Exercise 11.

The Machine Age

A As the pace of technological development advances at ever greater speeds, society has had to
come to terms with some exceedingly rapid changes. This has led to some deep collective soul
searching about the effects of technology on ordinary lives. The question being as to whether the
sudden adoption of the virtual world of cyberspace is having a profound effect on human
isolation. Do people talk any more? Or is communication now mainly through the various
electronic media that so many people use? Many lament the rise of these media within society
and wonder how far this virtual life will go. Will we reach the stage where we can actually
transpose our brains into an avatar and live our lives vicariously in cyberspace? This could
finally be the route to immortality that has long been a subtle human desire, the ability to cheat
death once and for all.
B But just how real the fears about the role of technology in our lives are, is a complex question
to answer. And there is some evidence that we are simply worrying about the wrong thing.
Research does not support the idea that the increased connectivity afforded people by the internet
has led to greater social isolation. In fact, it appears to have had the opposite effect, in that the
people who are the most connected on social networks tend to have greater social interaction and
are more engaged in public life than those who do not use them. The ease of use and
convenience of new technologies have induced people to adapt to them and to do so at great
speed. It is this speed of change that has alarmed some people. It’s a phenomenon that could
simply be described as ‘The Shock of the New’ and it’s one that has greeted all major societal
changes throughout history and it could, reasonably, be regarded as nothing more alarming than
a process by which change comes to be accepted.
C So, are there any valid fears with regard to this sudden rise in technological breakthroughs?
One possibly legitimate fear is that the machines may, in the not so distant future, attain greater
intelligence than humans. As technology becomes more sophisticated, we come closer to the
reality of an artificial intelligence that exceeds our own. The danger of this is that with so much
of our future lives likely to be very deeply interconnected with machines, they will, in a real
sense, control our behaviour even if it is only in very subtle, unobtrusive ways. There is also
something to be said for the idea that even now machines have extensive control in the
developed world. Were they to be suddenly switched off, entire sectors of our society would
simply collapse. There would be no access to banking, shopping, transport or communication.
D In the end, we need to ask ourselves, as a society, whether this interconnectedness with
technology is something we should embrace or resist. And the truth of the matter is that it is
almost impossible to envisage an ideology that would seek to reverse the march of technology.
Technology is now an inherent part of our society and culture, and so interwoven into every
aspect of our lives that to remove it would essentially mean the collapse of our civilisation as it
currently exists. No one would have thought it credible that suddenly, in the 19th century, the
brakes should have been put on the industrial revolution and Europe and North America should
have returned to a rural farming existence. The same argument stands for the technology of
today.
E So, in essence, we have no real choice but to embrace technology and its inexorable rise
within society. To try to do otherwise is counterproductive to our own good as a species as well
as an exercise in futility. That the machines will gain in intelligence in the near future is
inevitable, but there are ways to safeguard our systems from nefarious control, as long as we
remember that all systems need to have built-in checks and balances, whether that be the systems
within, or external to, the machines in our lives. Humanity is, without doubt, now set firmly on a
path which is dominated by the integral coexistence of man and machine.

In which section are the followings mentioned? Your answers:

a refutation of a popular assumption about the way people socialise 86.
nowadays
the possibility of living forever in the form of an avatar 87.
an explanation for anxiety about the advancing intelligence of machines 88.
the idea that face-to-face contact is diminishing rapidly 89.
why concern about intelligent machines may be justified 90.
the possibility of human existence becoming an entirely virtual 91.
experience
the need to ensure that all structures within society have measures to 92.
prevent them from becoming corrupt
the inevitability of the development of the intellectual capability of
93.
machines
an example from the past used to illustrate the ridiculousness of a current 94.
idea
the parts of society already entirely dependent on machine input 95.
Exercise 12.

Napoleon Bonaparte
What characteristics marked out one of history’s greatest military geniuses?
A Napoleon Bonaparte stirs the emotions. Some find him heroic and regard his opponents as
reactionary and unimaginative. Others think him mad with ambition and responsible for many of
the sins of his era. Between these extremes there are those who find some aspects of the man
admirable and others regrettable. Of course, Bonaparte was anything but pure, anything but
modest, anything but democratic, and anything but a peacemaker. But in the end, who else that
sat on a throne in Europe could claim to be? Should he be assailed for sins that were so sadly
common? What is it about Napoleon Bonaparte that makes him the object of such unique
criticism? Is it because he holds a special place in our imaginations, a place that we hope would
be an example of our better selves? Was his genius, good fortune, and opportunity enough to
condemn him - not so much for what he did, but what he failed to do? In the end is our greatest
disappointment in Bonaparte simply that he was merely human?
B Napoleon was a military genius in the strategic and tactical handling of armies and although
he provided no large scale reforms of armies (or, indeed, their equipment and techniques), he
excelled at the refinement of an art that already existed. One of the most important factors of
Napoleon's personality and its effect on his abilities as a military commander was his genius to
inspire others. He believed in the maxim that ‘spirit and drive is to the physical as three is to
one’. It was through his system of awards (an appealing to soldiers’ ‘soul in order to electrify the
man’) that Napoleon was so successful in obtaining unquestionable obedience, loyalty and
devotion from his rank and file.
C The name Napoleon Bonaparte is surrounded by so vast an array of myth and legend that it is
quite difficult to separate fact from fiction. It is said that Napoleon displayed outstanding
leadership qualities while still at school. But this is undoubtedly the product of the school of
Napoleonic mythology that was systematically promoted for political reasons in 19th century
France, since it hardly squares with the general picture of the taciturn child with an inferiority
complex that has come down to us. Napoleon was, in truth, a reserved child, resentful of his
peers. On the other hand, he excelled at maths – a qualification that determined his specialisation
as an artillery officer. This was a stroke of luck (one of many that Napoleon benefited from)
inasmuch as the artillery was the most prestigious branch of the army under the old regime. But
the biggest stroke of fortune Napoleon had was to be born when he was – in the age of the
French Revolution. The Revolution turned the whole world upside down and presented an
ambitious young man (Napoleon was always ambitious – a consequence of his resentment at his
inferior status) with new and vast opportunities.
D No man previously ever concentrated authority to such a point, nor showed mental abilities at
all comparable to Napoleon’s: an extraordinary power of work; prodigious memory for detail
and fine judgment in their selection; a luminous decision-making capacity and a simple and rapid
conception - all placed at the disposal of a sovereign will. And no head of state gave expression
more imperiously than this Corsican to the popular passions of the French of that day:
abhorrence for the emigrant nobility, fear of the ancient régime, dislike of foreigners, hatred of
England, an appetite for conquest evoked by revolutionary propaganda, and the love of glory.
E Psychological studies of ‘great men and women’ frequently serve as a fig leaf to disguise the
absence of an understanding of broad socio-historical processes. The study of history is replaced
by trivial personal observations. Instead of science, we have gossip. A careful study of the
character and background of Napoleon Bonaparte can furnish us with many useful insights into
his behaviour. But we are left with a small amount of useful information that can help us to attain
a deeper understanding of Bonaparte. Men and women make their own history, but they do not
make it freely, in the sense that the scope and results of their actions are strictly limited by the
given socio-economic context that is prepared independently of their will.

In which section are the followings mentioned? Your answers:

the idea that an individual’s actions cannot be separated from their historical context 86.
the view that the writing of history is sometimes agenda-driven 87.
the characteristics that made Napoleon an exceptional leader 88.
the fact that Napoleon was eminently aware of the impact of morale on modern warfare 89.
the fact that Napoleon is as divisive a character as he is famous 90.
the uncertainty as to whether detractors of Napoleon simply lament the fact he had the 91.
vices and virtues of the common man
the view that Napoleon was no great revolutionary of warfare itself 92.
the notion that we are all a product of the time we live in 93.
the fact that Napoleon’s views reflected those of his countrymen 94.
the event that made Napoleon’s ascent possible 95.
Exercise 13.

A. History is filled with people called autodidacts, or individuals who teach themselves
about a subject or subjects in which they have little to no formal education. Benjamin
Franklin was an autodidact. So were Jorge Luis Borges, Eileen Gray, Gustave Eiffel, and
Frida Kahlo. The original ‘self-directed learners,’ autodidacts possess intrinsic
motivation, self-determination, and a true passion for learning.

‘Look around,’ says psychologist Annie Murphy Paul. ‘We all know at least one
successfully self-taught expert, and the tech world is teeming with them.’

The question is, how’d they get that way? On this topic, Paul says, ‘the psychological
literature is largely silent.’ Still, the psychology of motivation and interest suggests that
‘self-directed learners are not only born, but can be made.’ Bearing this in mind, what are
the habits of the world’s best learners and how do they do it?

B One important habit is to seek personal renewal. In a speech to a top consulting firm,
the celebrated professor John W. Gardner explored this idea and the urgent need for
leaders to commit themselves to continued learning and growing. ‘We have to face the
fact that most men and women out there in the world of work are more stale than they
know, more bored than they would care to admit,’ he said. So what is the opposite of
boredom: the personal attribute that allows individuals to keep learning, growing, and
changing, to escape their fixed attitudes and habits? ‘Not anything as narrow as
ambition,’ Gardner explained to the crowd. He then offered a simple maxim to guide the
accomplished leaders in the room. ‘Be interested,’ he urged them. ‘Everyone wants to be
interesting, but the vitalising thing is to be interested. As the proverb says, “It’s what you
learn after you know it all that counts.”’

C Another useful habit is to calculate your motivation-to-inhibition ratio. This was a

technique used by Kató Lomb, one of the first simultaneous interpreters in the world. She
was able to interpret fluently in nine or ten languages. She learned these languages as an
autodidact. Not believing in the so-called language talent, she tended to express language
skill with a fraction, with motivation in the numerator and inhibition (the fear of starting
to speak, of being laughed at) in the denominator. In her conviction, the stronger the
motivation is within us, and the more we can put aside inhibition, the sooner we can take
possession of the skill. Lomb also practiced immersion, and one of her favourite study
tricks was to try to read a novel in a language completely unknown to her as a way to
decipher the language. ‘We don’t really need to look up each and every word in the
dictionary: it only spoils our joy of reading. In any case, what we can remember is what
we have figured out ourselves.’

D It’s also vital to be open-minded. This trait is exemplified by American musician,

songwriter, composer, recording engineer and film director Frank Zappa. In a career
spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, jazz and orchestral works. As if all
that weren’t impressive enough, he also directed feature-length films. One of the secrets
to his success was, ironically, the fact that he began his career with no formal training:
‘Since I didn’t have any kind of formal training, it didn’t make any difference to me if I
was listening to Lightnin’ Slim, or a vocal group called the Jewels … or Webern, or
Varèse, or Stravinsky,’ he said in 1989. ‘To me, it was all good music.’ It was his diverse
musical influences that led him to create the music he became famous for–music that was
often difficult to categorise.

E The last habit is to break up your goals, something pioneered nearly three hundred
years ago by Benjamin Franklin, when he came up with an approach to changing habits
called the list of thirteen virtues. These were character traits he took to be important, but
in which he found himself lacking. He knew that nurturing these habits would bring
about positive change in his life. Starting at the top of the list, Franklin spent one week
working on each virtue. In the morning he thought about how he would reinforce the new
habit throughout the day. During the day he looked at his notes to remind himself of the
new habit. To accomplish his virtues, he broke them into small units of work, thinking
only about one unit at a time. ‘Spend most of your time working on the task in front of
you,’ he wrote, ‘and avoid dreaming too much about the big goal.’ Now that’s sound
advice, still valid even today!

In which section does the writer mention

1 an approach that likens learning to an equation?
2 the subtle difference between two similar principles?
3 the importance of a wide frame of reference?
4 an unusual technique that throws learners in the deep end?
5 the need to focus on individual tasks?
6 an overlooked truth that is often avoided?
7 the nature of self-taught learners?
8 a positive effect of a lack of conventional education?
9 a belief that something is not predestined but created?
10 the state that can cause learning to stop?
Exercise 14.
You are going to read about the experiences and opinions of five educators on online
courses and learning. For questions 44-53, choose from the sections (A-E). The
sections may be chosen more than once.

Online studies
A
Educators have known for 30 years that students perform better when given one-on-one
tutoring and mastery learning - working on a subject until it is mastered, not just until a
test is scheduled. Success also requires motivation, whether from an inner drive or from
parents, mentors or peers. For years my colleagues and I have given artificial-intelligence
courses: we lectured, assigned homework and gave everyone the same exam at the same
time. Each semester just 5 to 10 per cent of students regularly engaged in deep
discussion; the rest were more passive. We felt there had to be a better way, so we
created a free online course, which was completed by only 23,000 participants of an
initial 'intake' of 100,000. Our second scheme was more successful as we made learning
happen actively. This helped us increase motivation and keep attention from wavering,
both of which led to a much lower dropout rate. For our class, teachers analysed the data
generated by student participation, but an artificial-intelligence system could perform this
function and then make recommendations for what a student could try next to improve.
B
Today students in most classrooms sit, listen and take notes while a professor lectures.
Despite there being 20 to 300 students in the room, there is little or no human interaction.
Exams often offer the first opportunity to get real information on how well the students
digested the knowledge. If the exam identifies a lack of understanding of a basic concept,
the class still moves on to a more advanced concept. Virtual tools are providing an
opportunity to rethink this methodology. If a lecture is available online, class time can be
freed for discussion, peer-tutoring or professor-led exploration. If a lecture is removed
from class time and we have on-demand adaptive exercises and diagnostics, we can enter
the realm of 'blended learning'. In the blended learning reality, the professor's role is
moved up the value chain. Rather than spending the bulk of their time lecturing, writing
exams and grading them, they can interact with their students. Rather than enforcing a sit-
and-listen passivity, teachers will mentor and challenge their students to take control of
their rate of learning - the most valuable skill of all.
C
Digital technologies have the potential to transform Indian higher education. A new
model built around massive open online courses (MOOCs) that are developed locally and
combined with those provided by top universities abroad could deliver higher education
on a scale and at a quality not possible before. India has experimented with online classes
before, but their impact has been marginal. A decade ago, the country began using the
Internet to distribute video and Web-based courses under a government-funded initiative,
the National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning. Developers created over 900
courses, focused mainly on science and engineering with about 40 hours of instruction
each. With limited interactivity and uneven quality, these courses failed to attract a large
body of students. Now, though, MOOCs have given Indian academics a better sense of
how a lecture could be restructured into short, self-contained segments with high
interactivity to engage students more effectively. This appears to be a step in the right
direction, but what is really needed is the right model to use MOOCs in an Indian
context. With a decade of experience in this space and a vibrant technology ecosystem,
India will most likely find its way very soon.
D
The rapid evolution of digital resources like video, interactive multimedia and new
modes of assessment challenges us to reimagine what we can and should do when we are
face-to-face with our students. As I develop online courses on cellular metabolism, for
instance, I hypothesise that the blend of animation and appropriate embedded
assessments will communicate the intricacies of electron transfer more effectively than
that portion of my traditional lecture. After rebalancing class assignments to include both
reading and online materials, while maintaining the same overall workload, I nonetheless
gain time with my students in the classroom to discuss and critically analyse the
metabolic consequences of experimentally disrupting electron transfer. Underlying this
progress is the awareness that experimentation is the key and that we do not yet know
how best to harness the enormous positive potential of the online revolution for on-
campus learning. This is why every course or module should have an associated research
component where student progress is measured.
E
Technology is transforming education for the worse and one of its dubious uses is to
grade essays. Major testing companies are using software to score written test answers as
machines can work faster than teachers. However, they cannot evaluate the imaginative
use of language. Thus, students will learn to write according to the formula that the
machine responds to best at the expense of accuracy, creativity and imagination. Worse,
the teacher will abandon the important job of reading what the students write and will be
less informed about how they think. That is a loss for the quality of education. A more
worrisome use of technology is the accumulation and storage of personal, confidential
data on a cloud. Who needs all this personal information and why is it being shared?
Advocates say that the goal is to create better products for individual students. Critics
believe that the information will be given or sold to vendors, who will use it to market
products to children and their parents.

In which section are the following mentioned?

44 a strategy that helped the learners focus
45 the reason why more data is required to make the best use of computer-based learning
46 digital resources leading to the standardisation of student learning
47 the necessity to adapt online courses to a specific culture
48 a claim that information will be used to enhance product quality
49 personally combining digital and traditional tools to provide a more effective learning
experience
50 the problem of gaps in students' knowledge not being addressed
51 humans undertaking a task that machines could carry out
52 the importance of students progressing at their own pace
53 computer-based courses that attracted a disappointing number of participants
Exercise 15. You are going to read an extract from a book review. For questions 44-53,
choose from the sections (A-E). The sections may be chosen more than once.

Be prepared
Mark Pollan offers a deft and persuasive account of the art and science of cooking
- Linda Libero

Cooked: A natural history of transformation

A In the half dozen years since The Omnivore's Dilemma became the benchmark argument for
knowing where the stuff you eat comes from, Michael Pollan has ascended to the top of the
locavore food chain. He's now arguably the most respected, and certainly one of the most visible,
proponents of locally grown and sourced food. Alice Waters may have been doing it longer and
Eric Schlosser louder, but Pollan's influence on how we eat and what we think about it has been
widespread and profound enough to reach the ear of our current commander in chief and to spark
a spate of serious activism around farm legislation. Waters coined a verb – ‘Pollanise’ – for what
happens to your relationship with food after reading his work, and the result has meant many
people changing the way they eat, or at least trying to.

B Pollan has always been quick to point out that he is, in fact, a science journalist whenever an
interviewer pegs him as a food writer, and readers of The Omnivore's Dilemma will recall the
arduousness, the anxiety and the trepidation with which he approached the preparation of his
'perfect meal' in the final chapter. (Plus, he burned the top of his cherry galette.) Even when he's
championing his ethical concerns, Pollan is a researcher, a prodigious gatherer of vast reams of
information. Having thoroughly scrutinised every other link in the food chain, he finally turns his
skills to the one link missing from his repertoire and, in the process, learned to cook.

C Cooked, perhaps his most personal and engaging book, reaffirms why Pollan is such a
phenomenal success at selling his message, much of which involves explaining subject matter
that might otherwise be stultifying and pressing points that, in lesser hands, would sound
unbearably strident. He is a breathtakingly fine writer and a mesmerising storyteller. Even when
he draws material from other sources - works of science, history and anthropology, all
generously cited - his skill at weaving those separate strands into a forceful narrative is singular
and has rarely been equalled by any of the multitude of food critics, celebrity chefs, and
nutrition-obsessed crusaders. Pollan's writing conjures an eminently reasonable, fair-minded
persona, the gently inquisitive guide who cares more for the truth than for any particular agenda,
even when he passionately argues for his agenda with every elegant sentence.

D That he's thoroughly versed in the most recent evidence from evolutionary science makes it
pretty difficult to refute his claims. That his research is seamlessly wedded to his own intrepid
adventures in cooking makes for surprisingly thrilling reading. In each chapter, Pollan takes the
reader on a dizzying tour of the very particular science behind cooking: what happens, for
instance, to an onion when you chop it up - the inherent sweetness of its liquid defensively
exploding into a volatile compound of sulphurous acids on penetration - as well as the magical
permutations of taste that evolve from the slow excretion of flavours as you sweat the humble
vegetable into a sauce. He caps that with a personal reflection on how the boredom of chopping
onions becomes an opportunity to contemplate what Pollan elsewhere calls the 'mystery, doubt,
uncertainty' that accompany waiting for the results.

E Cooking requires, Pollan asserts again and again, a yielding of control, the very thing that
manufacturers of ready-made packaged food attempt to elide with the certainty of efficiency and
speed. But, he argues, that efficiency is an illusion. In a scene that approaches slapstick, the
author describes an evening meal that he, his wife and their teenage son 'prepared' from an
assortment of frozen dinners, an experiment designed to test the advantages of yielding the job of
cooking to the corporation, as so many harried consumers are wont to do. Juggling the various
times required and the stubborn limitation of being able to prepare only one microwave entree at
a time, Pollan and his family found not only that 'convenience' prohibited sitting down together
for a meal, but also that it was far more costly - both in time and expense - than throwing
together a simple repast out of real food. Of course, the latter approach is healthier, too. It may
seem paradoxical, but Pollan uncovers evidence that people who cook are thinner than those who
rely on convenience foods for sustenance.
In which section are the following mentioned ?

44 a finding that might appear contrary to expectations

45 the apprehension caused by having to undertake a particular task

46 an ability to get the reader to maintain focus on potentially uninteresting topics

47 the compelling use of contemporary research

48 a sequence of events that is almost comical

49 the far-reaching effects of the author's work

50 an ability to synthesise information from different disciplines

51 correcting a misconception relating to genre

52 a tine of reasoning regarded as being a standard for others to follow

53 revealing facts in such a way that readers' heads spin

Exercise 16. You are going to read an article about young people who are trying to find
solutions to some important issues. For questions 44-53, choose from the sections (A-E).
The sections may be chosen more than once.

Making a difference
A Zhan
In the minds of most, Chinese political activists are well-worn lawyers and scholarly types who,
once part of the 'in crowd', have been ostracised for their dissident ideas and beliefs. Zhan, a
Shanghai pupil, simply isn't from that same preconceived mould. She is an unlikely activist and
campaigner against the country's harsh residence registration system - a system which was
created to prevent countless numbers of migrant workers from ever leaving the countryside. This
system negatively affected Zhan's life chances as it excluded her from taking Shanghai's high
school entrance exam. The only choices left open to Zhan were to attend vocational school or
return to her village. Weil-aware of the fact that neither of these options allowed for much
advancement, Zhan decided to make her voice heard in the form of an organised demonstration
and an avalanche of rebellious messages posted online. While Zhan did get the opportunity to
speak out, the consequences were dire ... her father was sent to prison and her family faced
possible eviction from the city. Luckily for Zhan, the national media let her plead her case in the
form of an article which appeared in the China Daily. In a recent interview Zhan quoted the late
essayist, Hu Shi, saying, 'Fighting for your rights, is fighting for the nation's rights ... .`

B Kelvin
Kelvin, born in war-torn Sierra Leone, did not know peace until he was six years old. Raised in a
single-parent household, Kelvin says he owes his life to his mother's 'resilience and self-belief'.
Now in his late teens, Kelvin has become a kind of poster-child for the West African nation and
its attempts to move forward and has appeared in a viral video on YouTube. Kelvin was a
precocious child with a great gift for engineering. Seeing the need for a reliable source of
electricity to power his neighbourhood, Kelvin used recycled parts to build a generator from
scratch. After winning a competition, Kelvin travelled to the USA where he gave a speech to the
Meet the Young Makers panel in New York. Despite his youth, Kelvin became a hit at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he showcased his inventions, and at Harvard
College, where he participated in on-going research and gave lectures to engineering students.
Kelvin's mentor, a PhD student at MIT, feels that Kelvin and the YouTube video have been
inspirational and motivational to the youth of Sierra Leone, and indeed, to millions of people
around the world.
C Zea
Zea was never what one would call a 'tech geek'. Instead, she was the kind of person who
thought technology was as simple as getting computers to do what the user wanted them to do
and resorting to rebooting when they misbehaved. That attitude changed forever after Zea
attended a 'Little Miss Geek' workshop at her school in south London. While taking part in the
workshop she had a revelation - technology could be entertaining, and world-changing. Working
on that premise, Zea and a friend designed an app aimed at motivating people to recycle by
making the tiresome task fun. 'Julie Andrew's character Mary Poppins says that you find the fun
and - snap! - the job's a game, and that's just what our application does,' says Zea. The app, called
Jazzy Recycling, is multi-purpose in nature; it gives information on the where's and what's of
recycling and then lets users scan, share and win points for their recycling efforts. Exploiting the
teen craze for sites like Facebook and Twitter, the app is 'liked' and 'shared' among 'friends' and
'followers'. And Jazzy Recycling has celebrity backing; entrepreneur Raj Dhonota, who appeared
on the series The Apprentice, has extended a helping hand to make the app a success.

D Rene
The average Brazilian teenager enjoys things like football, computer games and music, but not
Rene; he has made reversing negative stereotypes about the Brazilian 'favela' his sole aim. The
ambitious Rene has founded a newspaper, live-Tweeted a local police raid on the favela where
he lives and penned a book ... all before his twentieth birthday. The favelas of Rio de Janeiro are
notorious world-wide as poor areas controlled by armed gangs, but Rene wants to change that
false perception. He uses social media to portray these neighbourhoods in a more humane light:
to take the focus off illegal activity and to highlight the good works being done there. Initially,
Rene's family was sceptical about what he could actually accomplish; it was not uncommon for
his mother to berate him for coming home late because of his newspaper work. Unsurprisingly,
family support has grown by leaps and bounds now that the number of Rene's Twitter followers
has increased from a few hundred to tens of thousands and his newspaper has gained wide
recognition and, more importantly, financial backing in the form of sponsorship.
In which sections are the following mentioned?

44 someone who was scolded as a result of time spent on his/her cause

45 someone who symbolises a country's hope for the future

46 someone who makes use of social media to alleviate monotony

47 someone who uses the words of a deceased person to make a point

48 someone who credits a family member for his/her survival

49 someone who does not fit the usual description of a crusader

50 someone who yearns to atter a preconceived idea about his/her community

51 someone who has the support of a former television personality

52 someone who became a published author at a young age

53 someone whose actions brought about the incarceration of a loved one

Exercise 17:

LIVING WITH TOURISM

Five people describe how tourism has affected their home town.

A. Leonor Sousa

It can’t be denied that tourism has attracted investment, which has certainly raised living
standards here, but the cost in other respects has been extremely high. Take the effect on the
environment, for instance. When my parents were young this used to be an area of fields and
woods, but now everything is covered in concrete. The tourists themselves aren’t responsible for
this; it’s the construction companies, property developers and estate agents who are to blame
because they’re the ones making all the money. They’re all based in the big cities and bring in
their own people, so they hardly create any employment at all for local residents.

B. Yusuf Demir

When I was growing up in my home town there was a path I used to walk along to go to school,
and last summer I went to see if it was still there. It was, but the view from it had changed
completely. Now there is a vast shopping mall, with a cinema and cafés alongside. I don’t
actually mind that, because it means there are lots more things to do, and I also like the fact that
it has a really international atmosphere. It’s good for local people to meet visitors from other
parts of the world, try new kinds of food and hear about different ways of living.

C. Matt Walker

Tourism has changed this town so much, even in the years since I was at junior school. In those
days, there was a football pitch near the harbour where we would kick a ball around, but it’s
gone now, which is a pity. In the harbour itself luxury yachts owned by people from richer parts
of the country have replaced the fishing boats, to the extent that there is now no sign of what
used to be the main source of income and employment locally. In the evenings, the town is
certainly a lot livelier, but sometimes people start doing things they would never think of doing
back in their own home towns, and then the police have to be called.

D. Trisha Chandra

I was just a child when tourism first took off here, and those incredibly ugly houses were built
for summer visitors. The residents really should have protested about that. It was all the fault of
the town council, who only ever thought in the short term and seemed to give planning
permission to anyone who applied to build anything. Nowadays, there’s talk of ecological
tourism, but that’s just a way of making people feel less guilty about the harm they are doing by
making a few insignificant changes, such as re-using towels in their hotel rooms.

E. Daniela Navarro
I know some of the new hotels and holiday apartment blocks are unattractive, and that the bars,
restaurants and nightclubs that cater for tourists have changed the nature of the town, but without
them, unemployment – particularly among the young – would be far worse than it currently is.
That, though, is as far as the economic benefits to the town go, as the only ones making any real
money out of all this are the big tour operators and the owners of hotel chains, none of whom are
actually based in this country. Also, very few tourists learn our language. I know it must be
difficult for them because most of them are quite old, but it means there’s little communication
between us and them.

Which person ______ Your Answers

misses a place they used to go to as a child? 1.

states that tourism provides a considerable number of jobs for local 2.

people?

wishes local people had opposed the construction of certain holiday 3.

homes?

claims that tourism has destroyed a traditional industry? 4.

blames the tourist industry for spoiling the local countryside? 5.

feels that the presence of people from other cultures benefits the local 6.
community?

criticises the behaviour of tourists in their town? 7.

says the town is wealthier than it was before it became a tourist resort? 8.

believes that most of the profits from the local tourist industry go abroad? 9.

is not convinced that so-called green tourism actually benefits the 10.
environment?
Exercise 18:

Book Reviews on Earth exploration

A. Complete Guide to Life in a Cold Climate by Richard Sale

This book is packed with information and deserves to be the ultimate Arctic wildlife guide for a
long time to come. lt begins well, with an introduction to Arctic geology, climate and habitats, an
overview of all the people living and working in the region. The bulk of the book is an extensive
field guide to Arctic birds and mammals, with distribution maps and information on confusing
species. Its scope is broad and generous, but I have a few niggles. lt should really include Arctic
plants, fish and invertebrates. This would have doubled the size of the book and made it
unwieldy and impractical, but it's fair to say that the title is misleading. But I'm being picky here,
and these minor shortcomings don't detract from the overall value of the book.

B. Burton Holmes Travelogues

Burton Holmes was the greatest traveller not just of his own time but perhaps of all time. A
pretty big claim, but there's evidence to back it up. Over a 60-year period, Holmes visited nearly
every country on the planet, photographed all he saw, and invented the term 'travelogue'. His
pictures are stunning, both as social history and as art. Holmes photographed everything: the
dead on battlefields; the running of bulls in Spain; a mule train in Death Valley. A sequence of
Vesuvius erupting in 1906 includes a shot of a woman under an ash-strewn sky that is positively
apocalyptic, but Holmes' work wasn't restricted to the large canvas - he was as capable of
capturing an intimate portrait of a chicken vendor in a Bangkok market as he was revealing the
vastness and intricacy of the construction of the Panama Canal.

C. No More Beyond by Simon Nasht

In Simon Nasht's brilliant biography of Sir Hubert Wilkins, he says that his subject isn't like
other great explorers, primarily because most of us have never heard of him. He had no lust for
fame, instead being driven by athirst that led him to remote environments and places that cried
out for exploration, rather than awards the popular challenges so desired by newspaper editors of
the day. Nasht couldn't believe "a man could achieve so much and yet be so little remembered."
In 1917 Wilkins was under the command of veteran polar explorer and photographer Frank
Hurley in the Australian Flying Corps. Their mutual interests were vital to the development of
aerial photography as an integral part of modern geography.

[Link] Wildlife by James McCallum

As a refuge for wildlife, British farmland has had a bad press in recent years. Fortunately, the
artist's beautiful visual journey through the seasons presented in this book reveals that there is
still an abundance of wildlife if you know where to look for it and what to look for. McCallum
shuns detailed portraiture in favour of sketches capturing the spirit of his subjects-and hooray for
that. If I need precise anatomical detail, I can look at a photograph. But if I want to grasp how a
stoat rolls an egg, how a male whitethroat makes his fluttering display-flights or how long-tailed
tits work together to build their nests, then I need something more-and McCallum is stunningly
good at translating these complex movements and behaviours onto the page. His simple
explanatory captions-taken from his field notebook-are a bonus.

E. Troubled Waters by Sarah Lazarus

Sometimes it seems as though the size of books on whales is led by the size of the subject matter.
This, however, is a small, readable book. There are no detailed species accounts and the text is
almost entirely devoted to the threats that whales and dolphins face, such as chemical and noise
pollution, ship strikes and entanglement in fishing nets. A careful read reveals factual errors but,
on the whole, these do not affect the thoughtful and concise discussion. lt is notoriously difficult
to get to the bottom of the whaling issue, and here Lazarus struggles a bit. The International
Whaling Commission comes in for a lot of criticism, which would perhaps have been better
directed at the three of its members who have chosen not to abide by the spirit of its conservation
decisions.

F. The High Lowlands by Derek Ratcliffes

For some, the south of Scotland is the plainer and less charismatic sibling of the breathtaking
Highlands and the rugged West Coast. But it's every bit as wild as those famed areas, but with a
gentler appeal. This book describes an unexpected Eden, a place whose heart pulses to a different
beat. This is an epic piece of writing, its subject matter covered in a manner more akin to the
journals of a Victorian chronicler than a modern natural history book. Derek Ratcliffe's
recordings of the natural goings-ons in this lonely land spanned 50 years. His intimacy is
apparent on every page. Everything is catalogued and described in meticulous detail, and few
questions are left unanswered. It's a great pity that Derek did not live to see his life's work in
print. This is a book for everyone, but it's a huge volume that you couldn't take with you on
holiday unless you've got a pretty hefty rucksack and a strong back.

Your
answers

Someone who left almost no stone unturned around the world. 1. _______

The surprising anonymity of someone. 2. _______

Disappointment that flora and other fauna are not mentioned. 3. _______
A book that is physically difficult to carry around with you. 4. _______

Some details are inaccurate in this book. 5. _______

Information written like an old-fashioned diary. 6. _______

Text that adds something to the images. 7. _______

A collaboration that produced great results. 8. _______

A book that covers all of nature's seasons. 9. _______

A wide variety of subject matter. 10.

_______
Exercise 19:

THE BOOK IS DEAD - LONG LIVE THE BOOK

(A) A lot of ink has been spilled on the supposed demise of the printed word. Ebooks are
outselling paper books. Newspapers are dying. To quote one expert: 'The days of the codex
as the primary carrier of information are almost over.' This has inspired a lot of hand-
wringing from publishers, librarians, archivists - and me, a writer and lifelong bibliophile
who grew up surrounded by paper books. I've been blogging since high school, I'm addicted
to my smartphone and, in theory, I should be on board with the digital revolution - but when
people mourn the loss of paper books, I sympathise. Are printed books really going the way
of the dodo? And what would we lose if they did? Some commentators think the rumours of
the printed world's imminent demise have been rather overstated. Printed books will live on
as art objects and collector's items, they argue, rather in the way of vinyl records. People may
start buying all their beach novels and periodicals in ebook formats and curating their
physical bookshelves more carefully. It is not about the medium, they say, it is about people.
As long as there are those who care about books and don't know why, there will be books. It's
that simple.

(B) Meanwhile artists are blending print with technology. Between Page and Screen by
Amaranth Borsuk and Brad Bouse is a paper book that can be read only on a computer.
Instead of words, every page has a geometric pattern. If you hold so a printed page up to a
webcam, while visiting the book's related website, your screen displays the text of the story
streaming, spinning and leaping off the page. Printed books may need to become more multi-
faceted incorporating video, music and interactivity. A group at the MIT Media Lab already
builds electronic pop-up books with glowing LEDs that brighten and dim as you pull paper
tabs. and authors have been pushing the boundaries with 'augmented reality' books for years.
The lines between print and digital books are blurring, and interesting things are happening at
the interface.

(C) Beyond the page, ebooks may someday transform how we read. We are used to being alone
with our thoughts inside a book but what if we could invite friends or favourite authors to
 join in? A web tool called SocialBookBook offers a way to make the experience of reading
more collaborative. Readers highlight and comment on text, and can see and respond to
comments that others have left in the same book. 'When you put text into a dynamic network,
a book becomes a place where readers and sometimes authors can congregate in the margin,'
said Bob Stein, founder of the Institute for the Future of the Book. a think tank in New York.
Stein showed how a high-school class is using SocialBook to read and discuss Don Quixote,
how an author could use it to connect with readers. and how he and his collaborators have
started using it instead of email. Readers can 100 open their books to anyone they want, from
close friends to intellectual heroes. 'For us, SocialBook is not a pizza topping. It's not an add-
on,' Stein says. 'It's the foundational cornerstone of reading and writing going forth into the
future.

(D) The tools might be new, but the goal of SocialBook is hardly radical. Books have found ways
to be nodes of human connection ever since their inception. That's why reading a dog-eared
volume painstakingly annotated with thoughts and impressions is unfailingly delightful - akin
to making a new like-minded acquaintance. The MIT Rare i20 Books collection has kept a
copy of John Stuart Mill's 1848 book Principles of Political Economy, not for its content but
for the lines and lines of tiny comments a passionate but unknown user scrawled in the
margins. Maybe ebooks are taking us where print was trying to go all along.

1. An example of superseded technology that still has a certain appeal?

2. An analogy used to emphasise how seriously an idea is taken?

3. An anxiety she shares with other like-minded people?

4. A development that questions our assumptions about what reading actually entails?

5. The willingness of writers to experiment with new ideas?

6. The idea that books have always been part of an ongoing interactive process?

7. A seeming contradiction in her own attitudes?

8. A belief that the fundamental nature of reading will change?

9. Finding pleasure in another readers' reactions to a book?

10. A view that a prediction is somewhat exaggerated?

Exercise 20:

Paintings which inspire

Art experts give their opinions

A Luisa Sutton

A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, by Edouard Manet

Manet was inviting some kind of response in the way in which he presented women in his work
and he succeeded in bridging the gap between classical traditions and painting modern life.
Above all, I have tremendous respect for the fact that he was a breakthrough artist: a champion
of realist modernism who was censured for breaking the mould. Through the medium of
painting, Manet constantly reassessed the prevailing attitudes of the world he was living in.
Today we are used to multiple perspective - seeing the same image from different angles. This
was not so in Manet's time, and in this painting we see him crossing boundaries as he switches
reality by employing a mirror to reflect his subjects.

B Paul Harris

Henry VII, 29 October 1505, by unknown artist

Visually, this is a stunning portrait; Henry moves towards the viewer from the parapet wearing
the red robes of Lancaster, his hands on the ledge. It is immediately exciting and emotive. Henry
VII was on the lookout for a new bride and this was painted to be sent to the court of Maan,
much as we would send a photo today. So the provenance is clear. Portraits of other English
monarchs, Richard III in particular, are, in comparison, stiff and remote. Henry VII's portrait
speaks in a very particular way. His eyes look at one. He is Renaissance Man but, at the same
time one sees a shrewd, wise and wily man who, throughout his reign, managed to amass the
fortune of the Tudor dynasty.

C Tom Newa

James V and I, 1618, by Paul Van Somer

I used to work for an art handling company in New York, and I came to realise how wonderful
paintings are as entities. Old paintings last for so long because of the materials used - the oil is so
robust, it expands or contracts depending on the heat. They can be rolled up and taken around the
world, they'll never die. This portrait, in particular, made a huge impression on me. Works of art
often lose their power as soon as they're placed in a museum. This painting is where it belongs -
in a palace. Subject to who you speak to, James is either a buffoon or a tactical genius, but in this
work he looks so stately. The painting was clearly commissioned to convey regality - and it
worked on me, 400 years later.

D Paula Smith

Mr and Mr Andrews, by Gainsborough

I chose this painting as it has personal relevance for me. I grew up in my grandmother's house in
London. She was an excellent copyist of Gainsborough. We had copies of all of his paintings,
except for this one, which my grandmother didn't approve of. I've always found it incredibly
beautiful though. The two figures in this wonderful painting have very enigmatic expressions.
What are they up to? What are they thinking? And then what are we to make of the landscape?
It's an agricultural scene, in the middle of the day, but there are no agricultural workers anywhere
to be seen. Where on earth is everybody? What a strange atmosphere the place has, a long ago
era that will never be recaptured.

E Lynn D'Anton

An Old Woman Cooking Eggs, 1618, by Velazquez

What is most striking about this painting is surely its veracity. One gets the feeling that one is
looking into a room in which there are no obstacles to understanding. Nothing comes between
the subject and the observer. The artist here is the perfect observer. When I saw it a few years
ago in the National Gallery of Scotland, set alongside many other works from Velazquez's youth,
there was no doubt in my mind that it was a masterpiece. I think that it is easy for many people to
empathise with this painting in one way or another.

In which section are the following mentioned?

the inscrutable nature of the subjects 1_________

the artist's ability to give an insight into temperament 2_________

the integrity of the image portrayed 3_________

the view that the artist was an innovator 4_________

delight in a painting's ability to endure 5_________

the background to a painting being well documented 6_________

the view that a painting's impact depends on its surroundings 7_________

a painting which gives an image of a lost world 8_________

admiration for an artist who dared to challenge conventional ideas 9_________

conflicting opinions about the subject of a painting 10_________