Контрольна робота з аудіювання 11 клас

Контроль аудіювання 11 клас

From “Failure Is an Option” by Hannah Bloch,  National Geographic Magazine, September 2013

At the end of the 19th century a middle-aged Swedish engineer, a patent officer captivated by the promise and possibilities of technology, came up with a radical idea: Why not fly in a hydrogen balloon to become the first to discover the North Pole, a place that at that time was as mysterious and unknown as Mars? For years explorers had attempted to reach the Pole overland; many died trying. An air expedition, Salomon August Andrée reasoned, would eliminate much of the risk. And so, on a windy day in July 1897, with support from Alfred Nobel and Sweden’s king, Andrée and two younger colleagues climbed into the basket of a 67-foot-diameter balloon on Danes Island in the Svalbard archipelago. The team packed wooden sledges, food for several months, carrier pigeons to relay messages, even a tuxedo Andrée hoped to wear at the end of the journey. As journalists and well-wishers cheered and waved, they soared into the air, aiming to float to a place no human had seen.

As soon as they lifted off, wind battered the balloon. Fog froze on it, weighing it down. For 65 and a half hours the Eagle skittered along, sometimes grazing the Arctic Ocean. Thirty-three years later, sealers stumbled across the frozen corpses of Andrée and his crew—along with their cameras and diaries, which revealed that they’d been forced to land on pack ice 298 miles from the North Pole. The three had perished during a grueling three-month trek south.

Failure—never sought, always dreaded, impossible to ignore—is the specter that hovers over every attempt at exploration. Yet without the sting of failure to spur us to reassess and rethink, progress would be impossible. Today there is growing recognition of the importance of failure. Educators ponder how to make kids more comfortable with it. Business schools teach its lessons. Psychologists study how we cope with it, usually with an eye toward improving the chance of success. Indeed, the very word “success” is derived from the Latin succedere, “to come after”—and what it comes after, yes, is failure. One cannot exist without the other. Oceanographer Robert Ballard, a veteran of 130 undersea expeditions and discoverer of the Titanic, calls this interplay the yin yang of success and failure.

Andrée’s balloon expedition was cutting-edge for its day, and fail it did, but “you don’t know until you try in aviation,” a historian of science at Norway’s University of Tromsø, points out. Improved technology ultimately helped solve the problems of Arctic aviation and has opened countless other doors. But even Ballard, whose major discoveries were aided by robots, notes that technology “doesn’t make everything possible.”

And that’s a good thing. “If you take away uncertainty, you take away motivation,” says mountain climber Pete Athans. “Wanting to exceed your grasp is the nature of the human condition. There’s no magic to getting where we already know we can get.”

From “Failure Is an Option” by Hannah Bloch,National Geographic Magazine, September 2013

Statements 1 through 10 (on your answer sheet circle + if the statement is true, - if it is false).

1. Another possible title for this text could be “The Quest to Reach the North Pole”.
2. Andrée came up with his “radical idea” in the 1900s.
3. Andrée’s expeditionwasbackedby prominent Swedes.
4. The bodies of Andrée and his crew were ultimately found by a group of sealers who had been hoping to solve the mystery of their disappearance.
5. Andrée was not able to personally explain in detail how his exploration had ended and how long it had taken.
6. The author would most likely agree with the English expression, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.”
7. Andrée’s expedition flew from Danes Island on a windy day in June 1897.
8. According to Pete Athans, the absence of uncertainty woulddiscourage the ambitions of some people.
9. The phrase “skittered along, sometimes grazing the Arctic Ocean” could be reworded as “skimmed and occasionally touched the Arctic Ocean”.
10. Oceanographer Robert Ballard believes that technology is the solution for all problems in exploration.

Questions 11 through 20 (on your answer sheet circle the correct letter A, B, C, or D).

11. The mention of Andrée’s tuxedo in the first paragraph most likely serves the purpose of:
    1. demonstratingAndrée’s confidence.
    2. illustratingAndrée’s poor planning.
    3. providing colorful but irrelevant details about Andrée’s expedition.
    4. lampooning Andrée’s amateurism.

12. The text mentions that all the of following items were brought byAndrée and his team on their expedition EXCEPT:

1. cameras
2. eagles
3. wooden sleighs
4. pigeons

13. The line “Failure…is the specter that hovers over every attempt at exploration” most likely means that:

1. failure is a sad reality which, like death, is inevitable in all exploration.
2. the fear of failure haunts explorers like a ghost and hurts their chances of success.
3. failure is anever-present possibility in the back of every explorer’s mind.
4. the possibility of failure is an unreal distraction best ignored by explorers.

14. According to the text, Andrée’s expedition had difficulty flying their balloon because:

1. they had packed too many items and the balloon was too heavy.
2. they had not chosen the right kind of balloon for their task.
3. they were patent officers without any real exploring experience.
4. the balloon was encumbered by the freezing temperatures.

15. As it is used in the sentence “The three had perished in a grueling three-month trek south”, a good synonym for the word “grueling” would be:

1. arduous.
2. unsuccessful.
3. pointless.
4. cold.

16. According to the text, failure is currently thought of as:

1. the result of incompetence or unpreparedness.
2. an important learning experience.
3. essentially identical to success.
4. something that stands in the way of progress.

17. According to the text, what is the relationship between the words “success” and “succedere”?

1. The word “success”comes from the word “succedere”.
2. The words “success” and “succedere” are synonyms.
3. The word “succedere” is an antonym for the word “success”.
4. The word “succedere” is an old and outdated form of the word “success”.

18. According to the text, which of the following is NOT true about Robert Ballard?

1. He has gone on over one hundred underwater expeditions.
2. He discovered the remains of the Titanic.
3. He developed important aviation technology.
4. He used robots in his ocean exploration.

19. According to the article, failure is significant because:

1. it shows us our realistic and insurmountable limits.
2. it forces us to rethink and reassess our tactics.
3. it hinders our chances of success.
4. it is always a possibility.

20. A historian suggests that “in aviation”:

1. technology is not very important.
2. anything is possible with the right technology and preparation.
3. it isn’t clear whether or not something will work until it is attempted.
4. there is no way to know what can be achieved.