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10. Do the following statements agree with the views of the text writer? There are three possible options. Choose one option. Discuss your opinions with your groupmates.
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10. Do the following statements agree with the views of the text writer? There are three possible options. Choose one option. Discuss your opinions with your groupmates.
YES — if the statement agrees with the views of the writer;
NO — if the statement contradicts the views of the writer;
NOT GIVEN — if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this.
1. It is difficult to attract students onto courses that do not focus on a career.
2. The ‘Arson for Profit’ course would be useful for people intending to set fire to buildings.
3. Fire science courses are too academic to help people to be good at the job of firefighting.
4. The writer’s fire science students provided a detailed definition of the purpose of their studies.
11. Table 1. 1. contains word families for some academic words from the list above. Complete the table. An ‘X’ indicates that there is no form or that the form is not common. Sometimes more than one form may be possible. If you are unsure about a form, check Appendix 4. The first one is done for you.
Table 1. 1. Word Families for Module 1 Academic Word List
| Verb | Noun | Adjective | Adverb | Participle I, II |
| analyse | analysis (analyses) analyser(s) analyst(s) | analytic analytical | analytically | analysing analysed |
| distribute | ……… | ……… | ……… | ……… |
| ……… | ……… | significant | ……… | ……… |
| require | ……… | ……… | ……… | ……… |
| ……… | ……… | authoritative | ……… | ……… |
| X | availability(-ties) | ……… | ……… | X |
| ……… | ……… | similar | ……… | ……… |
| ……… | ……… | conceptual | ……… | ……… |
| ……… | ……… | ……… | ……… | consisting consisted |
| constitute | ……… | ……… | ……… | ……… |
| ……… | contractor(s) contract(s) | ……… | ……… | ……… |
| ……… | ……… | ……… | creatively | ……… |
| ……… | ……… | definable | ……… | (un)defined (re)defined |
| ……… | derivation(s) derivative(s) | ……… | ……… | ……… |
| establish | ……… | X | X | ……… |
| indicate | ……… | ……… | ……… | ……… |
| ……… | formula formulae formulas | X | X | ……… |
| ……… | ……… | interpretative | ……… | ……… |
| ……… | ……… | ……… | ……… | involving uninvolved |
| ……… | ……… | ……… | methodologically | ……… |
| ……… | ……… | procedural | ……… | ……… |
| ……… | researcher researchers research | X | X | ……… |
| ……… | ……… | ……… | legally illegally | ……… |
| ……… | specificity | ……… | ……… | ……… |
| structure restructure | ……… | ……… | ……… | ……… |
| X | theory, theories theorist(s) | ……… | ……… | X |
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12. Fill in the gaps with the appropriate words from the list.
periodically, indications, analyzed, availability, economical, research, contractually, illegality, factor, similarity, varies, context, authority, labor, export, requires income, significant, percentage, distribute
1. ________ of water is vital to all plant and animal life. 2. We need to find a more ________ way to manufacture our products because our profit margin is too low. 3. We have noticed a ________ improvement in Teddy’s attitude since you had a talk with him. 4. Warmer than average weather was the deciding ________ in our decision to postpone our ski trip. 5. Interest in the planet Mars has greatly increased since ________ of water raised the possibility that life in some form may have evolved there. 6. I think that the ________ of students that have to repeat a level in this program is usually about 25% or less. 7. Music downloaders are questioning the ________ of file sharing, claiming the law is unclear on the matter. 8. The amount of rain we receive ________ from year to year of course, but this year has been very dry. 9. Meetings will be held ________ for the members of the project to discuss their progress. 10. Jane Goodall’s ________ into chimpanzees has greatly increased our knowledge of these animals. 11. Management is meeting with ________ to begin discussions on a new contract. 12. We are ________ obliged to deal with this firm. 13. The DNA of chimpanzees shows a remarkable ________ to that of humans. 14. He is a well-known ________ on the language used by bees to communicate the location of food. 15. At the end of a research project, the researcher is normally faced with lots of observations which need to be ________. 16. Could you please ________ the answer sheets while I hand out the tests? 17. Vocabulary is generally easier to understand if you look at it in ________. 18. In the future, Canada will be under great pressure to ________ fresh water to the United States. 19. This airline seat-sale ________ you to book your ticket at least a month in advance. 20. It is generally quite difficult to raise a family on a single ________ in Canada today, so very often both parents work full-time.
3. SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AS RESOURCE
OF SOCIETY RENOVATION
13. Read the text and find out the impacts of science and technology on modern society. Do you agree with them? What other impacts can you name?
Impacts of Science and Technology on Society
Imagine you were born some 300 years ago, in the year 1700. Although this is very recent in terms of the billions of years of the existence of planet Earth, you would still have been living in a remarkably different world. You would never have been to a shopping mall. You would never have encountered the world of cars, railways, airplanes, telephones, cameras, computers, and TVs. And more than this, the idea of voting for your government, going to college, choosing your religion, or even choosing your identity would all have been rare. Welcome to the modern world!
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Life has certainly changed in 300 years, and sociology was born out of a concern with this rapidly changing character of the modern, industrial world: with where we have come from and where we are heading. For sociologists, the term society means “all the people who interact in a defined space and share culture. ” In this sense, both a continent like Europe and specific individual countries such as Norway or Japan may be seen as societies. Even humans living thousands of years ago were members of early human societies. Evidence of this comes from the discovery of the Iceman. Examining the Iceman's clothes, scientists were astonished at how advanced this ‘caveman’s’ society was. The Iceman's hair was neatly cut, and his body had numerous tattoos that probably symbolized his standing in the community. He wore a skillfully sewn leather coat over which a grass cape provided even greater protection from the weather. His shoes, also made of leather, were stuffed with grass for comfort and warmth. He carried with him an axe, a wood-handled knife, and a bow that shot feathered arrows with stone points. A primitive backpack held additional tools and personal items, including natural medicines made from plants. It is estimated that he died some 5, 300 years ago-before a great empire existed in Egypt, before the flowering of culture in ancient Greece, and before any society in Europe built a single city. As people who take for granted rapid transportation and instant global communication, we can look on this ancestor as a connection to our distant past.
Sociologists have identified great differences among societies that have flourished and declined throughout human history. They have observed how societies change over centuries as the people in them gain greater ability to manipulate their natural environment. Societies with basic technology can support only a small number of people who enjoy few choices about how to live. Technologically complex societies-while not necessarily ‘better’ in any absolute sense-develop large populations; people in these societies are likely to lead diverse, highly specialized lives.
The greater the amount of technological skill and knowledge a society has, the faster the rate at which the society changes. Technologically simple societies, then, change very slowly. Take, for example, some of the clothing worn by the Austrian Iceman. It differs only slightly from clothes used by shepherds in the same area of the world early in the twentieth century. In contrast to simpler societies, industrial, technologically advanced societies change so quickly that people witness remarkable transformations within their lifetimes. Again, consider some familiar elements of contemporary culture that would probably puzzle, delight, and possibly frighten people who lived just a few generations ago: fast food, faxes, mobile phones, computer games, artificial hearts, fiber optics, test-tube babies, and many, many others. Indeed, it is a strange modern world we live in-even when compared with the world of the recent past.
Consider also the countless consequences of technological change. When our ancestors first harnessed the power of the wind by using a sail, they set the stage for the invention of kites, sailing ships, windmills, and, eventually, airplanes. We are only now beginning to see how our modern lives are being changed by recent technologies like atomic energy or the computer.
Sociologists divide societies into five types according to their technologies: (1) hunting and gathering societies, (2) horticultural and pastoral societies, (3) agrarian societies, (4) industrial societies, and (5) post-industrial societies. Hunting and gathering societies use simple technologies to gather food from nature, such as hunting animals and picking berries. Horticultural and pastoral societies grow their own plants and raise animals to eat. Agrarian societies-which first appeared around the time of the Iceman-use technologies such as animal-drawn plows to farm on a larger scale. Agrarian societies were also the first to develop such technological innovations as irrigation, the wheel, writing, numbers, and expanded uses for metals.
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Industrial societies use technology that powers sophisticated machinery with advanced sources of energy. Before the industrial era, the major source of energy was the muscle power of humans and animals. In industrial societies, people learn mechanical skills so that they can operate the machinery needed to produce material goods. These societies transformed themselves more in a century than previous societies had in thousands of years. Post-industrial societies-like the ones many of us live in today-have developed technologies that support an information-based economy. People in these societies create, process, store, and apply information through the use of computers, fax machines, satellites, and other forms of communication technology.
Technology has a big impact on a society, but in itself it is neutral. People are the ones who decide how to use technology and whether it is used for good or bad purposes. Armed with the capacity to reshape the world, human societies must understand both the social benefits and problems caused by the desire for technological change. Furthermore, it is important to note that the five types of societies described above do not evolve from one type to another in an automatic process. In fact, in modern times, all of these societies may be said to coexist.
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