Tiêu đề Đề 3 - Thi chính thức tháng 3_2025 phần lời giải xem thử.pdf ✅

Question 2: The following text is from Amy Tan's 1989 novel The Joy Luck Club. The narrator describes practicing the piano when she was a child. For the talent show, I was to play a piece called "Pleading Child" from Schumann's Scenes from Childhood. It was a simple, moody piece that sounded more difficult than it was. I was supposed to memorize the whole thing, playing the repeat parts twice to make the piece sound longer. But I dawdled over it, playing a few bars and then cheating, looking up to see what notes followed. I never really listened to what I was playing. I daydreamed about being somewhere else, about being someone else. Based on the text, when the narrator describes herself as "cheating," what does she most likely mean? A) She was gaining an unfair advantage over other contestants in the talent show. B) She was lying to herself about her musical ability. C) She was deceiving her piano teacher. D) She was violating an expectation about how to perform the piece. Explain: A) She was gaining an unfair advantage over other contestants in the talent show. This interpretation misunderstands the context of the narrator's "cheating." The passage describes her private practice sessions, not competition with others. Nowhere does the text suggest she's concerned with other contestants or comparative advantage. Her shortcuts during practice are personal failings related to her own approach to learning the piece, not attempts to gain advantage over others in the talent show. B) She was lying to herself about her musical ability. The passage reveals no evidence of self-deception about her musical talents. Instead, it portrays a young pianist who is simply disengaged from the practice process. When she admits "I never really listened to what I was playing" and describes daydreaming, she demonstrates self-awareness about her lack of commitment rather than any delusion about her abilities. Her honesty about her approach contradicts the notion that she was lying to herself. C) She was deceiving her piano teacher. This interpretation introduces an element not present in the passage. No piano teacher or external authority figure appears in the text. The narrative remains focused entirely on the narrator's internal experience with the music and her personal practice habits. Her "cheating" exists within her own relationship to the piece and the expectations for performance, not as deception directed at another person. D) She was violating an expectation about how to perform the piece. The passage clearly establishes that she "was supposed to memorize the whole thing," creating a specific expectation for proper preparation. By "looking up to see what notes followed" instead of playing from memory, she directly violates this established expectation. This creates a perfect alignment between the word "cheating" and its contextual meaning - breaking rules about how she should be practicing and preparing the piece for performance.