Exercise 4:

Overdosing on nothing
A
An international protest this week aims to demonstrate the truth about homeopathy-that there’s
literally nothing in it, says Martin Robbins AT 10.23 am on 30 January, more than 300 activists
in the UK, Canada, Australia and the US will take part in a mass homeopathic “overdose”.
Skeptics will publicly swallow an entire bottle of homeopathic pills to demonstrate to the public
that homeopathic remedies, the product of a scientifically unfounded 18th-century ritual, are
simply sugar pills. Many of the skeptics will swallow 84 pills of arsenicum album, a
homeopathic remedy based on arsenic which is used to treat a range of symptoms, including
food poisoning and insomnia. The aim of the “10:23” campaign, led by the Merseyside
Skeptics Society, based in Liverpool, UK, is to raise public awareness of just exactly what
homeopathy is, and to put pressure on the UK’s leading pharmacist, Boots, to remove
theremedies from sale. The campaign is called 10:23 in honor of the Avogadro constant
(approximately 6 x 1023, the number of atoms or molecules in onemole of a substance), of
which more later.
B
That such a protest is even necessary in 2010 is remarkable, but somehow the homeopathic
industry has not only survived into the 21st century, but prospered. In the UK alone more than
£40 million is spent annually on homeopathic treatments, with £4 million of this being sucked
from the National Health Service budget. Yet the basis for homeopathy defies the laws of
physics, and high-quality clinical trials have never been able to demonstrate that it works
beyond the placebo effect.
C
The discipline is based on three “laws”; the law of similars, the law of infinite simals and the
law of succession. The law of similars states that something which causes your symptoms will
cure your symptoms, so that, for example, as caffeine keeps you awake, it can also be a cure
for insomnia. Of course, that makes little sense, since drinking caffeine, well, keeps you awake.
Next is the law of infinitesimals, which claims that diluting a substance makes it more potent.
Homeopaths start by diluting one volume of their remedy arsenic oxide, in the case of
arsenicumalbum-in 99 volumes of distilled water oralcohol to create a “centesimal”. They then
dilute one volume of the centesimal in 99volumes of water or alcohol, and so on, up to 30
times. Application of Avogadro’s constant tells you that a dose of such a“30C” recipe is
vanishingly unlikely to contain even a single molecule of the active ingredient. The third pillar
of homeopathy is the law of succession. This states-and I’m not making this up-that by tapping
the liquid in a special way during the dilution process, a memory of the active ingredient is
somehow imprinted on it. This explains how water is able to carry a memory of arsenic oxide,
but apparently not of the contents of your local sewer network.
D
The final preparation is generally dropped onto a sugar pill which the patient swallows.
Homeopaths claim that the application of these three laws results in a remedy that, even though
it contains not a single molecule of the original T-T-J.— ingredient, somehow carries an
“energy signature” of it that nobody can measure or detect. Unsurprisingly, when tested under
rigorous scientific conditions, in randomized, controlled and double blind trials, homeopathic
remedies have shown to be no better than a placebo. Of course, the placebo effect is quite
powerful, but it’s a bit like justifying building a car without any wheels on the basis that you
can still enjoy the comfy leather seats and play with the gear shift.
E
Even some retailers who sell the treatments have admitted there is no evidence that they work.
In November, Paul Bennett, the super intendent pharmacist at Boots, appeared before the UK
parliament’s Commons Science and Technology Committee’s “evidence check” on
homeopathy. He was questioned by Member of Parliament Phil Willis, who asked: “Do they
work beyond the placebo effect?” I have no evidence before me to suggest that they are
efficacious,” Bennett replied. He defended Boots’s decision to sell homeopathic remedies on
the grounds of consumer choice. “A large number of our consumers actually do believe they
are efficacious, but they are licensed medicinal products and, therefore, we believe it is right
to make the mavailable,” he said.
F
You might agree. You might also argue that homeopathy is harmless: if people want to part
with their money for sugar pills and nobody is breaking the law, why not let them? To some
extent that’s true-there’s only so much damage you can do with sugar pills short of feeding
them to a diabetic or dropping a large crate of them on someone’s head. However, we believe
there is a risk in perpetuating the notion that homeopathy is equivalent to modern medicine.
People may delay seeking appropriate treatment for themselves or their children.
G
We accept that we are unlikely to convince the true believers. Homeopathy has many ways to
sidestep awkward questions, such as rejecting the validity of randomized controlled trials, or
claiming that homeopathic remedies only work if you have symptoms of the malady they
purport to cure. Our aim is to reach out to the general public with our simple message: “There
is nothing in it”. Boots and other retailers are perfectly entitled to continue selling homeopathic
remedies if they so wish and consumers are perfectly entitled to keep on buying them. But
hopefully the 10:23 campaign will ram home our message to the public. In the 21st century,
with decades of progress behind us, it is surreal that governments are prepared to spend millions
of tax pounds on homeopathy. There really is nothing in it.

Questions 1-7
The reading passage has seven paragraphs, A-G. Choose the correct heading for
paragraphs A-G from the list below. Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 1-7 on your
answer sheet.
List of Headings
i The definition of three laws
ii Quoting three laws to against the homeopathy
iii There are many methods of avoiding answering ambiguous questions.
iv The purpose of illustrating the effectiveness of homeopathy
v The constant booming of homeopathy
vi Some differences between homeopathy and placebo
vii Placebo is better than homeopathy
viii An example of further demonstrating the negative effect of homeopathy
ix The purpose of staging an demonstration to against homeopathy
1 Paragraph A
2 Paragraph B
3 Paragraph C
4 Paragraph D
5 Paragraph E
6 Paragraph F
7 Paragraph G
Questions 8-14
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage?
In boxes 8-14 on your answer sheet write
TRUE if the statement is true
FALSE if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage
8.Skeptics planning to hold a demonstration in "10.23" campaign is to against UK's leading
pharmacist, Boots.
9.National Health Service budget gained a small portion of homeopathic industry.
10.The example of Caffeine is to present that homeopathy resists the laws of similars.
11.Instilling the idea to people that homeopathy is equal to modern medicine poses danger.
12.Paul Bennett claimed effectiveness of taking the homeopathic medicine is proved.
13.The adoption of homeopathy mainly contributes to the delay of seeking appropriate
treatment for themselves or their children.
14. The campaign has exerted heavy pressure on Boots and other retailers.

Exercise 12:

E-training
A E-learning is the unifying term to describe the fields of online learning, web-based training,
and technology-delivered instruction, which can be a great benefit to corporate e-learning.
IBM, for instance, claims that the institution of its e-training program, Basic Blue, whose
purpose is to train new managers, saved the company in the range of $200 million in 1999.
Cutting the travel expenses required to bring employees and instructors to a central classroom
accounts for the lion’s share of the savings. With an online course, employees can learn from
any Internet-connected PC, anywhere in the world. Ernst and Young reduced training costs by
35 percent while improving consistency and scalability.
B In addition to generally positive economic benefits, other advantages such as convenience,
standardized delivery, self-paced learning, and variety of available content, have made e-
learning a high priority for many corporations. E-learning is widely believed to offer flexible
“any time, any place” learning. The claim for “any place” is valid in principle and is a great
development. Many people can engage with rich learning materials that simply were not
possible in a paper or broadcast distance learning era. For teaching specific information and
skills, e-training holds great promise. It can be especially effective at helping employees
prepare for IT certification programs. E-learning also seems to effectively address topics such
as sexual harassment education,5 safety training and management training — all areas
where a clear set of objectives can be identified. Ultimately, training experts recommend a
“blended” approach that combines both online and in-person training as the instruction
requires. E-learning is not an end-all solution. But if it helps decrease costs and windowless
classrooms filled with snoring students, it definitely has its advantages.
C Much of the discussion about implementing e-learning has focused on the technology, but
as Driscoll and others have reminded us, e-learning is not just about the technology, but also
many human factors. As any capable manager knows, teaching employees new skills is critical
to a smoothly run business. Having said that, however, the traditional route of classroom
instruction runs the risk of being expensive, slow and, oftentimes, ineffective. Perhaps the
classroom’s greatest disadvantage is the fact that it takes employees out of their jobs. Every
minute an employee is sitting in a classroom training session is a minute they’re not out on the
floor working. It now looks as if there is a way to circumvent these traditional training
drawbacks. E-training promises more effective teaching techniques by integrating audio, video,
animation, text and interactive materials with the intent of teaching each student at his or her
own pace. In addition to higher performance results, there are other immediate benefits to
students such as increased time on task, higher levels of motivation, and reduced test anxiety
for many learners. A California State University Northridge study reported that e-learners
performed 20 percent better than traditional learners. Nelson reported a significant difference
between the mean grades of 406 university students earned in traditional and distance education
classes, where the distance learners outperformed the traditional learners.
D On the other hand, nobody said E-training technology would be cheap. E-training service
providers, on the average, charge from $10,000 to $60,000 to develop one hour of online
instruction. This price varies depending on the complexity of the training topic and the media
used. HTML pages are a little cheaper to develop while streaming-video (presentations or flash
animations cost more. Course content is just the starting place for cost. A complete e-learning
solution also includes the technology platform (the computers, applications and network
connections that are used to deliver the courses). This technology platform, known as a learning
management system (LMS), can either be installed onsite or outsourced. Add to that cost the
necessary investments in network bandwidth to deliver multimedia courses, and you’re left
holding one heck of a bill. For the LMS infrastructure and a dozen or so online courses, costs
can top $500,000 in the first year. These kinds of costs mean that custom e-training is, for the
time being, an option only for large organizations. For those companies that have a large
enough staff, the e-training concept pays for itself. Aware of this fact, large companies are
investing heavily in online training. Today, over half of the 400-plus courses that Rockwell
Collins offers are delivered instantly to its clients in an e-leaming format, a change that has
reduced its annual training costs by 40%. Many other success stories exist.
E E-learning isn’t expected to replace the classroom entirely. For one thing, bandwidth
limitations are still an issue in presenting multimedia over the Internet. Furthermore, e-training
isn’t suited to every mode of instruction or topic. For instance, it’s rather ineffective imparting
cultural values or building teams. If your company has a unique corporate culture it would be
difficult to convey that to first-time employees through a computer monitor. Group training
sessions are more ideal for these purposes. In addition, there is a perceived loss of research
time because of the work involved in developing and teaching online classes. Professor Wallin
estimated that it required between 500 and 1,000 person-hours, that is, Wallin-hours, to keep
the course at the appropriate level of currency and usefulness. (Distance learning instructors
often need technical skills, no matter how advanced the courseware system.) That amounts to
between a quarter and half of a person-year. Finally, teaching materials require computer
literacy and access to equipment. Any e-Learning system involves basic equipment and a
minimum level of computer knowledge in order to perform the tasks required by the system.
A student that does not possess these skills, or have access to these tools, cannot succeed in an
e-Learning program.
F While few people debate the obvious advantages of e-learning, systematic research is needed
to confirm that learners are actually acquiring and using the skills that are being taught online,
and that e-learning is the best way to achieve the outcomes in a corporate environment.
Nowadays, a go-between style of the Blended learning, which refers to a mixing of different
learning environments, is gaining popularity. It combines traditional face-to-face classroom
methods with more modem computer-mediated activities. According to its proponents, the
strategy creates a more integrated approach for both instructors and learners. Formerly,
technology-based materials played a supporting role to face-to-face instruction. Through a
blended learning approach, technology will be more important
Questions 28-33
The reading passage has seven paragraphs，A-F

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-F from the list below. Write the correct number, i-
xi in boxes 28-33 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings
i overview of the benefits for the application of E-training
ii IBM’s successful choice of training
iii Future direction and a new style of teaching
iv learners achievement and advanced teaching materials
v limitations when E-training compares with traditional class
vi multimedia over the Internet can be a solution
vii technology can be a huge financial burden
viii the distance learners outperformed the traditional university learners in worldwide
ix other advantages besides economic consideration
x Training offered to help people learn using computers
28. Paragraph A

29. Paragraph B

30. Paragraph C

31. Paragraph D

32. Paragraph E

33. Paragraph F

Questions 34-37
The reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-F.
Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter A-F, in boxes 34-37 on your answer sheet.

34. Projected Basic Blue in IBM achieved a great success.

35. E-learning wins as a priority for many corporations as its flexibility.

36. The combination of the traditional and e-training environments may prevail.

37. Example of a fast electronic delivery for a company’s products to its customers.

Questions 38-40
Choose Three correct letters, among A-E

Write your answers in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.

A Technical facilities are hardly obtained.

B Presenting multimedia over the Internet is restricted due to the bandwidth limit.

C It is ineffective imparting a unique corporate value to fresh employees.

D Employees need block a long time leaving their position attending training.

E More preparation time is needed to keep the course at the suitable level.

Exercise 14:

How should reading be taught?

A.Learning to speak is automatic for almost all children, but learning to read requires elaborate
instruction and conscious effort. Well aware of the difficulties, educators have given a great
deal of thought to how they can best help children learn to read. No single method has
triumphed. Indeed, heated arguments about the most appropriate form of reading instruction
continue to polarize the teaching community.

B.Three general approaches have been tried. In one, called whole-word instruction, children
learn by rote how to recognise at a glance a vocabulary of 50 to 100 words. Then they gradually
acquire other words, often through seeing them used over and over again in the context of a
story.
Speakers of most languages learn the relationship between letters and the sounds associated
with them (phonemes). That is, children are taught how to use their knowledge of the alphabet
to sound out words. This procedure constitutes a second approach to teaching reading –
phonics.
Many schools have adopted a different approach: the whole-language method. The strategy
here relies on the child’s experience with the language. For example, students are offered
engaging books and are encouraged to guess the words that they do not know by considering
the context of the sentence or by looking for clues in the storyline and illustrations, rather than
trying to sound them out.
Many teachers adopted the whole-language approach because of its intuitive appeal. Making
reading fun promises to keep children motivated, and learning to read depends more on what
the student does than on what the teacher does. The presumed benefits of whole-language
instruction – and the contrast to the perceived dullness of phonics – led to its growing
acceptance across American during the 1990s and a movement away from phonics.

C.However, many linguists and psychologists objected strongly to the abandonment of phonics
in American schools. Why was this so? In short, because research had clearly demonstrated
that understanding how letters related to the component sounds in words is critically important
in reading. This conclusion rests, in part, on knowledge of how experienced readers make sense
of words on a page. Advocates of whole-language instruction have argued forcefully that
people often derive meanings directly from print without ever determining the sound of the
word. Some psychologists today accept this view, but most believe that reading is typically a
process of rapidly sounding out words mentally. Compelling evidence for this comes from
experiments which show that subjects often confuse homophones (words that sound the same,
such as rose and ‘rows). This supports the idea that readers convert strings of letters to sounds.

D.In order to evaluate different approaches to teaching reading, a number of experiments have
been carried out, firstly with college students, then with school pupils. Investigators trained
English-speaking college students to read using unfamiliar symbols such as Arabic letters (the
phonics approach), while another group learned entire words associated with certain strings of
Arabic letters (whole-word). Then both groups were required to read a new set of words
constructed from the original characters. In general, readers who were taught the rules of
phonics could read many more new words than those trained with a whole-word procedure.
Classroom studies comparing phonics with either whole-word or whole-language instruction
are also quite illuminating. One particularly persuasive study compared two programmes used
in 20 first-grade classrooms. Half the students were offered traditional reading instruction,
which included the use of phonics drills and applications. The other half were taught using an
individualised method that drew from their experiences with languages; these children produce
their own booklets of stories and developed sets of words to be recognised (common
components of the whole-language approach). This study found that the first group scored
higher at year’s end on tests of reading and comprehension.

E.If researchers are so convinced about the need for phonics instruction, why does the debate
continue? Because the controversy is enmeshed in the philosophical differences between
traditional and progressive (or new) approaches, differences that have divided educators for
years. The progressive challenge the results of laboratory tests and classroom studies on the
basis of a broad philosophical skepticism about the values of such research. They champion
student-centred learned and teacher empowerment. Sadly, they fail to realise that these very
admirable educational values are equally consistent with the teaching of phonics.
F. If schools of education insisted that would-be reading teachers learned something about the
vast research in linguistics and psychology that bears on reading, their graduates would be more
eager to use phonics and would be prepared to do so effectively. They could allow their pupils
to apply the principles of phonics while reading for pleasure. Using whole-language activities
to supplement phonics instruction certainly helps to make reading fun and meaningful for
children, so no one would want to see such tools discarded. Indeed, recent work has indicated
that the combination of literature-based instruction and phonics is more powerful than either
method used alone.
Teachers need to strike a balance. But in doing so, we urge them to remember that reading must
be grounded in a firm understanding of the connections between letters and sounds. Educators
who deny this reality are neglecting decades of research. They are also neglecting the needs of
their students.

Questions 27-31
Reading Passage 3 has six sections, A-F.
Choose the correct heading for sections B-F from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i Disagreement about the reading process
ii The roots of the debate
iii A combined approach
iv Methods of teaching reading
v A controversial approach
vi Inconclusive research
vii Research with learners
vii Allowing teachers more control
ix A debate amongst educators
Example
Section A ix
27 Section B
28 Section C
29 Section D
30 Section E
31 Section F

Questions 32-36
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 32-36 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
32 The whole-language approach relates letters to sounds.
33 Many educators believe the whole-language approach to be the most interesting way to
teach children to read.
34 Research supports the theory that we read without linking words to sounds.
35 Research has shown that the whole-word approach is less effective than the whole-
language approach.
36 Research has shown that phonics is more successful than both the whole-word and whole-
language approaches.
Questions 37-40
Complete the summary of sections E and F using the list of words, A-G, below.
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.
In the teaching community, 37…………………………… question the usefulness of research
into methods of teaching reading. These critics believe that 38……………………………… is
incompatible with student-centred learning. In the future, teachers need to be aware
of 39………………………….. so that they understand the importance of phonics. They should
not, however, ignore the ideas of 40………………………….. which make reading enjoyable
for learners.
A the phonics method
B the whole-word method
C the whole-language method
D traditionalists
E progressives
F linguistics
G research studies