Reading Comprehension
The authors of both passages most vividly recall ________.
Gagarin's smile
Both authors lived where at the time of Gagarin's arrival?
Glasgow
In paragraph 3, lines 10-15, Nadya expresses her _______.
Anxieties regarding the marriage
A member of parliament
Captivated by Gagarin's personality and charm.
The word "amalgamated" in sentence 1, paragraph 3 of passage 4 most nearly means ________.
Combined
From the way the narrator describes Father Andrey's son, Andrey Andreitch, it can be inferred that _________.
Father Andrey is from a different branch of Christianity that approves of marriage within the clergy.
What is the author trying to say in the last stanza, in lines 12-14?
His life will be shorn of direction and meaning for every moment she's gone
According to Fr. Miranda, the Diploma Supplement is important because ___________
It shows what you can actually do in life.
what will a student receive after completing Level 1 or Grade 10?
National Certificate I
What figure of speech does the author use in lines 7-8?
Personification
The garden that Nadya went to in line 6 can be described as __________.
Pleasant and Chilly
How does the author express his unwillingness to part with his lover?
Progressively; asking her not to leave him in decreasing time intervals
-Taken from Christine Pantaleon of the Cebu Daily News at Inquirer.net. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/375475/k12-system-seen-to-address-phunemployment-problem The new K+12 education program is one way of addressing the country's unemployment woes. Fr. Dionisio Miranda, president of the University of San Carlos, said the reforms in the educational system would help address this problem. The K+12 program of the government requires students to undergo kindergarten classes, and two more years of high school. In K+12, there is a Philippines Qualifications Framework (PQF), where technical and vocational courses are introduced, said Miranda during the Conference of Asia-Pacific Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CACCI) at the Radisson Blu Hotel last Thursday. In the PQF, "technopreneurship" and "green" skills for "green" jobs are also included and students would be assessed according to their competencies and skills related to the topics. In Level One, which is in Grade 10, a student will receive a National Certificate I after he passes the level of competence in knowledge, skills, and values for that level. In Level Two, which is already between grades 11 and 12, a student will receive a National Certificate II if he passes the different standards for the level. "A student in the Philippine system, coming out of junior high or senior high, and for the first year can acquire a national certificate in the various categories. With that, they can already go to work," Miranda said. "That is the missing link we had in the Philippines. That is why the reform components are very critical," Miranda added. There are also National Certificates III and IV, which are for students who want to focus on technical skills. After taking the national certificates III and IV, a student can take the post baccalaureate then doctoral and post doctoral education which a person can now be classified a Level 8 professional. "That degree would be recognized in a Malaysian Qualifications format. This means that if a Filipino would go to Malaysia and brings his degree with him, then he will be recognized there," Miranda said. Miranda said as of the moment, there's a mismatch between our education and present day jobs. "That's a great missing link in our educational system and we're going to need to understand these levels once ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) opens up because the rest of the world is going to come here and will be bringing along with them their certificates," he said. "Your diploma would not mean very much. What would mean more is the diploma supplement which describes what you can actually do or cannot do," Miranda said referring to the national certificates. Miranda said the old educational system, the K+10 program, lacked more years of quality education and made vocational courses as an afterthought, which were not the case with some ASEAN member countries. Dato Ghazali Bin Dato Mohd Yusoff, executive chairman Nusantara Technologies Sdn Bhd, said the Malaysian education was focused in providing equal access to quality education of an international standard and they had already formatted their education in a way that it could meet the needs of the industry
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Don't Go Far Off Pablo Neruda 1 Don't go far off, not even for a day, because -- because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep. 5 Don't leave me, even for an hour, because then the little drops of anguish will all run together, the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift into me, choking my lost heart. Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach; 10 may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance. Don't leave me for a second, my dearest, because in that moment you'll have gone so far I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking, 14 Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying
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PASSAGE 3-Adapted from the BBC website. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-12661377] 1 When Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin returned to Earth after his pioneering space flight five decades ago, he undertook a world tour in which he remarked on the "smiling faces" greeting him. Among those smiling faces was an 11-year-old Glasgow schoolboy, Robin McKie. 4 In the summer of 1961, he made a special trip to Earls Court in London with his mother to meet Major Gagarin - the first man in space. This April will be the 50th anniversary of the flight and scientists are marking the occasion by launching an appeal for anyone who met the Soviet during his visit to the UK. 8 Major Gagarin became an instant celebrity during his globetrotting tour, which had been engineered to trumpet the USSR's achievement in beating America into manned space flight. 10 The trip took him to Manchester and to London where, during a news conference, he expressed gratitude for the wonderful welcome he had received. Young self-confessed "space-nut" Robin was delighted when his mother said she would be taking him to the Soviet trade fair where Major Gagarin was to visit. "All the science fiction stories I'd been reading were now true, and there was a man in space," said Robin. The major's space flight left its mark on the Scotsman's life and he's now science editor at the Observer newspaper. 16 Robin insists: "I'm not saying I wouldn't have been a science writer if I hadn't gone to see Gagarin. But it really reinforced it. And I am eternally grateful to my mother, that she gave me that opportunity." 18 The trade fair was full of life size models of Soviet space rockets and satellites, and they were what really excited the schoolboy, but Robin continues to have a vivid memory of Gagarin arriving at the exhibition. 20 He said: "The thing that struck me really was the smile. He had the most beautiful smile. It was just hypnotic. "We weren't quite close enough to touch him. He walked past us at some speed. "He waved at - not me, but in my general direction. Therefore, in my memory he waved at me. And I waved very excitedly back. "I was absolutely - over the moon is a stupid phrase - but, that really was absolutely fantastic." 24 Gagarin's tour did not bring him to Scotland, but there is a corner of Fife that marks his triumph. 25 The Scottish Special Housing Association was building a new scheme at Lumphinans, a former mining village on the outskirts of Cowdenbeath and in December 1961 local councilors decided that one of the roads should be called Gagarin Way. 27 Not everyone who lives there now is very clear about how, or why, the street got its name but one resident says that the area used to be known as "Little Moscow". She suspects that the name might have been chosen to celebrate the USSR's achievement. 29 And indeed at Dunfermline library the local history librarian, Janice Erskine, confirms that part of the kingdom of Fife had a very particular political history, linked to the local mining industry. She says that though their union had affiliated to the Labour Party, miners were frustrated that the party wasn't left-wing enough. 32 Later, the area became one of the first in Britain to return a communist MP to Westminster and it was a tradition that lived on, with communists elected to the council. 34 Looking through the archive, Janice Erskine says it is pretty clear that it was one of them who suggested the name for the new road
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PASSAGE 4-Adapted from The Guardian. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/mar/13/yuri-gagarin-first-space-korolev] 36 I have an intense, very personal memory of Yuri Gagarin. The young pilot, newly promoted to the rank of major, visited Britain a few months after his great flight. I was 12 years old at the time and fanatical about astronomy and space science. My mother, to my eternal gratitude, spotted that Gagarin would be opening the Soviet Trade Fair in London on 11 July when our family was on holiday in the city visiting relatives. (We lived in Glasgow.) I remember standing at the front of a fairly large crowd that afternoon. A car drew up and Gagarin bounced out. He marched smartly towards us, waving cheerfully before bounding into the exhibition. I could only have had a few seconds' sight of him but have a vivid recollection of his smartness, compact body and, most noticeable of all, his angelic smile. 42 My fleeting glimpse of the first man in space has stayed with me in the intervening half-century though at the time I was more interested in the trade fair itself, with its full-size models of the Soviets' early Sputnik probes and other scientific paraphernalia. I also collected a magazine that showed - in detail - how the USSR would get to the moon long before America. Sadly I did not keep it. 45 Gagarin went on to meet the Queen, lay a wreath at Karl Marx's grave and visit Manchester, rather bizarrely as the guest of the Amalgamated Union of Foundry Workers. Gagarin charmed wherever he went, though I rather liked the remark by then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who noted the people who lined the streets to see the cosmonaut. "There would have been twice the number if they had sent the dog," he muttered.
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Passage 5-Taken from "Bethroed" by Anton Chekov 1 It was ten o'clock in the evening and the full moon was shining over the garden. In the Shumins' house an evening service celebrated at the request of the grandmother, Marfa Mihalovna, was just over, and now Nadya -- she had gone into the garden for a minute -- could see the table being laid for supper in the dining-room, and her grandmother bustling about in her gorgeous silk dress; Father Andrey, a chief priest of the cathedral, was talking to Nadya's mother, Nina Ivanovna, and now in the evening light through the window her mother for some reason looked very young; Andrey Andreitch, Father Andrey's son, was standing by listening attentively. 6 It was still and cool in the garden, and dark peaceful shadows lay on the ground. There was a sound of frogs croaking, far, far away beyond the town. There was a feeling of May, sweet May! One drew deep breaths and longed to fancy that not here but far away under the sky, above the trees, far away in the open country, in the fields and the woods, the life of spring was unfolding now, mysterious, lovely, rich and holy beyond the understanding of weak, sinful man. And for some reason one wanted to cry. 10 She, Nadya, was already twenty-three. Ever since she was sixteen she had been passionately dreaming of marriage and at last she was engaged to Andrey Andreitch, the young man who was standing on the other side of the window; she liked him, the wedding was already fixed for July 7, and yet there was no joy in her heart, she was sleeping badly, her spirits drooped.... She could hear from the open windows of the basement where the kitchen was the hurrying servants, the clatter of knives, the banging of the swing door; there was a smell of roast turkey and pickled cherries, and for some reason it seemed to her that it would be like that all her life, with no change, no end to it. 16 Some one came out of the house and stood on the steps; it was Aleksandr Timofeitch, or, as he was always called, Sasha, who had come from Moscow ten days before and was staying with them. Years ago a distant relation of the grandmother, a gentleman's widow called Marya Petrovna, a thin, sickly little woman who had sunk into poverty, used to come to the house to ask for assistance. She had a son Sasha. It used for some reason to be said that he had talent as an artist, and when his mother died Nadya's grandmother had, for the salvation of her soul, sent him to the Komissarovsky school in Moscow; two years later he went into the school of painting, spent nearly fifteen years there, and only just managed to scrape through the leaving examination in the section of architecture. He did not set up as an architect, however, but took a job at a lithographer's. He used to come almost every year, usually very ill, to stay with Nadya's grandmother to rest and recover. 24 He was wearing now a frock-coat buttoned up, and shabby canvas trousers, crumpled into creases at the bottom. And his shirt had not been ironed and he had somehow all over a look of not being fresh. He was very thin, with big eyes, long thin fingers and a swarthy bearded face, and all the same he was handsome. With the Shumins he was like one of the family, and in their house felt he was at home. And the room in which he lived when he was there had for years been called Sasha's room. Standing on the steps he saw Nadya, and went up to her.
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At the start of the passage, a/an ________ had just finished.
Religious Service
Aleksandr Timofeitch is better known as ________.
Sasha
What figure of speech does the author use in lines 3-4?
Simile
Both authors were piqued particularly by the ________.
Soviet Trade Fair
What does the word anguish, used in line 6, mean?
Suffering
What does the author dread the most?
That his lover be away from him even for just a while.
In passage 3, line 32, the term "Westminster" probably refers to what?
The British legislature
In line 34, Passage 3, it can be inferred that _____ suggested the name for the road.
The Scottish Special Housing Association members
What did Janice Erskine refer to when she mentioned "political history" in line 30, passage 3?
The area's leftist history
Robin McKie from passage 3, eventually becomes _______.
The science editor at The Observer.
What is the overall message of the passage?
To show how the K-12 system can help students be recognized internationally and be better prepared for work
Under the new K-12 program, what additional year levels are students required to go through?
Two years of High School and Kindergarten
Both passages describe ____________.
Yuri Gagarin's visit to the UK