READING PRACTICE Multiple Matching [PDF]

Zitiervorschau

READING PRACTICE: MULTIPLE MATCHING Exercise 1 LIFTING HIGHER EDUCATION TO LOFTIER HEIGHTS? Academic John Brennan asks whether universities should leave on-the-job training to employers. A There is a lot of emphasis nowadays placed on the need for universities and business groups to get graduates “work ready” through vocational workplace training. This is to be welcomed but it is also to be questioned – about what it should mean in practice and how it should be applied. The concept is nothing new. I remember some years back being at a meeting about higher education and employment, attended by a number of employer representatives. I recall one employer remarking that of the many thousands of graduates that he had hired what he really wanted and expected was for each of them to have changed the nature of the job by the time they had left the role. B Rather than being concerned with how recruits would fit into existing organisational arrangements and master existing ways of doing things, here was an employer who expected graduates to change existing arrangements and ways of working. Who, rather than focusing on whether graduates had the right kinds of skills and competencies, acknowledged that he didn’t know what skills and competencies his workers would need in a few years’ time. The very point of hiring graduates was that he hoped to get people who would themselves be able to work out what was required and be capable of delivering it and a bold new future. C Of course, starting any job requires some work-specific knowledge and capability and when recruiting staff, graduate or non-graduate, employers have a responsibility to provide suitable induction and training. The responsibilities of higher education are different. They are about preparing for work in the long term, in different jobs and, quite possibly, in different sectors. This is preparation for work in a different world, for work that is going to require learning over a lifetime, not just the first few weeks of that first job after graduation. Current initiatives set out a perfectly reasonable set of objectives for the ways in which higher education can help prepare students for their working lives. But much will depend on the interpretation and on recognising who – higher education or employer – is best equipped to contribute what. D In the rush to focus on “vocational training to improve graduate employability” academics need to remember that all higher education is vocational in the sense that it can help shape a graduate’s capacity to succeed in the workplace. In this way higher education is about life skills, not just job skills. Many years ago, Harold Silver and I wrote a book entitled A Liberal Vocationalism. It was based on a project we had just completed on the aims of degree courses in vocational areas such as accountancy, business and engineering. The book’s title intentionally conveyed the message that even vocational degree courses were about more than training for a job. There were assumptions about criticality, transferability of skills, creating and adapting to change and, above all, an academic credibility. E Degree courses in subjects such as history and sociology are preparations for employment as much as vocational degrees such as business and engineering. But the job details will not be known at the time of study. Indeed, they may not be known until several years later. Thus, the relevance of higher education to later working life for many graduates will lie in the realm of generic and transferable skills rather than specific competencies needed for a first job after graduation. The latter competences are not unimportant but the graduate’s employer is generally much better equipped than a university to ensure that the graduate acquires them. Work experience alongside or as part of study can also help a lot. Higher education is for the long term. Universities, employers and students should realise that. In which paragraph is it stated that 1 new proposals require an appropriate level of scrutiny? 2 academic subjects have benefits beyond their syllabuses? 3 business is investing in an unknown quantity in the pursuit of an uncertain goal? 4 responsibility for service provision needs to be correctly allocated? 5 educators need to make sure that they don’t lose sight of an important point? 6 the issues discussed are a recurring theme that is yet to be agreed upon? 7 beliefs about the key topics of a study were alluded to in the heading of a publication? 8 industry is better suited to cover some issues than educational institutions? 9 original thinking is key in finding solutions to future challenges? 10 while obligations vary, they are still present for both parties? Exercise 2 CHEER UP: LIFE ONLY GETS BETTER Human’s capacity for solving problems has been improving out lot for 10,000 years, says Matt Ridley

A The human race has expanded in 10,000 years from less than 10 million people to around 7 billion. Some live in even worse conditions than those in the Stone Age. But the vast majority are much better fed and sheltered, and much more likely to live to old age than their ancestors have ever been. It is likely that by 2110 humanity will be much better off than it is today and so will the ecology of our planet. This view, which I shall call rational optimism, may not be fashionable but it is compelling. This belief holds that the world will pull out of its economic and ecological crises because of the way that markets in goods, services and ideas allow human beings to exchange and specialise for the betterment of all. But a constant drumbeat of pessimism usually drowns out this sort of talk. Indeed, if you dare to say the world is going to go on being better, you are considered embarrassingly mad. B Let me make a square concession at the start: the pessimists are right when they say that if the world continues as it is, it will end in disaster. If agriculture continues to depend on irrigation and water stocks are depleted, then starvation will ensue. Notice the word “if”. The world will not continue as it is. It is my proposition that the human race has become a collective problem – solving machine which solves problems by changing its ways. It does so through invention driven often by the marker: scarcity drives up price and that in turn encourages the development of alternatives and efficiencies. History confirms this. When whales grew scarce, for example, petroleum was used instead as a source of oil. The pessimists’ mistake is extrapolating: in other words, assuming that the future is just a bigger version of the past. In 1943 IBM’s founder Thomas Watson said there was a world market for just five computers – his remarks were true enough at the time, when computers weighed a ton and cost a fortune. C Many of today’s extreme environmentalists insist that the world has reached a ‘turning point’– quite unaware that their predecessors have been making the same claim for 200 years. They also maintain the only sustainable solution is to retreat – to halt economic growth and enter progressive economic recession. This means not just that increasing your company’s sales would be a crime, but that the failure to shrink them would be too. But all this takes no account of the magical thing called the collective human brain. There was a time in human history when big-brained people began to exchange things with each other, to become better off as a resut. Making and using tools saved time – and the state of being ‘better off’ is, at the end of the day, simply time saved. Forget dollars of gold. The true measure of something’s worth is indeed the hours it takes to acquire it. The more humans diversified as consumers and specified as producers, and the more they exchanged goods and services, the better off they became. And the good news is there is no inevitable end to this process. D I am aware that an enormous bubble of debt has burst around the world, with all that entails. But is this the end of growth? Hardly. So long as somebody allocates sufficient capital to innovation, then the credit crunch will not prevent the relentless upward march of human living standards. Even the Great Depression of the 1930s, although an appalling hardship for many, was just a dip in the slope of economic progress. All sorts of new products and industries were born during the depression: by 1937, 40% of Dupont’s sales came from products that had barely existed before 1929, such as enamels and cellulose film. Growth will resume – unless it is stifled by the wrong policies. Somebody, somewhere, is still tweaking a piece of software, testing a new material, of transferring a gene that will enable new varieties of rice to be grown in African soils. The latter means some Africans will soon be growing and selling more food, so they will have more money to spend. Some of them may then buy mobile phones from a western company. As a consequence of higher sales, an employee of that western company may get a pay rise, which she may spend on a pair of jeans made from cotton woven in an African factory. And so on. Forget wars, famines and poems. This is history’s greatest theme: the metastasis of exchange and specialisation. In which section does the writer exemplify how short-term gloom tends to lift? mention a doom-laden prophecy that is obvious? express his hope that progress is not hindered by abominable decisions? acknowledge trying to find common ground with his adversaries? identify unequivocally how money needs to be invested? suggest that his views are considered controversial? indicate an absurd scenario resulting from an opposing view to his own? mention the unfortunate consequences of taking a positive stance? define prosperity in life in an original approach? give an example of well-intentioned ongoing research? .

Your answers: 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Exercise 3 IT’S NOT FAIR Do animals share our sense of unfairness over displays of greed? A How often have you seen rich people take to the streets, shouting that they're earning too much? Protesters are typically blue-collar workers yelling that the minimum wage has to go up, or that their jobs shouldn't go overseas. Concern about fairness is always asymmetrical, stronger in the poor than the rich. And the underlying emotions aren't as lofty as the ideal itself. Children become thoroughy indignant at the slightest discrepancy in the size of their slice of pizza compared to their sibling's. Their shouts of "That's not fair!" never transcend their own desires. We're all for fair play so long as it helps us. There's even an old story about this, in which the owner of a vineyard rounded up labourers at different times of the day. Early in the morning, he went out to find labourers, offering each 1 denarius. But he offered the same to those hired later in the day. The workers hired first thing in the morning expected to get more since they had worked through the heat of the day, yet the owner didn't feel he owed them any more than he had originally promised. B That this sense of unfairness may turn out to be quite ancient in evolutionary terms as well became clear when graduate student Sarah Brosnan and I discovered it in monkeys. When testing pairs of capuchin monkeys, we noticed how much they disliked seeing their partner get a better deal. We would offer a pebble to one of the pair and then hold out a hand so that the monkey could give it back in exchange for a cucumber slice. Alternating between them, both monkeys would happily barter 25 times in a row. The atmosphere turned sour, however, as soon as we introduced inequity. One monkey would still receive cucumber, while its partner now enjoyed grapes, a favourite food with monkeys. While that monkey had no problem, the one still working for cucumber would lose interest. Worse, seeing its partner with juicy grapes, this monkey would get agitated, hurl the pebbles out of the test chamber, sometimes even those measly cucumber slices. A food normally devoured with gusto had become distasteful. C There is a similarity here with the way we reject an unfair share of money. Where do these reactions come from? They probably evolved in the service of cooperation. Caring about what others get may seem petty and irrational, but in the long run it keeps one from being taken advantage of. Had we merely mentioned emotions, such as "resentment" or "envy," our findings might have gone unnoticed. Now we drew the interest of philosophers, anthropologists and economists, who almost choked on the monkey comparison. As it happened, our study came out at the very time that there was a public outcry about the multimillion dollar pay packages that are occasionally given out on Wall Street and elsewhere. Commentators couldn't resist contrasting human society with our monkeys, suggesting that we could learn a thing or two from them. D Our monkeys have not reached the point at which their sense of fairness stretches beyond egocentric interests - for example, the one who gets the grape never levels the outcome by giving it to the other - but in cooperative human societies, such as those in which men hunt large game, anthropologists have found great sensitivity to equal distribution. Sometimes, successful hunters aren't even allowed to carve up their own kill to prevent them from favouring their family. These cultures are keenly aware of the risk that inequity poses to the social fabric of their society. Apes, as opposed to monkeys, may have an inkling of this connection. High-ranking male chimpanzees, for example, sometimes break up fights over food without taking any for themselves. During tests, a female received large amounts of milk and raisins, but noticed her friends watching her from a short distance. After a while, she refused all rewards. Looking at the experimenter, she kept gesturing to the others, until they were given a share of the goodies. She was doing the smart thing. Apes think ahead, and if she had eaten her fill right in front of the rest, there might have been repercussions when she rejoined them later in the day. Your In which section does the writer mention answers: A robust response to news of the writer’s research? 21. One animal harbouring resentment towards another? 22. An animal thinking of the consequences of their actions? 23. Any unfairness provoking a strong and egocentric reaction? 24. The animal behaviour shown not going as far as equivalent human 25. behaviour? A sense of injustice from people having to cope with adverse conditions? 26. A justification for the irrational sense of unfairness? 27.

An animal’s feeling of injustice leading to preposterous behaviour? Unfairness among humans being perceived by those who are less well-off? Examples of both humans and animals behaving with fairness? Exercise 4

28. 29. 30.

Critics give their personal opinions of films they have seen recently

A Blues Brothers 2000 Eighteen years after the original Blues Brothers movie, director John Landis and his co-writer Dan Ackroyd have decided to revive the franchise. Unfortunately, the thrill has gone, although the music is as brash and energetic as ever and Elwood’s stunt driving continues to astound. Sequences such as the huge, ghostly skeletons of cowboys galloping across the night during the Blues Brothers’ spirited rendition of ‘Riders in the Sky (A Cowboy Legend)’ look stunning in themselves, but have no bearing on the story. Blues fans will doubtless relish the wealth of musical talent on display (it’s a far richer array than the first film’s). Over time Blues Brothers 2000 will probably attain the same massive cult status as its predecessor, but only the most indulgent of audiences is likely to be happy with this sequel.

B Journey to the Beginning of the World This is not Manoel de Oliveira’s final film – the tireless 90-year-old director has since made a follow-up. However, it was the last appearance of Marcello Mastroianni, playing a film director called Manoel, to all appearances a representation of Oliveira himself. Oliveira is arguably the most marginal of Europe’s major directors, especially for British audiences – his only previous release here (and then only just) was 1993’s Abraham Valley. However, on the festival circuit Oliveira is revered, as much for his longevity as for his varied and highly eccentric output. The film’s opening section offers us something dauntingly simple, shot with audacious economy – a series of close-ups of people talking in the back of a car. It promises a sort of film symposium in the guise of a road movie: after all, on most road trips, there’s little to do but talk and watch the scenery. At times, Oliveira simply has his camera gaze out of the car’s rear window as the road recedes.

C City of Angels Although it is not without flaws, City of Angels stands out from the dreary succession of recent Hollywood remakes of European movies. This is partly due to Dana Stevens’ screenplay and Brad Silberling’s direction, which grab hold of the theme of director Wim Wenders’ 1987 film Wings of Desire and head off very much in their own direction with it. Most of all, however, City of Angels pleases because it is quite simply so surprising for a mainstream Hollywood movie. Designer Shay Cunliffe hits the tone precisely, with the angels in baggy suits and long black duster coats, which are especially effective when they gather in some of their preferred meeting places – the beach at dawn and dusk, in the city library during the day – invisible to all but each other (and us). There is nothing in Silberling’s previous career – which comprises directing episodes of LA Law and NYPD Blue for television, followed by the kids’ film Casper – to prepare one for the confidence with which he handles a film in which tone is all. City of Angels is the sort of one-off we should surely welcome.

D Dad Savage Strikingly shot in the bleak flatlands of Norfolk, Dad Savage is a British thriller that manages to conjure up a whole new cinematic landscape, and populates it without falling back on the stereotypes of bent policeman and East End gangsters. Making her feature debut, television director Betsan Morris Evans shows that she can put the wide Super 35 frame to impressive use as well. In the claustrophobic scenes in the cellar (to which the film keeps returning in between flashbacks), she charts the characters’ changing allegiances through the way she arranges them across the screen. Above ground, meanwhile, the wide screen captures the yawning emptiness of the East Anglian marshes, and hints at the corresponding emptiness of the backwater life Vic, Bob and H are trying to escape from by turning to crime. If anything, the structure is a bit too intricate: the transitions in and out of flashback are jolting, and it’s not always clear whose point of view we’re flashing back from.

E Mojo Adapted from Jez Butterworth’s acclaimed stage play, Mojo occupies the same strange netherworld as last year’s little-seen The SlabBoys, directed by John Byrne. Both were directed by their original writers; and both were brought to the big screen through television funding, which underlines their ultimate smallscreen destiny. Where

Mojo has the edge on Slab Boys, however, is in the sheer quality of its performances, which consistently hold the audience’s attention even as the narrative shambles distractingly. The fact that Mojo’s chances of making much impact among cinema-goers are remote shouldn’t dampen Butterworth’s obvious enthusiasm. On this evidence, he has enough talent to suggest triumphs ahead, although one wonders whether the screen or the theatre will prove more enticing for his trade.

F The Wedding Singer The Wedding Singer is the third collaboration between the comedian Adam Sandler and writer Tim Herlihy, and as you might expect from the men behind Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, it’s not a particularly clever comedy. The 1985 setting, of no importance to the plot, is the pretext for some cheap retro humour. But somehow, for all its simple-mindedness, this turns out to be a very winning romantic comedy. A pleasant surprise is Sandler’s singing. Playing opposite him is Drew Barrymore, who has managed to become a celebrity without ever having a lead role in a decent movie. As Julia in this film, however, she does wonders with an unremarkable part. Your For which of the films does the reviewer state the following? answers: One of the actors gets the most out of an uninspiring role. 31. It is a follow-up to an earlier film. 32. It is not likely to be a commercial success. 33. The public has already had a chance to see it in a different medium. 34. There are some impressive scenes which are of no significance to the 35. narrative. It is more successful than other films of its kind. 36. One of the characters in the film is likened to the director. 37. There is no justification for setting the film in the past. 38. The lives of the characters are mirrored in the scenery. 39. It has an unusual setting for a film of this kind. 40. Exercise 5

Has technology robbed travel of its riches? A Jan Morris I began travelling professionally just after the end of the Second World War, and I travelled mostly in Europe, where famous old cities lay ravaged. Travelling in this disordered region was not easy. Currencies were hard to come by, visas were necessary almost everywhere, food was often scarce, trains were grimy and unreliable and air travel was reserved largely for privileged officialdom. I’m sorry to have to say it, because those times were cruel indeed for many Europeans, but I greatly enjoyed my travelling then. The comfort and safety of modern transport means that while travel is a lot less fraught than it used to be, it has lost some of its allure for me. Partly, I am almost ashamed to admit, this is because now everybody else does it too! Travelling abroad is nothing unusual, and even if we haven't actually been to the forests of Borneo or the Amazon jungles, have certainly experienced them via television or the internet.

B Pico Iyer The world is just as interesting – as unexpected, as unvisited, as diverse – as it ever was, even though the nature of its sights and our experience of them have sometimes changed. I once spent two weeks living in and around Los Angeles airport – that hub of modern travel and, although it wasn't a peaceful holiday, it offered as curious and rich a glimpse into a new century of crossing cultures as I could imagine. Places are like people for me and, as with people, the wise, rich, deeply rooted places never seem to change too much, even though they might lose some hair or develop wrinkles... Though the tides of history keep washing against a Havana or a Beirut, for instance, their natural spiritedness or resilience or sense of style never seems greatly diminished. My motto as a traveller has always been that old chestnut from the writings of Marcel Proust: "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new sights, but in seeing with new eyes".

C Benedict Allen Now, the world is open to us all. Grab your camera or pen and hike! So these couldn't be better times for the average person – we may all share in the privilege. Is it exploration? Well, if it's not advancing knowledge, no. Those who today flog to the Poles are not explorers, they are simply athletes. Yet, exploration isn't entirely about assembling

proven fact. Dr David Livingstone made many discoveries in Africa but his biggest role was actually as communicator, giving the nineteenth-century Europeans a picture of the continent. Take Ed Stafford's recent walk along the length of the Amazon. Not a greatly significant journey in itself, with 2,000 miles of it along what is essentially a shipping lane. Yet the journey was saved from irrelevance and self-indulgence because along the way he documented the Amazon for his time, which is our time.

D Vicky Baker Personally, I relish the fact that we can now forge new contacts all around the world at the click of a button and a quick email can result in the type of welcome usually reserved for a long lost friend. I also relish the fact that we are less likely to lose touch with those whose paths we cross on the road that we get to explore places we wouldn’t have stumbled across had we left it all to chance. Does all this detract from the experience? I hardly think so. There is nothing to stop you following a random tip you saw on an obscure blog and ending up who knows where. Sure, it's a far cry from what came before, but one day these will be a generation's "good old days" too. And if you have the time and the money to go off into the back of beyond without so much as a guidebook let alone a smartphone, if haphazard wandering is your thing, those days aren't over either.

E Rolf Potts Many of the older travellers I met when I first started vagabonding fifteen years ago – some of them veterans of the 1970s hippy trail across Asia – argued that my travel experiences were tainted by luxuries such as email and credit cards. These days I am myself tempted to look at younger travellers and suggest that smartphones and microblogging are compromising their road experiences. Any technology that makes travel easier is going to connect aspects of the travel experience to the comforts and habits one might seek back home – and can make travel feel less like travel. There are times when a far-flung post office encounter or directions scribbled onto a scrap of paper can lead a person into the kind of experiences that make travel so surprising and worthwhile. That means 21st-century travellers must be aware of when their gadgets are enhancing new experiences, and when those gadgets are getting in the way. Your Which writer answers: suggests that places retain their essential identity despite the passage of time? 41. refers to a tendency for each generation of travellers to look down on the 42. next? expresses a personal feeling of nostalgia for some of the hardships in the 43. past? feels that travel can still be spontaneous and unpredictable in the age of the 44. internet? explains how even seemingly pointless journeys can have a worthwhile 45. outcome? questions the use of a term in relation to one type of traveller? 46. reveals a slight sense of guilt in an attitude towards the modern traveller? 47. offers a word of caution for those who want to get the most out of a trip? 48. mentions valuable insights gained from observing other travellers? 49. insists that modern travellers can do without modern technology if they so 50. desire? Exercise 6 Unleashing Your Inner Genius Creative people reveal how they find inspiration A. Sally Jones, playwright I'm a very aural person; as soon as I hear a lyric or phrase, I'm transported to a particular time and place. When I was writing my play Body Parts, I listened to Love Her Madly by the American rock band The Doors, which seemed to suggest a lot about the characters' relationship with each other. A line from one of their songs even made it into the play's plotline. I'm also very fidgety and seem to work best when my hands are occupied with something other than what I'm thinking about. During rehearsals, for example, I find myself drawing little pictures or symbols that are somehow connected to the play. Then I'll look back at my doodles, and random snatches of dialogue for another play will occur to me. Another thing I do is to go to the forest near my house to think through a character or situation. It works every time.

B. Rachael Carter, ballet dancer Ideas sit inside me for a while, before they emerge. When I'm preparing for a particular character, I keep looking for ideas about her wherever I can – in film, theatre, music, and in watching other ballet companies. When I first danced the French ballet Giselle, I found the Danish director Lars von Trier's film Dancer in the Dark incredibly inspiring. It was so dark, and it felt just like a modern-day version of the ballet – it brought the part alive for me. I believe that to be truly inspired, you must learn to trust your instinct. In my profession, I feel that you shouldn’t over-rehearse a part, or you'll find you get bored with it. Of course, hard work is important, but a good, technically correct performance without instinct will never be magical. C. Sarah Kent, musician For me, the image of the tortured artist is a myth – you don't need to be miserable to write songs. In fact, if I am feeling down, the last thing I want to do is write; although it's important sometimes just to sit down and get on with it, however you're feeling. Your creativity is like a tap: if you don't use it, it gets clogged up. One of the most difficult things about writing music is the sheer number of distractions. When you're writing, you have to be very disciplined, to the point of being impolite: turn off your phone and avoid seeing other people. Another thing you have to deal with is that small voice that tells us we're rubbish. We need to know how to silence it. I try to avoid listening to records bu other musicians while I’m writing something – comparing myself to others often makes me think, “Why do I bother?”. D. Margaret McCall, singer-songwriter I definitely don't have rules – I'm pretty disorganised. In fact, I often have to guilt-trip myself into sitting down to write. It is so easy to let your life get filled up with other stuff – going to the bank, looking after the baby. These things do come through in my songwriting, though. Most of my songs are defined by a sense of loneliness, of isolation, that I get from spending a lot of time on my own. When I first moved to New York, I used to go to concerts every night. Now that I'm a songwriter myself, I find watching other musicians can be frustrating – I want to be the one up there performing. But every so often I see someone who inspires me to try something different. I go home thinking: "I should really try something like that." E. Judith Keane, artist I ‘ve learned not to wait for a good idea to come to me. It’s best to start by realising an average idea – remember, no one has to see it. If I hadn't made the works I'm ashamed of, the ones I'm proud of probably wouldn't exist. Also remember that hard work isn't always productive. I think of the brain as a field lying fallow; keep harvesting and the crops won't mature. Not restricting yourself to your own medium is also important. It is just as possible to be inspired by a film-maker, fashion designer, writer or friend as by another artist. Cross-pollination makes for an interesting outcome. Finally, don't be afraid to scrap all your hard work and planning and do it differently at the last minute. Which person says that creative people need periods of mental inactivity? says a commonly held belief about creativity is mistaken? encourages creative people to make spontaneous decisions where necessary? says that finding inspiration is a gradual process? says creative people need to contain their sense of insecurity? mentions making direct use of part of someone else’s work? mentions the need to persevere regardless of one’s mood? says some of the themes in her work reflect the situation she finds herself in? finds value in creating what she regards as substandard pieces of work? discusses the benefits of limiting the preparation time for a piece of work?

Your answers: 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.