Bài đọc hiểu tiếng anh

1. Hãy đọc đoạn văn sau và chọn câu trả lời tốt nhất trong số A, B, C và D.
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
All over the country young people are entering a world of homelessness and
poverty, according to a recent report by the housing group Shelter. Nearly 150.000
young people aged between sixteen and twenty-five will become homeless this
year, says Shelter. Some of me young homeless may sleep out in the open in such
places as ‘cardboard city’ in London, where people of all ages sleep in the open air
in their only homes - cardboard boxes. Others may find accommodation in shelters
run by voluntary organizations or get a place in a hostel, which gives them board
for up to ten weeks.
But who are these people? Those seeking a roof over their heads are mostly not
runaways but ‘throwaways’ - people who have been thrown out of their homes or
forced to leave because of parental divorce, an unsympathetic step-parent or one of
many other reasons.
Take the case of one sixteen-year-old schoolgirl we shall call Alice. She did not
come from a poor home and had just passed her exams with good results. The
Shelter team met her in an overnight hostel where she was sitting down doing her
Physics homework. It turned out that her parents had thrown her out of her home
for no other reason that she wanted to do Science Advanced Level exams - which
her parents refused her permission to do, saying that sciences were unladylike!
Shelter says that the Government’s laws do nothing to help these youngsters.
Rising rents, a shortage of cheap housing and a cut in benefits for young people
under the age of twenty-five are causing a national problem, according to Shelter.
The recent changes in the benefit laws mean that someone aged between sixteen
and twenty-five gets less than older people and they can only claim state help if
they prove that they left home for a good - reason.
Shelter believes that because of the severe cuts in benefits to young people,


more and more are being forced to sleep on the streets. Shelter also points out that
if you are homeless, you can’t get a job because employers will not take on

someone without a permanent address; and if you can’t get a job, you are homeless
because you don’t have any money to pay for accommodation. It’s an impossible
situation.
1. According to a recent report by Shelter, it appears that _______
A. nearly 150,000 young people are living out in the open.
B. young homeless people live in places like cardboard city’.
C. more and more young people all over the world are finding themselves
homeless.
D. hostels are too full to offer accommodation to homeless young people.
2. Most young people find themselves without a roof over their heads because
_______
A. they have run away from home.
B. they do not want to live with a divorced parent.
C. circumstances make it impossible for them to live at home.
D. they have thrown away any chance of living at home by behaving badly
3. Why was Alice turned out of her home?
A. She didn’t want to study for her Advanced Level exams.
B. She had not obtained high marks in her exams.
C. She refused to do her homework in the evenings.
D. Her parents didn’t agree with what she wanted to do.
4. According to the text, what are benefits ?
A. gifts of food and clothing
C. subsidies for those in need

B. laws about distributing money
D. extra wages for part-time workers

5. The changes in the system of benefits mean that _______
A. young people cannot claim money unless they are under sixteen or over

twenty-five.
B. anyone under twenty- five and not living at home will receive help with food
and accommodation.
C. young people do not receive as much money as those over twenty-five.
D. the under twenty-fives can claim money only if they have left home.
6. According to Shelter, once young people have been forced onto the streets,
_______
A. they will find it difficult to find work.
B. their benefits will be severely cut.
C. they will never go back home again.
D they will encourage their friends to do the same.
7. The article has been written to _______.
A. help Shelter solve the problems of the homeless.
B. increase awareness of the problems facing young people.
C. warn young people not to be too eager to leave home.
D. persuade the government to take action to help the young.
2. Hãy đọc đoạn văn sau và chọn câu trả lời tốt nhất trong số A, B, C và D.
‘Oh, you’re so lucky living in Bath, it’s such a wonderful, lovely, historic
place,’ people say enthusiastically, and all you can think of is the awful parking,
the crowds of tourists, the expensive shops, the narrow-minded council, and the
terrible traffic...
Luckily I don’t live in Bath but nearly ten miles away in a village called
Limpley Stoke in the Avon Valley. It seems to be normal in the countryside these
days for professional people who work in the town to prefer to live in the villages;
this makes the housing so expensive that the villagers and agricultural workers
have to live in the cheaper accommodation in town, with the result that the farmers
commute out to the farm and everyone else commutes in. Certainly, there’s nobody

in the village who could be called an old-style villager. The people nearest to me
include a pilot, an accountant, a British Rail manager, a retired teacher ... not a
farm worker amongst them. But I don’t think there is anything wrong with that it’s just that the nature of villages is changing and there is still quite a strong sense
of community here. A lot of this sense of community comes from the Post Office,
which is a centre for all the gossip and information. I find out what is going on
while I am there, pretending to control my two-year-old son. He enjoys anything
he can touch at the lowest level of the shop, which consists mainly of an enormous
rack of cards saying ‘Congratulations on your 9th Birthday’ and a collecting tin for
the ‘Save The Children’ charity, which he always picks up and tries to run away
with. My feeling is that if my son took the money collected for the children, it
would go directly where it was needed but they don’t see it like that.
Working at home, I tend to wander round the village at times when other people
are at the office, which has given me a reputation for being incredibly lazy or
unbelievably rich, but I still don’t get enough time to look after the garden we
bought. My wife had a good idea for the first year. ‘Let’s just leave it and see what
comes up.’ There were some nice plants among the weeds. She had a good idea for
the second year as well. ‘Why don’t we leave it and see if it all comes up again?’
We did, and that is why we need to hire a fulltime gardener this year.
1. What is the author’s attitude to Bath?
A. It is a wonderful place to live in.
B. It has far too many disadvantages.
C. He feels fortunate to live there.
D. It has many good shops.
2. The people who live in the village _______
A. tend to work on the farms.
B. are mostly professionals who work in the town.


C. are unable to afford houses in the town.
D. don’t like the old-style villagers.

3. It would appear from the text that the Post Office _______
A. sells a wide range of cards.
B. is where most of the charity work is organized.
C. is a place where villagers can talk to each other.
D. sells a range of tinned food as well as stamps.
4. The author has a reputation for being lazy as he _______
A. only works during the mornings.
B. spends a lot of time shopping with his son.
C. likes to walk around the village.
D. seems to be free when people are working.
5. The garden is not in very good condition because _______
A. the author is too lazy to look after it.
B. the author cannot afford to pay a gardener.
C. the author’s wife has no interest in it.
D. nobody has worked on it for over two years.
6. The author feels that living in the village _______
A. is better than living in Bath.
B. has a number of disadvantages.
C. tends to be rather dull.
D. is something that everyone would enjoy.
3. Hãy đọc đoạn văn sau và chọn câu trả lời tốt nhất trong số A, B, C và D.
The sun was going down beyond the great banks of cloud which were full of
orange-pink light. It would usually be time for Joe to be going in, but he didn’t
want to go back if Aunt Daisy and Uncle Ted were still there, because his mother
would only send him straight to bed out of the way. So he turned away from home


and walked down the lane past the football field, kicking a stone before him at the
risk of scratching the toes of his best brown shoes. A couple of dogs, one large,
black and smooth-haired, the other smaller with a long black and white coat,

played on the edge of the field, running round and round, jumping at each other
and sometimes rolling over and over together, totally content in each other’s
company.
Joe watched them for a moment or two and walked on: Twenty minutes later he
was on the riverside and half-way round the circle he had set out to walk from the
town and back again. On his way he had passed several couples and one or two
family groups returning from their Sunday evening walk; but now there was no one
about except one man resting on the grass between the path and the riverbank.
When Joe realised that it was his father, his surprise was so great that he stopped.
Then his father, who had been leaning on his arm and looking into the river, looked
round, but did not seem surprised to see him.
“Hello, Joe,” he said dully. He went back to staring at the river. The fact that he
was wearing his best clothes somehow added tot he strangeness of his sitting there
alone like this, and as Joe looked at him he was conscious for the first time of a
sense of his father as not his father, but as someone without connection with
himself: as a man, with thoughts and feelings outside their existence as father and
son. He saw, for the first time, his father as a person carrying about with him a
word of his own, and he had an indefinite sense of this world of his father’s
extending back to a time and a life before he himself was born. He was only a part
of his father’s world, while his father, belonged in the centre of his, Joe’s world.
And things were far from well in his father’s world, he knew.
He moved a few steps nearer, and his father did not look at him. “They’re all at
home, wondering where you are,” said Joe.
1. Joe didn’t go straight home because he _______.


A. didn’t want to see Aunt Daisy and Uncle Ted
B. wanted to find his father first
C. wanted to watch the two dogs playing
D. didn’t want to go to bed immediately

2. Instead of going home Joe went _______.
A. on to the football field

B. through some fields

C. along the bank of the river

D. half-way to the town

3. When Joe had completed half his intended walk he _______.
A. saw a man sitting by himself

B. passed a couple of people

C. went back to the town

D. met some family groups

4. When Joe’s father saw Joe, he _______.
A. sat down on the grass

B. didn’t seem very interested in him

C. looked round at the river

D. went back to the river

5. That evening Joe realised that _______.
A. he hardly knew his father at all
B. he had not seen his father wearing those clothes before

C. he had never really loved his father
D. his father had a life of his own
6. That evening, Joe thought that his father was
A. dull

B. peculiar

C. a stranger

_______.
D. worried

4. Hãy đọc đoạn văn sau và chọn câu trả lời tốt nhất trong số A, B, C và D.
The trees arrived by post, a half open parcel. They were thin and straight, rather
like arrows but with shiny leaves at one end and muddy roots at the other. Terry
and his father took them down the garden and planted them in their prepared
places. Terry had great hopes of the middle tree, now set in the holy spot where
Henry, his cat, run over, had been laid to rest a year before. The nine trees made an
avenue down one side of the garden, where there was already a fifteen-foot stone


wall between the garden and the backyards of the Jenkins Street houses
“Why do we want a row of trees as well as a wall?” Terry asked his father.
His father said, “For privacy. These trees grow very thickly.”
His father’s love of privacy often puzzled Terry, who was not one to keep
himself to himself, but he could see part of the point here. The houses in Jenkins
Street were on higher ground. His friend Leslie lived in number twelve, and Leslie
had only to stand on a box to see right over the wall.
“Will the trees grow higher than the wall?” Terry asked then
“Oh yes, twice as high if not more. It’ll take a few years but they’ll grow.”

So they were going to have nine trees thirty feet tall, to keep them from being
overlooked’ Terry wondered why this was so desirable. He said, “Our garden is
very pretty. Why can’t we let the people over the wall see it? That wouldn’t be
showing off, would it?”
“No, I don’t think it would be,” his father said, “Yet some people might feel a
bit less happy if they can always see a good thing that isn’t theirs. We don’t want to
be the cause of any jealousy if we can help it”
This consideration for other people’s feelings must be a grown-up thing, Terry
thought. It was not his idea of how to run things. He said, “These trees - it seems a
lot of trouble to go to just to stop people being jealous of us.”
His father looked at him. “It isn’t much trouble, Terry,” he said, “These trees
will grow without help from us. They’ll be beautiful. And listen to them. You can
already hear them whispering to us in the wind.”
1. How do we know that Terry’s father was expecting the trees?
A. He thought they would grow tall and thick
B. He expected them because they arrived by post
C. He and Terry had dug holes for them
D. The parcel was half open, so he could see they were trees


2. Part of the garden is called a holy spot because _______.
A. a cat was buried there
B. Henry had been run over just there
C. Terry’s own tree was planted in that spot
D. it was right in front of Leslie’s house
3. Terry’s father was a man who _______
A. was proud of his garden and liked showing it off
B. was very sociable towards his neighbours
C. preferred to keep himself to himself
D. felt jealous of the people in Jenkins Street

4. Why were the trees planted in front of the wall?
A. Because that was where they would grow best
B. To improve the appearance of the wall
C. To hide the ugly sight of Jenkins Street
D. To stop people looking into the garden
5. The thing that might have made the neighbours feel less happy was _______
A. the well-kept garden
C. the wall

B. the row of trees
D. the privacy of the place

6. What did Terry disapprove of?
A. Letting outsiders see the garden
B. The height of the houses in Jenkins Street
G. His father’s concern for people’s feelings
D. The way Leslie managed to look over the wall
7. In the man’s opinion it was not much trouble to _______.
A. upset the neighbours
C. lead a very private life

B. plant the trees and look after them
D. hear the sounds made by the trees

5. Hãy đọc đoạn văn sau và chọn câu trả lời tốt nhất trong số A, B, C và D.


Anna liked the look of the house as soon as she saw it. Jack knew that before
she said anything. The plain white walls, the black window frames and door - the
good taste of that combination had always pleased her.

“It’s a nice family house,” she said. “One can see it’s been well lived in.”
Fifty-seven Eden Square was a tall narrow house on three floors in the middle
of a row facing a small park. It was in what a house agent would call a popular
rather than a fashionable area. The little front gate was open, broken. They went in
and up a few stone steps to the front door. They could see in through one of the
sitting-room windows from which a net curtain had fallen at one side. The large
room was almost bare. A dirty green carpet half covered the floor. From an old
brick fire-place a gas-fire had been pulled out into the room. The wall-paper was
dark green, dirty and damp-looking. There was no furniture. Silently they stared in.
Then Jack tried the front door. It was locked.
“It’s been empty a long while,” he said. “All last winter at least. Is it worth
going to the agent to get the keys? We’d have to do an awful lot of cleaning up.”
“Any empty house up for sale needs cleaning,” said Anna. “That’s part of the
fun of buying. You can make it look so different. This place will be a lot better
when I’ve had a go at it. How much do you think it’ll cost?”
“Well, it’s about eighty years old, and modernized probably.” He stepped back
and looked up. “It should have three or four large bedrooms, as large as I think
bedrooms ought to be, and one or two small ones. That is, if it wasn’t used as a
guest house in the days before people started going to Spain for their holidays. I
think it would cost about fifteen thousand. It depends on how modern it is inside.
We’ll get the keys and have a look, shall we?”
They did so the following afternoon. In an earlier, more spacious time, the
house had had large, airy bedrooms. All four of these were now divided up by
wooden walls and ugly passages. Each big window looking on to the park was


shared by two or even three rooms. There were in all eighteen tiny bedrooms, each
with a tiny wash-basin and water: sleeping spaces for thirty or so holiday-makers.
“Little cages,” Anna said. She did not like the place at all.
1. What were these two people doing?

A. Looking for a place in which to spend their holiday.
B. They wanted to buy a guest house or a small hotel.
C. They were employed by a house agent to sell houses.
D. Trying to find a suitable house to buy.
2. When Anna looked at the house she _______
A. liked its situation very much.
B. admired the way it was painted.
C. told Jack it was very expensive.
D. said there was a nice family living in it.
3. What do you understand about the situation of the house?
A. It was in a rather poor part of the place
B. It was in an area which everyone had left.
C. The house was part of a now housing development.
D. It was where fashionable people preferred to live.
4. They knew what the sitting-room was like because _______
A. there was .no glass in the window.
B. Jack managed to get into it.
C. they examined it in detail from outside.
D. the agent had told them about it.
5. If Anna had a go at the house, _______
A. they would not have to pay so much for it.
B. Jack could return the keys to the agent
C. it would be so much cleaner.


D. she would soon begin to like it.
6. A modernized house is _______
A. one that has only just been built.
B. an old house made suitable for today’s needs.
C. a new house built on the ruins of an old one.

D. a house built not more than ten years ago.
7. What does the passage tell us about guest houses?
A. Guest houses always have large, comfortable bedrooms.
B. The best ones are to be found in Spain.
C. They are becoming much more popular.
D. People do not use them as much as they did.
8. Anna did not like the house because _______
A. it was not her idea of a family home,
B. it was too expensive.
C. it was really a place for keeping animals in.
D. it needed too much cleaning.