Prior to the fall of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Mikhail Gorbachev, seeing a country falling behind its Western rival and a people increasingly clamoring for change, addressed the growing internal unrest in the summer of 1987 by introducing a series of reforms known as perestroika (literally, restructuring). In Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World, Mikhail Gorbachev discussed his analysis of the problems facing the USSR and his plans to solve them. Perhaps the most pressing and visible problem facing the USSR in the last 1980s came in the form of the country's consistently mediocre economic performance, despite its vast natural resource wealth and large labor force. Gorbachev flatly admitted that economic failures were increasing and current policies were failing to offer a sustainable remedy. Failing to take advantage of the numerous scientific and technological advancements available, the USSR relied on inefficient and outdated business models. As a result, Gorbachev said, "in the last fifteen years the national income growth rates had declined by more than a half and by the beginning of the eighties had fallen to a level close to economic stagnation." With business executives focused on using more resources (in order to employ more people) instead of becoming more efficient, the country produced poor quality products unable to compete in a global economy. Further, this inefficiency led to shortages: "the Soviet Union, the world's biggest producer of steel, raw materials, fuel and energy, has shortfalls in them due to wasteful or inefficient use." The decrepit economy engendered social unrest and woe that only compounded economic difficulties and societal misery. Gorbachev wrote of "a gradual erosion of the ideological and moral values of our people" and noted the considerable growth in "alcoholism, drug addiction and crime." Accentuating these difficulties, the Communist government often ignored the needs of the average citizen, causing distrust and resentment. Perhaps the most destructive element of the social unraveling and inadequate government response was the mediocre education system. Gorbachev said, "Creative thinking was driven out from the social sciences, and superfluous and voluntarist assessments and judgments were declared indisputable truths." Although Gorbachev also opined about the growing public disbelief in the content of the immense government propaganda campaigns, the extent to which economic underdevelopment and social deviance gripped Soviet culture made the collapse of the USSR virtually inevitable in the minds of many observers. When combined with glasnost (literally, openness), Gorbachev's plan that allowed greater transparency, perestroika actually served to hasten the collapse of the USSR. Contrary to its purpose, perestroika ensured that the fall of the USSR would occur sooner rather than later. Only a few years after Gorbachev implemented changes that would have been unthinkable and antithetical to the philosophy of previous leaders like Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev, the USSR fell. In the context of the passage, the author most likely uses the word "unthinkable" (in the last sentence) to help convey which of the following points about the changes Gorbachev implemented in perestroika? (A) They would have never crossed the mind of Lenin as being conceptually possible, let alone desirable or feasible. (B) They would have been difficult for the mind of Lenin to comprehend intelligibly. (C) They would have been seen by Lenin as undesirable and poor choices. (D) They would have been seen by Lenin as · incomprehensible yet appealing. (E) They would have been considered highly desirable.

Whether it's the melodic sound of an Eric Clapton solo or the growl of a heavy metal band, the electric guitar has influenced popular music and culture more than any other instrument. Rock's greatest musicians have always been closely identified with their guitars. But instruments being designed for tomorrow's pop stars may look and sound rather different from today's familiar electric and acoustic guitars. Since the time when the electric guitar was invented, there have been incredible changes to the technical design of the instrument. From what was once a rounded wooden box with a hole in the front, the guitar has evolved into the smooth solid body of the rock guitarist's 'axe'. The most modern guitars are really computercontrolled synthesizers. Adolph Rickebacker's Electro String Company produced the world's first electric guitar. It was made of wood and played on the user's lap. The first real breakthrough in design came in 1950 when Leo Fender, a Californian radio repairman, made the first solid-bodied electric guitar, the Fender Telecaster. Soon after the inventor Les Paul made the famous Gibson Les Paul. Fender launched its stylish Stratocaster two years later. The guitars became standard instruments against which newer guitar designs are measured. All sorts of dift:erent materials have been used to make guitars. Acoustic guitars are made from wood, which gives a soft tone. Wood is also a popular material in electric guitar manufacture, but more modern materials such as glass and carbon fiber are also used. There have also been guitars with metal bodies and necks though these were never popular with players, who claim metal feels cold in the hand. Plastics, on the other hand, have been more used in guitar bodies. A company that makes parts for the aerospace industry has begun to use a kind of fiberglass that was originally used in helicopter blades to make the bodies for its electric-acoustic instruments. As long as scientists and musicians work together harmoniously, the electric guitar will continue to benefit from technological innovations. But for all the efforts of the guitar companies' design engineers, production managers and quality controller, it's the musicians who finally make the instruments sing- and not necessarily in the way the guitar maker intended. From the text we may conclude that ... (A) wood remains the best material for making guitars (B) guitar materials control the type of music the musicians play (C) technology has played a significant role in the design and development of guitars (D) today's designs are not very much different from those of the past (E) the use of fiberglass in aeroplanes was inspired by guitar makers

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Everyone likes to group things. Language students group word as verbs, nouns and so on; collections of words are classified as phrases, or clauses, or sentences, and these again are reclassified according to their function. In the same way, botanistsw classify plants as algae, or fungi, or gymnosperms, etc. Zoologysts classify animals as vertrebrates and investibrates. The vetrebrates can be further classified as mammals, reptiler, birds, fish, etc. Classification enables us to keep hold of more information and, if it is based on the right data, enables us to understand better the ideas we are studying. Chemists are no exception. The chemical classification of materials, if it is based on a good system, should enable us to understand better the many substances which exist in our word. What is to be the basis of our classification? Perhaps the most obvious one is appearance. Materials could be classified as solid, liquid or gas with some mixed types as, for example, mud being solid/liquid material and steam a liquid/gas material. Appearance could enable us to subdivide our main classification groups a little further; the solid may be green, or black, powdery or crystalline; the liquid may be colored, oily, thick, or free flowing; the gas may be colored. However, we soon realize that many probably quite different materials have the same appearance. Both air and the deadly carbon-monoxide gas, are colorless, odorless gases, but we would not like to group them as the same thing. Many different liquids are colorless, water-like materials. Paragraph 2 exemplifies the idea about classification that ... . A. chemicals may be solid, liquid, and gaseous. B. Appearance is not a useful basis in chemistry. C. The use of colors is better than that of appearance. D. Both colors and appearance should be considered E. Colors should be included for identifying appearance.

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The word gambut (peat) is taken from the name of a village, Desa Gambut (now Garnbut sub-district), which is located about 10 km east of Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan. It is at this place that for the first time, rice has been successfully cultivated in peat soiled rice fields. In the soil taxonomy system, peat soils are grouped into a separate soil order called hisiosols, which means that the land is predominantly composed of organic soil materials in the form of remains of plant tissues. The nature and the characteristics of peat soils can be determined based on their physical and chemical properties. Gambut has dark brown to blackish colors. Although its basic materials are gray, brown or reddish, after decomposition, the dark humid compounds will appear. Furthermore, based on the weight of the contents, peat soil or gambut, which has undergone further decomposition, has a content weight ranging from 0.2 to 0 3 g cm2. Due to the low content weight, peat has a large capacity-as water storage about 2-4 times its dry weight. In fact, moss peat that has not decomposed can store up to 12 or 15 even 20 times more water than its own weight. In addition, peat soil has a large absorption area, which is up to 4 times greater than montmorillonite clay. Next, peat soil has acidic reaction properties. Decomposition of organic matters will produce organic acids that accumulate in the bodv of the soil hence increasing the acidity of the peat soil. Generally, peat soil shows real resistance to changes in pH when compared to mineral soils. As a result, peat soil requires more limestone to increase the pH at the same level of the value of mineral soil. Thus, peat soil requires a higher dose of fertilizers than mineral soil. Furthermore, based on the nutrients contained in it, peal soil is a type of nutrient-poor soil. High levels of N and organic matters in peat soils are also accompanied by a high N nitrification process so that the activity of heterotrophic organisms is not well stimulated and the organisms active in the nitrification process can carry out (heir activities. Therefore, the levels of P (phosphorus) and K (potassium) of peat soils are generally lower than that of the mineral soils. Also, the plants cultivated on the peat soil are very responsive to the fertilization using P and K. (adapted fiom hilps://freelearningji.wordpress.com} The phrase * large capacity as water storage* in paragraph 2 can be replaced by ... A. Power to withstand heavy water currents B. Capacity to keep water flowing stable C. High quality and quantity of water D. Potential to make large water storage E. Ability to deposit a large amount of water

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Many modern educational experts claim that teaching facts and academic skills is less important than achieving other social objectives. For some liberals, the schools must first change attitudes or provide nurturing in place of failed families or help establish equality and social justice. For some conservatives, the school must first prepare kids for the workplace by molding them into supple corporate citizens, while others want the focus to be on family values, a competitive spirit, or other social or behavioral objectives. But the idea of simply educating kids seems to have taken a backseat to most educational experts and administrators. They miss the point that kids with real academic skills, especially skills in reading, writing, and mathematics, are more likely to overcome social barriers, more likely to have genuine self esteem, and most likely to be genuinely prepared for the challenges of life and the workplace. By emphasizing so many things besides a genuine, classical education, tile educational establishment tends to soli our kids short and bring about many of the problems they claim to be solving. Consider the case of Wesley Elemontary School in Houston. According to Richard Nadlor in the article, "Failing Grade", Wesley has all the demographic markers of a school bound for failure. Over 80% of the students qualify for subsidized lunches, and nearly all are minorities (92% black, 7% Hispanic). Yet it ranks among the best schools of Houston, with first-graders placing at the 82nd percentile level in reading tests which is 50 points higher than the expected level for similar at-risk schools. What has made Wesley so successful? The answer is classical education in the form of Direct Instruction curriculum designed by Siegfried Engelmann, an example of the much ridiculed "sage-onthe-stage" approach. This Direct Instruction system boosts reading, writing, and math scores by 30 to 40 percentile points in at-risk schools. Sadly, Engelmann, like others who successfully challenge popular fads in educational reform, has been rejected by much of the educational establishment. His success is an embarrassment to them. Given the baseline score in reading is 23 percentile points, which of the following most likely reflects the maximum impact of Direct Instruction on the students learning achievement in Wesley Elementary School? A. 45 B. 53 C. 63 D. 85 E 95

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bagaimana cara kita supaya bisa menggunakan bahasa Inggris dengan waktu yg cepat??

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