(Official) Đề - Anh chuyên
(Official) Đề - Anh chuyên
(Official) Đề - Anh chuyên
Part 2. Read the text below and decide which answer A, B, C or D best fits each gap. Write your answers in the corresponding
numbered boxes provided on your answer sheet.
Dự án The Gifted Battlefield – Kì thi thử tuyển sinh lớp 10 THPT chuyên (Đợt 1 – Năm học 2023 – 2024)
Môn thi: TIẾNG ANH (chuyên) – Ngày làm bài thi: 05/03/2023 – 15/03/2023 Trang 1/7
(5) ________ lasting fame would have shocked the humble Grimms. During their lifetimes the collection sold modestly in
Germany, at first only a few hundred (6) ________ a year. The early editions were not even aimed at children. The brothers initially
refused to consider illustrations, and scholarly footnotes (7) ________ almost as much space as the tales themselves. Jacob and
Wilhelm (8) ________ themselves as patriotic folklorists, not as entertainers of children. They began their work at a time when
Germany had been (9) ________ by the French under Napoleon, who was intent on suppressing local culture. As young, workaholic
scholars, single and sharing a cramped flat, the Brothers Grimm undertook the fairy-tale collection with the goal of (10) ________
the endangered oral tradition of Germany.
Part 3. Think of ONE word which can be used appropriately in all three sentences. Write your answers in the corresponding numbered
boxes provided on your answer sheet.
1. The congressman was afraid that his proposals would ________ with fierce opposition from the Republican Party.
Factories are firing on all cylinders to ___________ demand in the UK.
Families living below the poverty line often find it hard to make ends ________.
2. Food and shelters were in ________ supply following the aftermath of the disaster.
His real name became a mystery for everyone here. He was called Tom for ________.
She was disappointed when she realized her name wasn’t on the ________ list in the job.
3. It's disconcerting that they constantly _______ lies about us. The whole town is about to believe their ridiculous stories.
Don't be discouraged by others. I urge you to ________ your wings and do things your way.
She opened the jar, took out some peanut butter with her knife and ________ it on the toast.
4. The investigator carried out a post-mortem examination on the victim and found ________ marks on his leg, which he
thought may have been left by a highly poisonous snake.
You might find your parents slightly annoying due to the generation gap, but don't ________ the hand that feeds you – you
owe everything you currently have to them.
‘Williams, can I have some of your apple?' – ‘Absolutely. Here, have a ________.'
5. The landlord has decided to file a civil ________ against the tenant due to breach of contract.
Black doesn't really ________ me. I prefer warmer colours like red and yellow.
‘Do you mind if I stopped by the grocery store on the way home to buy some eggs?’ ‘Sure, that’ll _______ me fine.’
Part 4. Write the correct form of each bracketed word in each sentence in the corresponding numbered boxes provided on your
answer sheet.
1. Intravenous drug users can never be sure that they are using ____________ substances. [adult]
2. We are planning to treat ourselves to a ____________ holiday in Cam Ranh after the grueling entrance examination. [earn]
3. Addressing socio-economic _____________ is paramount to improving a country’s general welfare. [equal]
4. A __________ memory can be of great benefit in many ways, such as when you need to learn vocabulary. [retain]
5. I had given up on following my diet, but then it dawned on me that I shouldn’t have been so ____________. [will]
6. Small firms and businesses often struggle to stay __________ when costs and interest rates skyrocket. [float]
7. The old and the ____ are highly susceptible to the COVID-19 disease; therefore, precautionary measures are necessary. [firm]
8. When international students try to ________ into their new community, they often face many difficulties. [similar]
9. James is generally not a(n) ______ person, but when it comes to programming – his main interest, he can talk a lot. [garrulity]
10. ‘Humanities’ is a ___________ term for all academic disciplines that study the human world and society. [catch]
Dự án The Gifted Battlefield – Kì thi thử tuyển sinh lớp 10 THPT chuyên (Đợt 1 – Năm học 2023 – 2024)
Môn thi: TIẾNG ANH (chuyên) – Ngày làm bài thi: 05/03/2023 – 15/03/2023 Trang 2/7
II. READING (4.2 points)
Part 1. Choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text. Write your answers in the corresponding
numbered boxes provided on your answer sheet.
ATTACK ON ANNAPURNA
On May 23, 1950, four of us slept in a tiny camp, completely lost in the snow and ice, and deafened by the roar of avalanches
at 19,350 feet on Annapurna. We were in Camp II, which was the second in a series of supply camps we were setting up to launch
our final attack on the great mountain.
When we woke at nine o'clock the next morning, it was already very hot in spite of the great height and the tents were
suffused with golden light. Still, it was hard work to get our frozen boots on as they were just like blocks of wood. I poked my head
out of my tent to witness a clear blue sky and magnificent views worthy of any picture postcard. A wonderful chain of peaks and
ridges encircled us at a height of 23,000 feet, while immediately above us there was an enormous ice face, bristling with ice towers,
or seracs, seamed with crevasses that sparkled in the sun. Far above, so high that I had to tilt my head backwards to see it, was
Annapurna's resplendent summit. It was such a dazzling and menacing world that my eyes became lost in its immensity.
I inspected the next section we had to attack with a degree of anxiety. It was so disproportionate, on such a different scale
from that of our puny resources. While planning our next move, I had to take into account the rather sketchy equipment at our disposal
and allow for the time factor as the dreaded monsoon from India was forecast to arrive on June 5, giving us only ten days to establish
the rest of our supply camps, reach the summit and return. The four of us, Louis Lachenal, Gaston Rebuffat, Marcel Schatz and I,
roped up as fast as possible. When we put our feet in the snow, they were numbed by the cold, but the air was so warm that we were
soon forced to take off our eiderdown jackets. The gigantic wall of snow and ice above us seemed to tower higher and higher as we
pushed forward and to our left a ridge of bare ice caused us to marvel at its transparent blueness.
We had been moving for about an hour when we reached the foot of the great central couloir (a deep, wide channel worn
by falling rock) running towards the summit. It was a spot fraught with danger as every block of ice, snow or rock that fell from the
upper slopes would inevitably hurtle down this funnel. But what worried me more was what lay beyond, where thousands of tonnes
of a titanic flood appeared to be frozen in indescribable confusion. The nearer we got to this wall, the steeper it seemed to become.
Seracs crashed down it with hideous din, and the rumbling of avalanches kept us all on edge. For a moment there was no snow or
ice coming down the couloir, but for some minutes while we crossed it, we would be exposed. Lachenal went first and, in turn, each
of us followed in his tracks under the watchful eyes of the others.
Fortunately, we all reached the other side safely. Although we were out of breath, we dared not stop as the slope had
become so steep that the snow no longer held firm. The first party rapidly cut some tiny steps barely large enough for our crampons.
The ice was smooth and compact like glass, and split off with a sharp noise beneath the axe. The chips broke off cleanly, went flying
down into space and disappeared before causing tiny avalanches. We continued to move over to the right under the seracs, and a
rickety snow bridge brought us to a platform where we were, at last, able to take a breather.
At our feet lay the plateau where we had set up Camp II: we only managed to spot the microscopic tents by following the
tracks of our ascent. Higher up, the next part of the route did not inspire encouragement, as just one hundred and fifty feet above our
heads, the way was barred by a huge vertical wall of ice. We could not see a way round it, either to the left or to the right. If we were
unable to find a quick way past this barrier, …
Schatz and I went on the attack. We sank into the snow up to our waists and the ice beneath it made us slide down the
steep slope. I seized hold of one foot with both hands and using my other knee as a fulcrum, I brought my foot out above the snow.
Then I planted my ice axe as high up as I could before pulling on it to free the other foot. I slipped and came back to my original
position. My heart thumped and I felt weak as I gasped for air.
Dự án The Gifted Battlefield – Kì thi thử tuyển sinh lớp 10 THPT chuyên (Đợt 1 – Năm học 2023 – 2024)
Môn thi: TIẾNG ANH (chuyên) – Ngày làm bài thi: 05/03/2023 – 15/03/2023 Trang 3/7
4. What word is the word ‘titanic’ (paragraph 4) closest in meaning to?
A. imminent B. gargantuan
C. dangerous D. infinitesimal
6. After the climbers had crossed the snow bridge, they were
A. able to gauge their progress. B. bombarded by chunks of ice.
C. tempted to call off the climb. D. relieved they could rest properly on the platform.
7. How could the unfinished sentence in the penultimate paragraph best be completed?
A. we would have to send for superior equipment.
B. our supplies would run out prior to our return.
C. we would not reach the summit and get back before the storm hit.
D. we might be struck by falling rock or ice.
8. It can be inferred from the extract that the factor which made the climbers most nervous was:
A. threatening noises B. altitude sickness
C. slippery slopes D. the depth of the snow
Part 2. In the passage below, six paragraphs have been removed. Read the passage and choose from the paragraphs A – G the
one which fits each gap. There is ONE extra paragraph which you do not need to use. Write your answers in the corresponding
numbered boxes provided on your answer sheet.
INDIA
Dự án The Gifted Battlefield – Kì thi thử tuyển sinh lớp 10 THPT chuyên (Đợt 1 – Năm học 2023 – 2024)
Môn thi: TIẾNG ANH (chuyên) – Ngày làm bài thi: 05/03/2023 – 15/03/2023 Trang 4/7
I can't say I found out anything unpalatable or even surprising road to pass it, so things which had shocked and astounded
about my friend. We've been fellow travelers on a couple of me early in the trip had no real effect on me by the end of it.
trips and on the road of life for a long time now, and she was The begging and starving children barely turned my head, the
just the cautiously game and solid person I've always known stench of the city streets no longer made me retch, the sight
her to be. Her father, however, was an unexpected delight. of skeletal animals didn't move me to tears anymore.
Evidently, a childhood of trips with my own short-tempered
father had given me the impression that travel made fathers
6
cranky and hard to please, which was clearly not the case. My
friend's dad's gentle patience and tolerance soon quashed my
apprehensions and greatly enhanced our trip. Countless times since my return, I have been asked whether
I would ever go back to India and, of course, I would. But I
know that it would be like reading an extraordinary novel; you
5 can read it again, but the exhilaration you experience as the
plot unfolds and the characters evolve and develop can never
And so it was. Just as the driver hadn't seen the great grey be repeated in quite the same way.
beast which towered above us as we'd almost driven off the
Missing paragraphs:
A. And so off I went, despite the ominous warnings and concerns of those around me, armed with a guidebook, some Hindi
cassettes and several volumes of history and literature under my belt. As I took in the smell of burning rubbish and the sight of
row upon row of sleeping bodies on the pavements on the drive into Bombay from the airport, I wondered whether I would leave
India as enamoured with it as I had been when I arrived.
B. If it sounds like every minute in India is one in which you are tempted, tantalized, stimulated and challenged, it is because that
is the truth. It requires every ounce of energy and attention to receive the sensory stimuli which constantly bombard you, the
honking horns, thronging crowds, careering rickshaws, suffocating smog, and reeking gutters. And although making sense of it
all is a round-the-clock proposition, the prospect of blinking and missing one split second of it is equally daunting, because
everything somehow seems like something that can't be missed.
C. But there were still other lessons to be learnt. Once, driving along a narrow, bumpy highway in a rickety old jeep, we passed a
man riding an elephant. I was amazed: was this simply a means of transport in rural India? ‘What was that man doing with the
elephant?' I asked the driver. ‘What elephant?' was his reply. This brings me to the alarming thing I found out about myself, or
perhaps about human beings, in general: the truth of Dostoevsky's famous adage, 'man is a scoundrel; he can get used to
anything.’
D. My friends and relatives expressed dismay at my decision to go to India, especially as news of political instability and border
skirmishes hit the headlines. Efforts to convince me not to go reached a peak as the list of inoculations needed to guard against
a dazzling array of diseases grew ever longer. My worried parents headed the team of opponents unsurprisingly, given their
press. inspired vision of India as an impoverished nation ravaged by internal conflict.
E. One of the most insightful travel writers of this century wrote that to see poverty in India is to see merely what's obvious, and
both this and its implications are equally true. There is blinding, indescribable poverty: people live in the streets, picking food
from the piles of rubbish, drinking water from the shallow, muddy rivers. Naked children with distended stomachs beg relentlessly,
disturbingly, while mothers wash shabby clothes outside tin huts, scrubbing them against the dirt road, hanging them to dry on
the overflowing rubbish bins. Diseases long-forgotten in the West cripple young and old alike, despite desperate door-to-door
vaccination schemes.
F. And elephants weren't the only animals we had seen on the streets, either. Cows were everywhere and, though they seemed
peaceful, they could be vicious for no apparent reason; I'd been head-butted by two cows for nothing more than walking by them.
Camels were also common in some parts, though they didn't meander in and out of shops and lie down to rest in the middle of
the street.
G. I suppose this tendency to become accustomed to the truly appalling is both a stroke of luck for the human race, as well as being
its downfall. In the context of India and the rest of the developing world, it is quite a worrying talent, for there are rather a lot of
upsetting things to get used to, and succeeding in this must be the best way of ensuring that things there never change. On the
other hand, it may be easier that way.
Dự án The Gifted Battlefield – Kì thi thử tuyển sinh lớp 10 THPT chuyên (Đợt 1 – Năm học 2023 – 2024)
Môn thi: TIẾNG ANH (chuyên) – Ngày làm bài thi: 05/03/2023 – 15/03/2023 Trang 5/7
Part 3. Read the texts below and think of the word which best fits each space. Use only ONE word in each space. Write your answers
in the corresponding numbered boxes provided on your answer sheet.
PASSAGE 1
One of the major pitfalls for novice travelers is viewing everything through rose-colored (1) _________, which typically
manifests in their writing. They present everything as magical and flawless, using romantic and flowery language to convey their
stories. However, the reality is that with time, the allure of the road will fade, and any reader who is aware of this will see through the
author's prose. (2) __________, the harsh (3) _________ of a place are often just as compelling as the poetry used to portray it -
perhaps even (4) _________ so. Upon reviewing one's work, if it appears to be akin to a brochure, it may be beneficial to take (5)
_________ look. The issue could be caused by limited experience where the writer is still caught up in the enchantment of the journey
or too focused on selling the romance of travel.
(6) _________ deviating from the usual path is always a good idea when traveling, travel writers still feel obligated to capture
the most prominent sites that draw people to a particular country. As a result, even the more daring types end up (7) _________ to
the same places as everyone else. This may depend on the target audience, but the best advice is always to head in the opposite
(8) _________ of the crowd and see what unfolds. In a foreign country, the seemingly mundane occurrences can often create the
most fascinating, amusing, and thrilling moments. If one is confined to the biggest attractions (9) _________ assignment, they should
always seek out a different angle and highlight the aspects that (10) _________ overlook.
PASSAGE 2
For centuries, historians have been bewildered by how the Akkad culture in central Iraq vanished approximately 4000 years
ago. In (11) _________ to this, the Egyptian kingdom disappeared simultaneously after the construction of the Great pyramids, (12)
_________ with hundreds of early settlements in the Holy Land. In 2001, satellite images of southern Iraq revealed a 3km-wide
impact crater, which suggests that the Middle East was (13) _________ by a meteor that hit the area with the force of hundreds of
H-bombs.
About 3600 years ago, settlements on the volcanic Mediterranean island of Thera were obliterated by a colossal (14)
________. The aftermath, (15) ________ a tsunami, is thought to have triggered the collapse of the Minoan civilization on Crete.
Numerous researchers speculate that the Atlantis civilization met its (16) __________ around 12,000 years ago. If true, this
could connect Atlantis with probably the most notorious disaster of all (17) __________: Noah's flood. Stories of a cataclysmic flood
that wreaked (18) ________ on the entire world turned up in the mythology of many ancient cultures, from Mexico to China. They
could allude (19) _________ the destruction brought about by the 100-meter rise in sea level that occurred after the (20) _______ of
the ice sheets around 10,000 years ago. Geological studies suggest that the Mediterranean burst through into the Black Sea,
inundating the entire region. At that time, it would have appeared as though the whole world was flooded.
1. There is no doubt that Carl will agree with the leader. (SAYING)
It ___________________________________________________ in with the leader’s opinion.
2. Without his full cooperation, the burglars would’ve gotten away scot-free. (COOPERATED)
Had he not ___________________________________________ arrested.
3. The town council has permitted the construction of a wall round the park. (AHEAD)
The town council has ___________________________________________ the construction of a wall round the park.
4. The manager said nothing about salaries being reduced during his speech. (MENTION)
During his speech, the manager made ___________________________________________.
5. They ought to realize it was luck that allowed them to escape serious injury. (THANK)
They should ___________________________________________ away with only minor injuries.
6. The student was shocked at the test paper, and tears slowly streamed down her face. (TAKEN)
The student was ___________________________________________ that she burst broke into tears.
Dự án The Gifted Battlefield – Kì thi thử tuyển sinh lớp 10 THPT chuyên (Đợt 1 – Năm học 2023 – 2024)
Môn thi: TIẾNG ANH (chuyên) – Ngày làm bài thi: 05/03/2023 – 15/03/2023 Trang 6/7
8. Would you mind if I asked you to help me with the homework assignment? (RAISE)
Would you ___________________________ asking you for your help with the homework assignment?
9. After two decades of teaching in this school, Sarah thinks she should retire. (TIME)
Sarah thinks ______________________________________ day after teaching in this school for twenty years.
10. I thought he was kidding when he said he met the celebrity in the flesh. (LEG)
I thought _____________________________________ when he said he met the celebrity in the flesh.
Dự án The Gifted Battlefield – Kì thi thử tuyển sinh lớp 10 THPT chuyên (Đợt 1 – Năm học 2023 – 2024)
Môn thi: TIẾNG ANH (chuyên) – Ngày làm bài thi: 05/03/2023 – 15/03/2023 Trang 7/7