Complete the summary below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage
Fighting Californian wildfires is still not an easy task because the fires the fire-fighters now face in more unpredictable manner in addition to the raging heat and faster speed than ever. Megafires, as they are called, are often bigger than average forest fire. The reasons for this include below the average and the extended due to climate change. And according to experts, the government policy has also contributed to this by accidentally making the underbrush the for megafires.
Question 6 - 10
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?
In following statements below, choose
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
6
Open space has been disappearing in the past 10 years.
7
The equipment firefighters use today is better than before.
8
The state recruited new firefighters.
9
In the early years, no other states wished to help California to fight the fire.
10
The 2004 blue-ribbon commission did not make any achievements.
Question 11 - 13
Choose appropriate options A, B, C or D.
11
Why does the author mention Governor Schwarzenegger, California National Guard, Pentagon and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation?
A
To show the active involvement of the Schwarzenegger’s administration
B
To illustrate the cross-state and cross-jurisdiction cooperation in fire-fighting
C
To demonstrate how the military is more effective at fighting fire than others
D
To give an example of how resources should be mobilised to fight fires
12
How do the locals feel about the improvements made by the state government?
A
glad
B
unsatisfied
C
unconcerned
D
bitter
13
According to Ross Simmons, which of the following statements is true?
A
It’s harder to evacuate people in daytime.
B
People refuse to improve their house in fire resisting ability.
C
People can hardly believe the magnitude of damage today.
D
People are less likely to die in fires now
DOL IELTS Đình Lực
📖 Bài đọc (reading passage)
California’s Age of Megafires
Drought, housing expansion, and oversupply of tinder make for bigger, hotter fires in the western United States
There's a reason fire squads battling more frequent blazes in Southern California are having such difficulty containing the flames, despite better preparedness than ever and decades of experience fighting fires fanned by the ‘Santa Ana Winds’. The wildfires themselves, experts say, are generally hotter, faster, and spread more erratically than in the past.
Megafires, also called ‘siege fires’, are the increasingly frequent blazes that burn 500,000 acres or more - 10 times the size of the average forest fire of 20 years ago. One of the current wildfires is the sixth biggest in California ever, in terms of acreage burned, according to state figures and news reports.
The short-term explanation is that the region, which usually has dry summers, has had nine inches less rainfall than normal this year. Longer term, climate change across the West is leading to hotter days on average and longer fire seasons. The trend to more superhot fires, experts say, has been driven by a century-long policy of the US Forest Service to stop wildfires as quickly as possible. The unintentional consequence has been to halt the natural eradication of underbrush, now the primary fuel for megafires.
Three other factors contribute to the trend, they add. First is climate change, marked by a 1-degree F rise in average yearly temperature across the western states. Second is fire seasons that on average are 78 days longer than in the late 1980s. Third is increased construction of homes and other structures in wooded areas. ‘We are increasingly building our homes in fire-prone ecosystems,’ says Dominik Kulakowski, adjunct professor of biology at Clark University Graduate School of Geography in Worcester, Massachusetts. ‘Doing that in many of the forests of the western US is like building homes on the side of an active volcano.'
In California, where population growth has averaged more than 600,000 a year for at least a decade, housing has pushed into such areas. ‘What once was open space is now residential homes providing fuel to make fires burn with greater intensity,’ says Terry McHale of the California Department of Forestry firefighters' union. ‘With so much dryness, so many communities to catch fire, so many fronts to fight, it becomes an almost incredible job.'
That said, many experts give California high marks for making progress on preparedness since 2003, when the largest fires in state history scorched 750,000 acres, burned 3640 homes, and killed 22 people. Stung then by criticism of bungling that allowed fires to spread when they might have been contained, personnel are meeting the peculiar challenges of neighborhood - and canyon- hopping fires better than in recent years, observers say.
State promises to provide more up-to-date engines, planes, and helicopters to fight fires have been fulfilled. Firefighters’ unions that in the past complained of dilapidated equipment, old fire engines, and insufficient blueprints for fire safety are now praising the state's commitment, noting that funding for firefighting has increased, despite huge cuts in many other programs. ‘We are pleased that the current state administration has been very proactive in its support of us, and come through with budgetary support of the infrastructure needs we have long sought,' says Mr. McHale of the firefighters’ union.
Besides providing money to upgrade the fire engines that must traverse the mammoth state and wind along serpentine canyon roads, the state has invested in better command-and-control facilities as well as in the strategies to run them. ‘In the fire sieges of earlier years, we found that other jurisdictions and states were willing to offer mutual-aid help, but we were not able to communicate adequately with them,’ says Kim Zagaris, chief of the state's Office of Emergency Services Fire and Rescue Branch. After a commission examined and revamped communications procedures, the statewide response ‘has become far more professional and responsive,’ he says.
Besides ordering the California National Guard on Monday to make 1,500 guardsmen available for firefighting efforts, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked the Pentagon to send all available Modular Airborne Fighting Systems to the area. The military Lockheed C-130 cargo/utility aircraft carry a pressurized 3,000-gallon tank that can eject fire retardant or water in fewer than five seconds through two tubes at the rear of the plane. This load can cover an area 1/4- mile long and 60 feet wide to create a fire barrier. Governor Schwarzenegger also directed 2,300 inmate firefighters and 170 custody staff from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to work hand in hand with state and local firefighters.
Residents and government officials alike are noting the improvements with gratitude, even amid the loss of homes, churches, businesses, and farms. By Tuesday morning, the fires had burned 1,200 homes and businesses and set 245,957 acres — 384 square miles — ablaze. Despite such losses, there is a sense that the speed, dedication, and coordination of firefighters from several states and jurisdictions are resulting in greater efficiency than in past “siege fire” situations.
“I am extraordinarily impressed by the improvements (that) we have witnessed between the last big fire and this,” says Ross Simmons, a San Diego-based lawyer who had to evacuate both his home and business on Monday, taking up residence at a Hampton Inn 30 miles south of his home in Rancho Bernardo. After fires consumed 172,000 acres there in 2003, the San Diego region turned communitywide soul-searching into improved building codes, evacuation procedures, and procurement of new technology. Mr. Simmons and neighbors began receiving automated phone calls at 3:30 a.m. Monday morning telling them to evacuate. “Notwithstanding all the damage that will be caused by this, we will not come close to the loss of life because of what we have … put in place since then,” he says.
🔥 Answer key (đáp án và giải thích)
1
spread
Giải thích chi tiết
✅ Step 1: Phân tích câu hỏiSimplified: because the fires (...) now face ____ in more unpredictable manner in addition to the raging heat and faster speed than ever
Ý câu hỏi: “Chữa cháy vẫn khó vì những đám cháy hiện nay ____ theo cách khó đoán hơn, ngoài việc nóng hơn và nhanh hơn.”
Dự đoán ô trống:
Loại từ: cần verb nguyên mẫu vì sau chủ ngữ “the fires …” (hiểu là “the fires (that) firefighters now face”) rồi đến động từ “____”.
Nghĩa: hành động liên quan “di chuyển/lan ra” theo cách unpredictable (khó đoán) và đi cùng bộ 3: hotter + faster + more erratically.
-------
✅ Step 2: Locate bằng chứng
Dựa vào các từ khoá "fire-fighters" + "the raging heat" + "faster speed" → ta định vị được đúng câu trong bài:
“...despite better preparedness than ever and decades of experience fighting fires fanned by the ‘Santa Ana Winds’. The wildfires themselves, experts say, are generally hotter, faster, and spread more erratically than in the past.”
-------
✅ Step 3: Đọc câu bằng chứng theo LinearthinkingSimplified: The wildfires themselves , experts say, are generally hotter, faster, and spread more erratically than in the past .
Lưu ý từ khó: erratically = thất thường / khó đoán (nhìn vào cấu trúc liệt kê “hotter, faster, and …” ⇒ item thứ 3 cũng là một đặc điểm tiêu cực/khó kiểm soát của đám cháy).
-------
✅ Step 4: Compare meaning with meaningCâu hỏi thì nói: đám cháy hiện tại ____ “in more unpredictable manner” + “in addition to” nóng hơn và nhanh hơn.
Bài đọc lại nói: wildfires “hotter, faster, and spread more erratically”.
⇒ Như vậy đáp án là spread.
-------
❌ Những đáp án “bẫy” (dễ dính nếu chỉ skim/scan từ khoá):
less rainfall: là nguyên nhân ở đoạn sau (thiếu mưa), không phải hành động của đám cháy trong câu này (câu này cần verb kiểu “spread”).
ten times / 10 times: là chi tiết về kích thước megafires, không liên quan ý “unpredictable manner”.
fire season / primary fuel: cũng là thông tin ở các đoạn giải thích nguyên nhân dài hạn, không khớp cấu trúc ngữ pháp “the fires … ____ in … manner”.
There's a reason fire squads battling more frequent blazes in Southern California are having such difficulty containing the flames, despite better preparedness than ever and decades of experience fighting fires fanned by the ‘Santa Ana Winds’. The wildfires themselves, experts say, are generally hotter, faster, and spread more erratically than in the past.
Megafires, also called ‘siege fires’, are the increasingly frequent blazes that burn 500,000 acres or more - 10 times the size of the average forest fire of 20 years ago. One of the current wildfires is the sixth biggest in California ever, in terms of acreage burned, according to state figures and news reports.
The short-term explanation is that the region, which usually has dry summers, has had nine inches less rainfall than normal this year. Longer term, climate change across the West is leading to hotter days on average and longer fire seasons. The trend to more superhot fires, experts say, has been driven by a century-long policy of the US Forest Service to stop wildfires as quickly as possible. The unintentional consequence has been to halt the natural eradication of underbrush, now the primary fuel for megafires.
Three other factors contribute to the trend, they add. First is climate change, marked by a 1-degree F rise in average yearly temperature across the western states. Second is fire seasons that on average are 78 days longer than in the late 1980s. Third is increased construction of homes and other structures in wooded areas. ‘We are increasingly building our homes in fire-prone ecosystems,’ says Dominik Kulakowski, adjunct professor of biology at Clark University Graduate School of Geography in Worcester, Massachusetts. ‘Doing that in many of the forests of the western US is like building homes on the side of an active volcano.'
In California, where population growth has averaged more than 600,000 a year for at least a decade, housing has pushed into such areas. ‘What once was open space is now residential homes providing fuel to make fires burn with greater intensity,’ says Terry McHale of the California Department of Forestry firefighters' union. ‘With so much dryness, so many communities to catch fire, so many fronts to fight, it becomes an almost incredible job.'
That said, many experts give California high marks for making progress on preparedness since 2003, when the largest fires in state history scorched 750,000 acres, burned 3640 homes, and killed 22 people. Stung then by criticism of bungling that allowed fires to spread when they might have been contained, personnel are meeting the peculiar challenges of neighborhood - and canyon- hopping fires better than in recent years, observers say.
State promises to provide more up-to-date engines, planes, and helicopters to fight fires have been fulfilled. Firefighters’ unions that in the past complained of dilapidated equipment, old fire engines, and insufficient blueprints for fire safety are now praising the state's commitment, noting that funding for firefighting has increased, despite huge cuts in many other programs. ‘We are pleased that the current state administration has been very proactive in its support of us, and come through with budgetary support of the infrastructure needs we have long sought,' says Mr. McHale of the firefighters’ union.
Besides providing money to upgrade the fire engines that must traverse the mammoth state and wind along serpentine canyon roads, the state has invested in better command-and-control facilities as well as in the strategies to run them. ‘In the fire sieges of earlier years, we found that other jurisdictions and states were willing to offer mutual-aid help, but we were not able to communicate adequately with them,’ says Kim Zagaris, chief of the state's Office of Emergency Services Fire and Rescue Branch. After a commission examined and revamped communications procedures, the statewide response ‘has become far more professional and responsive,’ he says.
Besides ordering the California National Guard on Monday to make 1,500 guardsmen available for firefighting efforts, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked the Pentagon to send all available Modular Airborne Fighting Systems to the area. The military Lockheed C-130 cargo/utility aircraft carry a pressurized 3,000-gallon tank that can eject fire retardant or water in fewer than five seconds through two tubes at the rear of the plane. This load can cover an area 1/4- mile long and 60 feet wide to create a fire barrier. Governor Schwarzenegger also directed 2,300 inmate firefighters and 170 custody staff from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to work hand in hand with state and local firefighters.
Residents and government officials alike are noting the improvements with gratitude, even amid the loss of homes, churches, businesses, and farms. By Tuesday morning, the fires had burned 1,200 homes and businesses and set 245,957 acres — 384 square miles — ablaze. Despite such losses, there is a sense that the speed, dedication, and coordination of firefighters from several states and jurisdictions are resulting in greater efficiency than in past “siege fire” situations.
“I am extraordinarily impressed by the improvements (that) we have witnessed between the last big fire and this,” says Ross Simmons, a San Diego-based lawyer who had to evacuate both his home and business on Monday, taking up residence at a Hampton Inn 30 miles south of his home in Rancho Bernardo. After fires consumed 172,000 acres there in 2003, the San Diego region turned communitywide soul-searching into improved building codes, evacuation procedures, and procurement of new technology. Mr. Simmons and neighbors began receiving automated phone calls at 3:30 a.m. Monday morning telling them to evacuate. “Notwithstanding all the damage that will be caused by this, we will not come close to the loss of life because of what we have … put in place since then,” he says.
are generally hotter
faster
spread more erratically than in the past
There's a reason fire squads battling more frequent blazes in Southern California are having such difficulty containing the flames, despite better preparedness than ever and decades of experience fighting fires fanned by the ‘Santa Ana Winds’. The wildfires themselves, experts say, are generally hotter, faster, and spread more erratically than in the past.
Megafires, also called ‘siege fires’, are the increasingly frequent blazes that burn 500,000 acres or more - 10 times the size of the average forest fire of 20 years ago. One of the current wildfires is the sixth biggest in California ever, in terms of acreage burned, according to state figures and news reports.
The short-term explanation is that the region, which usually has dry summers, has had nine inches less rainfall than normal this year. Longer term, climate change across the West is leading to hotter days on average and longer fire seasons. The trend to more superhot fires, experts say, has been driven by a century-long policy of the US Forest Service to stop wildfires as quickly as possible. The unintentional consequence has been to halt the natural eradication of underbrush, now the primary fuel for megafires.
Three other factors contribute to the trend, they add. First is climate change, marked by a 1-degree F rise in average yearly temperature across the western states. Second is fire seasons that on average are 78 days longer than in the late 1980s. Third is increased construction of homes and other structures in wooded areas. ‘We are increasingly building our homes in fire-prone ecosystems,’ says Dominik Kulakowski, adjunct professor of biology at Clark University Graduate School of Geography in Worcester, Massachusetts. ‘Doing that in many of the forests of the western US is like building homes on the side of an active volcano.'
In California, where population growth has averaged more than 600,000 a year for at least a decade, housing has pushed into such areas. ‘What once was open space is now residential homes providing fuel to make fires burn with greater intensity,’ says Terry McHale of the California Department of Forestry firefighters' union. ‘With so much dryness, so many communities to catch fire, so many fronts to fight, it becomes an almost incredible job.'
That said, many experts give California high marks for making progress on preparedness since 2003, when the largest fires in state history scorched 750,000 acres, burned 3640 homes, and killed 22 people. Stung then by criticism of bungling that allowed fires to spread when they might have been contained, personnel are meeting the peculiar challenges of neighborhood - and canyon- hopping fires better than in recent years, observers say.
State promises to provide more up-to-date engines, planes, and helicopters to fight fires have been fulfilled. Firefighters’ unions that in the past complained of dilapidated equipment, old fire engines, and insufficient blueprints for fire safety are now praising the state's commitment, noting that funding for firefighting has increased, despite huge cuts in many other programs. ‘We are pleased that the current state administration has been very proactive in its support of us, and come through with budgetary support of the infrastructure needs we have long sought,' says Mr. McHale of the firefighters’ union.
Besides providing money to upgrade the fire engines that must traverse the mammoth state and wind along serpentine canyon roads, the state has invested in better command-and-control facilities as well as in the strategies to run them. ‘In the fire sieges of earlier years, we found that other jurisdictions and states were willing to offer mutual-aid help, but we were not able to communicate adequately with them,’ says Kim Zagaris, chief of the state's Office of Emergency Services Fire and Rescue Branch. After a commission examined and revamped communications procedures, the statewide response ‘has become far more professional and responsive,’ he says.
Besides ordering the California National Guard on Monday to make 1,500 guardsmen available for firefighting efforts, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked the Pentagon to send all available Modular Airborne Fighting Systems to the area. The military Lockheed C-130 cargo/utility aircraft carry a pressurized 3,000-gallon tank that can eject fire retardant or water in fewer than five seconds through two tubes at the rear of the plane. This load can cover an area 1/4- mile long and 60 feet wide to create a fire barrier. Governor Schwarzenegger also directed 2,300 inmate firefighters and 170 custody staff from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to work hand in hand with state and local firefighters.
Residents and government officials alike are noting the improvements with gratitude, even amid the loss of homes, churches, businesses, and farms. By Tuesday morning, the fires had burned 1,200 homes and businesses and set 245,957 acres — 384 square miles — ablaze. Despite such losses, there is a sense that the speed, dedication, and coordination of firefighters from several states and jurisdictions are resulting in greater efficiency than in past “siege fire” situations.
“I am extraordinarily impressed by the improvements (that) we have witnessed between the last big fire and this,” says Ross Simmons, a San Diego-based lawyer who had to evacuate both his home and business on Monday, taking up residence at a Hampton Inn 30 miles south of his home in Rancho Bernardo. After fires consumed 172,000 acres there in 2003, the San Diego region turned communitywide soul-searching into improved building codes, evacuation procedures, and procurement of new technology. Mr. Simmons and neighbors began receiving automated phone calls at 3:30 a.m. Monday morning telling them to evacuate. “Notwithstanding all the damage that will be caused by this, we will not come close to the loss of life because of what we have … put in place since then,” he says.
