Đề HSG TP.HCM 2023–2024 — Ngày 2
Đề thi chọn đội tuyển học sinh giỏi THPT TP.HCM, năm học 2023-2024, ngày thi thứ hai
Đề thi chọn đội tuyển học sinh giỏi THPT môn Tiếng Anh — Sở GD&ĐT TP.HCM. Đây là đề ở trình độ C1–C2, khó hơn hẳn đề tốt nghiệp: ngoài trắc nghiệm còn có điền từ, chia dạng từ, sửa lỗi và viết luận.
Đồng hồ chạy khi bạn trả lời câu đầu tiên — hãy làm trọn 180 phút, không tra cứu, rồi mới nộp bài để xem điểm từng phần.
Đáp án do Brighten VN giải — đề gốc của Sở GD&ĐT không kèm đáp án.
Đề gốc ngày thi thứ hai có phần LISTENING; phần này đã được lược bỏ vì không có file ghi âm đi kèm.
Phần Viết lại câu không chấm tự động — bạn tự đối chiếu với câu mẫu.
Đọc hiểu READING
Đọc kỹ bài rồi trả lời câu hỏi
Passage A
Read the article about science fiction. Seven parts have been removed from the extract. Choose from the paragraphs (A-H) the one which fits each gap (1-7). There is one EXTRA paragraph which you do not need to use.
Science fiction
Science fiction and the science on which I've based have long had a dynamic relationship - sometimes nurturing, sometimes oppositional. "Where are our flying cars?" became a plaintive cry of disappointment as the millennium arrived, reflecting the prevailing mood that science and technology had failed to live up to the most fanciful promises of early 20th-century science fiction.
1
Science fiction's predictive score is not particularly high, and depends more on its sheer multiplicity of ideas than on carefully extrapolated technological marvels.
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But it is not the task of science fiction to predict the future. Rather, science fiction gives us a way of thinking about humanity as a work in progress and contemplating what we might become. Science fiction proposes and examines possible futures. It extrapolates from contemporary problems and trends, and then it illuminates the present.
3
This might be more generally true with extremely negative outcomes, as we seem to produce more dystopias than utopias. We don't have much of a cultural expectation of dashing utopian yarns.
Ted Chiang says that science fiction is especially well suited to asking philosophical questions, such as questions about the nature of reality, what it means to be human, how do we know the things that we think we know. When philosophers propose thought experiments as a way of analyzing certain questions, their thought experiments often sound a lot like science fiction.
4
Corporations now regularly hire science fiction writers to create fictional prototypes, thought experiments, and what-if stories about potentially marketable products. Le Guin, however, holds that fiction, as a creative endeavor, necessarily sets limits in how it depicts reality.
5
Science fiction sometimes seems more surreal than extrapolative. Philip K. Dick's work, in which daily life becomes very strange, is probably the best-known example; Rudy Rucker calls his related mode of altered reality transrealism.
6
One of the joys of reading science fiction is that we are tossed into an incomprehensible world that eventually resolves into meaning. It's a microcosm of the human experience, except that you can figure it out and resolve your adventure within a few hundred pages.
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Science fiction, whether it relates to Utopia or the opposite, can prepare its readers for change and for the shock of the new. Change is a human condition.
National Geographic
The Paragraphs
- AIn this kind of science fiction, strangeness infuses the normal, and transforms it. When you finish the story, you take a bit of its strangeness with you, and the normal is never quite normal again.
- BSometimes the most startlingly contrarian ideas are the ones that come true, hence it's difficult now to understand how wild and paranoid Philip K. Dick's visions of the future seemed 50 or 60 years ago, before reality bent and assumed their shape.
- CScience fiction writer William Gibson, who coined the term 'cyberspace' - and will never be allowed to forget it - explains why people want to judge science fiction on its predictive capability. I take it for granted, both as a reader and a writer of science fiction, that one aspect of the potential pleasure of the text may be pretending to believe the future as presented is a likely outcome.
- DEven what's now called dystopian fiction, such as Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, in which the world is measurably less pleasant than middle-class American life, generally narrates a story in which the protagonist struggles within its grim world but eventually triumphs.
- EAll art consists of defining boundaries and exclusion as well as invention and creation. To a writer, the future is not only a laboratory but a blank canvas on which to paint possibilities, non-existent but possible or plausible realities, contained within the limits of the canvas.
- FStories set in the future are often taken for being about the future, and, if they are sufficiently dire or wondrous, are considered warnings or predictions. Science fiction novels that examine our present ethical concerns about human progress and regress - ubiquitous computing, genetic manipulation, climate control - will be judged, as time passes, merely on whether they 'came true' or not.
- GStories help us make sense out of the world - they give it order, and a sense of causality, because one thing leads to another. Certainly one of the things that science fiction does best is tackle big problems and suggest big solutions, while telling a briskly paced story.
- HThere is no denying, however, a connection between technology and science fiction. We're still waiting for our laser-powered space elevator and our light-driven intergalactic spaceship, but these are projects that technologists take very seriously. Jordin Kare, an astrophysicist at the Seattle-based company LaserMotive, who has done important practical and theoretical work on lasers, space elevators, and light-sail propulsion, cheerfully acknowledges the effect science fiction has had on his life and career.
Passage B
Read the following passage and choose the best option to answer the question, or fill in the blank.
Boring
Everything was going great until you showed up. You see me across the crowded room, make your way over, and start talking at me. And you don't stop. You are a Democrat, an outspoken atheist, and a foodie. You like to say 'Science' in a weird, self-congratulatory way. You wear jeans during the day, and fancy jeans at night. You listen to music featuring wispy lady vocals and electronic bloop-bloops. You really like coffee, except for Starbucks, which is the worst. No wait, Coke is the worst. Unless it's Mexican Coke, in which case it's the best. Pixar. Kitty cats. Uniqlo. Bourbon. Steel-cut oats. Comic books. Obama. Fancy burgers.
You listen to the same five podcasts and read the same seven blogs as all your pals. You stay up late on Twitter making hashtagged jokes about the event that everyone has decided will be the event about which everyone jokes today. You love to send withering messages to people like Rush Limbaugh - of course, those notes are not meant for their ostensible recipients, but for your friends, who will chuckle and retweet your savage wit.
You are boring. So, so boring.
Don't take it too hard. We're all boring. At best, we're recovering bores. Each day offers a hundred ways for us to bore the crap out of the folks with whom we live, work, and drink. And on the Internet, you're able to bore thousands of people at once.
A few years ago, I had a job that involved listening to a ton of podcasts. It's possible that I've heard more podcasts than anyone else. I listened to at least a little bit of tens of thousands of shows. Of course, the vast majority were so bad I'd often wish microphones could be sold only to licensed users. But I did learn how to tell very quickly whether someone was interesting or not.
The people who were interesting told good stories. They were also inquisitive, and willing to work to expand their social and intellectual range. Most importantly, interesting people were also the best listeners. They knew when to ask questions. This was the set of people whose shows I would subscribe to, whose writing I would seek out, and whose friendship I would crave. In other words, those people were the opposite of boring.
They check their egos at the door. An egomaniac is never interesting. Egomaniacs are always posturing, always worrying about how they'll come across. It's exhausting, and it's also dishonest. In a speech to the Stanford University graduating class of 2008, Oprah Winfrey said, 'The trick is to learn to check your ego at the door and start checking your gut instead. Every right decision I've made, every right decision I've ever made,
has come from my gut. And every wrong decision I've ever made was a result of me not listening to the greater voice of myself.' Oprah's advice is so important. Listen to your values, goals, and ambitions, rather than worrying about what will make you look good. Here are the three things they taught me.
Firstly, listen, then ask a question. There's no better way to be seen as a blowhard than to constantly blow, hard. Instead, give a conversation some air. Really listen. Ask questions - the person you're speaking with will respect your inquisitiveness and become more interested in the exchange. 'Asking questions makes people feel valued,' said former Virgin America VP Porter Gale, 'and they transfer that value over to liking you more.'
Secondly, tell a story. When people tell stories, they think about how to communicate the entirety of their experience to someone else. They set the stage, introduce characters, and give us a reason to care. Of course, that's hard to do in a single photo, but if you think in terms of story, could you find a better way to communicate your experience? How about a picture of the menu, or of your smiling dinner companions? Anything's better than the greasy puddles you have decided any human with access to the Internet should be able to see.
And finally, expand your circles. As you widen your social circle, work on your intellectual one as well. Expose yourself to new writers. Hit the Random Article button on Wikipedia. Investigate the trite platitudes, or bromides, your friends chuck around Twitter like frisbees.
When you expand your social and intellectual range, you become more interesting. You're able to make connections that others don't see. You're like a hunter, bringing a fresh supply of ideas and stories back to share with your friends.
The Big Bore lurks inside us all. It's dying to be set loose to lecture on Quentin Tarantino or what makes good ice cream. Fight the urge to speak without listening, to tell a bad story, to stay inside your comfortable nest of back-patting pals. As you move away from boring, you will never be bored.
The Magazine
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1. From the first paragraph, what do we learn about the writer's feelings towards the person being described?
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2. The writer claims that the reason behind this person's messages being posted online is ______.
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3. What ability does the writer believe they have gained through the job they had?
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4. It is suggested, in the seventh paragraph, that ______.
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5. On reflection, what does the writer believe is the best way to become an interesting person?
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6. The impression given of the writer is that ______.
Passage C
Read the following passage and choose the best option to answer the question, or fill in the blank.
Today the wartime slogan "Keep Calm and Carry On" adorns mugs, cushions and tea towels. It is a familiar phrase, spawning hundreds of parodies, yet authentic copies of the original government poster are very rare indeed. Even the Imperial War Museum does not own an example.
This week, as the UK faces its biggest political upheaval in 50 years, an original poster will go up for sale at the Art & Antiques Fair, Olympia for more than £20,000. The scarcity of the genuine artwork stems from its history as an emergency message from the second world war. It was never intended for release unless German air attacks on Britain threatened the nation's infrastructure or enemy forces mounted an invasion.
The poster was designed by the Ministry of Information in the summer of 1939 to represent a message from the King to his subjects, and it was hoped it would reassure the public and prevent widespread panic. A
year later, once Britain had weathered the onslaught of the Blitz, all the printed posters were sent back for pulping as part of the wider paper salvage drive, due to the shortage of raw materials.
The surviving Keep Calm print will go on sale at the fair in Olympia with a price tag of £21,250 at the Manning Fine Art stand. It was discovered 16 years ago at the bottom of a box of old books by Stuart Manley, the owner of Barter Books in Alnwick, Northumberland. Manley and his wife, Mary, framed it and hung it on the wall behind the cash register. After interest from customers, a few reproductions were made and sold. Since then the poster has become internationally recognised and is widely associated with a belief in British stoicism and the 'stiff upper lip'. The first ministry print run produced almost 2,500,000 copies of Keep Calm and Carry On, but until 2012 – when 20 copies turned up on an episode of the BBC's Antiques Roadshow – it was believed that only two copies had escaped pulping.
The Keep Calm design was the least popular of a series of three Home Publicity posters, each headed with a representation of the Tudor crown as a symbol of the head of state. The others read 'Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory' and 'Freedom Is in Peril. Defend it With All Your Might'. The keywords 'Your Courage', suggested by a civil servant named AP Waterfield, were regarded as potentially the most effective as 'a rallying war cry that will bring out the best in every one of us and put us in an offensive mood at once'.
The posters were dispatched across the country, to mixed results – Mass Observation reports from the time suggest the tone of even this milder slogan was regarded as patronising.
Draft versions of the three posters were completed on 6 July 1939, and were agreed by the home secretary of the day, Samuel Hoare, in August. They were to be ready to send out within 24 hours of the declaration of war. The typeface is close to Gill Sans but it is suspected the lettering was actually hand drawn.
In August 2011 a British-based company registered the slogan as a trademark in Europe and the United States, after failing to obtain registration of the slogan as a trademark in the United Kingdom. The registration was later queried on the grounds that the words are too widely used for anyone to own exclusive rights, but the request for cancellation was rejected.
The Guardian
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1. What is the writer's reason for writing this text?
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2. What is the writer suggesting in the first paragraph?
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3. The writer uses the word Blitz in the third paragraph to refer to ______.
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4. What explanation does the writer give in the third paragraph for so few of the original posters surviving?
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5. What does the text of the poster represent, according to the writer?
Passage C — tóm tắt
Read the following summary and fill in the blanks with ONE word from the passage.
Granted the trademark in the 6, the common slogan “Keep Calm and Carry On” was first intended as one of the three Home Publicity posters with the symbol of the 7 at the top. The three drafts were submitted for approval in early July 1939. “Keep Calm and Carry On” was the 8 favoured since the others were considered effective in bringing out the 9 person in us in wartime. At first glance, the poster seems to have the letters printed in Gill Sans, whereas there are rumours that the letters were drawn by the designers themselves.
Sửa lỗi sai ERROR CORRECTION
Tìm từ sai trong bài và sửa lại cho đúng
Find out the TEN mistakes in the following passage and correct them.
Line 1 We are accustomed to using Internet in many of our daily activities than ever before. This behavior is supposed to simply exert influence on our habits and lifestyle, but that is a misguiding view. A recently published book claims that the amount of time we spend on the Internet is changing the exactly very structure of our brains. Its thesis is simple enough: not only that the modern world's relentless informational overload is killing our capacity for reflection, contemplation and patience, but that our online habits are also altering the way our brains wired.
Line 7 In the book, the author looks back to such human inventions as the map and the clock and the extent to which they influenced our essential models of thought. He argues that the Internet's multiplication of stimuli and mass of information have given rise to hurried and distracted thinking. Without putting so fine a point
on it, the author concludes that our ability to learn anything at all worthwhile has become superficial.
Line 11 Surprisingly hardly a research has looked into the Internet's effects on the brain, but farther research is in hand and is investigating whether deep-thinking processes really are in danger of disappearing. And when the absence of deep-thinking practice in youngsters is the matter of concern, discussions and research are conducted via the Internet.
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Viết WRITING
Bài viết tự luận — đối chiếu với bài mẫu và tiêu chí chấm
Part 1
Read the following article on telemedicine. Write ONE paragraph of 80-100 words to summarise the main points.
Language evolves – INEVITABLY
These days the papers are full of articles, and letters to the editor, complaining about falling standards in both written and spoken English. Professors at universities moan about students' poor grasp of grammar, punctuation and spelling as do businesses recruiting potential employees. It's not just the written language they complain about. Interviewees are often nervous and tongue-tied, which is understandable; but many have no idea of what is called 'register'. This blurring of the lines between what is the appropriate language to use, for example, when being interviewed as opposed to when talking to friends, is a trend many people are not happy with.
It is noticeable how over the last 20-30 years, the use of informal language has become more commonplace in almost every situation. Objections to this may be based on a perceived lack of respect shown to one's elders and 'betters' – look at the way politicians are treated on TV these days. On the positive side, it means that things are more democratic and we speak to each other as equals. The majority of the people writing those articles and letters, while admitting that a certain amount of language change is unavoidable, claim that the English language is going to the dogs. But, for other people, all change is change for the worse.
People have been complaining about language change for ages. However, language change is inevitable; language is always shifting, evolving and adapting to the needs of its users. New technologies, new products and new experiences bring with them new words to talk about them. Computers and computing have added to our everyday vocabulary with words such as 'modem', 'laptop', 'email' and so on. Mobile phones have brought us texting, which in turn has brought us a new shorthand language using acronyms (words formed from the initial letters of other words, e.g. lol for laugh out loud) and a mixture of letters and numbers to create the sound of words; for example, l8 for late.
On a larger scale, a major factor in language change throughout history has been contact with other countries and cultures, whether through trade or migration, or, more recently, tourism. Under such circumstances, people are sometimes forced to adopt another language to survive, or it is to their advantage to do so. The English language has spread throughout the world, firstly, because of the former British Empire and, secondly, because of the 'soft power' of American culture, through films, TV programmes and music. Though more people speak Chinese and Spanish as their first language, English can now be considered a global language, spoken by millions of people as a second language in all parts of the world. However, it has also come to have many variants or dialects, as other cultures adapt it to their own uses and incorporate words, sounds and grammatical constructions from their own languages into it.
A great deal of innovation in language comes from young people. Teenagers, when communicating with others of their own age, practically create a new language with its own vocabulary and constructions different to that of their parents' generation: in fact, it is designed to keep parents in the dark. Some of the words and phrases teens come up with last no longer than the latest fashion, but some do find their way into the dictionary.
Some countries try to slow down, if not cease, the process of change in their language. In France, there is the French Academy, whose aim is 'to give exact rules' to the French language and to 'eliminate the impurities', as well as to regulate spelling, grammar and literature. Despite their efforts, barbarisms such as 'le weekend' have slipped through the net. People can complain as much as they like, but language is always changing, often in creative ways, allowing us to see things in a different way. As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, 'The limits of my language mean the limits of my world'.
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1. Read the following article on telemedicine. Write ONE paragraph of 80-100 words to summarise the main points.
0 từ
Part 2
Envy is, in some people's eyes, a positive emotion which can help people to become better. However, to most people's minds, envy is a negative emotion, or even a source of malicious deeds.
Which idea sounds more sensible to you?
Write an essay of NO MORE THAN 300 words to support your choice.
THE END OF THE TEST
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2. Envy is, in some people's eyes, a positive emotion which can help people to become better. However, to most people's minds, envy is a negative emotion, or even a source of malicious deeds.
0 từ