Writing a paper

1. Write a short paragraph (150 words) dealing with some scientific facts or events.

Use sentences in different tenses.

Part III

Vocabulary

1. Discuss the following ideas:

a) One day machines will undertake all the routine work that humans do now.

b) Machines will never be as intellectual as humans.

2. Read the text and answer the question.

What are the most difficult things for robots to do?

Over the past century, anthropomorphic machines have become familiar figures in popular culture through books such as Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, movies such as Star Wars and television shows such as Star Trek. The popularity of robots in fiction indicates that people are receptive to the idea that these machines will one day walk among us as helpers and even as companions. Nevertheless, although robots play a vital role in industries such as automobile manufacturing — where there is about one robot for every 10 workers — the fact is that we have a long way to go before real robots catch up with their science-fiction counterparts. One reason for this gap is that it has been much harder than expected to enable computers and robots to sense their surrounding environment and to react quickly and accurately.

It has proved extremely difficult to give robots the capabilities that humans take for granted — for example, the abilities to orient themselves with respect to the objects in a room, to respond to sounds and interpret speech, and to grasp objects of varying sizes, textures and fragility. Even something as simple as telling the difference between an open door and a window can be devilishly tricky for a robot.

3. Think of the best way to translate the underlined words.

3. Translate the parts in bold.

4. Complete the sentences below with some facts from your field of specialization.

1. Over the past century…

Ex: Over the past century, scientists have learned a lot about nanostructures.

(Use the Present Perfect in your sentence)

Over the previous year…

Over the past decade…

Over that period…

b) The fact is that…

The truth is that…

The idea is that…

5. Read the following sentence.

And how would we be able to tell if we were in a special place?

a) think of the meaning of the word tell in this context

2. which is the correct way to translate the word if into Russian («если» or «ли» with the corresponding verb)?

3. Translate the sentence

6. Translate the sentences.

(Note: whether is the synonym of if)

1. They are now looking to see if using skeletal muscle instead of heart muscle could help the robots move more freely.

2. The new technology has a lot of potential, although it is difficult to know at this point if their approach will succeed.

3. It is a matter of debate whether biological or social reasons caused the difference between the sexes.

4. The ethical debate about whether or not to use drugs to improve performance in normal schoolchildren and students will probably be resolved over the next 20 years.

7. Make sentences and write them down.

a)

Ex: We have a long way to go.

We have a long way to do

a lot of things to conduct

a number of problems to solve

several experiments to go

b)

Ex: The new technique will enable scientists to understand the structure of the substance.

The new method will enable us to investigate such phenomena in future/achieve…

This device enables (in general) the scientists to get…

This experiment has enabled (a resent achievement) them to understand...

The equation enabled (a historic event) the researchers to calculate…

c)

Ex: Scientists couldn’t tell if such matter existed.

We couldn’t tell we was correct

The scientists understand if they were something new

People say whether it exciting

8. Write a short paragraph (100 words).

Use as many words and word combinations from the text as you can.