MÔN: tiếng anh (Dùng cho các chuyên ngành không chuyên tiếng Anh)

Bài 2: Đọc các bài đọc dưới đây và trả lời các câu hỏi kèm theo:

Louis Braille was born in France in 1809. His father had a small business. He made shoes and other things from leather. Louis liked to help his father in the store even when he was very small. One day when Louis was three years old, he was cutting some leather. Suddenly the knife slipped and hit him in the eye. Louis soon became completely blind.

When he was ten years old, he entered the National Institute for the Blind in Paris. One day his class went to visit a special exhibit by a captain in the army. One thing in the exhibit was very interesting for Louis. It showed messages in code. Armies send messages in secret codes so no one else can read them. The captain wrote this code in raised letters on very thick paper.

Louis thought a lot about this code. Then he decided to write in the same way so blind people could “read” with their fingers. It is very difficult to feel the differences between raised letters. Instead of letters, Louis used a “cell” of six dots. He arranged the dots with two dots across and three down.

There are 63 possible arrangements of the dots in the Braille system. Each arrangement stands for one letter, punctuation mark, or number. He also used his system to write music. Louis Braille invented this system when he was only fifteen years old.

Blind people can also write Braille. They use a special kind of pen to make the dots.

1. 
   What was Louis Braille’s place of birth?
   
2. 
   How did he become blind?
   
3. 
   What gave him the idea for the Braille system?
   
4. 
   How old was he when he invented the Braille system?
   
5. 
   Are there raised letters in the Braille system?
   

Scientists say that something very serious is happening to the Earth. It will begin to get warmer in the 1990s. There will be major changes in climate during the next century. Coastal waters will have a higher temperature. This will have a serious effect on agriculture. In northern areas, the growing season will be ten days longer by the year 2000. However, in warmer areas, it will be too dry. The amount of water could decrease by fifty percent. This would cause a large decrease in agricultural production.

World temperatures could increase two degrees centigrade by the year 2040. However, the increase could be three times as great in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. This would cause the ice sheets to melt and raise the level of the oceans by one or two metres. Many coastal cities would be under water.

Why is this happening ? There is too much carbon dioxide (CO2 ) in the air. When oil, gas, and coal burn, they create large amounts of carbon dioxide. We send five billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. This amount will double in fifty years. This carbon dioxide lets sunlights enter the earth’s atmosphere and heat the earth. However, it does not let as much heat leave the atmosphere and enter space. It is like a blanket. The heat can pass from the sun through the blanket to warm the earth. The heat stays there and can not escape through the blanket again.

Scientists call this greenhouse effect. A greenhouse is a building for growing plants. It is made of glass or clear plastic.

QUESTIONS

1. 
   What is a greenhouse ?
   
2. 
   What causes the greenhouse effect ?
   
3. 
   Why do scientists call this the greenhouse effect ?
   
4. 
   What changes will this effect make in the earth’s climate ?
   
5. 
   What would the temperature in the Arctic and Antarctic regions be in the year 2040 ?