What kind of a phone does the author want her children to have first?

A) An old-type phone.

B) A modern phone.

C) Something like her parents’ phone.

D) Something like her “old” phone.

13. Which of the following statements reflects the author’s views?

A) Parents shouldn’t allow their children to play games on iPads.

B) Children are more attached to technology than adults.

C) Children now prefer their gadgets to outdoor games.

D) It’s hard to imagine the modern life without mobile devices.

 

What does the author remember about her childhood?

A) She didn’t like to play outside.

B) She enjoyed PlayStation more than Lego.

C) She went for a walk outside whenever her parents told her.

D) She preferred to ignore her parents when she played.

 

15. Teacher Kinney is worried about children’s …

A) communicative skills.

B) computer skills.

C) parents’ attitudes.

D) writing skills.

 

16. “ This ” in paragraph 8 (“ This, however, is not an excuse …”) refers to …

A) addiction to technology.

B) computer language.

C) importance of computers.

D) literacy skills.

 

What does the author imply by asking “How young is too young”?

A) Leap Band is inappropriate for young children.

B) Technology may enter children’s life too early.

C) Leap Band products suit any child.

D) Wristwatch-like products are for older children.

 

18. How, according to the author, will the parents solve the technological dilemma?

A) In favour of communication skills.

B) In favour of both the computer and communication skills.

C) They will try to refrain from making the decision.

D) In favour of the computer skills.

 

 

Ответы

12. What kind of a phone does the author want her children to have first?

D) Something like her “old” phone.

13. Which of the following statements reflects the author’s views?

C) Children now prefer their gadgets to outdoor games.

14. What does the author remember about her childhood?

C) She went for a walk outside whenever her parents told her.

15. Teacher Kinney is worried about children’s …

A) communicative skills.

16. “ This ” in paragraph 8 (“ This, however, is not an excuse …”) refers to …

C) importance of computers.

17. What does the author imply by asking “How young is too young”?

B) Technology may enter children’s life too early.

18. How, according to the author, will the parents solve the technological dilemma?

D) In favour of the computer skills.

 

Текст 4

Time to get off the phone

Last week, while I was trying to enjoy my manicure, I watched in horror as the two women across from me talked on their phones the entire time they were getting their nails done. They employed their head nods, eyebrow raises, and finger-pointing to instruct the manicurists on things like nail length and polish choices.

I really couldn’t believe it. I’ve had my nails done by the same two women for ten years. I know their names, their children’s names, and many of their stories. They know my name, my children’s names, and many of my stories. When I finally made a comment about the women on their cell phones, they both quickly averted their eyes. Finally, in a whisper, the manicurist said, “They don’t know. Most of them don’t think of us as people.”

On my way home, I stopped at Barnes & Noble to pick up a magazine. The woman ahead of me in line bought two books, applied for a new “reader card”, and asked to get one book gift-wrapped without getting off her cell phone. She plowed through the entire exchange without making eye contact or directly speaking to the young woman working at the counter. She never acknowledged the presence of the human being across from her.

After leaving Barnes & Noble, I went to a drive-through fast food restaurant to buy a Diet Coke. Right as I pulled up to the window, my cell phone rang. I wasn’t quite sure, but I thought it might be my son’s school calling, so I answered it. It wasn’t the school – it was someone calling to confirm an appointment.

In the short time it took me to say, “Yes, I’ll be at my appointment,” the woman and I had finished our soda-for-money transaction. I apologized to her the second I got off the phone.

I must have surprised her because she got huge tears in her eyes and said, “Thank you so much. You have no idea how humiliating it is sometimes. They don’t even see us.”

I don’t know how it feels for her, but I do know how it feels to be an invisible member of the service industry. I worked my way through undergrad and some of graduate school by waiting tables and bartending. I worked in a very nice restaurant that was close to campus and a hot spot for wealthy college kids and their parents. When the customers were kind and respectful, it was OK, but one ‘waiter as object’ moment could tear me apart. Unfortunately, I now see those moments happening all the time.

I see adults who don’t even look at their waiters when they speak to them. I see parents who let their young children talk down to store clerks. I see people rage and scream at receptionists, then treat the bosses/doctors/bankers with the utmost respect.

When we treat people as objects, we dehumanize them. We do something really terrible to their souls and to our own. Martin Buber, an Austrian-born philosopher, wrote about the differences between an I-it relationship and an I-you relationship. We create an I-it relationship when we treat people like objects – people who are simply there to serve us or complete a task. I-you relationships are characterized by human connection and empathy.

I’m not suggesting that we engage in a deep, meaningful relationship with the man who works at the cleaners or the woman who works at the drive-through, but I’m suggesting that we stop dehumanizing people and start looking them in the eye when we speak to them. If we don’t have the energy or time to do that, we should stay at home.

 

12. The author watched the two women on their cell phones in horror because they …

A) ignored their manicurists.

B) talked on their phones too loudly.

C) talked to their manicurists rudely.

D) didn’t know their manicurists’ names.

 

13. The word exchange in paragraph 3 means the …

A) interaction between the woman and the cashier.

B) money that the cashier gave back to the woman.

C) conversation the woman had on her cell phone.

D) process of choosing purchases at the shop.

 

14. The phrase human being in paragraph 3 refers to the …

A) author.

B) woman working at the counter.

C) woman talking on her cell phone.

D) next person in the queue.

 

15. The author answered her cell phone while she was at the fast-food restaurant because she …

A) always answers her cell phone.

B) thought it was an important phone call.

C) knew it would be a short phone call.

D) didn’t think it could be impolite.

 

16. The woman at the fast-food restaurant got tears in her eyes because she was …

A) insulted.

B) worried.

C) grateful to the author.

D) unhappy about her job.

 

17. Which of the following statements is TRUE about Martin Buber’s teaching?

A) There are two ways people communicate with each other.

B) We choose between two types of relationships depending on who we think we are.

C) There can only be I-it relationships between customers and service staff.

D) I-you relationships are more difficult than I-it relationships.

 

18. The main message of the article is that …

A) talking on the cell phone in public is always impolite and irresponsible.

B) we should treat people with respect regardless of their social status.

C) it’s important to stand up for shop assistants who are mistreated by customers.

D) all people are equal regardless of their jobs and how well they do them.

 

Ответы

12. The author watched the two women on their cell phones in horror because they …

A) ignored their manicurists.

13. The word exchange in paragraph 3 means the …

A) interaction between the woman and the cashier.

14. The phrase human being in paragraph 3 refers to the …B) woman working at the counter.

15. The author answered her cell phone while she was at the fast-food restaurant because she …B) thought it was an important phone call.

16. The woman at the fast-food restaurant got tears in her eyes because she was … C) grateful to the author.

17. Which of the following statements is TRUE about Martin Buber’s teaching?

D) I-you relationships are more difficult than I-it relationships.

18. The main message of the article is that …

B) we should treat people with respect regardless of their social status.

Текст 5

Mind over mass media

New forms of media have always caused moral panic: the printing press, newspapers, and television were all once denounced as threats to their consumers’ brainpower and moral fiber. So too with electronic technologies. PowerPoint, we’re told, is reducing discourse to bullet points. Search engines lower our intelligence, encouraging us to skim on the surface of knowledge rather than dive to its depths. Twitter is shrinking our attention spans.

But such panic often fails basic reality checks. When comic books were accused of turning juveniles into criminals in the 1950s, crime was falling to record lows. The decades of television, transistor radios and rock videos were also decades in which I.Q. scores rose continuously.

For a reality check today, take the state of science, which demands high levels of brainwork. These days scientists are never far from their e-mail, rarely touch paper and cannot lecture without PowerPoint. If electronic media were hazardous to intelligence, the quality of science would be plummeting. Yet discoveries are multiplying like fruit flies, and progress is dizzying.

Critics of new media sometimes use science itself to press their case, citing research that shows how “experience can change the brain”. But cognitive neuroscientists roll their eyes at such talk. Experience does not remake the basic information-processing capacities of the brain. Speed-reading programs have long claimed to do just that, but the verdict was rendered by Woody Allen after he read “War and Peace” in one sitting: “It was about Russia.”

Moreover, the effects of experience are highly specific to the experiences themselves. If you train people to do one thing, they get better at doing that thing, but almost nothing else. Music doesn’t make you better at math. Accomplished people immerse themselves in their fields. Novelists read lots of novels, scientists read lots of science.

The effects of consuming electronic media are also likely to be far more limited than the panic implies. Media critics write as if the brain takes on the qualities of whatever it consumes, the informational equivalent of “you are what you eat”. As with primitive peoples who believe that eating fierce animals will make them fierce, they assume that reading Twitter postings turns your thoughts into Twitter postings.

Yes, the continual arrival of information packets can be distracting or addictive. But distraction is not a new phenomenon. The solution is to develop strategies of self-control. Turn off Twitter when you work and put away your smartphone at dinner time.

And to encourage intellectual depth, don’t rail at PowerPoint or Google. It’s not as if habits of deep reflection or thorough research ever came naturally to people. They must be acquired in universities, and maintained with constant analysis, criticism and debate. They are not granted by propping a heavy encyclopedia on your lap, nor are they taken away by efficient access to information on the Internet.

The new media have caught on for a reason. Knowledge is increasing exponentially; human brainpower and waking hours are not. Fortunately, the Internet and information technologies are helping us manage and search our collective intellectual output at different scales, from Twitter to e-books and online encyclopedias. Far from making us stupid, these technologies are the only things that will keep us smart.

 

12. At the beginning of the article the author reminds that the new media technologies …

A) could make people less intelligent.

B) turn our attention off morals.

C) used to frighten the majority of people.

D) improve human brainpower.