SECTION 2. CHOOSE THE CORRECT ANSWER.

10.

A.

named

II. Read the text below and think of the word which best fits each space. Use only ONE word in each

space. Write your answers on your answer sheet.

ITALY’S MOST POETIC CITY

Venice has been an inspiration for writers, artists and musicians throughout history. In the 15th

century it was the world’s (11)__________port. Since then it has built up an astonishing collection of art and

architecture (12)__________to its trade with the East.

The city (13)__________its visitors incredible sights. Do not believe those who say Venice is a

museum. This is still a living city full of joys. Venice looks good in any light. The sun makes the domes

sparkle, but even on a grey, (14)_________day the city can be extremely romantic.

And (15)__________it gets overcrowded, (16)__________is an easy escape to the other islands in the

Venice Gulf, (17)_________brightly-colored houses are a photographer’s dream.

In a curious way, Venice is a model city for the future; it is free from cars and the (18)_____________

way to get around is by public transport or on foot. This one fact alone (19)___________it a unique city, one

(20)_________traffic noise, the creation of genius indeed.

m. Read the passage then choose the best answer to each question thatfollows. Identify your answer by

writing the corresponding letter A, B, Cor D on your answer sheet.

Legend has it that sometime toward the end of the Civil War (1861-1865) a government train

carrying oxen traveling through the northern plains of eastern Wyoming was caught in a snowstorm and had

to be abandoned. The driver returned the next spring to see what had become of his cargo. Instead of the

skeletons he had expected to find, he saw his oxen, living, fat, and healthy. How had they survived?

The answer lay in a resource that unknowing Americans lands trampled underfoot in their haste to

cross the “Great American Desert’ to reach lands that sometimes proved barren. In the eastern parts of the

United States, the preferred grass for forage was a cultivated plant. It grew well with enough rain, then when

cut and stored it would cure and become nourishing hay for winter feed. But in the dry grazing lands of the

West that familiar bluejoint grass was often killed by drought. To raise cattle out there seemed risky or even

hopeless.

Who could imagine a fairy-tale grass that required no rain and somehow made it possible for cattle to

feed themselves all winter? But the surprising western wild grasses did just that. They had wonderfully

convenient features that made them superior to the cultivated eastern grasses. Variously known as buffalo

grass, grama grass, or mesquite grass, not only were they immune to drought; but they were actually

preserved by the lack of summer and autumn rains. They were not juicy like the cultivated eastern grasses, but

had short, hard stems. And they did not need to be cured in a bam, but dried right where they grew on the

ground. When they dried in this way, they remained naturally sweet and nourishing through the winter. Cattle

left outdoors to fend for themselves thrived on this hay. And the cattle themselves helped plant the fresh grass

year after year for they trampled the natural seeds firmly into the soil to be watered by the melting snows of

winter and the occasional rains of spring. The dry summer air cured them much as storing in a bam cured the

cultivated grasses.