ROZUMIENIE TEKSTU ZE SŁUCHU

Wielokrotny wybór

ZADANIE 1 STR. 148

Usłyszysz dwukrotnie dwa teksty. Z podanych odpowiedzi (A–D) wybierz właściwą, zgodną z treścią nagrania.

Text 1

Jobs of the future

I’d like to talk about professions that are going to be in high demand in five and ten years. A lot of professions are getting automated. Automobile companies are testing driverless taxis, and driverless cars and trucks, so this kind of jobs will soon be getting automated. It means for us as human beings that in the future we're going to lose a lot of those low-level jobs.

Certainly, the market that is going to survive and thrive is medicine. It has been growing really fast. There will be a lot more jobs and this doesn’t only apply to doctors; it also applies to people taking care of people who sit at home and need home care. We’ve started to live longer, mainly thanks to advances in medicine, and the society is getting older.

Interestingly, another thriving market is AI in medicine, and yes, a lot of doctors’ offices are getting automated. For instance, there's this machine called DaVinci machine and you can perform a surgery without even being there. You can have a doctor here in the United States and that machine somewhere in Africa and the doctor from here will perform a surgery. The surgeon has a crystal-clear view of the surgical area that is magnified 10 times to what the human eye sees. The surgeon uses tiny instruments that move like a human hand but with a far greater range of motion and precision. IT in medicine is a huge market.

What’s more, all of the creative professions are going to thrive. It’s true we have AI, but it's not that developed yet. It cannot create awesome photographs; it cannot create awesome videos; it cannot write exciting stories for you. It can do some kind of stuff, but it is not yet on a sufficient level. AI is also unlikely to ever replace architects. They do a lot of creative analytical thinking that can't be replicated by technology. Additionally, they collaborate with other workers in the design and construction industry. There's a big future for creative professions.

Education is also growing, meaning that people are learning languages; people are learning different skills. Machines can’t really replace the human touch that is necessary in our schools that can only be delivered by high-quality educators. I think this traditional education when we just go to classes and follow the curriculum that is already set by somebody else is fading away. Think of Finland. They have this new school concept where kids don't just go to classes teachers tell them to attend. They select what they want to do. If they want to sing, they can sing the whole day; if they want to construct something; then the school provide resources for that. Finland is one of the top countries for education in the world right now. I think this is going to be a trend in the future.

Text 2

Purpose in life

INTERVIEWER: Simon, so how to find purpose in life?

SIMON: I think one of the mistakes that people make is they think purpose comes from their job. They think, ‘I’ve worked here so long, and now I retire or I lose my job, and I don’t have a sense of purpose anymore.’ They confuse themselves with their job. All of a sudden, they wake up in the morning, and don’t know what to do.

INTERVIEWER: Isn’t that what we’ve been taught? That your job should be your passion.

SIMON: Passion – yes. Purpose – not. Your purpose is not the job that you wake up to do every day. Your purpose is something bigger.

INTERVIEWER: So how do you find this something bigger? What is it really?

SIMON: Well, it can be different for each of us. I have a few little rules that you can follow to find a bigger purpose. One is go after the things that you want. Can I tell you a story?

INTERVIEWER: Sure. Go ahead.

SIMON: A friend of mine and I went for a run in Central Park. There’s this Road Runners Organization. At weekends, they host races. It's very common that they have a sponsor who will give something away, like apples or bagels after the race.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I’ve seen that. Hundreds of people take part in the races.

SIMON: Yeah, lots of people. On this particular day, when we got to the end of the run, there were some free bagels, and they had picnic tables set up. On one side was a group of volunteers. On the table were boxes of bagels, and on the other side was a long line of runners waiting to get their free bagel. I said to my friend, ‘Let's get a bagel’ and he looked at me and said, ‘Ah, the line's too long.’ And I said, ‘Free bagel’ and he said, ‘I don't want to wait in a line’. And I was like, ‘Free bagel’, and he said, ‘No, it's too long’. That's when I realized that there are two ways to see the world: Some people see the thing that they want and some people see the thing that prevents them from getting what they want.

INTERVIEWER: Simon, isn’t that too simple?

SIMON: No, it’s not. Actually, essential things are simple. Look, I could only see the bagels. He could only see the line. The rule is you can go after whatever you want; you just cannot deny anyone else to go after whatever they want. You don't have to do it the way everybody else has done it. You can do it your way. We’re different and we need to accept that.

INTERVIEWER: I can see you like stories. Give me another story, like in the Bible.

SIMON: Alright, here's another story. In the 18th century, there was a kind of fever known as the black death of childbed spreading across Europe.

INTERVIEWER: Never heard of it. What was it?

SIMON: Basically, women who gave birth to a child would die within 48 hours after giving birth. It was getting worse and worse. Doctors and men of science wanted to find the reason for this. They would study the corpses of the women who had died and, in the morning, they would conduct autopsies, and then in the afternoon they would go and deliver babies.

INTERVIEWER: I think I know what you’re driving at.

SIMON: It wasn't until somewhere in the mid-1800s that Oliver Wendell Holmes realized that all of these doctors conducting autopsies in the morning weren't washing their hands before they delivered babies in the afternoon, and he pointed it out. He said doctors themselves were the problem.

INTERVIEWER: What happened next?

SIMON: They ignored Holmes and called him crazy for 30 years until finally somebody realized that if they simply washed their hands, it would go away, and that's exactly what happened when they started sterilizing their instruments and washing their hands. The black death of childbed disappeared. The lesson here is sometimes you’re the problem. Take accountability for your actions. You can take all the credit in the world for the things that you do right as long as you also take responsibility for the things you do wrong. It works like magic, really.

INTERVIEWER: Simon, thanks for the stories and the teaching.

Dobieranie

ZADANIE 2 STR. 150

Usłyszysz dwukrotnie cztery wypowiedzi na temat problemów globalnych. Do każdej wypowiedzi (1–4) dopasuj odpowiadające jej zdanie (A–E). Wpisz rozwiązania do tabeli.

Uwaga! Jedno zdanie zostało podane dodatkowo i nie pasuje do żadnej wypowiedzi.

Speaker 1

I think the biggest problem in the world today is actually unity. I’d say there's a connection problem. Meaning that everywhere you go people are kind of tuned into their phone. They connect, yet there’s no real connection. I think people need to put their trust in humanity instead of systems that divide us. I think that one of the things we have to do is just kind to show empathy for all of our fellow brothers and sisters, not only here, in our country, but everywhere. You know, and from there, if there's a dialogue, we can start to kind of tackle problematic issues and hopefully make the world a better place.

Speaker 2

Climate change appears to be the crucial issue of our time. Food productions is threatened by changing weather patterns and rising sea levels bring the risk of catastrophic flooding. Climate change has an enormous global impact that is unmatched in scale. It was reported after the fifth intergovernmental panel on climate change that in the years 1880–2012, the average global temperature increased by 0.85 degrees Celsius. The global temperature keeps rising, and it is predicted to go up from 2.6 to 4.8 by 2100. Oceans are warmer, there is less snow and ice, and the sea level is higher. Finally, we are going to have no ice in the arctic and terrible heatwaves will have a far-reaching effect on our daily life. It is written in Time magazine that ‘the real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like the real action is happening when in fact almost nothing is being done’.

Speaker 3

Pollution is certainly a very serious issue. It can take many forms. It’s in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the soil we use to grow our food. Even the increasing noise we hear every day can all contribute to health problems and considerably lower our quality of life. Environmental pollution is causing irreparable damage to the natural world with major disruptions in ecosystems. Literally, lots of people are dying because of air and soil pollution. The risk of lung cancer and respiratory diseases is greatly increased. Apparently, air pollution is the most devastating pollution type causing worldwide mortality. Pollution is one of the hardest global issues to address because it is very broadly defined.

Speaker 4

Many children across the world do not have some of their most basic educational needs met. How can they later solve big problems if they can’t really learn how the world functions? 15 years ago, the international community resolved that all children should have primary school education. Even though impressive headway has been made, there are still more that 72 million school-age children all over the globe that cannot go to school.

The problem is not limited to children not going to school, and even when children are attending school, the quality of their education might be poor or educational capacity and resources may be limited. In 2017, it was estimated that 600 million children were not mastering basic mathematics and literacy while at school.

ZADANIE OTWARTE

Uzupełnianie luk w tekście/ odpowiedzi na pytania

ZADANIE 1 STR. 150

Usłyszysz dwukrotnie wywiad na temat edukacji. Na podstawie informacji zawartych w nagraniu uzupełnij luki (1–8) w podanych zdaniach, tak aby jak najbardziej precyzyjnie oddać sens wysłuchanego tekstu. Luki należy uzupełnić w języku angielskim.

Fixing education

INTERVIEWER: A lot of people feel that our system of education is not working properly. What’s wrong with it actually?

GUEST: You see the so-called real world is changing rapidly, and we send our kids to school to prepare them to be able to cope with the challenges of daily life. The world is changing but our schools are not. The system of education we have now came into being in the Industrial Age to educate workers for factories, as many as possible. The idea of industrial mass production is still omnipresent in schools.

INTERVIEWER: What’s wrong with that?

GUEST: Let me explain. Lives of schoolchildren are governed by ringing bells. Following instructions is what students actually do at school. They’re given instructions like sit down, be quiet, open your books, turn to page 65, solve problem number four etc. If school children succeed in doing what they’re told, they are rewarded with good marks. Following instructions was particularly important for factory workers in the Industrial Age. Today, you won’t get very far but just following instructions. Nowadays, you need to learn to collaborate with others, to communicate your ideas, you need to be creative. Do our children really develop such skills at school?

INTERVIEWER: What exactly needs to be changed and how?

GUEST: Our children have no autonomy at school; they’re totally dependent on what teachers tell them to do. They’re fully controlled by the system, every minute. On the other hand, nowadays you need to learn to manage your time by yourself if you are to complete important work. Our children get a disturbing message that they’re not in charge of their lives. It is believed that independence and self-determination is very important for children. We desperately need to give children more autonomy; they need to regain the power to make their own decisions whatever it takes. Otherwise, no real problems will be solved.

GUEST: Well, learning doesn’t just involve memorisation and retention. There’s much more to learning and the changes that people undergo while gaining knowledge and skills.

INTERVIEWER: Well, alright. We shouldn’t be surprised that our children lack motivation and are rather fatigued at school. But what about discipline? How can we let every child make their own decisions?

GUEST: Of course, discipline is important, but we need to compromise and find ways to look after schoolchildren without excessively controlling their lives. There need to be more teachers with the suitable professional knowledge and skills. There should be student groups consisting of more than 10 people. The less, the better. The curriculum needs to be more flexible. If we don’t make the necessary investments soon enough, it might be too late for the global community. Our quality of life will certainly drop.

INTERVIEWER: Is this all? I mean we just let children choose what they want to do at school and soon problems will be solved.

GUEST: Of course, not. That’s a necessary step, but there’s more to it. You see what happens at school today is not real learning. Children are expected to memorise and memorise loads of things. The knowledge that our children are supposed to gain is strictly defined. Then come tests and examinations to measure the retention of this knowledge. Most of the knowledge acquired in the system is forgotten the day after the test. We know that.

INTERVIEWER: Is there any other way?

GUEST: Of course, learning is not just memorising and recreating what we remember. This is what we measure and we care mostly about the test results. This cycle is notorious for its being inauthentic. We’re trapped in it. Students’ passions and interests are mostly neglected at school. Our school system requires the same pace of learning from all students, and also all students practically learn the same things. The truth is students are very different; each child is unique and can develop in a different way. And, ironically, that’s all we have; that’s the real value. We need to redefine testing. Educators need to become a lot more flexible.

INTERVIEWER: I think it is easier said than done. How should we go about the changes? How do we reform the system?

GUEST: Well, we can’t afford another reform. What we need are drastic and expensive changes before the system collapses entirely and becomes totally inadequate to deal with our current problems. Each of us has different passions and interests, and we shall feel self-realized if we find and develop our passions, which is often not easy. Do schools support children in finding and developing their passions? There are certain questions that every child needs to find answers to, for instance, How do I fit into this world and society? What am I really good at? What do I want to be good at? How do I want to make a living in the future? Does the system really care? Children are left alone to find answers to such basic questions.

INTERVIEWER: Thank you for all the explanations.

ZADANIE 2 STR. 151

Usłyszysz dwukrotnie wywiad na temat bakterii, które jedzą plastik. Na podstawie informacji zawartych w nagraniu odpowiedz na podane pytania. Odpowiedzi należy udzielić w języku angielskim.

Let them eat all plastic

INTERVIEWER: Why is plastic actually such a big problem?

GUEST: There's a worldwide plastic production of 350 million tons a year. And about 300 million tons of it end up as waste. We've put billions of tons of plastic into the environment. By 2050, people have predicted that there'll have been more plastic in the ocean than fish in terms of weight.

INTERVIEWER: But is it really a danger to our lives or ecosystems?

GUEST: It needs to be emphasised that wildlife is killed by plastic pollution, literally killed. A large number of seabirds, turtles and other sea mammals accidentally swallow plastic and die. Also, a lot of animals get entangled in it, and die as well. It’s also dangerous for human beings. Microplastics have been found in food for human consumption. We all eat a little bit of plastic every day. It’s been found in human organs, and we even inhale plastic.

INTERVIEWER: Why have we produced so much plastic?

GUEST: Plastic is actually a revolutionary material! It has unique characteristics. Most people can afford to buy plastic products. What’s more, it’s light-weight, be able to last and be used for a long time without being damaged and it’s also flexible. There is a great range of different types of plastic. They have different structures, are made of different combinations of elements, and are manufactured in different ways.

INTERVIEWER: Let’s talk about the recycling of plastic then. What can be done?

GUEST: Well, recycling is an option; however, only around 10% of plastic is recycled worldwide, which means we need another solution.

INTERVIEWER: Another solution?

GUEST: Yes, plastic-eating bacteria!

INTERVIEWER: Oh, that’s revolutionary. You don’t normally think of plastic as something edible.

GUEST: True. It’s not edible for people, but there exist bacteria that can eat plastic.

INTERVIEWER: But you said we had different types of plastic.

GUEST: Again. That’s true. You see each type of plastic is degraded by a different bacterium.

INTERVIEWER: How does bacteria ACTUALLY degrade plastic?

GUEST: Roughly speaking, the microbe attaches to a polymer and colonizes it. Through pH changes, its metabolic activity causes plastic cracks which challenges the polymers physical properties. This is known as biodeterioration. Plastic becomes food for bacteria. Essentially, molecules are broken down into its original building blocks.

INTERVIEWER: When were plastic eating bacteria actually discovered?

GUEST: Plastic-eating bacteria first made headlines in 2016 when a group of researchers in Japan discovered a strain that was able to decompose PET plastics. The discovery was limited, as it exclusively degraded PET and did so at a very slow rate. Later that year, scientists in Pakistan reported a fungus capable of degrading plastic. In 2017, plastic-eating bacteria was isolated from an oil site in Texas. In 2018, scientists modified bacteria to degrade plastics within days in the UK and US.

INTERVIEWER: What’s the problem then? Why don’t we use bacteria to get rid of waste plastic?

GUEST: In order for these bacteria to be useful and applicable worldwide, there must be a way to bioengineer them to degrade plastic at rates that are hundreds or thousands of times faster. Researchers are actively looking for ways to modify or engineer these enzymes produced by bacteria to break down plastics faster.

INTERVIEWER: Thanks for sharing all that information with us.