By Robin McKie ; Published: The Guardian, Saturday 17 December ,2011
Level of difficulty: ***
The task you are about to tackle is a tough search reading – or a careful search reading or even a convoluted search reading. You should allow 3 minutes per question ideally, giving you a total time of 45 minutes.
QUESTIONS
1. Which of the quality of graphene holds the greatest potential?
2. Why did most scientists think that the initial experiment involving the firing of neutrinos was wrong? You will need to partly reword the answer yourselves.
3. What is the misconception concerning Homo sapiens and Neanderthals? What discovery proved that this view was, indeed, wrong?
4. The ultimate purpose of the research conducted by Professor Komisaruk was …………………
5. The major problem presented by “Earth’s twin”, which has been recently discovered, is that it is …………………………………………………….. Use your own words.
6. State in your own words why the decision to give Ralph Steinman the Nobel Prize was not retracted.
7. What conclusion can be drawn concerning the testing of medical treatment intended for humans on animals from the information on stem cell research? Use your own words.
8. What is “the curse of Mars probes”?
9. What quality do Archeopteryx and Xiaotingia zhengi share? What is their role in the evolution of birds?
10. What is the Higgs boson and what have scientists achieved in their efforts to prove its existence?
SCIENCE REVIEW OF 2011: THE YEAR’S 10 BIGGEST STORIES
By: Robin McKie; Published: The Guardian, Saturday 17 December 2011
KEY AND TEACHER’S NOTES
This wonderful, factual text, which would normally be a straightforward search reading exercise, lends itself to some seriously tricky questions which require close reading of sections of the text with an eagle eye if you will. It is not recommended that teachers walk into class without looking to see what, exactly, those tricks are so that they can help the students with clues should the latter get stuck. The task does, however, provide the kind of mental challenge that will help students on tests. The task will provide practice in paraphrasing, text organization and analysis as well as serious cognitive skills.
1. Its versatility. The students need to know the meaning of the word potential and relate it to the text.
2. Because they didn’t believe the neutrinos could have been travelling faster than the speed of light. This is one of the hardest questions in the bunch and requires in depth understanding and an ability to read between the lines; a challenge that students now face on tests.
3. Homo sapiens arrived in Europe around 35.000 – 40.000 years ago… Bones and teeth found in Italy and England that pushed back… After finding the misconception, they need to look back at the beginning of the text to see what the reason is, which will help teach students reasoning skills
4. Help both men and women who cannot reach sexual climax. This question involves a simple lexical trick.
5. Far away. This answer is not openly stated but one would have to be blind not to see the clues. This type of question – which I love – is becoming much more commonplace on tests so practice will make perfect; fingers crossed.
6. The committee was unaware of his death or impending death when they reached their decision. Again, although there is no phrase such as this in the text, that this was, in fact, the reason is stated in a different way. The students will need to paraphrase to answer the question and where is the harm in that?
7. What works for animals doesn’t always work for humans. Or, animals and humans react differently to the same medical treatment. This is an inference question. The students will need to draw an obvious conclusion but they will need to use their own words, all of which means thinking.
8. Of the 38 Mars missions, 19 have suffered some kind of major flaw, a failure rate of 50%.
9. They belong to the same group called deinonychosaurs; they are part of the Earthly experimentation on how to build birds.
10. An entity which gives all other particles their mass; they have noted evidence of a particle at a mass of around 125 GeV
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