth square
22. The word "orators” in paragraph 4 mostly means
A. language experts
B. body language experts
C. oral students
D. proficient speakers
23. The paragraph following the passage would most probably discuss
A. further research into the workings of brains of super memorisers.
B. the defeat of a normal person over a super memoriser in terms of recalling capacity.
C. potential ways to expand our power of retention.
D. the popularity of memory palace technique.
Your answers
14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

Part 3. In the passage below, seven paragraphs have been removed. For questions 24-30, read
the passage and choose from the paragraphs A-H the one which fits each gap. There is ONE
extra paragraph which you do not need to use. Write your answers in the corresponding
numbered box provided.
Blind to Change
How much of the world around you do you really see? You only take in tiny pieces of information at a
time and that can have unnerving consequences, says Laura Spinney.
Imagine you’re walking across a college campus when an unknown man asks you for directions. While
you’re talking, two men pass between you carrying a door. After an irritating minute of interruption
you carry on describing the route. When you’ve finished you are informed that you’ve just taken part
in a psychology experiment, and asked if you noticed any changes after the two men passed with the
door. “No”, you reply uneasily. The unknown man then explains that the man who approached you
initially walked off behind the door, leaving this man in his place. You are stunned; the two men are
dressed differently and have different voices and haircuts.
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24

D

Rather than logging every detail of the visual scene, we are actually highly selective about what we
take in. Our impression of seeing everything is just that – an impression. In fact we extract a few
details and rely on memory, or perhaps even our imagination, for the rest.
C25

Yet in 1991, the controversial claim was made that our brains hold only a few salient details about the
world - and that this is the reason we are able to function at all. We don’t store elaborate pictures in
short-term memory, because it isn’t necessary and would take up valuable computing power.
HDHH
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H

Just a year later, at a conference on perception in Vancouver, it was reported that people shown
computer-generated pictures of natural scenes were blind to changes that were made during an eye
movement. In a typical laboratory demonstration of this you might be shown a picture on a computer
screen of, say, a couple dining on a terrace.
B
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It’s an unnerving experience. But to some extent, such “change blindness” is artificial because the
change is masked in some way. In real life, there tends to be a visible movement that signals the
change. But not always. For instance, we have all had the experience of not noticing a traffic signal
change because we had briefly looked away.
G
28

For instance, an experiment was done at Harvard in which people were shown a videotape of a
basketball game and asked to count the passes made by one or other team. After about 45 seconds a

man dressed in a gorilla suit walked slowly across the scene, passing between the players. Although
he was visible for five seconds, an amazing 40 per cent of the viewers failed to notice him.
A29

Such lapses raise important questions about vision. For instance, how can we reconcile these gross
lapses with our subjective experience of having continuous access to a rich visual scene? One
researcher has actually shown that imagining a scene activates parts of the visual cortex in the same
way as seeing it. He says that this supports the idea that we take in just what information we consider
important at the time, and fill in the gaps where the details are less important. The illusion that we see

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“everything” is partly a result of filling in the gaps using memory. Such memories can be created based
on beliefs and expectations.
E30

This particular idea has not been generally accepted. Yet most researchers in the field do agree that of
all the myriad visual details of any scene that we could record, we take only what is relevant to us at
the time. This leads us to the uncomfortable realization that, for all our subjective experience of a rich
visual world, it may, in fact, be impossible to tell what is real and what is imagined.
A. Now imagine that the task absorbing their attention had been driving a car, and the distraction had
been a pedestrian crossing their path. According to some estimates, nearly half of all motor-vehicle
accidents in the US can be attributed to driver error, including momentary loss of attention. It is more
than just academic interest that has made both forms of cognitive error hot research topics.
B. The image would disappear, to be replaced for a fraction of a second by a blank screen, before
reappearing significantly altered - by the raising of a railing in the background, perhaps. Many people
search the screen for up to a minute before they see the change. A few never spot it.
C. In contrast, other researchers argue that we can get the impression of visual richness without
holding any of that richness in our heads. For instance, the “grand illusion” theory argues that we

held no picture of the visual world in our brains at all. Instead, we refer back to the external visual
world as different aspects become important. The illusion arises from the fact that as soon as you ask
yourself “Am I seeing this or that?” you turn your attention to it and see it.
D. It sounds impossible, but when this test was carried out, a full 50 per cent of those who took part
failed to notice the substitution. The subjects had succumbed to what is called change blindness.
Taken with a glut of recent experimental results, this phenomenon suggests we see far less than we
think we do.
E. The relationships between attention, awareness and vision have yet to be clarified. Because we
have a less than complete picture of the world at any one time, there is the potential for distortion and
error. How that complete picture could be objectively established is controversial, but there is one
obvious way forward.
F. This flies in the face of what vision researchers have long believed: that seeing really means making
pictures in the brain. According to this theory, by building detailed internal representations of the
world, and comparing them over time, we would be able to pick out anything that changed.
G. And there’s a related phenomenon called inattentional blindness, that doesn’t need any
experimental visual trick at all: if you are not paying attention to some feature of a scene, you won’t
see it.
H. Rather, we log what has changed and assume the rest has stayed the same. Of course: this is bound
to mean that we miss a few details. Experimenters had already shown that we may ignore items in the

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visual field if they appear not to be significant - a repeated word or line on a page of text for instance.
But nobody realized quite how little we really do “see”.
Your answers
24.
25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

Part 4. The passage below consists of five sections marked A-E. For questions 31-40, read the
passage and do the task that follows. Write your answers (A-E) in the corresponding numbered
boxes provided.
Notorious Art 'Collector' Goes Free
Last week, Brian Barnes was acquitted of stealing a valuable ancient artefact. We asked some
of the key players about the trial.
A. Amelia Ashford (journalist)
I've been covering this case since the night of the robbery. A source from the museum contacted me
and told me that a priceless and irreplaceable ancient Egyptian gold statuette had been stolen. This
was not an opportunistic crime. The perpetrator knew in advance exactly where the guards would be
and had a meticulously crafted scheme for bypassing the museum's security system.
The police investigation soon focused on Mr. Barnes, an art dealer with a shady past. They had him
under surveillance and an undercover officer, posing as a rich art collector, was negotiating to buy the
statuette. Mr. Barnes must have been tipped off, or realized what was going on, and tried to flee the
country. He was arrested at the airport, but this abrupt end to the police operation meant that, when
the case came to court, they didn't have enough evidence to secure a conviction.
B. Brian Barnes (the defendant)
Justice was done. It's as simple as that. The jury delivered the only possible verdict. To be honest, I
take my hat off to whoever stole that statuette. It was an audacious crime, and the thieves clearly
baffled the police, but I had nothing to do with it. I'm just an honest businessman, and when the
robbery took place, I was at the theatre. Surely, if the police were unable to find anyone who could

corroborate that, that's their fault, not mine. Now, I just want to put this whole thing behind me. I'm
going to take a well-earned holiday, and then I'm looking forward to getting back to work.
C. Cristina Calviano (prosecution lawyer)
Obviously I'm very disappointed. I felt that we had a solid case against Mr. Barnes, and enough
persuasive arguments to get a conviction. The defendant clearly had the financial means to mount an
extravagant defence, and he took full advantage of that. What really hurt us, though, was the judge's
ruling that some of our key evidence could not be introduced in court. The jury never heard that Mr.
Barnes practically admitted stealing the statuette to an undercover police officer or that we found a
partial fingerprint at the scene of the crime that we believe is Mr. Barnes'. We had to rely on a witness
who saw the defendant with an item resembling the statuette on the night in question, and sadly that
wasn't enough to sway the jury in our favour. Unfortunately, this means that the statuette is now
unlikely to ever be recovered.
D. Daniel Dawson (defence barrister)
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To begin with, I don't think it befits someone in Ms. Calviano's position to criticize in public the way
the court handled the case. There were good legal reasons why she wasn't allowed to present the
evidence that she mentioned. It's also disingenuous of herto claim that, had this evidence been
included, it would have altered the outcome of the trial. Take, for example, the partial fingerprint that
the police found (which, by the way, was the only tangible evidence that the prosecution had). The
experts disagreed about it, and even the police's forensic scientist admitted that she wasn't able to
state with 100% certainty that it was my client's print. Quite frankly, this is a case that should never
have come to court.
E. Ed Ellis (police detective)
Of course it's a shame, but that's the way it goes. You win some and you lose some. We'll have to
reopen our file on the case now but, after so much time and with no other suspects, I doubt that my
superiors will commit too many resources to it. We think that Barnes managed to pass the statuette
off to an accomplice before he was arrested, but after that the trail goes cold.
The only consolation is that Mr. Barnes doesn't seem like the sort of person who will be able to keep a

low profile. He's on our radar now, and I have a hunch that this won't be his last brush with the law.
Which person (A—E) does the following?
31. states that the physical evidence in the case was inconclusive
32. believes that reinvestigating the case won’t be the police’s priorities
33. suggests Mr. Barnes may have been warned about the police investigation
34. suspects Mr. Barnes will be in trouble with the police again
35. mentions Mr. Barnes' affluence as his assisting factor
36. expresses admiration for the thieves
37. says that the robbery had been carefully planned
38. complains about a decision made by a court official
39. mentions that Mr. Barnes' alibi could not be confirmed
40. accuses somebody of acting in an unprofessional manner
Your answers
31. D

32. E

33. A

34. E

35. C

36. B

37. A

38. C

39. C

40. D

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