ACCORDING TO THE PASSAGE, PEOPLE IN BRITAIN REFUSE PUBLIC TRANSPORT...

5. According to the passage, people in Britain refuse public transport because .

A. they like to share rides with neighbours

B. they think it is not good enough

C. they see no reason to use their cars less

D. petrol is relatively cheap in Britain

PART 2. You are going to read an article in which the writer looks at the harm done by

plastic bags and ways of reducing this. Five sentences have been removed from the article.

Choose from the sentences A-F the one which fits each gap (1-5). There is one extra

sentence which you do not need to use. (1.0 point)

GETTING RID OF PLASTIC BAGS

By Michael McCarthy

Plastic bags are one of the greatest problems of the consumer society - or to be more precise,

of the throwaway society.

According to a recent study, whereas plastic bags were rarely seen at sea in the late eighties

and early nineties, they are now being found almost everywhere across the planet. They are

among the 12 items of rubbish most often found in coastal clean-ups. (1)_____ Windblown

plastic bags are so common in Africa that a small industry has appeared: collecting bags and

using them to make hats and other items.

What matters is what happens to them after use. Enormous numbers end up being buried or

burnt, which is an enormous waste of the oil products which have gone into their

manufacture. (2) _____ Turtles mistake them for their jellyfish food and choke on them; birds

mistake them for fish with similar consequences; dolphins have been found with plastic bags

preventing them breathing properly.

The wildlife film-maker Rebecca Hosking was shocked by the effects of the bags on birds on

the Pacific island of Midway. She started a movement to turn her hometown into the first

community in the country to be free of plastic bags. Many local residents and shopkeepers

joined in, and the idea of getting rid of them completely soon spread to other towns and

villages.

Although some people remain unconvinced, it does seem possible that the entire country

could eventually become plastic-bag free. Who could have imagined half-a-century ago that

our public places would one day all become cigarette-smoke free? Or that we would all be

using lead-free petrol? Who would have thought even a decade ago, come to that, that about

two-thirds of us would by now be actively involved in recycling? (3)_______

What is needed is a general change in consumer attitudes, towards the habit of using re-usable

shopping bags. Older people will remember how this used to be entirely normal as every

household had a 'shopping bag', a strong bag which was used to carry items bought in the

daily trip to the shops. (4) _____Today, many of us tend to drive to the supermarket once a

week and fill up the car with seven days' worth of supplies, for which plastic bags, of course,

are fantastically useful. It's a hard habit to break.

Trang 3/6

However, there has already been a bit drop in plastic bag use. It is clear that habits are starting

to change; reusable bags are more visible than they were even two years ago.

Many believe there should be a tax on plastic bags, and the governments of a number of

countries are considering the idea. What people have in mind is the example of Ireland, where

a tax of €0.22 was introduced on all plastic bags, the first of its kind in the world.

(5)______In addition, all the money from the new tax is used for environmental clean-up

projects.

A. Major changes in public opinion and behaviour can certainly occur.

В. On land they are everywhere, too.

C. Worse still, billions get into the environment, especially the ocean environment,

where they become a terrible threat to wildlife.

D. But there was a very different pattern of household shopping then: the purchase of a

much smaller number of items, on a daily basis, after a walk to small, local shops.

E. She realised then that it was too late to do anything about this man-made disaster.

F. This quickly brought about a quite amazing reduction of 90 per cent, from 1.2 billion

bags a year to fewer than 200,000 and an enormous increase in the use of cloth bags.

III. USE OF ENGLISH (5.0 points)

PART 1. Choose the word or phrase A, B, C or D that best completes each sentence. (1.0 point)