Кондратева А wаы то суццессфул реадинг цомпрехенсион 2011

Prefixes which mean not or show an opposite state or process.

Suffixes and their meanings

-ee = with passive meaning (employee) -er = with active meaning (employer) -ful a) = with (careful)

b) indicates quantity (spoonful) -ish a) = with the quality of (childish)

b) = rather (smallish) -less = without (careless)

-proof = safe against (waterproof)

It is very common in newspaper and magazine writings to use a so called pun (clever use of words which has more than one meaning). It works when an author wants to attract his readers’ attention and get them interested in the topic of the article. (e.g. Ex.1.3. “Terahertz radiation lights up cancers.”)

Some writers tend to use long, complicated sentences and express important ideas indirectly. It means that even if you know all the words in a passage you might misunderstand particular points.

Ex.1

Read the texts and do the tasks which follow each text.

1.1. Fluorine improves plastic semiconductors

Scientists at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and Lucent Technologies in Murray Hill, New Jersey, US, have announced what could be a major breakthrough in plastic semiconductors. Tobin Marks and colleagues have developed a new class of organic molecules that can be made into either n-type or p-type semiconductors. Until now, most organic materials that have looked like good candidates have been p-type only, but without both types it is difficult to make interesting de-

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vices. The potentially useful molecules are based on six thiophene units (rings made of five carbon atoms and one sulphur) strung together. Swapping various thiophenes with fluorinated six-membered carbon rings then makes the molecules n-type or p-type.

This work is in its early stages, with many improvements still possible, but the group has already demonstrated working transistors. The natural limits to which this sort of technology could be pushed would include circuits that could essentially be printed (literally) with modified ink-jet printers, leading to fantastic decrease in production costs and a proliferation of disposable electronic devices.

a)Answer the questions. Do not go into lengthy explanations, use as few words as possible.

Why is the discovery described as ‘a major breakthrough’? What materials may result in new interesting devices?

Do transistors based on these new semiconductors already exist? Are they commercially available?

Which devices may prove to be more cost-efficient: old or new ones? Are these devices supposed to be serviced?

b)Rewrite the highlighted sentences to make them simpler to under-

stand.

c)Tell about the research done by Tobin Marks and his colleagues.

Laser alchemy could burn nuclear waste

A new approach to disposing of radioactive waste without using intense sources of neutrons is based on nuclear alchemy by laser. Ken Ledingham and colleagues from Strathclyde University, Glasgow University and Imperial College in the UK, the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in the US and the Institute for Transuranium Elements in Karlsruhe, Germany, have harnessed the ability of intense laser-plasma interaction to produce gamma rays that can be used for nuclear transmutation.

Working with the petawatt facility of the VULCAN glass laser at RAL, the team used a 0.7ps pulse of 360J to focus on a gold target. Electrons from the plasma formed in this way reached relativistic energies and emitted bremsstrahlung gamma rays as they stopped in the

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gold. The team used these gamma rays to irradiate a sample prepared with waste solution from a fuel processing plant. They found that the irradiation changed iodine-129 into iodine-128. While both these isotopes are radioactive, the change is important because it corresponds to swapping a half-life of 15.7 million years for one of 25 minutes.

This work follows on from earlier research, which showed that intense laser pulses could trigger fission of uranium-238. It is still not clear if lasers are the way to go in disposing, but similar reactions could be useful in creating short-lived isotopes for medical applications with rather modest facilities that could be accommodated in many hospitals.

a)Answer the questions. Do not go into lengthy explanations, use as few words as possible.

What does a conventional method of disposing of radioactive waste consist in?

What laser property allows for the necessary nuclear transmutation to be achieved?

Are scientists fully confident about how useful lasers will be for nuclear waste management?

In what area besides nuclear power industry can this method be used? What makes it so promising?

What is the major outcome of turning iodine-129 into iodine-128? Explain the meaning of ‘burn’ in the title?

b)Rewrite the highlighted sentences to make them simpler to under-

stand.

c)Speak about the advantages of the suggested method of radioactive waste disposing.

1.3. Terahertz radiation lights up cancers.

With wavelengths between those of visible light and microwaves, terahertz radiation, or T-rays, are able to distinguish cancerous and healthy tissue below the surface of the skin that would otherwise be invisible. In a recent trial with ten patients who had skin cancers surgically removed, T-ray imaging proved extremely accurate in identifying those regions of excised tissue that were cancerous and those that were not.

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Teraview, the Cambridge-based company that has developed this technology, is not yet certain why this sort of imaging works so well, but it could be linked to the fact that cancerous tissue can take up relatively large amounts of water, and water absorbs strongly in the terahertz region. The technology is also very promising for non-medical applications, such as airport security, as T-rays are quite penetrating but non-ionizing.

a)Answer the questions. Do not go into lengthy explanations, use as few words as possible.

Explain the meaning of ‘light up’ in the title.

In what wavelength range does terahertz radiation lie?

What diagnostic technique has recently been developed in the UK? What property of T-rays is used in this method?

What results have the trials demonstrated? Is the process fully understood by now?

What is a most likely explanation of the result?

What properties make terahertz radiation promising for non-medical areas?

b)Rewrite the highlighted sentences to make them simpler to under-

stand.

c)Speak about the research done by Teraview scientists.

1.4. Doppler reversed in radio waves.

When does the frequency of a source increase, rather than decrease, as it moves away from you? One place is in Bristol, UK, in a laboratory at BAE Systems, where Nigel Seddon and Trevor Brearpark have demonstrated this remarkable effect with radio waves. The idea is to have waves in a nonlinear medium that can exhibit anomalous dispersion. In this case – which as it turns out has been known since the 1940s – the effect occurs as the incoming waves strike the boundary between a region of anomalous dispersion that is waving away and a region of normal dispersion that has not yet been made anomalous. The backscattered component then comes back shifted not down, but up in frequency.

This work offers a whole new way of thinking about how to generate frequencies in traditionally difficult regions of the spectrum.

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a)Answer the questions. Do not go into lengthy explanations, use as few words as possible.

What was the object of Seddon and Bearpark’s research? When was the effect they have studied first recognized? Does the title actually mean:

(a)“The Doppler effect is reversed in radio waves”

(b) “Doppler reversed the effect in radio waves” (c)”Radio waves are reversed due to the Doppler effect”

(d) or something else

Comment on the title. You are sure to find the following words useful: the change in smth/ to move relative to smth/ to propagate/ to transmit/ in a medium/ to result from/ to result in/ an observer.

What new challenges does this work entail?

b)Rewrite the highlighted sentences to make them simpler to under-

stand.

c)Speak about the experimental procedure.

1.5. New random way to immunize

Whether one worries about limited supplies of vaccines during the flu season, or about what might be needed in the event of a biological attack, it seems a good idea to think about how to optimize the distribution of such protection. Reuven Cohen of Bar-Ilan University in Israel and colleagues have made an amazingly simple suggestion: choose, at random, a sample of the population, ask them to name one acquaintance and then vaccinate those acquaintances.

The idea is that the people who are most likely to spread the disease, due to their large number of associates, have a high probability of being named. This overcomes the problem that those who have many acquaintances tend to be fewer in number and therefore unlikely to be chosen in a random trial. While this is clearly of medical interest, its application in protecting computers from viral attack by distributing suitable patches is also clear.

a) Answer the questions. Do not go into lengthy explanations; use as few words as possible.

What practical reasons encouraged this approach?

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Why did especially sociable people attract the scientists’ attention? Speculate on how this method can be used for antivirus software.

The following words might appear useful: to eliminate/ to identify/ malicious software/ suspicious behaviour/ failure/ to prevent from.

b)Rewrite the highlighted sentence to make it simpler to understand.

c)Comment on the title and speak about the principle behind the suggested technique.

Ex. 2

1.1. Photonic crystal makes flat lens.

Read the text and after or without consulting an encyclopedia answer the question: What is there in common between this new kind of lenses and the well known gemstone opal?

Be sure you know the meanings of the underlined words (look them up if necessary).

Explain the meaning of the highlighted part of a sentence.

Lenses are usually thought of as being made of curved dielectrics, but must this always be the case? Rather surprisingly, the answer is “no”, as Srinivas Sridhar and colleagues at Northeastern University in Boston, US, have demonstrated.

The key to creating the flat lens lies with the recent advent of materials – photonic crystals – that effectively have a negative index of refraction. A flat slab of such a substance can have an index of refraction that depends on the angle at which radiation hits it. The slab can then act as a lens, with the amazing no restriction in aperture size. As the Northeastern researchers point out, the tricky part in creating the flat lens is in designing a photonic crystal with negative refraction over a wide range of angles – and low absorption.

While this lens works only with microwaves – and in fact only for a narrow range of frequencies, from 9.0-9.4 GHz – the principle could herald a revolution in optics.

1.2. Diamonds are made harder than … diamonds

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Read the text and speak about the technique to produce artificial diamonds which are harder than naturally occurring ones. Your explanation should be as short as possible but informative.

Be sure you know the meanings as well as the pronunciations of the underlined words (look them up if necessary).

Explain the meaning of the highlighted part of a sentence.

What is harder than diamond? One example, perhaps surprisingly, is diamond, provided it has been appropriately “cooked”. Chih-shiue Yan of the Carnegie Institute of Washington and colleagues have grown gem-sized single crystals of diamond in a special microwave plasma chemical-vapour deposition technique that produces crystals at very high growth rates, up to 100 times faster than is usual. These diamonds are already very hard, but by applying high-pressure (5-7GPa) and high-

temperature (2,000 0 C) annealing the hardness increases still further. The mechanism is not yet understood, but appears to be some kind of

work hardening. How much harder are these diamonds than ordinary ones? The answer is not yet known, but they are at least 50% harder than synthetic diamonds produced more conventionally. Some were certainly harder than the tools used to gauge the hardness of lesser stones as they broke the measuring equipment.

1.3. Nickel nanolayers lead to better batteries Technion [teh’nion] Institute

Read the text and after or without consulting an encyclopedia answer the questions: What is superoxidized iron? How can its use in batteries enhance their lifetime?

Be sure you know the meanings of the underlined words (look them up, if necessary).

Rewrite the highlighted sentence to decipher its meaning.

Most rechargeable batteries are based on a technology that has been available for many years – and almost everyone wishes that batteries were just a little better, whether they are for vehicles or for laptops. Now it seems some clever chemistry could revolutionize everything.

Stuart Licht of the University of Massachusetts in Boston and Ran Tel-Vered of the Technion Institute in Haifa have shown that by replac-

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ing nickel ions in the nickel-metal hydride batteries that are popular in portable electronics with superoxidized iron, they can double the charge that can be stored. The idea of using superoxidized iron, which can accept an amazing three electrons per ion (hence the greater charge capacity), is not new, but the electrochemistry has had problems with reversibility. Licht and Tel-Vered, however, have been able to show that fabricating the nickel in nanolayer films can lead to devices that can be recharged 200 times. An added bonus to all this is not only inexpensive, it is also non-toxic.

1.4. A Tunnel for Better Wireless

Read the text and after or without consulting an encyclopedia answer the question: Why was it so important to build “a silicon tunnel diode that generates strong currents at low voltage”? (You are supposed to explain the principle behind these devices. Do not say a sort of “because they are perfect for…”).

Be sure you know the meanings of the underlined words (look them up, if necessary).

Rewrite the highlighted sentences to decipher their meanings.

By governing the flow of current under an applied voltage, diodes form the backbone of the modern electronics world. A diode with an especially useful property is the tunnel diode, in which electrons quan- tum-mechanically “tunnel” through a layer of material; as a result, the current through the diode rises, drops, than rises again as the voltage increases. Such complex behavior of tunnel diodes can take over the functions of some circuits and thereby simplify the construction of computer chips. But researchers have struggled to make them from silicon to marry them with today’s equipment. Now a group led by Ohio State University researchers has built a silicon tunnel diode that generates strong currents at low voltage – perfect for longer-lasting cell phones and wireless-capable medical devices such as pacemakers. The diode contains thin layers of silicon and silicon-germanium, through which electrons tunnel, sandwiched between a layer heavily doped with boron and another doped with phosphorus. By carefully controlling the growth temperature, the researchers can thin the layers to allow more tunneling without muddying the diode’s properties.

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Ex.3

Explain the authors’ ideas in “plain” English.

“Like the discord of key instruments in a skillful orchestra quietly playing the wrong piece, mysterious discrepancies have arisen between theory and observations of the “music” of the cosmic microwave background. Either the measurements are wrong or the universe is stronger than we thought.” (by Glenn D. Starkman and Dominik J. Schwarz)

The reason the Livermore design triumphed is because it is based on a former design. “It’s the exquisite test pedigree of the baseline for this design that gives very high confidence that will work as expected,” says Bruce Goodwin, Livermore’s associate director for defense and nuclear technologies.

“The more I have studied him, the more Newton has receded from me.” (by Richard Westfall, Historian of Science)

"Historical study of successful modern research has repeatedly shown that the interplay between initially unrelated basic knowledge, technology and products is so intense that, far from being separate and distinct, they are all portions of a single, tightly woven fabric".(by G. Holton, H. Chang and E. Jarkowitz )

Bob Wilson (first Director of Fermilab) who, when asked by a Congressional Committee "What will your lab contribute to the defence of the US?", replied "Nothing, but it will make it worth defending".

Ex.4

I. Read the titles (A) and decide what the topics of the articles are. Explain what makes you think so.

Use the following expressions in your talk:

It seems to me that…

If you ask me, … (informal)

I’m not quite sure if …/ I’m absolutely certain that …

Maybe, it … / Probably, it …

This is most likely/ unlikely to be …

It is possible/ impossible that …

Supposing/ If this …, than that …

I doubt if …/ It is no doubt …

I was right …/ I wasn’t quite right about…

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A.

1.Paging Dr. Doolittle

2.Food for Symbolic Thought

3.Big and Small Solutions

4.What's in a (Latin) Name?

5.The Prospects for Homo economicus

II. Match the titles with explanatory sub-titles (B) and say if your initial guesses about the topics proved right.

B.

1.Besides the first seafood dinner, signs of the earliest symbolic thought.

2.The special genius behind the species and genus.

3.The "language" gene FOXP2 proves critical for animal vocaliza-

tions.

4.A new fMRI study debunks the myth that we are rational-utility money maximizers.

5.Meeting U.S. energy challenges requires more than one kind of ambition.

III. Match the titles and sub-titles with the bits of the texts (C). What are the articles going to be about?

C.

Imagine that your child’s private school tuition bill of $20,000 is due and the only source you have for paying it is the sale of some of your stock holdings. Why would you sell shares in a company whose stock is on the rise, and hang on to shares in a company whose stock is on the decline? The reason, in a phrase, is “loss aversion,” and the psychology behind it does not fit that figurative species of human characterized by unbounded rationality in decision making…

…behavioral economics and neuroeconomics have demonstrated that we are remarkably irrational creatures.

A business-as-usual approach will not work. Over time, economies and policies may spontaneously migrate to more efficient, more environmentally benign energy technologies, but those responses will almost certainly be too slow to stave off massive climate disruptions, which require that greenhouse gas emissions be capped within 50 years. This

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