Đề tuyển sinh vào lớp 10 Tiếng Anh năm 2026-2027 PTNK TP.HCM (đề chuyên) (có đáp án)

Guided cloze 1:

What makes people feel nervous about public speaking? Why do their hands shake, their knees quiver, their stomachs 41 and their voices rise?

Researchers find that public-speaking anxiety is both a trait (a general tendency) and a state (anxiety 42 by a specific audience or setting). Causes include fears of humiliation, failure, making mistakes, or being unprepared, alongside perfectionism and performance pressure.

Communication apprehension may have a biological basis; some individuals inherit a tendency to feel anxious. However, speakers can manage this by focusing on changeable behaviors, like enhancing speaking skills, rather than on their 43 makeup. Conversely, psychology affects biology. A speaker's perception of the assignment, skills, and self-esteem interact to create anxiety. 44 with conflict, the brain triggers a "fight-or-flight" 45, increasing breathing rates, adrenaline, and blood 46. These physiological changes cause a rapid heartbeat, shaking, quivering voice, or stomach "butterflies". 47, speakers may minimize eye contact, use vocalized pauses ("um," "ah"), or speak too rapidly. 48 uncomfortable, the body is simply attempting to assist with the task.

Regardless, apprehension seems to follow a predictable 49, with people generally feeling most nervous right before presenting, when uncertainty is highest. The second highest anxiety level occurs when the instructor explains the assignment, while the least anxiety is felt during preparation. Understanding this helps speakers manage anxiety when it 50. Because anxiety decreases once speaking begins and diminishes through positive preparation, starting early ensures both a better speech and greater confidence.

Guided cloze 2:

In many schools, handwriting has begun to make a modest comeback. For years, it was 51 dismissed as a nostalgic skill, likely to be eclipsed by keyboards. Yet recent classroom experiments suggest that putting pen to paper can 52 memory in ways typing often cannot. The point is not to 53 one tool against the other, but to ask which tool best suits a particular task. When pupils take handwritten notes, they are 54 to compress ideas, deciding what matters before it reaches the page. That act of selection can 55 understanding. By contrast, laptops make it easy to transcribe a lesson word 56 word, a habit that can create the illusion of learning without much processing.

None of this means schools should turn their backs on digital literacy. A child who cannot search responsibly or revise a shared document is at a 57. But a curriculum that treats handwriting as obsolete may be throwing away a simple 58 for thought. The best classrooms are not those that 59 to old methods or chase every new device; they teach students to choose deliberately. In that sense, the revival of handwriting is less a reactionary move than a reminder that learning is not always 60 by speed.

Open cloze 1:

Every museum tells a story, but the most honest ones admit that their story could have been told otherwise. Objects rarely speak for 61. They acquire meaning in relation 62 the labels, rooms and routes that surround them. A cracked bowl may be presented 63 evidence of hardship, ingenuity or trade, 64 on the questions curators ask. This does not make museums unreliable; on the 65, it makes their responsibility clearer. Visitors need to know not only what is on 66_ but also what has been left out. In recent years, many museums have begun to invite communities 67 histories were once treated as marginal to help decide how collections should be interpreted. Such collaboration is not always easy. There are arguments over ownership, over painful memories, and over 68 a national institution can ever speak for those it once ignored. Still, the attempt matters. A museum that refuses to revise its story 69 turning heritage into decoration. A museum that listens, by contrast, allows the past to remain alive enough to challenge the present. It asks visitors to see history not as a set of facts over and done with, but as a conversation in which they too have a 70.

Open cloze 2:

The latest Al slop to take the internet by 71 features anthropomorphic fruit, specifically TikTok-based soap 72 videos channeling fruit and their love lives. Created with minimal human input, this low-quality, AI-generated content is as easy to absorb as it is to churn out. While specifics may 73 the majority of these clips are telenovela or reality TV-styled, featuring cartoony humanoid fruits with strangely mature 74 matter. For instance, viewers might watch a weeping strawberry discover her partner cheating 75 her, or two coconuts struggling to feed their children.

While to adults, the propagation of these fruit videos feels ridiculous on the 76 there is an insidious underbelly, namely the exploitation of children's media and its subsequent 77 on younger audiences. With bright colors and speedy pacing, these videos mimic the style of 78 marketed at children, such as by Cocomelon, albeit with wildly inappropriate themes. While it is true that children consuming age-inappropriate media is not new, AI has accelerated the output rate, 79 multiplies exposure frequency and normalizes such content. Frankly, tech corporations, specifically Al companies, ought to be 80 accountable for this rampant, uncontrolled spread of harmful AI slop.

Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow.

A librarian reflects on the value of libraries

Unlike many librarians who always dreamed of standing behind a counter and stamping books, I came to the profession by accident. When I left university with a humanities degree in the 1970s, I had no clue about what I wanted to do with my state-funded higher education. I applied for a job as a gas meter reader which seemed suitable for a working-class lad from a council estate, but at the interview I was told that I was over-qualified and so I became a library assistant instead. I quickly discovered that there wasn't much to the library lark, and if I wanted to get on I would have to become a fully qualified librarian.

Armed with my diploma and a burning social conscience, I set out to change the world of public libraries. Nearly 40 years on I have made the smallest of dents in its battleship armour. But on the way I have met some amazing people. My bosses have mostly been of the keep-your-head-down-and-don't-rock-the-boat variety. Colleagues have ranged from shrinking violets to strident activists who share my passion. And the customers - whom we endearingly call borrowers, like those little people who live under the floor - have come from every walk of life. Public libraries seem to attract more than their fair share of what might be called "characters".

There is never a dull moment in the life of a public library. We open our doors and anyone can come in, so we never know quite what to expect and every day is very different. One of the most extraordinary things that has happened to me at work was when I was asked to search my central London library for bombs during a terror alert. I had contacted the police when I received a bomb threat but, as they pointed out, "you know what the library looks like, so please have a walk around to see if anything is out of place". Fortunately, it was a false alarm and there were no incendiary devices hidden in the card catalogue. Some of the funniest things that have happened to me at work include the discovery of a piece of streaky bacon stuck between the pages of a detective novel. I pictured the borrower, reading his book at the breakfast table before rushing off to work, and reaching out for whatever was at hand to mark his page.

I love my job so much that work-life balance has never been an issue. Plus, I am very happy to take my work home with me because I never leave the library without a big stack of books, CDs and DVDs. The only regret I have about my long career in public libraries is that I have not been able to convince more librarians that they should be less book-focused and more people-focused; that they should look outward to the community rather than inward to the library; that they should get rid of desks and counters and do more active roving inside the library and outside in the community; that they should put less emphasis on the excellence of the collection and more on providing books that people actually want to read; and, most important of all, that libraries should be community-led and based on the needs of the public they serve.

What I dislike most about the profession is its insistence on standards of excellence and a rule-bound culture which tends to exclude those for whom public libraries were founded in the first place - the deserving poor and, indeed, the undeserving poor as well. For it is a fact that libraries are used most by those who need them the least (the middle class) and used the least by those who need them the most (the working class).

The job has, regrettably, not changed much from when I started out. Libraries have been modernised through technology but their underlying strategies, structures, systems and culture remain the same. We have a plethora of rules and regulations, and the part of my job I dread the most is having to ban someone from the library, because usually they come from the section of society that needs libraries the most. But this is more than balanced out by the many pleasures of the job, which include helping borrowers to improve the quality of their lives and meet their needs - whether that is for books and information, or helping them to find a job or a roof over their head.

Librarians are chronically underpaid but we don't do the job just for the money. [I] More money is always good, but what we really want is recognition from politicians that we are the fourth emergency service. [II] Proving this is difficult, but we are already starting to see what happens when public libraries are closed down. [III] Library closures are low-hanging fruit but the tiny amounts that this saves from the public purse is more than outweighed by the costs of increased crime, and worsening health and education outcomes. [IV] While we cannot demonstrate a direct link, every librarian knows that we are an important ingredient of the glue that sticks communities together.

The True Price of a Tree

By David Suzuki

We were standing in an ancient forest that was threatened with clear-cut logging. He was the CEO of the company that had been allotted the tree farm license that enabled him to drive a road into the valley and begin the industrial extraction of the trees that would destroy what took millennia to evolve. We had engaged in an animated argument about the fate of that forest while standing face to face less than half a meter apart.

89

"Unless, of course, you tree huggers decide you'll pay money to save it so you can enjoy it. Think your cronies can raise enough money to save the entire forest? Logging is what keeps the economy of this province growing and makes it possible for you preservationists to wear clothes, drive cars, and watch TV."

90

But the perspective through which I viewed the forest-of which that tree was a part—was radically different. That one tree was a tiny part of a community of organisms thousands of years in the making. That community is made up of trees ("merchantable timber," or "fiber," in the jargon of the industry) that are a tiny minority of the lifeforms that comprise the forest.

91

This is the community that we recognize as a forest, complex and interlinked beyond comprehension and all held together by the air, water, and sunlight that suffuse them.

92

Consequently, companies require geneticists to breed fast-growing strains of commercially valuable trees, tree planters, herbicides to clear out "weed" (i.e., commercially worthless) species, insecticides to eliminate pests, fertilizers to restore nutrition to the soil, and firefighters. Large clear-cuts and the use of heavy machinery expose soil flora and fauna to sunlight, wind, and air. This alters water retention in the streams and rivers that are the lifeblood of the forest, radically transforming the remaining species mix.

93

The entire forest is like the goose that laid golden eggs in the children's fable; as long as the goose is fat and healthy, it will yield golden eggs indefinitely. In the short-term perspective of global economics, as in the children's story, forestry companies attempt to gather all of the eggs at once by killing the goose.

94

Returning to the CEO's statement that the tree only acquires value when it enters our economy by generating revenue, consider what the tree does before humans define its value. Hundreds of years old, that tree has absorbed carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) from the air, thereby playing a part in life's climate engine, and releases oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis-not a bad byproduct for all animals like us that are completely dependent on that oxygen for survival.

95

All of these natural services performed by that single standing tree affect human health and survival, yet they are entirely ignored by our economy. It's long past time when we started lifting our horizons and values beyond the extremely limited perspective of conventional economics.

List of paragraphs:

A. As I pointed out in the book Good News for a Change: Hope for a Troubled Planet, by selective logging at or below the growth rate of the trees in a forest, trees can be profitably "harvested" indefinitely instead of once every hundred years or more. Nor is the diversity that is the key to resilience and regeneration sacrificed when trees are selectively removed.

B. Recent studies on urban forestry indicate that compared to natural wild areas, isolated city parks do not offer the same microclimate stability. There, only invasive species and drought-tolerant shrub species thrive rather than native canopy trees. Because of this, urban planners cannot rely solely on localized tree-planting initiatives to emulate the effects of natural forests.

C. The soil is a living organism made up of tens of thousands of species of microorganisms-viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa-and larger nematodes, worms, insects, and mites. Plants and animals blanket the forest floor, lichens and mosses coat rocks and decaying wood, snags and fallen logs provide nutrition and protection for countless organisms.

D. "You see that tree over there?" he shouted, pointing to a giant that was probably many centuries old. Without waiting for my response, he continued, "It doesn't have any value until it's cut down." I was dumbstruck by the statement, giving him the opening to carry on.

E. Foresters rationalize these practices as "proper silvicultural management," as if they know what it is that creates the original forest that was cut down. Of course, they have no idea. They lack both a proper inventory of all the constituent species that make up the forest and a blueprint that explains how all of the components are interconnected.

F. What had made me speechless was the realization that he was right. In the value system inherent in the form of economics our society has embraced, only when money is exchanged for goods and services is the transaction recognized as having economic worth.

G. Likewise, the roots of the tree cling to soil even under the hardest of rains, thereby inhibiting erosion while siphoning vast quantities of water up into the canopy, where it is released through transpiration, hence ameliorating weather. From roots to tips of branches, the tree offers a habitat for countless forms of life, from lichens and fungi to insects, birds, and mammals.

H. What foresters refer to as a "second-growth forest" is not a forest at all but a tree plantation - an attempt to grow trees like a crop of tomato or corn plants. But of course, such a "managed forest," or "fiber farm," no longer has the resilience, regenerative capacity, or self-protective devices of a natural forest.

I. Consequently, while carbon offset credits offer a lucrative alternative for developing nations to preserve forest areas, local enforcement often fails to prevent illegal logging operations along unmarked borders. This instability makes it difficult for conservation groups to project the long-term financial viability of these corporate partnerships.

Questions 96 - 105 READING PASSAGE 3 (1.00 pt)

Read the passage below and answer the questions which follow.

British anthropologist Sir Edward Burnett Tylor espoused the classic definition of culture in 1871, describing it as that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." Culture is learned; it is not something that is biologically determined. This is in contrast to our innate ability to acquire language. Regardless, the particular language an individual first learns - their "mother tongue" - can "only be acquired by man as a member of society." Language, therefore, is a part of one's culture, but at the same time, language is used to transmit that culture, to teach that culture. In fact, culture and language are interdependent. No type of human society can be maintained if its members do not share a common language. Moreover, language, the most common way people communicate, could not have developed outside a social setting

Language both expresses culture and reflects culture. Some linguists and anthropologists argue that different languages produce different ways of thinking. Cultures organize and view the world in diverse ways, and their languages support these differences through grammar and vocabulary. By studying lexical classification in various languages, scientists have been able to show that speakers of different languages perceive and distinguish things differently. The Nuer people of Sudan, for instance, traditionally were cattle herders, and their entire lifestyle centered on cattle, so their language has dozens of words for cattle. Another cultural-dependent concept is time. English speakers divide time into past, present and future, and English grammar has tenses to reflect this view of time. On the other hand, the Hopi, a Native American tribe of the Southwest United States, only make a distinction between events that have existed or exist (English past and present) and those that do not exist or do not yet exist (English future, including the subjunctive case used for possibility). Their language does not differentiate between present and past. Similarly, the complexity of vocabulary in a language to describe family relationships varies depending on the role of kinship in that culture. Color terminology also varies widely by language. Those that involved in areas with a history of using dyes and artificial coloring have the broadest range of color vocabulary.

Living languages, of course, undergo constant but often gradual transformation, as new words and expressions are added to the lexicon and meanings of words are altered. Different cultures can speak the same basic language, but it will have variations reflecting those different cultures. For instance, Koreans share a common language, but after six decades of being separated by a tightly sealed border, the cultures of North and South Korea have diverged along with the Korean language. If a South Korean asks a North Korean how they are doing, the North Korean would likely reply "liupsopneda", an expression that literally means "not much," which has a sense similar to "I'm fine, thanks." Yet, that same expression would mean "Mind your own business!" to the South Korean. Both North and South Korean use the word "mije," but in the North it means "American imperialist," while in the South it means, "Made in the USA."

Within a culture, language can also play an important role in differentiating occupational groups and social status. Many groups have their own "focal vocabulary," that is, a specialized set of terms that are important to them and what they do. On a Hollywood film set, when the gaffer, head electrician, yells to the crew to "Kill the baby!" he is not talking about child murder. He is instructing the electricians to turn off a small light. Moreover, people want to improve their social status will try to adopt the habits, attitudes, and behavioural traits of the group to which they aspire. In terms of language, this includes trying to shift how they speak by taking on the speech patterns and vocabulary associated in their culture with the higher social status.

In any culture, language is more than just a means of conveying information. Significant aspects of a culture are embedded in the structure of its language, in its vocabulary, grammar, and usage. The distinctions a language makes between genders, how it refers to time and space, and the different ways language conveys rank, respect, and love are all related to the culture in which it is used.

Questions 96 - 100: Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage?

Write TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

Questions 101 - 105: Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Language and culture

Although humans possess the 101 to learn languages, they cannot effectively do so without belonging to a shared culture. In a similar fashion, cultures can hardly exist without a shared language between its members. This interdependence is demonstrated in multiple aspects. Firstly, vocabulary and grammar reflect the importance and perception of various domains in a culture. For example, cultures that highly regard 102 might have a richer vocabulary to denote relationships. Secondly, the 103 of any language constantly receives new additions as well as alterations to current words, a process which is tied to historical developments of the culture. Finally, within a society, language can be used to signify social group. This is illustrated by the 104 employed only in certain professions with very different meanings from their literal counterparts, while the words and 105 of desirable social groups are often copied by people who wish to be part of those groups.

Questions 106 - 115 WORD FORMATION (1.00 pt)

Provide the most suitable form of the given words in the brackets to complete each blank in the passage below. Write no more than ONE word for each space.

Even in today's ecologically aware world, a declaration of vegetarianism is often met with expressions of incredulity, cynical smirks, and suspicion. While such intolerant attitudes might have been understandable in the previous century-when vegetarianism was a novel ideology closely linked to the youth 106 (CULTURE) known for challenging social conventions-they are outdated today. Currently, vegetarians span all walks of life, far 107 (NUMBER) the old "tree-hugging" stereotypes. As information becomes more accessible, more people are consciously adopting a 108 (MEAT) diet for a host of different compelling reasons.

In a health-obsessed society, eliminating meat is increasingly common among those looking to avoid its links to chronic 109 (AlL) like heart disease and arthritis. Furthermore, many are 110 (JUST) concerned about the accumulation of chemical treatments and steroids used in intensive industrial farming to make it most 111 (PROFIT). Calves and lambs grow at prodigious rates thanks to various treatments, administered both orally and intramuscularly. Studies indicate these substances, which travel up the food chain into human consumers, may trigger serious hormonal 112 (BALANCE) and behavioral disorders.

Concurrently, 113 (HIGH) awareness of modern agricultural methods has also led to humanitarian concerns. Many choose to boycott meat because they cannot condone the systemic suffering inflicted upon 114 (LIVE) - such as the severe 115 (CONFINE) of calves to produce veal or the manipulation of avian ovulation cycles through artificial light to induce egg production. Ultimately, modern vegetarians are not setting themselves up as moral ideals. A vegetarian isn't necessarily a crank, an eccentric, a subversive. A vegetarian is someone who doesn't eat meat.

Identify the FIVE errors in the following passage and correct them. Indicate the line at which mistakes are found, and how to correct them.