(2024) Đề minh họa tham khảo BGD môn Tiếng Anh có đáp án (Đề 38)

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 26 to 30.

At 0:30 a.m. on Friday, the fire began at a house in a small alley off Trung Kinh Street, Cau Giay District. There were two blocks on the (26)_________, with a courtyard yard spanning 55 m2 separating the two in the middle of the property. One block of two stories was used by the owner's family and the other of three stories was divided into 12 rooms for tenants. The courtyard, (27)_________ the fire started, was used by the landlord's son for selling and repairing motorcycles and electric bicycles. Two people related to the landlord and 12 tenants died in the fire. Initial investigation suggested that (28)________victims died of getting burned rather than suffocated. Among the deceased, 11 were aged below 30, including a pair of newlyweds. The youngest victim was 23 years old, and the oldest 62. Among the six injured, one is in (29) ________conditions. Municipal authorities are now requesting that local district authorities inspect all rooms for rent in the city, and issue reports on the results of the inspections to higher authorities by June 15. (30)________ last September, a fire at an alley house for tenants in Khuong Dinh Ward of Hanoi's Thanh Xuan District killed 56 people. The cause was determined to be a short circuit in a motorbike in the first-floor parking lot. 

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 31 to 35. 

My husband, David, is an artist and has always been interested in painting pictures of the Spanish countryside. We’ve both always loved Spanish culture and have spent many holidays in Spain. Five years ago, we decided to give up our jobs in London, sell our house and move to a small village in the south of Spain.

We thought it would take months to get organized, but in just three months, we’d sold our home, found a house to rent, booked our ferry and said goodbye to our friends. We were so excited to move!

At first, we thought we’d stay here for a year, but when we arrived on a beautiful September evening, we were amazed to realize immediately that we wanted to stay longer. The owners of our new house were waiting to show us around and cooked us a lovely meal. Gradually, over the following weeks, we settled into a routine. I got a job teaching English and began to learn the language while David painted.

David loved the scenery and he was inspired by the wonderful landscape around us. But mostly he fell in love with the bright light of the sun in the south. As a painter, he’s always looking at the contrast between colours and light. During the first six months, he spent hours outdoors painting. His paintings were always about the same landscape but each one of them had something special. The elements in his work were always changing and each new painting was even more beautiful than the previous one.

The following May while we were visiting a small town, we saw an empty shop. David thought it would make a lovely art gallery and we decided to rent it for a year. We filled the shop with David’s paintings and after two days, sold our first picture. Over the next few months, a lot of tourists bought paintings, but the tourists went home in November and our shop became very quiet. But we advertised online and soon business improved. We started getting orders from different places. Everyone loved David’s paintings. Today our gallery is a great success and we both feel we’re living a perfect life.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 36 to 42.

Two billion tons of solid waste is generated globally per year, and as urban populations continue to grow, many cities are turning to new technologies for cost-effective solutions to clean up waste. “Cities that address waste problems immediately have the best chance to avoid severe long-term consequences,” says Ricardo Cepeda-Márquez, solid waste director for C40 Cities, a global network of cities committed to tackling climate change. Waste that goes uncollected can lead to blocked drains, severe flooding on the street and the spread of waterborne diseases. Additionally, organic matter dumped in landfills generates methane gas, accelerating climate change in the process.

Copenhagen, Denmark, recently opened its innovative waste-to-energy power plant, known as Copenhill or Amager Bakke. The plant, which burns waste instead of fossil fuels, is capable of converting 450,000 tons of trash into energy annually, delivering electricity to 30,000 households and heating to 72,000. Though it still produces CO2 emissions from burning, the city plans to install a system to capture the carbon released and then store this amount of carbon or find a commercial use for it. By tapping an otherwise unused resource, it will also help the city move away from its dependence on fossil fuels. Other cities are also experimenting with similar waste-to-energy plants, but it is warned that a city needs solid infrastructure and a strong waste collection system already in place before it can reap the benefits of one of these plants.

Other cities are starting on a street level, using artificial intelligence and automation to sort recyclables, or sensors to reduce the amount thrown away. For instance, Singapore and Seoul, South Korea, have installed smart, solar-powered trash cans on their streets. Each is equipped with a compactor, enabling it to hold more trash. Once the bin is full, its sensors alert the waste collectors. 

Typically, cities send out different trucks to collect different types of waste - one truck collecting plastic for recycling, another collecting food waste, for example. However, that requires a lot of trucks, which means added costs and more traffic. Norway’ capital Oslo has designed a clever model to circumvent this. Since 2012, city residents have been required to use different colored bags for different types of waste, and instead of collecting them separately, trucks gather all the bags at once and take them to an optical sorting plant. The green bags containing food waste and blue bags with plastic waste are separated from other waste by sophisticated optical reading technology, which detects the color of the bags with approximately 98% precision. The city claims that increased waste segregation and public awareness campaigns have had a positive effect, reducing the amount thrown away by each household and increasing the amount that is reused and recycled.