12. Taiwan was struck by its strongest earthquake in 25 years, measuring 7.4 in magnitude, on 3 April 2024, causing dozens to become trapped along its prominent coastline with narrow, winding roads and tunnels carved out of the rock, known for stunning views but also being ________ not least because of the possibility of landslides.
(A) frivolous
(B) treacherous
(C) unscrupulous
(D) pertinacious

8. What’s unique in the frenzy of Taiwan’s ETFs is that over 60% of _______ are buying high-dividend ETFs, including the popular monthly dividend-paying Yuanta Taiwan Value High Dividend ETF (00940), turning it into a speculative target rather than a long-term investment vehicle. (A) revelers (B) excavators (C) laminators (D) arbitrageurs

9. ________ investing is an investment strategy actively seeking to create beneficial social or environmental outcomes while also generating financial gains, for example, in nonprofits that support the community or in clean-technology enterprises that benefit the environment. (A) Subtract (B) Impact (C) Extract (D) Retroact

10. Agnes Callamard, the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings in a drone strike by the US near Baghdad airport in Iraq in January, concluded in a report that the US attack violated international law, which exemplified that in an era of perpetual conflicts, a volatile president, as commander-in-chief, could grab expanded authority to flex his lethal powers _______. (A) ingeniously (B) gingerly (C) capriciously (D) pertinently

11. The landscape at Taroko Gorge was sculpted by the _______ forces of nature, which carved out valleys and shaped mountains. (A) premonition (B) primordial (C) proportional (D) prescriptive

13. The 62-year-old Richard Slayman is the first patient to receive a kidney transplanted from a genetically modified pig successfully, the procedure of which has been _______ as a historic milestone in transplantation, bringing the prospect of xenotransplantation, or animal-to-human organ transplants, significantly closer to reality, said Dr. David Klassen, the chief medical officer for the United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the organ transplant system in the U.S. (A) confiscated (B) disseminated (C) heralded (D) procrastinated

14. Unlike ________ who believe choices are inherently good or bad, the disgraced mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, generally known as SBF, was an altruist and consequentialist who held not only that donating lots of money to philanthropies that had strong evidence for their effectiveness was altruistic but also that the outcome of an action determined whether it was good or bad. (A) deontologists (B) orthopedists (C) transcendentalists (D) paleontologists

15. To address the issue of curbing carbon emissions, Taiwan has decided to adopt a carbon “fee” rather than a carbon “tax” approach starting in 2025 to encourage businesses and industries to reduce their output of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, where a carbon “tax” will be collected by the Ministry of Finance, with the tax revenues going into state _______ for use in the general budget, while a carbon “fee” would be collected by the Ministry of Environment with the fee revenues designated for specific uses, depending on which government authority collects the fee. (A) coffers (B) embezzlers (C) chauffeurs (D) grumblers

16. (A) gig (B) failure (C) objective (D) luxury

17. (A) adaptability (B) accessibility (C) discerning (D) adversity

18. (A) credits (B) credited (C) to credit (D) crediting