OLD HARBOUR CROWDING NOTICE

• Rising Pressure: A steady (1) __________ in short-stay arrivals is now affecting housing, waste collection, and access to everyday services in the Old Harbour.
• Street Use: In several side streets, delivery lanes, (2) __________ no overflow system was ever designed, are now being used by guided groups, causing repeated standstills. To reduce pressure, ward officers may (3) __________ visitors away from already saturated lookout points to ensure the site's carrying capacity is not breached.
• Current Response: A revised (4) __________ scheme is also being tested near the market. Officials have yet (5) __________ blanket entry quotas, but they no longer regard unmanaged footfall as a temporary nuisance. Current visitor levels are not commensurate (6) __________ the district’s physical capacity.

Question 1:
A.  escalator        B. escalation
C.  escalations        D. escalatory

Question 2:
A.  for which
B.  whereby        C. where        D. whose

Question 3:
A.  push        B. pull
C.  steer        D. hold

Question 4:
A.  circulation pedestrian resident-priority        B. pedestrian circulation resident-priority

C. resident-priority pedestrian circulation
D.  pedestrian resident-priority circulation

Question 5:
A.  imposed        B. to imposing        C. imposing
D.  to impose

Question 6:
A.  above        B. for        C. with
D.  towards

BEYOND THE REPORT CARD

What grades can reveal

In many schools, test scores are still treated as the clearest sign of academic success. They may reflect memory, speed, and the ability to work under pressure. Even so, such results show only part of a learner’s overall (7) __________ abilities.

What numbers may overlook

Some students perform strongly in timed exams, while (8) __________ demonstrate their strengths through discussion, creativity, or long-term projects. (9) __________ exam scores, teachers should also examine persistence, curiosity, and growth across the school year. A high (10) __________ of consistency between grades and classroom performance may suggest that testing has value, but it cannot prove that scores fully capture ability.

Towards fairer judgement

A more balanced view of achievement combines tests with observation, reflection, and feedback. When schools (11) __________ sound judgements instead of relying only on neat figures, they are more likely to identify quiet but capable learners. As a result, assessment becomes not only more dependable but also more (12) __________.

Question 7: A. cognitive        B. competence        C. proficiency        D. intellectual 

Question 8: A. another        B. the other        C. others
D.  the others

Question 9: A. In defiance of        B. Contrary to        C. Rather than        D. Beyond

Question 10: A. amount        B. degree
C.  number        D. plenty

Question 11: A. pass        B. have        C. exercise
D.  create

Question 12: A. measurable        B. selective        C. competitive        D. equitable

Question 13:

a. Nora: So ten years from now, did you keep studying law, or did you walk away from it?

b. Evan: I walked away, but not because I failed; I found that mediation suited me better than winning arguments.

c. Nora: That makes sense. You still chose conflict resolution, just a version that sounded more like you.

A. a – b – c        B. b – a – c        C. a – c – b        D. c – a – b

Question 14:

a. Host: Then why do people keep saying they would become artists or teachers if every salary matched?

b. Future Me: Because pay is only one force; status, risk, family pressure, and scarce positions still push people unevenly.

c. Host: If every job paid the same, what would you choose for yourself?

d. Future Me: I would teach writing, since I care more about shaping voices than climbing a salary ladder.

e. Host: So equal pay changes desire, but real markets never stay equal for long.

A. a – b – c – d – e        B. c – b – a – d – e        C. c – d – a – b – e        D. c – a – d – b – e

Question 15:

Dear My Younger Self,

I hope you are well and not being too hard on yourself.

a. What mattered was not a perfect plan, but the habit of showing up after every public mistake and learning in view of others.

b. I am writing from a quiet studio after a talk where a shy student said your story kept her from quitting.

c. Keep the notebooks, the awkward drafts, and even the rejections, because one day they will become bridges for someone else.

d. The strange part is that your influence did not grow from success first; it grew from the seasons when you failed openly.

e. By 2050, people will introduce you as someone who helps others begin again, though you still laugh at how uncertain you feel today.

Best,

Your 2050 Self

A. a – d – b – e – c        B. b – d – a – c – e        C. e – b – d – a – c        D. b – e – d – a – c

Question 16:

a. Since then, whenever a plan starts to crack, I listen earlier, speak more plainly, and leave room for people to be human.

b. No textbook had prepared me for the quiet work of repairing trust, admitting my own blind spots, and asking people what support they actually needed.

c. When our presentation collapsed because two teammates stopped responding, I discovered that responsibility is not the same as control.

d. I once led a school project so carefully on paper that I honestly believed failure had become almost impossible.

e. That lesson stayed with me longer than any model answer, because real failure does not only test knowledge; it exposes how you treat others under pressure.

A. c – d – b – e – a        B. d – b – c – e – a        C. d – c – b – e – a        D. d – c – e – b – a

Question 17:

a. At first, that freedom feels powerful, because you can step outside old expectations, switch codes, and choose which parts of yourself to reveal in each new room.

b. So who are you when no one knows where you come from? Perhaps you are most clearly the person who decides which roots to protect, which influences to welcome, and which story deserves to be told aloud.

c. Yet the same moment can feel strangely lonely, since identity is not only a costume you select but also a history carried in gestures, family jokes, food memories, and inherited habits.

d. I have come to think that belonging grows in the space between choice and origin: we edit ourselves, but never from a blank page or in a single language.

e. When nobody can place your accent, surname, or passport, they often begin speaking to the version of you that seems easiest to understand, not the most complete one.

A. a – e – d – c – b        B. d – e – a – c – b        C. e – a – d – c – b        D. e – a – c – d – b

The concept of working away from a central office is not a modern phenomenon. During the pre-industrial era, many tradespeople operated out of "home workshops," where domestic life and professional duties (18) __________. As far back as the Middle Ages, merchants and artisans conducted business in the same buildings where they resided to maximize efficiency and minimize the risks of transporting goods. In most subsequent centuries, however, the Industrial Revolution compelled workers to congregate in massive factories and, later, high-rise office buildings, (19) __________.

The modern remote work revolution emerged in the late 20th century, when the advent of personal computing and the internet expanded rapidly. The necessity of long commutes and the rigid constraints of a fixed office environment (20) __________. Consequently, many progressive firms believed the time was right to experiment with "telecommuting," and technology companies were regarded as the most appropriate starting point. (21) __________, who contended that the lack of physical supervision would deter productivity and weaken corporate culture.

Despite these concerns, recent global shifts have revealed some striking findings. In digital-first sectors, employee satisfaction rose markedly, (22) __________. With the introduction of flexible arrangements, many organizations, particularly those in software development and creative services, experienced significant productivity gains. However, sectors relying on physical presence, such as manufacturing and hospitality, often saw a struggle to adapt and were compelled to rethink their operational models, where traditional management styles were no longer sufficient.

Question 18:

A. were closely intertwined, with the boundary between home and work often blurred

B. were so blurred that the boundary between household life and labour intertwined

C. intertwined so closely, they left the boundary between labor and leisure unclear

D. blurred the boundary, with household life and productive work remaining intertwined

Question 19: 

A. making the separation of home and work a defining feature of the industrial age

B. with home and work in the industrial age becoming more clearly separating

C. so that the separation between home and working became a defining feature of the era

D. a shift that in the industrial age made home and work more distinctly separated

Question 20: 

A. turned professional life into a tedious and potentially draining experience

B. making work feel increasingly tedious and emotionally draining for many

C. with professional life becoming more tedious and potentially exhausting

D. so that work increasingly felt tedious, draining, and harder to sustain

Question 21: 

A. Not all senior executives, however, initially encountered any resistance

B. Support for the idea, meanwhile, spread rapidly among senior executives

C. Initially, however, the idea encountered resistance from senior executives

D. The resistance, however, was initially encountered even by senior executives

Question 22: 

A. whereas firms in Silicon Valley were reported to increase substantial output

B. while firms in Silicon Valley reported substantial increases in output

C. since there was a substantial increase in output reported by Silicon Valley firms

D. so reports about Silicon Valley firms substantially increased output

A week after the first missiles hit, the change may seem oddly ordinary. A taxi driver buys less fuel, a baker cuts the size of each loaf, and a mother pauses in front of a shelf she used to cross without thinking. No siren sounds in the supermarket, yet the damage has arrived all the same. This is how war driven inflation often enters daily life. It does not burst through the door. It seeps under it, quietly turning routine choices into hard arithmetic.

Rarely do rising prices stay trapped in oil markets alone. As Reuters reported, the war in the Middle East pushed up the prices of oil, gas, and fertilizer, while transport bottlenecks made trade slower and costlier. Once fuel becomes dearer, moving goods does too. Once fertilizer prices climb, food rarely remains cheap for long. The result is a chain reaction in which the shock travels far beyond the battlefield, gathering weight as it moves from ports to trucks, from factories to dinner tables.

Yet the burden is not shared fairly. Reuters noted that low income, import dependent countries face the harshest pressure, especially when debt is already high and governments have little room to shield families. For the poor, inflation is not an abstract trend but a shrinking plate and a tightening chest. Still, crisis can sharpen public attention. People begin to see how deeply peace, trade, and bread are tied together, and how fragile comfort really is when global supply lines start to fray.

That is why this story should be told with care. Good reporting raises awareness by tracing cause and consequence with a clear eye. Worse coverage merely feeds panic, turning suffering into spectacle and fear into cheap drama. War driven inflation is, in part, an economic story. More than that, however, it is a moral one, revealing whose pain is cushioned, whose is exposed, and whose is too easily priced in.

[Adapted from https://www.reuters.com/]

Question 23. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in paragraph 1 as a sign of changing daily life after the start of the conflict?

A. A reduction in the quantity of baked goods.                      B. A more cautious approach to grocery shopping.

C. The immediate sounding of alarms in public spaces.      D. A decrease in the consumption of vehicle fuel.

Question 24. The word "dearer" in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to __________.

A. more precious        B. more expensive        C. more valuable        D. less affordable

Question 25. According to paragraph 2, the rise in food prices is primarily a consequence of __________.

A. the direct destruction of agricultural land on the battlefield

B. the increased costs of production inputs and distribution

C. a sudden decrease in global demand for basic necessities

D. the transition of factories from food to weapon production

Question 26. The word "it" in paragraph 2 refers to __________.

A. the result         B. the shock        C. the war         D. the battlefield

Question 27. The word "fray" in paragraph 3 is OPPOSITE in meaning to __________.

A. strengthen        B. tighten        C. repair        D. connect

Question 28. Which of the following is TRUE according to paragraph 3?

A. Countries with strong finances are fully protected from the social effects of inflation.

B. Import-dependent nations tend to face greater pressure when governments have limited financial flexibility.

C. Reuters suggests that inflation mainly harms public awareness rather than daily living conditions.

D. Poor families are affected less severely because they are already used to economic hardship.

Question 29. In which paragraph does the author mention the unequal impact of inflation on poorer and import-dependent countries?

A. Paragraph 1        B. Paragraph 2        C. Paragraph 3        D. Paragraph 4

Question 30. In which paragraph does the author discuss the ethical responsibility of the media in reporting economic crises?

A. Paragraph 1        B. Paragraph 2        C. Paragraph 3        D. Paragraph 4

Health is no longer merely something to preserve. Increasingly, it is treated as a system to be optimized, audited, and refined without end. Sleep is scored, glucose is tracked, inflammation is monitored, and ageing itself is reframed as a technical problem to be slowed by enough discipline, enough data, enough control. That shift is persuasive because it arrives in the language of responsibility rather than obsession. To want a longer, stronger, clearer life seems not only reasonable but admirable. What makes biohacking more unsettling is that, beneath its rhetoric of self-care, it can turn ordinary vulnerability into a permanent management task.

Recent reporting on what some clinicians are calling “longevity fixation syndrome” gives that impulse a sharper outline. The article describes people whose pursuit of health had expanded into elaborate regimes of testing, tracking, supplementation, and bodily surveillance, often accompanied by mounting anxiety rather than reassurance. In one case, repeated biomarker checks, rigid food control, intensive exercise, and expensive wellness interventions did not produce freedom. They produced submission to numbers. The body, once approached as something to inhabit, became something to monitor. What looked like mastery from the outside was, from within, a form of siege.

That is why biohacking deserves to be read as more than an eccentric wellness fashion. [I] Better sleep, thoughtful nutrition, and exercise can plainly improve health, and it would be foolish to dismiss all experimentation as delusion. [II] The difficulty lies in the wider logic that now gathers around such habits. [III] The same reporting links this fixation to fear of death, loss of control, trauma, and a booming longevity industry that profits by keeping those anxieties active. [IV] In such a climate, insecurity becomes commercially useful. Mortality is not denied exactly. It is monetized, broken into purchasable routines and endlessly refinable protocols.

The deeper danger, then, is not simply medical overreach. It is existential narrowing. Once every missed metric begins to feel like negligence and every indulgence like sabotage, life itself starts to contract around prevention. Pleasure becomes suspect. Spontaneity becomes risk. Biohacking, at its most extreme, does not merely promise self-improvement; it teaches people to experience themselves as unfinished problems requiring constant correction. The question it leaves hanging is difficult and quietly devastating: at what point does the effort to prolong life begin to erode the very thing one hoped to preserve?

[Adapted from The Guardian]

Question 31: Where in the passage does the following sentence best fit?

Some of its practices rest on serious evidence.

A. [I]
B. [II]
C. [III]
D. [IV]

Question 32. The word “audited” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to __________.

A. verified        B. examined        C. tested        D. checked

Question 33. According to paragraph 1, why does the new view of health seem convincing?

A. It presents constant self-monitoring as a responsible way of living.

B. It suggests that technology can completely stop the ageing process.

C. It removes the need for discipline by making health easier to manage.

D. It treats physical weakness as a problem faced only by unhealthy people.

Question 34. Which of the following is NOT TRUE according to paragraph 2?

A. Highly controlled health routines could leave people more dependent on measurement than at ease in their own bodies.

B. Some people’s pursuit of wellness expanded into demanding patterns of testing, regulation, and close bodily oversight.

C. The more intensively these individuals tracked themselves, the more secure and internally free they tended to become.

D. What appeared outwardly to be discipline and command could inwardly resemble pressure and confinement.

Question 35. In paragraph 2, the phrase “that impulse” refers to __________.

A. the urge to prevent ageing by purchasing more wellness solutions

B. the broader drive to keep the body under continuous refinement and supervision

C. the desire to escape illness through stricter medical treatment

D. the tendency to compare one person’s health results with another’s

Question 36. Which of the following best summarises paragraph 3?

A. Biohacking attracts criticism mainly because profitable industries have replaced all meaningful evidence with exaggerated promises of control.

B. Some biohacking practices may be sound in themselves, yet the larger culture around them can feed on fear and turn insecurity into market demand.

C. The strongest reason to distrust biohacking is that it disguises trauma and fear of death as harmless interest in food, sleep, and exercise.

D. Longevity culture becomes persuasive chiefly because ordinary medicine offers too little guidance on how to manage uncertainty and decline.

Question 37. Which of the following best paraphrases the underlined sentence in paragraph 3?

A. Rather than pretending death does not exist, the industry turns anxiety about it into products and repeatable habits people can keep buying.

B. Instead of selling fear, wellness culture mainly offers hopeful language that helps people accept physical decline more calmly.

C. The market for longevity grows because people no longer believe doctors can guide them through uncertainty and ageing.

D. Biohacking proves that disciplined routines can eventually remove the limits once attached to human mortality.

Question 38. According to paragraph 4, what is the most likely consequence of treating every missed metric as negligence?

A. People may become better at balancing enjoyment with long-term health goals.

B. Life may grow narrower as avoidance begins to govern choices once shaped by ease or pleasure.

C. Individuals may rely less on prevention because constant vigilance proves emotionally tiring.

D. Ordinary risks may appear easier to judge once they are translated into measurable targets.

Question 39. Which of the following is most likely implied by the passage?

A. Health routines become dangerous only when they are based on expensive tools rather than ordinary daily habits.

B. Anxiety around ageing would largely disappear if people were given clearer medical guidance and fewer wellness choices.

C. Even reasonable efforts to care for the body can become self-defeating when they are absorbed into a mindset ruled by fear, control, and endless correction.

D. Commercial wellness culture succeeds mainly because people prefer simple routines to the uncertainty of evidence-based medicine.

Question 40. Which of the following best summarises the passage?

A. Longer life becomes more attainable when disciplined routines and close measurement replace casual, habit-based approaches to wellbeing.

B. A reasonable desire to stay well can harden into anxious self-surveillance when tracking, commercial incentives, and the wish for control begin to reorganise daily life.

C. Modern wellness culture becomes most damaging when costly interventions overshadow basic practices such as sleep, diet, and exercise.

D. Repeated health monitoring creates distress chiefly because many people misread useful advice and apply it with unnecessary intensity.