Đề Thi Chính Thức Môn Tiếng Anh THPT Quốc Gia 2020 - Đề 402

Presenting yourself in the best possible light to a prospective employer is what job applications are all about. (34) _____ when you put together a compelling CV, write your concise covering letter and check your Linkedin profile, you might also want to 'Google' yourself and see what comes up, because increasingly that's what employers are doing. Your online identity, in (35) _____ your Facebook profile, could in fact be considered the ultimate CV- a personal, honest and spontaneous description of how you see yourself and how those (36) _____ know you see you. That's not to say that a potential employer is necessarily going to disapprove of your silly behaviors on a night out with friends, indeed, they might be looking for an extrovert character. But it does mean they will be examining your real interests and motivations and mining (37) _____ sites for clues to your true character. So if you say in your CV that you're a motivated, loyal team player and then criticize your employer to friends on Facebook, that's probably not going to go (38) _____ Try Googling yourself and then ask: 'Would you hire you?'

Most of us have taken a selfie at one time or another, be it a photo of ourselves in a beautiful place, during a performance by our favourite band, or on a memorable night out with friends. But today, more and more people are putting their lives at risk in an attempt to get the most shocking pictures to share on social media. In several cases, this action has had disastrous consequences. Take, for example, the Spaniard who was killed by a bull while he was taking a selfie during the annual bull run in a village near his hometown, or the Singaporean tourist who died when he fell from cliffs on the coast of Bali. Such incidents have led to the death toll from selfie-related incidents reaching double figures for the first time in 2015, overtaking the number of victims of shark attacks. Despite the risks, social media is full of pictures featuring near misses that could have been fatal under other circumstances. Under the caption 'Most dangerous selfie ever', a woman posing at a stadium can be seen narrowly avoiding being hit in the head by a baseball approaching her. Yet the photo has received thousands of 'likes', and the comments below it suggest that this behaviour is something to be admired. In response to the increasing threat posed by the selfie, the authorities have started to take action. The Russian Interior Ministry, for instance, has launched a public education campaign advising selfie-takers against balancing on dangerous surfaces or posing with their pets, among other things. But if instructions like this are really necessary, then perhaps it is about time we asked ourselves which is more important, a 'like' or a life?

One day, a middle-aged man asked a taxi to take him to see Chelsea play Arsenal at football. He told the driver 'Stamford Bridge', the name of Chelsea's stadium, but he was delivered instead to the village of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire. Of course, he missed the match. What had happened? With the Sat-Nay system in place, the driver in this story felt he did not need to know where he was going. He confidently outsourced the job of knowing this information to the Sat-Nav. Using an Internet search engine takes a broadband user less than a second. And with smartphones at hand, people will be online almost all of the time. The same could be true of university education. Today, the average student seems not to value general knowledge. If asked a factual question, they will usually click on a search engine without a second thought. Actually knowing the fact and committing it to memory does not seem to be an issue, it's the ease with which we can look it up. However, general knowledge has never been something that you acquire formally. Instead, we pick it up from all sorts of sources as we go along, often absorbing facts without realising. The question remains, then: is the Internet threatening general knowledge? When I put that to Moira Jones, expert in designing IQ tests, she referred me to the story of the Egyptian god Thoth. It goes like this: Thoth offers writing as a gift to the king of Egypt, declaring it an 'elixir of memory and wisdom.' But the king is horrified, and tells him: 'This invention will induce forgetfulness in the souls of those who have learned it, because they will not need to exercise their memories, being able to rely on what is written.' Who wants to be a millionaire finalist David Swift, responding to the same question, recognises that there was a problem of young people saying: 'I don't need to know that', but he is far more excited about the educational potential of the Internet. 'There is so much more information out there, giving people opportunities to boost their general knowledge.' After all, the Internet might just help us to forget more and more. But meanwhile, the continuing popularity of quizzes and game-shows shows us that general knowledge is strong enough to remain.