Fusion 4 U5 Warm up

Global village

Our world is becoming more and more mobile. Today, more than at any time in the past, we are able to travel
wherever we want, whenever we want.
According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, in 2012, for the first time in history, there were
more than one billion tourists traveling in a single year. Many people may not realize that just over 60 years
earlier, it was only 25 million.
France was the most popular country with over 83 million tourists visiting in one year.
Today, it’s easy to get on a plane to fly to another city close to home or on the other side of the world.
But it’s important to take into consideration that the first commercial transatlantic flights didn’t actually start
until the 1950s, and for a long time, flying was only accessible to the very rich.
Over time, international transportation has developed thanks to improvements in technology. Today, the
experience of international travel and communication has completely changed.
In the past, for those who traveled internationally, for leisure or to live and work in another country, it was
difficult to communicate with family and friends back home.
But today, it’s now nearly as easy to communicate with someone on the other side of the world as it is with
someone face-to-face.
As a result of all these technological changes, the world has become what we call a global village. People travel
widely and often live in countries far from their loved ones.
But new technology like smartphones can make it easier to keep in touch with them. In 2014, it was
announced that there were actually more cell phones than people on the planet.
With smartphones, you can log on to the Internet, and use one of the social media sites, like Twitter, Facebook
and Instagram, to stay in touch with your family and friends virtually.
So many of these developments have happened so quickly, it has become increasingly difficult to remember
how we communicated before the virtual world. And for some people, it’s almost impossible to imagine how
we would manage without Internet and mobile communications.

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Comprehension questions

1 How many tourists traveled the world in 2012?

A) 25 million
B) 83 million
C) one billion

1 How many tourists traveled the world in 2012?

C) one billion

2 What began in the 1950s?

A) first class travel on planes
B) commercial flights to the U.S.
C) tourists traveling to other countries

2 What began in the 1950s?

B) commercial flights to the U.S.

3 What has made the world a “global village”?

A) more people living in other countries
B) more international travel
C) being able to communicate via the Internet

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3 What has made the world a “global village”?

C) being able to communicate via the Internet