Decoded: 20 Intriguing Topics from Robots to Rhinos
Make Room for the Robots
1.
A) FALSE: “The scientists who built ASIMO equipped it with many abilities such as climbing stairs, recognizing faces, or even helping musicians make beautiful music.”
B) FALSE: “His company also makes a disc-shaped vacuuming robot called the Roomba, and more than 3 million are already in use.”
2.
A) ASIMO is a robot manufactured eight years ago whose height is 1.2 meters. It was the conductor of the orchestra which played the Detroit Symphony, thanks to both of its robot arms.
B) Monty needed to look more human because it was built to wash the dishes, so it needed a “human” hand to be able to take the coffee cups, and to be taller in order to be able to reach the sink.
3.
a) Raised (paragraph 1): LIFTED
b) Skills (paragraph 1): ABILITIES
c) Tedious (paragraph 2): BORING
d) Risky (paragraph 2): DANGEROUS
4.
a) EASIER (easy) SATISFIED
b) DO—-BEST (good)
c) AS/LIKE—–FOR
d) ARE WRITTEN / HAVE BEEN WRITTEN (write) READING_ (read).
The Influenza Pandemic of 1918
1.
A) TRUE: Known as “Spanish Flu”, that outbreak of influenza was a global disaster. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history.
B) FALSE: This pattern of morbidity was unusual for influenza, which is usually a killer of the elderly and young children.
2.
A) More than a quarter of the American population was affected by the Spanish flu, and almost 700,000 American people died of this influenza pandemic. Besides, hundreds of American soldiers suffered from influenza.
B) No, people who were affected by the Spanish Flu died very quickly because of its power, so doctors couldn’t do anything to help those people suffering from this influenza pandemic. There were some examples which describe perfectly the quickness and power of influenza: Some women were playing cards together, and in some hours, three of them died.
3.
a) Catastrophe (paragraph 1): DISASTER
b) Autumn (paragraph 2): FALL
c) Ending (paragraph 2): WINDING DOWN
d) Fatal (paragraph 2): DEADLY
4.
a) _WERE KILLED_ (kill) _THAN_.
b) _HAD HAD_ (have) _WOULD HAVE SAVED_ (save)
c) _IT_ _AFTER_
d) Mrs. Mitchell told her daughter to wear her scarf and gloves in case it snowed.
Too Much Television
1.
a) FALSE: “A.D.D. Experts say that A.D.D. involves an over-stimulation of young developing brains, and teachers say many children in the United States are showing signs of the disorder”.
b) FALSE: “This new study tested the idea that television watching by very young children is linked to attention problems by the age of seven.”
2.
a) According to the new study, watching too much television is directly related to attention problems in children, problems such as the inability to read for a long time or pay attention.
b) Earlier studies linked the habit of watching television in children to the increase of weight and aggressiveness.
3.
a) Amount
b) Signs
c) Tested
d) Earlier
4.
a) |began| |between|
b) |often| |a|
c) |on| |are|
d) What will you do when you finish your homework? He asked the girl what she would do when she finished her homework.
Amphibian Decline Serves as Global Warning
1.
a) TRUE: The report shows that 122 amphibian species have disappeared since 1980. The discovery, reported in the journal Science, is seen by researchers as an early warning of imminent environmental disaster.
b) FALSE: (…) of all 5,743 known amphibian species. Of these, 1,856 – 32 percent- were threatened with extinction. In comparison, only 12 percent of bird species and 23 percent of all mammal species are considered to be endangered.
2.
a) Amphibians have a sort of skin much more delicate than other types of animals; that’s why they will be the first to suffer from environmental disaster.
b) They are able to live throughout the world except Antarctica since they have developed a great variety of species due to their adjustment to several types of aquatic and terrestrial habitats.
3.
a) Comprehensive
b) Since
c) Drastic
d) Remarkable
4.
a) |continues| |will rise|
b) |has created| |protecting|
c) |has caused| |most important|
d) |polluting| |to|
Should the State Tell Us What to Eat and Drink?
1.
a) FALSE: “We eat on the street to a degree almost unknown anywhere else”.
b) FALSE: “A sociologist told me that half of our homes no longer have a dining table.”
2.
a) People use very little fresh food. Instead, the eating of junk food is increasing, everything is cooked in the microwave, and the act of eating has become a solitary activity, not a social one.
b) Taking a look at the rubbish, we can discover a lot of rests from the wraps of junk food.
3.
a) Enquiry
b) Almost
c) Entire
d) Nasty
4.
a) |eating| |for|
b) |ate| |loaves|
c) |buy|
d) “Anne, do you want something else to eat?→I offered her something else to eat
South American Wild Cats Find Hope in a Test Tube
1.
a) True. Since time immemorial, felines have been venerated in America, North and South.
b) False. So far, the problem has been addressed by introducing new animals into each region with problems of transport and adaptation, leading to poor chances of success. Now, the plan is to apply assisted reproduction.
2.
a) The number of felines has gone down due to human activities. Forests have been reduced so that these animals have little space to live in their habitat.
b) They want to resolve the problem by making assisted reproduction using semen from other felines in order to enhance the number of these kinds of animals in the future.
3.
a) Declined
b) Threat
c) Farming
d) So far
4.
a) If we want wild cats to be reproduced, we have to protect their environment.
b) |carelessly|
c) species are |very| small |to make| them
d) “When did you begin your new wild cat project” → The journalist asked … when he began his new wild cat project
Facebook Generation Suffers from Information Withdrawal
1.
A) FALSE: “In an experiment, called “Unplugged”, volunteers at 12 universities around the world spent 24 hours without access to computers, mobile phones, iPods, television, radio, and even newspapers.”
B) FALSE: “Most participants in the study struggled without their mobile phones and felt they were missing out by not using Facebook. However, it was abstinence from music that caused them the most difficulty.”
2.
A) They had to be during 24 hours without using any kind of technological device such as mobile phones, TVs, or computers. Besides, they had to write a daily diary in which they had to explain their feelings.
B) Two positive effects on the participants were that they were able to develop new life skills, and they had time to do other different and common things, which aren’t related to technology, such as spending more time with friends or relatives or in outdoors.
3.
a) Lonely (paragraph 1): ISOLATED
b) Uneasy (paragraph 2): RESTLESS
c) Depend on (paragraph 3): RELY UPON
d) When (paragraph 4):
A) DEVELOPING_(develop) _HIGHEST_ (high)
b) __AN__ _WHO_
c) _UNTIL_ _BECAME_ (become)
d) _ON_ _SPENT_ (spend)
Daughter of David Adams Joins Antarctic Ski Expedition
1.
A) TRUE: “The latest challenge will begin 97 miles from the South Pole, at the spot where Sir Ernest Shackleton had to abandon his expedition in 1907.”
B) FALSE: “I am frightened about the harsh conditions as I don’t know what to expect, the cold, the wind, etc. However, eating a lot of chocolate won’t be hard for me,” she said.”
2.
A) The unusual point in this expedition is Amelia’s age because she is too young for traveling to such a cold and difficult place as the Antarctic.
B) She will have to face the low temperatures (minus 60 to minus 30 in a common situation with and without wind), and the other challenge she will have to face is the 24-hour daylight, a fact which makes sleeping very difficult.
3.
a) Walk (paragraph 2): TREK
b) Place (paragraph 3): SPOT
c) Worried (paragraph 3): APPREHENSIVE
d) Take in (paragraph 4): CONSUME
4.
a) _HAVE_(train) __BEEN TRAINING__
b) _WHICH_ , _WILL BE LEADED__ (lead)
c) _DOESN’T GO_ (not go) _WILL_ (be).
d) Rewrite the sentence beginning with the words given: Amelia said “I am not sure if I’ll be able to sleep.” Amelia said (that) _she wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to sleep._
Where Does Dracula Come From?
1.
a) TRUE: Stoker, the author, is known to have consulted books on legends from Transylvania, Moldavia, and the Carpathians at the local library at Whitby and later in the British Library in London.
b) FALSE: When his ship was damaged in a terrible storm, Dracula – the vampire – jumped to land at Whitby in the shape of a huge dog.
2.
a) Whitby is the little town where the author was probably inspired to write his famous novel about Dracula.
b) Madame Countess Bathori was an aristocrat from Hungary who killed girls in the 1600s and was arrested for it. She is important because she used to wash herself with their victims’ blood to maintain her skin young.
3.
a) Imposing
b) Engaged
c) Appears
d) Habit
4.
a) |although| |than|
b) |had been| |what|
c) |deals| |is explained|
d) |what else had she seen|
The Travels of Marco Polo
1.
a) FALSE: The Travels of Marco Polo was a book conceived in a prison cell in Genoa (Italy) in 1298.
b) FALSE: […] much of what Polo wrote, regarded with suspicion in medieval times, was confirmed by travelers of the 18th and 19th centuries, and most of the detail has since been corroborated by historians and geographers.
2.
a) European people in the Middle Ages suffered from corrupt politicians, epidemic illnesses, such as the Black Death, wars, and hunger, besides living without any kind of hygiene.
b) Because his attitude was a very good example of understanding cultures and customs so different as the ones he had at that moment and to live among other races and respecting all of them.
3.
a) Account
b) Grim
c) Alien
d) Prevalent
4.
a) |who| |was|
b) |was governed| |ruled|
c) |with| |whose|
d) he had only told half of what had seen
Greening the Sahara
1.
a) TRUE: Egypt’s population is expected to double by 2050, and already crowded living conditions will likely get worse.
b) FALSE: […] crowded living conditions will likely get worse. So the government is keen to encourage people to settle in the desert by moving ahead with an expensive plan to reclaim 3.4 million acres of desert over the next 10 years.
2.
a) Because he is a farmer whose job consists of growing fruits (banana trees) in a place that in the past was totally part of the Sahara desert.
b) On one hand, because they think that agriculture might not give so many benefits as the government wants, and on the other hand, because it might destroy the touristic wild environment in Egypt.
3.
a) VAST
b) LIKELY
c) BECAUSE
d) RATHER THAN
4.
a) |as| |from|
B) traveling most ancient wast build
C) On
D) Which to promote
The International Year of the Potato
1.
a) FALSE: Only in Antarctica is the potato neither cultivated nor consumed.
b) FALSE: Over the next two decades, the world’s population is expected to grow on average by more than 100 million people a year.
2.
a) The objective is to raise people’s awareness about the importance of having this tuber in our daily diets.
b) For them, it is a crucial part of their diets. They even select the best potatoes based on their flavor and on their ability to adapt to the adverse climate conditions of the area.
3.
a) GOAL
b) FLAVOR
c) ABUNDANT
d) SURELY
4.
a) |Which| |in|
b) |stronger| |more productive|
c) |should be introduced| |to solve|
d) Politicians asked if the new food policy would be successful.
Rhinoceros Lake
1.
a) FALSE: “A good instance of this is provided by Hugh Troy, a well-known American artist …..”.
b) TRUE: “Excitedly, they followed the rhinoceros tracks. The trail led out onto the ice covering Beebe Lake,………”.
2.
a) How did Troy perform his trick? He made a sort of apparatus to leave rhinoceros footprints.
b) What was the people’s reaction to the presence of the marks on the snow? People followed the tracks, absolutely convinced that they were the footprints of real rhinoceroses.
3.
a) Wrong ideas (paragraph 1): misconceptions
b) Example (paragraph 1): instance
c) Cord (paragraph 2): rope
d) Erudite (paragraph 3): learned
4.
a) |With| |the|
B) |can| |from|
c) |who| |seeing|
d) |the cleverest| |i have ever meet|
The Bermuda Islands
1.
a) FALSE: “….Spanish explorer Juan de Bermudez……. As the story goes, Juan came, saw, left his name, and fled”.
b) FALSE: “ Mr. Allen’s aim is to mend the previous government’s neglect of the islands’ main industry and to restore Bermuda to its former glory …”
2.
a) Because a survivor’s narration of the shipwreck is supposed to be the source of inspiration for Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
B) Currently, Bermuda is the most important place for practicing scuba-diving and also offers to tourists much more than just a sunny beach.
3.
a) Trapped (paragraph 2): snared
b) Hungry (paragraph 2): starving
c) Loss or destruction of a ship at sea (paragraph 2): shipwreck
d) Initiated (paragraph 3): launched
4.
a) |far| |from|
b) |its| |since|
c) |to visit| |had|
d) | are inhabitted| |is called|
Burglars Move in for the Weekend
1.
a) FALSE: “She had arranged for her husband Jack, a former financier who now suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, to stay in hospital for the weekend while she attended a wedding in London”.
b) TRUE: “ Mrs. Cox has cared for her husband since he became ill in 1984”.
2.
a) The house was empty that weekend because Mrs. Cox went to London for a wedding. She left her husband in hospital, and a friend of the couple looked after their dog.
B) The thieves ate and drank, and also slept in Mr. and Mrs. Cox’s beds before leaving, taking off 30,000 pounds.
3.
a) Making off
b) Haul
c) Locked
d) Cared
4.
a) |that| |was told|
b) |will visit| |about|
c) |If| |would|
d) |warned| |opened|
5.
b) It was a day like any other day. I was at home, I came from work at 5 p.m. and after having a shower and eating something, I sat in my favorite armchair to watch TV for a while. I didn’t hear anything, I suppose I fell asleep because when I looked at my watch it was 7 p.m. After that, I looked around, and I couldn’t believe what I had just before my eyes. I was there in my favorite armchair, and around me, there was nothing! All the furniture (except the armchair, of course) was gone! I had been robbed in my own house while I was sleeping.
Beauty Over Youth
1.
a) FALSE “….They showed the picture to three other groups………with the same eight pictures….”
b) TRUE “….all three groups of men chose her….”
2.
a) Because most aspects regarding beauty such as fashion clothes, cosmetics, TV…show young women enjoying these things.
b) The study implies that men prefer beautiful women who are not young although the young women could give them more children.
3.
The words in the text that mean:
a) Numerous (paragraph 1): countless
b) Above all (paragraph 1): primarily
c) Consider (paragraph 3): take into account
d) Leave (paragraph 3): bequeath
4.
a) |about| |enough|
b) |was donde (do)| |since|
c) |who| |has been (be)|
d) |helping| |biggest|
Pointing the Finger
1.
a) FALSE: “…people with autism have ring fingers that are abnormally long compared with their index fingers”
b) FALSE: “early symptoms………… are often obvious by the tender age of 18 months”
2.
A) Because they have studied that fingers have a lot of information about many aspects of our personal characteristics.
b) Children with autism are not able to interact with other people and communicate in a normal way, as well as point at things or engage in plays or activities.
3.
a) Creases
b) Gaze
c) Ratio
d) Average
4.
a) |is fixed| |be governed|
b) |Although| |to|
c) |earlier| |the easier|
d) I could never imagine that my fingers could say so many things
Coetzee Wins Nobel Prize
1.
a) FALSE: “The Nobel has often been misapplied. It evaded Tolstoy, Chekhov, Joyce, Kafka, and Nabokov”.
b) FALSE: “Coetzee was born in Cape Town in 1940 and trained as a computer scientist, coming to London in the Sixties to work for IBM, a period recollected in a superb autobiographical novel”.
2.
a) Because political factors seem to have more importance than just the literary ones.
b) He worked for IBM, and after that, he was a professor of literature and published literary criticism.
3.
a) Unquestionably
b) Wholly
c) Assumptions
d) Swiftly
4.
a) |who| |last|
b) |Winning| |received|
C) |whose| |wasn’t chosen|
d) |about| |his|
A Relative Difference
1.
a) FALSE: “….This similarity has led chimp expert Dr. Jane Goodall to call for human rights to be extended to chimpanzees.”
b) FALSE: “….This similarity has led chimp expert Dr. Jane Goodall to call for human rights to be extended to chimpanzees.”
2.
a) There have been some discoveries of fossils showing the existence of human-like creatures millions of years ago which could be the ancestors of monkeys and humans.
b) The definitive difference is the ability of language humans have in comparison to primates. This explains our evolution and our change to live in cities, working, and progressing.
3.
a) Connection: link
b) Part of the skeleton which encloses the brain: skull
c) Jump ahead: leap
d) Apparently: seemingly
4.
a) He won´t speak to you unless you ask him a question. IF you don´t ask him a question, he won´t speak to you.
b) “You must do it at once”, she said SHE TOLD ME THAT I had to do it at once.
c) The exercise is so difficult we can´t do it THE EXERCISE IS TOO difficult for us to do it
d) Some policemen are investigating the crime. THE CRIME is being investigated by the police.
Abuse of Antibiotics
1.
a) TRUE: “….In poor countries, the biggest problem…………They cannot afford a complete course of treatment……”
b) TRUE: “….Developed nations must drastically reduce antibiotic usage”.
2.
a) Because everybody thinks that we are protected by medicines and especially by antibiotics.
b) We can contribute to preserving their effectiveness if we ask for antibiotics only when it is necessary and diseases are serious enough for taking them.
3.
a) Scratch
B) Remain
c) Soared
D) Bequeath
4.
a) |some| |for| |killing|
B) |have once been easily cured| |stronger to|
c) |should|
D) |have lived| |for|
What’s it Like to Be a Dog?
1.
a) FALSE: “… common sense is sometimes difficult to reconcile with science sense,…..”
b) TRUE: “Today many scientists are accepting that non-human animals do indeed experience emotions ……”
2.
a) Animal emotions went unnoticed for many years because they were considered mere living machines that only respond to pretty basic stimuli in a mechanical way.
b) Animals have the necessary brain structures to be able to feel truly emotions.
3.
a) Indeed
b) In addition
c) Increasing
d) As well
4.
a) |studied| |would understand|
b) |that| |have been explored|
c) |working| |the most intelligent|
D) “My experiments will prove the existence of the emotional lives of animals,” said Darwin. Darwin said that his experiments would prove the existence of the emotional lives of animals.