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Using the title




Reading is an (0) ________ process - it is two-way. This means you have to work at constructing the (1) ________ from the marks on the paper. You need to be active all the time when you are reading. It is useful, therefore, before you start reading to try to actively remember what you know, and do not know, about the subject and then (2) ________ questions based on the information you have. You can then read to answer these questions.

 

Title, sub-titles and section heading can help you formulate questions to (3) ________ you interacting.

 

The title is a (4) ________of the text. Sometimes we have to make quick (5) ______ based on only the title.

 

Therefore it is useful to try to understand it well. This may mean (6) ________ unfamiliar words in a dictionary.

It is a (7) ______ idea to ask yourself the following questions, based on the title.

Is this text (8) _______ to your needs? Is it related to the subject you are (9) ________?

What do you expect (10) ________ from the text? Ask yourself some questions that you expect the text to answer.

 

(0) (A) complementary (B) cooperable (C) interworking (D) interactive

(1) (A) meaning (B) sense (C) signification (D) denotation

(2) (A) lay down (B) formulate (C) couch (D) formularize

(3) (A) deter (B) hold back (C) keep (D) restrain

(4) (A) abstract (B) synopsis (C) sketch (D) summary

(5) (A) decision (B) conclusion (C) solution (D) adjudge

(6) (A) look after (B) look up (C) look at (D) look for

(7) (A) best (B) better (C) good (D) well

(8) (A) according (B) corresponding (C) substantial (D) relevant

(9) (A) to study (B) studied (C) studying (D) study

(10) (A) learning (B) learned (C) to learn (D) learn

 

Task 7. Look at the titles of the following texts. Make sure you understand the titles and then ask 3 questions that you hope each text will answer. Read the texts (A, B, C) and match the titles (1, 2, 3) with the texts, try to find answers to your questions.

 

1. The Theory of Continuous Creation  
2. Learning to Live With the Computer  
3. Scientific methods in the social sciences  

 

(A) We must move on to consider the explanations that have been offered for this expansion of the universe. Broadly speaking, the older ideas fall into two groups. One was that the universe started its life a finite time ago in a single huge explosion, and that the present expansion is a relic of the violence of this explosion. This big bang idea seemed to me to be unsatisfactory even before detailed examination showed that it leads to serious difficulties. For when we look at our own galaxy there is not the smallest sign that such an explosion ever occurred. But the really serious difficulty arises when we try to reconcile the idea of an explosion with the requirement that the galaxies have condensed out of diffuse background material. The two concepts of explosion and condensation are obviously contradictory, and it is easy to show, if you postulate an explosion of sufficient violence to explain the expansion of the universe, that condensations looking at all like the galaxies could never have been formed.

 

We come now to the second group of theories. The ordinary idea that two particles attract each other is only accepted if their distance apart is not too great. At really large distances, so the argument goes, the two particles repel each other instead. On this basis it can be shown that if the density of the background material is sufficiently small, expansion must occur. But once again there is a difficulty in reconciling this with the requirement that the background material must condense to form the galaxies.

 

I should like now to approach more recent ideas by describing what would be the fate of our observable universe if any of these older theories had turned out to be correct. Every receding galaxy will eventually increase its distance from us until it passes beyond the limit of the observable universe-that is to say, they will move to a distance beyond the critical limit of about two thousand million light years that I have already mentioned. When this happens, nothing that occurs within them can ever be observed from our galaxy. So if any of the older theories were right we should end in a seemingly empty universe, or at any rate in a universe that was empty apart perhaps from one or two very close galaxies that became attached to our galaxy as satellites.

 

Although I think there is no doubt that every galaxy we now observe to be receding from us will, in about ten thousand million years, have passed entirely beyond the limit of vision of an observer in our galaxy, yet I think that such an observer would still be able to see about the same number of galaxies as we do now. By this I mean that new galaxies will have condensed out of the background material at just about the rate necessary to compensate for those that are being lost as a consequence of their passing beyond our observable universe. At first sight it might be thought that this could not go on indefinitely because the material forming the background would ultimately become exhausted. But again, I do not believe that this is so, for it seems likely that new material is constantly being created so as to maintain a constant density in the background material. So we have a situation in which the loss of galaxies, through the expansion of the universe, is compensated by the condensation of new galaxies, and this can continue indefinitely.

 

The idea that matter is created continuously represents our ultimate goal in this series of lectures. The idea in itself is not new. I know of references to the continuous creation of matter that go back more than twenty years; and I have no doubt that a close inquiry would show that the idea, in its vaguest form, goes back very much further than that. What is new is that it has now been found possible to put a hitherto vague idea in a precise mathematical form. It is only when this has been done that the consequences of any physical idea can be worked out and its scientific value assessed.

 

Now what are the consequences of continuous creation? Perhaps the most surprising result of the mathematical theory is that the average density of the background material must stay constant. To achieve this only a very slow creation rate is necessary. The new material does not appear in a concentrated form in small localized regions but is spread throughout the whole of space. The average rate of appearance amounts to no more than the creation of one atom in the course of a year in a volume equal to St. Paul's Cathedral. As you will realize, it would be quite impossible to detect such a rate of creation by direct experiment.

But although this seems such a slow rate when judged by ordinary ideas, it is not small when you consider that it is happening everywhere in space. The total rate for the observable universe alone is about a hundred million, million, million, million, million tons per second. Do not let this surprise you because, as I have said, the volume of the observable universe is very large. It is this creation that drives the universe. The new material produces an outward pressure that leads to the steady expansion. But it does much more than that. With continuous creation the apparent contradiction between the expansion of the universe and the requirement that the background material shall be able to condense into galaxies is completely overcome. For it can be shown that once an irregularity occurs in the background material a galaxy must eventually be formed. Such irregularities are constantly being produced through the gravitational action of the galaxies themselves. So the background material must give a steady supply of new galaxies. Moreover, the created material also supplies unending quantities of atomic energy. For, by arranging that newly created material is composed of hydrogen, we explain why, in spite of the fact that hydrogen is being consumed in huge quantities in the stars; the universe is nevertheless observed to be overwhelmingly composed of it.

 

So we see that no large-scale changes in the universe can be expected to take place in the future. Without continuous creation the universe must evolve towards a dead state in which all the matter is condensed into a vast number of dead stars. With continuous creation, on the other hand, the universe has an infinite future in which all its present very large-scale features will be preserved.

(From The Nature of the Universe by Fred Hoyle.)

 

(B) Even the social scientist that is occupied with the study of what are called institutions must draw his ultimate data (with one important exception mentioned below) from the experience of the senses. Suppose, for instance, that he is engaged on a study of the role of trade unions in contemporary England. The abstract conception 'trade union' is simply shorthand for certain types of behavior by certain people, of which we can only be aware by sensory perception. It means men sitting in a room and making certain sounds in the conduct of a 'trade union meeting', or handing over to other persons tangible objects (money) as their subscriptions to the union. Anyone who wishes to make a study of trade unions, or even of the more abstract conception 'trade unionism', can only do so by personally observing such behavior, or by using his eyes and ears on books and speeches made by other people who have themselves made such observations (or who have in their turn heard or seen records of such observations made by others). Even such comments on a union meeting as that it was 'orderly' or 'peaceful' are fundamentally statements about its physical properties: an orderly meeting is presumably one in which people do not make noises by banging upon the table or speaking very loudly.

 

This dependence of social studies upon sense perception is certainly a wholesome reminder of the fundamental homogeneity of the original data of science. For knowledge of the external world, whether of things or of people, we continually come back to our five senses in the end. Nevertheless, if a great mass of data relevant to social science is sensory, we have, I think, also to admit an important collection that is not namely the whole body of primary mental or psychological experience. Perception of mental pleasure and pain appears to have the same universality as sensory experience. At all levels of culture, sensations of simple happiness and unhappiness are as general as are the experiences of seeing and hearing. It is of course true that no person can experience the feelings of anyone other than himself; but equally no one can see with another's eyes or hear with another's ears. The grounds for belief in the sense experiences of other people and the grounds for belief in their primitive psychological experiences are thus both equally shaky, or equally firm. We derive our conviction that other people experience emotion from the fact that they say so, and from analogies between their behavior and our own: we derive our conviction that they see and hear from exactly the same evidence.

 

The irresistibility of psychological experience is perhaps slightly more disputable. If one's eyes are open and one looks in a certain quarter one cannot help seeing. Is it equally true that one cannot help a feeling of pleasure or pain or shock or excitement? Essentially, I should say that it is. But it is clear that primitive emotional reactions can be inhibited: one can, for example contrive not to be depressed by an event. Nevertheless, if we stand back from all philosophical niceties and ask ourselves whether psychological sensation ought to be omitted from the data of the social sciences on the ground that it is doubtfully 'primitive', there cannot, I think, be much doubt about the answer. We must conclude with Bertrand Russell 'that there is knowledge of private data, and there is no reason why there should not be a science of them'. Equally, if we consider whether the similarities or the differences, in this matter of universality-plus-irresistibility, between psychological and sensory experience are the more impressive, we are surely bound to come down on the side of the similarities. Certainly, social studies which consistently ignored human feelings would be worse than laughable.

(From Testament for Social Science by Barbara Wootton)

 

(C) A rapid pace of technological advance has been accepted by many manufacturing industries for some time now, but for the office worker, who has led a sheltered existence in comparison, radical changes are a new experience. With the advent of electronic data processing techniques and, especially, computers, this situation has altered very swiftly. Office staff are suddenly finding themselves exposed to the traumatic consequences of scientific progress.

 

Most offices, by the very nature of their structure and function, are geared to stability or slow change. Accelerated change of the kind that a computer brings is likely to prove disrupting and disturbing. This is because people in stable organizations tend to expect a steady continuation of existing arrangements, and because departments unaccustomed to change frequently find they have become too inflexible to assimilate it without stress. Social as well as technical factors are therefore highly relevant to a successful adaptation to new techniques.

 

Research into the social and organizational problems of introducing computers into offices has been in progress in the social science department in Liverpool University for the past four years. My colleagues and I have shown that many firms get into difficulties with their new computers partly because of lack of technical knowledge and experience, but also because they have not been sufficiently aware of the need to understand and plan for the social as well as the technical implications of change. In the firms we have been studying, change has usually been seen simply as a technical problem to be handled by technologists. The fact that the staff might regard the introduction of a computer as a threat to their security and status has not been anticipated. Company directors have been surprised when, instead of cooperation, they encountered anxiety and hostility.

Once the firm has signed the contract to purchase a computer, its next step, one might expect, would be to 'sell' the idea to its staff, by giving reassurances about redundancy, and investigating how individual jobs will be affected so that displaced staff can be prepared for a move elsewhere. In fact, this may not happen. It is more usual for the firm to spend much time and energy investigating the technical aspects of the computer, yet largely to ignore the possibility of personnel difficulties. This neglect is due to the absence from most firms of anyone knowledgeable about human relations. The personnel manager, who might be expected to have some understanding of employee motivation, is in many cases not even involved in the changeover.

 

Again, because the changeover is seen only as a technical problem, little thought is given to communication and consultation with staff. Some firms go so far as to adopt a policy of complete secrecy, telling their staff nothing. One director told us: 'If we are too frank, we may create difficulties for ourselves.' This policy was applied to managers as well as clerks because, it was explained, 'our managers will worry if they find out they will lose workers and so have their empires reduced'. Several months after the arrival of the computer, the sales manager in this firm had still not been given full information on the consequences of this change.

 

One computer manufacturer with extensive American experience has tried to give advice to firms purchasing its computers on how and when to communicate. It suggests to customers that as soon as the contract is signed management should hold a meeting with all office staff and explain what a computer is, what the firm's plans are, how it proposes to use the computer, and how staff will be affected. Management should also explain at this meeting that there will be some redundancy, but that it will be absorbed by the normal processes of people changing jobs and retiring. This manufacturer tells us that he frequently encounters resistance to this approach. Directors often take the line: 'No, don't tell anyone.'

 

The real bogey of the computer is that it is likely-or even intended-to displace staff. So it constitutes a major threat to staff security, and for this reason alone is likely to be resisted. An important part of the preparations for a machine must be, therefore, the estimating of the number of redundancies, and identifying jobs which will be eliminated or reduced in scope by the machine.

 

Briefly, I would offer the following advice to firms embarking on computers. First, do not think your problems will be predominantly technical, because this is unlikely. Secondly, get as much information as you can on both social and technical problems before you sign the contract to purchase; other firms' experience can be a useful guide here. And thirdly, plan well in advance, communicate and consult with all your staff and do not be surprised if they take a sour view of the proposed change. No one likes to think that he can be replaced by a machine.

(Adopted from an article by Enid Mumford, The New Scientist, 18th June, 1964.)

PART 2: PARAGRAPH DEVELOPMENT AND TOPIC SENTENCES


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