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1. One of the characteristics of the postal service before the 1840s was that
A. postmen were employed by various organisations.
B. letters were restricted to a certain length.
C. distance affected the price of postage.
D. the price of delivery kept going up.
2. Letter writers in the 1830s
A. were not responsible for the cost of delivery.
B. tried to fit more than one letter into an envelope.
C. could only send letters to people living in cities.
D. knew all letters were automatically read by postal staff.
3. What does the text say about Hill in the 1830s?
A. He was the first person to express concern about the postal system.
B. He considered it would be more efficient for mail to be delivered by rail.
C. He felt that postal service reform was necessary for commercial development.
D. His plan received support from all the important figures of the day.
It might not have looked very impressive, but the Penny Black, now 170 years old, was the first stamp to be created and it launched the modem postal system in Britain.
Before 1840 and the arrival of the Penny Black, you had to be rich and patient to use the Royal Mail. Delivery was charged according to the miles travelled and the number of sheets of paper used; a 2-page letter sent from Edinburgh to London, for example, would have cost 2 shillings, or more than £7 in today’s money. And when the top-hatted letter carrier came to deliver it, it was the recipient who had to pay for the postage. Letter writers employed various ruses to reduce the cost, doing everything possible to cram more words onto a page. Nobody bothered with heavy envelopes; instead, letters would be folded and sealed with wax. You then had to find a post office - there were no pillar boxes - and hope your addressee didn't live in one of the several rural areas which were not served by the system. If you were lucky, your letter would arrive (it could take days) without being read or censored.
The state of mail had been causing concern throughout the 1830s, but it was Rowland Hill, an inventor, teacher and social reformer from Kidderminster, who proposed a workable plan for change. Worried that a dysfunctional, costly service would stifle communication just as Britain was in the swing of its second industrial revolution, he believed reform would ease the distribution of ideas and stimulate trade and business, delivering the same promise as the new railways.
Hill’s proposal for the penny post, which meant any letter weighing less than half an ounce (14 grams) could be sent anywhere in Britain for about 30p in today’s money, was so radical that the Postmaster General, Lord Lichfield, said, 'Of all the wild and visionary schemes which I ever heard of, it is the most extravagant.’ Lord Lichfield spoke for an establishment not convinced of the need for poor people to post anything. But merchants and reformers backed Hill. Soon the government told him to make his scheme work. And that meant inventing a new type of currency.
Hill quickly settled on 'a bit of paper covered at the back with a glutinous wash which the user might, by applying a little moisture, attach to the back of a letter’. Stamps would be printed in sheets of 240 that could be cut using scissors or a knife. Perforations would not arrive until 1854. The idea stuck, and in August 1839 the Treasury launched a design competition open to ‘all artists, men of science and the public in general’. The new stamp would need to be resistant to forgery, and so it was a submission by one Mr Cheverton that Hill used as the basis for one of the most striking designs in history. Cheverton, who worked as a sculptor and an engineer, determined that a portrait of Queen Victoria, engraved for a commemorative coin when she was a 15-year-old princess, was detailed enough to make copying difficult, and recognisable enough to make fakes easy to spot. The words ‘Postage’ and ‘One Penny’ were added alongside flourishes and ornamental stars. Nobody thought to add the word ‘Britain’, as it was assumed that the stamps would solely be put to domestic use.
With the introduction of the new postal system, the Penny Black was an instant hit, and printers struggled to meet demand. By the end of 1840, more than 160 million letters had been sent - more than double the previous year. It created more work for the post office, whose reform continued with the introduction of red letter boxes, new branches and more frequent deliveries, even to the remotest address, but its lasting impact on society was more remarkable.
Hill and his supporters rightly predicted that cheaper post would improve the ‘diffusion of knowledge’. Suddenly, someone in Scotland could be reached by someone in London within a day or two. And as literacy improved, sections of society that had been disenfranchised found a voice.
Tristram Hunt, an historian, values the ‘flourishing of correspondence’ that followed the arrival of stamps. ‘While I was writing my biography of Friedrich Engels I could read the letters he and Marx sent between Manchester and London,’ he says. ‘They wrote to each other three times a day, pinging ideas back and forth so that you can almost follow a real-time correspondence.’
The penny post also changed the nature of the letter. Weight-saving tricks such as cross-writing began to die out, while the arrival of envelopes built confidence among correspondents that mail would not be stolen or read. And so people wrote more private things - politically or commercially sensitive information or love letters. ‘In the early days of the penny post, there was still concern about theft,’ Hunt says. ‘Engels would still send Marx money by ripping up five-pound notes and sending the pieces in different letters.’ But the probity of the postal system became a great thing and it came to be expected that your mail would not be tampered with.
For all its brilliance, the Penny Black was technically a failure. At first, post offices used red ink to cancel stamps so that they could not be used again. But the ink could be removed. When in 1842, it was determined that black ink would be more robust, the colour of the Penny Black became a sort of browny red, but Hill’s brainchild had made its mark.
1. One of the characteristics of the postal service before the 1840s was that
A. postmen were employed by various organisations.
B. letters were restricted to a certain length.
C. distance affected the price of postage.
D. the price of delivery kept going up.
2. Letter writers in the 1830s
A. were not responsible for the cost of delivery.
B. tried to fit more than one letter into an envelope.
C. could only send letters to people living in cities.
D. knew all letters were automatically read by postal staff.
3. What does the text say about Hill in the 1830s?
A. He was the first person to express concern about the postal system.
B. He considered it would be more efficient for mail to be delivered by rail.
C. He felt that postal service reform was necessary for commercial development.
D. His plan received support from all the important figures of the day.
Reading:
Bún bò Huế or bún bò is a popular Vietnamese soup containing (bún) and beef (bò).Bún bò originated in , a former capital of Vietnam. is a city in central Vietnam with the cooking style of the former royal court. The dish is greatly admired for its balance of spicy, sour, salty and sweet flavors and the predominant flavor is that of . Compared to or , the noodles are thicker.
Bún bò is commonly served with lime, onions, chili sauce and raw vegetables. Fish sauce and shrimp sauce is added to the soup according to taste. Ingredients might be varied by regions due to their availability.
Choose the best answer:
1. According to the passage, what is the special flavors of bún bò Huế?
A. lemon B. lemongrass C. fish sauce D. sweet
2. What is the cooking style of Hue cuisine?
A. rural B. central C. royal D. urban
True or false?
3. Ingredients can be replaced depending on their availability. ____T____
4. The noodles of bún bò Huế are thinner than the noodles of phở. ____F____
5. In the past, Hue was the capital of Vietnam. ____T____
6. We never eat bún bò with fish sauce or shrimp sauce. ____F____
Word form:
1. It is made from minced pork, sliced pigskin and a______mixture______of seasoning and garlic. MIX
2. The students of The Imperial Academy were________brilliant________. BRILLIANCE
3. What are you doing after the________graduation_________? GRADUATE
4. The guitar is a popular_________musical_________instrument. MUSIC
5. Chu Van An was considered one of the greatest________educator________in Vietnamese history. EDUCATE
Verb tenses/ forms:
1. We__________haven't prepared_________(not prepare) for dinner yet. I think we___________should go___________(go) out for dinner.
2. ________________Does she usually work______________(she/ usually work) out? - Yes. She_______goes________(go) to the gym three times a week.
3. I__________didn't stay_________(not stay) at home last night.
4. It took me two hours_________to drive________(drive) from my house to your house.
5. I have decided________to give________(give) up this job. I am bored with.....working...... (work) with him.
6.This house...was constructed..(construct) in 2002
Complete sentences/Rewrite sentences/Put question:
1.The rice noodles/make/best variety of rice. ................=> The rice noodles are made from the best variety of rice...............
2 My weight is 30 kilograms.Your weight is 30 kilograms,too. SAME
=> .............My weight is the same as your...........
3.She think this movie is boring.> She finds...........this movie boring...........
4.It is a good idea that you take up photography. HAD BETTER
=> ....You had better take up photography....
5.Indonesia is hotter than Viet Nam. AS...AS...
=> ..........Viet Nam is not as hot as Indonesia..........
6.It takes me ten minutes to walk to school
=> ....How long does it take you to walk to school?....
7.We planted the tresson the sidewalks of te roads to have the shade in the summer
=> .......Why did you plant the trees on the sidewalks of the roads?.......
8They talked about the most attractive destinations in the world
=> .......What did they talk about?........
Part 4:
We have seen photographs of the whole earth taken from great distances in outer space. This is the first time, the (131) very first time, in man's long history that such pictures have been possible. (132) For many years most people have believed that the earth was ball-shaped. A few thought it was round and (133) flat, like a coin. Now we know, beyond doubt, that those few were (134) wrong/mistaken. The photographs show a ball-shaped (135) earth/planet, bright and beautiful. In colour photographs of the earth, the sky is as (136) black as coal. The (137) sea looks much bluer than it usually does to us. All our grey (138) clouds are a perfect white in colour; because, of course, the (139) sun is for ever shining on them. We are (140) lucky to live on the beautiful earth
Đáp án A
Thông tin: In the case of central Africa's forest elephants, which are harder for tourists to see and therefore attract fewer visitors, the costs of protecting them exceed the benefits from tourism.
Dịch: Trong trường hợp voi rừng ở trung tâm châu Phi, nơi khách du lịch khó nhìn thấy hơn và do đó thu hút ít du khách hơn, chi phí bảo vệ chúng vượt quá lợi ích từ du lịch.
Sửa lỗi sai:
Question 43: William James, the general manager, started with some complementary remarks about the organizers of the conference.
A. general B. started C. complementary D. organizers
Question 44: I’m becoming increasingly forgetful. Last week I lock myself out of the house twice.
A. forgetful B. lock C. myself D. the
Question 45: They point out that Internet banking did not result in the closure of its high- street branches as was predicted.
A. point B. in C. its D. was
Chọn đáp án đúng:
Famously being one of Vietnam’s seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Imperial City of Hue has long been a must-see attraction for tourists visiting a hidden charm of Vietnam. The Imperial City of Hue was actually a walled fortress and palace belonged to the ancient city of Hue which was a
capital city of the Nguyen Dynasty for 140 years date back from 1805 until 1945.
The grandeur architecture was planned to be built in 1803 by Gia Long – an emperor who founded the Nguyen Dynasty. During 27 years from 1805 to 1832, the Imperial City of Hue was finally completed under the reign of Minh Mang, making it the most massive structure being built in the history of modern Vietnam involving thousands of workers, millions cubic meters of rock and huge (volume) of burden workload. It locates on the northern bank of Huong River, turning South with total land area of 520 ha. The place was made UNESCO Site in 1993 with the remained buildings being actively restored and preserved after the destruction from the Vietnam War.
The Imperial City of Hue has a circumference of 10 kilometers with the height of 6.6 meters and 21 meters thick with forts being meanderingly arranged, accompanied by cannons, artilleries and ammunitions. Initially the fortress was built solely by soil, only to be replaced by bricks afterward. Surrounding the city is the complicated canal system served not only as a protection but
also as a waterway with nearly seven kilometers.
There are total of ten main majestic gates leading to the Imperial City of Hue, which can be divided into two main parts excluding houses and mansions: The Citadel and The Forbidden City. The former served to protect the important palaces inside while (the latter) was where the emperor and the royal family stayed as well as the court’s workplace. All the typically traditional Eastern
architectures including majestic palaces, tombs and museums stand accordantly together to make an utmost amusing attraction right in the heart of Vietnam.
Question 8. Which of the following could be the best tittle of the passage?
A. The Imperial City of Hue – the Ancient City of Vietnam
B. Hue Imperial City – A Must-see Attraction in Vietnam
C. The History of the Imperial City of Hue
D. The Construction of Hue Imperial City
Question 9. According to the passage, which statement is TRUE?
A. Hue city was the capital city of the South of Vietnam from 1805 to1945.
B. The Imperial City of Hue was constructed in more than thirty years.
C. The Imperial City of Hue is situated on the southern bank of Huong River.
D. Hue Imperial City was recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1993.
Question 10. The word “volume” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ____________.
A. sound B. number C. amount D. proportion
Question 11. According to paragraph 3, originally, the material used to build the fortress was
______________.
A. soil B. brick C. cannons D. rock
Question 12. The phrase “the latter” in paragraph 4 refers to __________.
A. the Citadel B. the Forbidden City
C. the important palaces D. the Imperial City of Hue