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10 min
THE INTERNET
AGRICULTURE
SPACE TRAVEL
OLYMPIC GAMES
Corn
Health care
Drug abuse
Penicillin
Famine
Galaxies
Abroad
website
Reading:
1.
Give students 1 min to skim the article and
choose a heading
for each paragraph from the
A
column
(
previous exercise
).
Check as a class.
WONDERS OF THE MODERN WORLD
I don’t believe that today’s wonders are similar in kind to the won-
ders of the Ancient World. They were all buildings, such as the Pyr-
amids in Egypt, or other architectural structures. Over the past 100
years, we have seen amazing technological
and scientific achieve-
ments. These are surely our modern wonders.
1 __________
It is everywhere. More than half a billion people use it, and the
number of people who are online increases by 100 million every
year. In 1994 there were only a few hundred web pages. Today
there are billions.
It has revolutionized the way we live and work. But we are still in
the early days. Soon there will be more and more interactivity be-
tween
the user and the website, and we will be able to give instruc-
tions using speech.
2 __________
In 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped out of his space capsule onto the
surface of the moon and made his famous statement: ‘That’s one
small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind’. Since then, there
have been space probes to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and even to the
sun. One day, a space observatory will study how the first stars and
galaxies began. So far, it seems that we are alone in the universe.
There are no signs yet that there is intelligent
life outside our own
solar system. But who knows what the future holds?
3__________
Surely nothing has done more for the comfort and happiness of the
human race than the advances in health care! How many millions of
people have benefited from the humble aspirin? How many lives
has penicillin saved? Average life expectancy worldwide has risen
dramatically over the past 100 years, from about 47 years in 1900 to
about 77 years today.
4__________
We are a world on the move. Airlines carry more than 1.5 billion
people to their destinations every year. It is estimated that, at any
one time these days, there are as many people travelling in aero-
planes as the total number of people who travelled abroad in the
whole of the nineteenth century (but I have no
idea how they
worked this out!).
5__________
It is true that they are now commercialized, and there is greed and
Reading
445
drug abuse. However, it is a competition in which almost every
country in the world takes part. Every four years, for a brief mo-
ment, we see the world come together in peace and friendship. We
feel hope again for the future of mankind.
6__________
In 1724, Jonathan Swift wrote, ‘Whoever makes two blades of grass
or two ears of corn grow where only one grew
before serves man-
kind better than the whole race of politicians’. In Europe our farm-
ers have done this. In 1709, whole villages in France died of hun-
ger. Now in Europe, we can’t eat all the food we produce. If only
politicians could find a way to share it with those parts of the world
where there is famine.
7 We are still here!
The last wonder of the modern world is simply that we are still here.
We have had nuclear weapons for over 50 years that could destroy
the world, but we haven’t used them to do it. This is surely the
greatest wonder of all.
Answers
1 The Internet 2 Space Travel 3 Medical Science 4 International
Travel 5 Olympic Games 6 Agriculture
2.
Learners read the article and answer the 8 questions. For
most of them, they may just highlight the necessary parts in the text.
Check as a class.
1 What has changed because of the Internet? What will happen with
the Internet?
2 What has happened in space exploration since 1969?
3 What is the most noticeable result of better health care?
4 x=the number of people who travelled abroad in the XIX century.
What does x also equal?
5 What are the good and bad things about the Olympics?
6 What point was Jonathan Swift making about farmers and politi-
cians?
7 ‘We are still here!’ Why is this a wonder?
8 What do these numbers refer to?
100 million a few hundred 1969 millions of people 47
four 1709 50
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