Đề thi tiếng Anh đọc hiểu ôn thi công chức năm 2017

READING COMPREHENSION (20)
C1.Ant colonies have their own personalities, which are shaped by the
environment, a US study suggests. Colonies of several hundred ants show
differences in the way they behave, just like individual people do. The study is
published in the journal 'Proceedings of the Royal Society B'.According to
ecologists, having a personality means showing a consistent pattern of behaviour
over time. Researchers from the University of Arizona studied colonies of rock
ants across the western US, both by following them in the wild and by taking
whole colonies back to the lab.They found that certain risky behaviours, like
foraging widely for food and responding aggressively to a threat, went together,
and colonies further north tended to take more of these risks. The study suggests
those more adventurous personalities could be an adaptation to the limited
window of activity left by the long, snowy northern winter.
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C2.Scotland has voted to stay in the United Kingdom. Around 85% of voters
turned out to vote in the referendum. A total of 2,001,926 people voted 'No' to
independence, whilst 1,617,989 voted 'Yes'. It's been history in the making. The
people of Scotland have decided to continue their 300-year union with England.
So the UK survives. Pro-independence campaigners say they're disappointed,
but insist the high turnout shows there's an appetite for change. Few would
disagree, and accept the result doesn't mean Britain goes back to business as
usual. In the hours and days ahead, the Prime Minister David Cameron and the
other party leaders will now have to deliver on their promise in the last days of
the campaign to give Scotland more powers. And no-one believes that can be
done without a wider shake-up of how the rest of the UK is governed.
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C3. Walking or cycling to work instead of driving a car can improve people's
feelings of health and happiness. That's what a study at the University of East
Anglia in the UK suggests. For many people commuting is a necessary evil.
Most see going by car or van as the 'least worst' option. This study by the
researchers at the University of East Anglia challenges that assumption. It

suggests walking, cycling or travelling by public transport can lift the mood.
Crucially, it suggests those who switch from the car to an active commute feel
better across a range of psychological measures, including concentration,
decision making and the ability to face up to problems. The researchers say
policies encouraging people to leave their cars at home could have a dramatic
impact on public wellbeing.
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C4. The Earth's protective ozone layer is starting to repair itself, according to a
panel of United Nations scientists. The main reason behind its recovery, they
say, is the fact that certain chemicals, such as those used in aerosol cans, were
gradually banned in the 1980s. It was in the 1980s that many of us became
aware that small individual actions could harm the planet itself.Hairsprays were
cited as one of the causes of the hole in the Antarctic ozone layer. People were
told to wear sunscreen to avoid skin cancer as the layer thinned and more UV
light got through.By 1987 world governments had agreed to ban most of the
ozone-eating chemicals.The World Meteorological Organisation say at last the
ozone layer is showing signs of thickening, although it will be a while before
they know if the hole is actually healing.The same organisation warned earlier
this week that climate change was heading in the opposite direction with
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a record level.
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C5. You can live without air conditioning and indoor plumbing, but there are
some true necessities of life. You can't survive for long without food, water,
sleep, or air. Survival experts apply the ‘rule of threes’ to lasting without
essentials. You can go about three weeks without food, three days without water,
three hours without shelter, and three minutes without air. However, the ‘rules’
are more like general guidelines. Obviously, you can last a lot longer outside
when it's warm than when it's freezing. Similarly, you can last longer without

water when it's humid and cool than when it's hot and dry.The technical name
for starvation is inanition. It is extreme malnutrition and calorie deficiency. A
starving person is less sensitive to thirst, so sometimes death is from the effects
of dehydration. Vitamin deficiency may also lead to death. If a person lasts long
enough, the body starts using protein from muscles, including the heart, as an
energy source. Usually, the cause of death is cardiac arrest from tissue damage
and electrolyte imbalance.
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C6. Water is an essential molecule for life. Depending on your age, gender, and
weight, you consist of around 50-65% water, which is used to digest food, carry
oxygen and nutrients through the bloodstream, remove wastes, and cushion
organs. Since water is so critical, it should come as no surprise that dying from
dehydration is an unpleasant way to go. Oh, in the end, a victim is unconscious,
so the actual dying part isn't so bad, but that only occurs after days of pain and
misery.Lack of water causes cracked skin and a dry, raspy cough. Coughing
won't be the worst, though. While you might be out of fluids, that won't prevent
vomiting. The increased acidity of the stomach can produce dry heaves. Blood
thickens, increasing heart rate. Another unpleasant result of dehydration is a
swollen tongue. While your tongue swells, your eyes and brain shrink. As the
brain shrinks, the membrane or meninges pulls away from the bones of the skull,
potentially tearing. Death can result from liver failure, kidney failure, or cardiac
arrest.
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C7.Any new parent can verify it's possible to go days without sleeping. Yet, it's
an essential process. While scientists are still unraveling the mysteries of sleep,
it's known to play roles in memory formation, tissue repair, and hormone
synthesis. Lack of sleep (called agrypnia) leads to decreased concentration and

reaction time, diminished mental processes, reduced motivation, and altered
perception.How long can you go without sleep? Anecdotal reports indicate
soldiers in battle have been known to stay awake for four days and that manic
patients have lasted three to four days. Experiments have documented normal
people staying awake for eight to ten days, without any apparent permanent
damage after a night or two of normal sleep to recover.The world record holder
was Randy Gardner, a 17-year-old high school student, who stayed awake for
264 hours, around 11 days, for a science fair project in 1965. While he was
technically awake at the conclusion of the project, he was completely
dysfunctional by the end.However, there are rare disorders, such as Morvan's
syndrome, which can cause a person to go without sleep for several months! The
question of how long people can stay awake ultimately remains unanswered.
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C8.How long a person can go without air is really a question of how long he can
go without oxygen. It's further complicated if other gases are present. For
example, breathing the same air over and over is more likely to be lethal because
of the excess carbon dioxide rather than the depleted oxygen. Death from
removing all oxygen,like a vacuum, may occur from the results of the pressure
change or possibly temperature change.When the brain is deprived of oxygen,
death occurs because there is insufficient chemical energy to feed brain cells.
How long this takes depends on temperature, metabolic rate, slower is better,
and other factors.If oxygen deprivation occurs some other way, perhaps from
drowning, for example, a person loses consciousness between 30 and 180
seconds. At the 60 second mark brain cells start to die. After three minutes,
lasting damage is likely. Brain death typically occurs between five and ten
minutes, possibly fifteen minutes.However, people can train themselves to make
more efficient use of oxygen. The world record holder for free diving held his
breath for 22 minutes and 22 seconds without suffering brain damage!
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C9. Studies suggest that teenagers often sacrifice their sleep time when it comes

to making choices about time management. The problem is, studies also show
that they need a lot more sleep than they probably get. More and more studies
are showing that there is a direct link between sleep and academic
success.According to a study by sleep expert Mary Carskadon, PhD, teens
should receive more than nine hours of sleep every night.Dr. Carskadon's study
suggests biology might be the cause for sleep deprivation among teens. Their
internal time clocks are just a little different during teenage years--and late
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nights and sleep-ins are a natural part of growing into adulthood.Lack of sleep
makes it more difficult for students to concentrate in school, especially during
those early-morning classes.A more recent study shows that sacrificing sleep to
study actually does more harm than good. The sleep that you miss when you
stay up late to study will cause ‘academic problems’ the following day. It's just
not worth sacrificing sleep to study!
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C10. What can you do if you know you aren't getting enough sleep?Turn off the
TV at night. The TV noises and flashing lights will only keep you from getting a
sound sleep. If you can remember anything you hear during your sleep, it's a
sure sign you're not sleeping well.Reduce caffeine by switching to something
healthier, like bottled water.Limit after-school activities. It's hard to do, but try to
limit your extracurricular activity. Sometimes you just have to make a hard
choice and stick to it.Don't think too hard right before bed time. Turn off the cell
phone. Keep track of time. Often, students have great intentions, but other tasks
seem to keep them up late, time after time. Play music if you want, but not too
loud. Many people play music at night. If it doesn't bother you, go ahead. Do
you really need that after-school job? This might be a really tough decision, too.
Some students need to work so they can pay for car insurance or save up for
college. You'll just have to decide on your own, what's necessary and what's not.

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C11. Sleeping in the ocean is definitely different than sleeping on land. As we
learn more about sleep in marine life, we're learning that marine animals don't
have the same requirements for long periods of undisturbed sleep that we do.
Here you can learn more about how different types of marine animals
sleep.Cetaceans,i.e. whales, dolphins and porpoises are voluntary breathers,
meaning they think about every breath they take. A whale breathes through the
blowholes on top of its head, so it needs to come up to the water surface to
breathe. But that means the whale needs to be awake to breathe. How's a whale
going to get any rest? The answer may surprise you. Research on captive
animals shows that cetaceans rest one half of their brain at a time, while the
other half stays awake and makes sure the animal breathes.Sharks need to keep
water moving over their gills so that they receive oxygen. So that means they
need to keep moving all the time... or do they? Some sharks do need to move all
the time, and these sharks seem to be ‘sleep swimming,’ with some parts of their
brain more active than others. Other sharks can rest, using spiracles to draw in
oxygenated water.
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C12. Money doesn't have any inherent value. Unless you enjoy looking at
pictures of deceased national heroes, money has no more use than any other
piece of paper until, as a country and an economy, we assign value to it. At that
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point, it does have value, but the value isn't inherent; it's assigned and generally
agreed upon by users worldwide. It didn't always work this way. In the past,
money generally took the form of coins composed of precious metals such as
gold and silver.The value of the coins was roughly based on the value of the
metals they contained, because you could always melt the coins down and use
the metal for other purposes. Until a few decades ago paper money in different

countries was based on the gold standard or silver standard or some combination
of the two. This meant that you could take some paper money to the
government, who would exchange it for some gold or some silver based on an
exchange rate set by the government. The gold standard lasted until 1971 when
President Nixon announced that the United States would no longer exchange
dollars for gold. This ended the Bretton Woods system, which will be the focus
of a future article. Now the United States is on a system of fiat money, which is
not tied to any other commodity. So these pieces of paper in your pocket are just
that: pieces of paper.
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C13.If we print more money, prices will rise such that we’re no better off than
we were before. Why will prices go up after a money supply increase?In short,
prices will go up after a drastic increase in the money supply because:If people
have more money, they’ll divert some of that money to spending. Retailers will
be forced to raise prices, or run out of the product.Retailers who run out of
product will try to replenish it. Producers face the same dilemma of retailers that
they will either have to raise prices, or face shortages because they do not have
the capacity to create an extra product and they cannot find labor at rates which
are low enough to justify the extra production.Inflation is caused by a
combination of four factors:
The supply of money goes up.The supply of goods goes down.Demand for
money goes down.Demand for goods goes up.This gets us to why drastically
increasing the money supply on the surface seems like a good idea. When we
say we’d like more money, what we’re really saying is we’d like more wealth.
The problem is if we all have more money, collectively we’re not going to be
any more wealthy. Increasing the amount of money does nothing to increasing
the amount of wealth or more plainly the amount of stuff in the world. Since the
same number of people are chasing the same amount of stuff, we cannot on
average be wealthier than we were before.
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C14.Between 2000 and 2012, deforestation occurred on 888,000 square miles
globally. This was partially offset by 309,000 square miles where forests grew
back. The net result is an average forest loss of 31 million acres per year during
that period – that’s about the size of the state of Mississippi, each year.This
forest loss trend is not distributed evenly over the planet. Several areas are
experiencing important reforestation, the regrowth of recently cut forest, and
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afforestation, the planting of new forests were none were in recent history, i.e.,
less than 50 years.Intensive forestry in subtropical areas and in boreal forests is a
major agent of forest loss. The vast majority of forest loss in tropical areas
occurs when forests are converted to agriculture production and pastures for
cattle. Forests are not logged for the commercial value of the wood itself, but
instead they are burned as the fastest way to clear land. Cattle are then brought
in to graze on grasses that now replace the trees. In some areas plantations are
put in, notably large palm oil operations. In other places, like Argentina, forests
are cut to grow soybeans, a major ingredient in pig and poultry feed.
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C15.The loss of forests means disappearing habitats for wildlife and degraded
watersheds, but it also impacts our climate in a multitude of ways. Trees absorb
atmospheric carbon dioxide, the number one greenhouse gas and contributor to
climate change. By cutting down forests we reduce the planet’s capacity to pull
carbon out of the atmosphere and achieve a balanced carbon dioxide budget.
Slash from forestry operations is often burned, releasing in the air the carbon
stored in the wood. In addition, the soil left exposed after the machinery is gone
continues to release stored carbon into the atmosphere.Forest loss affects the
water cycle, too. The dense tropical forests found along the equator release
phenomenal amounts of water in the air through a process called transpiration.
This water condenses into clouds, which then release the water further away in

the form of torrential tropical rains. It is too soon to really understand how
deforestation’s interference with this process affects climate change, but we can
be assured that it has consequences within and outside tropical regions.
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C16.Behavior is what we humans do. Behavior is observable and measurable.
Whether it is walk from one place to another or to crack our knuckles, behavior
serves some ‘function’ or the other.Applied Behavior Analysis, the research
based approach to modifying behavior, seeks to find the ‘function’ of an
inappropriate behavior in order to find a replacement behavior to replace it.
Every behavior serves some function, and provides a consequence,
reinforcement, for the behavior.When we successfully identify the ‘function’ of
the behavior we can reinforce an alternate, acceptable behavior that will replace
it. When the student has that particular ‘need’ or function fulfilled by an
alternate means, the mal-adaptive or unacceptable behavior is less likely to
reappear. If a child needs attention, and we give them attention in an appropriate
way because of appropriate behavior, we cement the appropriate behavior and
make the inappropriate or unwanted behavior less likely to appear.
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C17. The clearest evidence of how a behavior functions for a child is seen in the
Antecedent and the Consequence. The Antecedent is everything that happens
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immediately before the behavior occurs. It is sometimes also referred to as ‘the
Setting Event’ but a setting event may be part of the antecedent, but not the
whole. The teacher/ABA practitioner needs to ask ‘Is there something in the
environment that may lead to the behavior i.e., escaping loud noises, a person
who always presents demand, a change in routine that might seem frightening to
a child?’ Is there something that happens in that environment that seems to have
a causal relationship, like the entrance of a pretty girl, attention, or a loud noise?

The Consequence In ABA, the term consequence has a very specific meaning,
which at the same time is broader than the use of ‘consequence’, as it usually is,
to mean ‘punishment’. The consequence is what happens as the result of the
behavior.
That consequence is usually the ‘reward’ or ‘reinforcement’ for the behavior.
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C18.During Grace Abbott’s early childhood in Grand Island, Nebraska, her
family was fairly well off. Her father was the Lieutenant Governor of the state,
and her mother was an activist who had been an abolitionist and advocated
women’s rights including woman suffrage.But the 1893 financial depression,
plus the drought afflicting the rural part of Nebraska where the family lived,
meant that plans had to change. Grace studied at and graduated in 1898 from
Grand Island College, a Baptist school. She moved to Custer County to teach
after graduation, but then returned home to recover from a bout of typhoid. In
1899, when Edith left her teaching position at the high school in Grand Island,
Grace took her position.Grace was able to study law at the University of
Nebraska from 1902 to 1903. She was the only woman in the class. She taught
at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration from
1934 to 1939, where her sister was the dean. She also served, during those
years, as editor of The Social Service Review which her sister had founded in
1927 with Sophonisba Breckenridge. In 1935 and 1937, she was a United States
delegate to the International Labor Organization. In 1938, she published the 2volume treatment of federal and state laws and programs protecting
children, The Child and the State.
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C19. The name ‘Canada’ comes from ‘kanata’,the Iroquois-Huron word for
village. Aboriginal people used the word to describe the village of Stadacona
(present-day Quebec City) to French explorer Jacques Cartier during his trip
along the St. Lawrence River in 1535. Cartier used the word Canada to refer to
both the settlement of Stadacona as well as the surrounding area, which was then
under the purview of Iroquois Chief Donnacona.By 1547, maps were showing

the name Canada applied to everything north of the St. Lawrence River. Cartier
referred to the St. Lawrence River as the ‘riviere du Canada’ and the name began
to take hold. Even though the French called the region New France, by 1616 the
area along the great river of Canada and the Gulf of St. Lawrence was still called
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Canada. As the country expanded to the west and the south in the 1700s,
‘Canada’ was the unofficial name of an area spanning the American midwest,
extending as far south as what is now the state of Louisiana. After the British
conquered New France in 1763, the colony was renamed the Province of
Quebec. As British loyalists began heading north during and after the American
Revolutionary War, Quebec was divided into two separate parts.
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C20.Socialism is a political term applied to an economic system in which
property is held in common and not individually, and relationships are governed
by a political hierarchy. Common ownership doesn't mean decisions are made
collectively, however. Instead, individuals in positions of authority make
decisions in the name of the collective group. Regardless of the picture painted
of socialism by its proponents, it ultimately removes group decision making in
favor of the choices of one all-important individual.Socialism originally
involved the replacement of private property with a market exchange, but
history has proven this ineffective. socialism cannot prevent people from
competing for what is scarce. Socialism, as we know it today, most commonly
refers to ‘market socialism,’ which involves individual market exchanges
organized by collective planning.People often confuse ‘socialism’ with the
concept of ‘communism’. While the two ideologies share much in common, in
fact, communism encompasses socialism, the primary difference between the
two is that ‘socialism’ applies to economic systems, whereas ‘communism’
applies to both economic and political systems.

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