CUID-UNED CURSO 2019-2020

IDIOMA: INGLÉS NIVEL: C1

PRUEBA ESCRITA: Comprensión Lectora DURACIÓN: 90 minutos

Right answer (+0.33) / Wrong answer (-0.11) / No answer (0)

Minimum score to pass test (50%)

TASK 1

§ You are going to read a newspaper article from The Independent about problem-
solvers, the use of their hands and their heads. For questions 1–10, choose the
answer (A, B, or C) which you think fits best according to the text.

(Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/why-the-best-problem-solvers-think-with-their-hands-
as-well-as-their-heads-a7416581.html)

During a lab meeting, one of our PhD researchers recalls how her father would forbid her
from using paper to help solve maths homework problems by writing them down. Another
admits that she sometimes still uses her hands to make small calculations, although she
does so while hiding them behind her back. When we realise that all of us use our fingers
in order to answer demands for the “third, fifth, and seventh digits” of our secret online
banking password, we laugh in relief. We are not so daft after all, or at least we are not
alone.

Our ability to think and reason has been trained and tested in real world situations that
restrict our ability to use our hands. At school, children quickly learn to count “in their
heads”, without using their fingers as props. At university, we ask our students to take
“closed-book” exams, relying only on that information committed to memory. Job
applicants take intelligence tests during which their interaction with the world is limited to a
tick-box (or computer key-press) to mark their selected answers. The implicit assumption
that underpins these practices is that truly intelligent behaviour originates from the inner
parts of the brain, and the brain alone.

Of course educators are well aware that props are a great help in teaching young children
to reason with numbers and solve problems. Likewise, neuropsychologists use props to
assess memory loss in the elderly. In other words, it’s acceptable to engage with the
material world to support your thinking if your mental abilities are still developing or if you
are losing your cognitive powers. For the rest of us, however, it’s seen as a sign of
cognitive weakness.

It is this view we aim to challenge, rejecting the metaphor of mind as computer according
to which thoughts ultimately emerge from the brain’s processing of information from the
outside world. The insidious consequence of this metaphor is that it implies that simulating

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a situation in your head while you think is equivalent to living through that situation while
you think. In both cases, your answer will depend only on how (well) your brain processes
the information. Our research strongly challenges this assumption. We show instead that
people’s thoughts, choices and insights can be transformed by physical interaction with
things. In other words, thinking with your brain alone – like a computer does – is not
equivalent to thinking with your brain, your eyes, and your hands – as humans frequently
do.

The mind in the world

In the course of problem solving, we naturally tend to recruit artefacts and manipulate
them to augment and transform our ability to think and to explain ourselves. Consider a
game of Scrabble: players naturally touch, move and re-arrange the tiles they receive. If
thinking were simply done “in the head”, what’s the purpose of these moves?

In fact, these moves are integral to the process of generating words. As players
reconfigure the physical properties of their environment, they are not simply making it
easier for them to think; they are thinking. Moves can be deliberate or serendipitous. This
suggests that thinking is fundamentally relational: it unfolds along a series of physical
changes in the environment that at times affects, and at times is affected by, a series of
biological changes in the brain.

To put this to the test, we design thinking tasks under laboratory conditions during which
people can physically interact with the properties of the problem. Interactivity inevitably
benefits performance. In part this is because changes in the physical environment make it
easier for people to remember what information they are considering. But also dynamically
changing the problem’s configuration prompts new possibilities for action, or unveils new
ways of solving problems. People are more creative and more efficient when solving
problems with their hands: thinking is an embodied activity embedded in a physical
environment.

We recently applied this approach to a study of creativity and insight. While posing a
problem presented using a classic pencil and paper format never led to a breakthrough,
those who could use physical artefacts to build a model of the problem were much more
likely to reach some insight, no matter the difference between the participants’ cognitive
abilities.

We also applied this approach to the study of complex statistical reasoning. Previous
research had found that, depending on the ease of mentally representing the statistical
information presented, between 11 per cent and 40 per cent of people succeeded in
solving these reasoning problems using just pen and paper.

We presented the same information on a pack of cards which reasoners were free to
spread out and rearrange in any way they liked. Not all participants fully engaged with the
cards – perhaps unwilling to be judged as poor thinkers for doing so. Yet the success rate
for those who made the most of this opportunity to use the material world to boost their
thinking leapt to 75 per cent.

So the next time your child counts using her fingers, or you see your employees spread
out information over their desk and walls, be reassured: they are not limited in their

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capacity to think well, nor are they handicapping their ability to do so. In fact, they are
enhancing their ability to think. Your mind does not think like a computer, it thinks with the
objects (including computers) and people around you. And our capacity to think and
reason well at any given moment depends as much on our cognitive abilities as it does on
the richness – or paucity – of material things with which to support our thinking and
decision-making.

1) Which of these options is an appropriate synonym for the verb to forbid in the
sentence “her father would forbid her from using paper”?
a. Foster.
b. Sanction.
c. Ban.

2) Which of these is a grammatically correct paraphrase of the subordinating

conjunction in order to in “When we realise that all of us use our fingers in
order to answer demands for the “third, fifth, and seventh digits” of our […]
banking password, we laugh in relief”?
a. When we realise that all of us use our fingers owing to answer demands...
b. When we realise that all of us use our fingers so that we can answer demands...
c. When we realise that all of us use our fingers so can answer demands…

3) When it comes to thinking and reasoning, which of these options has been
regarded more favourably according to what is said in the text?
a. The combined use of visual and cognitive abilities.
b. The use of our fingers.
c. The exclusive use of our brain.

4) Which of the following words from paragraphs 2 and 3 is used to mean

“support”, “aid”, “accessory”?
a. Prop.
b. Inner.
c. Ability.

5) Which of these statements is INCORRECT according to what is said in the first

four paragraphs of the text?
a. The brain is the only organ that is involved in human reasoning.
b. The use of external materials is not frowned upon in the case of specific age
groups.
c. The author objects to the view of the mind as a computer.

6) Which of these statements is true according to what is stated in the text?

a. When thinking, biological changes in the brain can affect physical changes in the
environment, but not the other way around.
b. Thinking is argued to be relational because biological changes in the brain and
physical changes in the environment may affect each other.
c. Thinking unfolds along a series of physical changes in the environment and this
means that it develops or occurs outside such external changes.

7) If you put something to the test as the author of the text says, you…
a. Prove the validity of something by simply giving a counterexample.

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 b. Use a practical implementation of an idea or theory to evaluate its validity.
c. Succeed in proving a hypothesis.

8) Which of these options is a suitable paraphrase of the idea conveyed in the

following sentence? “Those who could use physical artefacts to build a model
of the problem were much more likely to reach some insight, no matter the
difference between the participants’ cognitive abilities”.
a. In spite of the difference between the participants’ cognitive abilities, the likelihood
of arriving at some insight increased if physical artefacts were used.
b. The use of physical artefacts made it easier to reach some insight, but whether or
not an insight was attained ultimately depended on the differences that existed
between the participants’ cognitive abilities.
c. Insights of some kind were more likely attained when physical artefacts were used,
as long as there were no differences between the participants’ cognitive abilities.

9) According to the text, why did not all participants fully engage with the cards?
a. The author thinks it might have been because they felt that they had already been
deemed poor thinkers.
b. Because they said they were compelled to do so.
c. It could have been the case that they didn’t want others to think less of them.

10) Which of these words from the last paragraph of the text is an appropriate
synonym of ‘lack (of)’?
a. Handicapping.
b. Paucity.
c. Enhance.

TASK 2

§ You are going to read a newspaper article from The New York Times that
suggests different ways to tackle climate change. The text is divided into four
sections (A–D). For statements 11–20, decide which section (A, B, C or D)
mentions the same idea. You will find the statements below the texts.

(Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/opinion/sunday/how-to-help-climate-change.html)

Section A: The first step is the key to all the rest. Yes, our daily lives are undoubtedly
contributing to climate change. But that’s because the rich and powerful have
constructed systems that make it nearly impossible to live lightly on the earth. Our
economic systems require most adults to work, and many of us must commute to work
in or to cities intentionally designed to favor the automobile. Unsustainable food, clothes
and other goods remain cheaper than sustainable alternatives. And yet we blame
ourselves for not being green enough. As the climate essayist Mary Annaïse Heglar
writes, “The belief that this enormous, existential problem could have been fixed if all of
us had just tweaked our consumptive habits is not only preposterous; it’s dangerous.” It
turns eco-saints against eco-sinners, who are really just fellow victims. It misleads us
into thinking that we have agency only by dint of our consumption habits — that buying
correctly is the only way we can fight climate change.

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Section B: Even if we manage to zero-out our own contributions to climate change, it
would be practically a full-time job, leaving us little time or energy for pushing for the
systemic changes we need. And the avoided emissions would be tiny compared with the
scale of the problem. Each person in the United States emitted an average of 16 metric
tons of energy-related carbon dioxide in 2018, according to the Energy Information
Agency. The entire country emitted 5.28 billion metric tons of energy-related carbon
dioxide that year. I have chosen to fight against a proposed gas pipeline, liquefaction
facility and liquefied natural gas export terminal that the Canadian company Pembina
wants to build in Oregon, where I live. If built, the project would result in emissions
of over 36.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. Some 42,000
people submitted comments to a state agency asking it to deny permits for the project. If
we manage to stop construction, each of those people could claim credit for preventing
one forty-two-thousandth of those emissions — some 876 metric tons per person! It
would take 54 years of individual zero-carbon living to make the same dent. My point is
that the climate crisis is not going to be solved by personal sacrifice. It will be solved by
electing the right people, passing the right laws, drafting the right regulations, signing the
right treaties — and respecting those treaties already signed, particularly with
indigenous nations. It will be solved by holding the companies and people who have
made billions off our shared atmosphere to account.
Section C: These sweeping, systemic changes are complicated and will be hard won.
No single person alone can make them happen. Luckily, there are already dozens, if not
hundreds, of groups dedicated to climate activism. Some are local and focused on
stopping particular fossil-fuel projects, like Rogue Climate in Southern Oregon, with
which I am working. Others are national and focused on changing federal policy, like
Zero Hour and the Sunrise Movement. Still others, like Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for
Future, are international and focused on putting moral pressure on climate negotiators
and governments around the world. Groups like Project Drawdown research the nuts
and bolts of decarbonizing the world. Climate change is linked to income inequality and
injustice, so if your passion is fighting for racial justice, the rights of the poor, or
indigenous rights and sovereignty, that works, too. Or you might volunteer for a climate-
focused local or national political candidate. The power of these groups is not simply
strength in numbers. They work well because they divide up the work that needs to be
done and give each task to those best suited to it. This also makes the fight less
daunting. Instead of trying to become an expert in international regulatory law, global
supply chains, atmospheric science and the art of protest, you can offer the skills and
resources you already have, and trust that other people with complementary skills are
doing what they can do, too. If you are a writer, you can write letters to the editor,
newsletters and fliers. If you are strong, you can lift boxes. If you are rich, you can
donate money. Only you know what and how much you can reasonably do. Take care
not to overdo it at first and risk burning out. Set a sustainable level of involvement for
yourself and keep it up. As a bonus, working with a group will increase the richness and
diversity of your personal relationships, and may well temper your climate anxiety and
depression.
Section D: As we fight, it is important for our mental health and motivation to have an
image in mind of our goal: a realistically good future. Imagine dense but liveable cities
veined with public transit and leafy parks, infrastructure humming away to remove
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, fake meat that tastes better than the real thing,
species recovering and rewilding the world, the rivers silver with fish, the skies musical
with flocking birds. This is a future where the economic inequality, racism and
colonialism that made decades of inaction on climate change possible has been

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acknowledged and is being addressed. It is a time of healing. Many ecosystems have
changed, but natural resilience and thoughtful human assistance is preventing most
species from going extinct. This is a future in which children don’t need to take to the
streets in protest and alarm, because their parents and grandparents took action.
Instead, they are climbing trees. This future is still possible.

11. The way the world is makes it hard for us not to pollute in one way or another.

A X B C D

12. It is beneficial to stay focused on the long-term objective.

A B C D X

13. Our individual footprints pale in comparison to those of big corporations, companies,
etc.

A B X C D

14. An imagined tomorrow is described.

A B C D X

15. Joining a collective of any scale can be effective and worthwhile.

A B C X D

16. Estimates regarding the emissions of a specific source of pollution are provided.

A B X C D

17. Whatever you are good at can be put to use.

A B C X D

18. Ditch the guilt.

A X B C D

19. Think about what your role in a group could be and use your common sense.

A B C X D

20. What will really make a difference are our political choices, legal measures, etc.

A B X C D

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TASK 3

§ Read the text below about the power of visualization and decide which answer (A,
B, C or D) best fits each gap (21–26).

(Source: https://www.success.com/the-power-of-visualization/)

If you’re a very literal-minded or pragmatic person, you might have a healthy dose of
skepticism about the power of visualization. And indeed there are many (21) ___ not
wrong in believing that visualizing success often amounts to little more than a lazy
substitute for actually doing something to make that success happen.
But visualization is about much more than just sitting back and imagining that good things
will happen. There is actually a huge (22) ___ suggesting that mental imagery can
dramatically impact our actions. New research coming out of Oxford and Cambridge, for
example, suggests that your ability to vividly imagine details about a bright future
dramatically increases your energy and momentum, which leads, in turn, to constructive
action. When our mind’s eye can picture exactly what that bright future looks like, it can
orient itself in the direction of what we envision. This is largely because the more vividly we
can picture something, (23) ___ attainable it feels. Research has found that if you visualize
making a shot in sports, for example, your likelihood of making it goes slightly up. More
significant is that if you visualize waking up at 5 a.m. to practice, visualize working on your
form, and visualize the feel of the ball in your hands right before it leaves for the basket,
your likelihood of making the shot rises even more. Similarly, I have found that when
people with a fear of public speaking vividly visualize themselves from a third-person view
(such as that of an audience member) speaking competently and confidently, anxiety (24)
___ dramatically, resulting in a more effective delivery. New York University researcher
Tali Sharot and her colleagues published a study in one of the most prestigious academic
journals, Nature, that revealed that the more detailed our visualization, the more we
actually begin to feel the specific emotions of the future state at the neural level. By
envisioning the joy we’d feel upon getting a promotion, for example, we actually get to
“pre-experience” that joy now. And that, in turn, (25) ___ the motivation and direction we
need to make that future happen. Vivid pictures are like magnets pulling us toward a better
future. The more vivid your visualization, the more real it feels. And research shows the
more real it feels, the more likely it will be to impact our behavior. Only once we recognize
this (26) ___ to move from a vicious cycle where our mental images feed our fear to a
picture of the world that gives us power.

21 A whose B who are C that is D which are

22 A amount B deal of C body of research D researches
research researching
23 A more B most C the more D the leastest
24 A drops B falls down C increase D ascent
25 A gives ourselves B precludes C hinders on D provides us with
with
26 A we begins B can we begin C did we begin D we can

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TASK 4

§ You are going to read four review fragments about director Darren Aronofsky’s
latest movie Mother!, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem. Match the
questions 27–30 with one of the reviewers’ opinions (A–D). The same reviewer
may be chosen more than once.

(Sources: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170914-film-review-mother-is-a-pretentious-mess;
https://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/mother-review-jennifer-lawrence-venice-film-festival-1202545924/;
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170914-film-review-mother-is-a-pretentious-mess;
http://suindependent.com/movie-review-mother/)

Reviewer A: In the end, while Lawrence delivers as sincere a performance as anyone

could, her character is the film’s biggest problem. Black Swan mined psychological horror
with an intensity and focus that earned its scenes of either magical realism or delusion. In
Mother! there is no sense that Lawrence’s character ever read a poem, much less a poem
of her husband’s. The character is flat, which is not the same as universal or symbolic.
She seems to represent pure self-sacrifice, but why? The only evidence on screen
suggests it’s because Aronofsky declared her to be. Maybe there’s an allegory there in
which the writer-director is God, but that would be another conversation entirely.

Reviewer B: As it is, the movie, which stars Jennifer Lawrence as a woman who slips
down a rabbit hole of paranoid could-this-be-happening? reality, is far from a
masterpiece. It’s more like a dazzlingly skilful machine of virtual reality designed to get
nothing but a rise out of you. It’s a baroque nightmare that’s about nothing but itself.

Reviewer C: Unfortunately, soup is the perfect word to describe this pretentious mess
of a film. It is full of vapid characters and overwrought imagery, which Aronofsky seems to
think add up to allegory.

Reviewer D: As for the performances, there really isn’t a false note amongst the high-
profile cast. Jennifer Lawrence is terrific in the lead, a sort of Mother Earth in human
form. Bardem is given the daunting task of essentially playing God, and as usual, this
soft-spoken thespian is up to the challenge.
As well made and as audacious as “Mother!” is, though, it’s far from perfect. Throwing in
everything but the kitchen sink does not a masterpiece necessarily make, and make no
mistake: “Mother!” isn’t a masterpiece. It’s not even a masterpiece by Aronofsky
standards. He’s made stronger, more provocative films that pack a much more dramatic
wallop in the past (see “The Fountain,” “The Wrestler,” and “Requiem For a Dream”).
That said, there’s a lot to admire about “Mother!” For all its cynical nature and ribbing at
other belief systems, it certainly isn’t lacking in passion, and again, it’s stunning to look
at.

Which reviewer

expresses a similar view to reviewer A on the fact that (some of) the roles are
uninteresting?

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27 C

agrees with reviewer A regarding Lawrence’s acting?

28 D

shares reviewer D’s and B’s opinion that the movie is not an exceptional work of art?

29 C

expresses a different opinion from the others in acknowledging that there are also positive
aspects to the movie?

30 D