Read Text I and answer question.

Text I

How to have a healthier relationship with your phone

    A few years ago, a Google employee sent an email to thousands of her co-workers: What if for six weeks straight, you spent one night per week without technology? The email was from Laura Mae Martin, Google’s executive productivity adviser, a role that, among other things, was created to help staff members foster healthier relationships with their gadgets and apps. After she sent the note, Ms. Martin was flooded with responses from coworkers eager for a respite from some of the very products they helped build. Thousands of employees have since participated in the annual “No-Tech Tuesday Night Challenge,” said Ms. Martin.

    The problem she was trying to solve isn’t unique to Google workers. One survey found that Americans say they spend too much time on their phones. But dramatic solutions – a digital detox, a phone downgrade or a complete exit from social media – may feel impractical. 

    Is it possible to have a healthy relationship with technology while still using it daily? Fortunately, according to experts, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’ and here are a few things you can try:

    First, start with one simple question.

    You know that urge you get to reach for your phone without realizing it? And then, before you know it, you’re an hour into a social media binge? If you want to peacefully coexist with technology, you need to get a handle on those impulses, said Richard J. Davidson, the founder and director of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. According to him, people should start by noticing when they have an urge to lift their phone or open social media on their browser window. By becoming conscious of what you’re about to do, you’re interrupting an automatic behavior and awakening the part of your brain that governs self-control, he added. As one research article suggests, awareness of your actions can help you rein in bad habits.

    Secondly, take the “mobile” out of your mobile devices.

    Dr. Anna Lembke, a professor of psychiatry and addiction medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, said one of the biggest problems with smartphones is what she calls “texting while running to catch a bus.” Using our devices while we’re on the move – walking from meeting to meeting, taking a child to school or catching a bus – prevents us from being more engaged in our lives, Dr. Lembke said.

    One way to create harmony with technology is to limit your phone use when you’re on the move. Headed out for a walk? Turn off your notifications. Going to grab a coffee? Leave your phone on your desk. If you’re feeling brave, try powering down your phone while in transit. It won’t buzz with notifications, text messages or phone calls, which Dr. Lembke said could help you focus on the world around you.

    Last of all, make technology work for you.

    One thing experts agree on: To forge a healthy relationship with technology, you need to be in control of it and not the other way around. Think about your gadgets as tools that you decide how to use. 

    “Make it work for you, not against you; whether it’s an email program or your dishwasher, it’s the intention behind how you’re using it that really makes the big difference”, said Ms. Martin, the productivity expert at Google.

(Adapted from: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/21/well/social-media-phone-addiction.html)

        Poor Things – Emma Stone transfixes in Lanthimos’s thrilling carnival of oddness

(Available at: www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/14/poor-things-review-yorgos-lanthimos-emma-stonefrankenstein – text specially adapted for this test).

(Available at: education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/earth-day/– text specially adapted for this test).

Read Text I to answer the question.

TEXT I

“One very active research tradition in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) attempts to establish causal relationships between environmental factors and learning. These include the type and quantity of input, instruction and feedback, and the interactional context of learning (Larsen-Freeman and Long 1991). A second very influential line of research and theory in SLA that came to fruition during the 1980s investigates the possible role of universal grammar (UG) in SLA (Eubank 1991b, White 1989). In the Chomskyan tradition, UG refers not to properties of language as the external object of learning but to innate properties of mind that direct the course of primary language acquisition. One question asked within this tradition has been whether or not second language this tradition learners still “have access” to UG, but it is assumed that UG principles are not accessible to learner awareness for any kind of conscious analysis of input. It is possible that SLA is the result of UG (a deep internal factor) acting upon input (an external factor), as proposed by White (1989), but what seems to be left out of such an account is the role of the learner's conscious mental processes.” […]

Available at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annual-review-of-applied-linguistics/ (adapted)

Elephant Calf Separated From Herd in India is Reunited With Its Mother 

(Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/03/elephant-calf-separated-from-herd-in-india-isreunited-with-mother – text especially adapted for this test).

Text 2

Pre-Communicative and Communicative Activities 

[…] The development of communicative competence involves the acquisition and use of so-called language skills, which are promoted from the communicative approach in an integrated manner and with real communication purposes. To contribute to the development of these communicative language skills, the English teacher has a continuum of options ranging from so-called pre-communicative activities to proper communication activities. According to Littlewood (1998), the first are based on accuracy and present structures, functions, and vocabulary; the latter focus on fluency and involve information sharing and exchange.

The pre-communicative activities are subdivided into structural activities and quasi-communicative activities. Structural activities are described as machining and practical structures. The quasi-communicative ones are based on communication and the structure of the language. […]