34. Slaves of Civilization

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It’s been quite a while now since a tricky issue (and the funny answer I gave) has been nagging me, for I understood that – like many of my fellow citizens – I somehow take for granted that which really destroys our environment. The question went like this, ‘What modern invention couldn’t you live without?’ I readily said ‘glasses’ (as is evident from the picture which shows me), but then there was a further clarification, and I said, ‘I don’t think I could live without plastic bags.’

Am I the only one?

Waste Not, Want Not

 [adapted from Focus on First Certificate, by Sue O’Connell]

Read through the text quickly, ignoring the gaps for the moment, and decide what it’s about. Choose the best description from the list below.

A How to save money when you go shopping

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B How to get rid of your rubbish

C The problem about the rubbish we create

D The problem about the food we eat

‘Waste not, want not,’ my great-aunt used to say to me as she carefully snipped the string from parcels and folded brown paper away for re-use. If she received anything wrapped in fancy paper, she kept if for next year’s presents.

Such economy seems strange in our throwaway society, where disposable means convenient, and cupboards are filled with boxes and packets and cartons.

(1)_The idea of a ‘gift pack’, where the gift wrapping is as important as the gift itself, would have been regarded as a cheat 30 years ago. Today it is acceptable for even a packet of biscuits to be enclosed in three layers of wrapping.

(2)_It costs Britain £720 million a year to dispose of its rubbish (70 per cent of which is packaging). The average family uses up six trees’ worth of paper a year and, if all the cans used in Britain in one year were placed end to end, they would reach to the moon and back twice!

Just how much rubbish does go into our bins? (3)_As a young professional couple working long hours, most of our shopping consists of convenience foods. We had expected to have a lot of rubbish, but even I was shocked to find that our final waste bag was 1 metre high and weighed over 6 kilos!

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(4)_In one week alone we threw out 300 sheets of newspaper, 12 bits of junk mail, all unread, five old magazines and nine brightly coloured paper boxes which had once been home to a pre-cooked meal, assorted pizzas and biscuits. The rest of our rubbish was a sad smelly assortment of baked bean and sweet corn tins and burger cartons. ‘Yuk,’ said my husband, as we sorted through our bin bag.

(5)_According to Pippa Hyam of Friends of the Earth, our paper and the metal in our cans are valuable materials which could easily have been re­processed and re-used. She was more worried about our use of plastic, which is difficult to dispose of and may last for hundreds of years. She would like to see people using less plastic. (6)_Making plastic uses oil, which is running out. It should not be thought of as a cheap disposable product,’ she says.

Six sentences have been removed from the text. Choose a sentence from the list (A-F) below to fill each of the gaps. Write the correct letter in the space. The first one has been done for you as an example.

1. B

A I’m prepared to pay a little more for things that aren’t packaged in plastic.

B Nowadays, packaging is not only used to protect goods but also as a positive selling feature.

C Our bin was bulging with paper.

D My husband and I offered to analyse the contents of our weekly household waste.

E Is this really what we eat?’

F But we pay a high price for our sophisticated packaging.

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Find words or phrases in the text which mean the same as the following. The paragraph numbers are given in brackets.

1.       cut with scissors (1)            

2.      not plain or ordinary, with a lot of decoration (1)       

3.      saving of money (2)            

4.      intended to be thrown away (2)              

5.      a dishonest trick (3)                       

6.      get rid of (4)             

7.      advertising material sent through the post (6)           

8.     collection of various things (7)                

33. Land of Plenty

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If this post asked you to quickly analyse your relationship with consumption, what would you have to say about how much of what you need you buy in one shopping? Do you splash out on whims? While thinking hard about what makes people (that is, Athenians) happy, Aristotle realised that happiness had to do [then – as I tend to believe it still does now, 2,500 years later] with living among people who do not have more than you. This shifts the reference from a real feeling of happiness for what one is and has to happiness – or sadness, for that matter – by comparison.

There is no denying that Darwin’s theory on the origin of species, and on the descent of man marked a turning point in the development of science and its physical branches. But there is a long way away from the publication of his ground-breaking theory (1859) and the cultural civilization as some of the earth-dwellers experience today. 

As usual, I expect that you, too, have an opinion about what is happening around you; it's all down to taking a stance, even if the voice you use sounds more like a whisper! You're not alone. 

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The best thing to do right now is to read the following passage and answer the questions.

PLANET EARTH IS 4,600 MILLION YEARS OLD

[adapted from New Success at First Certificate,

by Robert O’Neill, Michael Duckworth & Kathy Gude - workbook]

It is difficult for us to think about such an enormous length of time, but if we simplify it into an understand­able idea, we can compare the planet Earth to a person of forty-six years of age.

Nothing is known about the first seven years of this person's life, and very little information exists about the middle period; we know that it was only at the age of forty-two that Earth began to flower.

Dinosaurs and great reptiles did not appear until one year ago, when the planet was forty five. Mammals arrived only eight months ago; in the middle of last week man-like apes became ape-like men, and at the week­end, the last Ice Age covered Earth.

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Modern man has been around for four hours. During the last hour man discovered agriculture. The Industrial Revolution began just a minute ago. During those sixty seconds of biological time, Modern Man has made a rubbish tip of Earth.

He has increased his numbers to terrible proportions, has caused the death of hundreds of species of animals, has robbed and destroyed the planet in his search for fuels; now he stands, like a violent, spoilt child, de­lighted at the speed of his rise to power, on the edge of the final mass destruction and of killing all the life which exists in the solar system.

A.   Choose the best answer.

1.      The passage tells us that

A a great deal is known about how Earth was created.

B life on Earth began relatively recently.

C more is known about the earlier part of Earth's life than the middle part.

D scientists are well-informed about the middle part of Earth's life.

Michelangelo's Adam and Eve
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2.    We are informed by the author that

A the dinosaurs appeared during the middle period.

B mammals and great reptiles appeared at the same time.

C there were more than forty-five kinds of great reptiles.

D ape-like men appeared before the last Ice Age.

3.    The author is mainly interested in

A the time when man first evolved from apes.

B what has happened since the Industrial Revolution.

C the effects of farming.

D the period before the last Ice Age.

4.    It would appear that the main danger ahead is that

A man will destroy everything on Earth.

B man will use up all the fuels.

C there will be a population explosion.

D more species of animals may die out.

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B.    Read the following passage from a publicity letter and answer the questions.

OZONE LAYER Ozone-damaging gases such as CFCs, which are used in aerosols, packaging, building and refrigeration materials, should no longer be used.

Our fight to persuade people to help save the ozone layer is now really beginning to work.

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TROPICAL RAINFORESTS Rainforests are being rapidly destroyed. Friends of the Earth is leading the fight to stop the trade in hardwoods and end forest destruction.

WATER POLLUTION Much of our drinking water still does not come up to acceptable standards, and too many of our rivers are polluted with chemicals and sewage.

We lead the fight to clean up Britain's drinking water and stop water pollution.

SAFE ENERGY Friends of the Earth believes in safe energy policies and energy-saving measures. Nuclear power is dangerous and expensive – and produces radioactive waste which lasts for centuries.

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ACID RAIN Britain's trees, lakes and rivers are threatened. Friends of the Earth is fighting for proper controls on car exhaust fumes and emissions from power stations.

GREENHOUSE EFFECT Global warming, caused by changes in the atmosphere, will bring climate changes and sea-level rises in coming years. We are demanding immediate world-wide action – including sensible energy, forestry and industrial policies – to limit the danger.

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Say if the following statements are true (T) or false (F).

  1.      CFC gases are found in some building materials. T/F

  2.    The government has forbidden all packaging materials that contain ozone-damaging gases. T/F

 3.    None of the drinking water in Britain meets acceptable standards. T/F

4.    All Britain's rivers are polluted with sewage. T/F

5.     Car exhaust fumes are partly responsible for acid rain. T/F

6.    Stopping the trade in hardwoods would help end the damage to rain forests. T/F

7.     Friends of the Earth says it is not in favour of nuclear power stations. T/F

8.    The level of the sea will rise as a result of the greenhouse effect. T/F

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Now read the passage again and find a word or phrase that means:

1. the part of the atmosphere being damaged by CFC gases;

2. made dirty;    

3. the water and other waste from bathrooms and toilets;       

4. the gases from car engines;      

5. a large wood in a tropical country;

6. the kind of power made by using atomic reactions;

7. unwanted material;

8. a building made of glass;

9. relating to the whole world (two words).

32. Directed Dreaming

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It's time to apply everything you took in up till now about dreams, that is, articles, tests, and video and put them to work while listening to the audio which inspired the gap-filling exercise below.

Listening practice: Directed Dreaming

[adapted from New Success at First Certificate,

by Robert O’Neill, Michael Duckworth & Kathy Gude]

The interviewer is asking the psychologist about the kind of 1. ___ they are doing in their department. The doctor says that they are trying to find out about an area of 2. ___ ___ to them at the moment, namely 3. ___ ___.

In order to explain the notion, the psychologist gives the example of the quite common experience humans have  of 4. ___ ___ in the middle of the dream and 5. ___ ___ to the dream when they go back to sleep. 

Unlike such random instances, 6. ___ ___ are trained people who are able to 7. ___ the contents of their dreams almost 8. ___.

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Research aims to find out whether everybody may develop the ability in a similar degree to that of the three 9. ___ dreamers they work with.

One of the experiments they are currently carrying out consists in asking these very 10. ___ subjects to dream about 11. ___ ___ each other while they are sleeping.

Their task was to go – in the dream – to a 12. ___ down by the river that they knew and 13. ___ ___ each other.

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On the following day, during separate interviews, the two male subjects told the psychiatrist that they 14. ___ ___ a dream and could remember it; that in their dream, they had met down there, and had had a talk, but that they hadn’t 15. ___ the woman. 

Surprisingly, the female subject said she hadn’t 15. ___ of anything at all that night or, that she couldn’t remember anyway.

Directed dreaming

The Pharaoh (see the extract from Genesis in the previous post) asked for help. It was Joseph who explained – or, shall I say, interpreted – the dream for him. That’s how the Pharaoh became sure that his dream was the premonition of the seven bad years to come. How much of a myth does the story contain?
Yet again, what do you think you could achieve by becoming a directed dreamer?

31. Pharaoh's Dream

Adrien Guignet, Joseph et Pharaon
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‘Pharaoh dreamed that he stood by the river, and out came seven fat cattle, who fed in the reed-grass. And then seven lean cattle came up out of the river and ate the seven fat cattle, and Pharaoh awoke. He went back to sleep and dreamed that seven good ears of corn came up on one stalk, and then seven thin ears sprung up after them and swallowed the good ears, and Pharaoh again awoke.

In the morning, Pharaoh was troubled and sent for all the magicians and wise men of Egypt and told them his dream, but none could interpret it. Then the chief butler spoke up, confessing his faults and relating how Pharaoh had put him in prison with the baker, and a Hebrew there had interpreted their dreams, correctly predicting the future.’ (Genesis 41:1-8.)

Let’s take another deep plunge in the mysteries of the mind, albeit for us to see how different our experiences are from those of other people's. [The key to the previous cloze test is to be found after the page break]

In what way does the information in the video you've just watched reflect Elias Howe's experience?

Much has been said and written about the different treatment granted to the importance of dreams in the Eastern and Western world views, respectively. What differences can you mention?

Do you see any advantages to developing the ability to dream what you want?

30. A Grasp of Reality (III)

Salvador Dali, Memory

       I. Following the thread of the previous post, here is a possible variant of the enlarged summary:

“Ideas have always been the motor of progress along the centuries, yet they are far from coming in a flash of inspiration – they are more often than not the result of years of concentration. An inventor’s life is not an easy one: he needs, above all, to work hard and work long hours. Such was the case of Elias Howe, the first person to design a sewing-machine that really worked. Like many other inventors, Howe went on thinking about the problem he was trying to solve in his restless sleep. The dream he had associated the unsolved design of the sewing-machine with the holes he noticed in the tip of the spears that some fierce savages were carrying: so, in order to stop the thread from getting caught around the needle, he had to pierce the tip.

There are also other renowned creators whom the text mentions for having found inspiration in dreams in order to solve their problems: inventors such as Thomas Edison, composers like Igor Stravinsky – even writers like Charlotte Brontë. That is the reason why dreams are sometimes called 'secret messages to ourselves': they contain strange images which communicate ideas.”

[You will find the key to the exercises of the previous post after the page break] 

USE OF ENGLISH

[adapted from New Success at First Certificate,

by Robert O’Neill, Michael Duckworth & Kathy Gude]

This is a dream that a young man called Martin Ellward once had. It is told in his own words but some of these words are missing.

Salvador Dali, The Fourth Dimension

I dreamt that I was standing in…….(1) of a small aeroplane. I was trying to persuade my girlfriend to.......(2) in it with me. At first she didn't.......  (3) to but finally she agreed. I started the.......(4) and we took off. I wanted to impress her so I started.......(5) some dives and rolls. I could.......(6) that she wasn't really enjoying it so I.......(7). Then I suddenly noticed that the weather.......(8) turned bad and that we were flying.......(9) some mountains. They.......(10) very dangerous, with tall, jagged peaks.......(11) fell away steeply. It was just then that I heard a strange.......(12) from the engine. It was coughing and spluttering as if we were about to.......(13) out of fuel.

'What's happening?' my girlfriend.......(14) me. I.......(15) her everything was all right and that there.......(16) nothing to worry about. But suddenly the engine stopped and we began to.......(17) height. The mountains were getting closer and closer and I knew we were going to.......(18) into them. My girlfriend turned to me with a terrified.......(19) on her face. 'This is all your.......(20)!' she shouted.

Here are fifteen of the missing words. Where do they belong? Can you guess the rest?

asked- crash- doing- engine - front- get- look- looked/were -noise- stopped- told- towards- was- want- which/that

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29. A Grasp of Reality (II)

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Developing text is no easy matter, as you are well aware by now. Looking at it the other way round, the question arises: what if someone asked you to write a summary of the text in the previous post? Where would you look for the essential information, and how reduced – or enlarged, for that matter – should it be?

Let’s take the basic information, the one that can readily be retrieved from the questions in the multiple choice exercise itself. It should be enough for someone to get an idea of what the text is about, but the problem is it should clarify understanding for someone who has already read and worked on the text. The reader of such a brief summary would find it quite difficult to really enjoy the savoury details of the story. What would your variant be of the following? What information would you add to the text to make it richer in information for someone who hasn't read the basic text?

“According to the passage, Elias Howe was the first person to design a sewing-machine that really worked. The problem Howe was trying to solve was how to stop the thread from getting caught around the needle. The solution to the problem came from something Howe noticed about the soldiers' weapons. Thomas Edison is mentioned because he got some of his ideas from dreams. Dreams are sometimes called 'secret messages to ourselves' because strange images are used to communicate ideas.”

So here we are again, challenging yet another myth: this time it has to do with small words; yes, really small words with big meanings.

[adapted from New Success at First Certificate,

by Robert O’Neill, Michael Duckworth & Kathy Gude]

A Explain the full meaning of the words in italics.

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1   Edison got a lot of ideas while he was asleep. So did Einstein.

2    Sigmund Freud was very interested in dreams. So was Carl Gustav Jung.

3   I don't know how to interpret dreams. Neither does anybody else here.

4    I haven't been sleeping very well lately. Neither has my wife.

B Rewrite the second sentence in each pair below, repeating as little of the first as possible. Begin with So or Neither.

Example: Freud was famous for his study of dreams. Jung was famous for his study of them, too.

► So was Jung.

1   The Ancient Egyptians studied dreams. The ancient Chinese studied them, too.

2   Modern psychologists are very interested in dreams. The Ancient Greeks were interested in them, too.

3   As far as we know, spiders don't dream. Snakes don't dream, either.

4   Freud didn't know why only some animals dream. Jung didn't know this, either.

5   When human beings dream, they move their eyes about. Cats and dogs move their eyes about when they dream, too.

6   My cat has never had a dream. My dog has never had a dream, either.

7   If you take sleeping pills, they will interfere with your dreams. Alcohol will interfere with your dreams, too.

8   Eating too much isn't good for you. Drinking a lot of alcohol isn't good for you, either.

Revision transformations

 C Finish the second sentence without changing the meaning.

1   Few people in England speak Chinese.

Not ......................................................

2    Will you post this letter for me, please?

Do you mind .......................................

3    I was bored by the film on television.

I  thought

4    Please don't ask so many questions.

Please stop .........................................

5    You phoned someone yesterday. Who?

Who ....................................................

6    She doesn't intend to leave.

She has no ..........................................

7   Maria Elena doesn't know very many words in English.

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Maria Elena knows.............................

8    You don't have to pay duty on these goods.

These goods are..................................

9    Chris is a very fluent Spanish speaker.

Chris speaks........................................

10   She doesn't think that music is interesting.

She isn't..............................................