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3 Part 01 Zoom In Even those of us who claim not to be materialistic can t help but form attachments to certain clothes. Like fragments from old songs, clothes can (A) evoke / erase both cherished and painful memories. A worn-thin dress may hang in the back of a closet even though it hasn t been worn in years because the faint scent of pine that lingers on it is all that remains of someone s sixteenth summer. A(n) (B) impractical / brand-new white scarf might be pulled out of a donation bag at the last minute because of the promise of elegance it once held for its owner. And a ripped T-shirt might be (C) rescued / forgotten from the dust rag bin long after the name of the rock band once written across it has faded. Clothes document personal history for us the same way that fossils chart time for archaeologists. (A) (B) (C) evoke impractical rescued evoke impractical forgotten evoke brand-new forgotten erase impractical rescued erase brand-new forgotten Words & Phrases materialistic cannot help but attachment fragment cherished worn-thin linger promise ripped dust rag bin document chart 10

4 Problem-Solving Strategies 1 (A) Like fragments from old songs, clothes can evoke / erase both cherished and painful memories. evoke erase (B) A(n) impractical / brand-new white scarf might be pulled out of a donation bag at the last minute because of the promise of elegance it once held for its owner. impractical brand-new (C) And a ripped T-shirt might be rescued / forgotten from the dust rag bin long after the name of the rock band once written across it has faded. rescued forgotten source evoke rescued 2 A worn-thin dress may hang in the back of a closet even though it hasn t been worn in years because the faint scent of pine that lingers on it is all that remains of someone s sixteenth summer. A(n) (B) impractical / brand-new white scarf might be pulled out of a donation bag at the last minute because of the promise of elegance it once held for its owner. brand-new impractical impractical 3... Like fragments from old songs, clothes can evoke both cherished and painful memories... An impractical white scarf might be pulled out of a donation bag at the last minute because of the promise of elegance it once held for its owner. And a ripped T-shirt might be rescued from the dust rag bin long after the name of the rock band once written across it has faded... 11

5 Exercises 1 Some pessimistic scientists believe that climate change on Earth has already passed the tipping point beyond which it is not (A) difficult / possible to stop the slide into global meltdown. But other groups of scientists think that even if the tipping point has been and gone there might still be hope for the planet in the form of geo-engineering, which is superscale design-and-build work that could (B) estimate / reverse the effects of climate change. The ideas put forward include sending giant sunshades into space to block out some of the Sun s light; building a network of industrial plants around the globe that would suck in carbon dioxide, compress it into liquid, and then pump it underground; and tipping gallons of fertilizer into the oceans to (C) hinder / encourage the growth of marine plant life to absorb carbon dioxide from the air by photosynthesis. compress (A) (B) (C) difficult estimate hinder difficult reverse encourage possible estimate encourage possible reverse hinder possible reverse encourage 2 Ostentation can be a credible boast of quality. A good example of this is the peacock s tail. Although it may appear to be a wasteful display, the showy tail actually has the purpose of (A) showing / doubting that the male is healthy. The peacock s tail has many and varied economic equivalents in the business world. Banks and insurance companies have head offices that are extremely magnificent beyond the needs of their dealings. The showy offices signal that the company is (B) failing / stable, distinguishing it from shakier companies that cannot afford them. As a signal that they (C) expect / hesitate to still be there for you long into the future, retailers locate themselves in high-rent districts like New York s Fifth Avenue when a less expensive address would serve. ostentation (A) (B) (C) showing failing expect showing stable expect showing stable hesitate doubting failing hesitate doubting stable hesitate 12

6 3 Although many important Greek scientists such as Galen and Ptolemy lived in the Roman Empire, the Romans themselves (A) contributed / distributed comparatively little to science. They adopted the mathematics of the Greeks and applied it very successfully to engineering and architecture. The fruits of this (B) applicant / application are seen today in many Roman remains, especially in some of their very wonderful aqueducts for carrying water to their towns. But their engineers and scientists were always servants and very often slaves, and no honor or recognition was given to them. It is no wonder, therefore, that science did not (C) advance / decline during the Roman Empire. aqueduct (A) (B) (C) contributed applicant advance contributed application advance contributed application decline distributed applicant decline distributed application advance 4 Intellectually, we all know that people can look at issues from many different viewpoints. Intellectually, we even (A) deny / admit that at least some of the perspectives that differ from our own have something to offer a new opinion on the problem or an insightful notion. We may even be perfectly capable of bringing these (B) opposing / established perspectives to our minds. Yet we persist in focusing on our own viewpoint, a tendency that David Perkins calls my-side bias. This my-side bias acts like a default setting. It (C) overturns / supports our intellectual understanding that different interpretations of events and different opinions about them are highly likely, so that we return to seeing the world from our own point of view even after acknowledging differing positions. default (A) (B) (C) deny opposing overturns deny established supports admit opposing overturns admit opposing supports admit established overturns 13

7 Exercises 5 Reaching beyond realism, the naturalists tried to illustrate as faithfully as possible whatever was observable to them within their literary works. They wanted to (A) hide / reveal the dominant states of things in all areas of life. While the realists tried to evoke the impression that the characters really exist and that the events narrated are the events of ordinary experience, the naturalists wanted to give a strictly (B) objective / subjective depiction of the struggle against nature as a hopeless fight, believing that human behavior is determined by the environment. The reason for this shift of the fundamental idea of realism was the (C) unnoticeable / visible decline of the living conditions of the lower classes in the 19th century. Large cities became the focus of literature due to miserable housing conditions, factories, diseases, and widespread hunger. (A) (B) (C) hide objective unnoticeable hide subjective unnoticeable reveal objective unnoticeable reveal objective visible reveal subjective visible 6 If there is to be toleration in the world, one of the things taught in schools must be the habit of weighing evidence, and the practice of not giving full (A) consent / objection to propositions which there is no reason to believe true. For example, the art of reading newspapers should be taught. The schoolmaster should select some incident which happened a good many years ago, and roused political passions in its day. He should then read to the schoolchildren what was said by the newspapers on one side, what was said by those on the other, and some (B) biased / fair account of what really happened. He should make them understand that everything in newspapers is more or less untrue. The critical skepticism which would result from this teaching would make the children (C) unprotected / free from overly naive appeals to idealism in later life. (A) (B) (C) consent biased unprotected consent fair unprotected consent fair free objection biased unprotected objection fair free 14

8 7 Human skin owes its color to the presence of particles known as melanin. The primary function of melanin is to protect the upper levels of the skin from being damaged by the sun s ultraviolet rays. This radiation poses a critical problem for our kind because we lack the dense coat of hair that acts as a sunscreen for most mammals. Hairlessness exposes us to two kinds of radiation dangers: ordinary sunburn and skin cancers. Melanin is the body s first line of defense against these afflictions. The more melanin particles, the darker the skin, and the higher the risk of sunburn and all forms of skin cancer. This explains why the highest rates for skin cancer are found in sun-drenched lands such as Australia, where light-skinned people of European descent spend a good part of their lives outdoors wearing scanty clothes. scanty 8 Two psychologists, Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson, who wrote together a book entitled Raising Cain, argue that America, as a society, has so mishandled the emotional lives of boys that it has produced many distant and troubled men. Fathers and mothers, male and female teachers alike, all unconsciously conspire, the authors suggest, to limit the emotional development of boys. As they put it, we want our boys to be tough and strong based on images of manliness we absorbed from our culture. So when a child is hurting, when he s sad, angry, frustrated, disappointed, or frightened, we don t allow him to learn about what he s feeling. We push him back inside himself with comments like Just tough it out or You need to be strong. As a result, boys possess emotional literacy, the ability to express their own feelings and understand emotions in others. conspire 15

9 Exercises 9 After millions of years of experience on earth, we have acquired the power to affect our planet s climate. The theory has to do with the accumulation of dust and carbon dioxide that modern technology pours into the atmosphere in great quantities. The dust tends to reduce the amount of incoming solar radiation, thereby cooling the earth. The carbon dioxide tends to trap heat that would ordinarily escape to outer space, thereby warming the earth. If either effect is large enough, the earth s average temperature might change a degree or two, with disastrous results. An increase in temperature might melt the icecaps and raise the level of the ocean as much as 300 feet. All of this is confirmed, of course. No one really knows what, if anything, is happening to the climate or how long such events might take to occur. 10 There are several Egyptian paintings of great interest preserved among the numerous other remains of Egyptian art in the British Museum. Unfortunately, the originally brilliant colors of these have faded, and many of them are now fast decaying. When the paintings were first discovered, however, their colors were as bright and pure as when they were first painted, because they had not been exposed to the influence of the atmosphere. Red, yellow, green and blue, with black and white, were the colors employed. These were applied collectively, so that no variety of tint was produced. Different colors were used for different things, but almost invariably the same color for the same thing. Thus men and women were usually red, the men several shades darker than the women, water blue, birds blue and green, and so on. 16

10 11 The underlying idea of world history is that the interaction among human societies resembles not the relationships among building blocks, but rather among bacteria. Building blocks can be stacked next to or on top of each other, but they rarely if ever affect their neighbors shapes or composition. Bacteria, however, fundamentally shape each other as they interact. Because the membranes covering bacteria are full of pores, bacteria can exchange genetic information and can even fundamentally alter each other s basic make-up when they touch. Similarly, human societies in contact affect each other s development. World historians, rejecting this, seek to understand human history through studying both developments within societies and the way in which societies relate to each other. They look not only at the process of invention but also at the key role played by the spreading of people, things, and ideas around the world. membrane 12 Spotlights can be more or less focused. When focused to their maximum extent, they illuminate a very small area with a very bright light. When de-focused, they illuminate a larger area, but the light is less intense. The same is true for attention. When we are relaxed, and not in the grip of any particular emotion, our mental spotlight is relatively unfocused, and more thoughts may drift through our awareness. When an emotion occurs, however, our mental spotlight suddenly contracts, focusing on one small thought to the exclusion of all others. This thought is usually a representation of the external object that stabilized the emotion. Love, for example, makes it hard to think of anything except the beloved. Emotions are often blamed for distracting us, so it might seem strange to say that they help to focus our attention. However, emotions distract us from one thought only to make us pay attention to another. 17

11 Part 02 Zoom In On January 10, 1992, a ship (A) traveled / traveling through rough seas lost 12 cargo containers, one of which held 28,800 floating bath toys. Brightly colored ducks, frogs, and turtles were set adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. After seven months, the first toys made landfall on beaches near Sitka, Alaska, 3,540 kilometers from (B) what / where they were lost. Other toys floated north and west along the Alaskan coast and across the Bering Sea. Some toy animals stayed at sea (C) even / very longer. They floated completely along the North Pacific currents, ending up back in Sitka. (A) (B) (C) traveled what even traveled what very traveling what even traveling where even traveling where very Words & Phrases cargo float adrift landfall completely current 18

12 Problem-Solving Strategies 1 (A) On January 10, 1992, a ship traveled / traveling through rough seas lost 12 cargo containers, ~ (B) After seven months, the first toys made landfall on beaches near Sitka, Alaska, 3,540 kilometers from what / where they were lost. 7 3,540 Sitka (C) Some toy animals stayed at sea even / very longer. 2 On January 10, 1992, a ship traveled / traveling through rough seas lost 12 cargo containers, ~. lost a ship traveled through rough seas a ship traveling through rough seas sentence traveling After seven months, the first toys made landfall on beaches near Sitka, Alaska, 3,540 kilometers from they were lost. whatthe thing that ~ where the placewhere After seven months, the first toys made landfall on beaches near Sitka, Alaska, 3,540 kilometers from what / where they were lost. what what what was lost what they lost what what where they were lost where Some toy animals stayed at sea even / very longer. very much even 3 (A) a ship traveling through rough seas (B) from where they were lost (C) even longer 19

13 Exercises 1 No magic pills can be given to make a person capable of matching wits with an expert. But it is possible to acquire through long experience some appreciation of the point of view of the laboratory scientist, some (A) understand / understanding of his methods and the way he conceives a problem. Not a few citizens have made themselves intelligent critics of scientific work by a process of self-education in relation to some phase of modern science (B) to connect / connected with their activities in the world of affairs. A series of episodes has left permanent imprints on their minds which serve as fixed points a sort of map (C) which / to which they may refer any new proposal from the laboratory. conceive a problem (A) (B) (C) understand to connect which understand connected to which understanding to connect to which understanding connected which understanding connected to which 2 Until after World War II, only the very wealthy and the famous enjoyed the benefits of worldwide leisure travel. It was considered too (A) expensive / expensively by most, especially compared to what else could be done with the money spent on a trip. The common belief was that (B) buy / buying new kitchen appliances or furniture for a home was a better investment than taking a short, expensive trip. Now, wealth abounds to the point that most people in North America own far more material goods than they need, and travel to foreign places seems like a perfect investment (C) broaden / to broaden one s perspective on life. And the memories of trips can last a lifetime, whereas material goods will wear out in a few years. (A) (B) (C) expensive buy broaden expensive buying broaden expensive buying to broaden expensively buy broaden expensively buying to broaden 20

14 3 According to Confucius, all people are born honest and good, and deep down, they remain so. Anyone (A) sees / seeing a small child playing near the water s edge will worry lest it fall in, he said. Concern for our fellow human beings and sympathy for the misfortunes of others are inborn sentiments. All we need to do is to make (B) sure / surely we do not lose them. And that, said Confucius, is why we have families. Someone who is always good to his parents, who obeys them and cares for them will treat others in the same way, and will obey the laws of the state in the same way that he obeys his father. Thus, for Confucius, the family, with its brotherly and sisterly love and respect for parents, (C) was / were the most important thing of all. He called it the root of humanity. Confucius (A) (B) (C) sees sure was sees surely were seeing sure was seeing sure were seeing surely was 4 The city of Athens established procedures for distinguishing right from wrong. On the south side of the chief marketplace stood the Court of the Heliasts, a large building with wooden benches for a jury at one end, and a prosecution and defendant s platform at (A) others / the other. Trials began with a speech from the prosecution, followed by a speech from the defense. Then a jury numbering between 200 and 2,500 people would indicate (B) that / where the truth lay by a vote or a show of hands. This method of deciding right from wrong by counting the number of people in favor of a proposition (C) used / was used throughout Athenian political and legal life. Two or three times a month, all male citizens, some 30,000, were invited to gather to decide on important questions of state by a show of hands. For the city, the opinion of the majority was equated with the truth. prosecution (A) (B) (C) others that used others where used the other that was used the other where used the other where was used 21

15 Exercises 5 A major obstacle to discovery is not ignorance but knowledge. Because Aristotle was so comprehensive, logical, and brilliant, his writings became the ultimate standard of truth for 2,000 years. A major portion of Galileo s works was devoted to (A) disprove / disproving Aristotle so that the reader would be able to grasp his arguments. The difficulty was that a single authority (Aristotle) was held in such high regard (B) that / which alternative views could not get a hearing. In more recent times the work of Freud has had a similar effect. Freud s system of analysis assumed certain mental constructs a priori, so it was very difficult to revise or improve his theories. The result was that a fairly good number of psychoanalysts (C) remaining / remained Freudians though many psychologists began to ignore Freud altogether to make progress in their work. a priori (A) (B) (C) disprove that remained disprove which remaining disproving that remaining disproving that remained disproving which remained 6 The mechanical quality of life that industrialization promoted (A) to be / was proving to be a source of dissatisfaction for many, which made it ripe for its satirization by Charlie Chaplin in his 1936 film Modern Times. Chaplin s famous character, the Little Tramp, goes to work in a factory. He is instructed to stand at a particular spot on a fast-paced assembly line and (B) screw / screwing bolts onto the pieces of machinery that pass him at an ever-increasing rate. His hands become so accustomed to the prescribed movement that even after he has left the assembly line, he continues to compulsively twist anything that remotely resembles a screw. In the film s most famous scene, he becomes so overwhelmed by his work that he simply lies down on the conveyor belt and allows (C) him / himself to be pulled into the factory s mechanical belly. satirization (A) (B) (C) to be screw him to be screwing himself was screw him was screw himself was screwing him 22

16 7 What time of the day is best for exercise? A person can exercise at almost any time of the day except about two hours following a large meal, or the noon and early afternoon hours on hot and humid days. Many people enjoy exercising early in the morning because it gives them a good boost to start the day. If you have a difficult time sticking to an exercise program, early morning exercise is best because the chances of some other activity or conflict interfering with your exercise time is minimal. Some people prefer the lunch hour for weight-control reasons. By exercising at noon, they do not eat as big a lunch, which helps keep down daily caloric intake. Highly stressed people seem to like the evening hours because of the relaxing effects of exercise. 8 The reason nature is so wasteful is that scattershot strategies for reproduction are the best way to do what mathematicians call fully exploring the potential space. Imagine a desert landscape with two pools of water separated by some distance. If you are a plant growing next to one of those pools, you can have one of two different reproductive strategies. You can drop seeds near your roots, where there s a pretty good chance water can be found. This is safe, but soon leads to crowding. Or you can toss the seeds into the air and let it float far away. This means that almost all will die, but it is the only way to find that second pool of water, where life can expand into a new place, perhaps a richer one. It is wasteful, but it can pay off in the end. scattershot 23

17 Exercises 9 In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins tells the story of Admiral James Stockdale, the highestranking American prisoner of war in Vietnam. Known for his unbreakable character and resilience, Stockdale described the two defining characteristics of American captives who were most likely to survive the brutal conditions of a Vietnamese prison. First, they openly faced and accepted rather than ignored or dismissed the harsh facts of their difficulty. Second, they never stopped believing that they would someday get out. In other words, while they did not run away from reality, accepting the brutal truths about their current conditions, they never lost hope which all would work out well in the end. By contrast, both those who believed that they would never get out and those who believed that they would be freed within an unrealistically short period of time were unlikely to survive. resilience 10 I was seated in the office of the vice-president of sales of a company I d been consulting with for several years. The vice-president was interviewing someone for the position of regional sales director and asked me to listen in. The man interviewing was an experienced, successful salesman. Still, it was an important career meeting for him, and he was nervous. His response to the pressure of the interview was to talk too much. The applicant felt uncomfortable and was attempting to fill the uncertainty of the moment with sound. While trying to make a good impression, he presented himself poorly. A little conscious breathing would have enabled him to feel better about himself and allowed him to be more calm and clear. 24

18 11 In the middle of the thirteenth century, Matthew Paris drew a picture of an elephant, which was the first elephant that had been seen in England. The figure of the servant by its side is not a very convincing likeness, though we are given his name, Henricus de Flor. But what is interesting is that in this case the artist was very anxious to get the right proportions. Between the legs of the elephant there is a Latin inscription saying: By the size of the man portrayed here you may imagine the size of the beast represented here. To us this elephant may look a little odd, but it does show that medieval artists, at least in the thirteenth century, were very well aware of such things as proportions, and that, if they ignored them so often, they were so not out of ignorance but simply because they did not think they mattered. inscription 12 The Louvre s CD-ROM offers a wonderful view of the Mona Lisa. One can almost see her very pores on the computer screen; the reproduction is brighter than the original, revealing more of the landscape in the background. The zoom tool permits viewers to carefully examine features as the commentator lists them. Yet people do still make a journey see Leonardo s original painting in the Louvre. The feeling of awe is almost religious as international crowds file past the mysterious face that rests, smiling, in her closed glass box. The atmosphere is one of quiet excitement and people record the momentous occasion with videos and snapshots. Mona Lisa s aura is by no means an illusion, though there is something sadly ironic about visitors trying to capture her with their own mechanical reproductions. file 25

19 Zoom Out 1 Building Blocks and Tools for Reading Vocabulary and Grammar 1,000 Guessing New Words from Context Yes No Yes No 26

20 Students mark the main idea with a felt-tip pen. felt-tip be is are mean(s) A strategy is a plan for reaching an objective. To achieve means to complete or reach something, such as a goal. She studies apes such as gorillas and chimpanzees. These apes learned words of direction for example, left and right. that is Syntax the grammar rules of a language is necessary for effective expression and communication. It allows an animal to be adaptable that is, able to change in a new situation. Some Americans began to resent the new immigrants. They felt anger toward them because they dressed and sounded different and foreign. 27

21 Zoom Out 1 As soon as I asked Magdalena to drive, I knew I had made my usual mistake. She was an excellent driver but always took the most circuitous route in order to enjoy the scenery. By the time we arrived at the restaurant, waiters were clearing the tables, and the restaurant was closed until dinnertime. circuitous Reaching beyond realism, the naturalists tried to illustrate as faithfully as possible whatever was observable to them within their literary works. They wanted to hide / reveal the dominant states of things in all areas of life. While the realists tried to evoke the impression that the characters really exist and that the events narrated are the events of ordinary experience, the naturalists wanted to give a strictly objective / subjective depiction of the struggle against nature as a hopeless fight, believing that human behavior is determined by the environment... They wanted to ~ in all areas of life. reveal objective Examples of Grammar Test ~ what we really want, it seems, is to stop wanting. We are trapped deep in a paradox ~. ~ on which were placed possible technical solutions that other teams might use in the future. possible technical ~ in the future were ~ is as subtle / subtly as a pause. is This sounds obvious ~. sounds The way around this is to see that habits are ~. to 28

22 ~ make fieldwork sound exciting ~. ~ find them wholly to occupy / occupied with the past ~. ~ the vast detailed intricacy ~. So / Such imprudent are we that we ~. such so ~ adventure which soon adopts ~. ~ an acquaintance who / whom I was certain was going to ~. ~ 3,540 kilometers from what / where they were lost. independent relative clause ~ a right course of action, through which one may provoke ~. ~ halfhearted individuals are ~ even when it involves their own welfare. ~ try to support the present with the future and think / thinking of ~. to support think ~ had university students read a personality description of someone and then summarize / summarized it for someone else ~. read summarize Asked / Asking to recall what they had read, they remembered ~. He goes on to describe his daily routine of strolling through the village observing the intimate details of family life. ~ derived from the Latin word cor meaning heart. (Grammatical and Ungrammatical Strings) ~ believe what / that they are saying. saying believe what they are believe that they are saying believe saying thatsaying what It is true that the questions dealt / dealing with very personal issues, but I ~. but issues the questions dealt with very personal issues 29

23 Part 03 Zoom In Living things naturally return to a state of balance. When we are disturbed by forces acting on us, our inner machinery kicks in and returns us to a balanced state of equilibrium. Homeostasis is the word we use to describe the ability of an organism to maintain internal equilibrium by adjusting its physiological processes. Most of the systems in animal and human physiology are controlled by homeostasis. We don t like to be off balance. We tend to keep things in a stable condition. This system operates at all levels. Our blood stays the same temperature. Except for extraordinary exceptions, when people find ways to intervene using methods more powerful than our tendency to equilibrium, our habits, behaviors, thoughts, and our quality of life stay pretty much the same too. physical balance needed for mental equilibrium inner mechanisms to enhance the quality of life general tendency of organisms to keep equilibrium major differences in animal and human physiology biological processes resulting from habitual behaviors Words & Phrases act on kick in equilibrium homeostasis physiological off balance intervene 30

24 Problem-Solving Strategies 1 Living things naturally return to a state of balance. 2 balanceequilibriumhomeostasis general tendency of organisms to keep equilibrium biological processes resulting from habitual behaviors inner mechanisms to enhance the quality of life major differences in animal and human physiology physical balance needed for mental equilibrium 31

25 Exercises 1 Parents often fail to address early childhood lying, since the lying is almost innocent their child is too young to know what lies are, or that lying is wrong. When their child gets older and learns those distinctions, the parents believe, the lying will stop. This is dead wrong, according to Dr. Victoria Talwar. The better a young child can distinguish a lie from the truth, the more likely he or she is to lie given the chance. Researchers test children with elegant anecdotes, and ask, Did Suzy tell a lie or tell the truth? The kids who know the difference are also the most prone to lie. Ignorant of this scholarship, many parenting websites and books advise parents to just let lies go kids will grow out of it. The truth is, kids grow into it. how to stop children from lying the necessity of learning to let go the misconception about children s lies effective strategies for educating children the effects of trust on children s personalities 2 Because classical music today has largely become something we listen to in concert or on recordings, it is easy to forget the essential role it once played as a part of daily life. An enormous amount of the music written in the Baroque period and earlier was designed to support dancing. Supplying music for dancing was an essential task for nearly every composer until the twentieth century. Vast quantities of dance music were written in the Baroque period because people danced all the time, and composers had to supply music to match the demand. As time passed, however, dance music gradually became more abstract and sophisticated and eventually left its original realworld function behind. Put simply, the minuet, which was originally designed to be danced to, ultimately became something to listen to, and the switch transformed both content and form. the role of dance in modern arts causes for the decline of classical music how to appreciate various types of music changes in the function of classical music audio-visual components in performing arts 32

26 3 A species that survives by eating another species is typically referred to as a predator. The word brings up images of some of the most dramatic animals on Earth: cheetahs, eagles, and killer whales. You might not picture wood warblers, a family of North American bird species characterized by their small size and colorful feathers, as predators; however, these beautiful birds are huge consumers of insects. The hundreds of millions of individual warblers collectively remove literally tons of insects from forest trees every summer. Most of these insects prey on plants. By reducing the number of insects in forests, warblers reduce the damage that insects inflict on forest plants. The results of a study that excluded birds from white oak seedlings showed that the trees were about fifteen percent smaller because of insect damage over two years, as compared to trees from which birds were not excluded. seedling new ways to protect endangered species smart ways to escape from forest predators the role of wood warblers in forest preservation the uniqueness of wood warblers survival instinct the rapid decrease in the number of predator species 4 Corporations were once task-oriented groups, created in the nineteenth century through charters to perform specific projects like canal or railroad building. The word corporate still suggests a group engaged in some collective project beyond making money for shareholders and well into the postwar period corporations continued to define themselves in terms of their products and overall contribution to society. But with the rise of finance capitalism in the 1980s, shareholders profits came to beat all other considerations, even pride in the product. Harvard Business School s Rakesh Khurana, who has recorded the decline of professional management, traces how the idea of the corporation evolved through policy statements made by the Business Roundtable. In 1990, the Business Roundtable representing America s large corporations stated that corporations are chartered to serve both their shareholders and society as a whole, including such stakeholders as employees, customers, suppliers, and communities. charter conflict management in corporations the social responsibility of corporations strong competition among corporations the changing conception of the corporation shareholders growing influence on corporations 33

27 Exercises 5 In monkey colonies, where rigid dominance hierarchies exist, beneficial innovations do not spread quickly through the group unless they are taught first to a dominant animal. When a lower animal is taught the new concept first, the rest of the colony remains mostly oblivious to its value. One study on the introduction of new food tastes to Japanese monkeys provides a nice illustration. In one troop, a taste for caramels was developed by introducing this new food into the diet of young minors, low on the status ladder. The taste for caramels inched slowly up the ranks: A year and a half later, only 51 percent of the colony had acquired it, and still none of the leaders. Contrast this with what happened in a second troop where wheat was introduced first to the leader: Wheat eating to this point unknown to these monkeys spread through the whole colony within four hours. oblivious peer pressure in monkey colonies cooperation for survival in monkey colonies monkeys learned behavior through imitation the difference between monkeys and humans in learning monkeys deference to authority in adapting themselves to new things 6 The rationale for taking up great growth is that firms need to run with the ball if they ever get that rare opportunity to suddenly double or triple sales. But there are times when a slower, more controlled growth is sensible. Risks lie on both sides as businesses reach for these opportunities. When a market begins to boom and a firm is unable to keep up with demand without greatly increasing capacity and resources, it faces a dilemma: Stay conservative in fear that the opportunity will be shortened, but thereby give up some of the growing market to competitors; or expand vigorously to take full advantage of the opportunity, but risk being overextended and vulnerable should the potential suddenly fade. Regardless of the commitment to a vision of great growth, a firm must develop an organization and systems and controls to handle it. arguments for and against company expansion the types of dilemmas in company expansion the growth and the manageability of companies the need for company downsizing in competitive markets the relationship between market demand and company growth 34

28 7 It is known that the sum of evaporation and transpiration of water through the leaves of plants will increase with temperature, so that in hot environments, rising temperatures will make rainwater less available for human use and crop production before it evaporates. Rising temperatures will also accelerate the melting of glaciers and snow in the high mountains. Hundreds of millions of people downstream of mountains depend on snowmelt and glacier melt for their water in the spring and summer, and climate change will greatly threaten these vast areas of Asia and the Americas. For some decades, the communities will be threatened by flooding caused by rapid glacier melting, but after that the risk will switch abruptly to water scarcity when the glaciers disappear altogether. Snowmelt will come earlier in the spring and not be available during the dry summer months when crops require water to grow. transpiration ways to prevent global warming the effects of glaciers on the environment factors influencing the Earth s greenhouse effect the decline in crop production and its consequences changes in water availability due to rising temperatures 8 Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory. As philosopher of science Karl Popper has emphasized, a good theory is characterized by the fact that it makes a number of predictions that could in principle be disproved or falsified by observation. Each time new experiments are observed to agree with the predictions the theory survives, and our confidence in it is increased; but if ever a new observation is found to disagree, we have to abandon or modify the theory. provisional a trend in modern physics ways to collect data in science limitations of a physical theory the disprovability of theoretical accounts making observations using the scientific method 35

29 Part 04 Zoom In The good news is that it s never too late to start building up muscle strength, regardless of your age. Ideally, though, it s best to start in your mid-forties when muscle mass starts to decline significantly. Once you ve started, it can take just six weeks to see an improvement of up to 20 percent in your muscle capabilities, says Dr. Ward. Studies have found that intense programs of strength training can help even weak older people double their strength, as well as enable them to walk faster and climb stairs more easily. And muscle isn t all you gain strength training can help combat osteoarthritis, depression, and risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. osteoarthritis 40 Words & Phrases regardless of decline significantly capability intense combat depression diabetes 36

30 Problem-Solving Strategies 1 never too late to start building up muscle strength best to start in your mid-forties help even weak older people double their strength help combat osteoarthritis, depression, and risk factors for heart disease and diabetes 2 ~ it s best to start in your mid-forties when muscle mass starts to decline significantly. ~ strength training can help even weak older people double their strength, ~ ~ muscle isn t all you gain strength training can help combat osteoarthritis, ~ 3 37

31 Exercises 1 It has been shown repeatedly that the link between amount of salary and happiness is not as strong as one would expect it to be. Yet we keep pushing toward a higher salary. Much of that can be blamed on sheer envy. As H. L. Mencken, the twentieth-century journalist, social critic, and freethinker noted, a man s satisfaction with his salary depends on (are you ready for this?) whether he makes more than his wife s sister s husband. Why the wife s sister s husband? Because (and I have a feeling that Mencken s wife kept him fully informed of her sister s husband s salary) this is a comparison that is salient and readily available. In like manner, hearing of his colleagues or friends yachts and vacation homes, a person who has previously been happy with his income suddenly feels very poor and wants to take another route with his career. 2 We are deeply ambivalent about children. Our attitudes to children are rooted more often in myth rather than in reality. At one moment we see children as innocents and guard them from every real or imagined danger; at the next moment we treat youngsters as monsters from whom society needs protection. Such attitudes serve both children and society badly. Only those with no recollection of the childhood cruelties of the playground or the sports changing room can entertain the illusion that children are unspoiled by the rougher ways of the world. The attempt to protect children from every source of harm or danger will create a generation of young people incapable of looking after themselves. Society needs to be actively concerned with fostering children s capacity to look out for themselves. ambivalent 38

32 3 The more expert your client is in a given area, the more features (not benefits) that person needs information about to make a decision. Knowledgeable people are going to match your message to what they already have stored in their memory and mind. If you come across as not knowing the actual working details of whatever your idea or proposal is, you lose. If you have quality information, you engage the client and optimize your chances of making the sale. On the other hand, when your client is not an expert in a certain area, less information is generally more likely to be processed more quickly and favorably. In this case, because less is better, you want that message to be very different. You want to share benefits and not features with this client. When the client is not an expert, peripheral cues become crucial. 4 It cannot be too often repeated that it is not the so-called blessings of life, its sunshine and calm and pleasant experiences that make men great, but its rugged experiences, its storms, and trials. Early hardship, especially, is often a blessing in disguise. It is the rough Atlantic Ocean, the cold, dark, winter nights, the fierce northers, that make the British and the American sailors the toughest and most skillful in the world. The training in the school of hardship and sorrow produces the most able pupils, and the hill of difficulty is the best of all exercises for the strengthening of mental backbones. Great men can no more be made without trials than bricks can be made without fire. norther 39

33 Exercises 5 Because our society equates intelligence with school learning, children who have difficulty developing the academically prized capacities are at high risk for feeling stupid. Children with reading disabilities, for example, find it difficult to think of themselves as smart. They discount evidence of their intelligence, such as well-developed social skills, clever problem solving in building a soapbox car, or even above-average scores on IQ tests. The mother of one such child told me about an incident that happened when her son Matt was playing at a neighbor s home. The neighbor later commented, in a surprised voice, Matt s really witty! I mean, I knew he was in the special reading group... Her voice trailed off as she realized what she was saying, and Matt s mother, like every parent whose child struggles with academic learning, had to contend with yet another person who felt that such children cannot be intelligent. 6 In our daily lives, all of us, no matter how determinedly upbeat, rely on what psychologist Julie Norem calls defensive pessimism to get through the day. Not only airplane pilots need to envision the worst; so does the driver of a car. Should you assume, positively, that no one is going to cut in front of you or, more negatively, be prepared to brake? Most of us would choose a physician who is willing to investigate the most dire possibilities rather than one who is known to settle quickly on an optimistic diagnosis. In matters of the heart as well, a certain level of negativity and suspicion is universally recommended. You may try to project a thoroughly positive outlook in order to attract a potential boyfriend, but you are also advised to find out more about him. upbeat 40

34 7 It is important to take a look at the personality that you ve created. Perhaps one of the reasons you keep yourself from doing this is because you have been an imitator. It is not uncommon to get hung up on this. It may help to understand that nobody can create a self from scratch. Everyone has to do the same thing. Everybody chooses from what is available. Even though you may have built your personality through imitation, you are not a fraud. No one else has ever put together the exact same combination that you have. Do not forget there are only twelve notes in the musical scale, and yet many hundreds of thousands of unique and beautiful combinations are created. It is all a matter of how they are put together. fraud 8 Global climatic stability and ecological resilience are global public goods that require cooperative global solutions, whereas fossil fuels are market goods that promote competition and resource struggles. The transition to sustainability demands new energy sources that are nonrival, such as energy from the sun and wind. For example, U.S. development of cheap and efficient solar power will not limit China s use of this resource; moreover, China would likely improve the technology, thus offering benefits to other users. Unfortunately, international trade institutions such as the World Trade Organization give priority to private, market goods and services at the expense of public goods. Countries that cannot afford renewable energy technologies will continue to burn coal, preventing the new technologies from helping to address climate change. Open access to information about renewable energy technologies is needed to solve this problem. sustainability 41

35 Exercises 9 In attempting to accomplish a group goal, meeting partners actually attempt to complete a particular task. More than a single task is usually sought in most meetings, but the tasks are still distinct. There is a tendency to mix these different tasks together, however, without recognizing that the individual or group with whom you re meeting may not understand what specific task is being undertaken at a particular time. Thus, the task may be to offer advice, but the group thinks the task is to make a decision. You may want the group to give factual information, but the group thinks the task is to provide subjective advice. Some tasks are inappropriate for some groups. Some tasks are incompatible with a particular meeting, although the participants will attempt them. In planning a meeting, make clear what task it is you re asking your meeting partners to perform. incompatible 10 A few decades ago, people in wheelchairs, as well as many on crutches and with strollers, couldn t use pay telephones or revolving doors or buy articles of their choice in a supermarket, where many shelves were placed too high or too low to be reached with ease. Stairways needed to be replaced by ramps. In recent years, this picture has changed greatly. Pay telephones have been placed in lower positions, many ramps have been built to accommodate those in wheelchairs, and other important control areas such as light switches and elevator controls have also been lowered. But much else needs to be done. For example, most ramps were simply added to comply with laws governing the handicapped. Both the materials selected for these ramps and their angle of incline frequently lead to their icing up or becoming slippery during the winter. ramp 42

36 11 Some researchers argue that food science is necessarily reductive because the entire food system is so complex that all they can do is break the system down into isolated parts and study them. The problem is that when nutrients are studied in isolation, we ignore the vastness of the system as a whole, making it extremely difficult to know what any given nutrient s effect really is within the system. For example, the combinations in which we consume foods and drinks can have tremendous influence on their benefit or harm. We can hardly absorb the iron in a steak if we drink a cup of coffee with it. That simple addition of a particular liquid into the steak meal yields a different nutritional result. In other words, if we want healthy meals, we have to understand the entire process of eating with all of the factors that affect a healthy outcome. reductive 12 It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling antiracism demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather nonviolently in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps the police have been rather nonviolent in public, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason. treason 43