Pet Parenting for Gen Z in Vietnam’s Big Cities

For many Gen Z adults in Vietnam’s larger cities, pet parenting is becoming part of everyday urban life. Raising a pet now means paying attention not only to food and exercise, but also to apartment living, traffic noise, changing schedules, and shared public spaces.

At home

• Every carrier should contain a washable mat (1) __________ an anxious cat can settle without slipping during short rides across the city.
• In humid months, pet parents need to (2) __________ slight shifts in appetite, sleep, or hiding habits before they become obvious.
• After evening walks, dogs should be given fresh water in (3) __________ bowls placed away from direct heat.

Around the neighbourhood

• In compact apartments, damp feeding corners may create conditions highly (4) __________ to flies and ants.
• On noisy weekends, owners are sometimes better advised (5) __________ late walks until traffic and street activity have eased.
• Pet parents should not automatically attribute every episode of restlessness (6) __________ disobedience.

Question 1:
A.  at which        B. on which
C.  that        D. where

Question 2:
A.  pick up on
B.  pick out        C. pick up after        D. pick up with

Question 3:
A.  stainless-steel shallow water        B. shallow water stainless-steel

C. shallow stainless-steel water
D.  water shallow stainless-steel

Question 4:
A.  conductively
B.  conductible        C. conducive        D. conduciveness

Question 5:
A.  which postpone        B. postponing
C.  to postpone        D. having postponed

Question 6:
A.  upon
B.  via        C. over        D. to

PROFILE NOTE

A Life of Quiet Courage: For more than twenty years, Dr. Lan treated patients in another three villages. She never sought fame; instead, she became a guiding (7) __________ for young doctors who doubted their path.

What Set Her Apart

• (8) __________ repeated shortages of medicine and staff, she remained calm, fair, and deeply patient.

• (9) __________ local families trusted her not only as a doctor but also as a listener in times of fear.

• She often worked through the night and returned the next day to serve (10) __________ three villages cut off by heavy rain.

Lasting Influence: Colleagues often said that her greatest (11) __________ was integrity, not authority. Even after retirement, her example continued to shape public attitudes to service, duty, and human (12) __________.

Question 7: A. mark        B. light
C.  flame        D. torch

Question 8: A. In favour of        B. In place of        C. In the face of
D.  In line with

Question 9: A. Most of        B. Most
C.  Mostly        D. Almost

Question 10: A. all others        B. another
C.  each other        D. others

Question 11: A. strength
B.  posture        C. status        D. device

Question 12: A. mercy        B. charity        C. loyalty        D. dignity

Question 13:

a. Mira: Maybe when every shortcut saves the system time but steals an hour from the worker who still cannot reach a clinic, park, or cheap meal.

b. Leo: A city of twenty million sounds powerful, but when does it stop serving people and start serving its own traffic, towers, and deadlines?

c. Leo: So the warning sign is not sheer size, but the moment daily life becomes fuel for keeping the machine alive.

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

Question 14:

a. Ben: They can, but not if conservation starts after the bulldozers arrive.

b. Ben: Corridors, dark-sky zones, wetland buffers, and limits on where housing can leap next.

c. Hana: As suburbs spread, can wildlife protection and urban growth honestly live together, or is one just a polite slogan for the other?

d. Hana: So coexistence is real only when development accepts borders instead of treating every empty space as spare land.

e. Hana: Then what has to be planned before the first road appears?

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

Question 15:

Dear Khoa,

Hope you’re sleeping better this week. Has your new internship become less chaotic?

a. Some classmates called it the future, since schools, clinics, groceries, and buses within a short walk could cut noise, fuel bills, and wasted hours.

b. I ended up somewhere in the middle: the model is useful as a direction, not as a magic template to copy block by block.

c. Our planning studio spent all month arguing over the “15-minute city,” and the room split faster than I expected.

d. If cities borrow the principle and adapt it street by street, even a modest neighborhood can become more livable.

e. Others said that picture fits rich places better, because crowded districts in developing countries still struggle with flooding, tangled zoning, and patchy sidewalks.

Best,

Mai

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

Question 16:

a. Even so, a city is not only a puzzle of efficiency, because people carry memory, fear, habit, and unequal power into every street.

b. When planners tested an AI system on bus routes, drainage maps, and housing density, it produced a city layout in hours that would have taken teams months.

c. That is why I would let AI guide urban planning, but never let it rule without human debate, local testimony, and public accountability.

d. An algorithm can detect patterns better than exhausted officials, yet it may also freeze old bias into neat diagrams if the training data came from unfair decisions.

e. The design looked brilliant on screen: shorter commutes, cooler streets, fewer blind intersections, and parks placed where heat islands hit hardest.

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

Question 17:

a. From a distance, the move looked like retreat, yet her days became fuller: she spent less on appearances, knew her neighbors, and rebuilt time that the city had sliced into traffic and exhaustion.

b. Calling people like her quitters misses the point; some are not running away from the future, but testing a version of it where success is measured by control over life, not by postcode.

c. Everyone assumed she had failed, especially when she traded a marketing title for a small plot near her grandparents’ house and began selling herbs, fruit, and homemade jam online.

d. She still works hard, but the work now answers to seasons, customers, and family rather than endless meetings designed to produce more meetings.

e. Two years ago, my cousin Nhi left Ho Chi Minh City after ten years of chasing deadlines, rent increases, and the strange loneliness of living among millions.

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

In the contemporary era of hyper-connectivity, many individuals find themselves meticulously sculpting their online presence, often prioritizing digital validation over authentic experience. (18) __________. Photos are filtered, achievements are amplified, and every post is calculated to elicit a specific reaction from an invisible audience. Yet the paradox remains: the more people curate their lives to appear successful, the more they struggle with a sense of inadequacy. This phenomenon mirrors what sociologists call "status anxiety," a state (19) __________.

Users constantly monitor the metrics of their social interactions, adjusting their behavior to maximize engagement. Because social standing is now often quantified by likes and shares rather than intrinsic value, people focus intensely on "viral" moments and worry less about long-term consequences. Seeking to make users feel noticed, (20) __________. This constant need for approval is easily exploited by platform algorithms. Users are caught in a cycle of seeking external validation while being perpetually observed. (21) __________.

The contradiction is that individuals still strive to feel authentic while conforming to digital trends. Tech companies exploit this tension through "algorithmically driven suggestions," offering content that appears personalized but (22) __________. When people construct their identity based solely on what they imagine the digital crowd expects, they risk losing contact with their own independent desires. In the process, the original self becomes increasingly unrecognizable.

Question 18: 

A. Ignoring the curated stream of updates makes it difficult for social pressure to happen

B. The difficulty in keeping the stream of curated updates happening cannot be ignored

C. When curated updates happen, the stream of social pressure becomes difficult to ignore

D. Without the updated stream of curated pressure, we tend to ignore their difficulty

Question 19:

A. whose heavy reliance on external metrics when deciding how to feel or act

B. that relies heavily on external metrics when deciding how to feel or act

C. relied heavily on external metrics when deciding how to feel or act

D. its heavy reliance on external metrics when deciding how to feel or act

Question 20: 

A. platforms design features that exploit their fear of being overlooked

B. features exploit platforms by making users feel noticed and feared being overlooked

C. platforms are designed with users who exploit their fear of being overlooked

D. users design features that exploit platforms’ fear of being overlooked

Question 21: 

A. External validation is also a factor in the methods chosen by users to present themselves

B. Presentation is also a factor in the methods chosen by validation to externalize users

C. Methods are also a factor in the external validation chosen by users to present

D. Users are also a factor in the presentation chosen by external validation to methodize

Question 22: 

A. providing essentially identical content for the vast majority of users

B. that are essential to the identity of the vast majority of users in reality

C. is, in reality, essentially identical for the vast majority of users

D. the vast majority of users receive essentially identical content

A child returns to a beach she once knew by heart and finds it narrowed, dirtier, strangely wounded. An old farmer watches the seasons lose their rhythm. A student reads about fires, floods, and vanishing species, then feels guilty for laughing at lunch. Nothing in these moments looks dramatic enough for a headline, yet something real is breaking. The grief does not arrive after one funeral bell. It gathers slowly, like smoke in a closed room, until even ordinary beauty begins to feel fragile.

The American Psychological Association explains that people may experience climate grief when they notice or anticipate the loss of species, ecosystems, and meaningful landscapes because of environmental change. That idea matters because it tells us this sadness is not merely oversensitivity. It is a human response to damage, whether already visible or still approaching on the horizon. Not weakness but attachment often lies at its core. We grieve what we love, and we fear losing what once made us feel rooted.

Yet public discussion of environmental loss can move in two very different directions. At its best, it raises awareness by helping people name their distress, share it, and see that they are not imagining the wound. At its worst, it turns suffering into a display case, repeating apocalyptic images until despair becomes a habit and attention itself starts to feed on fear. The line is thin but crucial. One invites responsibility; the other sells helplessness wearing the mask of concern.

Still, eco grief is not only a dark feeling to be managed and tucked away. Properly understood, it can sharpen care rather than crush it. Seldom does love for a place disappear simply because the place is under threat. More often, grief reveals the depth of that bond. It may not hand us easy hope, but it can give us a cleaner kind of honesty, and from honesty, sometimes, a steadier form of action grows.

[Adapted from American Psychological Association]

Question 23. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in paragraph 1 as an example of how environmental loss may be felt in ordinary life?

A. A child notices that a familiar beach has become narrower and more polluted.

B. A farmer realizes that the natural pattern of the seasons is no longer stable.

C. A student feels guilty even during a normal lunch after reading about environmental destruction.

D. A family is forced to leave home at once because of a violent coastal storm.

Question 24. The word “rooted” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to __________.

A. secure and connected        B. calm and peaceful        C. safe and protected        D. settled and quiet

Question 25. The word “apocalyptic” in paragraph 3 is OPPOSITE in meaning to __________.

A. gentle        B. peaceful        C. pleasant        D. reassuring

Question 26. The word “It” in paragraph 2 refers to __________.

A. environmental change        B. this sadness        C. the horizon        D. that idea

Question 27. Which of the following best paraphrases the sentence in paragraph 3?

A. One reaction makes environmental damage easier to solve, while the other prevents the public from learning scientific facts.

B. One style of discussion reduces concern about environmental loss, while the other makes people exaggerate the danger for political reasons.

C. One form of public debate avoids emotional language, whereas the other simply asks people to care more deeply about nature.

D. One approach encourages people to respond seriously, while the other turns fear into a performance that keeps people passive.

Question 28. Which of the following is TRUE according to paragraph 4?

A. Eco-grief becomes constructive only when people are given clear reasons to feel hopeful right away.

B. Feeling grief for a threatened place may reflect a deep emotional connection rather than simple emotional weakness.

C. Once a place comes under threat, people usually begin to care less about it in order to protect themselves.

D. The main value of eco-grief lies in helping people hide painful feelings until the crisis has passed.

Question 29. In which paragraph does the author discuss the negative impact of certain ways of reporting environmental issues?

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

Question 30. In which paragraph does the author explain that feeling sad about the environment can lead to more effective actions?

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

Warning labels are designed to interrupt appetite with information. [I] Branding is designed to restore appetite with feeling. Put the two on the same package and a quiet contest begins, not simply between truth and falsehood, but between competing ways of reading the product itself. [II] The other surrounds that risk with cues of freshness, simplicity, and virtue, so that concern is not denied outright but softened into something more negotiable. [III] This is where foodwashing becomes most effective. It does not always depend on a direct lie. [IV] More often, it works by creating an ethical atmosphere in which the product feels healthier, cleaner, or more responsible than the evidence strictly warrants.

A study of processed foods and beverages sold in Peru offers a revealing example. It examined products frequently consumed by children before and after mandatory front-of-package warning labels were introduced, tracking marketing techniques as well as health and nutritional claims across the packaging. The point was not merely whether warnings appeared. It was how the rest of the package continued to speak around them. That matters because claims such as “natural,” “source of vitamins,” or the absence of one undesirable ingredient can generate what researchers call a health halo, encouraging buyers to extend one positive feature to the product as a whole. The package, in effect, invites a moral overreading.

What makes the issue sharper is what happened once regulation tightened. The study found that, after warning labels were implemented, marketing techniques increased on products classified as high in critical nutrients. That pattern suggests adaptation rather than surrender. Once policy forced nutritional risk into view, branding learned to compete harder for interpretive control, crowding the warning with enough reassurance to keep desire intact. Raising awareness and managing perception are not the same thing. A warning label tries to clarify. Foodwashing tries to aestheticize the very conditions that should provoke hesitation. Under that pressure, ethics can become less a standard than a styling device.

None of this means every claim is cynical or every consumer passive. Some labels do inform, and some buyers do read critically. The deeper problem is narrower and more unsettling. In a marketplace saturated with visual cues, companies may not need to defeat the warning. They need only to dilute its force. Once branding learns to imitate moral seriousness, the burden of discernment shifts onto consumers in the few distracted seconds before purchase. That is a heavy burden to place on attention alone, especially when the package has already been engineered to make virtue look delicious.

[Adapted from https://www.frontiersin.org/]

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

One tries to make nutritional risk legible at a glance.

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

Question 32. The word "them" in paragraph 2 refers to __________.

A. children        B. marketing techniques        C. nutritional claims        D. warning labels

Question 33. According to paragraph 2, what is the main danger of claims such as “natural” or “source of vitamins”?

A. They make mandatory warning labels legally invalid.

B. They encourage consumers to judge the whole product positively from one selected feature.

C. They force researchers to focus on packaging instead of ingredients.

D. They prove that processed foods can still be nutritionally balanced.

Question 34. Which of the following best captures the main message of paragraph 3?

A. Food companies typically stop using aggressive marketing techniques once government regulations on warning labels become stricter.

B. The introduction of warning labels has successfully changed the core ingredients of products high in critical nutrients in Peru.

C. Instead of complying with the spirit of the law, branding evolves to overshadow health warnings with strategic psychological reassurance.

D. Consumers are now more capable of distinguishing between objective nutritional information and aesthetic styling devices.

Question 35. The word “aestheticize” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to __________.

A. hide through technical language        B. make appear appealing or attractive

C. turn into a measurable standard        D. reduce to a legal category

Question 36. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as a strategy of foodwashing or branding?

A. Creating an ethical atmosphere that makes a product seem more responsible than it is.

B. Surrounding nutritional risks with visual cues suggesting simplicity and freshness.

C. Directly contradicting the facts provided in mandatory front-of-package warning labels.

D. Increasing marketing techniques on products that are officially classified as unhealthy.

Question 37. Which of the following is true according to paragraph 4?

A. The majority of modern consumers have become passive and unable to read food labels with a critical mind.

B. The primary goal of modern branding is often to weaken the impact of warnings rather than to disprove them.

C. Visual saturation in the marketplace has made it easier for buyers to identify fraudulent health claims.

D. Companies are forced to abandon moral seriousness when their products are engineered to look delicious.

Question 38. Which of the following best paraphrases the underlined sentence in paragraph 3?

A. When labels were mandated, food companies admitted defeat and reduced the amount of unhealthy nutrients in their products.

B. The response of food companies to new regulations was to adjust their branding strategies to regain influence over consumer interpretation.

C. Strict policies forced companies to surrender their marketing control, allowing warning labels to become the primary focus for buyers.

D. The pattern of increased marketing shows that companies were unable to adapt to the new visibility of nutritional risks.

Question 39. Which of the following can most likely be inferred from the passage?

A. Regulatory efforts to improve public health through labeling are often undermined by the sophisticated design of food packaging.

B. Products sold in Peru are now significantly healthier because marketing techniques have been replaced by ethical standards.

C. Consumers would be safer if branding were removed entirely, as attention alone is sufficient to judge nutritional value.

D. Foodwashing is only effective on consumers who are distracted and do not possess any knowledge of nutritional science.

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

A. Front-of-package warning labels have solved most problems of misleading food marketing by making unhealthy products easier to identify.

B. Foodwashing works not mainly by directly denying risk, but by surrounding it with reassuring cues that soften warning labels and shift the burden of judgment onto consumers.

C. Consumers should no longer trust health or nutritional claims because all such claims are deliberately deceptive.

D. Mandatory warning labels have led companies to abandon emotional branding and focus instead on transparent nutritional communication.