Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correctanswer to each of the questions from 44 to 50.

A pandemic is an outbreak of disease globally. It happens when a bacterium or virus becomes capableof spreading across a large region, continent, or worldwide. It causes severe contagious illness and can spreadquickly from one person to another. Throughout history, there have been many pandemics that have hadsignificant effects on various populations.Pandemics have the capability of killing large portions of people in a place. In 1347, the Black Death, aplague in Europe, spread and killed 75 million people, a whopping one-third of Europe's population. WhenEuropean explorers began encountering other places in the world, they tended to spread diseases to the localpopulation. One notable example is the complete destruction of the Guanches on the Canary Islands. Themajority of tribe members were killed by disease brought by Spanish invaders in the 15th century.According to research, many countries and cultures faced deadly pandemics after internationalexploration became possible. It is believed that Columbus and his crew brought a strain of syphilis back withthem to Europe from the New World. In Europe, the virus was able to mutate because of the location'sdifferent conditions. Additionally, European people that were sent to work in Asia were killed by disease.Intercultural mixing, exposure to new viruses, and the transportation of diseases led to many pandemics acrossthe world.Today, the COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease. It is caused bysevere acute respiratory syndrome SARS-CoV-2. This epidemic first broke out in Wuhan, China, in December2019. Many efforts to control its spread have failed, which allows the virus to reach almost every country. TheWorld Health Organization (WHO) declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30thJanuary 2020 and a pandemic on 11th March 2020. By 10th April 2022, the pandemic had caused more than498 million cases and 6.17 million deaths, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. (Adapted from Master TOEFL Junior Advanced)

44: Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A. The Spread of Covid-19

B. Europeans Creating Pandemics

C. Infection and the Death of Africans

D. The Problem of Pandemics in Our World

45: The word contagious in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _______.

A. healthy

B. infectious

C. expressible

D. dangerous

46: Why did the Guanches in the Canary Islands disappear?

A. The tribe caught a bad strain of syphilis.

B. The tribe was uneducated about pandemics.

C. Europeans deliberately infected the native people.

D. The Spanish brought disease when they landed on the islands.

47: The word them in paragraph 3 refers to ______.

A. strains of syphilis

B. Columbus and his crew

C. destructive pandemics

D. Europe and the New World

48: The word ongoing in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to _______.

A. continuing B. past C. future D. over

49: Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

A. The Black Death in medieval Europe was caused by exploration and conquest.

B. WHO upgraded the Covid-19 warning level twice within two months.

C. The worldwide expansion of Covid-19 has come to an end thanks to the WHO’s attempt.

D. The Guanche population in the Canary Islands disappeared entirely due to the malady from the Spanish intruders.

50: Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

A. Coronavirus disease is trouble-free to control in its early stages.

B. People hadn't witnessed the Covid-19 pandemic before 2020.

C. People having been killed in pandemics have made up a little percentage.

D. The popularity of national discovery led to the dead pandemics of many nations and cultures.