Directions:
Read the following text. Choose the best word (s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on the ANSWER SHEET. (10 points)
Technology and the Internet in particular, are not inherently antisocial. They can weaken our empathy—the ability to understand another person’s feelings and experience, 1 used differently, they could become a world-sized magnifying glass for our better angels. Many corners of the Internet already allow people to 2 their empathy and share collective goodwill.
People’s ability to connect is the 3 that holds our culture together. By thinning out our interactions and shattering our media landscape, the Internet has 4 the common ground we need to understand one another. Empathy requires us to 5 that even people who disagree with us have a lived experience as deep as our own. But in the fractured landscape of social media, we have little choice but to see the 6 side as dumb, dishonest or both. 7 we reverse this trend and 8 empathy, we have little chance of mending the tears in our social fabric.
Technology’s socially exhausting effects are not coincidental; they reflect how platforms
9 Facebook and Twitter are designed—and such platforms are, 10 , shaped by financial incentives. These sites 11 shareholders not by making users healthy or happy but by keeping them online. This imperative favors extremism, vanity, fear—whatever 12 us and holds on. About 70 percent of YouTube views now come from the site’s 13 , which are optimized to generate clicks. The result is a massive flow of eyeballs to conspiracy theories, prejudice, and 14 .
Life online 15 how we see others and how we are seen. 16 we’re not seen at all—our face and name is 17 by a symbol and an anonymous character string. Anonymity can be 18 —for instance, by allowing people to safely 19 protests in authoritarian nations. But it also cuts the brake lines on social interactions, encouraging people to try cruelty on like a mask, knowing it won’t 20 them.
| 1. [A] and | [B] or | [C] so | [D] but |
| 2. [A] broaden | [B] doubt | [C] sharpen | [D] prohibit |
| 3. [A] reality | [B] glue | [C] issue | [D] proposal |
| 4. [A] put away | [B] given away | [C] taken away | [D] taken off |
| 5. [A] understand | [B] refuse | [C] imagine | [D] hate |
| 6. [A] other | [B] another | [C] others | [D] few |
| 7. [A] If | [B] When | [C] Unless | [D] Though |
| 8. [A] forecast | [B] refuse | [C] follow | [D] revive |
| 9. [A] rather than | [B] such as | [C] regardless of | [D] owing to |
| 10. [A] in turn | [B] in all | [C] in addition | [D] in fact |
| 11. [A] reveal | [B] protect | [C] satisfy | [D] confuse |
| 12. [A] releases | [B] grabs | [C] benefits | [D] prevents |
| 13. [A] commendations | [B] intentions | [C] recommendations | [D] limitations |
| 14. [A] mission | [B] profession | [C] admission | [D] aggression |
| 15. [A] determines | [B] changes | [C] ensures | [D] implies |
| 16. [A] Once | [B] Otherwise | [C] Until | [D] Sometimes |
| 17. [A] reckoned | [B] rebelled | [C] recalled | [D] replaced |
| 18. [A] boring | [B] vital | [C] useless | [D] illegal |
| 19. [A] ignore | [B] point | [C] organize | [D] deny |
| 20. [A] cost | [B] comment | [C] select | [D] help |
Section I Use of English
