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Practice Test

Instructions: Individually, read each of the following texts and locate the main idea by underlining it. Then, rewrite the
main idea on your own words.

A.

Recent research on wealth and household finances seeks to blend neoclassical models with an
understanding of real-world imperfections to answer questions about why some people save and others do
not. This paper focuses on Baby Boomers standing on the verge of retirement, many of whom have saved
little and will face financial insecurity in old age. The new 2004 wave of the Health and Retirement Study is
invaluable for this first analysis of the financial situation about respondents’ planning behaviors and
economic literacy. We show that the distribution of net worth among Early Baby Boomers is quite skewed;
those in the 75th percentile had over 10 times the net worth ($400K) of households in the bottom 25 th
percentile ($37K). There is substantial heterogeneity in wealth within this cohort: the median high-school
dropout had less than $23K in total net worth, while the median college graduate had over 10 times as
much. Many Black and Hispanic Boomer households hold miniscule levels of wealth. Further, many in this
cohort have accumulated little wealth outside their homes: at the mean, one third of the early Boomers’
wealth is held in the form of home equity, and at the median the fraction is close to half. Since many
members of this EBB cohort are reaching retirement with a substantial portion of their wealth in housing,
they are particularly vulnerable to housing value shocks. By contrast, holders of stocks, IRAs, and business
equity are concentrated in the top quartiles. Finally, we show that planning and economic literacy are
important predicators of saving and investment success.

Source: Lusardi, A. & Mitchell, O. (2006). Baby boomer retirement security: The roles of planning
financial literacy, and housing wealth. University of Michigan Retirement Research Center.

Write the main idea in your own words here:

B.

Teaching English for specific purposes is sometimes quite a daunting challenge for most of the
teachers in any part of the world despite their personal motivation, expertise and availability of the best of
the resources. With the rapid encroachment of digital technology on all fields of academic teaching and
learning, it becomes all the more incumbent for educators to have effective strategies to incorporate and
exploit the ubiquitous and popular digital platforms to teach their “digital native” students to have better
results. Considering the paramount influence of these digital platforms and social media, this study aims at
exploring the potent effect of Facebook as one of the pervasive digital platforms to teach ESP to Saudi
students at university level. The experiment established several findings of interest which led to the
conclusion that ubiquitous digital platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp do have a revelatory
potential to ameliorate academic and professional learning.

Source: Al-Amri, S., & Zahid G. (2015). Ubiquitous digital platform to teach English for specific
purposes (ESP). International Journal of Bilingual & Multilingual Teachers of English.

Write the main idea in your own words here:


C.

The roles of English within and between many of the countries which make up Southeast Asia are
increasing, and English is constantly being used ad negotiated as a mutual means of communication by
Asian multilingual for whom English is an additional language. It is timely, therefore, to consider ways in
which this Englishes have been developing, along with the roles English is currently playing. Areas worthy of
investigation include the influence of language contact and the motivations for the presence of non-
standard forms in these new varieties of English. Given the recent research reviewed in this paper, the
criteria by which the use of non-standard forms is classified as characteristic of the particular variety need
to be revised. The paper will conclude by considering whether the role of English as a lingua franca in the
region has reached its zenith and whether regional language education policy will likely allow the languages
of Asia to thrive.

Source: Kirkpatrick, A. (2014). Englishes in Southeast Asia: Pedagogical and policy implications.
World Englishes, 33 (4) 426-438. DOI: 10.1111/weng.12105

Write the main idea in your own words here:

D.

This paper considers the nature of professional learning arising through the processes of carrying
out action research in professional organizations. It suggests that communicative space opened up outside
of the professional learning. Such learning could be considered transformative in the way it leads
professional to reframe their understanding of the dilemma arising from doing action research. To illustrate
this, two cases are presented to show the pivotal role university tutors can play not only in the way they
create and maintain communicative space but also in the way they purposefully employ strategies to
interrupt and challenge viewpoints, assumptions and practices held by professionals doing action research,
enabling professional learning to become transformative.

Source: Eady, D., & Drew, V. (2015). Doing action research in organizations: Using communicative
spaces to facilitate (transformative) professional learning. Action Research, 13 (2), 105-122.

Write the main idea in your own words here:


E.

This study examines the viewpoints of Macau and Singapore residents on the development of
casino gambling and the social, economic, and environmental impacts that are thought to arise. It also
assesses whether differences exist between socio-demographic groupings. The sample comprised 416
respondents from Macau and409 from Singapore. An analysis using primarily descriptive statistics indicated
both sub-samples had similar viewpoints although Macau residents tended to have higher scores pertaining
to the greater exposure of Macau residents to the influences of casino development

Source: Wu, S-T., & Chen, Y-S. (2015). The social, economic, and environmental impacts of casino
gambling on the residents of Macau and Singapore. Tourism Mangement, 48, 285-298.

Write the main idea in your own words here:

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