1. Why does the paperless office become a reality soon?

2. What was the first mass-produced car?

3. Why do many nuclear power stations have computer-controlled system?

4. What makes a car safe and reliable?

5. What can help the police in their fight against crime?

6. What problems can arise with the increase in life expectancy?

7. What technological developments are nowadays taken for granted?

8. How can we prevent the information stored on computers from being mi­sused?

9. What can the introduction of new technology result in?

Exercise 12. Complete the situations.

1. How have science and technology changed our lives? Think about discove­ries, inventions, new products and their effects.

Scientific and technological breakthroughs have brought great benefits. You only have to look around your own home to see

Many illnesses can now be treated or cured, for example,

New products have also made a major difference to our working lives. Nowadays,

2. How will science and technology affect our lives in the future?

In the future there may be even more major breakthroughs in the fields of med­icine (leisure, work)

We may no longer have to

We will be able to

Exercise 13. Speak on the role of technology in our lives. Exercise 14. Discuss these ideas in small groups.

1. If a doctor from the middle of the nineteenth century walked into a modem hospital, how many pieces of equipment would he or she recognise? Most of the equipment? Some of it? Or almost none at all? Explain.

2. If a teacher from the middle of the nineteenth century walked into a modem classroom, how different would the technology be? Look round your own classroom and find things that he or she would find difficult to use.

3. If a teacher or a doctor of today went forward just ten years in time, how much more different do you think their jobs would be?

4. Make your predictions for each of the following forms of domestic technol­ogy. Predict the ways in which you think each of them are going to change in the fu­ture: television, cooker, telephone, radio.

Unit 3. Machines behaving badly

OBJECTIVE: to consider the bad effects of technology;

to practice talking about bad effects of technology.

Exercise 1. Pronouns these words after the teacher.

• Technophobe, technology, technical;

• manufacture, feature;

• instruction, frustrating, much, customer, run;

• software, hardware, care, spare, stare;

• sale, hate, make, save, take, late;

-- proudly, out, round, about;

-- mobile, life, minor, surprise, like;

• learn, perfect, person;

• answer, thumb, hour, whole, what.

Exercise 2. Form the derivatives and translate them.

Основа прилагательного + - ly = наречие

1. actual - actually (фактически)

2. real -

3. proud-

4. final -

5. apparent-

6. unfortunate -

7. recent -

8. entire —

9. special -

10. exact –

Exercise 3. Read and translate these noun combinations.

Computer games, text messages, call centres, instruction manuals, a home computer, a quality picture, a hardware problem, a software company, a sales de­partment.

Exercise 4. Read the article written by someone who is a technophobe. Then match the headings below with the seven paragraphs.

1. It does things you don 7 need.

2. It doesn ’t save your time.

3. It was out of date before you bought it.

4. It’s anti-social.

5. It’s destroying the English language.

6. More choice doesn’t mean better.

7. No one takes responsibility when things go wrong.

Everyone, it seems, has a mobile these days, even children in the kindergarten. Billions of text messages fly round the world every day, and computers and call cen­tres run every aspect of our lives. But is all this really making our life better? Here are seven good reasons to hate modem technology.

1. It doesn’t save your time

Many people make the mistake of thinking that technology is there to save you time. Wrong. It is there to give people new ways of filling their time. Take personal computers. Learning how to use all the features of a new PC uses up all your time that having a computer saves. And what about all the hours you spend staring at in­comprehensible instruction manuals for your new phone /TV/ digital doorbells.

2. )

Of course it’s wonderful to have a CD-player, a mobile, a home computer or an electric toaster. But do you really want to play computer games on the 4-cm screen of your mobile phone? Do you need your computer to answer the phone or your TV to make toast?

2. )

Digital TV is a perfect example. When it arrived, we were promised a better quality picture and more choice. But at 11 o’clock at night, as you flick through the 97 channels you can now get, it is not the quality of the picture that you worry about. More the fact that not one single programme is worth watching.

4. )

After several frustrating weeks of finding all the right software for your new PC, then phoning «help» desks when it doesn’t work, you will proudly show off your new machine to friends only to hear «Oh, are you still using that one? I’m thinking of buying the new PYX 5000, myself». A few months later, when you try to buy some minor spare part, you find it is no longer manufactured, and that it would be much cheaper to replace the whole computer with the new PYX 7500.

This is easy, because very few people really understand how the machines they have bought work. So you phone the software company and they will tell you it’s a hardware problem. You then phone the hardware company and they tell you it’s a software problem. Call centres are the worst. Phone the so-called «customer care» number, and after waiting on hold for fifteen minutes you will be told you need the sales department. The sales department assures you that it’s the technical department you need, but surprise, the technical department put you back through to customer care. People can spend weeks of their lives like this.

6. )

Apparently, teenagers now do so much texting and e-mailing that their thumbs are getting bigger and bigger. Unfortunately, they are also forgetting how to spell. One schoolgirl recently wrote her entire essay on «My summer holidays» in text speak.

E)

A recent survey showed that more than eight out of ten young people would ra­ther text their friends or family than actually speak to them in person. And according to the same survey, 25 percent of people would answer their mobile phone even dur­ing a moment of passion. I ask you, is this really a better world?

(From «New Cutting Edge Intermediate» by S. Cunningham and P. Moor © Person Education Ltd.)

Exercise 5. Give English equivalents to the Russian ones.

1. Экономить время;

2. израсходовать все время;

3. брать ответственность;

4. ненавидеть современную технологию;

5. инструкции по эксплуатации;

6. качество изображения;

7. составлять текстовые сообщения;

8. поговорить с кем-либо лично;

9. отдел продаж;

10. ни одна из программ не стоит просмотра;

11. проблема, связанная с аппаратной частью компьютера;

12. компания, занимающаяся разработкой программного обеспечения для компьютеров;

13. ответить на звонок мобильного телефона;

14. согласно данным того же исследования.

LEARN THESE SPEECHPATERNS

Not one single programme is worth watching. Ни одна из программ не стоит просмотра.