What changes has the Internet made to people's lives?

Do you think all of these changes have been positive? Why? I Why not?

EX 1 - You are going to read part of an article about the Internet. For questions 1-8, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think
fits best according to the text.

Has the Internet brought us together or driven us apart?

Over the last ten years, the Internet has totally transformed the world. But as we welcome this new-found connectedness, asks Johann Hari, are we
losing our culture?
Ten years ago, I sent my first email. On the day I joined the Internet club, there were 200 million people with email accounts. Today, there are 3.2
billion. It seemed to me then that it would not last long. Today, it seems like a second skin, spreading out over all my friends, all my colleagues,
and all the world. The Internet has transformed the way we think about ourselves - the groups we belong to, the information we know, even the
people we date. The story of this decade is the story of the World Wide Web.
It has transformed the way we interact with our friends. When I sent that first email, I was at university, and my main way of contacting my friends
if their phone was off was to leave a written note - on a piece of paper! - on their door. When I told this to my ten-year-old nephew, he was
astonished, as if I was describing how we had to hunt our own food and then cook it on an open fire built from damp branches.
Social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter are a genuinely new way of interacting: you can feel close to somebody without actually
speaking to them from one month to the next. It also keeps you aware of people who would normally have slipped away. I know, for example, that
the girl I used to sit next to at primary school spilled coffee on her laptop three hours ago, and a woman I met briefly in the Middle East watches
the same TV show as me. At some point in my life, some of these people will come back into real interaction with me, maybe, but for now they
remain a constant comforting source of background human chatter.
The web also contains a huge amount of information, but there's a catch. We expect this information to be free - no matter what it costs to produce.
This has virtually destroyed the newspaper and record industries, whose products are available online across the world for free. This is obviously
good news for the consumer in the short term - but only while enough other people pick up the bill by buying the print copies and CDs. As their
numbers decline, there will be a hole left. We will never know all the news stories that won't get written, or the songs that will never be recorded –
and there will be many.
In the time I have been writing this article, I have received 36 emails, four texts, two phone calls, and seven instant messenger chat requests. We
live in a state of 'permanent partial attention', where we are attempting to focus simultaneously on a whole range of things. But as human beings,
we're not very good at it.
We evolved to focus on one big task at a time. We can adjust to a degree: if you look at brain images of 'digital natives' - kids who were born in the
Internet age - they look different to us 'digital migrants', who came to it as adults. They can focus on more varied distractions for longer. But we
can only adjust so far.
There's another strange aspect to Internet communication: our manners haven't caught up. I find it much easier to get into arguments with people
online than I ever would on the phone, or in person. It's partly because you can't hear their tone of voice: you can read unfriendliness where there is
none. We write emails as casually as we make a phone call - but we read them with the seriousness with which we take a letter. Something written
in a casual second can be reread and reread for hours.
As I was trying to think through all the complexities of the Internet, I had a thought. What if we logged on tomorrow and the Internet had
vanished? Would we be relieved to be suddenly freed from the endless arrival of emails and updates? Would we find our concentration spans
mysteriously widening again? Would we see the newspaper and record industries rise again, as people had to pay for their goods once more?
Maybe. But I suspect we would feel oddly alone if the great global conversation with 3.2 billion other people - the conversation that has defined
this century so far - went dead.

1 What does the author say about the first time he went online?
A His friends were already using email to contact each other. B He realised that the Internet would change us as people.
C His first impression of the Internet turned out to be wrong. D He had heard that Internet dating was becoming very popular.
2 The writer mentions talking to his nephew to show how much
A we have changed the way we do household tasks. B the Internet has changed human communication.
C mobile phones have changed in the last ten years. D the importance of friendship has changed.
3 What relationship does the writer now have with his ex-classmate?
A He follows what she says about her life on a website. B He is sure that one day they will become much closer.
C He feels quite close to her although they rarely talk. D He has heard nothing about her for a very long time.
4 What is the writer's attitude to free online news and music?
A The public will always continue to benefit from access to it. B It will mean higher prices for people who still buy newspapers and records.
C It will eventually reduce the amount of both reporting and composing.
D The only losers from it will be media organisations and record companies.
5 What does 'it' in line 22 refer to?
A concentrating on different matters at the same time B behaving in the way a human being is expected to
C giving all our attention to one subject for a short time D communicating with people in different ways
6 The writer uses the expression 'digital migrants' in line 24 to mean people who
A came from countries where Internet use was less common. B can adapt more easily to the nature of Internet communications.
C think that children who use the Internet are not like them. D never had the opportunity in their childhood to go online.
7 Why, according to the writer, can an email anger people so easily?
A The reader takes less care reading it than the writer has writing it. B People who send emails are often less polite than letter writers.
C It is more likely than a letter or phone call to be unfriendly. D The reader assumes the writer has given a lot of thought to it.
8 What point is the writer making in the final paragraph?
A People are starting to wish the Internet had never been invented. B It is now impossible to undo any of the harm the Internet has caused.
C People need the communication with others that the Internet provides. D One day we will have to learn to live in a world that has no Internet.
EX 2 - Replace the underlined active verbs with passive forms. Use by only where necessary.
When (1) you warm a meal up in a microwave oven, (2) the food absorbs radio waves and these are converted into heat. While (3) it is
cooking the meal, only the food gets hot. So when (4) it has heated the food up, the dish, glass or plastic container will still be relatively
cool, as (5) these materials will not have absorbed the radio waves. This means that (6) we can describe microwaving as quite an efficient
use of electricity.
Although (7) we often think of the microwave as a fairly modern appliance, in fact (8) someone invented it back in 1945. The first
microwaves were huge, nearly two metres high, but (9) restaurants were already using them in the 1950s. Within twenty years
manufacturers were producing much smaller models, and by 1975 (10) they had sold over a million in the USA alone.

EX 3 - For questions 1-12, read the text below and decide which answer (A, B, C or D) best fits each gap. There is an example at
the beginning (0). Example: 0 A fired B launched C flown D lifted

What on Earth would we do without satellites?

Since the first satellites were (0) B by rocket over 50 years ago, the number of communications satellites in space has increased
enormously.
Nowadays they (1)__ a vital part in the growing international information network. As part of (2) __positioning systems they tell us
where we are on the planet, and can help save lives by, for instance, directing the emergency (3) __to the scene of an accident. Satellites
can also assist in search and rescue operations, by picking up signals from missing ships or aircraft. Mathematical (4) __are then used to
work out their exact location.
Satellites are essential for accurate weather forecasting, which they do by taking (5) __ of temperatures, wind speeds and major weather
systems, and also for space (6) __. Because they are above the Earth’s atmosphere, right on the edge of (7) __space, telescopes on
satellites can see distant objects up to ten (8) __ more clearly than they could from the surface of the Earth.
We rely, too, on satellites to make (9) __ phone calls, and in some remote regions they make it possible for us to (10) __ the Internet. And
of course many people watch TV programmes (11) __ from the other side of the world thanks to satellites, which enable (12) __ to watch
hundreds of channels in a whole variety of languages.
1 A perform B lead C play D carry
2 A global B universal C regional D external
3 A brigades B services C agencies D departments
4 A combinations B applications C calculations D demonstrations
5 A statements B attachments C assessments D measurements
6 A exploration B appreciation C examination D investigation
7 A outer B further C broader D fainter
8 A points B times C items D numbers
9 A long-running B long-range C long-term D long-distance
10 A connect B link C access D log
11 A published B browsed C displayed D broadcast
12 A viewers B observers C witnesses D spectators

EX 4 - For questions 1-12, read the text below and decide which answer (A, B, C or D) best fits each gap. There is an example at
the beginning (0). Example: 0 A plain B blank C bare D vacant
Losing my link with the Internet
Last Friday afternoon, without any warning, the screen on my desktop computer suddenly went (0) B. I had been (1) __ the Web when it
happened, while also (2) __ several other programs at the same time, so my first thought was that the computer had (3) __.
But when I checked other (4) __, such as word processing and the music player, I realised that it was just the webpage which had stopped
working, so I tried to (5) __ to the Internet again. This time the only thing on the screen was a message saying 'the
internet browser cannot (6) __ the webpage'.
Realising that I might have a (7) __ problem, I moved the PC away from the wall and looked to see whether the broadband (8) __ had
come loose, but it was fine. I wondered then whether my computer had become a victim of one of those (9) __ you can get online so I
used my anti-virus software to check the (10) __ drive, but everything seemed normal.
Finally, I decided to call the helpline of the shop where I'd bought the computer. By then it was late on Friday and not surprisingly the
line was (11) __ for ages, but when at last I managed to speak to someone they suggested I should switch off and then restart my PC. I
did so, and within seconds of clicking on the browser icon I found I was able to (12) __ the Internet again. If only I had thought of that
earlier, I would have saved myself a lot of time.
1 A riding B sailing C surfing D cruising
2 A running B driving C operating D performing
3 A cracked B tripped C collapsed D crashed
4 A variations B applications C publications D communications
5 A key in B log on C plug into D load up
6 A present B offer C display D provide
7 A connection B composition C conjunction D combination
8 A string B rope C cable D chain
9 A bugs B diseases C stains D faults
10 A firm B solid Chard D fixed
11 A occupied B committed C employed D engaged
12 A board B access C join D enter

KEYS: EX 1: 1 C – 2 B – 3 A – 4 C – 5 A – 6 D – 7 D – 8 C; EX 2: 1 a meal is warmed up 2 radio waves are absorbed by the food 3 the meal is being cooked 4 the food has been
heated up 5 the radio waves will not have been absorbed by these materials 6 microwaving can be described 7 the microwave is often thought of 8 it was invented 9 they were
already being used by restaurants 10 over a million had been sold; EX 3: 1 C – 2 A – 3 B – 4 C – 5 D – 6 A – 7 A – 8 B – 9 D – 10 C – 11 D – 12 A; EX 4: 1 C – 2 A – 3 D – 4 B – 5
B – 6 C – 7 A – 8 C – 9 A – 10 C – 11 D – 12 B