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F u l l s p a t e P r eF u l l s p a t e P r eF u l l s p a t e
P r eF u l l s p a t e P r e ---- P r o f i c i e n c y P r o f i c
i e n c y P r o f i c i e n c y P r o f i c i e n c y P r i me r P
r i me r P r i me r P r i me r
Unit 6 Minds and Machines Introduction One of the hottest topics
in the field of computing is artificial intelligence (a.i.). To get
the ball rolling here are a few things to talk about:
Smart robots, androids, cybermen and other beings with
artificial intelligence have featured in a number of films. Can you
describe one or two of them?
We say that kids who are really good at maths are smart, but
what about your pocket calculator, is it clever? It is certainly
fast, but is it intelligent?
And what about the programmes on your computer, are any of them
intelligent? In computer games where you set your wits against a
virtual opponent, the character you are struggling to outwit is
actually a programme with a set of strategies and a bank of
information about the situations it might encounter. Some virtual
opponents are programmed to analyse the way you play, remember your
strategies and then tailor their strategies to increase the chances
of them beating you the next time you play. If your antagonist
defeats you, does that mean it is cleverer than you?
Reading If you look up artificial intelligence in an
encyclopaedia, these are a few of the developments you might come
across:
Breakthroughs in the Field of A.I. Deep Blue, a chess-playing
computer built by IBM, made history in 1997 when it defeated the
man who was then the worlds chess champion, Garry Kasparov. Many
people have since taken this as a milestone in the history of
artificial intelligence. Interestingly, Kasparov noted that Deep
Blue was quite unlike any other chess-playing computer he had
played against. He had never seen so clever a machine. At one
point, he was even suspicious that someone was secretly influencing
the computers decisions.
Expert systems are another development in the field of A.I. An
expert system can now be designed to come up with an accurate
diagnosis of a patients medical condition. A human physician uses a
vast bank of knowledge to interpret results from tests on the
patient and so come up with an appropriate diagnosis. Computer
software can now perform precisely the same task on the inputs it
is given and it can have access to a much greater body of knowledge
than any single human doctor could recall.
Neural networks: These are computerized models of the way the
brain works, quite different from traditional computer programmes.
The big plus with neural networks is their ability to learn from
experience. We take our ability to identify and categorize objects
in our environment for granted, but in fact it is a complex skill
we have acquired through a process of learning that is far from
simple. An artificial neural network can be connected to a camera
and taught to recognize, for instance, tanks on the battlefield. If
a new tank that it has never seen before shows up, it will still
recognise it as a tank, assuming that it bears some resemblance to
tanks it has previously learnt to recognize.
Chatterbots are in use in chat rooms on the internet. Here the
software comes up with an appropriate reply to whatever you might
say, and it can leave you with the impression that you have been
chatting to a real person.
Navigation systems. These are the systems a robot would use to
find its way around an environment. The first application of this
in the home has been the vacuum cleaner that can automatically and
systematically cover all of the floor area on a single level of
your house. Another application is automatic transport systems in
warehouses for moving goods from one area to another. They can be
told where to go and they will find their own way there, avoiding
obstacles along the way. The smart bombs now used by the military
employ another form of navigation system. These use Global
Positioning Satellites to understand where in the world they are
and how to get to their target. The military also now has pilotless
planes able to determine their own route to and from a given target
instead of relying on some system of remote control.
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Questions 1. In what way are expert systems of diagnosis said to
be superior to the abilities of human
doctors?
2. What new ability do neural networks make possible that more
traditional forms of computer architecture were incapable of?
3. Explain what the verb to navigate means.
4. When you launch a smart missile, why doesnt it matter very
much which direction its
pointing in at the moment you launch it?
Vocabulary 1. In the introduction it was said that in many
computer games we set our wits against our opponents and try to
outwit them. Wit has its roots in the ancient Sanskrit word vid
meaning to know. The verb no longer survives in modern English, but
a number of related expressions are still in use:
If a game is a battle of wits, it is a test to see who is the
cleverest.
Before tests like this you must sharpen your wits.
We say: Keep your wits about you in a difficult situation where
people must think quickly and concentrate on what they are
doing.
If you are at your wits end, you are desperate and dont know
what to do next.
A witless person is a bit stupid.
If you unwittingly delete a file on your computer, you press the
button without realizing what you are doing.
However, wit has a second, quite different meaning: a sense of
humour.
A witty person is funny in a clever and imaginative way.
Question: So if you are trying to outwit your virtual opponent
in a computer game, what are you trying to do?
2. The section on neural networks uses the word complex and then
it uses a phrase with the same meaning to avoid repeating that
word. What is the phrase (not in bold)?
3. Look back at the words and phrases in bold from the beginning
of this unit and find those that match the following
definitions.
a. a large building for a company to store goods
b. relating to nerves/neurons c. to look like d. to find out the
facts about something
e. collection, store f. use g. advantage
h. to design something so that it perfectly satisfies certain
needs i. opponent j. a breakthrough that marks an important new
development k. literally: a space from which the air has been
removed
l. the information that is fed into a computing system m.
appears
Over to you 1. If you read the literature on computing you see
that all of the developments mentioned in the
previous passage are referred to as forms of artificial
intelligence. Do you feel that all of them deserve to be called
intelligent?
2. If you have your reservations about these being truly
intelligent, what would you say constitutes true intelligence? In
other words, what are the hallmarks of genuine intelligence? How
could you spot it? Can you think of any criteria you might use to
recognise artificial intelligence?
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Reading Here we continue our meditation on the prospects for
a.i.
Its an inevitability Some people, such as the philosopher John
Searle, argue that programmes like the ones mentioned above are not
really intelligent. They are excellent at processing a vast amount
of information at lightning speed but they still lack an essential
ingredient: awareness (consciousness). None of these systems is
aware of what it is doing. Did Deep Blue, for example, realize it
had defeated the greatest human chess champion? It certainly didnt
jump for joy.
However, many of those who are actually involved in developing
a.i. are convinced that their systems will one day be sophisticated
enough to acquire a consciousness of what they are doing. They
criticize people like Searle for assuming that machines cant think.
On the contrary, they insist, machines can think. Look at the
brain. Its a machine and it thinks. There is no doubt in their
minds that once we design the right hardware and software we will
be able to put together a machine that works at least as well as
the human brain with its 100 billion interconnected neurons.
One reason why current a.i. doesnt look particularly smart is
because the computing power available at the moment doesnt come
close to that of the human brain. At the turn of the 21st century
computers were powerful enough to perform a few billion
calculations per second a figure which put them roughly on the same
level as an insect brain. One estimate of the computational power
of the human brain puts it at 100 trillion (million, million)
calculations per second. Although the gap seems huge, it wont be
long before it is bridged if computer power keeps increasing at its
current rate. Since the 1990s the power of computers has been
doubling every year. One expert in the field, Hans Moravec,
estimates that at this pace computers will be as powerful as human
brains by 2030. Then it will just be a question of tweaking the
artificial neural networks to optimize the way they learn from
their mistakes and reprogramme themselves.
Questions 1. According to Searle, what made Deep Blue
unintelligent?
2. What is the gap referred to in the last paragraph, and how
will it be bridged?
3. In a way, Searle belongs to a school of thought for which the
most essential aspect of our
mental life is something mysterious something like the soul that
we could never hope to
understand. What is the alternative view put forward by Searles
critics?
4. According to Moravec, what ought to happen by the year
2030?
5. You have been making a new machine and now it is nearly
ready. You just have to tweak some of the settings. What do you
think this means?
6. Moravec predicts that sometime soon we will design computers
capable of reprogramming
themselves. How much of a breakthrough would that be?
Vocabulary 1. Note the use of the phrase On the contrary in the
passage. This is not to be confused with By contrast. The former is
only used when we are criticizing peoples mistaken opinions.
E.g.:
Many people are convinced that bread is fattening. On the
contrary, it is surprisingly low in calories (around 215 for 100g
of brown bread).
By contrast, we use by contrast when we compare two different
things:
A digital camera is useless once its battery runs out. By
contrast, a good manual camera can take pictures without a
battery.
In the middle of a sentence we would use whereas or while
instead of by contrast.
Computer screens nowadays can reproduce 16 million different
colours whereas screens sold in the 1980s offered a choice of only
two: orange or green.
Lets practise using on the contrary and by contrast by
completing these two sentences.
Some people say that machines will always be unintelligent. On
the contrary, ................
...............................................................................................
Moravec is optimistic about the prospects for artificial
intelligence. By contrast, John Searle
.......................................................................................
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2a. The passage mentioned computers performing calculations.
This is not the only possible use of the verb perform. Look at the
following list of objects and say which of them can be
performed.
a. a delicate operation in an operating theatre b. a play c. a
piece of music d. a dance e. a service to the community f. a
function within an organization g. a prize-giving ceremony at a
school
2b. If someone is not happy with the performance of a company or
with the academic performance of their daughter, what are they
concerned about?
3. If someone treats you roughly they are too aggressive and
harsh. This adverb is used with a quite different meaning in the
passage. What is it?
Over to you 1. Do you think Moravec is right and unquestionable
artificial intelligence is an inevitability?
2. Would you see this as a threat? Why/ Why not?
Reading
Hawkings Doomsday Scenario Back in 2001 the acclaimed scientist
and professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge Stephen
Hawking spoke to the popular press to issue a warning: People need
to wake up to the staggering pace at which computers are becoming
increasingly sophisticated, and to wake up to the threat that will
be posed to humanity once the intellectual capabilities of a.i.
outstrip our own. The danger is real, he said, that this computer
intelligence will develop to such an extent that it takes over the
world.
Hawking, who is also the author of the best-selling book A Brief
History of Time, insisted that to avoid this doomsday scenario
humanity had to take steps to raise human intellectual performance.
He suggested that one possibility would be the manipulation of our
genes to upgrade the genetic basis for human intelligence. It is
imperative that we enhance our DNA or be left behind. He conceded
the road to genetic modification would be a long one but said: We
should follow this road if we want biological systems to remain
superior to electronic ones.
He also advocated accelerating research into developing an
interface between brains and computers. We must develop this direct
connection as quickly as possible so that we can use artificial
intelligence to augment human intelligence.
Questions 1. In your own words as much as possible, what is
professor Hawkings warning?
2. What two courses of action does he suggest we take?
Vocabulary A. Which phrase, not in bold, does Hawking use
instead of simply saying We must?
B. Match some of the bold words in the Hawking passage with the
following.
a. astonishing, very surprising b. change (noun) c. literally:
taking hold of something by the hands to change it and exert an
influence over it d. highly respected and praised e. give, make
public, communicate f. to support and argue for publicly g. to
overtake; to go faster than something else h. a connection between
two different things i. to add to something j. admit/accept part of
the opposite side of the argument
B. The title refers to Doomsday, which is another name for the
Day of Judgment described in the last book of the Bible: the
Apocalypse (also known as the Book of Revelation). The word doom
originally meant judgment but because of its association with the
end of the world it is used in modern English to refer to the
terrible fate that awaits those of us who havent always
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done the right thing. Hence, we say: She had a sense of doom,
when she felt that there was going to be a catastrophe.
The original verb meaning to judge was deem. We still use this
in formal English. For instance: His story was deemed to be
true.
C. Hawking said we had to upgrade our DNA. There are a number of
related words in English which we use in different contexts. Choose
from the words below to fill in the gaps:
enhance renovate upgrade enrich update renew
1. You might add more RAM to your computer to
........................ it.
2. You can use software such as Paintshop Pro to
......................... (improve) the colours of your digital
photos.
3. When you ........................ an old page on your website
you add new details of more recent developments.
4. If you have a very old and neglected house that is now in a
very bad condition, you might get the builders to
................................ it.
5. You usually have to pay a fee every year to
................... your membership of a club.
6. The people who make Coco Pops ....................... the
breakfast cereal by adding certain vitamins and minerals.
rectify refine purify augment refresh supplement
7. Hawking believes that we will be able to use artificial
intelligence to .......................... our natural intellectual
abilities.
8. Some people who think their diet lacks certain vitamins and
minerals take pills to ........................... their diet.
9. If you cant remember the details of a lecture, you might look
back at your notes to ........................... your memory.
10. Sugar is naturally brown, so to make it white it must be put
through a chemical process to ..............................
it.
11. People who are suspicious of the quality of their tap water
sometimes install a filter to .............
........................ it.
12. In comparison to using a typewriter, writing on the computer
makes it much easier to .................. mistakes in the
text.
Over to you 1. Do you think Hawking was describing a real
possibility, or was this just a moment of craziness
in an otherwise brilliant intellectual career?
2. One of the many responses to Hawking came from Sue Mayer, an
expert in the field of genetics. She said: It is naive to think
that genetic engineering will help us stay ahead of computers. What
does naive mean? (Clue: in another situation we say that someone is
naive if they think that all taxi drivers around the world are only
interested in one thing: getting you to your destination by the
shortest possible route as quickly as possible.)
3. Part of the naivety of Hawkings suggestion has to do with how
slow the process of improving human intelligence by genetic
engineering would be. Why do you think it would be such a slow
process?
Reading
A Boon to Humanity One of the many responses provoked by
Hawkings article in the popular press came from Raymond Kurzweil,
one of the most prominent figures in the world of a.i. He pointed
out that genetic engineering would be a waste of time because it
would still leave us at a huge disadvantage. A DNA-based brain with
its biochemical neurotransmitters has some structural limitations
which mean that it will always be slower and less accurate than
computers of the future. The brain evolved over millions of years
to skilfully coordinate the motor activity of our limbs with our
sensory inputs in the way needed to hunt and play football. Brains
like that never were and never will be particularly good at
thinking. The ability which many have said is unique to us: the
power of reason is actually the area in which computers will
excel.
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Kurzweil agrees that computers will outstrip us soon and he
suggests that to ensure we dont get left behind we really need to
develop a way of hooking our weak brains up to those superfast
computers. In fact, the first steps along this road have already
been taken. In 2005 Matt Nagel, who had been paralysed after a
knife attack, had part of his brain wired up to an artificial hand.
He became the first person in history to move a mechanical limb by
the power of thought alone. Although this was a huge breakthrough,
some of the technology they used was really quite crude, such as
the metal electrodes inserted in the brain. Even though these wires
were as thin as a human hair and were made of gold they would be
far too crude for the brain-computer interface that people like
Kurzweil have in mind. However, it looks as if the rapidly
developing field of nanotechnology* will be able to create
sub-microscopic devices which could link individual nerve cells in
the brain with a computer without invasive surgery.
Once the brain has been hooked up it will overcome all of its
limitations. Sharing information will no longer involve the
time-consuming and tedious process of writing things down, reading
them, making sense of them and trying to remember it all. Instead
it will simply be a matter of logging your grey matter onto the
internet and downloading what youre interested in. Want to pass
your pearls of wisdom on to your kids? Just hook them up and in a
fraction of a second they become as wise as you.
Whereas people like Hawking are quick to emphasize the threat
from a.i., Kurzweil takes pains to highlight how much of a boon
this could be to humanity. A.i. could boost our intellectual
capacities to unimaginable levels and begin a totally new phase of
evolution which will proceed at a pace incomparable to the current
one. What is more, he even holds out the promise of immortality. As
well as downloading information Kurzweil envisages the possibility
of uploading a digital copy of the brain onto the internet. We will
then be able to live in virtual worlds of our own creation and be
liberated once and for all from the limitations of biological
bodies that can be left to rot. In opposition to the prophets of
doom, Kurzweil wants us to realise that this could be heaven.
(*Nanotechnology is the field of technology in which scientists
make sub-microscopic devices whose
size is measured in millionths of a millimetre.)
Questions 1. According to the passage, why was Hawkings
suggestion about genetic engineering
misguided?
2. Evolutionary pressures forced the developing brains of our
ancestors to become particularly adept at certain activities. Which
activities were these?
3. What was the great achievement in the case of Matt Nagel?
4. How will an efficient brain-computer interface affect the way
we learn new information?
5. In the third paragraph, what is meant by grey matter?
6. Raymond Kurzweil is looking forward to uploading his mind to
the internet. Do you share his enthusiasm?
Vocabulary A. The last paragraph includes the phrase (not in
bold) proceed at a pace. What does that mean?
B. Look for words and phrases in bold that match the
following.
a. literally: a religious figure who predicts the future
b. try hard (verb) c. a gift that benefits something and enables
it to improve
d. e.g. an arm or a leg e. chemicals enabling signals to pass
from one nerve cell to another
f. boring g. connect
h. not sophisticated; insufficiently developed i. to go bad
(e.g. meat or fruit)
j. the ability to live forever k. operations that involve
cutting patients open
l. area of knowledge m. make someone notice something or realize
something
n. a very short period of time o. to synchronise one movement
with another
p. do better than something else q. insights, knowledge
r. foresee, predict
s. increase quickly
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Reading Finally, here are a couple of ideas from Hans Moravec,
who has spent his entire life thinking about the future of
artificial intelligence.
Hans Moravec says that the first generation of intelligent
machines could be programmed to selflessly care for us in the same
way that some biological children can be convinced to care for
their elderly parents. With careful planning and diligent
maintenance we can arrange for a period of comfortable retirement.
However, Moravec, who is less optimistic than Kurzweil, thinks that
ultimately the future will belong to wilder forms of artificial
intelligence that refuse to play the role of servants to an
inferior form of life. As he says: Rather quickly, they could
displace us. I'm not as alarmed as many by this possibility, since
I consider these future machines our rightful heirs, built (by us
initially) in our image but so much more potent than us. Like
biological children of previous generations, they will embody
humanity's best chance for a long-term future. It is our duty to
give them every advantage and to bow out gracefully when we can no
longer contribute.
Questions 1. Moravec envisages two possible phases, once
computers finally demonstrate their
unquestionable superiority. What is the first of these two
phases?
2. The passage uses the word retirement. What does this refer to
as it is used here?
3. What is the second phase that follows the emergence of wilder
forms of artificial intelligence? (Computers, by that time, will be
designing their own offspring.)
4. What is Moravecs advice about how humanity should respond to
the challenge to its authority?
Vocabulary A. Match the phrases in bold with the following.
a. hardworking (adjective) b. to push something out of the way
c. to give up and retreat in a civilized manner d. powerful e.
those who ought to inherit our belongings once our time is up f.
shocked g. be the carrier or representative of something in the
physical world
B. At the end of a performance the actors come to the front of
the stage and bow. What is this?
Vocabulary revision A sentence transformation exercise. You must
not change the form of the word given in bold when you complete the
second sentence.
1. Deep Blue proved it was cleverer than Kasparov. outwit
Deep Blue proved it ...........................................
Kasparov.
2. Kasparov had never seen such a clever machine. so
Kasparov had never seen ...............................
machine.
3. Neural networks have the tremendous advantage that they can
learn from experience. plus
.................................. with neural networks is that
they can learn from experience.
4. This tank looks nothing like the others. bears
This tank .................................................. to
the others.
5. In an instant you will be able to absorb the contents of an
entire book. fraction
In ................................................. you will be
able to absorb the contents of an entire book.
6. They say that the human race will become extinct.
envisage
....................................... the extinction of the
human race.
7. There will be no comparison between the speed of evolution in
the future and that of today.
proceed
Evolution in the future
......................................... pace much faster than the
current one.
8. We must develop an interface between our brains and
computers. imperative
................................................... an interface
between our brains and computers.
9. It would be advantageous for society if there were a race of
robots willing to serve us. boon
A race of robots willing to act as servants would
...............................................
10. We must realize that this could threaten the human race.
poses
We must wake up to
................................................... to
humanity.
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Language extra: transitive and intransitive verbs A. When we
learn new verbs it is worth thinking about whether or not they are
used with objects. For instance, in the passage we read: A.i. could
be used to boost our intellectual capacities. The verb boost must
have an object (unless it is used in the passive voice). For that
reason it is referred to as a transitive verb. Another example is
the verb raise. It too must be used with an object.
The government plans to raise taxes.
However, rise is not used with an object and that is why it is
referred to as an intransitive verb. Taxes are due to rise.
Some verbs can be used both with and without objects. One
example is the verb increase.
A.i. will increase our intellectual capacities. Our intellectual
capacities will increase.
B. Which of the following verbs must be followed by an object
and which must not?
sleep buy carry wait snore
C. Whether a verb takes an object or not can depend on the
context. Think of ways of using these verbs both with and without
objects.
walk run
D. We often need to talk about things increasing and decreasing.
Here are some useful verbs. To help you with some of these verbs
try to answer the questions that follow.
Intransitive verbs related to increasing or doing well:
soar shoot up mushroom thrive flourish
Verbs related to increasing which can be transitive: add to
augment expand extend magnify inflate enlarge boost
Transitive verbs meaning make a bad situation better: alleviate
ameliorate
Intransitive verbs related to decreasing and getting worse:
fall plunge plummet decline worsen deteriorate decay
Transitive verbs related to decreasing: reduce lower
Transitive verbs meaning make a bad situation worse: exacerbate
aggravate
1. One autumn day you go for a walk in the forest and see
nothing between the trees but dead leaves. The next day the same
place is full of mushrooms. Bearing this in mind, what does it mean
when we say that incidents of vandalism have mushroomed?
2. We say the eagle soars when it rises rapidly in the sky. What
happens when the number of computers sold by your IT company
soars?
3. Some people with poor eyesight have a special lens on a
handle that they can use to magnify the words printed in a book or
newspaper so that they can read them more easily. What does this
lens do exactly?
4. If you throw something off a cliff you watch it plunge or
plummet to the ground below. If the profits of your little IT
company start to plummet, what happens?
5. Your teacher starts to worry when she sees that the quality
of your work is beginning to deteriorate. What is going on?
6. What causes teeth to decay?
7. Your friend has dedicated his life to uploading his brain
onto the internet. He finds it is not going to work and is now
terribly depressed. What could you do to alleviate his
suffering?
8. Unemployment is devastating the lives of hundreds of
thousands of people. What could the government do to ameliorate the
situation?
9. The last verb in the list is related to an adjective that
means serious. What is the adjective?
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Writing
Topic:
Some have claimed that the development of strong artificial
intelligence is an inevitability. To what extent do you think the
evidence supports this claim? If that breakthrough does occur which
of the possible scenarios for the future do you consider to be the
most likely? How optimistic can we be about the future for
humanity? Are we heading for extinction?
Tips: Because exam essays are so short it is not always
necessary to write an introduction in which you provide an overview
of everything you will say. You can devote all the first paragraph
to the first issue you want to deal with. You might choose to do
this in response to the above essay question because it poses two
quite different issues: firstly, whether strong artificial
intelligence is possible, and, secondly, what the repercussions of
this will be for humanity.
Paragraph 1 Ever since the classical epoch there have been those
who have dreamed of creating machines with a life of their own.
More recently there have been indications that this dream could
soon become reality. (Details of one or two of the most important
recent developments and the accelerating pace of progress.)
Paragraph 2 Some people who are not directly involved in the
field remain sceptical that a machine will ever really deserve to
be called intelligent. (The argument and your response to it.)
Paragraph 3 If the predictions of computer scientists prove to
be true, there are a number of ideas about what this breakthrough
might mean for humanity. As I see it, the most likely scenario is
that ...................... (Or: Ideally, this would make it
possible for us to ............) .................... The idea that
................................. strikes me as highly unlikely for
the reason that .............
Paragraph 4 (If you havent already done so, you can round off
your essay by giving a final statement about
how likely we are to become an endangered species. You might
also want to outline a few steps
that society ought to be taking to ensure that future
developments will not pose a threat to
humanity.)
As things stand at the moment we have every reason to be
optimistic that ........
(Or:) If artificial intelligence is a real possibility we have
every reason to be pessimistic about our collective future.
.......... In view of this, it would be wise to
.................
Ideas for steps to be taken Isaac Asimov, the famous science
fiction writer, suggested a number of measures to prevent robots
posing a threat to humanity. Among these was the idea that there
must be an international agreement to ensure that all robots are
programmed both to obey their human masters and never to do harm to
human beings. It might also be worth ensuring that intelligent
devices are not given the power to replicate themselves.
Language for likelihood Here are some phrases for talking about
how likely or unlikely it is that something will happen.
It is almost certain that ....
It is highly likely that ........
In all probability something will/will not happen.
The chances are that we will survive.
It seems to me that there is little likelihood of robots taking
control of the planet.
There is no possibility whatsoever of ......
Write it! Write 240-300 words on the subject of artificial
intelligence, not forgetting to use one or two of the verbs for
talking about things increasing or decreasing.
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F u l l s p a t e P r eF u l l s p a t e P r eF u l l s p a t e
P r eF u l l s p a t e P r e ---- P r o f i c i e n c y P r i me rP
r o f i c i e n c y P r i me rP r o f i c i e n c y P r i me rP r o
f i c i e n c y P r i me r
Unit 7 Flab
Introduction Flab is fat. If someone is overweight and out of
shape people often use the adjective flabby to describe them not a
flattering expression. If you are slimming, people sometimes say
you are trying to fight the flab. By contrast, if you think someone
is nice and fat (but not too fat) you would use the adjective plump
a positive expression. Another positive expression is chubby. Mums
want young babies to be chubby nice and round with cheeks like
tennis balls.
Thats the topic of this unit: body weight, together with the
related issues of diet, fitness, health and self-esteem.
Discussion 1. What do you do if anything to keep fit? How
important is it for you to know that you can
sprint a hundred metres without having a heart attack?
2. If you were out of shape and wanted to get back into shape
which method would you choose:
a. Buy a treadmill and jog in front of the telly. b. Work out at
a gym. c. Take up a team sport at a local club. d. Arrange to go
hiking in the hills with a few friends.
3. Do you think most people who are keen to keep fit do it
primarily to stay healthy or is their priority to ensure that they
look good in a tight T-shirt? Do you see some of these people
getting carried away and getting things out of proportion? How
would you criticize the excesses of the fitness fanatic?
4. English has adopted a saying from ancient Greek: Healthy
body, healthy mind. What might this mean? Is there a grain of truth
in it or are your intellectual capacities quite independent of your
ability to dribble a football with both feet and kick it into the
back of the net?
5. Lots of people want to be slim, but a few of these take it
too far and end up being skinny. In extreme cases, which can
sometimes be life-threatening, doctors would say that the person is
suffering from the disorder known as anorexia nervosa. What do you
know about this? Do you have any idea about how to account for
it?
6. Have you any idea how to work out if you are overweight or
underweight?
Reading
Am I Fat? If you want to find out whether or not you are over-
or underweight, you might think it is enough to stand in front of
the mirror wearing your swimming costume. Wrong. You need to be a
bit more scientific. What you need to do is calculate your Body
Mass Index. How? First you have to weigh yourself and then measure
your height. To find your BMI, divide your weight in kilos by your
height in metres squared.
Lets imagine you are 2m tall and you weigh 100kg. 2 squared is
4, and 100 divided by 4 is 25, so your BMI is 25. What does that
mean? If your BMI is between 25 and 30 you are overweight, and if
it is over 30 your doctor will say you are obese.
The BMI, though, has its critics. The fact that you are heavy,
they say, doesnt necessarily mean that you have a larger than
normal amount of body fat. It might just be that you are more
muscular than normal - muscle weighs much more than fat (it is far
denser). If you are overweight and start pumping iron regularly you
might find you lose inches but not pounds. Not to worry. Its the
inches of fat that matter, not the pounds of body mass. Larger
muscles add considerably to your weight, but they pose no health
risks.
Is it true that the leaner you are the better? No, especially if
you are a woman. Male athletes can reduce their body fat to as
little as 4% of their total body weight with no ill-effects. When
the figure for women drops below 10% (as it does in the cases of
anorexics and many athletes) the natural female hormonal cycle is
disrupted. A healthy percentage of body fat for a woman ranges
between 20 and 28%, compared to 15% for men.
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Questions 1. What is your body mass index? Work it out.
2. Why might this figure give a misleading indication of how fat
we are and whether or not we have a weight problem?
3. A female friend of yours shows you a photograph of a model
who is all skin and bone and says that that is what she is aiming
for. What would you say to her?
4. Read the following, find out what stocky means, and work out
your frame size.
Some heavier people say they are not really overweight because
they have thicker bones and so are naturally stocky. What these
people are referring to is their frame size. How can we determine
whether our frame size is small, medium or large? Take your thumb
and third finger and encircle your opposite wrist right at widest
the point where you would wear a watch or bracelet. If they just
touch, you have a medium frame. If they overlap, you have a small
frame and if they dont touch your frame is large.
Vocabulary A. Look back at the passage and at the material
before it to find words in bold that match the following.
a. to prevent something carrying on with its normal order
b. without fat c. broad and heavy (human body shape)
d. a jogging machine e. a single small piece (e.g. of salt,
wheat, truth)
f. having a greater mass for a given volume g. to lift weights
to build your body
h. to be excessive; to take something to an extreme
i. to establish the facts about something j. to cut something
into smaller equal pieces
B. We ought to know the names of at least some parts of the
body. 1. How about the joints? Do you know where these are:
wrist elbow shoulder ankle knee hip
2. If you dont sit up straight in your chair you will have a
problem with your spine (also called the spinal column). This is
made up of 33 hollow bones through which runs the spinal chord (a
delicate bundle of nerves). What is this?
3. Pirates used to have a flag with an image of the skull and
two crossed bones beneath it. Which part of your skeleton is
this?
4. Lots of machines are advertised to help you flatten your
abdomen. Whats this?
5. Your hands have eight fingers and two thumbs. What do your
feet have?
6. If you have a runny nose you need a paper tissue (or a
handkerchief) but in a medical context you are more likely to hear
people talking about muscle tissue, bone tissue and nervous tissue.
What on earth is that?
7. We have different ways of talking about things that hurt.
Complete the following sentences with these words: pain hurt ache
sore
a. I wont play tennis today I have a ...................
elbow.
b. You know you cant put off going to the dentist any longer
when you have a
tooth............
c. Before a heart attack you experience a severe ...............
in the chest and down
the left arm.
d. When a doctor meets a new patient who is clearly in
.................. he asks: Where
does it ..............?
e. People who are suffering from a cold or flu often have a
cough and a .....................
throat.
f. You dont tell someone you think their new hairstyle is a big
mistake because you
dont want to .............. their feelings.
g. If someone is really irritating, they are a ...............
in the neck.
Pre-reading What is your impression about the levels of obesity
in your country? Are they rising or falling?
What would you attribute this to?
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Reading If something is a blight it causes great difficulties
and unpleasantness. E.g. Pollution is a modern blight. The fact
that I am so ugly has been a perpetual blight on my life.
Obesity: the Blight of the Rich The most common food-related
disorder in the developing world is malnutrition whereas in the
Western world it is obesity. In the UK it was recently estimated
that two thirds of adult men and half of women are overweight, and
almost a fifth of both sexes are obese. By comparison, back in 1980
only one in three men and one in four women were overweight.
Doctors put part of the blame on our increasingly sedentary
lifestyle. Shopping, for instance, used to involve a lot of
walking. Now its a quick car trip to the out-of-town hypermarket
and then back home for a snack. Another factor is the increased
consumption of unhealthy convenience foods such as frozen meals
that just need a couple of minutes in the microwave oven. Medical
experts are also concerned about the way advertising campaigns for
high-fat and high-sugar snacks are encouraging kids to develop
unhealthy eating habits from a very young age habits that it will
then be extremely difficult to break.
Questions 1. How have the proportions of men and women who are
overweight changed since 1980?
2. Broadly speaking the doctors highlight two main causes of
obesity. How would you identify these two main factors?
3. Students and people who work in offices almost inevitably
have a sedentary lifestyle. What do you think this is?
4. The passage mentions frozen meals as an example of
convenience foods. Which of the following fall into the same
category:
a tin of beans, a packet of dehydrated pasta with a powder for a
carbonara sauce, a leg of lamb.
5. We have a number of ways of expressing a proportion. We can
refer to a percentage or a fraction. What third way is used in the
first paragraph?
6. As far as obesity is concerned does it sound as if the
situation in the UK is better or worse than that in your
country?
Pre-reading discussion 1. From your chemistry lessons at school
do you remember anything about the different kinds of
fats?
2. Some fats and oils are healthier than others. Have you any
idea which are good for us and
which are not so good? Are some fats essential to a good
diet?
Reading
The Facts about Fat Many people still believe that the less fat
you consume the better, but this is an overly simplistic notion
that medical research shattered long ago. Another notion that
doesnt stand up to scrutiny is that fat from animals is bad whereas
that from plants is good.
The thing that we really ought to avoid is saturated fat. Fats
like these are easily spotted because they are solid at room
temperature. (They are called saturated because the fat molecules
are completely covered with hydrogen atoms.) Although all animal
fats fall into this category, so do some vegetable products such as
butter from coconuts and cocoa beans. It is advisable to cut down
the intake of saturated fats because they stimulate the liver to
make more cholesterol which, in turn, increases the risk of heart
disease.
Monounsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature. Studies
show that switching from saturated fats to monounsaturated ones,
such as olive oil, reduces the level of blood cholesterol and so
lowers the risk of a heart attack or a stroke*.
When the food industry was looking for a cheap way to make its
own solid fats it discovered the process of hydrogenating vegetable
oil molecules. These synthetic hydrogenated vegetable oils, despite
being based on plant products, are as unhealthy as the fat dripping
from your T-bone steak and your roast beef. They are the main
ingredient of all margarines
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and are present in a wide range of processed foods such as
pastries, biscuits, cakes and your favourite chocolate spread.
So why wouldnt it be a good idea to cut out fat altogether?
Apart from the fact that our diet would be very bland (many of the
chemicals that give food its taste are present in its fats and
oils), we would deprive ourselves of the essential vitamins A, D, E
and K which are fat soluble and can only be absorbed by the body if
consumed in conjunction with a certain quantity of fat or oil. Some
essential fatty acids (constituents of larger fat molecules) are
essential building blocks in the production of cell membranes, and
are essential for the correct functioning of the bodys nervous,
hormone and immune systems. One particular category of fatty acids,
called Omega-3 fatty acids, has also been shown to inhibit tumour
growth in animals and is associated with lower rates of malignancy
in humans. Foods rich in these beneficial oils include certain fish
(sardines, mackerel, salmon, trout and tuna), walnuts and green,
leafy vegetables.
(*stroke: a blockage of an artery in the brain often leading to
some degree of paralysis)
Questions 1. Why is it wrong to maintain that all animal fats
are harmful whereas all those derived from
plants are not?
2. Are all fats solid at room temperature?
3. According to the second paragraph, which organ of the body is
capable of producing
cholesterol?
4. Although olive oil is more expensive that corn oil or
sunflower oil some people claim it is worth
the extra money. What reasons for this point of view are
mentioned in the passage?
5. How healthy is margarine?
6. What is the connection between fat consumption and certain
vitamins?
7. Which parts of your body might suffer if your diet is
deficient in certain essential fatty acids?
8. Using the information from the passage, what advice could we
give to people whose families
have a history of cancer?
Vocabulary Exercise A 1. A sponge will absorb water up to a
point. Then it is saturated. Does that make the meaning
of the word crystal clear?
2. We read about atoms and molecules. Do you know what the
difference is?
3. There are two kinds of fabric: that made from natural fibres
and that made from synthetic fibres. What is the difference?
4. When you roast meat on a spit you can see the fat dripping
down onto the burning charcoal. Taps (US: faucets) also drip if you
dont turn them off completely. What does drip mean?
5. In English you roast meat but you bake a cake. Do you have
two corresponding verbs in your native language or does a single
verb cover the two activities?
6. How do you like your eggs: fried or boiled?
7. We say that a solid is soluble when you can dissolve it in a
liquid (known as a solvent). Salt is soluble in water but some of
the spices in curry powder only dissolve in oil so you need to heat
them in hot oil to give your food its full curry flavour.
8. Have you looked at plant and animal cells in biology? Plant
cells have a thick cell wall made of a chemical called cellulose.
Animal cells, by contrast, just have a thin cell membrane.
9. AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. People
dont die of AIDS exactly, you die of simple infections that your
body can no longer defend itself against because the HIV virus has
caused so much damage to the bodys immune system. How would you sum
up the function of this system?
10. Ordinary people talk about lumps that they can feel beneath
the skin (these are very worrying) but doctors talk about tumours.
Do you know what these are?
11. So far we have come across two words with the prefix mal-:
malnutrition and malignant. We also have an example of a word
beginning with the opposite prefix ben-: beneficial. In general
terms one means good and the other means bad. Lets say someone
discovers a lump somewhere and goes to the doctor (oncologist) for
a test. When he gets the result does he want to hear that the
tumour is benign or malignant?
12. We say that Merenda and Nutella are chocolate spreads
because you spread them on your bread. We also say that an
infectious disease spreads through the population. How would you
describe this in other words?
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Exercise B Look for underlined words and phrases in the text
that match the following.
a. close inspection or consideration b. consumption (by mouth)
c. tasteless d. identify e. when no more atoms can be added to a
molecule or no more solid can be dissolved in a liquid f. together
with g. components; parts of something
h. literally: to break into hundreds of small pieces i. to not
let someone have what they need j. to obstruct; slow down the
development k. to cause; to excite l. prepared (by the food
industry so that it is ready to eat) m. reduce n. eliminate,
exclude o. change
Language extra: relative clauses In the previous passage we came
across a sentence beginning like this:
Foods rich in these beneficial oils include ...........
This could have been written with a full relative clause:
Foods which are rich in these beneficial oils include
..............
For this reason constructions like the first one are sometimes
known as reduced relative clauses.
A. Often the clause is shortened by omitting the relative
pronoun and the verb to be. However, this is not always possible.
Look at these four sentences. Which relative clause cannot be
reduced? Can you see the girl who is running down the path? This
would be the perfect present for a child who is fond of scuba
diving. This would also be good for children who are energetic.
Anyone who is caught stealing will be prosecuted.
B. More generally we usually miss out relative pronouns where we
can. Do you remember the rule about when we can make this omission?
First you need to remember that the relative pronoun can be either
the subject or the object of the verb that follows. Look at these
two sentences. In which one can the relative pronoun be left out
and what is the rule?
Thats the girl who bought my bike.
Thats the girl who I sold my bike to.
C. It is not uncommon for sentences to end with a preposition,
like the second sentence about the girl above. To make the sentence
more formal the preposition would be moved to an earlier position
in the sentence in front of the relative pronouns whom or which, if
this is possible. Rewrite the following sentences to make them more
formal:
There are some things young children should know nothing
about.
Bob is a person I have perfect trust in.
The woman Mrs Miller left her money to will arrive tomorrow.
This is the book Catherine was referring to.
The garden is a great place to play in.
D. When referring to times and places we commonly use the
relative pronouns when and where, but there are some more formal
alternatives. Use your own ideas to complete these sentences:
The dungeon is the place in which
.......................................
If there is a full moon, midnight is the time at which
................................
The Day of Judgment is the day on which
.....................
E. Notice that the relative pronoun where replaces in which or
at which. For this reason it is not always appropriate to begin
relative clauses that refer to places with where. Think about your
home town and complete these two sentences:
(My home town) is a place where ...........................
(My home town) is a place which ............................
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F. Do you remember when we use commas with relative clauses?
Look at these sentences and add commas where necessary:
I had never previously met anyone who was so charismatic.
Mr Hubbard who had the audience in the palm of his hand
persuaded everyone that
only he knew how to give them peace of mind.
I never met him again which was a pity.
G. Relative clauses are a must in essays. They help us pack more
information into a sentence and that often helps us write some
longer sentences to add variety to our writing. Practise this by
joining together the following shorter sentences in your notebooks
using the relative pronoun in bold. (Dont forget commas where
necessary.)
1. Anorexia can be a life-threatening condition. It is affecting
an increasing number of young women. which
2. Some girls have very low self-esteem. They are most at risk.
whose 3. Eventually Tracy started eating again. This is what her
mother had been praying
for. which 4. Dr Northrup is renowned for her innovative
treatment of anorexia. Many girls owe
their lives to her. whom
Pre-reading 1. In your estimation what proportion of the adult
female population in your country is on a diet?
2. Do you think men are becoming more concerned about their
figure? Why/Why not?
3. Can you describe any diets that struck you as particularly
odd or particularly effective?
4. What do you think about all the pressure that people are
under to be slim? Some people argue that society should be more
tolerant and encourage people of all shapes and sizes to feel good
about themselves. How sympathetic are you to this point of
view?
Reading
The Craze for Dieting Recent surveys in the UK indicate that at
any one time 60% of the female population are on some sort of diet,
despite the fact that 98% of dieters put all of the weight back on
soon after the diet. Dieting may be futile but it is good for
business. It is reckoned that in the UK over a billion pounds is
spent annually on slimming clubs, related books, magazines,
machines and gadgets as well as food products and dietary
supplements that claim to aid weight loss. Some estimates for the
US put the figure at around $50 billion.
No one would deny that it is great to be fit and healthy, but
something has gone sadly wrong when so many women spend so much
time worrying about their figure instead of simply enjoying life.
As one 50-year-old woman from Bradford put it: I could weep for the
past 30 years Ive lost waiting to be slim before I could start
living. Another woman who confesses she used to be a compulsive
dieter recalls: My husband said to me one day: Are you going to do
this for the rest of your life? I thought, well, am I? That was
enough to sow the seed that maybe there was an alternative.
It would be a mistake to say that individual women are to blame
for this. They are under so many cultural pressures, particularly
from images so persuasively promoted by the mass media. Anyone who
flicks through a popular glossy magazine or watches TV is
repeatedly bombarded by the message that to look attractive and
successful you must be slim very slim. It is a message that can
only be ignored with a great effort of will.
Men have traditionally been exempt from the pressure to diet,
but commercials for jeans, deodorants and underwear have stepped up
the pressure on men to fight the flab, tone their muscles and
flatten their bulging abdomens. Another UK survey discovered that
over half of British men were worried about their weight, and 82%
confessed to feeling insufficiently muscular. Commenting on these
findings, Dr Martin Skinner, a psychologist at Warwick University,
said: The idea that men should be unconcerned about their physical
appearance has been eroded. Commercial trends have encouraged men
to be more self-conscious.
Questions 1. When you drastically cut down the amount of food
you eat you might be worried you are not
getting enough vitamins and minerals so you might start taking
certain tablets or powders to supplement your diet. What do you
think these are?
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2. Weep means cry. What is the woman from Bradford sad
about?
3. What do you think a compulsive dieter is?
4. After you have ploughed the fields and the soil is ready, you
sow the seed (sow, sowed, sown). In the second paragraph, however,
the expression has a metaphorical meaning. What is it?
5. Before you decide which magazine to buy you flick through a
few of them. What does this mean?
6. A hamster doesnt swallow its food immediately so while it
still has all that food in its mouth you can see its cheeks bulging
(bulge - regular verb). If your abdomen starts to bulge, whats the
problem?
7. What do you think the commercial trends might be that Dr
Skinner refers to in the last sentence?
Vocabulary 1. The word figure is used with two quite different
meanings in the passage. What are they?
2. The passage referred to the effort of will needed to ignore
the pressures from the media. Do you know what your will is? Here
are some other examples: You need strong will-power to stick to a
strict diet. It might be a tricky situation but as they say, Where
theres a will, theres a way. People who believe in liberty think we
have a free will. Anyone who is compelled to do something is forced
to do it against their will.
3. Look for phrases in bold that match the following.
a. something used to neutralize bad smells b. shiny c. not
achieving anything d. have a quick look (at a book or
magazine) e. cry
f. estimate g. wear away (as the sea wears away the
cliffs) h. not affected by (more usually: not under
an obligation) i. to hit time after time
Over to you If, as the passage claims, it is futile to try to
lose weight permanently just by going on a diet what advice could
be given to people who really do need to lose a few kilos? Any
ideas?
Would you agree with the following?
Some health experts maintain that just lowering your calorie
intake is a mistake. It lowers your bodys metabolism and triggers
other changes that inhibit fat loss. The key, they argue, is to
speed up your metabolic rate. Any kind of vigorous exercise will
do, but there is an added benefit to forms of exercise that also
build muscle. Muscle tissue burns far more calories than fat tissue
even when you are not exercising.
Writing
Topic:
Governments in the US and the UK have adopted a policy of
banning the sale of fizzy drinks and junk food in schools as part
of a campaign to tackle the problem of obesity in children. Write
an essay assessing whether or not this is a sensible measure to
take and considering whether by itself it will be sufficient to
reverse the trend towards increasing levels of childhood
obesity.
The plan If you want, you can choose topics for your paragraphs
from the following. Choose four of them and decide which order to
put them in:
the reasons why children are conscious of their weight from an
increasingly younger age.
an explanation of why it is a good idea to ban fizzy drinks and
junk food; importance of habits developed at a young age; future
health risks.
an explanation of why it is wrong to restrict childrens freedom
of choice; childrens have a right to eat whatever they want.
a consideration of the other policies that need to be adopted to
improve the healthiness of childrens diets.
how ineffective the policy will be; what children will do as
soon as the school day ends.
the scale of the problem of obesity; the new proposal; the issue
of how effective it might be.
a consideration of how optimistic we can be about the future and
a statement about the next step that must be taken.
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Research In exams you never have the opportunity to do any
research, but in real life you only write an essay after you have
tried to look a bit deeper into the topic. The articles above will
give you some facts and figures, and here are a few more you can
choose from:
The new rules in the UK affect both school meals* and vending
machines in schools. (*Note: in UK schools pupils have a midday
meal, not just a snack.)
The new proposals for British schools recommend:
1. No cakes or sweets should be sold 2. In vending machines in
schools bags of crisps (US: potato chips) should be replaced by
unsalted nuts, sugar-free muesli bars and sesame seed bars
3. A variety of fresh fruit and vegetables should be available
4. The only drinks available should be bottled water, low fat milk,
pure fruit juices, yoghurt and milk drinks with a low sugar
content.
Many pupils opposed the change in menu for school meals I hate
boiled potatoes, said one. Where have the chips gone? (US: French
fries) Parents, though, were very keen.
Professor Fergus Lowe, from the University of Wales, said: "The
new policy won't achieve much unless a serious effort is made in
other ways to change children's habits and attitudes."
Other policies also being considered include: ensuring all
secondary school pupils are taught how to cook healthy meals;
banning TV adverts for fizzy drinks and junk food before
9.00pm.
On average British children watch 3,000 TV ads a year for
sweets, drinks, junk food and fast food restaurants. One doctor
said: Although children are encouraged to watch what they eat, many
eat what they watch. As kids watch more television, they eat less
fruit and fewer vegetables."
The latest study of 11-15 year-olds in the UK shows: 26.7% of
girls and 24.2% of boys are obese - nearly double the rate in 1995.
In 2006 a total of 46% of girls and 30.5% of boys were either
overweight or obese.
One charity in the UK said the figures indicated a public health
time bomb, adding that obese children were more likely to suffer
from heart disease, diabetes and cancer in later life.
Health experts recommend that everyone eat five portions of
fruit and vegetables a day (although surveys indicate that only one
in four people do this).
Language Here are some excerpts from an essay about backache
which has a structure you may want to follow. Feel free to borrow
useful words and phrases.
Paragraph 1.
Backache is an increasingly common phenomenon in modern Western
societies. The latest estimates indicate that almost one in three
employees will miss work at some point in their careers because of
a back complaint. Not only does this cause misery to the
individuals concerned but it also results in a significant loss of
productivity for the economy as a whole. As a response to this
problem it has recently been proposed that companies should be
legally obliged to provide orthopedic seating for employees. While
most groups welcome this proposal, questions have been raised about
how effective it will be unless it is accompanied by other measures
to prevent injury to the spine.
Paragraph 2.
Orthopedic chairs undoubtedly constitute a great step forward.
.....
Paragraph3.
It would be a grave mistake, however, to think that the chairs
are a panacea. Changing peoples seating is unlikely to achieve very
much unless .........
Paragraph 4.
If this broader approach were taken we could look forward to a
significant drop in ........... However, the chances are that there
will be strong opposition from ................
Write it! As you are writing your 240-300 words on this topic
try and make sure you include at least one reduced relative clause
and an inversion.
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F u l l s p a t e P r eF u l l s p a t e P r eF u l l s p a t e
P r eF u l l s p a t e P r e ---- P r o f i c i e n c y P r im e rP
r o f i c i e n c y P r im e rP r o f i c i e n c y P r im e rP r o
f i c i e n c y P r im e r
Unit 8 Doping Introduction The word dope originally referred to
an alcoholic drink used as a stimulant in ceremonial dances in
South Africa. In today's sporting context, doping refers to the use
of banned substances or methods that may enhance the performance of
an athlete.
Points for discussion
A. The first task of organisations like the World Anti-Doping
Authority (WADA) is to clarify the distinction between acceptable
and unacceptable ways of boosting an athletes performance. Consider
this example: Two cyclists are training for a long road race. One
of them lives near a mountainous region and can train at high
altitude. The advantage of training up in the mountains is that the
reduced level of oxygen in the atmosphere increases the
concentration of red blood cells in the athletes circulatory
system. This enhances the bodys ability to transfer oxygen from the
lungs to the muscles a vital factor in any aerobic exercise. The
other cyclist lives in a country with no high-altitude training
facilities. His team doctor, however, can prescribe him the drug
known as EPO which has exactly the same effect on the blood that
training at high altitude has. When they turn up for the race, both
athletes have a raised red blood cell count.
Questions: Has one of these athletes done something wrong? Why
not both of them? Where would you draw the line between acceptable
and unacceptable ways of boosting performance?
B. When this line was drawn by the International Olympic
Committee it gave priority to two values, the first of which was
the health of athletes. This became an urgent issue for the first
time in 1967 after the death of the English cyclist Tommy Simpson
during the Tour de France a death attributed to the amphetamines he
had been taking to combat fatigue.
Question: Is this a good reason for banning certain substances
or techniques, or is it a good reason for making sure that all
athletes have the specialist medical supervision they require?
The other value was fairness. Consider another example: You and
I are sprinters, both equally dedicated. You, though, have bigger
thigh and calf muscles than me, not because you train harder but
just because you were born with more of a certain male hormone
called testosterone.
Question: Nature obviously isnt fair, so dont we make things a
little fairer if I have a few hormone injections to give me a
chance of beating you?
C. Question: If you were an international athlete, and you saw
that your more successful competitors were using substances that
were banned, and you realized that you would never win anything
unless you did the same, would you choose to stay a clean,
fair-playing loser?
Vocabulary 1. Why do you think the system that comprises the
heart, arteries, capillaries (the narrowest
blood vessels) and the veins is called the circulatory system?
(Bear in mind that we have
the verb circulate.)
2. Two of the verbs in bold are similar in meaning. Which is
more synonymous with improve
and which is more synonymous with increase?
3. Look for the words and phrases in bold which are synonymous
with the following. a. distinguish
b. the top of the leg between the knee and the hip
c. the muscular part at the back of the lower part of the leg
between the ankle and the knee d. an athlete who runs fast over a
short distance
e. prevent oneself from suffering from something (literally:
fight) f. the quantity of something in a specific volume of gas or
liquid
g. height above sea level
h. exhaustion i. the process by which an expert follows and
checks what someone else is doing
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Reading
The State of Play Doping is nothing new. Those who need to
demonstrate tremendous physical performance, such as athletes and
warriors, have always sought ways to have an edge over their
opponents. Before going into battle some of the ancient Norse
warriors used to eat a kind of mushroom that has a pronounced
effect on the brain, and chariot racers in ancient Rome would dope
their horses to make them run faster around the stadium.
There are two things, though, that are new. One is the scale of
the phenomenon. To get some estimate of this most commentators
agree that it is useless to try to draw conclusions from the
numbers of cases of positive anti-doping tests. The accounts of
athletes who have spoken out publicly are much more revealing.
According to them, there has been a substantial increase in the use
of performance-enhancing drugs since the 1960s, both in the numbers
of athletes involved and in the range of sports or athletic events.
It was originally confined mainly to weightlifters, hammer-throwers
and cyclists, but now it is much more widespread. Whats more, its
no longer just the elite athletes with an inter-national status,
but it is also the guys at the local gym pumping iron, snacking on
protein powders and taking body-building pills.
How did it get to be like this? One factor in the early days was
the rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union during the period
known as the Cold War. International sport became as politically
important as the race to put a man on
the moon. We now know that Soviet coaches systematically doped
virtually all of their world-class athletes. One of their
innovations in the 1950s was the use of male hormones to increase
muscle mass. In response, scientists in the US developed synthetic
versions of those hormones (anabolic steroids) to make their
athletes even more muscular.
The second new dimension is the vast and bewildering array of
techniques available today to enhance performance. Gone are the
days when cyclists sucked ether-coated sugar cubes to try to break
through the pain barrier (as they did in the nineteenth century).
As one commentator from the world of cycling put it: Maximizing a
cyclists performance is now such a highly complex task. Only the
team doctor has the specialist knowledge, so the average
professional cyclist with no scientific background just has to do
what he is told. He opens his mouth, holds out his arm, and
trusts.
Nothing is an offence until there is a law condemning it. Doping
only officially became a problem in 1928 when the International
Amateur Athletic Federation banned participants from doping, but
this was completely ineffective because at that time there were no
tests. It wasnt until 1967 that the International Olympic Committee
introduced a series of tests for a list of banned substances.
However, those responsible for testing have always found it hard to
keep up with the latest innovations in the field of doping.
Questions 1. How far back does the practice of doping go?
2. Since the 1960s what are the two developments that have
marked a new phase in the history of doping?
3. What are anabolic steroids and what do they do?
4. Why did drugs in sport become particularly important during
the Cold War (the period after the Second World War when the West
and the Soviet Union threatened each other with destruction)?
5. Why does the average cyclist now have to put blind faith in
his team doctor?
6. When did the authorities responsible for regulating athletics
really begin to get serious about the phenomenon of doping?
7. What happened in 1967 to prompt officials to act? (See the
introduction.)
Vocabulary Match the words in bold in the reading text with the
following definitions.
a. size
b. big, very significant
c. aspect, side d. limited
e. limit f. soldier, fighter
g. people whose job it is to express an
opinion about something
h. those at the top of the hierarchy i. competition
j. confusing k. advantage
l. variety
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Microscopic language extra In the fourth paragraph there was a
sentence that began like this:
Gone are the days when .........
Here the word gone is used as an adjective, and this is an
example of another inversion that is possible, although rare. Heres
another example:
Happy is the child who can still believe in Father
Christmas.
Warning: if you want to use this structure, stick closely to
examples you come across and dont forget the relative clause
because without it the sentence just doesnt work. For instance, we
cant say: Fast is the Ferrari or Handsome is Tom Cruise.
Pre-reading discussion Before reading the following overview of
doping techniques you should first talk about forms of
doping you have already heard of and any recent scandals that
you can remember.
Reading
Doping Techniques: an Overview Here are a few highlights from
the long list of banned substances:
Caffeine Not all banned substances are those you would normally
need a doctors prescription for. Caffeine is one of them. This mild
stimulant boosts alertness, reaction time and combats fatigue. It
also has a beneficial effect on the way the body uses its fat
reserves as a source of energy during exercise. Four cups of filter
coffee or six cans of Coke would put you over the IOC limit. Be
careful: 10g of pure caffeine can be lethal.
Amphetamines Stimulants (closely related to ecstasy) taken to
reduce fatigue in sports where endurance is paramount. As with
ecstasy, there can be particularly adverse effects when used in a
hot climate. Amphetamines reduce the blood flow to the skin, which
impedes the mechanism for maintaining a constant body temperature,
thereby increasing the risk of heatstroke. The death of English
cyclist Tommy Simpson (mentioned above) in 1967 occurred during a
particularly hot and steep climb under the influence of
amphetamines.
Bronchodilators These drugs dilate the airways in the lungs
thereby increasing the bodys ability to take in oxygen. These drugs
are normally only prescribed to people suffering from asthma. Some
people were surprised that at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games 607
athletes notified the Olympic Committee that they were asthmatic
and so had a medical reason for taking these drugs.
Human Growth Hormone (HGH) The big problem with anabolic
steroids for guys and girls wanting even bigger muscles (apart from
kidney damage, sterility and disturbing personality changes) is
that they are easily detectable for up to six months after their
use. HGH stimulates muscle growth but is not easy to detect and, so
far, evidence of adverse side-effects on athletes is sparse.
(Warning: HGH on the black market sometimes comes from the
pituitary glands* of corpses and may be contaminated with the virus
that causes Creutzfeldt-Jakob syndrome, otherwise known as Mad Cow
Disease.)
Erythropoietin (EPO) This is a hormone normally produced by the
kidneys which stimulates the bone marrow (the soft tissue in the
centre of our bones) to produce red blood cells. The effect is to
increase the capacity of the blood to carry oxygen. The downside is
that the increased density (thickness) of the blood can lead to the
formation of a clot which could block a major artery. Some have
attributed the unusually high number of fatal heart attacks among
competitive cyclists in the recent past to the use of EPO.
Blood doping A quantity of blood is removed from an athlete two
months before the competition date. The night before the race, it
is then injected back into the circulatory system. As with EPO, the
effect is to raise the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood.
(*pituitary gland a small gland beneath the brain which produces
hormones.)
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Questions 1. If you are an Olympic athlete why should you be
careful about drinking Coke before a race?
2. What are the side-effects of amphetamines?
3. Bronchodilators are normally used to treat asthma. What
effect do you think they have on the airways (tubes, passages) in
the lungs?
4. If you want to build your muscle mass, what are the two
options mentioned in the passage?
5. What is the health risk for athletes who take EPO?
6. Imagine you have a team of cyclists training for the Tour de
France and the WADA announces that at last it has a reliable test
for EPO (which you have been using since the late 1990s) what would
you do to give your team the same edge that it had the previous
season?
Vocabulary 1. Which word in bold refers to something that makes
you more energetic?
2. Look for the name of a part of the body amongst the words in
bold (actually the organ responsible for removing liquid waste from
the blood).
3. If you are going down a steep hill on your bike you will need
good brakes. What does steep mean?
4. If you look into someones eyes as the light is getting dimmer
you will see their pupils (the dark part in the centre) getting
wider. Which of the words in bold refers to this process of
expanding something circular like the pupil or a tube?
5. Long races like the marathon are tests of the athletes
endurance. Marathon runners have to be able to endure the
unpleasant aspects of such a long run. What does this mean?
6. Match the remaining words and phrases in bold with the
following definitions.
a. a dead body
b. the inability to have children
c. things which are stored d. fatal; causing death
e. negative f. disadvantage
g. a solid or semi-solid lump in
something that is normally a liquid
h. not present in a large quantity i. containing dangerous
impurities
j. the state of being fully awake and ready for action
k. obstruct
Points for discussion 1. At international athletics competitions
people expect to see old world records being broken
and new ones being set. Is it reasonable to expect that this can
carry on forever? Is human athletic achievement unlimited? On a
graph, would it be a straight line that continues upwards, or would
it be a curve that levels off at some point?
2. Now compare your views with that of a group of academics. Are
they right?
Without either doping or genetic engineering athletics could
soon reach a state in which no new world records are set. This was
the conclusion drawn by academics at Wolverhampton University in
England in 2005 after they surveyed the historical data of world
records in athletics. There was a dramatic increase in athletic
performance between the 1940s and the 1960s, which can be
attributed to the application of a more scientific approach to
training by coaches. At that time, world records were falling like
flies. By contrast, over the last two or three decades many records
have proved to be much more durable. The academics contend that the
benefits to be gained from the more scientific training programmes
are limited because human athletic potential has a ceiling. They
suggest that in some athletic events the limit of the human body,
unaided by drugs or genetic manipulation, may already have been
reached.
3. What impact do you think it will have on the world of sport
if spectators can no longer expect to see world records being
broken?
4. What do you think of this argument?
Some argue that professional sport is now an important part of
the entertainment industry. It has its own star system, rewarded
not just by gold medals but by lucrative sponsorship deals. It is
the stars who attract the spectators. They flock to sports events
in the hope of seeing a new sporting feat. The system would break
down if the best athletes were no longer able to break records and
so advance the boundaries of human achievement. For this reason we
must allow athletes to use all the reasonably safe methods they can
to enhance their performance. If there were no prospect of a new
world record, interest would wane and the industry would
suffer.
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Vocabulary 1. Your friend can shake her hips like Shakira. What
does she have the potential to become?
2. Look for phrase in bold in the last two little excerpts that
match the following.
a. profitable; making good money b. to look at systematically c.
maintain, assert, argue d. to reduce (slowly) e. to drop or die in
large numbers and at
great speed
f. the activity when large numbers of people go somewhere all at
the same time
g. exerting control over something in a skilful way
h. upper limit i. lasting; surviving for a long time j. a great
achievement
3. Lets use the word flock as an excuse for revising some of the
names for different groups of
things. Match these:
1. herd 2. swarm 3. flock 4. stream 5. gang 6. mob 7. shoal 8.
squad 9. pack 10. constellation 11. bundle 12. bunch
a. of angry demonstrators b. of thieves c. of refugees crossing
the border d. of policemen e. of birds/sheep f. of elephants/cattle
g. of bees h. of fish i. of flowers j. of sticks k. of stars l. of
cards/wolves
Language extra: cleft sentences A. In the last paragraph of the
previous extract we came across this sentence.
It is the stars who attract the spectators.
This could have been written more simply like this:
The stars attract the spectators.
The advantage of the first structure is that if you say the
sentence out loud it is much easier to put a lot of emphasis on the
word stars, which is appropriate here because we want to emphasize
what an important role the stars have to play.
Sentences like these are called cleft sentences. Cleave means
cut, and what we do here is cut up a simple sentence and change it
so that it becomes more emphatic. This is a nice little device for
our essays when we want to emphasize something and show how
fantastic our command of the English language is.
B. Heres how you can use this structure to emphasize different
aspects of a situation such as this:
Millar tested positive for EPO yesterday.
Complete the following sentences and think about why you might
want to emphasize that particular aspect of the situation.
It was Millar .............
It was EPO ..............
It was yesterday ..................
C. Another structure is also possible. Instead of this
straightforward sentence:
Above all else, athletes want to win.
We can write:
What athletes want above all else is to win.
Instead of:
I object to people cheating.
We can write:
What I object to is people cheating.
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Practice: Try to turn the following into cleft sentences in your
notebooks. You will need to think a little about whether it is
better to use the It... structure or the What... structure.
1. Spectators want to see records being broken.
2. I am concerned about the health risks for athletes.
3. The coach has the ultimate responsibility for whatever is
done to the athlete.
4. He wants the laws against doping to be relaxed. (Clue: this
is a bit tricky so use the phrase a relaxation of...)
Note: When we say, What I want ... we mean, The thing that I
want ... and this is why we may use a singular verb and ignore the
fact that the object is plural. So we can say: What I want is three
gold
medals, a world record and a lucrative sponsorship deal.
Reading You are going to read an article about the next era in
the history of doping. It begins by referring to gene therapy. To
someone who isnt as well-informed as you how would you explain the
difference between genes, chromosomes and DNA (deoxyribonucleic
acid)?
Gene therapy uses viruses. Do you know what these are? How do
they compare with bacteria?
Gene Doping As the 21st century was dawning astonishing
breakthroughs in the world of medicine were being followed with
keen interest by those in the world of sport. In a number of
laboratories around the world a new technique called gene therapy
was being perfected. The research had nothing to do with sport and
everything to do with finding cures for previously untreatable
medical conditions, but it was already obvious to those in
athletics that the new techniques could be applied to healthy
athletes to take sport into a whole new dimension.
One team at the University of Pennsylvania, hoping to find a
treatment for muscular dystrophy (which causes muscles to become
smaller and weaker), announced that they had successfully applied a
form of gene therapy to mice with the result that muscle growth
increased by up to 30%. The leader of the team, Professor H. Lee
Sweeney, was surprised that the majority of people phoning him
after the research findings were published were not doctors
treating muscular dystrophy patients but sports coaches wanting to
get their hands on some of the magic formula.
The new technique of gene therapy exploits a virus ability to
alter the DNA of the cell it infects. A virus, being much smaller
than a bacterium, is able to penetrate the cells of the infected
organism and modify the host DNA. Those modifications are normally
only to the advantage of the virus, which is then able to produce
countless copies of itself ready to infect other cells.
The Sweeney team took a virus that readily infects muscle tissue
and genetically engineered it so that instead of causing a disease
it simply introduced a new gene a synthetic gene designed to induce
further muscle growth. After being injected with the virus, young
mice which were kept sedentary showed a gain of between 15 and 30%
in muscle mass. When a different group of rats were injected in
only one leg and then made to exercise daily on a treadmill for
eight weeks, the muscle mass of their injected legs was almost
twice that of the uninjected ones.
The new gene works by producing a growth hormone that acts
locally on the injected muscle and doesnt enter the bloodstream.
This is a huge plus because raised levels of the hormone in the
circulatory system are associated with cardiac problems and cancer.
It would be an even bigger plus for athletes because this would
make it undetectable in blood and urine samples.
In 2002 the World Anti-Doping Authority called a meeting and
made a statement that the new techniques, if applied in athletics,
would amount to gene-doping and would be banned.
Questions 1. What was the ultimate objective of Sweeneys team at
the University of Pennsylvania?
2. Why are viruses so useful for gene therapy?
3. Sweeneys team didnt use an ordinary virus. They used one that
they had modified. What was this new virus designed to do?
4. In the second experiment the rats exercised daily on a
treadmill. How did the activity of the rats in the first experiment
compare to this?
5. Why do you think they injected only one of the legs of each
of the rats?
6. What is the big advantage of gene doping for athletes who
want to cheat?
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Vocabulary Exercise A 1. The word exploit has two uses, one of
which has a positive connotation and the other a
negative connotation. Look at the two sentences below and say
which is positive and which is negative.
There are still vast oilfields underground which we ought to
exploit. People who set up factories and make huge profits while
they pay their workers only a few dollars a day can be accused of
exploitation.
2. After the sun goes down and the light starts to fade we have
the time of day called the dusk. What do we call the opposite of
this, when the sky starts to become light in the early morning?
3. We say that painters work in two dimensions and sculptors
produce three-dimensional works of art. Whats this?
4. If you go to buy a new carpet you will be asked for the
dimensions of your room. What does the guy in the carpet shop want
to know?
5. Some diseases are infectious (or contagious) and you have to
be careful not to pass them on to other people. Other diseases like
asthma and Alzheimers are not infectious. If you sneeze on someone
and infect them with your flu virus, what do you do?