16. Answer the following questions to the text from Exercise 14.

1. Our inner voice can sometimes distract us when we are reading or writing.

2. The possibility of reading minds has both positive and negative implications.

3. Little progress was made in understanding electrical activity in the brain between 1924 and the mid-1990s.

4. Machines can be readily trained to interpret electrical signals from the brain that correspond to movements on a keyboard.

5. Much has been written about the potential use of speech synthesizers with paralyzed patients.

6. It has been proven that the perception and expression of speech occur in different parts of the brain.

16. Answer the following questions to the text from Exercise 14.

1. What does the underlined phrase 'broke new ground’ in line 44 mean?

a. built on the work of others.

b. produced unusual or unexpected results.

c. proved earlier theories on the subject to be false.

d. achieved something that had not been done before.

2. What was most significant about Leuthardt and Schalk’s work?

a. They succeeded in grouping certain phonemes into words.

b. They linked the production of phonemes to recognizable brain activity.

c. Their methods worked for speakers of languages other than English.

d. Their subjects were awake during the course of their experiments.

3. What does the writer conclude about mind reading?

a. It could become a form of entertainment.

b. It may contribute to studies on language acquisition.

c. Most people are keenly awaiting the possibility of doing it.

d. Mobile technologies may become unreliable because of it.

4. What is the main purpose of the writer of this passage?

a. To give an account of the developments in mind-reading research.

b. To show how scientists’ attitudes towards mind reading have changed.

c. To explain why mind-reading research should be given more funding.

d. To fully explore the arguments for and against mind reading.

4. PAST AND PRESENT

17. Read the text and answer the questions below it.

An Introduction to Digital Signals

Signals of any kind are a way to deliver a message to a destination. When digital signals transmit information, they do so by turning signals into code. This is binary code, which is very specific and easily quantified. When that code is sent via wave pulses, the transmission of the signal is very reliable. What makes this so reliable is the fact that digital signals are actually quite resistant to outside noise disturbances. While other kinds of communication will almost always be transmitted along with some kind of undesirable noise (making a recording much harder to hear), digital signals can be encoded and sent without too much outside interference. One of today’s commonly used devices made the switch from analog to digital signaling within the last 20 years. You might know it as the black box.

Component One of Black Box: the CVR

Many have heard of “the black box, ” a device used for recording what happens during an airplane’s flight. What most people don’t know is that the black box is really a common term for two pieces of recording equipment that are onboard every commercial and corporate airplane. The first is called a cockpit voice recorder, or CVR. The CVR is attached to multiple microphones located in the cockpit and it records any communication and all the sounds in the cockpit. In the case of an accident, the investigators who listen to a CVR recording can actually hear two things: first, what was said by the pilots and/or crew right before the incident; and second, the sounds in the background. Well-trained investigators can detect unusual engine noise, strange pops and other signals that help alert them to figure out what went wrong with the flight.

Component Two of the Black Box: the FDR

The second part of the so-called black box is the flight data recorder, or FDR. This piece of equipment does not record the people onboard, but all technical aspects of a flight. Sensors all over the plane detect and send information to a flight data acquisition unit which, in turn, is hooked up to the FDR. The FDR is usually attached to the plane’s tail, where it’s least likely to be damaged in case of an accident. In the U. S., the Federal Aviation Administration requires FDRs to record at least 88 parameters, or aspects, of a commercial flight. As a few examples, these parameters can include the time, altitude, airspeed, direction, movement of the flaps on the wings, the flow of fuel, and use of autopilot. Then, in case something happens, investigators can use this information to recreate a simulation of the entire flight, from takeoff to the incident. In conjunction with the information from the cockpit voice recorder, they can get a picture of what happened.