http://sat.saab.org/satenglish.cgi
http://www.sattest.us/verbal/sentence_completion/sentence_completion_questions.htm
http://sat.jumbotests.com/tests/sat-sentence-completion-practice
Saturday, April 10, 2010
GOOD LINKS TO DO SOME OUTSIDE READING
HERE ARE SOME READING SUGGESTIONS.
(Disclaimer: this is not intended as a comprehensive list. This is not intended as approval of whatever ideas are in these pieces. This is intended to make words go flying by your eyes and into your brains.)
DON'T ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS REGARDING MAIN IDEA OR TONE OR ANYTHING. JUST READ!!!
www.cnn.com
www.latimes.com
www.drudgereport.com
www.washingtonpost.com
www.washingtontimes.com
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
http://traveler.nationalgeographic.com/
http://www.travelandleisure.com/
www.cnnsi.com
www.espn.com
http://www.sciencemag.org/
http://discovermagazine.com/
(Disclaimer: this is not intended as a comprehensive list. This is not intended as approval of whatever ideas are in these pieces. This is intended to make words go flying by your eyes and into your brains.)
DON'T ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS REGARDING MAIN IDEA OR TONE OR ANYTHING. JUST READ!!!
www.cnn.com
www.latimes.com
www.drudgereport.com
www.washingtonpost.com
www.washingtontimes.com
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
http://traveler.nationalgeographic.com/
http://www.travelandleisure.com/
www.cnnsi.com
www.espn.com
http://www.sciencemag.org/
http://discovermagazine.com/
WRITING PRACTICE
Here are twelve essay prompts. Remember, the best way to improve your reading and writing is to read and write.
12 PRACTICE ESSAY PROMPTS:
Prompt 1
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. A person does not simply "receive" his or her identity. Identity is much more than the name or features one is born with. True identity is something people must create for themselves by making choices that are significant and that require a courageous commitment in the face of challenges. Identity means having ideas and values that one lives by. Adapted from Thomas Merton, Contemplation in a World of Action
Assignment:
Is identity something people are born with or given, or is it something people create for themselves? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 2
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. We value uniqueness and originality, but it seems that everywhere we turn, we are surrounded by ideas and things that are copies or even copies of copies. Writers, artists, and musicians seek new ideas for paintings, books, songs, and movies, but many sadly realize, "It's been done." The same is true for scientists, scholars, and businesspeople. Everyone wants to create something new, but at best we can hope only to repeat or imitate what has already been done.
Assignment:
Can people ever be truly original? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 3
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. All people who have achieved greatness in something knew what they excelled at. These people identified the skills that made them special: good judgment, or courage, or a special artistic or literary talent and focused on developing these skills. Yet most people achieve superiority in nothing because they fail to identify and develop their greatest attribute. Adapted from Baltasar Gracin y Morales, The Art of Worldly Wisdom Adapted from Stephen J. Carter, Integrity
Assignment:
Do people achieve greatness only by finding out what they are especially good at and developing that attribute above all else? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 4
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. Having many admirers is one way to become a celebrity, but it is not the way to become a hero. Heroes are self-made. Yet in our daily lives we see no difference between "celebrities" and "heroes." For this reason, we deprive ourselves of real role models. We should admire heroes, people who are famous because they are great, but not celebrities, people who simply seem great because they are famous. Adapted from Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America
Assignment:
Should we admire heroes but not celebrities? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 5
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. It is better to try to be original than to merely imitate others. People should always try to say, write, think, or create something new. There is little value in merely repeating what has been done before. People who merely copy or use the ideas and inventions of others, no matter how successful they may be, have never achieved anything significant.
Assignment:
Is it always better to be original than to imitate or use the ideas of others? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 6
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. It is better to try to be original than to merely imitate others. People should always try to say, write, think, or create something new. There is little value in merely repeating what has been done before. People who merely copy or use the ideas and inventions of others, no matter how successful they may be, have never achieved anything significant.
Assignment: Is it always better to be original than to imitate or use the ideas of others? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 7 Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. Often we see people who persist in trying to achieve a particular goal, even when all the evidence indicates that they will be unlikely to achieve it. When they succeed, we consider them courageous for having overcome impossible obstacles. But when they fail, we think of them as headstrong, foolhardy, and bent on self-destruction. To many people, great effort is only worthwhile when it results in success. Adapted from Gilbert Brim, "Ambition"
Assignment:
Is the effort involved in pursuing any goal valuable, even if the goal is not reached? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 8
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. Newness has become our obsession. Novelty is more interesting to us than continuing with whatever is "tried and true." We discard the old so we can acquire the most recent model, the latest version, the newest and most improved formula. Often, we replace what is useful just because it is no longer new. Not only with material goods but also with cultural values, we prefer whatever is the latest trend.
Assignment:
Should people always prefer new things, ideas, or values to those of the past? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 9
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. Since we live in a global society, surely we should view ourselves as citizens of the whole world. But instead, people choose to identify and associate with smaller and more familiar groups. People think of themselves as belonging to families, nations, cultures, and generations or as belonging to smaller groups whose members share ideas, views, or common experiences. All of these kinds of groups may offer people a feeling of security but also prevent them from learning or experiencing anything new.
Assignment:
Is there any value for people to belong only to a group or groups with which they have something in common? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 10
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. The biggest difference between people who succeed at any difficult undertaking and those who do not is not ability but persistence. Many extremely talented people give up when obstacles arise. After all, who wants to face failure? It is often said about highly successful people that they are just ordinary individuals who kept on trying, who did not give up. Adapted from Tom Morris, True Success: A New Philosophy of Excellence
Assignment:
Is persistence more important than ability in determining a person's success? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 11
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. Whether it is a child pouting to get ice cream or a politician using emotionally charged language to influence potential supporters, all people use some form of acting to achieve whatever ends they seek. Public figures of all kinds would have short, unsuccessful careers without the aid of acting. Acting consciously assuming a role in order to achieve some purpose is a tool people use to protect their interests and gain advantages in every aspect of life. Adapted from Marlon Brando, Foreword to The Technique of Acting by Stella Adler
Assignment:
Is acting an essential part of everyday life? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 12
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. When people are very enthusiastic always willing and eager to meet new challenges or give undivided support to ideas or projects they are likely to be rewarded. They often work harder and enjoy their work more than do those who are more restrained. But there are limits to how enthusiastic people should be. People should always question and doubt, since too much enthusiasm can prevent people from considering better ideas, goals, or courses of action.
Assignment:
Can people have too much enthusiasm? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
12 PRACTICE ESSAY PROMPTS:
Prompt 1
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. A person does not simply "receive" his or her identity. Identity is much more than the name or features one is born with. True identity is something people must create for themselves by making choices that are significant and that require a courageous commitment in the face of challenges. Identity means having ideas and values that one lives by. Adapted from Thomas Merton, Contemplation in a World of Action
Assignment:
Is identity something people are born with or given, or is it something people create for themselves? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 2
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. We value uniqueness and originality, but it seems that everywhere we turn, we are surrounded by ideas and things that are copies or even copies of copies. Writers, artists, and musicians seek new ideas for paintings, books, songs, and movies, but many sadly realize, "It's been done." The same is true for scientists, scholars, and businesspeople. Everyone wants to create something new, but at best we can hope only to repeat or imitate what has already been done.
Assignment:
Can people ever be truly original? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 3
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. All people who have achieved greatness in something knew what they excelled at. These people identified the skills that made them special: good judgment, or courage, or a special artistic or literary talent and focused on developing these skills. Yet most people achieve superiority in nothing because they fail to identify and develop their greatest attribute. Adapted from Baltasar Gracin y Morales, The Art of Worldly Wisdom Adapted from Stephen J. Carter, Integrity
Assignment:
Do people achieve greatness only by finding out what they are especially good at and developing that attribute above all else? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 4
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. Having many admirers is one way to become a celebrity, but it is not the way to become a hero. Heroes are self-made. Yet in our daily lives we see no difference between "celebrities" and "heroes." For this reason, we deprive ourselves of real role models. We should admire heroes, people who are famous because they are great, but not celebrities, people who simply seem great because they are famous. Adapted from Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America
Assignment:
Should we admire heroes but not celebrities? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 5
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. It is better to try to be original than to merely imitate others. People should always try to say, write, think, or create something new. There is little value in merely repeating what has been done before. People who merely copy or use the ideas and inventions of others, no matter how successful they may be, have never achieved anything significant.
Assignment:
Is it always better to be original than to imitate or use the ideas of others? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 6
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. It is better to try to be original than to merely imitate others. People should always try to say, write, think, or create something new. There is little value in merely repeating what has been done before. People who merely copy or use the ideas and inventions of others, no matter how successful they may be, have never achieved anything significant.
Assignment: Is it always better to be original than to imitate or use the ideas of others? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 7 Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. Often we see people who persist in trying to achieve a particular goal, even when all the evidence indicates that they will be unlikely to achieve it. When they succeed, we consider them courageous for having overcome impossible obstacles. But when they fail, we think of them as headstrong, foolhardy, and bent on self-destruction. To many people, great effort is only worthwhile when it results in success. Adapted from Gilbert Brim, "Ambition"
Assignment:
Is the effort involved in pursuing any goal valuable, even if the goal is not reached? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 8
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. Newness has become our obsession. Novelty is more interesting to us than continuing with whatever is "tried and true." We discard the old so we can acquire the most recent model, the latest version, the newest and most improved formula. Often, we replace what is useful just because it is no longer new. Not only with material goods but also with cultural values, we prefer whatever is the latest trend.
Assignment:
Should people always prefer new things, ideas, or values to those of the past? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 9
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. Since we live in a global society, surely we should view ourselves as citizens of the whole world. But instead, people choose to identify and associate with smaller and more familiar groups. People think of themselves as belonging to families, nations, cultures, and generations or as belonging to smaller groups whose members share ideas, views, or common experiences. All of these kinds of groups may offer people a feeling of security but also prevent them from learning or experiencing anything new.
Assignment:
Is there any value for people to belong only to a group or groups with which they have something in common? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 10
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. The biggest difference between people who succeed at any difficult undertaking and those who do not is not ability but persistence. Many extremely talented people give up when obstacles arise. After all, who wants to face failure? It is often said about highly successful people that they are just ordinary individuals who kept on trying, who did not give up. Adapted from Tom Morris, True Success: A New Philosophy of Excellence
Assignment:
Is persistence more important than ability in determining a person's success? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 11
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. Whether it is a child pouting to get ice cream or a politician using emotionally charged language to influence potential supporters, all people use some form of acting to achieve whatever ends they seek. Public figures of all kinds would have short, unsuccessful careers without the aid of acting. Acting consciously assuming a role in order to achieve some purpose is a tool people use to protect their interests and gain advantages in every aspect of life. Adapted from Marlon Brando, Foreword to The Technique of Acting by Stella Adler
Assignment:
Is acting an essential part of everyday life? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 12
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. When people are very enthusiastic always willing and eager to meet new challenges or give undivided support to ideas or projects they are likely to be rewarded. They often work harder and enjoy their work more than do those who are more restrained. But there are limits to how enthusiastic people should be. People should always question and doubt, since too much enthusiasm can prevent people from considering better ideas, goals, or courses of action.
Assignment:
Can people have too much enthusiasm? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
PRACTICE READING FOR TONE
DESCRIBE THE TONE OF THIS ARTICLE.
Polish president killed in plane crash
(CNN) -- Polish President Lech Kaczynski was killed early Saturday along with his wife, several top military officials, and the head of the national bank when their plane crashed at a western Russian airport, officials said.
"There are no survivors," said Sergey Antufyev, the governor of Smolensk, where the plane was trying to land when it crashed.
A spokesman for Poland's Foreign Ministry, Piotr Paszkowski, said earlier that it was probable that everyone on board was killed.
Information varied on how many people were on board the plane. The Polish Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry said 89 people died in the crash. The Russian Investigation Committee said there were 132 people on the plane.
Parliament Speaker Bronislaw Komorowski took over as acting president and declared it "a time for national mourning."
The president, 60, had been traveling with the Polish delegation to Russia for the 70th anniversary of the massacre of Polish prisoners of war in the village of Katyn. Some 20,000 Polish officers were executed there during World War II.
The Polish military plane originated in Warsaw, the Polish Defense Ministry said. It was approaching the airport at Smolensk -- just a few miles east of Katyn -- and probably hit some trees at the end of the runway, Paszkowski said.
The Investigation Committee of the Russian prosecutor's office said the plane, a Tupolev-154, was trying to land in heavy fog.
Kaczynski's Law and Justice Party released a list of some of those it said were killed in the crash. They included Aleksander Szczyglo, the head of the National Security Office; Jerzy Szmajdzinski, the deputy parliament speaker; Andrzej Kremer, the deputy foreign minister; and Gen. Franciszek Gagor, the army chief of staff, according to the party.
"The entire top military brass, including the chief of defense and all the services, were on the plane," said Tomas Valasek, of the Center for European Reform. "If that is true, then you're looking at a situation, in effect, of the decapitation of the military services."
Pictures from the scene showed parts of the airplane charred and strewn through a wooded area. Some pieces, including one of the wheel wells, were upside down.
The crash happened around 10:50 a.m. (2:50 a.m. ET) on the outskirts of the town of Pechorsk, just outside of Smolensk, the Investigation Committee said.
"This is a time of great national tragedy," Komorowski told reporters. "At this time there are no political differences, left or right. This is a time of national mourning."
Kaczynski had been president since December 2005 after he defeated rival Donald Tusk in the second round of voting. Tusk is currently prime minister.
Crowds gathered at the presidential palace in Warsaw to lay flowers and light candles for the president, whose death raises questions for Poland's government.
"Everything has changed today," said Jan Mikruta, a reporter for TV Polsat.
Tusk and Polish Cabinet ministers were holding a special meeting Saturday morning to discuss the situation, said a spokeswoman for the Polish Parliament, who declined to be named because she was not authorized to speak publicly.
Elections must now be held within 60 days, said Dariusz Rosati, Poland's former foreign minister.
"There is going to be a huge gap in public life in Poland," said resident Magdalena Hendrysiak. "The most important people are dead."
At the same time, Hendrysiak said, the president's death may have a unifying effect.
"I think it will be one of those situations that no one will care about their political preferences," she told CNN. "I think we're going to end up as pretty united in the face of such a tragedy."
Valasek pointed out, however, that the Polish president is the head of state, not head of government -- meaning essential services will continue to run.
"The role of the Polish president is not quite ceremonial ... he has some very real powers, but at the end of the day, the day-to-day running of the government is in the hands of the prime minister and the (cabinet) ministers," Valasek said. "Continuity is assured in ways that would not necessarily be assured in the case of the death of the U.S. president."
Condolences poured in from around the world Saturday, including from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was campaigning in Scotland.
Brown praised the contributions Kaczynski had made to Polish independence.
"This is a horrible tragedy," said Philip Crowley, the U.S. assistant secretary for public affairs. "We extend to the people of Poland our deepest condolences."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he learned of Kaczynski's death with "great emotion and a deep sadness" and expressed his sympathy to the families of the president and other victims.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai also expressed his condolences, as did the chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
"I offer my deepest condolences to the Polish people and to the families of those killed in this tragic accident. Our hearts go out to you in this difficult time," said OSCE Chairman Kaunat Saudabayev, who is also the secretary of state and foreign minister of Kazakhstan.
Valasek said the crash is a tragic coincidence, since the Polish officials were on their way to commemorate the deaths of top Polish officials at Katyn 70 years ago.
"The very fact that he was on his way to (commemorate) the massacre suggested that Polish-Russian relations, which of course had been very poor over the past 20 years, were on the way towards improvement," Valasek said. "A shared tragedy of this sort could give a boost to further improvement in Polish-Russian relations, which ... were on the mend, and this tragedy might accelerate that trend."
Polish president killed in plane crash
(CNN) -- Polish President Lech Kaczynski was killed early Saturday along with his wife, several top military officials, and the head of the national bank when their plane crashed at a western Russian airport, officials said.
"There are no survivors," said Sergey Antufyev, the governor of Smolensk, where the plane was trying to land when it crashed.
A spokesman for Poland's Foreign Ministry, Piotr Paszkowski, said earlier that it was probable that everyone on board was killed.
Information varied on how many people were on board the plane. The Polish Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry said 89 people died in the crash. The Russian Investigation Committee said there were 132 people on the plane.
Parliament Speaker Bronislaw Komorowski took over as acting president and declared it "a time for national mourning."
The president, 60, had been traveling with the Polish delegation to Russia for the 70th anniversary of the massacre of Polish prisoners of war in the village of Katyn. Some 20,000 Polish officers were executed there during World War II.
The Polish military plane originated in Warsaw, the Polish Defense Ministry said. It was approaching the airport at Smolensk -- just a few miles east of Katyn -- and probably hit some trees at the end of the runway, Paszkowski said.
The Investigation Committee of the Russian prosecutor's office said the plane, a Tupolev-154, was trying to land in heavy fog.
Kaczynski's Law and Justice Party released a list of some of those it said were killed in the crash. They included Aleksander Szczyglo, the head of the National Security Office; Jerzy Szmajdzinski, the deputy parliament speaker; Andrzej Kremer, the deputy foreign minister; and Gen. Franciszek Gagor, the army chief of staff, according to the party.
"The entire top military brass, including the chief of defense and all the services, were on the plane," said Tomas Valasek, of the Center for European Reform. "If that is true, then you're looking at a situation, in effect, of the decapitation of the military services."
Pictures from the scene showed parts of the airplane charred and strewn through a wooded area. Some pieces, including one of the wheel wells, were upside down.
The crash happened around 10:50 a.m. (2:50 a.m. ET) on the outskirts of the town of Pechorsk, just outside of Smolensk, the Investigation Committee said.
"This is a time of great national tragedy," Komorowski told reporters. "At this time there are no political differences, left or right. This is a time of national mourning."
Kaczynski had been president since December 2005 after he defeated rival Donald Tusk in the second round of voting. Tusk is currently prime minister.
Crowds gathered at the presidential palace in Warsaw to lay flowers and light candles for the president, whose death raises questions for Poland's government.
"Everything has changed today," said Jan Mikruta, a reporter for TV Polsat.
Tusk and Polish Cabinet ministers were holding a special meeting Saturday morning to discuss the situation, said a spokeswoman for the Polish Parliament, who declined to be named because she was not authorized to speak publicly.
Elections must now be held within 60 days, said Dariusz Rosati, Poland's former foreign minister.
"There is going to be a huge gap in public life in Poland," said resident Magdalena Hendrysiak. "The most important people are dead."
At the same time, Hendrysiak said, the president's death may have a unifying effect.
"I think it will be one of those situations that no one will care about their political preferences," she told CNN. "I think we're going to end up as pretty united in the face of such a tragedy."
Valasek pointed out, however, that the Polish president is the head of state, not head of government -- meaning essential services will continue to run.
"The role of the Polish president is not quite ceremonial ... he has some very real powers, but at the end of the day, the day-to-day running of the government is in the hands of the prime minister and the (cabinet) ministers," Valasek said. "Continuity is assured in ways that would not necessarily be assured in the case of the death of the U.S. president."
Condolences poured in from around the world Saturday, including from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was campaigning in Scotland.
Brown praised the contributions Kaczynski had made to Polish independence.
"This is a horrible tragedy," said Philip Crowley, the U.S. assistant secretary for public affairs. "We extend to the people of Poland our deepest condolences."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he learned of Kaczynski's death with "great emotion and a deep sadness" and expressed his sympathy to the families of the president and other victims.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai also expressed his condolences, as did the chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
"I offer my deepest condolences to the Polish people and to the families of those killed in this tragic accident. Our hearts go out to you in this difficult time," said OSCE Chairman Kaunat Saudabayev, who is also the secretary of state and foreign minister of Kazakhstan.
Valasek said the crash is a tragic coincidence, since the Polish officials were on their way to commemorate the deaths of top Polish officials at Katyn 70 years ago.
"The very fact that he was on his way to (commemorate) the massacre suggested that Polish-Russian relations, which of course had been very poor over the past 20 years, were on the way towards improvement," Valasek said. "A shared tragedy of this sort could give a boost to further improvement in Polish-Russian relations, which ... were on the mend, and this tragedy might accelerate that trend."
MAIN IDEA PRACTICE
WHAT IS THE MAIN IDEA OF THE FOLLOWING READING?
Bedbugs and other pests: The ugly side of city lifeBy Catriona Davies for CNN
London, England (CNN) -- After a night in a San Francisco motel three years ago, Maciej Ceglowski awoke covered in bedbug bites.
The experience, which he says gave him around 20 large itchy bites and weeks of paranoia, had such a psychological impact on him that he was moved to start a Web site to warn others of the bugs lurking in hotels and apartment blocks across the United States and Canada.
Ceglowski, 34, a computer programmer who now lives in Romania, told CNN: "I realized that there was no effective treatment for bedbugs except avoidance. I thought I could help people by warning them about the dangers and where there are bedbug infestations."
He says his Web site, The Bedbug Registry, now receives between 10,000 and 15,000 visitors daily and up to 100 reports a day of infestations in hotels and apartment blocks, mainly in New York, San Francisco, Toronto and Vancouver.
Ceglowski's battle against bedbugs is part of a wider problem facing urban areas: the rise of pests.
With more than half of the world's population now living in cities, it's a problem that's affecting city dwellers globally and which can pose significant health challenges.
"Fifteen years ago, bedbugs were thought to be history in most developed countries. But they have now bounced back across the world," Clive Boase, a pest management consultant, said.
Bedbug expert David Cain estimates that reports of infestations tripled in UK cities between 2003 and 2007.
The problem has become a global one as bedbugs cross international borders on people and their belongings.
Stephen Doggett, an entomologist at Westmead Hospital, Sydney, reported a 400 percent increase in the number of bedbug samples submitted between 2001 and 2004.
"The data presented here probably only represent the 'tip of the iceberg,'" he wrote in a paper published in the journal Environmental Health Australia.
Cain told CNN that he believes this increase was down to tourists coming to see the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
It's not just bedbugs that are causing headaches. Pests from foxes and mosquitoes to rats, pigeons and cockroaches are thriving in rapidly expanding metropolises.
See how urban populations have exploded
Increasing urbanization, along with global travel and climate change, are providing rich pickings for these pests.
"Modern city living conditions are pretty attractive to most pests," Boase told CNN. "We produce waste, heat our homes and flush waste into our drains and sewers."
Some pests, such as bedbugs, are an irritation. Others, like rats and mosquitoes, carry disease and pose a major public health risk.
There has been a 33 percent increase in calls to pest companies about rat problems in the last year alone in London, according to Peter Crowden, chairman of the UK's National Pest Technicians Association.
"Since we stopped feeding human food waste to animals, a tremendous amount has ended up in our sewers through waste disposal units," he said.
"I have seen whole chicken carcasses on people's compost heaps, and of course, that attracts rats," Crowden added.
Pigeons and foxes, too, are widespread and can cause public health concerns.
Crowden said: "Pigeons carry the same diseases as rats. Their droppings can also cause respiratory problems."
Foxes have increasingly moved into cities with the availability of food. Their fleas and ticks can be passed to domestic pets.
Crowden told CNN that most pest controllers he knew were reluctant to tackle them, fearing objections from animal rights campaigners. "I stopped dealing with foxes about 10 years ago," he said, "when I started getting death threats."
In areas where there is poor infrastructure, the health risks can be even greater, according to Boase, who advises public bodies, as well as food and waste companies.
"In developing countries, cities are growing very fast as people pour in from the country, and there is often very little urban planning," he said.
With urban populations forecast to swell over the next few decades, the problem doesn't appear to be going away anytime soon.
The proportion of the world's population living in cities will rise to 70 percent by 2050, according to the World Health Organization. By comparison, that figure was 40 percent in 1980.
Each particular urban pest and each particular city has its own individual causes and solutions, Boase said.
In tropical cities, for instance, the biggest -- and fastest growing -- pest is mosquitoes carrying dengue fever, a disease that can be fatal if it's not treated properly.
"Anything that carries so much as a cup of water can provide a habitat for these mosquitoes, and they cause millions of cases of dengue fever," he said.
But the problems across the globe have more similarities than differences, according to Boase.
"Public health and environmental health are seen as rather dirty subjects that people don't really want to think about," he said.
"But it is vital that city authorities pay more attention to public health and pest control, rather than leaving it to private companies who can only deal with each case on its own."
Bedbugs and other pests: The ugly side of city lifeBy Catriona Davies for CNN
London, England (CNN) -- After a night in a San Francisco motel three years ago, Maciej Ceglowski awoke covered in bedbug bites.
The experience, which he says gave him around 20 large itchy bites and weeks of paranoia, had such a psychological impact on him that he was moved to start a Web site to warn others of the bugs lurking in hotels and apartment blocks across the United States and Canada.
Ceglowski, 34, a computer programmer who now lives in Romania, told CNN: "I realized that there was no effective treatment for bedbugs except avoidance. I thought I could help people by warning them about the dangers and where there are bedbug infestations."
He says his Web site, The Bedbug Registry, now receives between 10,000 and 15,000 visitors daily and up to 100 reports a day of infestations in hotels and apartment blocks, mainly in New York, San Francisco, Toronto and Vancouver.
Ceglowski's battle against bedbugs is part of a wider problem facing urban areas: the rise of pests.
With more than half of the world's population now living in cities, it's a problem that's affecting city dwellers globally and which can pose significant health challenges.
"Fifteen years ago, bedbugs were thought to be history in most developed countries. But they have now bounced back across the world," Clive Boase, a pest management consultant, said.
Bedbug expert David Cain estimates that reports of infestations tripled in UK cities between 2003 and 2007.
The problem has become a global one as bedbugs cross international borders on people and their belongings.
Stephen Doggett, an entomologist at Westmead Hospital, Sydney, reported a 400 percent increase in the number of bedbug samples submitted between 2001 and 2004.
"The data presented here probably only represent the 'tip of the iceberg,'" he wrote in a paper published in the journal Environmental Health Australia.
Cain told CNN that he believes this increase was down to tourists coming to see the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
It's not just bedbugs that are causing headaches. Pests from foxes and mosquitoes to rats, pigeons and cockroaches are thriving in rapidly expanding metropolises.
See how urban populations have exploded
Increasing urbanization, along with global travel and climate change, are providing rich pickings for these pests.
"Modern city living conditions are pretty attractive to most pests," Boase told CNN. "We produce waste, heat our homes and flush waste into our drains and sewers."
Some pests, such as bedbugs, are an irritation. Others, like rats and mosquitoes, carry disease and pose a major public health risk.
There has been a 33 percent increase in calls to pest companies about rat problems in the last year alone in London, according to Peter Crowden, chairman of the UK's National Pest Technicians Association.
"Since we stopped feeding human food waste to animals, a tremendous amount has ended up in our sewers through waste disposal units," he said.
"I have seen whole chicken carcasses on people's compost heaps, and of course, that attracts rats," Crowden added.
Pigeons and foxes, too, are widespread and can cause public health concerns.
Crowden said: "Pigeons carry the same diseases as rats. Their droppings can also cause respiratory problems."
Foxes have increasingly moved into cities with the availability of food. Their fleas and ticks can be passed to domestic pets.
Crowden told CNN that most pest controllers he knew were reluctant to tackle them, fearing objections from animal rights campaigners. "I stopped dealing with foxes about 10 years ago," he said, "when I started getting death threats."
In areas where there is poor infrastructure, the health risks can be even greater, according to Boase, who advises public bodies, as well as food and waste companies.
"In developing countries, cities are growing very fast as people pour in from the country, and there is often very little urban planning," he said.
With urban populations forecast to swell over the next few decades, the problem doesn't appear to be going away anytime soon.
The proportion of the world's population living in cities will rise to 70 percent by 2050, according to the World Health Organization. By comparison, that figure was 40 percent in 1980.
Each particular urban pest and each particular city has its own individual causes and solutions, Boase said.
In tropical cities, for instance, the biggest -- and fastest growing -- pest is mosquitoes carrying dengue fever, a disease that can be fatal if it's not treated properly.
"Anything that carries so much as a cup of water can provide a habitat for these mosquitoes, and they cause millions of cases of dengue fever," he said.
But the problems across the globe have more similarities than differences, according to Boase.
"Public health and environmental health are seen as rather dirty subjects that people don't really want to think about," he said.
"But it is vital that city authorities pay more attention to public health and pest control, rather than leaving it to private companies who can only deal with each case on its own."
PRACTICE READINGS
READING #1
Niagara Falls Was Once Just a Trickle
Posted September 15, 2009
By Sid Perkins, Science News
The thundering roar at the base of Niagara Falls is awesome indeed. On an average summer day, about 40 million gallons of water spill over the half-mile–wide Canadian portion of the cataract each minute. After falling over a cliff taller than a 16-story building, water pummels the rocks below, incessantly eroding the base of the cliff and triggering rockfalls. Before the 20th century, when engineers weakened the Niagara River by diverting some of its flow to produce hydroelectric power, the falls marched upstream an average of more than a meter per year.
Niagara Falls is one of the last links in an impressive chain: Water flows from Lake Superior and Lake Michigan to Lake Huron, onward to Lake Erie, then down the Niagara River and over the falls to Lake Ontario and thence to the sea. Today the falls seem unstoppable, but scientists have learned that there was a time after the most recent ice age when Niagara Falls was a mere trickle and the Great Lakes were a little less great.
DESCRIBE THE TONE OF THIS PASSAGE.
READING #2
Controversial plan for solar thermal power facility in Mojave Desert dropped
September 17, 2009 1:46 pm Latimes.com
BrightSource Energy Inc. today said it has scrapped a controversial plan to build a major solar thermal power facility in eastern Mojave Desert wilderness that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.) wants to transform into a national monument.
The announcement ended a long-running dispute between backers of renewable energy and environmentalists strongly opposed to the idea of creating an industrial zone within 600,000 acres of former railroad lands that had been donated to the Department of Interior for conservation.
The acrimony even triggered a nasty public squabble between Robert Kennedy Jr., a senior advisor at VantagePoint Venture Partners, which raised $160 million for BrightSource, and David Myers, executive director of the Wildlands Conservancy, which raised $40 million to buy the railroad lands and protect them from development.
LOOK UP THE WORD ACRIMONY.
READING #3
Polish PM wouldn't take U.S. calls
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed today that he declined last night to take a call from the U.S. informing him of the decision to scrap planned missile-defense bases in his country.
Two U.S.-based sources close to the Polish government said Thursday that Tusk also rejected a call from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — on the grounds that, as the head of the government, he should speak to the president.
"Hillary called — and the reason he turned it down was because of protocol," said a source.
Questions about the exchanges surfaced in the Polish press after Obama reached the Czech prime minister late last night to warn of the policy change, but did not speak to the Pole until this morning. And the static offers a glimpse at the distress beneath the diplomatic facade being offered by Eastern European leaders.
Polish Radio reports today that Tusk confirmed an earlier press report that he hadn't taken Obama's call but denied it was due to "technical difficulties."
Tusk said he declined to speak with President Obama during the night because he wanted to “properly prepare for the discussion."
A Polish Embassy spokesman noted that Tusk ultimately spoke to Obama, while Clinton spoke to the country's foreign minister.
A State Department spokesman didn't respond to an email seeking comment on the episode.
The Polish preparation may have paid off however: They are reportedly angling for an American commitment of Patriot missile systems based in Poland, which Poles see, like the larger missile-defense bases, as a partial guarantee against Russian agression (despite American denials that the defenses are aimed at Russia).
"I would not describe what is going on today as a defeat for Poland," Tusk told reporters in Warsaw, according to the AP, saying Obama had signaled that "Poland has a chance to win an exclusive position" in the new system.
WHAT IS THE MAIN IDEA OF THIS PASSAGE?
READING #4
Economic Recovery: Are We Already On Our Way?
By Heather Horn on April 09, 2010
Is everyone being unduly pessimistic about the economy?The New York Times' Floyd Norris thinks so. Examining the indicators, he says the U.S. economy is showing the same signs it did when on the rebound from the past two recessions. So why do politicians still sound so downcast about the economy? The only explanations he can think of are that economists "embarrassed by missing impending disaster," are "[hesitant] to appear foolishly optimistic again," while at the same time, both political parties stand to profit from negativity:
Republicans are loath to give President Obama credit for anything, and no doubt grate when he points to his administration's stimulus program as a cause of the good economic news, as he did in North Carolina.
Democrats would love to give the president credit. But much of the Democratic Party wants another stimulus bill to be passed, notwithstanding worries about budget deficits. Chances for that are not enhanced by the perception the economy is getting better.
So is Norris right about the economy? A few agree that politics does play a role in lingering pessimism, but there are many who disagree as well.
•Partly Right, But Proceed with Caution "He's right that the American economy has almost certainly exited recession," says Ryan Avent at The Economist. But he's "silly in chiding Barack Obama for being cautious about declaring as much, given the state of the labour market." Furthermore, "now is no time to declare victory and take a vacation." He graphs employment with population growth in mind to point out just how miniscule Norris's 0.8% increase in employment actually is.
•Seconded: What About Jobs? The New Republic's Jonathan Chait also objects to Norris's arguments when it comes to employment. Norris, writes Chait, assumes that "the recovery will bring a relatively quick resurgence in jobs." But that's not what actually happened in the last two recoveries.
•Jobs Indeed The Atlantic's Dan Indiviglio argues that, between "the structural changes in the economy and depths of underemployment," the "steep recovery" in employment Norris is counting on seems unlikely.
•Fair Enough Finance blogger and quantitative research expert Barry Ritholtz ultimately shares Norris's optimism, although he expects a downswing--"a 20-30% correction"--from current highs. "The danger for both bulls and bears is bringing their bias to the table, and missing the risk or the opportunity of the moment."
•Darn Right I'm Pessimistic On Yahoo! Finance's Tech Ticker, Howard Davidowitz delivers a memorable Cassandra monologue, whose "bottom line,"after going through the indicators, is this:
We're headed to financial instability; our credit rating will be under siege; the dollar will be headed not to be the world's reserve currency in five to six years. We're weaker than we've ever been. We look more and more like Zimbabwe than we did before, and I see nothing on the horizon to fix it.
READING #5
China reports first trade deficit in six years
(CNN) -- China recorded a $7.24 billion trade deficit in March, the General Administration of Customs announced Saturday, according to state media Xinhua News Agency.
It was the country's first monthly trade deficit since April 2004, Xinhua reported.
China exported $112.11 billion worth of goods and services in the month of March -- an increase of 24.3 percent year on year, and imports rose 66 percent year on year to $119.35 billion, Xinhua reported.
In March, imports and exports increased by 42.8 percent year on year to $231.46 billion, according to the customs statistics.
Combining the first three months, China still recorded a trade surplus of $14.49 billion in the first quarter, a fall of 76.7 percent from the same period of last year, Xinhua reported.
In the first quarter, China's imports and exports totaled $617.85 billion -- a rise of 44.1 percent year on year, Xinhua reported.
READING #5
Medical dart missing after attempt to euthanize whale
By Meg Miller, CNN
(CNN) -- Police were searching for a wildlife medical dart off the coast of New York on Friday after an unsuccessful attempt to euthanize a beached baby humpback whale Thursday night, according to East Hampton Village Police Chief Jerry Larsen.
The dart bounced off the whale and ricocheted into the Atlantic Ocean.
Larsen said Friday afternoon that the dart is encased in stainless steel but that it could pose a serious danger to swimmers in the months ahead.
"We're sending divers ... to retrieve the needle as soon as the surf dies down," Larsen said. Police also closed the area of beach, saying the dart might wash ashore.
The whale was found on Main Beach in East Hampton on Tuesday and was deemed too sick to save, according to Charles Bowman, president of the Long Island-based Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation.
"The whale was debilitated," Bowman said. "It was a thin and a young juvenile still dependent on its mother and couldn't survive on its own."
By Friday, the whale was unable to free itself from the beach, and Bowman's foundation advised the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that it was appropriate to euthanize the whale.
"It's heartbreaking for us. We're used to saving animals, getting them back in the ocean," Bowman said. "It's just one of these situations that there's just no chance for it, [and we are] trying to get people to recognize that."
A NOAA official shot and killed the whale Friday morning.
Niagara Falls Was Once Just a Trickle
Posted September 15, 2009
By Sid Perkins, Science News
The thundering roar at the base of Niagara Falls is awesome indeed. On an average summer day, about 40 million gallons of water spill over the half-mile–wide Canadian portion of the cataract each minute. After falling over a cliff taller than a 16-story building, water pummels the rocks below, incessantly eroding the base of the cliff and triggering rockfalls. Before the 20th century, when engineers weakened the Niagara River by diverting some of its flow to produce hydroelectric power, the falls marched upstream an average of more than a meter per year.
Niagara Falls is one of the last links in an impressive chain: Water flows from Lake Superior and Lake Michigan to Lake Huron, onward to Lake Erie, then down the Niagara River and over the falls to Lake Ontario and thence to the sea. Today the falls seem unstoppable, but scientists have learned that there was a time after the most recent ice age when Niagara Falls was a mere trickle and the Great Lakes were a little less great.
DESCRIBE THE TONE OF THIS PASSAGE.
READING #2
Controversial plan for solar thermal power facility in Mojave Desert dropped
September 17, 2009 1:46 pm Latimes.com
BrightSource Energy Inc. today said it has scrapped a controversial plan to build a major solar thermal power facility in eastern Mojave Desert wilderness that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.) wants to transform into a national monument.
The announcement ended a long-running dispute between backers of renewable energy and environmentalists strongly opposed to the idea of creating an industrial zone within 600,000 acres of former railroad lands that had been donated to the Department of Interior for conservation.
The acrimony even triggered a nasty public squabble between Robert Kennedy Jr., a senior advisor at VantagePoint Venture Partners, which raised $160 million for BrightSource, and David Myers, executive director of the Wildlands Conservancy, which raised $40 million to buy the railroad lands and protect them from development.
LOOK UP THE WORD ACRIMONY.
READING #3
Polish PM wouldn't take U.S. calls
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed today that he declined last night to take a call from the U.S. informing him of the decision to scrap planned missile-defense bases in his country.
Two U.S.-based sources close to the Polish government said Thursday that Tusk also rejected a call from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — on the grounds that, as the head of the government, he should speak to the president.
"Hillary called — and the reason he turned it down was because of protocol," said a source.
Questions about the exchanges surfaced in the Polish press after Obama reached the Czech prime minister late last night to warn of the policy change, but did not speak to the Pole until this morning. And the static offers a glimpse at the distress beneath the diplomatic facade being offered by Eastern European leaders.
Polish Radio reports today that Tusk confirmed an earlier press report that he hadn't taken Obama's call but denied it was due to "technical difficulties."
Tusk said he declined to speak with President Obama during the night because he wanted to “properly prepare for the discussion."
A Polish Embassy spokesman noted that Tusk ultimately spoke to Obama, while Clinton spoke to the country's foreign minister.
A State Department spokesman didn't respond to an email seeking comment on the episode.
The Polish preparation may have paid off however: They are reportedly angling for an American commitment of Patriot missile systems based in Poland, which Poles see, like the larger missile-defense bases, as a partial guarantee against Russian agression (despite American denials that the defenses are aimed at Russia).
"I would not describe what is going on today as a defeat for Poland," Tusk told reporters in Warsaw, according to the AP, saying Obama had signaled that "Poland has a chance to win an exclusive position" in the new system.
WHAT IS THE MAIN IDEA OF THIS PASSAGE?
READING #4
Economic Recovery: Are We Already On Our Way?
By Heather Horn on April 09, 2010
Is everyone being unduly pessimistic about the economy?The New York Times' Floyd Norris thinks so. Examining the indicators, he says the U.S. economy is showing the same signs it did when on the rebound from the past two recessions. So why do politicians still sound so downcast about the economy? The only explanations he can think of are that economists "embarrassed by missing impending disaster," are "[hesitant] to appear foolishly optimistic again," while at the same time, both political parties stand to profit from negativity:
Republicans are loath to give President Obama credit for anything, and no doubt grate when he points to his administration's stimulus program as a cause of the good economic news, as he did in North Carolina.
Democrats would love to give the president credit. But much of the Democratic Party wants another stimulus bill to be passed, notwithstanding worries about budget deficits. Chances for that are not enhanced by the perception the economy is getting better.
So is Norris right about the economy? A few agree that politics does play a role in lingering pessimism, but there are many who disagree as well.
•Partly Right, But Proceed with Caution "He's right that the American economy has almost certainly exited recession," says Ryan Avent at The Economist. But he's "silly in chiding Barack Obama for being cautious about declaring as much, given the state of the labour market." Furthermore, "now is no time to declare victory and take a vacation." He graphs employment with population growth in mind to point out just how miniscule Norris's 0.8% increase in employment actually is.
•Seconded: What About Jobs? The New Republic's Jonathan Chait also objects to Norris's arguments when it comes to employment. Norris, writes Chait, assumes that "the recovery will bring a relatively quick resurgence in jobs." But that's not what actually happened in the last two recoveries.
•Jobs Indeed The Atlantic's Dan Indiviglio argues that, between "the structural changes in the economy and depths of underemployment," the "steep recovery" in employment Norris is counting on seems unlikely.
•Fair Enough Finance blogger and quantitative research expert Barry Ritholtz ultimately shares Norris's optimism, although he expects a downswing--"a 20-30% correction"--from current highs. "The danger for both bulls and bears is bringing their bias to the table, and missing the risk or the opportunity of the moment."
•Darn Right I'm Pessimistic On Yahoo! Finance's Tech Ticker, Howard Davidowitz delivers a memorable Cassandra monologue, whose "bottom line,"after going through the indicators, is this:
We're headed to financial instability; our credit rating will be under siege; the dollar will be headed not to be the world's reserve currency in five to six years. We're weaker than we've ever been. We look more and more like Zimbabwe than we did before, and I see nothing on the horizon to fix it.
READING #5
China reports first trade deficit in six years
(CNN) -- China recorded a $7.24 billion trade deficit in March, the General Administration of Customs announced Saturday, according to state media Xinhua News Agency.
It was the country's first monthly trade deficit since April 2004, Xinhua reported.
China exported $112.11 billion worth of goods and services in the month of March -- an increase of 24.3 percent year on year, and imports rose 66 percent year on year to $119.35 billion, Xinhua reported.
In March, imports and exports increased by 42.8 percent year on year to $231.46 billion, according to the customs statistics.
Combining the first three months, China still recorded a trade surplus of $14.49 billion in the first quarter, a fall of 76.7 percent from the same period of last year, Xinhua reported.
In the first quarter, China's imports and exports totaled $617.85 billion -- a rise of 44.1 percent year on year, Xinhua reported.
READING #5
Medical dart missing after attempt to euthanize whale
By Meg Miller, CNN
(CNN) -- Police were searching for a wildlife medical dart off the coast of New York on Friday after an unsuccessful attempt to euthanize a beached baby humpback whale Thursday night, according to East Hampton Village Police Chief Jerry Larsen.
The dart bounced off the whale and ricocheted into the Atlantic Ocean.
Larsen said Friday afternoon that the dart is encased in stainless steel but that it could pose a serious danger to swimmers in the months ahead.
"We're sending divers ... to retrieve the needle as soon as the surf dies down," Larsen said. Police also closed the area of beach, saying the dart might wash ashore.
The whale was found on Main Beach in East Hampton on Tuesday and was deemed too sick to save, according to Charles Bowman, president of the Long Island-based Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation.
"The whale was debilitated," Bowman said. "It was a thin and a young juvenile still dependent on its mother and couldn't survive on its own."
By Friday, the whale was unable to free itself from the beach, and Bowman's foundation advised the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that it was appropriate to euthanize the whale.
"It's heartbreaking for us. We're used to saving animals, getting them back in the ocean," Bowman said. "It's just one of these situations that there's just no chance for it, [and we are] trying to get people to recognize that."
A NOAA official shot and killed the whale Friday morning.
Friday, April 9, 2010
SKIMMING PRACTICE
Is Google Making Us Stupid? July/August 2008 ATLANTIC MAGAZINE
What the Internet is doing to our brains (excerpt from the article)
By Nicholas Carr
Here's the link so that you can read the whole thing:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/
"Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?” So the supercomputer HAL pleads with the implacable astronaut Dave Bowman in a famous and weirdly poignant scene toward the end of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Bowman, having nearly been sent to a deep-space death by the malfunctioning machine, is calmly, coldly disconnecting the memory circuits that control its artificial “ brain. “Dave, my mind is going,” HAL says, forlornly. “I can feel it. I can feel it.”
I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.
I think I know what’s going on. For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets’reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link. (Unlike footnotes, to which they’re sometimes likened, hyperlinks don’t merely point to related works; they propel you toward them.)
I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun mentioning the phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. “I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader,” he wrote. “What happened?” He speculates on the answer: “What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?”
As we are drained of our “inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance,” Foreman concluded, we risk turning into “‘pancake people’—spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.”
The kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author’s words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas. Deep reading, as Maryanne Wolf argues, is indistinguishable from deep thinking.
If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with “content,” we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture. In a recent essay, the playwright Richard Foreman eloquently described what’s at stake:
I’m haunted by that scene in 2001. What makes it so poignant, and so weird, is the computer’s emotional response to the disassembly of its mind: its despair as one circuit after another goes dark, its childlike pleading with the astronaut—“I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m afraid”—and its final reversion to what can only be called a state of innocence. HAL’s outpouring of feeling contrasts with the emotionlessness that characterizes the human figures in the film, who go about their business with an almost robotic efficiency. Their thoughts and actions feel scripted, as if they’re following the steps of an algorithm. In the world of 2001, people have become so machinelike that the most human character turns out to be a machine. That’s the essence of Kubrick’s dark prophecy: as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.
What the Internet is doing to our brains (excerpt from the article)
By Nicholas Carr
Here's the link so that you can read the whole thing:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/
"Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?” So the supercomputer HAL pleads with the implacable astronaut Dave Bowman in a famous and weirdly poignant scene toward the end of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Bowman, having nearly been sent to a deep-space death by the malfunctioning machine, is calmly, coldly disconnecting the memory circuits that control its artificial “ brain. “Dave, my mind is going,” HAL says, forlornly. “I can feel it. I can feel it.”
I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.
I think I know what’s going on. For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets’reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link. (Unlike footnotes, to which they’re sometimes likened, hyperlinks don’t merely point to related works; they propel you toward them.)
I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun mentioning the phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. “I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader,” he wrote. “What happened?” He speculates on the answer: “What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?”
As we are drained of our “inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance,” Foreman concluded, we risk turning into “‘pancake people’—spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.”
The kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author’s words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas. Deep reading, as Maryanne Wolf argues, is indistinguishable from deep thinking.
If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with “content,” we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture. In a recent essay, the playwright Richard Foreman eloquently described what’s at stake:
I’m haunted by that scene in 2001. What makes it so poignant, and so weird, is the computer’s emotional response to the disassembly of its mind: its despair as one circuit after another goes dark, its childlike pleading with the astronaut—“I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m afraid”—and its final reversion to what can only be called a state of innocence. HAL’s outpouring of feeling contrasts with the emotionlessness that characterizes the human figures in the film, who go about their business with an almost robotic efficiency. Their thoughts and actions feel scripted, as if they’re following the steps of an algorithm. In the world of 2001, people have become so machinelike that the most human character turns out to be a machine. That’s the essence of Kubrick’s dark prophecy: as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.
Moscow Mayor Promises a Winter Without Snow
By SIMON SHUSTER / MOSCOW Simon Shuster / Moscow
Sat Oct 17, 9:15 am ET
Pigs still can't fly, but this winter, the mayor of Moscow promises to keep it from snowing. For just a few million dollars, the mayor's office will hire the Russian Air Force to spray a fine chemical mist over the clouds before they reach the capital, forcing them to dump their snow outside the city. Authorities say this will be a boon for Moscow, which is typically covered with a blanket of snow from November to March. Road crews won't need to constantly clear the streets, and traffic - and quality of life - will undoubtedly improve.
The idea came from Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who is no stranger to playing God. In 2002, he spearheaded a project to reverse the flow of the vast River Ob through Siberia to help irrigate the country's parched Central Asian neighbors. Although that idea hasn't exactly turned out as planned - scientists have said it's not feasible - this time, Luzhkov says, there's no way he can fail. (See TIME's photo-essay "Vladimir Putin: Action Figure.")
Controlling the weather in Moscow is nothing new, he says. Ahead of the two main holidays celebrated in the city each year - Victory Day in May and City Day in September - the often cash-strapped air force is paid to make sure that it doesn't, well, rain on the parades. With a city budget of $40 billion a year (larger than New York City's budget), Moscow can easily afford the $2-3 million price tag to keep the skies blue as spectators watch the tanks and rocket launchers roll along Red Square. Now there's a new challenge for the air force: Moscow's notorious blizzards.
"You know how every year on City Day and Victory Day we create the weather?" Luzhkov asked a group of farmers outside Moscow in September, according to Russian media reports. "Well, we should do the same with the snow! Then outside Moscow there will be more moisture, a bigger harvest, while for us it won't snow as much. It will make financial sense." (See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory Day.)
The plan was unsurprisingly rubber-stamped this week by the Moscow City Council, which is dominated by Luzhkov's supporters. Then the city's Department of Housing and Public Works described how it would work. The air force will use cement powder, dry ice or silver iodide to spray the clouds from Nov. 15 to March 15 - and only to prevent "very big and serious snow" from falling on the city, said Andrei Tsybin, the head of the department. This could mean that a few flakes will manage to slip through the cracks. Tsybin estimated that the total cost of keeping the storms at bay would be $6 million this winter, roughly half the amount Moscow normally spends to clear the streets of snow.
So far the main objection to the plan has come from Moscow's suburbs, which will likely be inundated with snow if the plan goes forward. Alla Kachan, the Moscow region's ecology minister, said the proposal still needs to be assessed by environmental experts and discussed with the people living in the area before Luzhkov can enact it. "The citizens of the region have some concerns. We have received lots of messages," she told the RIA news agency. (Read TIME's 1991 article "The End of the U.S.S.R.")
With only a few weeks left before winter comes, environmentalists will have to work fast to keep Luzhkov from implementing his zaniest plan to date - and to stop the first snowflakes from wafting down to the city streets.
OUR OWN PRACTICE TEST (just for fun)
In paragraph 1, how is the mayor going to stop the snow?
In paragraph 2, the word “feasible” most nearly means
a. expensive
b. inexpensive
c. pleasant
d. probable
The author seems to think the mayor of Moscow is
a. a nut.
b. a visionary.
c. handsome.
d. used to the cold weather.
Sat Oct 17, 9:15 am ET
Pigs still can't fly, but this winter, the mayor of Moscow promises to keep it from snowing. For just a few million dollars, the mayor's office will hire the Russian Air Force to spray a fine chemical mist over the clouds before they reach the capital, forcing them to dump their snow outside the city. Authorities say this will be a boon for Moscow, which is typically covered with a blanket of snow from November to March. Road crews won't need to constantly clear the streets, and traffic - and quality of life - will undoubtedly improve.
The idea came from Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who is no stranger to playing God. In 2002, he spearheaded a project to reverse the flow of the vast River Ob through Siberia to help irrigate the country's parched Central Asian neighbors. Although that idea hasn't exactly turned out as planned - scientists have said it's not feasible - this time, Luzhkov says, there's no way he can fail. (See TIME's photo-essay "Vladimir Putin: Action Figure.")
Controlling the weather in Moscow is nothing new, he says. Ahead of the two main holidays celebrated in the city each year - Victory Day in May and City Day in September - the often cash-strapped air force is paid to make sure that it doesn't, well, rain on the parades. With a city budget of $40 billion a year (larger than New York City's budget), Moscow can easily afford the $2-3 million price tag to keep the skies blue as spectators watch the tanks and rocket launchers roll along Red Square. Now there's a new challenge for the air force: Moscow's notorious blizzards.
"You know how every year on City Day and Victory Day we create the weather?" Luzhkov asked a group of farmers outside Moscow in September, according to Russian media reports. "Well, we should do the same with the snow! Then outside Moscow there will be more moisture, a bigger harvest, while for us it won't snow as much. It will make financial sense." (See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory Day.)
The plan was unsurprisingly rubber-stamped this week by the Moscow City Council, which is dominated by Luzhkov's supporters. Then the city's Department of Housing and Public Works described how it would work. The air force will use cement powder, dry ice or silver iodide to spray the clouds from Nov. 15 to March 15 - and only to prevent "very big and serious snow" from falling on the city, said Andrei Tsybin, the head of the department. This could mean that a few flakes will manage to slip through the cracks. Tsybin estimated that the total cost of keeping the storms at bay would be $6 million this winter, roughly half the amount Moscow normally spends to clear the streets of snow.
So far the main objection to the plan has come from Moscow's suburbs, which will likely be inundated with snow if the plan goes forward. Alla Kachan, the Moscow region's ecology minister, said the proposal still needs to be assessed by environmental experts and discussed with the people living in the area before Luzhkov can enact it. "The citizens of the region have some concerns. We have received lots of messages," she told the RIA news agency. (Read TIME's 1991 article "The End of the U.S.S.R.")
With only a few weeks left before winter comes, environmentalists will have to work fast to keep Luzhkov from implementing his zaniest plan to date - and to stop the first snowflakes from wafting down to the city streets.
OUR OWN PRACTICE TEST (just for fun)
In paragraph 1, how is the mayor going to stop the snow?
In paragraph 2, the word “feasible” most nearly means
a. expensive
b. inexpensive
c. pleasant
d. probable
The author seems to think the mayor of Moscow is
a. a nut.
b. a visionary.
c. handsome.
d. used to the cold weather.
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