Đề Thi Thử Tốt Nghiệp THPT Anh 12 Sở GD&ĐT Vĩnh Phúc THPT Nguyễn Viết Xuân Lần 1

Dressing up in costumes and trick-or-treating are popular Halloween activities, but few probably (16) _______ these lighthearted fall traditions with their origins in Samhain, a three-day ancient Celtic pagan festival.

For the Celts, who lived during the Iron Age in what is now Ireland, Scotland, the U.K. and (17) _______ parts of Northern Europe, Samhain (meaning literally, in modern Irish, "summer's end") marked the end of summer and kicked off the Celtic new year. Ushering in a new year signaled a time of both death and rebirth, something that was doubly symbolic because it (18) _______ with the end of a bountiful harvest season and the beginning of a cold and dark winter season that would present plenty of challenges.

Eventually, Halloween became more popular in secular culture than All Saints' Day. The pagan-turned-Christian practices of dressing up in costumes, playing pranks and handing out offerings have evolved into popular traditions even for those (19) _______ may not believe in otherworldly spirits or saints. (20) _______, whether Halloween celebrants know it or not, they're following the legacy of the ancient Celts who, with the festival of Samhain, celebrated the inevitability of death and rebirth.

As customers choose brands based on how they make them feel, rather than their actual products or services, there is an intrinsic advantage to those organizations who use designed experiences as a weapon to cut through the most competitive of markets. Those that don't, operate in what we call the "experience gap", the space between them and their customer's expectation of them. Make no mistake, in our high paced and digitally connected economies, the experience gap is driving markets, fast.

For example, take Instagram and Twitter. These brands filled the demand for a whole new human experience that did not exist before the evolution of digital technologies enabled that. They were pioneers, and there were no established players to unseat. But we are also seeing a similar dynamic in existing industries. New entrants are coming in and taking the space, also using whole new experiences, purely because the incumbents left the door open.

Closer to home, this can be seen with Australian neobanks who are giving customers a better experience than the incumbents. Robert Bell is the CEO at neobank 86400. He says banking has already become quite complicated and he wanted to make a change. His neobank is working to solve customers’ problems more holistically. Bell said, "It's significantly harder work and takes more time to become a bank, but having done that we can have a much better relationship with our customers and we can offer them a lot more products and services."

Think about that for a moment. Do you notice how better experiences, leads to better relationships, which is then the stepping stone for more offerings? Many brands still jump straight to modified offerings, without gaining that customer connection and the necessary foundation of trust first.

(Source: https://which-50.com/)

Nepal has made important progress over the past few years to promote equality, but the country still has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world. 41% of Nepalese girls are married before the age of 18.

Poverty is both a cause and consequence of child marriage in Nepal. Girls from the wealthiest families marry 2 years later than those from the poorest, who are seen as an economic burden, and who drop out of school and earn little money.

Food insecurity plays an important role too. Nepalese families that do not have enough food to eat are more likely to marry their daughters at a young age to decrease the financial burden. One study shows that 91% of people who had secure access to food married over the age of 19.

Dowry is also a common practice in many communities. Parents marry their daughters as soon as possible because the money they have to pay for the groom's family is higher if their daughter is older. Since 2010, the legal age of marriage is 20 for both men and women, or 18 with parental consent, according to the Nepalese Country Code.

The law states that punishment for child marriage is imprisonment for up to three years and a fine of up to 10,000 rupees (£102). But reports suggest that this law is rarely applied. There has been quite a lot of progress in Nepal over the past 3 years with a clear government commitment to ending child marriage and civil society cooperation. The Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare is currently developing Nepal's first national strategy on child marriage in collaboration with UNICEF Nepal and Girls Not Brides Nepal. However, the post-earthquake and post-fuel crisis environment has meant progress is slow and the national strategy has been delayed.

(Adapted from http://www.girlsnotbrides.org/)

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 42 to 48.

Nepal has made important progress over the past few years to promote equality, but the country still has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world. 41% of Nepalese girls are married before the age of 18. Poverty is both a cause and consequence... [Passage continues on page 5; full English passage text not supplied in this extract - see issues]