READING COMPREHENSION

ACTIVITIES OF READING COMPREHENSION

Reading for orientation (B1) – Text A

 Can scan through straightforward, factual texts in magazines, brochures or in the web, identify
what they are about and decide whether they contain information that might be of practical use.

Reading for information and argument (B2-C2) – Texts B and C

 Can recognise different structures in discursive text: contrasting arguments, problem-solution

presentation and cause-effect relationships. (B2)
 Can obtain information, ideas and opinions from highly specialised sources within his/her field.
(B2)
 Can understand in detail a wide range of lengthy, complex texts likely to be encountered in social,
professional or academic life, identifying finer points of detail including attitudes and implied as
well as stated opinions. (C1)
 Can understand the finer points and implications of a complex report or article even outside
his/her area of specialisation. (C2)

TYPE OF INPUT

 Web magazine article – informative text (Text A)

 Business blog article – expository text (Text B)
 Travel blog article – descriptive text (Text C)
Exercise 1
Read Text A and extract relevant words and phrases to create a concept map around the central
concept of “smart city”. You can use this tool to help you create a map of your own: coggle.it (2p)

Insert the link to your concept map in the box below:

Exercise 2
Read Text B and, in the space below, write in your own words 2 positive effects and 2 negative
effects of the possibility of digitizing museum culture and art: (3.5p)

Positive effects

Negative effects
Exercise 3
Read Text C and, after carefully examining the author’s view on the possibilities and affordances
of virtual travel, write a reaction paper of no more than 300 words, using the given structure:
(4.5p)

Summary paragraph (overview of main points from Text C)

Reaction paragraph 1
topic sentence for first reaction paragraph
argument for first reaction paragraph
Reaction paragraph 2
topic sentence for second reaction paragraph
argument for first second paragraph
Concluding paragraph

TEXTS
Text A

Cluj-Napoca, the Silicon Valley of Eastern Europe

As a technology hub, the ultimate goal for Cluj-Napoca is to improve the quality of life for citizens by
focusing on five main areas: transport and mobility; citizen engagement; energy; infrastructure; and Internet
access. The city is now looking to give the IT industry a boost of creativity to help strengthen innovation and the
development of new products, creating the Transylvania Industries Cluster—the first in Romania—that works
alongside local universities. Through these types of collaborations, the city hopes to “create a cluster effect that
allows competitiveness growth through information exchange, business partnerships, and economies by using
shared resources (spaces and equipment).”
Cluj-Napoca is also sinking 40 million euros into the development of its tourism and cultural attractions,
improving connectivity and municipal services in the process. One great example of how Cluj-Napoca is boosting
sustainability and making its systems more streamlined: a smart parking system in the city centre. In an effort to
move away from a cash society and reduce air pollution, the city has developed an app that signals available
parking spaces in real time and allows drivers to easily pay online. The public transport system is also
transitioning to become more carbon friendly, adding 10 electric buses to the fleet, with plans for 20 more on the
way. Catering to a smartphone society, apps have been created for public transport, guided city tours, and city
administration services. Thanks to the “My Cluj” app, citizens can quickly engage with city officials on any issues
they may have, as well as access administrative documents like agreements and certificates. Since launching, more
than 5,000 users have signed on and reported issues on the app. By creating a city of “smart citizens” and offering
them the technology and tools to improve everyday issues, Cluj-Napoca is well on its way to achieving smart city
status as Romania’s tech hub. (Adapted from https://eu.smartcitiescouncil.com/article/cluj-napoca-silicon-valley-eastern-
europe)

Text B
Digitizing the Museum: A New Kind of Interaction

Technology has begun to shape our experiences in incredible ways. The speed of the changes is what’s most
impressive. With modern technology, we have already begun to see shifts in how we experience museums.
Museums are seen as a staple when people think about culture. Museums hold significant amounts of information
about a particular city or country, including its history, society evolution, notable people, and much more.
Museums have always been a major destination for understanding more about where you are and the impact that
culture has had on us all. With recent advances affecting museums, it is worth examining the way we could interact
with museums of the future.
Before, the only way to experience a museum and its offerings was to actually visit the physical location. If
there was a particular painting that you wanted to see, the only option was to take a trip to the gallery that held it,
this could even be in a different country. Museums are always must-see activities for tourists to major cities in
order to get an inside look of where they are visiting.
The effects of digitization are creating a revolutionary way to experience any museum, possibly better than
going to the physical location. Digitization is when a museum takes its collections and renders them to post online.
There are various ways of digitizing a collection depending on the medium. Flat prints and paintings are the
simplest to digitize with just scanning the actual image. Museums have also begun to digitize actual sculpture with
3-D renderings to capture the detail of every angle of the art piece.
Some of the museums that have been making significant process in digitizing their collections include the
MET Museum in NYC, National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Vatican Library, the Smithsonian, the
Taiwanese Museum, and many more. These museums hold upwards of millions of individual pieces of art and have
already successfully digitized tens to hundreds of thousands of pieces which are currently available online. These
are among the top museums in terms of visitors and unique collections so you can be sure that the addition of the
digital collection has changed how people interact with them.

There are several benefits that help continue to push museum forward to eventually digitizing their entire
collections. One of the benefits to digitizing an art collection is for research purposes. A recent article came out
discussing how two museums held different sides to a historic tablet but with the help of virtual renditions of the
tablet sides, researchers were able to digitally combine them and translate the text. Cases such as this is important
for truly understanding the possible value of a piece of art.
Another benefit to art digitization is accessibility. There are many people interested in art but do not have
the means to travel around the world to see the most world-renowned paintings or sculptures. Now, we all have
access to high resolution copies of the actual work of art. Sometimes, these online views provide a much better
viewing experience than actually visiting the museum. A physical museum may have large crows and it can be
difficult to read the brief information provided about a particular piece. With an online database, you not only have
a clear view of the artwork, but also a database can provide multimedia information about the piece, the artist, etc.
which can include text, videos, related information and much more.
Some of the benefits have been controversial, especially for true historic art lovers. Some of the uses for
digitizing a work of art in a museum is for the purpose of heightening the experience of it. There have been
museum statues that have been digitized and animated into a moving figure. There are also famous paintings that
have been digitized and converted into virtual reality settings where you can literally explore the inside of the
painting. Although this can be an exciting way to experience an old piece of art, it can be seen as sacrificing the
integrity of the original piece of art. If more people begin to enjoy these enhanced digital copies of art, then the
actual physical piece would lose its appeal.
We are only in the beginning stages of digitizing art. More and more museums are beginning to digitize
their collections as the appropriate technology becomes more accessible. Whether you view this digitization
movement as a positive to the art world or as hurting the art world, one thing for sure is that at this pace, we will
soon have a completely new meaning of museums and how we view their exhibits.
(Adapted from: https://medium.com/nuadox/digitizing-the-museum-a-new-kind-of-interaction-dbcbf81b7cda)

Text C
Virtual worlds: can we travel without travelling?

By Toby Skinner
31 March 2020

Against a backdrop of whistling wind and heavy breathing, a man with a Germanic accent is yelling
at me: “Take your time!”. I try to focus on the ascender clips on two wires leading steeply upwards, but
there’s a constant temptation to look left to a sharp drop into a vast snowy abyss. But I reach out, clip in
and start to climb. I am at the foot of the Hillary Step, the infamous 12m rock face near the summit of
Everest, long considered the most challenging section of an ascent from the Nepal side. With oxygen
dangerously thin at approximately 8,790m high, many climbers have fallen here, or simply sat down and
never stood up again. When Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first known individuals to
reach the summit of Everest in 1953, Hillary wrote of Norgay reaching the top of the Hillary Step: “He
collapsed exhausted… like a giant fish when it has just been hauled from the sea after a terrific struggle.”
When I reach the top of the wires and unclip, I feel faintly queasy, but not perhaps in the way the
great Sherpa did. I pause Everest VR and take off my HTC Vive virtual reality headset. As my eyes
recalibrate, I find myself in my second-floor flat in Hackney, East London, on coronavirus-induced
lockdown. My view is no longer a bird’s-eye one of the high Himalayas. Instead, beyond my Juliet balcony,
a handful of builders are working on a new residential block, the sun glinting on their high-vis vests. I find
myself envying them, while also pondering if they really qualify as essential workers.
While there are many people much worse off than I am, this is an awkward time to be a freelance
travel writer. I’ve had trips to Kazakhstan’s Charyn Canyon and Utah’s Canyon Point postponed
indefinitely, and most of my commissions cancelled. There was a brief window where hiring a motor
home and driving to the Scottish Western Isle of Eigg seemed like a good idea. Now, like many across the
world, I’m mostly homebound. It’s become a time to reflect on what it actually means to travel, something
I’ve done on an almost monthly basis for years – and whether it’s possible to travel without, well,
travelling.
In one sense, the answer is yes. Everest VR, an hour-long recreation of an Everest climb – from
incense ceremonies and kit run-throughs at Base Camp to crossing deep crevasses – is just one of the
experiences available with VR headsets from brands such as Vive and Oculus. I could equally choose to
swim with blue whales and entrancing blooms of jellyfish in Blu, or drive a Mars Rover around 15 square
miles of rocky Martian ochre in Mars 2030. Gaming “tourism” has become such a thing that late last year
Rough Guides released The Rough Guide to Xbox, an exploration of beautiful locations in Xbox games,
from the Arcadian Eddian Grove in Anthem to the Golden Sands Outpost in Sea of Thieves, a sort of
Maldivian pirate island.
Meanwhile, producers of all kinds are looking at fresh ways to immerse us, from Google – whose
Expeditions app includes VR tours of the International Space Station and the National Museum of Iraq,
using Cardboard headsets – to the BBC. There are plans afoot for a VR tour of the home, going deep into
the world of house flies, spiders and the rats that live under our floorboards.
Certainly, current conditions seem ripe for virtual travel to grow, with the era of low-cost flights
now threatened by both covid-19 and growing concerns over the environmental impact of flying. Dr Ian
Pearson is a leading futurist, engineer, author and inventor who runs Futurizon, a futurist consultancy.
He predicts a number of innovations that will make digital travel more appealing in the near future,
especially in the field of virtual reality.
One example is what he calls Active Skin, which will allow us to feel virtual destinations, perhaps
some time in the 2030s. “We can already make transistors so small that they can penetrate skin,” he told
me over the phone. “They could be sprayed on, like ink, and then send signals to our nervous system. We
could then be manipulated to feel the sunshine and salty breeze on a beach in the Maldives, or the cool
marble of the Taj Mahal.” Even sooner, he argues, we will see augmented reality contact lenses, which will
use existing technology to give physical spaces different digital properties, for example turning living
rooms into tiki bars or airport lounges into rainforests.
But it’s in the 2050s that he sees the really big advances. By then, he says, we’ll be able to upload
our minds to cyberspace using nano devices linked to our synapses, allowing our brains to inhabit a new
breed of fully functioning humanoid robots, effectively turning us into superhumans. “You’ll be able to log
on in the UK, say, and choose your robot in Australia,” he said. “Then you’ll be able to inhabit its body and
do anything a human would, and more. You’ll also be able to think faster and have a bigger memory, so
the travel memories will be with you longer.”
Travel has always been a difficult thing to define in philosophical terms, but in slowing down,
looking and really appreciating my surroundings, in my real world, I feel like I’m travelling. We will be
seeing more and more mind-bending and beautiful virtual worlds in the years to come and the only
question that remains to be answered is whether the real world will still be able to have the upper hand.
(Adapted from: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200330-covid-19-virtual-travel-during-coronavirus)

Evaluation grid & scoring

Exercise 1
Ability to scan factual information in order to perform specific tasks = 1p
Organisation of content, overall presentation = 1p

Exercise 2
Ability to locate main information in sections of text = 0.5p x 4 items = 2p
Ability to rephrase given structures = 1p
Grammatical accuracy = 0.5p

Exercise 3
Ability to infer opinion, attitude and underlying meaning = 1p
Ability to understand the text as a whole = 0.5p
Ability to select specific information from the text = 0.5p
Ability to identify and use relevant vocabulary = 1p
Grammatical accuracy = 1p
Organisation of content according to given structure = 0.5p