TEXT COLLECTION

FOR STUDIES

Upper forms

Mister
DIOLOMPO S. J
 THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE (FAMILY PLANNING).

TEXT 1: TOO MANY MOUTHS TO FEED

“Food shortages characterises our time, and the developing lands have been
particularly hard hit. Complicating the problem is the fact that “pockets of fertility”,
extremely high fertility (above six children per woman) still exist throughout Africa and the
Middle East”, states Planning The Global Family, a Worldwatch Institute report.
Why, then do not African couples limit the size of their families? The Worldwatch
report explains: “An African woman’s economic and social standing arises with the number
of children she bears, particularly since children represent extra hands to help with farming,
marketing and other tasks.” The book Africa In Crisis adds: “The high probability that
children will not live encourages African parents to have large families.” In some African
counties, nearly a fifth of all babies die in their first year. Ironically, though having many
children often creates a vicious circle of crowded, unsanitary quarters and inadequate
sanitation the very conditions that play a large part in killing children.
Doctors further say that a woman needs time to recover from pregnancy and childbirth
before conceiving again. Otherwise, her ability to have healthy babies can be seriously
impaired.
Despite these facts, Africans tend to resist the idea of family planning. Individuals,
though, should not dismiss the matter without serious thought. Having too large a family may
make it impossible for parents to provide adequate food, clothing, education and shelter for
their offspring. Although a personal matter, some couples have thus learned to practise
contraception and avoid having more children than they can properly care for.

GUIDED COMMENTARY

1. Why, according to the text, don’t African couples limit the size of their families?(4pts)
2. According to the text, what are the consequences of having too many children on a
country? (4pts)
3. According to the passage, what are the consequences of having too many children on
the parents? (4pts)
4. Is there any necessity to limit the size of families today in your opinion? Explain
yourself fully.(8pts)

THEME TLE A: TERMINOLOGIES: CONCEPTS AND CONCEPTIONS

TEXT 2: IS DEMOCRACY DANGEROUS?

America’s prescription for developing nations is simple: democracy and free-market

capitalism. But what if these ideas turn out to be like medicines that produce nasty side effects
when taken in combination? There you have the of the fascinating and disturbing World on
Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability.
It would be easy to dismiss this as yet another attack on globalisation. But this book is
hardly that. Author Amy Chua understands the economics of developing nations: The 40-
year- old Yale Law School professor served a stint at the World Bank, worked for four years
on Wall Street, and helped privatise the state – owned Teléfonos de Mexico. Chua sees no
inherent evil in capitalism, thinks representative democracy is a good thing, and writes with
an authority born of rigorous research.
Yet Chua warns that the phenomenon of “market-dominant minorities”-taken in
combination with globalisation and democracy-can cause huge tensions in the developing
world. Chua chillingly describes how, in 1994, her Aunt Leona, a Chinese businesswoman in
the Philippines, was stabbed to death by her chauffeur. Despite eyewitness accounts by other
servants, there were no arrests. Why not? Ethnic Chinese, at just 1% of the Philippines
population, control 60% of its wealth. Meanwhile, two-thirds of the 80 million ethnic
Filipinos live on less than $2 a day.
In fact, in the police report of the case, under the section on motive, is written
“revenge”. Chua makes clear, when economic inequality is combined with other factors,
existing hostilities are exacerbated. Free-market policies often concentrate wealth in the hands
of the tiny business elites that dominate many developing nations. Throw democracy into the
fermenting mixture, and the oppressed majority is emboldened to strike the rich few,
particularly if there are an easily identified ethnic group. That’s what occurred in the
Philippines after the alliance between the ethnic Chinese and dictator Ferdinand Marcos was
broken by Marcos’ exile and the arrival of democracy. The Lebanese in West Africa, Asian
Indians in East Africa, Jews in Russia, and whites in Zimbabwe have all suffered after
democratic rule arrived. “The competition for votes fosters the emergence of demagogues
who scapegoat the resented minority, demanding an end to humiliation, and insisting that the
nation’s wealth be reclaimed by its “true owners” says Chua.
No two countries are precisely the same. But it’s remarkable how many developing
nations are affected by the perilous mixture the author describes. In Nigeria-a free-market
country that is constantly experimenting with (and failing at) democratic rule- tens of
thousands of the indigenous Ibo tribe have been slaughtered by their poorer but more
numerous tribal rivals. In Rwanda, the Tutsi tribe held the political and economic reins until
far-more-numerous Hutus murdered hundreds of thousands of them in the 90’s.
In Zimbabwe, a regime set up by European colonialists gave to democratic institutions
in 1980. Today, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe maintains his political power by
urging his fellow veterans of the liberation struggle to throw whites off their lands by force. In
Kenya, a tiny Indian elite hangs on, “uncomfortably dependent on the corrupt and
increasingly authoritarian President [Daniel Arap] Moi...as African opposition leaders
intensify their ethnic hatemongering”, says Chua.
Mercifully, Chua doesn’t try to solve all the world’s problems in an easy “solutions”
chapter, nor does she think that more democracy is the solution. Her best suggestions: reduce
the impact of globalisation with progressive government tax and transfer programs, encourage
greater small-business growth and wider stock ownership, and, above all, go slow, and respect
local customs. The U.S. didn’t become a free-market democracy overnight and it shouldn’t
expect the same of others.
Adapted from Business Week, December 30th, 2002, (p.24).
VOCABULARY:
a stint: for a short period of time
Chilling: qui donne des frissons
To embolden : to make bold, fearless
Ethnic hatemongering: that inspires ethnic hatred
GUIDED COMMENTARY
1) What are America’s solutions for the problems facing the developing countries
according to the text?
2) Explain in your own words the “market-dominant minorities” phenomenon developed
in the text.
 3) Find examples in the text to show how a lot of countries in the world are concerned
with that problem of “market-dominant minorities”.
4) What does the author mean when she says: “Reduce the impact of globalisation...
respect local customers”?
5) How can democracy bring about economic growth in your country?

THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE

TEXT3: CHANGE IS THE DEFINITION OF AFRICA

Throughout these speeches and writings, and though all the activities of the
government which I have been privileged of the lead and support, there is however one
recurring practical theme. If is the theme of change. For Africa must change; change from
area where people eke out an existence and adapt themselves to their environment, to a
continent which challenges the environment and adapts it to man’s need. Africa must change
her institutions to make feasible her new aspirations; her people must change her attitudes and
practices to accord with the objectives. And these changes must be positive, they must be
initiated and shaped by Africa and not simply be a reaction to events which affect Africa.
For a revolution has begun in Africa. It is a revolution which we hope to control and
channel so that our lives are transformed. It is a revolution with a purpose and that purpose is
the extension to all African citizens of the requirements of human dignity. The task before us
is a big and complicated one. In the process we shall have many decisions to make which
involve clashes of principles. Where we have to choose, let us say, between rapid
development and individual freedom, or between efficiency and equality. There is and will be
no simple or universal answer to such problems, the choice will have to be made in the light
of historical circumstances and the conflicting needs of present and future. The only certain
thing is that if we forget any of our principles, even when we are ignoring or breaking them,
them we shall have betrayed the purpose of our revolution and Africa will fail to make its
proper contribution to the development of mankind.
But the opportunity is before us provided we have the courage to seize it. For the
choice is not between change or no change; the choice for Africa is between changing or
being changed-changing our lives under our own direction, or being changed by the impact of
forces outside our control. In Africa there is no stability in stagnation in this twentieth
century; stability can only be achieved though maintaining balance during rapid change.

Julius K. Nyerere, January 1996

THEME TLE D TLE A: CULTURATRAITS/HERITAGE (PHILOSOPHIES)

TEXT4: NON-VIOLENCE

I do justify entire non-violence, and consider it possible in relation between man and
man and nation and nation; but it is not “a resignation from all real fighting against
wickedness”. On the contrary, the non-violence of my conception is more active and more
real fighting against wickedness. I contemplate a mental, and therefore a moral, opposition to
immoralities. I seek entirely to blunt the edge of the tyrant’s sword, not by putting up against
it a sharper edge weapon, but by disappointing his expectation that I should be offering
physical resistance. The resistance of the soul that I should offer instead would elude him. It
would at first dazzle him and at last compel recognition from him, which recognition would
not humiliate him but uplift him. It may be urged that this again is an ideal state. And so it is.
The propositions from which I have drawn my arguments are non the less true because in
practice we are unable even to draw Euclid’s line on a blackboard.
I have often noticed that weak people have shelter under the congress creed or under my
advice, when they have simply, by reason of their cowardice, been unable to defend their own
honour or that of those who were entrusted to their care. I recall the incident that happened
near Bettiah when non –co-operation was its height. Some villagers were looted. They had
fled, leaving their wives, children and belongings to the mercy of the looters. When I rebuked
them for their cowardice in thus neglecting their charge, they shamelessly pleaded non-
violence. I publicly denounced their conduct and said that my non-violence fully
accommodated violence offered by those who did not feel non-violence and who had in their
keeping the honour of their womenfolk and little children. Non-violence is not a cover for
cowardice, but it is the supreme virtue of the brave . Exercise of non-violence requires far
greater bravery than that of swordsmanship. Cowardice is wholly inconsistent with non-
violence.
Mahatma Gandhi, The Practice of Satyagraha

TEXT5 TLE A: THE TIME FOR THE HEALING OF THE WOUNDS HAS COME
THE MOMENT TO BRIDGE THE CHASMS
THAT DIVIDE US HAS COME
THE TIME TO BUILD IS UPON US.
We have at last, achieved our political emancipation. We pledge ourselves to liberate
all our people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender and
other discrimination.
We succeeded to take our last steps to freedom in conditions of relative peace we
commit ourselves to the construction of a complete, just and lasting peace.
We have triumphed in our effort to implant hope in the breast of the millions of our
people. We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans,
both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their
inalienable night to human dignity – a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.
We dedicate this day to all heroes and heroines in this country and the rest of the world
who sacrificed in many ways and surrendered their lives so that we could be free. Their dream
has become reality. Freedom is their reward.
We are both humbled and elevated by the honour and privilege that you, the people of
South Africa, have bestowed on us, as the first president of the United, democratic, non-racial
and non-sexist South Africa, to lead our country out of the valley of darkness.
We understand it still that there is no easy road to freedom.
We know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve success.
We must therefore act together as a united people, for national reconciliation, for
nation building, for the birth of a new world.
Let there be justice for all
Let there be peace for all
Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all
Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfil
themselves
Never, Never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience
the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world
 Let freedom reign.
The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement.
God bless Africa. Thank you

NELSON MANDELA INAUGURAL SPEECH (10th May 1994)

THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS /HERITAGE (CONCEPTS)

TEXT6: HUMAN RIGHTS: AN AFRICAN DIMENSION

Concern for human rights is not a peculiarly American idea. It is a central objective in
man’s yearning to be free. If anyone believes that the United States has a monopoly on this
dream, let that person reflect upon the struggles in the Soviet Union and South Africa, in Haiti
and the Philippines, in Latin America and Eastern Europe. The human rights revolution,
proclaimed in America’s struggles for independence two centuries ago, continues. Nowhere is
this more evident than in Africa.
I think it is important, in any discussion on human rights in Africa, to start with a
historical perspective. Three main factors in African history and heritage, which contrast
sharply with America’s, need emphasis. First, the advent of the slave trade in 19 th century
colonialism interrupted Africa’s independent evolution. Village and kingdoms were torn apart
by the export of slave to the new world. Many paternalistic European administrators put their
home interests far ahead of the interests of the people they governed. Colonial officials often
did not consult local population about political or social decisions. Economic progress,
education, and the rights of the individual frequently took a back seat to demeaning outside
control.
Second, many of the first generation of Africa’s liberation leaders spent much of the
colonial period in exile or in jail. Anxious for alternative to colonialism, they embraced
theories that have proved to be as irrelevant to African condition, and even more
counterproductive in terms of human liberties as they did in their foreign birthplace.
A third and related point is that many newly independent nations were saddled with
arbitrary borders drawn in Europe without regard to tribal and linguistic realities. For many
African leaders new and running governments, that fact coupled with ideological biases
mentioned, made the one party state attractive as a way to unite factious populations thrown
together by colonial cartographers.
As many African leaders review the often turbulent years since independent, they are
coming to see the damage done to their societies by the failure to protect constructive dissent.
Increasingly, they recognise the need to accept ideas and initiatives from outside the
established bureaucracies. African’s attention is thus returning to the fundamental issues of
human dignity, individual rights, and civil liberties for which the independence struggles were
waged. Human rights concerns have fortunately been placed squarely on the African Agenda
by the continent leaders.

Adapted from TOPIC N° 170.

THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE (WOMEN’S LIVING CONDITIONS)

TEXT7 : WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 Ought Women to have the same rights as men? A hundred years ago, the answer in
every country in the world would have been “NO”. If you had asked “why not?”, you would
have been told, scornfully and pityingly, that women were weaker and less clever than men,
and had worse characters. Even now, in the twentieth century, there are many countries where
women are still treated almost like servants, or even slaves.
It is certainly true that the average woman has weaker muscles than the average man.
Thousands of years ago, when men lived in caves and hunted animals for food, strength of
body was the most important thing, but now in the twentieth century, brains are more
important. Strength of body is still needed for a few kinds of work, but the fact that such kinds
of work are not well paid shows that the twentieth century does not think that muscles are of
very great importance.
What about women’s brains? Of course, in countries where girls are not given so good
an education as boys, they know less, but countries where there is the same education for
both, it has been clearly shown that there is no difference at all between the brain of the
average woman and that of the man. There have been women judges in Turkey, women
ambassadors in America, women ministers in British government and women university
professors in many countries.
And among the greatest and strongest rulers of England were Queen Elizabeth and
queen Victoria.
But women can do one thing that men cannot: they can produce children. Because
they, and not men, do this, they usually love their children more, and are better able to look
after them, since they are more patient and understanding with small children. For this reason,
many women are happier if they can stay at home and look after their house and family than if
they go out and do the same work as men. It is their own choice, and not the result of being
less clever than men.

THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE (POPULATION GROWTH)

TEXT8: (About family planning)

The issue of family planning is closely linked to what is often called the population
explosion.
Throughout much of mankind’s history, population growth was slow; the number
dying was about the same as the number being born. Eventually, about the year 1830, the
world’s population reached one billion people. Then came medical and scientific advances
that resulted in fewer deaths from disease, especially childhood disease. By about 1930, world
population stood at two billion people. By1987, world population reached five billion.
To look at it another way, the number of people on the planet is presently increasing
by about 170 people every minute. That adds up to some 250,000 people every day, enough
for a sizeable city. This means, too, that each year yields a population increase of over 90
million people, the equivalent of three Canadas or another Mexico. Over 90 percent of this
growth is occurring in developing countries, where 75 percent f the world’s population
already lives.
But why are government eager to limit population growth family planning. Dr. Bales Sagoe,
Nigeria’s National Program officer for. UN Population Fund, answers this question with a
simple illustration that, he cautions, tends to oversimplify a complex and controversial
situation. He explains: “suppose a farmer owns ten acres of land. If he has ten children and
divides the land equally among them, each child will have an acre. If each of those children
has ten children and divides the land similarly, each of their children will have only one tenth
of an acre. Clearly, these children will not be as well-off as their grandfather, who had ten
acres of land”.
This illustration highlights the relationship between a growing number of people and a
finite earth with limited resources. As the population grows, many developing countries are
struggling to cope with issues such as the lack of natural resources, infrastructures (housing,
schools, sanitary, facilities, roads) and unemployment.

AWAKE: February 22, 1993.

VOCUBULARY
Billion: one thousand million
Sizeable: fairly big
Eager: determined
Acre: “demi-hectare”
Well-off: at ease

THEME: HEATH MATTERS (DRUG –ADDICTION)

TEXT9: ADDICTION IS ADDICTION

In the world of science and medicine, ideas about what addiction is and what should
be done about it have changed dramatically in the past ten years. Researchers now agree that
addiction- whether to cocaine, heroine, amphetamines or some other chemical substance- is a
single disease. According to much of the latest evidence, addicts will switch drugs when their
choice is not available and will even display addictive behaviour with drugs thought to be
non-addictive (...)
That fact is extremely important in the way we think about drugs and addiction,
because it means that the chemical is not the problem; it is the individual reaction to it that
causes the difficulty.
An addict, exposed to the same amount of morphine (or to any mood-altering drug,
such as cocaine or marijuana), will compulsively attempt to repeat and even to intensify the
feeling produced by drugs- no matter the consequences. The key to diagnosis of addictive
disease is in the observation that the patient persists in using drugs in spite of the
consequences. His failure to adapt is our clue that he suffers from a real disease (as opposed
to moral bankruptcy which was once thought to be the case with alcoholics).
In other words, simply taking away cocaine or marijuana-even if it could be done-
would not solve the problem of drug addiction. At treatment centres across the country, we
learned this: if his cocaine is taken away, the coke addict will become addicted to alcohol. If
his alcohol is taken away, he’ll come back a mouth or a year later addicted to Valium or
Xanax. If his Valium is taken away, you’ll find him somewhere down the line taking heroin.
And if his heroin is taken away, he’ll find morphine, Stadol, Demerol, Codeine, Talwin,
Percodan, Dilaudid...The list is endless. So is the problem, unless society learns this :
Addiction is Addition. Until we leave off attacking individual chemicals and take up treating
the disease, more and more people will suffer and die without ever understanding what hit
them.

GUIDED COMMENTARY:
1°) Point out the various types of addiction mentioned by the author. (3pts)
2°) Which type of addiction seems to be the most dramatic according to you? Why? (3pts)
3°) “Addiction is addiction”. Explain this statement in your own words. Do you agree with it?
Give your reasons. (4pts)
4°) Who generally takes drugs? Why? (4pts)
5°) What could be done concretely to help drug addicts stop taking drugs ? (6pts)

THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (INSECT-RELATED DISEASES)

TEXT 11: INSECT-BORNE DISEASES

“Most of the major fevers of man are produced by micro-organisms that are conveyed
by insects,” states the Encyclopaedia Britannica. People commonly use the term “insect” to
include not only true insect-six-legged creatures such as flies, fleas, mosquitoes, lice, and
beetles-but also eight-legged creatures such as mites and ticks. Scientists list all of these under
the larger category of arthropod-the largest division in the animal kingdom-which includes at
least a million known species.
The vast majority of insects are harmless to man, and some are very beneficial.
Without them, many of the plants and trees that people and animals depend on for food would
not be pollinated or bear fruit. Some insects help to recycle waste. Many insects feed
exclusively on plants, while certain ones eat other insects.
Of course, there are insects that annoy man and beast with their painful bite or simply
by their presence in vast numbers. Some also wreak havoc on crops. Worse, however, are
insects that spread sickness and death? Insect-borne diseases “were responsible for more
human disease and death in the 17 th through the early 20th centuries than all other causes
combined,” states. Duane Gubler of the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and prevention.
Presently, about I out of every 6 people is infected with a disease acquired through insects.
Besides causing human suffering, insect-borne disease imposes a heavy financial burden;
especially on developing countries- those that can least afford it. Even a single outbreak can
be costly. One such incident in western India in 1994 is said to have drained billions of dollars
from the local and world economies. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the
world’s poorest countries will be unable to advance economically until such health problems
are brought under control.
There are two main ways that insects serve as vectors-transmitter of disease. The first
is by mechanical transmission. Just as people can track dirt into a home on unclean shoes,
“houseflies may carry on their feet millions of micro-organisms that, in large enough doses,
can cause disease,” says the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Flies can pick up contamination from
faeces, for example, and pass it on when they land on our food or drink. In this way humans
contract such debilitating and deadly illnesses as typhoid, dysentery, and even cholera. Flies
also help to spread trachoma- the leading cause of blindness in the world. Trachoma can blind
by scarring the cornea – the clear part of the eye in front of the iris. World-wide, some
500,000,000 humans suffer from this scourge.
Cockroaches, which thrive in filth, are also suspected of mechanically transmitting
disease. In addition, experts link a recent steep rise in asthma, especially among children, to
cockroach allergies. For instance, picture Ashley, a 15-year-old girl who has spent many
nights struggling to breathe because of her asthma. As her doctor is about to listen to her
lungs, a cockroach falls out of Ashley’s shirt and runs across the examination table.
When insects harbour viruses, bacteria, or parasites inside their bodies, they can spread
disease a second way- by passing it on through a bite or other means. Only a small percentage
of insects transmit disease to humans in this way. For instance, although there are thousands
of species of mosquitoes, only those of the genus Anopheles transmit malaria–the world’s
second-deadliest communicable disease (after tuberculosis).

THEME: HEATH MATTERS (MICROBIAL DISEASES)

TEXT 13: THOSE RESILIENT GERMS: HOW THEY REBOUND?

Viruses other micro-organisms have evidently been around since life on earth began.
The stunning flexibility of these germs, the simplest of all creatures, has allowed them to
survive where nothing else can. They are found in scalding vents on the ocean floor as well as
in the freezing waters of the Arctic. Now these germs are repelling the most concentrated of
all assaults on their existence-antimicrobial-drugs.
A hundred years ago, some microbes, or micro-organisms, were known to cause
illness, but no one then living had heard of antimicrobial medicines. So if a person came
down with a serious infectious disease, many doctors had little to offer in the way of treatment
except moral support. The person’s immune system had to fight off the infection on its own.
If the immune system wasn’t strong enough, the consequence was often tragic. Even a minor
scratch infected by a microbe all too often led to death.
Thus, the discovery of the first safe antimicrobial drugs-antibiotics-revolutionised
medicine. The medical use of sulfadrugs in the 1930’s and of such drugs as penicillin and
streptomycin in the 1940’s led to a flood of discoveries in succeeding decades. By the 1990’s,
the antibiotic armoury had come to include some 150 compounds in 15 different categories.
By the 1950’s and 1960’s, some people had begun to celebrate victory over infectious
diseases. Some microbiologists even believed that these diseases would soon be a nightmare
of the past. In 1969 the U.S. surgeon general testified before Congress that humanity might
soon “close the book on infectious disease.” In 1972, Nobel laureate Macfarlane Burnet along
with David White Wrote: “The most likely forecast about the future of infectious disease is
that it will be very dull.” Indeed, some felt that such diseases might be eliminated altogether.
The belief that infectious diseases had, in effect, been defeated resulted in widespread
overconfidence. On nurse who was familiar with the dire threat that germs posed before the
introduction of antibiotics noted that some younger nurses had become lax in simple hygiene.
When she reminded them to wash their hands, they would retort: “Don’t worry, we have
antibiotics now.”
Yet, dependence on antibiotics and their overuse have had disastrous consequences. Infectious
diseases have persisted. More than that, they have roared back to become the leading cause of
death in the world! Other factors that have also contributed to the spread of infectious diseases
include the chaos of warfare, widespread malnutrition in developing countries, lack of clean
water, poor sanitation, rapid international travel, and global climate change.

THEME: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (GENETICS)

TEXT 15 : DISCOVERING DEOXYRIBONUCLEIC ACID

It is a well –known fact that we inherit physical traits from our parents. If a child is
left- handed, it is very likely that one of her parents writes with his or her left hand. If a boy’s
father is bald, he will have a greater chance of going bald when he gets older. While everyone
knew that physical traits were inherited, it wasn’t until the twentieth century that scientists
discovered the biological key to this process: DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid. Finding DNA
took almost 100 years.
 Now scientists are working decoding the DNA molecule. To do this, they must “read”
each of the over 3 billion DNA letters in the human body. As former US President Clinton
said, “Without a doubt, this is the most important” most wondrous map, ever produced by
humankind
From 1866 to the present, many scientists have learned important things about how
genes work. 1866: Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk, described basic elements of heredity
(these are now called genes).1860s: Friedrich, a Swiss chemist, did research on the chemical
composition of white blood cells. He discovered two types of molecules in the nucleus of the
blood cells – ribonucleic (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). 1870 – 1900: There were
no major findings during this period. Scientists knew that DNA played some part in heredity
but its structure seemed too simple to play a major role in heredity. During this period,
scientists thought that proteins (with their much more complex structure) played the most
important role in heredity. 1902: At Columbia University in New York City, a medical
student began to study whether chromosomes are made up of genes and if all cells in the body
contain these genes. 1920s: Friedrich Griffith, an English physician, accidentally discovered
the “transforming factor” while doing experiments with bacteria. When this factor was taken
from one bacteria and put into another, it caused changes in second bacteria. 1934: Griffith’s
colleague, Oswald Avery, conducted a 10- year study to identify the transforming factor His
experiences found that neither protein nor RNA carry genetic information. He wondered if
DNA was the transforming factor. To answer this question, he conducted an experiment. In it,
he destroyed the DNA in the first bacteria. When DNA was destroyed no hereditary
information was transmitted to the second bacteria. Avery then concluded that DNA causes
changes in the second bacteria by transmitting traits from the first bacteria 1953. James
Watson, an American geneticist, Francis Crick, a British biophysicist, discovered the structure
of DNA. To do this, they used X-ray photographs of DNA taken by New Zealand biophysicist
Maurice Wilkins. Until this time, it was not known how DNA made a copy of itself in order
to transmit genetic information to other cells. The three men won the Nobel Prize for
discovery in 1962. 1960: Marshall Nuremberg, an American biochemist, and Har Gobind
Khorana, an American biochemist in India, decoded DNA, discovering the building block of
DNA. This code consists of four chemical units, represented by the letters
A(adenine),T(thymine),C(cytosine) and G(guanine). Each string of letters produces a specific
amino acid. When these amino acid are combined, they create human traits such as eye colour
and genetic diseases. 1977: Frederick Sanger, a British biologist, developed a method to
decode the entire DNA strings in one bacteria. This was the first living organism to be totally
decoded. 1990: agencies of the US government funded a 15-year project to sequence the
human genome. This is a map of the cell’s inner workings and all of the chemicals produced
by DNA that determine humane characteristics and behaviour .1999: the human genome
project finish sequencing the first human chromosome. 2000: both the Us government –
sponsored human genome project and a privately funded research group announced that they
have a draft of the first human genome.
Just like many scientific discoveries in the past, the decoding human DNA will
undoubtedly impact our future lives in ways that are almost unimaginable today. On a near
horizon , DNA promises to give us a better understanding of human biology; new diagnostic
test for certain hereditary diseases such as a mental retardation ,breast cancer , and
Huntington’s Correa; and possibly treatment or cures for diseases such as Alzheimer’s,
diabetes, and heart disease. It will also help companies create drugs that match a person’s
genetic profile. Still there are many things will not be known once the approximately 3.4
billion chemical units in human DNA are coded. We won’t fully know how many genes there
are, and we won’t know fully how genes interact with one another.
 While there is much work still to be done mapping the human genome , scientific
findings in the past decade assure that complete knowledge of human DNA and the
contribution s it will make to our lives will occur in the future but in our own lifetimes.
English Teaching Forum, April 2003, Vol.41, N°2, p.38.
THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE (LANGUAGES)

TEXT 16: ENDANGERED LANGUAGES

Languages have come and gone since the early day of human history, but the wave of
destruction today is unprecedented. It’s happening wherever technologically advanced
societies overwhelm less powerful groups. Australian colonisers helped wipe out more than
150 native languages over the past 222 years, and more than 100 others are on the brink. In
South America, Spanish and Portuguese have overwhelmed scores of native Indian languages,
and pioneers pursuing “manifest destiny” helped to destroy most of some 300 languages
native to North America. Of 100 languages that once were spoken in what is now California,
only half remain, and most of those are spoken only by a few tribal elders.
Globalisation is probably helping to fuel the destruction. English, in particular, is
quickly becoming the indispensable language of successful people from different countries
and cultures. That’s partly because a disproportionate number of the world’s rich speak
English, and also because English is the language of the technological revolution. Even before
the Internet, television, telephones, air travel and other innovations helped the languages of
dominant cultures and economies to spread. The French are indignant about what one
academic calls “an insidious dispossession” by English, but speakers of the regional Breton
language in Northwest France are equally ruffled by the dominance of French. Breton
speakers number 268,000, down from a million a century ago.
The obliteration of small languages might seem inevitable and irreversible. But
languages , unlike people, can be resurrected. The last fluent speaker of Miami Indian died in
the 1960’s, but Daryl Baldwin, 37, has nursed Miami back to life. As a student at the
University of Montana a decade ago, Baldwin immersed himself in research on his ancestral
tongue- studying texts by missionaries and others recorded as far back as the 1600’s. With the
help of a linguist at the University of California at Berkeley, he taught himself Miami
vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, and then he brought the language into his home.
Now Baldwin, his wife and their four kids have a rule: Wherever possible, they speak
only Miami among themselves. About 80 percent of 3 year-old Emma’s vocabulary is Miami
Indian.
...Baldwin doesn’t want his kids to learn Miami at the expense of English, however.
“language is what makes you part of a country” he says. “But there’s a notion in America that
you have to give up one language to get the other...” “It would be wrong to say no English at
all [in Africa], no French,” says Ngugi Wa Thiongo, a Kenyan author who writes his novels,
plays and essays in his native Gikuyu. The issue is the relationship between languages. Now,
the marginalised languages are being forced to die. If present trends continue, Africa as a
cultural identity will eventually cease to exist

By Jeffrey Bartholet, Newsweek, June 19, 2000, (p.63)

(A) GUIDED COMMENTARY

1) What, according to the text, are the main causes of the death of hundreds of languages
all over the world?
2) What is the difference between people and languages? Pick up an example from the
text to justify your answer.
3) Why does Baldwin refuse his children to stop learning English?
 4) What should we do if we do not want “Africa to cease to exist as a cultural identity?”

(B) TRANSLATION
Translate the second paragraph into French: from “Globalisation is probably...” down to
“...a million a century ago”.

THEME : CULTURAL TRAITS (WOMEN’S LIVING CONDITIONS)

TEXT 18: ABOUT WOMEN’S LIBERATION

Demands for equal rights for women have produced three different responses. First
there have been jokes, then anger, and then a determination to pay no attention. Probably the
main reaction has been to refuse to hear the demands.
If we look at men’s reactions to the women’s movement, we find several ideas that
conflict with each other. On the one hand, men fear that it will ruin the balance of the power
between the sexes and destroy normal relationships of kinds; but on the other hand they claim
it will soon disappear. They consider women too gentle and fine to do man’s work yet also
indecisive, slow and self-centered. For one reason or another; women are said to be unfitted
for success in the world; yet it is also said that they will compete so successfully that they will
take jobs away from deserving men. It is difficult for men and women to understand the issues
clearly or even to discuss the subject in a reasonable way.
Opposition to the women’s movement has many causes. The first is the fact that the
movement raises questions of power. The changes women demand are compelling men to do
some serious thinking, not only about their relationship to women but also about their
relationship to the whole power structure of our society. That is a hard and unwelcome task.
Secondly, there is the very real problem that women’s demands mean different things
to men from what they mean to women. Women say, “we are human beings like you in whom
there happens to exist a sex difference. We recognise that difference, but why should it apply
to more than sex ?”
To men , this is a dangerous and disturbing question. The ability of women to see
themselves as human beings first and females only second is the product of a change in
women’s life experiences. This change has not yet been matched by the corresponding change
in men’s lives. Since the 1890s,women have been developing a new image of themselves.
Their interests have grown wider. They arrive at their own decisions more frequently. More
jobs are now open to them.
Today, in the United States, the idea of growing up and getting married to ”Mr Right”
is an old-fashioned dream. It’s a nice idea, but it isn’t enough. The normal expectation now
includes some kind of career which will continue to occupy and interest the women
throughout life. Thus women now more than ever before see their lives as being more like the
lives of men.
This change in image is more than mere wishful thinking. The women’s movement is
a response to fundamental social and economic changes, changes affect women’s lives both
inside and outside the home.

ALLEU, V. F. Progressive Reading Series, Book 8, (pp. 47-48.)

GUIDED COMMENTARY

1) Using your own words, what have been the responses to women’s demands?(3pts)
 2) Do you agree that women are “Unfitted for success in the world?” Justify your answer.
(5pts)
3) According to the text, what are the reasons of men’s opposition to the women’s
movement? Do you agree?(5pts)
4) Is sex equality possible in our contemporary African society? Justify your answer.
(7pts)

THEME: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (INFORMATION TOOLS)

TEXT 19: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Modern information technology (I.T.) and the opportunities that it presents are the
result of many years of development. In particular I.T. today has grown from two roots:
telecommunications and information processing.
I.T. is changing the way office workers at all levels communicate and handle data. Many
office activities are being taken over by electronic machines and devices. Advanced
technological “systems” enable users not only to work faster and more efficiently, but also
in great comfort at desk-top work-stations. Handling information; the major activity of an
office can be divided into receiving and creating, processing i.e. manipulating data in
order to process information, storing and retrieving and finally disseminating, either for
decision making or simply to keep people informed.
The tools used for receiving and disseminating information are the telex (the oldest
form of electronic messaging), the electronic mail, the videotext, the teletext, the voice
messaging, the facsimile machine.
In the case of processing and storing, word processors are used to capture and process
a text. They greatly improve efficiently in editing and printing documents and they
perform the repetitive and tedious tasks of secretarial work.
Personal computers function with a wide range of software to perform processing and
storage functions. Most software packages include a spreadsheet, statistical analysis,
financial function, graphics, electronic filing...
Micro processors, electronic mail, fax machines, laptop computers, mobile phones, all
the advanced technological systems which enable users to work faster and more
efficiently are also creating a surge in telecommuting.
Telecommuting has obvious advantages: workers avoid hours wasted in traffic or
public transport. They feel freer to organise their own schedules. A single manager can
supervise more telecommuters, because employees working at home generally do higher
quality work.

Adapted from The Automated Office and Telecommuting by T.

GARRD,(p.33).
VOCABULARY:
Commuter: A person travelling to and from work
Spreadsheet: tableur

THEME: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (DEVICES)

TEXT 20: A BIRTH CONTROL BREAKTHROUGH

Thirty years have passed since the pill acquainted America with sexual freedom. Yet
unintended pregnancy is still rampant. Every year more than 3 million U.S. women conceive
without meaning to, and half of them opt for abortions. It’s not as though people haven’t
heard about contraception. The problem is that the available methods aren’t doing the job.
Pills get misplaced or forgotten. Diaphragms demand great concentration and dexterity at
unlikely moments.
The challenge, many experts agree, is not to make people more conscientious but to
arm them with better technology to make birth control easier. Scientists have brought real
progress on that front.
For the first time since the 1960s, the U.S. federal government approved an entirely
new technique: a small surgical implant that blocks conception for five years when placed
under the skin of a woman’s upper arm. This new device under the name of Norplant, is
cheaper than the pill and nearly as reliable as sterilisation (its annual failure rate is well
below 1 percent). And unlike sterilisation, it’s totally reversible. Reclaiming one’s fertility
is as simple having the device removed.
Norplant doesn’t contain any new medicine; it’s just a novel way of delivering
progestin, an antifertility hormone contained in birth control pills. The mechanics are
fairly simple. After administering local anaesthesia a physician makes a small puncture in
the flesh between a woman’s elbow and armpit and inserts six flexible capsules the size
of matchsticks. The capsules lodge just under the skin and starts releasing progestin at a
slow, steady pace. The hormone takes effect within 24 hours, serving both to block
ovulation and to keep sperm out of the uterus by thickening the cervical mucus. Removing
the device involves re-opening the small incision through which it was inserted.
Newsweek, December 1990.
Progestin: an antifertility hormone.

GUIDED COMMENTARY
1-) Why do many women continue to have undesired pregnancies according to the text?
2-) What does the technique of Norplant consist in according to the text?
3-) What are the problems(difficulties) women may face in using some of the contraceptive
methods according to the text?
4-) Is there any drawbacks in using contraceptives in your opinion?
5-) Do you personally approve of the use of any of the contraceptive methods? Say why/
why not.

THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE (EVILS: PROSTITUTION)

TEXT 21: SHOULD PROSTITUTION BE LEGALISED?

As an increasing number of prostitutes are being subjects to beatings, rape and even
murder, feminist groups are becoming more active in calling for the legalisation of
prostitution. However, governments world-wide are still failing to respond to these callings
and the issue has not acquired an important place on political agendas.
There are certainly a number of arguments to justify the legalisation of prostitution.
Firstly, it offers increased protection for prostitutes in a number of ways. A prostitute is an
easy target for a sexual attack given that she is involved in an illegal activity. Therefore, she
will be afraid to report a rape or a beating to the police in case she is imprisoned or will have
to pay a huge fine. Legalising prostitution could mean that prostitutes will be encourage to
report any attacks on them and this could in turn help police to identify previously unknown
sex offenders.
 Secondly, prostitutes would eventually cease to become an underground activity.
Prostitutes could take the time to observe and select clients rather than making rash on the
spot decisions on a street sidewalk. No longer fearing police harassments, clients would
probably be more willing to allow themselves to “checked out”. This increases a prostitute’s
chances of selecting genuine client rather than some stalkers out to prey on a vulnerable,
helpless woman.
On the other hand, the repercussions of legalising prostitution could create problems
for some governments. Firstly, it would almost certainly be condemned by church leaders and
Christian groups who could argue that lending political recognition to such activities makes a
mockery of the sanctity of the human body.
Secondly, they could argue that legalising prostitution could encourage young and
impressionable teenagers to turn to this activity seduced by the promise of easy money and
the security that what they are doing is legal.
Thirdly, governments would also be faced with the problem of establishing an age
limit for prostitutes. At what age one can become a prostitute? There is no easy answer to this
question.

GUIDED COMMENTARY
1—What is a feminist group?
2—Why do feminist groups advocate the legalisation of prostitution?
3—Is there any advantage in legalising prostitution according to the text?
4—Comment upon the difficulties governments would be confronted with in case prostitution
was legalised.

Translate the following excerpt into French:

“As an increasingly number....unknown sex offenders.”

THEME: CALTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE (MARRIAGE)

TEXT 22: RULES BEFORE MARRIAGE

Everyone wants someone to love and to be loved by in turn. But choosing the right
partner is not easy.
The early stages of falling in love are often so dizzy and deceiving that they cloud
you from seeing what the other person is really like.
It takes time to learn whether you like him/her as well. Ideally, no one should decide
to spend the rest of his/her life with someone until s/he has known him/her for at least a year.
Anyway, is it worthwhile crossing so many years and ending in divorce?
Find out whether you have interest you share as well as different interests. You
should talk through [some interesting] issues:
-Sex: Find out what each of you enjoys.
-Children: Do you want kids? If so, how many and when?
Work: Are you ready to move if your partner’s job takes him/her elsewhere? And is
s/he idle? Will one of you stay at home while the other fulfils ambitions? Or are both careers
equally important? You should also discuss where you want to live your hopes and dreams for
the future.
Make it a voyage of discovery before the marriage rather than getting a nasty shock
afterwards.
 Do talk. The more you have in common the more chance the marriage will have of
working.
Don’t assume problems will go away when you get married.
Lack of honesty is often to blame for problems that emerge early in marriage.
One or both partners have less than truthful about their bad points. And their own
expectations of their loved one have been too high.
Some people don’t let each other see their bad points, like when they are bad-
tempered or what makes them angry. And that can lead them to a big shock.
And some young married couples expect to behave like their own fathers and
mothers. They should aim instead to create a new kind of relationship, one that is equal
loving and sharing.
Do share views on major issues, or they can drive you apart.
Don’t expect to reproduce a replica of your own parents’ marriage.
Once people have been married for a few years they can start taking each other too
much into a career or parenthood that the partner is ignored or feels lonely and isolated.

Adapted from TODAY

GUIDED COMMENTARY
1- According to the text, what must you know about your partner before getting married with
him?
2- What is the origin of the problems met by married couples according to the text?
3- Can the family environment of a young couple influence their marital life? Explain
yourself.
4- Comment upon that general assumption: “Knowing each other before getting married is a
way to prepare divorce.”

THEME: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (THE NUCLEAR)

TEXT 23: DISARMAMENT

The public must be made more aware of the terrible danger to world stability caused
by the arms race, of the burden it imposes on national security and of the resources it diverts
from peaceful development.
The mutual distrust which stimulates the arms race between nations calls for
continuing the process of détente through agreements on confidence building measures. All
sides should be prepared for negotiations (including those on regional level) to get the arms
race under control at a time before new weapons systems have been established.
The world needs a more comprehensive understanding of security which would be
less restricted to the purely military aspects.
Every efforts must be made to secure international agreements preventing the
proliferation of nuclear weapons.
A global respected peace-keeping mechanism should be built up strengthening the
role of the United Nations.
In securing the integrity, peace-keeping machinery might free resources for development
through a decrease in military expenditures.
Military expenditures and arms exports might be one element entering into a new
principle for international taxation for development purposes. A tax on arms trade should be
at a higher rate than on other trades.
Increased efforts should be made to reach agreements on the disclosure of arms
exports and exports of arms-producing facilities.
 The international community should become more seriously concerned about the
consequences of arms- transfers and of export of arms-producing facilities and reach
agreement to restrain such deliveries to areas of conflict or tension.
More research is necessary on the means of converting arms production to civilian
production which could make use of the highly skilled scientific and technical manpower
currently employed in arms industries.
Adapted from North-South: A Programme for Survival

GUIDED COMMENTARY

1- Why, according to the text, is it imperative to start solving the problem of arms race?
2- What measures can be taken for the control of arms race according to the text? Mention
three of them.
3- In what way can peaceful development benefit from disarmament according to the text?
4- Why do some nations resort to arms race as a national policy in your opinion?

THEME: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (TRANSPLANTATIONS)

TEXT 24: XENOTRANSPLANTATION’S PARADOX

Transplant surgeons work miracles. They take organs from one body and integrate
them into another, granting the lucky recipient a longer, better life. Sadly, every year
thousands of other people are less fortunate, dying while they wait for suitable organs to be
found. The terrible constraint on organ transplantation is that every life extended depends on
the death of someone young enough and healthy enough to have organs worth transplanting.
Such donors are few. The lists are long, and getting longer.
Freedom from this constraint is the dream of every transplant surgeon. So far
attempts to make artificial organs have been disappointing: nature is hard to mimic. Hence the
renewed interest in trying to use organs from animals.
The ethics of xenotransplantation are relatively unworrying. People already kill pigs
both for food and for sport; killing them to save a human life seems, if anything, easier to
justify. However, the science of xenotransplantation is much less straightforward.
Import an organ from one animal to another and you may bring with it any number
of infectious diseases. That much is well known. Many diseases that could harm humans may
be both undetectable and harmless in their natural hosts. Diseases that have been dormant for
years may suddenly become active if they find themselves in a new environment, such as a
human recipient’s body. After that, they may start to infect other people. This risk should not
be underestimated. The DNA of every organism carries within it hundreds of ghosts of
infections past. Although most of such “retroviruses” gradually lose their infectious powers,
some retain their ability to leap out of the host DNA- often much later.
Of course, it is possible that none of the retroviruses will be harmful to humans;
possible too that scientists will eventually isolate all prospective trouble-makers. But at a time
when thousands of British cattle are being slaughtered because of the suspicion that they have
a disease that may be transmissible to humans, it seems a reckless gamble to take.
Adapted from The Economist, December21st, 1996, (p.16).
NOTES:
DNA: Deoxyribonucleic acid; the acid which carries genetic information in a cell.
To slaughter: to kill massively.
A reckless gamble: a risky game or bet.
To leap out: to emerge suddenly.
GUIDED COMMENTARY
1) According to the text, what does xenotransplantation consist in?
2) What made surgeons consider xenotransplantation as a possible way to prolong life
according to the text?
3) Why is xenotransplantation risky according to the text?
4) Would you allow surgeons to transplant other species’organs in your body during a
surgical operation? Explain yourself fully on the issue.

THEME: ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS (CHEMICALS)

TEXT 26: TOXIC SHOCK

Like a monster reawakened, chemical pollution is frightening people once more. In
1962 Rachel Carson, an American environmentalist, drew the world’s attention to the dangers
existing in man-made chemicals. The fear was that chemical pesticides were killing wildlife
and giving people cancer. Since then, governments in rich countries have restricted or banned
a large number of suspect substances, including DDT, PCBS and so on.
The new scare comes from two sources. The first is a theory- increasingly popular
in rich countries- that such chemicals are destroying the reproductive systems of man and
several other animals. Studies have shown dramatic falls in human sperm counts, and rises in
testicular cancer. Animals exposed to the chemicals have been doing strange things: female
birds have been discovered nesting together, and alligators have grown abnormally little
penises. It is believed that these curiosities have been caused by a number of artificial
chemicals that imitate sex hormones, thus confusing the natural process of sexual
developments.
The other source of worry comes from the developing world where the fast-growing
use of industrial chemicals is often uncontrolled by environmental regulations common in rich
countries. Under the guidance of the UN Environment Programme, a number of treaties are
now being negotiated to regulate the trade of dangerous chemicals.
International treaties are needed because chemicals do not respect frontiers. Some
substances that have been banned in rich countries are still showing up in animals and people
there. Though some chemicals remain in long use after their manufacture is prohibited, it may
well be that these substances are being carried outside countries where they are produced.
And also, potentially dangerous chemicals such as PCBS disperse easily into hot atmosphere
and thus travel long distances until they reach colder climates where they come down and
persist.
Adapted from The Economist, August 3th-9th, 1996, (p.77.)
NOTES:
To nest: ( nider)
DDT: Dichloro Diphenyl Trichloroethane
PB’s: Polychlorinated Biphenils

GUIDED COMMENTARY
1) What does the first worry relative to chemicals consist in?
2) Explain through examples how chemicals can change the natural development of things.
3) Despite international treaties some chemicals banned in rich countries are carried outside.
Why is that possible?
4) How is it possible to prevent the effects of chemicals?

5) Translate into French from “like a monster...”to “...and their animals”.

 THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/ HERITAGE (POPULATION GROWTH)

TEXT 27: DOES OVER-POPULATION CONSTITUTE A THREAT?

In the contemporary world, the population problem has not been solved. On the
contrary, it is becoming graver and more formidable with every passing year. It is against this
grim biological background that all the political, economic, cultural and psychological dramas
of our time are being played out. As the twentieth century wears on, as billions are added to
the existing billions, this biological background will advance, ever more insistently, ever more
menacingly, toward the front and centre of the historical stage. The problem of rapidly
increasing numbers in relation to natural resources, to social stability and to the well-being of
individuals that is now the central problem of mankind; and it will remain the central problem
certainly for another century, and perhaps for several centuries thereafter. A new age is
supposed to have begun on October 4, 1957. But, actually, in the present context, all our
exuberant post-Sputnik talk is irrelevant and even nonsensical. So far as the masses are
concerned, the coming age will not be the space age; it will be the age of over-
population...Unsolved, that problem will render insoluble all our other problems.
If over-population should drive the under-developed countries into totalitarianism, and
if these new dictatorships should ally themselves with Russia, the military position of the
United States would become less secure and the preparation for defence and retaliation would
have to be intensified. But liberty, as we all know, cannot flourish in a country that is
permanently on a war footing, or even a near-war footing. Permanent crisis justifies a
permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of the central government.
And permanent crisis is what we have to expect in a world in which over-population is
producing a state of things, in which dictatorship under communist auspices becomes almost
inevitable.

From Aldous Huxley: Brave New World Revisited, 1958.

GUIDED COMMENTARY
1- How threatening or serious is the population problem according to Huxley?
2- What are the main problem related to the population problem that mankind is facing
nowadays according to the text?
3- Is there any relationship between over-population and peace, liberty according to the text?
Justify your statement.
4- Do you think that the population problem could find any satisfactory solution in the future?
Give your reasons.

Translate into French from “if over-population should drive...” down to “...auspices becomes
almost inevitable.”

THEME: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (SATELLITES AND ENVIRONMENT)

TEXT 28: HOW USEFUL SATELLITES ARE

For thousands of years, farmers have read the sky for signs of rain. Today, more and
more farmers are getting help from electronic eyes looking down at the earth below. Far
beyond the sky and clouds, satellites based in space survey the planet around the clock,
providing information on world-wide weather patterns.
For the farmers of sub-Saharan Africa, the skies have failed to deliver relief for
months at a time. But rain has come recently, and the results have been measured by a US
weather satellite that crosses over Africa a half-dozen times each day. The satellite’s
electronic data are transformed into computer generate colour photographs. These photos of
the parched Sahel and Horn of Africa show a long awaited sight: in the words of Paul Krupe,
a US Agency for International Development official, “the greening of Africa”, after months of
drought. The photos show signs of vegetation and a higher moisture content in the soil.
Rains in the eastern part of the sub-Sahara have spurred sorghum and millet planting
in the Sudan and Ethiopia in recent weeks. Even in the western region which has received
only half the normal amount of rainfall increased in July. Overall, forecasts, for the sub-
Sahara predict more rain in 1985 than 1984. The planting season lasts for several more
months. Africa’s farmers like peanut growers in Senegal and Gambia must be ready for the
rains when they come.
The weather satellite can help. Its photographs of pasture and farm lands chart the
growth of native vegetation in the area. The United States has begun to share the computer
photographs, data on cloud patterns, and crop calendars with the nations of the sub-Sahara.
With the help of this information, herdsmen will know when the range can support heavy
grazing, and planters will know when it is time to sow their crops. Countries will be able to
gauge more accurately what their harvest will be, and African farming should become more
productive.

THEME: TERMINOLOGIES: CONCEPTS AND CONCEPTIONS (POVERTY)

TEXT 30: WHAT IS POVERTY?

Poverty is usually thought of as a lack of income-because it’s income that is largely assumed
to determine a person’s material standard of well being, thus, if $1 a day is taken as poverty
line, 33% of the developing world’s population, or 1.3 billion people, are poor. Nearly half of
them live in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
But “income poverty” is only part of the picture. Just as human development
encompasses aspects of life much broader than income, so poverty should be seen as having
many dimensions.
New, multidimensional measure of human deprivation, the capability poverty measure
(CPM), was introduced in the United Nations Development Programme’s Human
Development. Intended to complement income measures of poverty, it focuses on human
capabilities. Rather than examining the average state of people’s capabilities, it reflects the
percentage of people who lack basic, or minimally essential human capabilities.
The CPM considers the lack of three basic capabilities. The first is the capability to be
well nourished and healthy-represented by the proportion of children under five who are
underweight. The second is the capability for healthy reproduction- proxied by the proportion
of birth unattended by trained health personnel. The third is the capability to be educated and
knowledgeable- represented by female illiteracy. The index is noteworthy for its emphasis on
the deprivation of women, which is severe in some countries. It is well known that deprivation
of women adversely affects human development of families and society.
According to national income lines, 21% of the people in developing world live below
the poverty line. The corresponding figure for capability poverty is 37%; in other words,
900million people in developing countries are income poor, but 1.6 billion people are
capability poor.
From Human Development Report,1996.
NOTES:
Proxied: (here) represented, expressed by
A figure: a number
PRE-READING ACTIVITIES
1--Work in groups of four pupils and identify: a) The characteristics of a poor person.
b) The characteristics of a poor country.
2-- Now, with your notes in question1, define what poverty is.

GUIDED COMMENTARY
1) According to the text, is poverty only a lack of income?
2) Considering the income poverty, in which part of the world do we find most people
affected by it?
3) What are the three basic human capabilities identified by the author? Comment upon them.
4) In your opinion, which of the three minimally essential human capabilities is the most
important one? Justify your answer.
5) Is it possible to overcome poverty in the future in your opinion?

Translate into French from “Poverty is usually thought of ....” down to “....many
dimensions.”

THEME: ENVIRONMENTAL / ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS (FAUNA AND FLORA)

TEXT 31: ABOUT THE CONSERVATION OF WILDLIFE.

There are a variety of reasons why wildlife should be conserved.
Tourism shows the pleasure that people get from seeing wild animals in their natural habitat,
and arising from this is economic benefit to the country and people involved. Wildlife, and by
this we mean both animals and plants in their natural habitats, produces foods and medical
products. And from scientific study we learn the secrets of evolution on the working of the
life force, and acquire knowledge which we can apply for the benefit of our own lives.
But the crucial argument for conservation of wildlife is that all life on earth including
human life, is inextricably bound together with the environment on the planet. Green
vegetation turns the sun’s rays into edible energy which flows to the animals which feed on it,
and through them to the carnivores and that includes us. Animals help plants to reproduce
through pollination and by spreading seeds. Predators keep a check on the numbers of
grazing animals. Forests and grasslands, and the mass of minute vegetable plankton in the sea,
produce oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide, which is poisonous to us. The sun draws moisture
from the planet’s surface and it is redistributed as rain which ensures our water supplies.
These are all parts of the working machine supporting life which has evolved on our planet,
and that is so far as we know, at present, the only place in the universe where life exists.
We need space to live and produce our food; which impinges on the habitat of wild
species, and in the developed world especially, we make great demands on natural resources
to make our life more comfortable than is perhaps necessary, and to enjoy various luxuries,
some of which may not be very good for us anyway. These are the reasons for the basic threat
of extinction which hangs over so many animals and plants.
Adapted from “Tourism and wildlife” in Courier, n°53 by Sir Peter Scott.

QUESTIONS

1# Why should we conserve wildlife according to the text?

2# Describe the interaction between plants and animals on the basis of the text.
3# What is the influence of the sun on the environment according to the text?
4# What is the influence of human beings on the environment according to this text?
5# What is the environmental policy of our country particularly for conserving wildlife?
THEME: ENVIRONMENTAL/ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS (VOLCANOES)

TEXT 32: THE ORIGIN OF VOLCANOES

For thousands of years people have tried to understand the causes of volcanoes. The
early Greeks and Romans thought that the forge of the god Vulcan was on a small island in
the Mediterranean Sea. There was a mountain on the island. From the mountain came fire and
loud noises. The Greeks and Romans thought that the fire and noise came from Vulcan’s
anvil; there he hammered out the god’s thunderbolts. People called the island Vulcan. From
that name comes the word “volcano.”
Now we know more about volcanoes. However, we are unable to explain them
completely. Here are some agreed upon-facts. All volcanoes have two things in common: an
opening or openings in the earth and materials which go from the interior of the earth to its
exterior through the opening. The hot, molten materials inside the earth are called “magma”,
the Latin word for dough. These materials form an intrusion. When the magma leaves the vent
or opening in the earth, it exits in the form of gases, lava, liquid or solid materials. The gases,
lava and solid matter are extrusions.
When these materials come out of the earth, they form a cone. At the top or on the
sides of a volcano is a crater or hole. Volcanoes erupt, that is to say, explode, in different
ways. The kind of eruption depends partly on the types of ejected materials.
There are two basic types: basaltic rock lava, which is soft and flows easily and
granitic silica lava, which is hard. Granitic lavas keep gases inside the volcano until the
pressure becomes very great. Then an explosion of gases throws soft and solid materials
violently into air. The particles of matter are of many different sizes, from huge rocks to fine
ash.
There are three stages in the life of a volcano. It may be active, dormant or extinct.
“Dormant” means “sleeping.” That is, the volcano is not active but could become active. An
“extinct” volcano is no longer alive or active. However, dormant volcanoes can become active
very suddenly. That was the case with Mount St Helens in the state of Washington on May
18, 1980.
From Drobnic K.S. Abrahams & M. Morray: Reading and Writing the
English of Science and Technology.
NOTES:
Molten: melted
Dough: a soft and pasty mixture of flour and liquid.

TLED/ THEME: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (PSYCHOLOGY)

TEXT 33: WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?

Intelligence has been variously defined as the potential of a person to learn and
understand; to make appropriate judgements; to see relationships between things; to profit
from experience; or to meet adequately new problems and conditions in life. There are many
lines of evidence to show that intellectual capacity is closely related to heredity and
influenced by environmental factors. The idea of intelligence testing was first devised by the
French psychologist Binet at the beginning of this century. He was asked by the French
government to invent a test which would weed out backward children in state schools, and
thus have public money and avoid holding back the work of the class by teaching children
who were incapable of learning at a given standard. Briefly , a series of problems are given to
a large number of children and it thus found out which series can be solved by the average
child of a given age-group. If a child of seven can only pass the tests suitable to the average
child of six ,then his mental age is six. The intelligence quotient or I.Q. is discovered by
dividing his mental age by chronological age and multiplying by 100. A gifted child can
usually be spotted at an early age . Although I.Q. tests are the standard methods of estimating
intelligence, they are not universally accepted as a criterion; a teacher’s general judgement
may be the best assessment. High intelligence may be inherited, but fails to develop to the full
because facilities for education are not available. Recent research suggests that the growth of
the brain may be permanently affected by under-nutrition at the time of its fastest growth (the
last week before birth, and, to a lesser extent, the first week after birth). At this vulnerable
period even quite minor deprivation can affect the rate and ultimate extent of growth of the
brain. This has significance not only for the severely under-nourished babies in the poor parts
of the world, but for babies of low birth weight in some communities.
Adapted from The 1988 Almanac
To weed out: to remove (as for bad weeds).

A--PRE-READING TASKS:

TASK ONE: Work in groups of four/five pupils and write the characteristics of an intelligent
person.
TASK TWO: Say whether there is or not a relationship between intelligence and good
morality.

THEME: TERMINOLOGIES: CONCEPTS AND CONCEPTIONS (GLOBALISATION)

TEXT 36: GLOBALISATION: THE NEW ECONOMIC SYSTEM

This is the golden age for business, commerce and trade. Never before in the history of
the world has there been such an opportunity to sell as many goods as many people as there is
right now.
With instant information and communication, virtually everything is available to
anyone, anywhere. Markets are now global and many corporations are often richer and more
powerful than many countries.
There has always been trade between countries and societies, but never on a scale
close to today’s levels. A combination of reduced trade barriers, financial liberalisation and a
technological revolution have completely changed the nature of business in virtually all of the
industrialised countries.
-- The countries of the world are exploiting ten times as they did in 1950, and more
money.
-- More people are travelling than ever before.
-- More people are making international telephone calls than ever before, and are
paying less.
Globalisation does not stop there. With the internet and state-of-art
telecommunications, sales and technical representatives based in India can answer customer
questions in the United States.
More trade, more markets, more business, more information, more jobs, more
opportunities. This is the promises of a globalised world. The tide of globalisation has already
brought considerable wealth to areas of the world long accustomed to only poverty, and even
more wealth to areas that were doing quite well already. In East and South-east Asia,
countries have turned to export-based economies to propel themselves up to the development
ladder.
Clearly, not everyone is happy about globalisation. Many people don’t like it because
it allows rich and powerful outside business interests to intrude into a local culture, override
local traditions and threaten a way of life.
In more traditional societies, globalisation threatens the cultural and religious under-
pinnings of society. In both industrialised and developing countries, many people feel
threatened-and are threatened- by the globalisation process. A globalised economy presents a
myriad of challenges, from protecting local cultures to protecting the environment and local
jobs. Labour unions protested, fearing that a global trade agreement would undercut domestic
environmental safeguards. And there were nationalists, who feared that further globalisation
would diminish national sovereignty, and possibly lead to a loss of freedom, liberty, and
rights.
Whether it is viewed as an ominous juggernaut that crushes everything in its path, or
whether it holds the promise of a better future, globalisation is a phenomenon that is with us.
Like the weather, it is a force to which people can adapt.

Briefing Papers for Students—The Millennium Report, (pp131-132.)

NOTES:
Jaggernaut: a destructive force.

THEME: TERMINOLOGIES: CONCEPTS AND CONCEPTIONS (PHILOSOPHIES)

TEXT 37: WHAT’S YOUR PHILOSOPHY TO LIFE?

As a human being you have the choice of three basic attitudes to life. You may
approach life with the philosophy of the turnip, in which case your life will consist in being
born, eating, drinking, sleeping maturing, growing old, and dying. Of human turnips there is
no end, and theirs is a calm contentment undisturbed by the problems of this world. They
require neither books nor teaching, since vegetation is the be-all of the human turnip’s life.
The second basic attitude is to look at life as if it were a business. A great many so-
called successful men and women believe that life is a business, and they arrange their
conduct and behaviour accordingly. If you believe that life is a business, your first question
naturally on life is “What do I get out of it?”, and your first reaction to any new experience is
“How much is this worth to me?”. In a world based on this attitude, happiness becomes a
matter of successful competition, and this is the method of choice in the animal world. The
stronger eat the weaker. Life becomes a matter of aggressive offence and successful defence.
The third attitude to life is the approach of the artist. Here, the underlying philosophy
is “What can I put into this?, and the basic relation of the individual to his fellow-men is one
of co-operation and common sense. If we have recourse to history as a test of the validity of
this attitude, we find a confirmation of this point of view that history remembers best those
who have contributed most richly to the welfare of their fellow-men. And when we examine
the lives of these great contributors we find that their genius was never one of aggressive
self-seeking, but one of the welfare of their fellows.
W. Beran Wolff, How to Be Happy Though Human.
NOTES:
• Turnip: plant with a round white root.
• Welfare: well-being.

THEME: ECONOMICS (CAPITAL AND FINANCE)

TEXT 38: WHY FINANCE?
One of the primary considerations when going into business is money. Without
sufficient funds a company cannot begin operations. The money needed to start and continue
operating a business is known as capital. A new business needs capital not only for ongoing
expenses but also for purchasing necessary assets. These assets-inventories, equipment,
building, and property-represent an investment of capital in the new business.
How this new company obtains and uses money will, in large measure, determine its
success. The process of managing this acquired capital is known as financial management. In
general, finance is securing and utilising capital to start up, and expand a company.
To start up or begin business, a company needs funds to purchase essential assets,
support research and development, and buy materials for production, insurance, and many
other day-to-day operations. In addition, financing is essential for growth and expansion of a
company. Because of competition in the market, capital needs to be invested in developing
new product lines and production techniques and in acquiring assets for future expansion.
In financing business operations and expansion, a business uses both short-term and
long-term capital. A company, much like an individual, utilises short-term capital to pay for
items that last a relatively short period of time. An individual uses credit cards or charge
accounts for items such as clothing or food, while a company seeks short-term financing for
salaries and office expenses. On the other hand, an individual uses long-term capital such as a
bank loan to pay for a home or car-goods that will last a long time. Similarly, a company
seeks long-term financing to pay for new assets that are expected to last many years.
When a company obtains capital from external sources, the financing can be either on
short-term or long-term arrangement. Generally, short-term financing must be repaid in less
than one year, while long-term financing can be repaid over a longer period of time.
Financing involves the securing of funds for all phases of business operations. In
obtaining and using this capital, the decisions made by managers affect the overall financial
success of a company •

THEME: CULTURAL HERITAGE/TRAITS (DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMS)

TEXT 39: BREAKING THE CYCLES.

To break the cycles of poverty, violence and disease, interventions must come early in
life: the earlier the better. Early Childhood Development (ECD) is a key to full and productive
life for a child and to progress for a nation. In much the way that democracy is prelude to
human development, healthy children-healthy in the total sense of the word- are basic to a
country’s development.
The cumulative weight of the disparities perpetuated within a country destabilises that
country itself, even it is seemingly strong. And inequalities within any one country upset the
balance among nations: poor, malnourished and unhealthy children make for poor and
powerless states that are then at the mercy of stranger states. As the lives of young children
are short-changed, so the fortunes of countries are lost.
By investing in children in their early years of life, a country serves not only a child
and a family but also the cause of sustainable development. Investing in children is among the
most far-sighted decisions leaders can make.
Hunger, disease and ignorance have never been a foundation for sustained economic
growth, democracy or the respect for human rights. Giving all children a good start in life
helps weed out the blights choking human development. What is needed now is a renewed
commitment to the rights of the child, a vision of how the world can be for children and the
courage to do whatever it takes to unravel the ropes that blind generations to misery.
From “The State of the World’s Children, 2001”,(p43).

THEME: TERMINOLOGIES: CONCEPTS AND CONCEPTIONS

TEXT 40: WHAT IS UNDERDEVELOPMENT?

Underdevelopment is not absence of development, because every people have
developed in one way or another to a greater or lesser extent.
Underdevelopment makes sense only as a means of comparing levels of development.
It is very much tied to the fact that human social development has been uneven and from a
strictly economic viewpoint some human groups have advanced further by producing more
and becoming more wealthy. At all times, therefore, one of the ideas behind
underdevelopment is a comparative one. It is possible to compare the economic conditions at
two different periods for the same country and determine whether or not it has developed.
A second and even more indispensable component of modern underdevelopment is
that it expresses a particular relationship of exploitation: namely, the exploitation of one
country by another. All of the countries named “underdeveloped” in the world are exploited
by others; and the underdevelopment with which the world is new preoccupied is a product of
capitalist, imperialist and colonialist exploitation. African and Asian societies were
developing independently until they were taken over directly or indirectly by the capitalist
powers. When that happened, exploitation increased and the export of surplus ensued,
depriving the societies of the benefit of their natural resources and labour. This is an integral
part of underdevelopment in the contemporary sense.
In some quarters, it has often been thought wise to substitute the term “developing” for
“underdevelopment”. One of the reasons for so doing is to avoid any unpleasantness which
may be attached to the second term, which might be interpreted as meaning underdeveloped
mentally, physically, morally, or in any other respect. Actually, if “underdevelopment” were
related to any thing other than comparing economies, then the most underdeveloped country
in the world would be the USA, which practises external oppression on a massive scale, while
internally there is a blend of exploitation, brutality and psychiatric disorder.
From W. Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.

GUIDED COMMENTARY:
1- On what grounds can we say that a country is underdeveloped?
2- What are, according to the text, the causes of underdevelopment?
3- Does it make any sense to speak of “developing countries” instead of “underdeveloped
countries”?
4- What must the underdeveloped countries do to achieve their development in your opinion?

Translate the two first paragraphs of the text.

THEME: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (USE OF ROBOTS)

TEXT 41: THE ROBOT REVOLUTION

Robots are beginning to transform the industrial workplace…Robots paint cars, mine
coal, spray crops and remove rivets from damaged aircraft. In Australia, shepherds use robots
to shear sheep. In Japan, there is even a plant that uses robots to make other robots.
 Some economists see in the robots a cure for much of the West’s current industrial
malaise. In their theory, productivity gains in today’s costly labour and capital marketplace
can be achieved only by technological advancement.
Robots of course have clear advantages over human labour; they can work 24 hours a
day without tiring or growing bored. They never report sick and they are not proselytised by
union organisers. They do not require extensive training, do not make mistakes and surpass
the “up-time” of an hourly production worker.
Not everybody agrees with such assessments. Some economists suggest that the
reason labour is currently less productive than it used to be complex. Many workers are not
motivated to do a quality job and many managements have failed to modernise plants or to
take risks in trying innovation. Some labour representatives have expressed deep concern over
the prospect of robots taking jobs from union members.
The United Auto Workers Union, which is perhaps the most sensitive to automation,
has stated that it is unconcerned with the advances of robotics-as long as job security is
assured. However, it made sure to sign retraining contracts with the automakers.
Automation circles argue that robots take over only the tough, unpleasant jobs, leaving
the human worker in a position to be reassigned or to be retrained for a better position. Robots
themselves create new jobs. Programming and technical maintenance of robots are two areas
of employment that have opened up, along with robot research and engineering.

Adapted from Lee Edson, “The Robot Revolution” in TOPIC n°138, (pp17-24).

NOTES:
Rivet: a sort of nail
proselytised: under control

1) What sorts of tasks can robots perform according to the text?

2) Do robots have any advantages for man?
3) Are there drawbacks related to the invention of robots?
4) Can robots be considered as a successful invention in your opinion?

THEME: DEVELOPMENT MATTERS (THE DILEMMA OF DEBT)

TEXT 42: THE DICTATORSHIP OF DEBT

When the leaders of the world’s seven wealthiest countries met in Cologne in June for
their annual summit, they were greeted by a human chain 35,000 strong, a symbol of an
extraordinarily effective grassroots campaign to lift the burden of debt from the world’s
poorest countries. Once an obscure issue for numbers crunchers and policy wonks, debt relief
has been forced onto the political agenda of the international community. Led by Jubilee
2000, a coalition of non-governmental organisations, churches and aid agencies that support
complete cancellation of Third World debt, “Drop the Debt” is being described as the most
successful international campaign since the anti-apartheid movement.
At present, 41 of the world’s poorest countries owe collectively more than $200
billion to governmental and multilateral lending institutions such as the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund. This amounts to $357 for every man, woman, and child in sub-
Saharan Africa, where governments spend four times as much on debt repayment as on health
care and education. For the most deeply indebted countries, annual debt-service spending
absorbs 40 percent of government budgets. Many believe that the mountain of unpayable
debt-and the economic austerity programmes imposed on debtor countries by lenders-now
stand as the biggest obstacles to reducing poverty in the Third World.
 At the Cologne summit, the Group of Seven leaders, prodded by the British
government, came up with a plan to provide greater and faster debt relief to more poor
countries. But critics contend that their solution is too little, with too many strings attached.
Does it ensure that savings on debt payments will flow to providing clean water, hospitals,
and primary schools, rather than into the pockets of corrupt politicians? And will the debtor
nations and institutions actually deliver on their pledges?
Margaret Bald, in World Press, October 1999, (p.6).

VOCABULARY:
a wonk: a critic
to prod: to lead
grassroots: the base.

THEME: TERMINOLOGIES: CONCEPTS AND CONCEPTIONS.

TEXT 43: ON CITIZENSHIP

In the last past twenty years, the United Nations has put out a Declaration and a
Convention of Human Rights, and most governments have accepted them.
And yet we know that there are still countries in which these fundamental human
rights are not safe: countries in which it is unfortunate to be of the wrong colour, or the wrong
political party, or the wrong religion, or the wrong caste, or the wrong class. Human rights,
fundamental freedoms, the rule of the law, will not be preserved by written declarations. What
then can preserve them?
This question brings us to Plato. Plato argues that a just state will be one, which is
peopled by just men. Human rights and the rule of the law will only exist as long as the great
majority of citizens believe in them so strongly to take trouble or even run risk for them. It has
been said that the price of liberty is perpetual vigilance. Each of us is awake when his own
liberty is threatened; most of us are inclined to close our eyes when the threat is to our
neighbours’ liberty. It has been said, too, that a people gets a government it deserves. We
ourselves are responsible for the rule of the law. If we break the law in all sorts of petty ways
and aim mainly at living an easy life and keeping out of trouble, we are behaving like slaves,
and we shall deserve a government which will treat us as slaves. If we wish for justice and
freedom, we must cultivate the virtues that justice and freedom require.

Ama Djolote

THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (DISEASES: AIDS)

TEXT 45: AIDS: WHO SHOULD BE TESTED?

Hardly anyone dispute the notion that testing should be readily available on a
voluntary basis. After that, however, the issue can quickly become enormously difficult.
Should only those in high-risk groups be tested? Does it make any sense to test tourists
visiting a country? How about those applying for permanent-residence visas? How should the
results be handled? Is it ethical to require doctors and clinics to report the names of those who
test positive to health authorities, when such information can lead to social and professional
ostracism? Does a doctor have a right to tell the husband or wife of an AIDS patient about the
spouse’s condition?
 In February 1987, authorities in the West German state of Bavaria announced what
may be the most draconian testing regulations anywhere in the world. The plan managed to
appear spotty and sweeping at the same time. It ordered mandatory testing for all prostitutes
and drug addicts and gave the power to arrest anyone who refused to cooperate. In an effort to
curb the spread of the disease, the regulations also stipulated that all non-EC nationals seeking
to stay in Bavaria more than three months on permanent-residence visas must pass an AIDS
test.
The announcement of the steps triggered a wave of angry demonstrations and
denunciations. What point was there, critics asked, in screening non-EC immigrants when
infected EC nationals would theoretically still be able to spread the disease; and weren’t the
measures, they added, a little like shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted, since
AIDS had already spread to Bavaria. Opponents also argued that the new testing regulations
for addicts and prostitutes raised disturbing civil-liberties questions, and in any event would
serve only to discourage many likely carriers from coming forward to receive counselling on
how to guard against infecting others. People will also think the state is tracking them.
In most counties the push for testing has come from extreme conservatives and
religious fundamentalists. In France, Jean-Marie Lepen, leader of the ultraright National
Front, has called for all French citizens to be tested twice a year. And some right-wingers in
Britain have demanded that all immigrants be screened, a move that the former Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher’s conservative government has staunchly resisted.
In the future, though, it may become harder to adhere to that restraint. One reason is
the American government’s decision in 1987 to institute mandatory testing for all those
applying for permanent-residence visas in the United States. Some public-health officials fear
that Washington’s policy may eventually force other governments to follow suit, even if it is
against their better judgement. “Look, after the Americans have taken this sort of step, how do
you explain it is not useful to your own population?” asks one France-based health official for
a European agency. “ In time Europe will also create this sort of barrier. I can see it coming.”
From “Who Should Be Tested?” in Newsweek, August 10, 1987, (pp.13-16).
VOCABULARY:
Spotty: local
Sweeping: global

GUIDED COMMENTARY
1—What is the political dilemma around the world, as far as AIDS is concerned?
2—What can be the consequences of imposing AIDS testing on high-risk groups and
immigrants?
3—What do you think of mandatory testing?
4—Does AIDS represent a menace to our society?

Translate from “ In most countries...” to “ in the United States”.

THEME: DEVELOPMENT MATTERS (THE PROBLEM OF WATER SUPPLY)

TEXT 47: THIRSTY PLANET

Washing the dishes or sluicing down is something commonplace for those who have
always had access to running and potable water; on the world scale, it appears as an act of
heresy. 1,300,000 persons do not have access to it at all, of whom 450,000 Africans, that is to
say half of the population of the continent.
 The worst is that water isn’t everlasting: only 1% of the planet’s water reserves,
estimated to 140,000 km3, is drinkable. The demand for water increased by seven times over
a century. The only positive impact that such alarming figures could however have is that they
bring to a global awareness.
Soon, the poor from developing countries rural areas will no longer be the only
victims. At the present time, they remain the principal persons affected by water shortage. In
Africa, particularly, the demand increases rapidly while the offer is the weakest possible. An
average of 30 litres is used everyday by one inhabitant of the continent whereas an American
uses 600 litres.
Mar Del Plata (Argentina,1977) hosted the first great international conference on
water. Since that date, meetings, conferences and projects came one after the other, permitting
but a mixing of ideas materialised in plans, each more ambitious, yet without any coherence.
In those days “water for all in 1990!” was proclaimed. In 1992, the first Earth Summit in Rio
(Brazil) broke up into slogan “ pure water 2000!” What remains from these formulas? Some
of these programmes, richly funded helped to establish distribution and sanitation facilities.
Yet, deterioration comes fast without any follow-up.
A semester before the Rio+10 summit where the planet’s environmental problems will
once again be in the glare of the spotlights, the th congress of the African Union of Water
Suppliers (UADE) is held in Libreville (Gabon) from February 16 to 22, 2002. among all the
organisations concerned with water, it may be the most efficient one. Gathering water
companies from the four major African regions each session shows an increasing will to take
responsibility for oneself. Such behaviour should be taken as an example, for water is not an
object of luxury. Water is indispensable to life.

NOTES:
To sluice down: to take a bath with a great quantity of water.
Spotlights: projecteurs.
heresy: dissenting view, nonconformity.

THEME: (About censorship)

TEXT 48: CENSORSHIP AND FREEDOM

There should be no censorship of any kind. At first sight, this sort of statement appeals
almost everyone. We have been brought up to believe in the advantage of the freedom of
speech and no doubt beliene in them ourselves. Although there may be cases where
censorship exists to protect people and even to protect their freedom to live their own lives in
peace, the idea that we have of it is one where governments prevent people from expressing
their opinions and try to suppress the truth. […] Censorship is not always political. There
many other reasons why books or films encourage violent crime and want to ban them; others
are more moderate, and simply want to prevent children from seeing them. In the same way
governments insist that certain state documents must be kept secret because publication might
help the country’s enemies, in spite of the suspicion that they really do this to avoid problems
at elections.
The trouble with censorship is that someone must decide what should be censored.
While the majority of people agree that it is wrong to show children violent images that will
frighten them, it is difficult to know where the line should be drawn. […] Censors are usually
people who think they know best and that the public should accept their opinion, which is
contradictory to the idea of freedom.
 It is tempting to conclude that all censorship’s bad, even though there are
circumstances where it is clearly justified. To a certain extent, individuals are protected
against spoken or written lies by the laws as slander and libel. All the same, it is too easy for
newspapers to claim that their invasion of people’s privacy is justified because a report is “ in
the public interest”. On the whole, it therefore seems reasonable to argue that some censorship
is necessary but the censors, too, should be subject to control.

Fowler, W.S.and J. Pidcok, Synthesis.

Slander: calumny, defamation, denigration

Libel: smear, slander.

GUIDED COMMENTARY:
1-- On what grounds/circumstances can we admit or reject censorship according to the text?
2-- Why are films or books censored according to the text?
3-- According to the writers, are there positive effects related to censorship?
4-- What is the dilemma (problems) that characterises censorship?
5-- What do you think is worth being censored in your country? Explain yourself fully.

Translate into French from “The trouble with censorship is….”down to the end of the text.

THEME: TERMINOLOGIES: CONCEPTS AND CONCEPTIONS ( EDUCATION

//DEMOCRACY)

TEXT 49: EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY

It may be appropriate to begin this section with a review of the findings on the
relationship between education and democracy. It can be shown, for example that the higher
the education level of a country, the more likely it is to a democracy. Within countries,
moreover, there is an even stronger relationship between education and democratic attitudes.
In a summary of the main research findings, Lipset argues that “ data gathered by public
opinion research agencies which have questioned people in different countries about their
beliefs on tolerance for the Opposition and their attitudes toward ethnic or racial minorities,
have showed that the most important single factor differentiating those giving democratic
responses from the others has been education. The higher one’s education, the more likely one
is to believe in democratic values and support democratic practices. All the relevant studies
indicate that education is more significant than either income and occupation.” Particularly
impressive in this connection is Lipset’s evidence that the working classes, and the less-
educated, tend to be more authoritarian in their attitudes, and to be more likely to favour
extremist political and religious groups. There is also some, although by no means a
concluding evidence that students at college become more liberal “ in the sense of being more
sophisticated and independent in their thinking, and placing greater value upon individual
freedom and well-being.”
O. BANKS, The Sociology of Education

THEME: (About Aid)

TEXT 50: AID CAN’T SAVE AFRICA

 Too many African countries rely too much on aid. Some poor African countries face
economic collapse when aid is cut off. In 1968, President Nixon said: “the main purpose of
American aid is not to help other nations but ourselves.” This continues to be the case not
only for the US, but also for all donors, and perhaps also for the World Bank, the largest of all
aid donors today.
Being by far the largest donors to Africa, the World Bank demands a rising control of
the economic direction Africa takes. Its concern is to relate African outputs to the needs of the
major Western economies. The World Bank stresses African agricultural production for
export whereas the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA) proposes industrial development for self-
reliance. The L.P.A. is an African collective attempt to meet Africa’s demands rather than
world ones. The [ex] USSR does not believe in aid as an answer to development problems.
New socialist states must achieve their own development and aid is seen as no more than a
pump-priming operation.
The constant search for aid to free African nations from economic crises has led to
greater pressures on the Arabs. The Arab aid in June 1981 reached 6.7 billion. Although
China is seen as an example of self-reliance, it offers aid to keep the leadership of “third”
nations.
African leaders today wish for a new international economic order to reach to reach
self-reliance. Unfortunately, they at once ask the West to pay for it. The success of most
African leaders who go on international trips is judged by the variety and volume of new aids
they bring back home. And this a deep-rooted mentality, which hinders home initiatives for
development.
After decades of independence during which most of Africa has been receiving aid
and constantly searching for more-the continent still appears little better off and much worse
off in many cases. Aids retards development and ensures continuing dependence. If the aid
receivers persist in seeking it, they should stop grumbling when they remain dependent on the
West.
From New African, issue of November 1982.

 Prime the pump: idiom which means encourage the growth of a new or inactive business or
industry by investing money in it.

THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE

TEXT51: CHILDLESS BY CHOICE

In Framingham, Mass, music teacher Bloomenthal, 31, and her husband, Stan, have
decided not to have children because they fear a child could strain their eight-year-old
marriage. Linda McGrew, 45, who is married and runs her own vineyard in northern
California, has rejected motherhood because she feels a woman’s intelligence is better served
“ if she’s not constantly driving the kids to ballets, gymnastics and piano lessons.” Oregon
bookkeeper Macilyn Cripe is a dedicated non-mother because she already has more things to
do than she can handle. “I have hobbies and interests that I barely have more time for now”,
she says. “Sure I have motherly instincts. But I’d rather raise horses.”
Supported by the women’s movement and the ease of birth control, a small but
growing group of well-educated, career-oriented women are remaining childless by choice.
And with the gradual acceptance of childless marriages, more of these women are candidly
explaining with details the joys of non-motherhood. Researchers are beginning to study the
psychological causes and effects of rejecting parenthood, and a 2000 member support group
for childless couples has sprung up; called the National Alliance for Optional Parenthood, it is
based in Washington, D.C. The decision to reject the path of motherhood is not an easy one. “
A woman opting not to have children has to be very strong” says Wayne A. Myers, a
psychiatrist at New York hospital, “it’s a rejection of being like her mother. She wonders
whether she’s selfish and may worry that she’s noy fulfilling her feminity.”
Adapted from Newsweek, January 21, 1980.

Mass= Massachusetts

THEME: (About Africa’s independence)

TEXT 52: WHO RULES AFRICA?

There is a growing body of opinion, among African and Africanist thinkers, that in
fact Africa’s independence has mostly been a sham.[…]
This was plainly obvious during the Cold War when both the East and the West imposed their
leaders of choice and supported them economically and militarily. When the Cold War ended,
the hope was that Africa would now be free to set its own priorities. It was hardly a
coincidence that a majority of African countries chose democracy. But did this mean that
Africa was free at last ?
[…] The new puppet masters […] are international institutions such as the World Bank and
the I.M.F., the aid donors and International Non Governmental Organisations.
The rise of a few more democratic regimes in Africa in recent years should not distract
attention from the reality that even elected regimes remain largely accountable to the agencies
that finance their budgets, rather than to the citizens. The most aid dependent region in the
world, Sub-Saharan Africa cannot pretend that its citizens have a strong impact on policy
decisions, regardless of the character of political system.
Africa’s export[…] remain the same as in colonial times : unprocessed raw materials
being exported to the same countries to which they were exported in colonial times.
This total dependence on external markets for revenues, compounded by the need for
aid and technical support from outside means that African governments do not have to be
accountable to their own people. As long as the donors are kept happy, regimes can continue
to rule.
From African Business, Anver Versi, August-September2003,(p.13).
 Sham : imposture, comédie.

TEXT : CANCER RESEARCH ’S NEW TACK

Recruiting volunteers to test an experimental cancer treatment at Standford
University in 1993, Ronald Levy interviewed four lymphoma patients who turned out to be
too sick to qualify for the study. Wanting to offer them something, Dr Levy suggested a
never-tried treatment called a dendritic-cell vaccine.
The body’s then-mysterious dendritic cells -master controllers of immunity discovered
by Rockefeller University’s Ralph Sterinman – were only beginning to be understood by
doctors as disease fighters. They are the “generals of the immune system army”, says Jacques
Banchereau, director of the Baylor Institute for Immunology Research in Dallas. Shaped like
spiny-starfish, they move about the body hunting for pathogens that cause disease; when they
find something, they carry it to a lymph node, where they recruit and train T-cells to recognise
and fight the disease. Doctors’ practical ability to harness these cells in the laboratory as a
cancer vaccine was only theoretical when Dr Levy suggested the treatment. But the cancer
patients were very sick, and gave him the green light.
 Ten years later, the four are still alive, as are an additional 31 cancer patients who
joined them in the Stanford experiment. And Dr Levy’s last attempt gesture has led to a
seismic shift in cancer research. At least 10 academic and commercial teams are now testing
dendritic-cell vaccines to treat everything from melanoma to prostate cancer.
In a sign of the field’s burgeoning activity, just 200 people attended the first
international dendritic-cell conference a decade ago in France, where the Standford team
presented its first results; this year’s conference swelled to about 1,300 attendees. The
National Cancer Institute says it has issued 107 grants for dendritic-cell research, including
vaccines, and clinical trials.
Dendritic-cell vaccines vary, but most are custom-made by drawing the cells from the
patient’s own blood and fusing them with pieces of the patient’s tumour. As a killer of cancer
cells, these vaccines are a sharp departure from standard chemotherapy. In individual patients,
cancer cells can develop ways to survive the toxic chemicals used in chemotherapy and
become a much more difficult-to-treat form. Harnessing the immune system to fight cancer in
the same way it fights microbes might provide a more powerful and versatile weapon against
cancer, especially when drugs fail. And a vaccine is expected to produce fewer, less severe
side effects.
“Immunotherapy may be one of the only ways left to deal with cancer. We’ve gone as
far as we can with chemotherapy. There are new drugs coming out. It’s sort of a dead area”,
says oncologist Herman Kattlove, an editor for the American Cancer Society.
M.Chase C.R.Zimmerman, The Wall Street Journal Europe, Brussels,
Belgium, May 23-25, 2003, (p.44).

NOTES:
Tack: direction
Spiny-starfish: sea animal covered with long sharp points
Lymph node: noeud lymphatique
To harness: to control in order to use.

GUIDED COMMENTARY:
1—What has led Dr Ronald Levy to suggest a new treatment against cancer?
2—What is the role of dendritic-cells in the human body?
3—Was Dr Ronald levy’s treatment successful according to the text?
4—How are dendritic-cell vaccines produced?
5—Do you think Immunotherapy has a future in the treatment of cancer or is it just a
provisional solution?

THEME: (About Disabled People)

TEXT 54: I HAVE REALLY BEGUN TO SEE.

At present I am thirty-two years old, a public relations counsellor and lecturer. In a
busy year I appear on speaking platforms all over the country, lecturing to business leaders,
civic groups and housewives on behalf of the deaf and blind. I ask my fellow Americans to
give these handicapped people the chance to earn their way as productive human beings. I
explain that handicapped people don’t want anybody’s pity: they simply do not wish to be
shunted aside by their countrymen who believe they have done their duty when they have
handed out a pension.
I urge all those who will listen to me give the big opportunity I was offered: to grant
this not only to the deaf-blind but to other disabled people, whose arms legs and nervous
systems might be twisted beyond repair but whose minds are as sound and sharp as anyone
else’s.
I know that any man can be lifted out of the deepest abyss if people refuse to give up
on him, if he himself refuses to strike out his colours to despair.
Recently I was lecturing in Patchogue, when a young housewife came up to me at the
conclusion of my talk and said to me through my companion who interpreted with his fingers
into my hand: “Mr Smithdas, you have given me and absolutely brand-new perspective on
life. It’s as if for the first time I have really begun to see” [...]
On the lecture platform I have acquired a great deal of self- confidence, even though I
am like a pilot flying blind in the blizzard. I have to grope through each sentence by instinct ,
much as I feel my way through darkened buildings and streets.
Robert J. Smithdas in New Horizons through Reading and Literature.
Book 3, Laidlaw Brothers, 1962.

THEME: (About the imperialism/domination of the powerful countries)

TEXT 56: THE INJUSTICE OF OUR WORLD

Again, from history we find that “the nations of European stock” behaved in the same
way whether they went. This fact, in fact, should not surprise us, considering that they sang
from the same hymnbook and read from the same bible. To feel secure in Canada, the
Europeans wiped out the native population and took the land.
To feel secure in Australia, the Europeans wiped out the native population and took
the land. [...] To feel secure in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, the Europeans wiped
out a good chunk of the native population and took the land.
Elsewhere in Africa, thanks to the mosquitoes, the Europeans failed to wipe us out
physically, but succeeded in wiping us mentally, destroying our culture, identity, religion,
thought system, names, etc. To the extent that today the “sophisticated” or “civilised” African
is the one who behaves more like the European.[...] In the recent years, the insecurity complex
has manifested itself in “the nations of European stock” (now calling themselves “the
international community”) effectively telling the rest of the world that they alone, or their few
anointed friends, have the right to manufacture and hold weapons of mass destruction.
If anybody outside their circle dares do the same, his country becomes a “rogue state”
or “axis of evil”, deserving to be threatened or attacked, militarily and economically.
[...] President George W. Bush, explaining why America has to attack Iraq [...] for
“trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction” said: “We owe it to the future of civilisation
not to allow the world’s worst leaders to blackmail freedom—loving nations with the world’s
worst weapons”.
From New African, September 2002, by Baffour Ankomah, (p.9).

THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE (IMPORTANCE OF READING AND

WRITING TODAY)

TEXT 57: READING IN THE TECHNOLOGICAL AGE

It is amazing that no one seems to have questioned the validity of the principle behind
the present national campaign against illiteracy. The problem is being tackled in entirely the
wrong way. We should be making it easier for illiterates to get by without reading and
writing, not encouraging them to learn our outdated system of communication. The written
word should be (and most certainly will be) as obsolete in communications as the horse is for
transport.
Why are certain people insisting upon furthering its use? Educationalists already
accept that audio-visual aids are a better way of learning than the written word; libraries are
already stocking up with these aids; and people are already buying video machines for their
homes. The change is already being undermined by such old-fashioned thinking as is going
into the present literacy campaign.
The people running the campaign claim that reading and writing are more necessary
than ever before, but this is simply not true except perhaps for the bureaucratic nonsense of
tax-forms and for complicated hire-purchase agreements, etc. Which even literates have
problems with and which would be much better dealt with by professional form-completers,
so alleviating everyone of the dangers of being tricked or confused by “small print”—for the
experts would take care of it all. The written word has served its purpose, so let’s have done
with it.
I should explain that I am in no way advocating the burning or banning of books. If
anyone wants to learn to read now or in the future no one should object, as I’m sure no one
objects to anyone learning to ride a horse -- but society should not stigmatise those who
cannot do these things; let them be pleasurable activities, by all means, but not necessities.
Most illiterates only want to learn to read because it is the accepted thing to do—
because the rest of us make them feel ashamed. We’ve all been socialised into thinking that
reading is not only necessary but positively virtuous. But in fact it is holding us back. Radio
and television have turned newspapers and news periodicals into anachronisms. And now
modern cassette players and audio-visual aids are doing the same to the whole concept of the
written word. So why go on burdening people with unnecessary Skills? If people would open
their eyes and stop living in the past, life could be so much easier and more pleasurable.
It is up to us give the future generations a good start in life. So let’s begin by scrapping
the postal system (who can afford to send letters these days, anyway?) and introducing cheap
telephones so that every home has one; and let’s use more symbols (as is already done with
modern road signs); more diagrams instead of long winded instructions; more pictures (as
already done with some menus which have the additional benefits of having to conform with
the picture or else face prosecution under the Trade Descriptions Act); more educational films
and more audio-visual aids in every sphere of life. It is time we cast off the dead weight of the
past and looked ahead to a bright and illiterate future.
The Sunday Times, 1978.

A) GUIDED COMMENTARY:
1—Why do people who cannot read or write want to learn to do so, according to the writer?
2—The author does not seem to believe in the campaign against illiteracy. Why?
3—What difference is there between the written word and “mass media?” Justify your
answer.
4—Do you agree that: “We do not need reading and writing for anything else in this
technological age?” Justify your answer.

B) Translate from “Most illiterates only want....” down to “...easier and more pleasurable”
into French.

THEME: TERMINOLOGIES: CONCEPTS AND CONCEPTIONS (OBJECTIVES OF

DEVELOPMENT)
TEXT58 : THE NATURE AND GOALS OF DEVELOPMENT
Development is an important issue in today’s world. Many believe that if the
developed nations had not colonised other countries, there would not be such a wide gap
between rich and poor nations today. There are also those who maintain that the developing
nations could be in a more favourable situation today if their governments and systems of
distribution were more egalitarian.
It is clear to all of us, though, that there is a need for greater international co-operation
if we hope to distribute the world’s wealth more equitably so that all human beings can live in
dignity. If we want to begin to solve the conflict between rich and poor, we will have to
examine existing systems and ask many important questions, the most basic of which are
“what is development?” and, “how can development be achieved?” In general, development
refers to the process through which a nation passes to achieve modernisation and
industrialisation. It is a process leading to a goal, and both the process and the result are called
development. If we accept this definition of development, we must also accept the fact that
there many definitions of modernisation and industrialisation.
The most widespread theory of development has been the traditional economic view.
In this view, the goals are the maximisation of profit and a rapid rise in the Gross National
Product (GNP).
Traditional economists believe that these goals would be reached if investments were
increased, if resources were efficiently used, if business skills were improved, and if western
technology were utilised. Furthermore, they believe that if business is improved, then the
benefits would trickle down through the economic classes so that even the poorest people
would be affected. Often, it’s through the result of a higher GNP that the gap between the rich
and the poor widened; the rich became richer, while the poor became poorer. Therefore, new
theorists believe that economists should have considered more than domestic economic
factors within each developing country when making development plans. The new theorists
who support a basic human needs theory, believe that each country must be seen within the
international economic order and that development must be achieved qualitatively, not just
quantitatively. They believe that, regardless of increases in the GNP, we have not succeeded
in development unless the situation of the poorest people has improved as a result of
development projects. They argue that development plan must consider not only economic
goals, but social, cultural, and human goals as well.
Adams J.A.  M.A.Dwyer, in English for Academic Uses.

Trickle down: tomber goutte à goutte, dégouliner.

GUIDED COMMENTARY:
1—Using your own words, define what development is. Comment upon it (on the basis of the
text).
2—What are the nature and objectives of development according to the text?
3—State the different approaches to development and explain each of them as indicated in the
text.
4—Could developing countries have achieve development according to the text? Justify your
statement.
5—How can developing nations achieve development?
Translate into French from “Traditional economists believe that...” down to “...human goals
as well.”

THEME: TERMINOLOGIES: CONCEPTS AND CONCEPTIONS (DEFINITIONS )

TEXT 59: THREE DEFINITIONS OF AFRICA

The ambivalence has been so deep that in order to demonstrate that ancient Egypt was
an African civilisation, some have found it necessary to seek evidence that ancient Egypt was
a black civilisation. Skeletons and skulls of ancient Egyptians have been checked to see if
they were Negroid. Noses in ancient Egyptian paintings have been examined to see if they
were flat. The Sphinx has been scrutinised to see if it had Negroid features before wind and
sand eroded its nose.
My own feelings is that to insist that nothing is African unless it is Black is to fall
into the white man’s fallacy. No one insists that the Chinese on the one hand, and black
Sinhalese or Tamils of Sri Lanka on the other hand, must be the same colour before they can
be regarded as “Asians”.
The problem originally arose because Europe itself was regarded as unipigmentional
continent –the inhabitants of each country being regarded as primarily “white”. Was Africa
going to be as multi-coloured as Asia? Or was it going to be as uni-coloured as Europe? In
its hegemonic days of imperialism, European leadership never resolved the issue. Some
thought of Africa as being three zones: white-dominated Africa south of the Tropic of
Capricorn, Arab-dominated Africa north of the Tropic of Cancer, and Black Africa between
the two tropics. The question of “where is the real Africa?” was in this case answered in terms
of what lay between the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer.
To summarise, they have until now been three definitions of the “real Africa”. The
racial definition of Africa restricted identity of the Black populated parts of the continent. The
continental definition of Africa is the principle of which the Organisation of African Unity is
partly based -Africa is a continent as a whole. The power definition of Africa would exclude
those parts of Africa which are still under “non-African” control –especially the Republic of
South Africa. But this is, I hope, a very temporary situation.
The Africans: A Triple Heritage by Ali A.MAZRUI.

GUIDED COMMENTARY:
[1]- How do some experts prove that there was an African civilisation?
[2]- Does the writer agree with the way the experts explain the existence of a Black/African
civilisation? How does he justify his position?
[3]- Explain the ambivalence related to the ‘definition’ of Africa as shown in the text.
[4]- What are the three definitions of Africa? Specify the characteristics of each definition.
Translate from “The problem originally arouse…” down to “….the tropics of Capricorn and
Cancer”.

THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (NUTRITION)

TEXT 60: BREAST –FEEDING

Breast feeding is an unequalled way of providing food for the healthy growth and
development of infants and has a unique biological and emotional influence on the health of
both mother and child. The anti-infective properties of breast milk help to protect infants
against disease and there is an important relation between breast-feeding and child spacing.
For these reasons, professionals and health workers in health-care facilities should
make every effort to protect, promote and protect breast-feeding and to provide expectant and
new mothers with objective and consistent advice in this regard.
The prevalence and duration of feeding have declined in many parts of the world for a
variety of social, economic and cultural reasons. With the introduction of modern
technologies and adoption of new life-styles the importance attached to this traditional
practice has noticeably reduced in many societies. However, unwillingly, health services
frequently contribute to this decline, either by failing to encourage mothers to breast –feed or
by introducing (...) procedures that interfere with the normal (...) establishment of breast-
feeding. Common examples of the later are separating mothers from their infants at birth,
giving infants glucose water by bottle and (...) encouraging the use of breast-milk substitutes.

‘A’ GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & COMPREHENSION: rules, meaning &

comprehension in/of the text.

[1] Rewrite these sentences otherwise by replacing at least two of the words or phrases
underlined. Make necessary arrangement without altering their original:
_a- “breastfeeding is.....unequalled way of providing food [....].”
_b- “[...]professional and health workers serving in health carefacilities should.... make every
effort to protect, promote and support breastfeeding[....].

[2] Rewrite the following sentences in the simplest way (the base form of the sentence) by
restarting each one in the way indicated below it:
‫“ ٭٭‬The anti-infective.....child spacing.”
► Breastfeeding......
‫[“ ٭٭‬...]professional and health....in this regard.”
► Health workers
Medical services

‘B’ COMPREHENSION: collecting information from the text

1) Write T for True or F for False in front of each statement according to the text:
a) Breastmilk is not efficient for child’s development....
b) Breastfeeding promotes child spacing......
c) The practice of breastfeeding diminishes with modern technologies....
d)Separating the new-born from their mothers limit the promotion of breastmilk.....
2) Identify the concrete problems or practices which decrease the habit of breastfeeding
(around three arguments to find in the text). Write these ideas in isolated sentences.
3) Write the advantages of breastmilk (around five isolated argts).
4) Indicate the role of doctors, nurses etc. As far as breastfeeding is concerned (around 5
argts).
5) Precise some cultural, social and economic reasons (in and out of the text) which have
played a negative role in the decline of breastfeeding:

‘C’ VOCABULARY & COMPREHENSION: meaning of phrases in the text

I. Say what the following means in the context of this text:
1—“biological influence”...
2—“emotional influence”....
3—“expectant mother”....
II. Give examples (from & out of the text) to illustrate the following:
a—“new-life styles”....
b—“ modern technologies”....

‘D’ WRITING SUMMARIES WITH COLLECTED PIECES OF INFORMATION:

→ → Write a summary of this text on the basis of previous tasks.

THEME: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES)

TEXT 61: EFFECTIVE USE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY.

Information technology is the collection, storage and processing and dissemination of
information to the users. It acknowdges the importance of man and the goals he sets for
information technology, the values employed in making these choices and assessment criteria
used to decide whether he is controlling the technology and is being enriched by it.
If we fail to recognise the liberating and humanising potential of information
technology, we may create and strengthen the power of the management elite, circumscribe
freedom, and create a new kind of rich-poor gap between those who, regardless of economic
status, know how to command the information technology and those who do not.
The public and to some extent the smaller institutions need to appreciate the
importance of information technology. And unless the nation can develop a reasonable
national information delivery system that can provide knowledge to the citizens, there will be
a dangerous increase in the problem of social injustice, which already exists in society.
It is not easy to satisfy the information needs of the people within a pre-industrial
society. The obstacles are obvious. One of the major problems which besets a nation, is poor
or inadequate infrastructural facilities. Another problem is under-utilisation of locally
produced information for development purposes. Manpower shortage is also a major obstacle.
Despite the emphasis on, and the sound development of education and training facilities, the
existing services employ inadequately trained staff. In addition, the low pay and often, poor
job status, discourage people of the right calibre from enlisting in these establishments.
Furthermore, training is still based on traditional patterns, which are not ,in line with today’s
information development needs.
There is the discrepancy between the services provided and the real needs of the users.
This is more dominant in the developing countries where the introduction of modern
information services is based on traditional library services without taking any account of the
needs of many and varied users who are very seldom associated with the planning and the
operation of the services.
Solving the problem of under-utilisation of information for development purposes
requires a series of short-term activities and intensive studies whose findings will guide long-
term activities. Short-term activities could include the organisation of demonstration courses
for the training of users, experimental work on the marketing services and users’participation
in the design, operation and evaluation of selected systems and services.
The application of new technologies to the processing of information should be
encouraged by increasing the technological components in vocational training institutions, the
polytechnics and universities, and by familiarising users with these new resources.

Adapted from R.Olounlade: an article in The Guardian, Tuesday,21 May,1985, (p.7).

NOTES
To beset: to importune, to obsess.
GUIDED COMMENTARY:
1] According to the text, what is information technology?
2] Why is it difficult to satisfy the information needs of people in a pre-industrial society,
according to the text?
3] How can the problem of under-utilisation of information be solved, according to the text?
4] What do you think would have happened in the world if there had been no means of
collecting and sending information to other people? (not more than 15 lines).

Translate into French from “It is not easy...” down to “...enlisting in these establishments.”

THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (DISEASES: DIARRHOEA)

TEXT 62: DIARRHOEAL DISEASES: A STRATEGY FOR THE 90S.

Ten years ago, diarrhoeal disease was the biggest killer of the world’s children,
claiming almost 4 million young live each year. Most of the victims died of dehydration. And
although a cheap and simple method of preventing and treating dehydration had been
available for many years, it was known to few outside the scientific community.
Today, thanks to a decade of promotion, some of Oral Dehydration Therapy (ODT) is
known and used by approximately one family in three in the developing world. The result is
the saving of approximately 1 million lives each year ands the demotion of diarrhoeal disease
to second lace among the causes of child death.
A strategy for the 1990s must therefore give new priority to clean water and safe
sanitation and to educating parents about preventing diarrhoeal diseases and minimising the
impact on their children’s health and growth. Today’s knowledge makes prevention possible
on a large scale and at low cost. The principal means are: breastfeeding; immunising against
measles; using a latrine; keeping food and waster clean; and washing hands before touching
food. The main ways of preventing diarrhoea from causing malnutrition are continued feeding
throughout the illness (especially breastfeeding) and giving the child an extra meal a day for
at least a week after the illness is over. In addition to knowing about the importance of odd
and fluids, all parents should know that trained help is needed if there is blood in the child’s
stool or if the diarrhoea persists or is more serious than usual.
Reducing child deaths by one third ands child malnutrition by half were two of the
most important targets agreed on by the world’s larders at the 1990 world summit for
children. Neither target can be achieved without a widening of the battle against diarrhoea
diseases and a reduction in the toll they take on both the lives ands the normal growth of
many millions of the world’s children.
Adapted from The State of the World’s Children (UNICEF), 1993.
Vocabulary:
Demotion: to demote: to lower in rank or position
Measles: rougeole
Stool: selles (déchets)
Toll: prélèvement

Guided commentary

1) Why are diarrhoea diseases less mortals than some years ago?
2) What precautions should be taken to avoid diarrhoeal diseases according to the text?
3) According to the text, how can the reduction of child deaths and child malnutrition be
successful?
4) Why is it important to consult a specialist when a child is subject to diarrhoea?

THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE (DEPRAVATION)

TEXT 64 : THE DECAY OF MANNERS

Millions still practise good manners. Other millions trample them underfoot. Good
manners involve showing consideration for the feelings of others, according them respect,
treating them as we would like them to treat us. Knowing how to be helpful, courteous, polite
can make a home happy. Such words as « thank you », « forgive me », « please »….. will do
much to eliminate destructive frictions in our neighbourhood. These little words cost us
nothing, but with them we buy friend and they will not leave us when we go outside the
family circle.
Unfortunately, manners themselves have undergone a breakdown because
individualism has gained the upper hand. Today many believe that voicing expressions of
courtesy means being weak and that putting others first is just belittling oneself.
According to the London’s daily Mail, children are increasingly disrespectful and
enjoy obscene language. A group of teachers surveyed blame parents for spoiling their
children and that is the root cause in the unsocial behaviour. Eighty six percent of these
teachers reproach parents for their lack of clear standards and expectations at home. Broken
homes, divorce, too much television, no sanctions, it all boils down to the destruction of the
family. Out of families, it’s almost a battle ground on the highways. Tolerance and respect for
human rights which make up civilisation are disgracefully lacking. Videos, cinemas and
television programmes has contributed heavily to the erosion of manners. They have almost
replaced the teacher.
The Polite Society, an English organisation think that something is to be done. It
believes that people must comply with the ever lasting law which means « all things that you
want men to do to you, you also must likewise do to them »…
Adapted form Awake, July 22, 1994 (pp 3-6).

GUIDED COMMENTARY:

1) What do « good manners » mean according to the text?

2) What social functions do good manners play among people according to the text?
3) Why are good manners decaying down according to the text?
4) In your opinion, is there any real solution to the decay of manners? Why or why not?

THEME: ENVIRONMENTAL/ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS (ENERGY)

TEXT 65: THE SOURCES OF ENERGY

Fire, water, wind, coal and oil are important sources of energy. They provide
electricity which permits to cook food and run the machines which manufacture what people
need. Because the world population is increasing, and because industry and technology are
growing, additional supplies of energy are needed to support today’s industrial civilisation.
Some energy, sources, such as oil and gas are rare to get and expensive, however. Others are
not efficient. Therefore, the development of alternate sources of energy is an important goal
of today’s scientists and technologists. This reading tells about three alternate sources: solar
energy, geothermal energy, and coal.
 Solar energy comes from the sun’s heat. Large panels are used to collect the heat
brought to the earth by the rays of the sun. The heat is then stored in a thermal nass. It cans be
used to heat water and homes ands to generate electricity. Although solar energy can be
changed into heat, it effectively. One problem with solar panels is that many places often have
dark, cloudy weather. How can power from the sun be collected in such places? One answer
is the photovoltaic cell (a solar battery or solar cell) which stores energy for use when there
are no direct rays from the sun. Another problem is that, up to now, solar cells cannot provide
energy as cheaply and efficiently as other devices clan. For this problem there is at present no
answer.
As oil becomes more expensive, more ands more countries are turning to coal as a
source of energy. The Soviet Union, the United States, and China all have large coal deposits.
The main difficulty with burning coal is that it pollutes the air. It may even be the
source of « acid rain » which is rain containing harmful chemicals.
K.DROBNIC, S. ABRAMS and M. MORRAY, Reading and Writing the
English of Technology.

I/ GUIDED COMMENTARY:
1. Why is it necessary to develop alternate sources of energy?
2. Which difficulties can we meet in using solar energy?
3. Why is oil becoming more and more expensive?
4. In what way does pollution endanger the earth?

II/ GRAMMAR: these sentences contain many mistakes, copy them and underline each
mistake and then rewrite the correct form of the sentence automatically below without
modifying their original meaning.
1- This girl praticing Tae-Kwondo good yerterday.
2- Djonabiè don’t a many monnaie.
3- Now, I am finished done my English text.
4- The girl youngs going go see the teacher for his correction.
5- There are differents categorys of poors people.
6- She arrives to do a test easyly bicause it has simple.

III/ TRANSLATION:
Translate into French from « solar energy comes… » down to « … using it effectively ».

THEME: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (ARTIFICIAL ORGANS)

TEXT 66 : ARTIFICIAL HUMAN ORGANS

Bionics is a fusion of biologists and electronics. Biologists and electronic engineers
put their knowledge to design devices that resemble and can replace body organs. The term
first came into use in the 1960s but bionic devices have existed for ages.
Modern bionics is especially interested in devices that are substitutes for body organs
lost through accidents or that function badly due to infection or genetic disorders.
In 1934, the first artificial heart-and-lung machine started operating. As a bionic
device, it was used as a temporary substitute while the patient was in surgery or under short-
term treatment.
Another bionic device was the artificial heart valve. This is a synthetic replacement for
malfunctioning heart valves. The electric « pacemaker » was the next bionic achievement. It
is a gadget implanted in the body to facilitate the beating of an ailing heart.
 In 1954, the first open-heart surgery was carried out in Minnesota, USA, by Dr. C W
Lillehei. The patient was operated upon while blood was supplied to him directly from a
donor.
In 1983, a team of doctors at the University of Utah Medical Centre, USA, replaced
the diseased heart of Dr. Barney Clark with a mechanical one. He amazingly managed to
survive for 112 days after the operation.
Recent progress in electronics has enabled scientists to develop an artificial eye in
which signals are transmitted into light patterns that are sent into nerve receptors in the
patient.
Though a young science, the future of bionics is both promising and exciting.
Definitely, existing bionic devices will be perfected to smaller, faster and more efficient ones.
The success in replacing Dr. B. Clark’s heart will trigger the fabrication of other devices like
bionic livers, stomachs, lungs and kidneys.
Then, hopefully, patients who, for religious, ethical or medical reasons, do not or cannot receive
these vital organs form other animals or humans, might be better served.
From: « Applied science », Short Readings in Science by Dean curry, 1988.

VOCABULARY:
-to trigger: to start
- ailing: unwell, ill
-a device : a thing made or adapted for a special purpose or objective
-surgery : medical operation

TECHNICAL NOTIONS:
Biotechnology: A branch of technology concerned with the forms of industrial production
that uses micro-organisms and their biological processes. [Or any technique that uses
biological processes in industrial domains: in agriculture (soil, genetic improvement of
species...); in food and pharmaceutics industries (fuel, conservation, dietetics, genetic
engineering...)].
Bionics: (in science fiction) having parts of the body operated electronically.

GUIDED COMMENTARY:

1) According to the text, what is a bionic device?

2) Referring to the text, which organs can be replaced by bionic device?
3) Referring to the text, which of the devices is the most significant? Justify your answer.
4) Do you think that it will be possible to produces artificial human organs ?
5) Some patients refuse all medical treatment on religious grounds, what is your reaction to
that?

THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE (TRADITIONAL DOCTORS VERSUS

MODERN DOCTORS)

TEXT 67: TRADITIONAL MEDICINE IN AFRICA

With only one trained Western doctor for every 5,400 people on the continent of
Africa, the Alliance between traditional healers, sometimes called « witch doctors, « sand
Western medicine is growing. Last year, 1980, Nigeria officially enrolled herbalists and
spiritualists into the national health service. There are 8,000 members in the Zimbabwe
Traditional Healers Association, and they have opened their own medical school. At least
eighteen other African countries have established research and treatment institutes which
deals with traditional medical practices. Traditional healers are also joining clinic ands
hospital staffs.
However there is another side of the subject which causes worry to many people.
« The laws deny the existence of witches » says Dr. Gordon Chavunkuka, Chairman of the
Sociology Department at the University of Zimbabwe. « But witches do exist and the Law
and our thinking must change so we can deal more effectively with them. » Tanzania has
launched a two-year study to assess the impact of witchcraft on national development. The
belief in this magic power over virtually every aspect of life continues to undermine social
and economic advancement. It especially poses a problem for young people today. Professor
Joshua Okong’a of the University of Nairobi, argues that, « Once you become a success you
become an individual. When that happens people become jealous and you may become the
objects of a witch doctor’s curse ». A Kenyan woman university student agrees, « In my home
town if you are good at school people begin to look at you suspiciously ».
The Western medical establishment believes that curses can be explained
scientifically. They are fearful that traditional healers will re-in force what they call
« superstition », that is, non-scientific explanations. “The West sees this as an impediment to
what it calls progress, » a fundamental Western value which it believes all other cultures
should agree with.
In Newsweek, August 31St, 1981
Vocabulary:
a witch/a sorcerer: a person who is believed to have magic or evil (bad) powers, (Witchcraft
= sorcery)= (noun from ‘witch’).
an impediment = an obstacle, a hindrance (verb: to hinder).
to undermine: to weaken, slow down, to make something move with difficulties.
I-- GUIDED COMMENTARY
1) Why is there now an alliance between “traditional healers” and « modern doctors »
according to the text?
2) Do people share the same opinion about « witchcraft » or « witches » according to the
text? Explain yourself.
3) For Dr GORDON Chawunkuka : « witches do exist and the laws and our thinking must
change so we can deal more effectively with them. » Explain this statement and give your
own opinion about it.
4) Is there any relationship between « witchcraft » and « development » in your opinion?
Explain yourself fully.
II-- GRAMMAR: match the two halves of statements by writing the letter in front of the
corresponding number. Use each half only once. Then say what the words underlined in
italics below express.
1. He was very tired and it was very late
2. some of the questions in the test were very hard
3. Take an umbrella with you
4. Unfortunately the phone rang
5. He decided to go by plane
6. We’ll be late for work
7. Madjansé told her boyfriend that he should leave
8. Flaure tried at least six pairs of shoes

            
A. unless the bus comes soon.
 B. in case it rains.
C. while I was having a bath.
D. before her father came home.
E. so he didn’t get good marks.
F. until she found what she liked.
G. although he hated flying.
H. but he still didn’t go to bed.

THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (TIME-RELATED THERAPY)

TEXT 68: CHRONOTHERAPEUTICS

Our bodies are wonderfully deft at maintaining balance. When the temperature jumps,
we sweat to cool down. When our blood pressure falls, our hearts pound to compensate. As it
turns out, though, our natural state is not a steady one. Researchers are finding that everything
from blood pressure to brain function varies rhythmically with the cycles of sun, moon and
seasons. And understanding them is giving new strategies for avoiding such common killers
as heart disease and cancer. Only one doctor in 20 is well versed in the growing field of
“chronotherapeutics”, the strategic use of time in medicine. “The field is exploding”, says
Michael Smolensky, the University of Texas physiologist who heads Houston’s Hermann
Centre for Chronobiology and Chronotherapeutics.
In medical school, most doctors learn that people with chronic conditions should take
their medicine at steady rates. For example, asthmatics are most likely to suffer during the
night, when mucus production increases, airways narrow and inflammatory cells work
overtime. Yet most patients strive to keep a constant level of medicine in their body day and
night, whether by puffing on an inhaler four times a day or taking a pill each morning and
evening. In recent studies, researchers shave found that a large mid-afternoon dose of a
steroid or bronchodilator can be as safe as several small doses, and better for avoiding night-
time attacks.
In 1989, Dr. William Houshesky of Albany’s Stratton VA Medical Centre analysed
the records of 41 women who’d undergone surgery for breast cancer land found that those
operated on midway through the menstrual cycle enjoyed better 10-year survival rates than
those treated at other times of the month. His colleagues laughed at the time, but nine studies
involving 2,300 women have turned up the same result. Those studies suggest that mid-cycle
breast surgery may bring a 30 percent survival advantage. If so, it could prevent 15,000 deaths
a year in the United States alone. And unlike most new treatments, this one would cost no
more than what it replaced. Time, after all, is free.
Adapted from Geoffrey Cowley in Newsweek, March 11, 1996.
Vocabulary
To be deft at: être adroit à
Steady: regular, constant
Versed in: experienced in
To narrow: rétrécir
To strive: make great efforts

GUIDED COMMENTARY
1) According to the text, how do the cycles of sun, moon and seasons influence our health?
2) Give the definition of chronotherapeutics according to the text.
3) Referring to the text, when can asthma treatment be more effective?
4) Referring to the results of studies in the text, what is the most suitable time for performing
breast – cancer surgery and why?
5) In Burkina Faso, people contract some diseases at particular seasons. Give one of these
typical diseases and say when and how it is contracted. Then, suggest the most effective
way of preventing it.

THEME TLE: HEALTH MATTERS (DISEASES-STRESS)

TEXT 69: WHAT CAUSES STRESS?

People of all ages and walks of life experience stress. Some experts claim that more
than half of all visits to the doctor are due to stress-related problems. Yet stress is not
necessarily a bad thing in itself. According to a stress clinic director, it gives us our
excitement, enthusiasm for living, energy for getting things done. We enjoy it if we can
manage it.
On the other hand, stress can be destructive. It results from unreasonable expectations.
When expectations are never fulfilled, the stress can be over powering. Craving for things for
beyond one’s means can only bring stress and frustration. Moreover, all expectations
involving people can also be stressing. If we expect more from people than they can give, it
will elevate the stress level, making everyone unhappy. This usually occurs at working places.
According to the Newspaper the Latin America Daily Post, achievement oriented, competitive
behaviour is a significant risk factor in heart disease. Really, the achievement-obsessed person
not only loses much of the joy of life but also can become so tense that he undermines his
own efforts to succeed.
For Dr Arnold fox, if we ignore thoughts of love, laugher and the joy of life, or if we
are so fixated that we forget to enjoy life or relax, then we are stressing ourselves. Another
way to fight off the tension of daily pressures is to cultivate or maintain a sense of humour.
We do not have to be a comedian to have a cheerful attitude. A heart that is joyful does good
as a curer.
The tendency is put things off increases rather than reduces stress. What, though, if in
spite of your best efforts, you still feel tense or stressed? Avoid dwelling upon past errors.
Although we can learn from failures, our present actions form our future.
Adapted from AWAKE, Sept.8th ,1994 (pp14-15).

GUIDED COMMENTARY
1-- Why are people usually stressed according to the text?
2-- In your opinion, what are the social groups which can easily be victim of stress. Give your
reasons.
3-- What good aspects does stress have on us according to the text?
4-- How can we fight against stress according to the writer?
5-- What consequences can stress have on us and on our relations with others?

Tle A THEME : CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE (WOMEN’S LIVING

CONDITIONS)

TEXT 70 : WOMEN IN TOP JOBS

One-third of the people at work in Britain are women. By 1975 they will, by law be on
a footing of equal pay with men. Their prospects of reaching the top, however, are still far
from equal.
A recently published study by four researchers and which is called « women in top
Jobs « examines why this should be so. In their findings, a great deal of prejudice is revealed,
not all of it on the side of men. There are conventional and entrenched attitudes on both sides.
Nevertheless there is a widespread awareness that managerial and professional talent is
desperately need, and that no society or organisation can afford not to utilise ability. Do
women have managerial ability ? Do they want to use it, even if they have the potential ?
The studies confirm what is already known from other researches : that there is no
basic difference between the levels and styles of men ands women in top Jobs. Nevertheless,
there emerged some distinctive factors in the performance of women which can be of
advantage to their organisations, and make them complementary to the men with whom they
work…
Women are less interested in empire-building, in office politics. They have a more
informal, personal, expressive style of management. They are less likely to be forceful ands
competitive than men either in their jobs or in advancing their careers. Lack of drive is one of
the criticisms levelled against women. On the other hand, women in positions of authority
have often been presented as formidable creatures, devoid of all feminine charm.
The business world is almost male-dominated and the progress of women has been
retarded because they have always been defined ands regarded as mere secretaries. This has
been the starting point for many able women in the past, but it is too slow for the impatient
young women graduates of today. They are as well qualified as their brothers and expect the
same opportunities.
In recent years, however, there has been steady increase of women to the highest-
graded class of the civil service, partly b cause of the impressive careers of a few who have
been outstanding.
For the better or for the worse, women’s traditional role is changing. Many women
will go on finding this role satisfying, but those who do not will expect the same right ands
opportunities as their male colleagues.
B.B.C ENGLISH
Vocabulary :
Empire-building = personal power
Drive = energy , will power
Devoid of... = lacking in... ,without....
To entrench = (to be entrenched in sthg, to be fixed on, to be rooted in sthg)

I/ COMPREHENSION: Read this text and answer the following questions related to it.
1) Basically speaking, what do women share in common with men in graded-jobs according
to the text ?
2) What shills/abilities differ them from men according to the text ? List them by following
these numbers (7 items at most.)
3) From the text, why is the hope of reaching top jobs still far from being equal with men ?
4) In the light of the text, list with a few comments some fields/professions where women are
more likely to excel than men.
II/ GIVING OPINIONS:
According to the newspaper La Nouvelle Tribune n°22-24 of September 1993 (p.3) ; out of
the 33,336 civil servants of Burkina Faso civil service, only 22. 5% are women. Tell us why
this figure is so low with examples if possible.
III/ GRAMMAR:
[a] Complete with the right preposition
1.When I came……Mougabagniny was…….the door.
2.Bassinga always sends Marina…….buy beancakes.
3.Did you listen……the radio yesterday ?
4.African Cup of Nations appears…….television everyday.
 5.Don’t look……your neighbour jealously.
[b] Complete with ‘ much, a little, a, another, many, the others, a few, one, some, little, an,
others, few.’
1- There are……cars in the city at rush hours, but very…..late at night.
2- He organised a big party but……people came to it.
3- ……..pupils spend……of their time playing, only very…….work seriously at their spare
time.
4- ………blind man visited me during the ‘Tabaski’ feast and…….went to my neighbour’s.
5- I have never seen……..girl who would like to marry…….poor man.

THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (NUTRITION AND HEALTH RISKS)

TEXT 71: HEALTH HAZARDS OF EXCESS FATS IN DIET

Fats form part of the food we eat everyday. They form an important component since
they provide the body with a very high store of energy which contributes to our daily
existence. Compared with carbohydrates (starchy foods) or proteins, fats give, more than
twice the energy, weight for weight. However, it is very important, for health reasons to watch
the quantity and type of fats that we consume in our diet.
The daily requirement of fait is about 60 gm which is about 2.5 oz. The various
soubces of fats that are consumed include:
- Animal fats (from beef, pork, lamb, sheep, etc.)
- Poultry fat (from chicken, especially with the skin on, eggs).
- Dairy prodtcts milk, butter, cheese)
- Plant of vegetables oil e.g. palmohl, groundnuts oil, Soya bean oil).
After eating a fatty meal, the hUman body breaks down the fat and the products enter
the bOdy Cells. In the body, the fat is used for energy and any excess is stored. The storage of
excess fat in the body results in obesity. When we eat, some of the starchy food or
carbohydrates which are in excess can be turned into fat resulting in fats sunder the skin,
stomach (abdomen and hips). Some of the fat is turned into Cholesterol which circulates in
the body and blood and may lead to clogging of the blood vessels. It is this cholesterol that
causes problems in the body. The major problem is the effect they have on the heart when the
fat plaques from cholesterol block the arteries to the heart (the Coronary Heart Disease 
CHD).
There are various things that raise the blood cholesterol to dangerous levels in the
body. These include the type of diet or food we eat, our life-styles, e.g. exercise and smoking
and influence of heredity among others.
As mentioned earlier, food, life-style, heredity etc. can affect cholesterol level. In
some cases, the tendency for high cholesterol level is hereditary or inherited and these cases
are referred to as familial hypercholesterolaenia (that is to say high cholesterol of hereditary
origin). It has also been well established that lack of exercise and excessive smoking can also
lead to a high cholesterol level. Certain drugs such as oestrogen especially in contraceptive
pills and some thiazide diuretics (used to treat patients with hypertension or heart failure) may
increase cholesterol level.
From Home Doctor, August 1990
Vocabulary:
fat: la graisse (animale).

GUIDED COMMENTARY
Answer the following questions in your own words and according to the text.
1) What are the main sources of fats?
2) What is the importance of fats for the body?
3) Give the fundamental difference between fats and proteins.
4) What health problems can excess of fat bring about?
5) Referring to your experience, say what category of people are likely to suffer from
Coronary Heart Disease? (an opinion question)

THEME: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (TERMINOLOGIES)

TEXT 72 : NEW TECHNOLOGIES

Biotechnology is likely to bring dramatic changes over the next fifteen years to a wide
range of products and processes in a number of industries. The use of single-cell protein,
enzymes, ands various bacteria will continue to be more widespread in foods, agriculture,
fuel, effluent treatment, natural resources recovery pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and medical
applications. For instance, enzyme technology could generate an entirely new type of
chemical industry utilising moderate conditions of pH, temperature, ands pressure to produce
complex chemical and renewable feed stock from wastes; it is likely to be cost effective in the
1990s. Moreover, the less conventional techniques of microbial genetics, such as protoplast
fusion, gene amplification, and recombinant DNA technology, are likely to have significant
commercial impact in the coming decade, The bacterial synthesis of human insulin, human
growth hormones, an interferon is nearly commercially viable.
Genetic engineering in agriculture, however, is not so likely to have large impact on
the international economy before 1995. Commercial achievement is expected in accelerated
(photosynthesis, acid-tolerant crops, herbicide resistance, and grains that fix nitrogen directly
from the atmosphere, but this research will not be complete for at least ten years. Before that,
recombinant DNA technology may lead to improved crops, new crop types, ands techniques
to many others shave been established in the past two year to exploit the large biotechnology
opportunities in agriculture. In this and in industrial microbiology generally it is clear that the
surface of potential application and economic effect has been merely scratches. Minor plant
improvements occurred in the 1980s, but economic effects of major breakthroughs will wait
for the slate 1990s.
Micro-electronics will continue its revolution as the world’s fastest-growing industry
as computer power continues to grow ands as microprocessors spread to virtually electrical
product, commercial or consumer. While the trend holds profound implications for medicines,
transport, education, ands household life, the area of greatest economic impact in the 1990s is
likely to be telematics, the information economy. This is the development of a wide range of
micro-chip-based systems of information processing combined with communications and
control technologies. The technology is based on distributed processing to meet local,
regional, or central decision-making, and therefore on distributed access.

TECHNICAL NOTIONS(GLOSSARY):
Effluent: (discharge of) liquid waste matter, sewage eg: from a factory into a river.
Interferon: type of protein produced by the body cells when attacked by a virus which acts to
prevent further development of the virus.
a breakthrough : important development or discovery
micro-chip (or chip): small piece of silicon or similar material carrying a complex electrical
circuit.
Biotechnology: a branch of technology concerned with the forms of industrial production
that uses micro-organisms and their biological processes. [Or any technique that uses
biological processes in industrial domains: in agriculture (soil, genetic improvement of
species...); in food and pharmaceutics industries (fuel, conservation, dietetics, genetic
engineering...)].

GUIDED COMMENTARY:

NB: Use your own words to answer these questions.

1. Define what «biotechnology » is and give three examples of « biotechnologies »
according to the text.
2. What is the impact of biotechnology on the industry in general according to the text?
3. Specify some fields or domains of application of biotechnology according to the text.
Comment upon them.
4. How important is the development of Electronics according to the text?
5. What do you think of the development of Genetic Engineering nowadays?

THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (NUTRITION- VITAMINS)

TEXT 73 : VITAMIN REVOLUTION

Pregnancy isn’t the only reason women may need extra folic acid. Last year,
researchers at the University of Alabama found that among women infected with HPV-16, a
virus implicated in cervical cancer, those with the highest level of folic acid in their blood
were the least likely to exhibit precancerous lesions. In an earlier study, the same team
showed that when heavy smokers took 1,000 micrograms of folic acid along with B12
supplements every smoker was less likely than untreated smokers to develop precancerous
lung lesions. Since folic acid is usually safe at high levels, some experts now advise smokers
to increase their intake, at least until they manage to quit.
Vitamin D, which largely eradicated rickets 50 years ago, is another old nutrient that’s
gaining new respect. Though it’s found in some foods (mainly fish oil and fortified milk), our
bodies manufacture it when exposed to sunlight and use it to ferry calcium from food into the
blood and bones. People who drink a quart of milk a day get plenty of vitamin D (the RDAs
are 400 units for children, 200 for grown-ups), but many adults fall short. The deficiencies
may contribute to osteoporosis, the bone decay that disables millions of elderly people.
Frank and Cedric Garland, both epidemiologists at the University of California, San
Diego, are leading a growing group of scientists who suspect that a slack of vitamin D also
fosters breast, colon and prostate cancer. Virtually unknown at the Equator, all three cancers
become more and more prevalent at higher latitudes. It’s clear from lab studies that vitamin D
can retard the growth of cancer cells in test tubes and in animals. Garlands have amassed
voluminous evidence that colon-cancer rates vary according to people’s sun exposure, the
amount of vitamin D in their blood. They’ve recently shown that the same principle applies to
breast cancer, a disease that more widely publicised risks factors such as fat intake have done
little to explain. Other researchers have found that prostate cancer, an equally mysterious
affliction, follows the same pattern. Clinical trials won’t start to yield results for another
decade or so. But if the Garlands are right, the battle against breast cancer may ultimately be
won not with lasers or designer genes but with a little vitamin D added to ice cream, cottage
cheese and yoghurt.
Newsweek, June 7, 1993, (p 48.)
Vocabulary:
to foster: to encourage, to bring about
To ferry: to transport

GUIDED COMMENTARY
1) What are the sources of vitamin D according to the text?
2) What is the nutritional value of vitamin D according to the text?
3) How important is « folic acid » according to the text?
4) What health troubles can the lack of folic acid and vitamin D cause according to the text?
5) In your opinion, who is likely to suffer from vitamin deficiencies? Say why.

THEME: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (GENETICS)

TEXT 74: BREEDING TECHNIQUES

Different traditional techniques of controlled breeding are used. One is hybridisation,
which means crossing two different kinds of plants or animals. The result is a hybrid.
Crossing a male donkey ands a female horse, will produce a mule. A mule is a hybrid animal.
Another breeding technique is the creation of mutations. In this method, scientists use changes
in cell structure to alter plants and animals. For instance, different types of radiation ands
chemicals are applied to the mould penicillium to derive the drug penicillium.
The other technique for breeding improved animals is the selection of the most
desirable parents for producing offspring. This is often combined with artificial insemination.
In this method, semen is collected from a top-quality male animal. The semen is then placed
in the reproductive organs of the female. One way this method is used is in the producing of
fast, beautiful horse and large, meaty cattle.
The genetic selection of human beings is also being experimented with. Many medical
institutes in the U.S. and elsewhere have sperm banks. The sperm is used for artificial
insemination of women. In some cases, the sperm banks collect sperm from individuals who
are especially intelligent, such as Nobel Prize winners. Some scientists think that children
who result from this donated sperm may inherit the high intelligence of their fathers. The
mothers are carefully chosen also.
A study by Lewis M. Terman in the 1920’s suggests that the genetic theory behind
sperm banks has some truth in it. Terman’s study indicates that the parents with high
intelligence also have children with high intelligence. This has convinced some people that
« superior » genes exist. Therefore, some people think that sperm banks can help avoid
dysgenic. Dysgenic is evolution toward a lower rather than a higher level.
Many people, however, disagree with the genetic selection of humans. They say it is
similar to the ideas of Hitler and the Nazis in trying to create a « super race ». They wonder
what the definition of a « perfect human » is. They question the concept that one individual
has the right to control the destiny of others. There are also those who argue against it for
moral considerations.
Adapted from Drobnic, K. et al. Reading and waiting the English of Science
and technology.

Vocabulary
1- To breed in/out : faire acquérir / perdre (par la sélection)
2- To alter : to modify
3- an offspring: descendants, all children form the same parents.
4- Semen : synonymous with ‘sperm’

GUIDED COMMENTARY
1. Using the text as reference, define what genetics is and specify some of its fields of
application.
2. Name the different techniques used by genetic engineering and comment upon them.
3. How good is the artificial insemination for human beings?
4. What’s the genetic theory behind the sperm banks?
5. Do all specialists approve the genetic selection of humans according to the text? Say why
or why not.

Subsidiary questions
a) What’s the benefits and limits of the artificial insemination for human beings?
b) What’s your opinion about the genetic selection of human beings?
c) Do you personally approve the genetic selection of humans as defined in the text? Why or
why not?

THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (HERBAL MEDICATION)

TEXT 75: HERBAL REMEDIES

Herbs have been credited with many therapeutic properties some are thought to help
the body fight infection. Others are said to aid digestion, settle nerves, serve as laxative, or
help regulate the glands.
Herbs may have both nutritional and medicinal value: Some plants that serve as
diuretics, such as parsley, also contain significant amounts of potassium. The potassium in
these plants compensates for the loss of this vital trace element through urination. Likewise,
the valerian plant (valeriana officinalis), long used sedative high in calcium. The calcium may
enhance the herb’s sedative effect on the nervous system.
Herbs can be in many ways, such as in teas, decoctions, tinctures, and poultices. Teas
are made in pouring boiling water over an herb. Decoctions, made from such things as herbal
roots and bark, are boiled in water to release their active ingredients. Tinctures are herb
extractions made with help of pure or diluted spirits of alcohol, or brandy. Then there are
poultices, which can be applied prepared in various ways. Usually they are applied to diseased
or painful body parts.
Traditionally, herbs have been suggested for such conditions as the cold, indigestion,
constipation, insomnia, and nausea. However, herbs are also sometimes used for more serious
ailments—not only as a cure but also as a preventive.
Even though an herb may be widely regarded as safe, caution is advised .never let your
guard down simply because a product is labelled “natural”. An encyclopaedia on the subject
of herbs states that the unpleasant fact of the matter is that some herbs are downright
dangerous, that some people don’t give any herb—dangerous or benign – the appropriate
respect. Chemical compounds in herbs can change heart rate, blood pressure, and glucose
levels. Hence, people with cardiac problems, high blood pressure, or blood-sugar disorders
such as diabetes must, be especially cautious.
Adapted from Awake. December 22, 2003 (pp 12-14).

THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (FOOD INTOLERANCE)

TEXT 76: LACTOSE INTOLERANCE

It has been nearly an hour since you finished savouring your favourite ice cream or
cheese. Your stomach feels tight and irritated, and you have gas. You once again seek relief
from a medication that you have begun to keep handy. You are now at the point where you
ask yourself, why is my stomach so sensitive?
If you suffer from nausea, cramps, bloating gas, or diarrhoea after drinking milk or
eating dairy products, you may be lactose intolerant. Lactose intolerance is a common
reaction to dairy products. It has been estimated that up to 70 percent of the world’s
population has some sort of problem with lactose. So, what is lactose intolerance?
Lactose is the sugar found in milk. The small intestine produces an enzyme called
lactase. Its job is to break lactose down into two simpler sugars called glucose and galactose.
This allows the glucose to be absorbed into the bloodstream. If there is not enough lactase to
perform this task, the unaltered lactose passes into the large intestine and begins to ferment,
producing acids and gases.
Lactose is produced in high quantities during the first two years of life, after which,
there is a steady decline in its production. Hence, many may develop this condition and not
realise it. Some conclude that they are allergic to milk because of the reactions they suffer
after consuming food allergies are rare, with only 1 to 2 percent of the general population
affected. Though the symptoms of an allergy and of lactose intolerance can be similar, there
are differences.
The symptoms of a food allergy are the result of the immune system providing
defence– histamine – against something you have been eating or drinking. Some symptoms
involve the swelling of the lips or tongue, hives (rash), or asthma. Lactose intolerance
involves the body’s inability to assimilate a food properly, thus resulting in a reaction.
Genuine allergic reactions…occur within minutes of ingesting an offending food.
Symptoms that arise more than an hour later most likely indicate an intolerance. And a severe
lactose intolerance leads to inflammatory bowl disease (IBD).There are two types of IBD—
crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. These very serious diseases can lead to the removal of a
portion of the intestines. Complications from IBD can prove fatal.
Adapted from Awake .March 22, 2004, (pp 25-26)

THEME:1ERE (About the effect of images)

TEXT 77: A DISTORTED BODY IMAGE: AN OBSESSION

What do you fear more than anything else?
Without hesitation, many girls would answer: gaining weight. In fact, one poll revealed that
today’s young women are more afraid of putting on kilos than they are of nuclear war, cancer,
or even losing their parents!
Sometimes worries about one’s weight at a surprisingly early age. Even before their
teens, many girls get together to engage in “fat talk”— chat in which they reveal a mutual
disdain for their bodies. Evidently, it’s more than just talk. A survey of 2,379 girls revealed
that 40 percent were actually trying to lose weight. And those polled were only nine and ten
years old!
In time, many of these youths may become ensnared by fad diets. Worse still, some
might end up like 20 year-old Jenna. At 160centimetres tall, this young woman weighs a mere
40 kilograms. She doesn’t want to eat. Her big concern is that she spent three years trying to
lose weight, and by eating she is going to put it all back on in a month.
It may be that you too have wanted to trim down in order to look your best. Certainly,
it is not wrong to be concerned about your appearance. However, a desire to be thin can
almost cost you your life.” There is an uncontrollable battle going on in my head. One part of
me wants to eat but the part resists eating because I’m afraid that I’ll gain too much weight.”
Jamie declares.
 Jenna battles with a dangerous eating disorder called anorexia nervosa. So does Jamie.
For a time, these girls were literally starving to death. It is estimated that 1 in 100 girls suffer
from anorexia. That means Jamie declares.
millions of women are affected.
Anorexia can develop quite innocently. A young girl might embark on a seemingly
harmless diet, perhaps to lose just a few kilos. When she reaches her goal, however, she is not
content. So she decides to decides to lose just a few more. The pattern is set, and the seeds of
anorexia are sown.
Adapted from Awake. April 22,1999 (pp14-15)
 THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (MEDICINES-ASPIRIN)

TEXT 78: ASPIRIN: ITS DAILY USE

Gastrointestinal bleeding caused by medication is a serious medical problem today. Though many
medications can be implicated, the majority of such problems come from medicines used for arthritis and
pain. These include a class of medications called nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDS.
Aspirin is present in many over-the-counter medications, and many countries the daily use of aspirin
by individuals has increased in recent years. Several world-wide studies reported that “routine aspirin use
save lives.”
“Nearly everyone who has ever had a heart attack or stroke, suffers from angina, or has undergone
coronary artery bypass surgery should take one-half to one aspirin tablet daily unless they are allergic to the
drug.” Researchers concluded.
Other researchers claim benefits of taking aspirin daily for men over 50 who are at risk for heart
attack and women at risk as well. Furthermore, there are studies indicating that daily aspirin may reduce the
risk of colon cancer and that large doses over a long period can help lower blood-sugar levels in diabetics.
How does aspirin work to provide these proposed benefits? Though all is not known, evidence
indicates that aspirin acts to make platelets in blood less sticky, thus interfering with the formation of blood
clots; Presumably; this help to prevent blockage of small arteries to the heart and brain, in this way
preventing damage to vital organs.
With all these presumed benefits of aspirin, there are reasons for caution. There is still much that is
not known. Even the ideal dosage is unclear. Recommendations range from one standard tablet twice daily
to as little as one baby aspirin every other day. Should the dosage for men be difference from that for
women? Doctors are not sure. While enteric-coated aspirin may be considered somewhat helpful, the
advantage of buffered aspirin is still controversial.
Though technically aspirin is a natural substance – American Indians obtained components of aspirin
from the bark of a willow tree – it has many side effects. Besides the fact that it causes bleeding problems in
some people, there are many potential complications with aspirin, including allergic reactions in aspirin-
sensitive people
From AWAKE , June 22,2000.

THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (EATING DISORDERS)

TEXT 79: THREE EATING DISORDERS: HEALTH DANGERS

The anorexic has a morbid fear of gaining weight—Even if she is already stick thin. She may
exercise compulsively to keep the kilos off and check the scale several times a day to make sure she is not
“regressing.” When she will take only minute portions. Or she may not eat at all.
At first, anorexics are elated to see the kilos come off. But a lack of a proper nutrition eventually
takes its toll. The anorexic becomes drowsy and lethargic. Menstrual periods may cease. In time, the heart
rate and the blood pressure may become perilously low. Yet, the anorexic is oblivious to any danger. In fact,
the only
Danger, she perceives is that of gaining the weight she has lost – even a single kilo of it.
Anorexia is not the only eating disorder, however, nor is it the most prevalent. Bulimia nervosa is a
scourge that affects up tot three times as many girls as anorexia does. Then there is compulsively overeating,
which is closely related to bulimia.
The bulimic will binge, or consume a large amount of food in a short period of time. Then she will
rid her body of the food that she has eaten, often by means of self-induced vomiting. Hence, the bulimic is
likely to be neither obese nor thin, and in public her eating habits may appear quite normal.
It is somewhat different, however, with the person who suffers from compulsive overeating. Like the
bulimic, this person will eat large quantities of food at a time. Since this binge behaviour takes place without
purging, the compulsive overeater’s weight may range from slightly to significantly overweight or obese.
All these three eating ailments can pose serious threats to one’s health. Anorexia can cause severe
malnutrition, and in many cases—some estimate up to 15 percent –it can prove fatal. Binge eating, whether
followed by purging or not,
is hazardous to health. In time, obesity can lead to life threatening cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and even
some forms of cancer. Self-induced vomiting can rupture the oesophagus, and abuse of laxatives and
diuretics can in extreme circumstances lead to cardiac arrest.
However, there is another aspect of eating disorders that needs to be cmnsidered. Those sufdering
from anorexia, bulimia, and compulsive overeatin' are generally unhappy. They teÆd to have little self-
respect and more likely to suffer f2om anxiety and depression.
Adapted from Awake, April 22, 1999, (pp14-15)

THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (DISEASES- DENGUE)

TEXT 00: DENGUE: A FEVER FROM A BITE.

Unnoticed, a mosquito lands on ! little girl’s Bare arm. The insect quickly pierces her skin and taps
the bloodstream. After a few moments, the mother glances at her daughter and spots the mosquito. With a
quick swat, it is gone. Is that the end of it? Maybe not. The mosquito may be gone, but its brief invasion into
the child’s bloodstream has left unwanted organisms that capable of causing disease.
Within two weeks the child experiences chills, headache, pain behind the eyes, extreme aching in her
joints, and a high fever. As the illness progresses, she develops a red rash and becomes completely
exhausted. She has contracted dengue, a fever from a mosquito’s bite.
However, especially if the child has had a previous dengue infection, she may develop the more
serious form of the disease, dengue haemorrhagic fever (DFH).With it, the capillaries leak, resulting in skin
haemorrhages. There may be internal bleeding. Without proper treatment, the patient may experience
profound shock and circulatory failure, leading to rapid death.
Dengue, also called breakbone fever, is just one of a number of diseases that result from a
mosquito’s bite. The actual cause of the disease is a virus. An infected (that is, a mosquito that has
previously bitten an infected human) carries the virus in its salivary glands. In the process of biting a person
to get blood, it transfers the virus mosquito to the human. There are four types of dengue virus.
Infection with one type doesn’t provide immunity to the other three types. After one infection if a victim is
bitten by a mosquito carrying another type, the result can DHF. Sudden collapse, skin haemorrhaging,
generalised bleeding, cold, clammy skin, restlessness, and shock with weak pulse (dengue shock syndrome)
characterise DHF.
At present, eradicating dengue completely does not appear to be possible. But taking practical
precautions can help avoid life-threatening complications from dengue—a fever from a bite.
From Awake, ???

THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (NUTRITION-FOOD-DEFICIENCY)

TEXT 81: MALNUTRITION

Some people have malnutrition. Their diets have too much or too little of nutrients, or too many or
too few calories. Nutritionists have two major ways of deciding if a person has malnutrition: physical exams
laboratory tests, and diet studies.
In the physical exam, the nutritionist looks for external signs of malnutrition. For one thing, the
nutritionist looks at the patient’s skin. Rough, dry skin, for example, may mean that the patient does not
have enough vitamin A. In addition, the nutritionist looks at the patient’s mouth. Cracks at the corner of the
mouth, a purplish or bright red tongue, and bleeding gums can all be signs of vitamins deficiencies. The
nutritionist also notices the patient’s hair. If a patient does not have enough protein, the hair may be thinner
and duller than normal.
In laboratory tests nutritionists look for the amounts of nutrients patients have in their bodies. There
are two main types of laboratory tests: blood tests and urine tests. A blood test can show, for example, if a
patient has anaemia from too little iron in his or her diet. A urine test shows much vitamin is absorbed by the
body and how much passes through the body because it is not needed. If the patient’s body absorbs a great
deal of vitamin, the patient may have a vitamin deficiency.
There are three main ways nutritionists do diet studies. First, the nutritionist may interview the
patient and ask general questions about the patient’s diet. The nutritionist might ask questions such as the
following: What do you usually eat for breakfast? How much coffee do you drink in a day? How often do
you eat raw vegetable salad? Second, the nutritionist may the patient to recall everything she or he ate in the
past 24 hours. This information represents the person’s usual diet. Finally, patients can keep their own list of
what they eat. Later the nutritionist looks at the list to see if the patient ate too much or too little of any
nutrient.
 THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (MICRO-ORGANISMS)

TEXT 82: DISEASE AND ITS CONTROL

In the past, before scientists discovered viruses and bacteria are the causes of most diseases, people
made all sorts of futile and unscientific attempts to ward off disease. They burnt strongly smelling woods in
their houses to keep out; they tied charms over the door way of their houses to keep out, as they thought,
disease carrying spirits; hey carried other charms about on their persons or made incisions in their skin into
which they rubbed certain powders; and, at times, to ward off epidemics, a whole town might offer sacrifices
to certain spirits traditionally believed to be responsible for bringing or controlling certain diseases, such as
smallpox.
However, after the microbes causing many diseases were discovered, one after the other, during the
nineteenth century, it became possible to begin an organised and scientific attack on these old enemies of
mankind. Careful study revealed the life histories of the bacteria –where they may lived, what conditions
they like, how they were transmitted to man.
It was discovered that some diseases are passed on to Man through an animal or an insect. It
was therefore possible to start a successful battle against our own familiar but deadly pests—the
carriers of disease like smallpox, sleeping sickness and malaria. For instance, there is a campaign to
wipe out sleeping sickness by continued attacks on the tsetse fly which carries it. In the same way the
Malaria Control Units are mounting vigorous campaigns against the mosquitoes which bring us
malaria.
For diseases like smallpox and tuberculosis, which have no insect carrier but are spread by Man
himself, either when he coughs deadly germs into the air and with T.B; or when dried-up spores from
an infected person float into the air and infect other people, as with smallpox, the most effective way
of preventing the disease from spreading, and the only home of wiping them out completely in the
future, is by immunisation.
Immunisation is done by injecting into a person’s bloodstream dead or severely weakened
forms of the virus or bacteria known to cause a certain disease. The body then becomes mildly
infected, i.e. the person has a very mild attack of the disease. As a result of this the body builds up a
supply of natural chemicals (anti-bodies) which help to overcome the disease. In certain diseases such
as smallpox, such anti-bodies remain in the bloodstream, and make it possible for the body to resist
future attacks by the kind of bacteria.

Adapted from Practical English by Ogundipe and Tregidge, Vol.3)

THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE (EXCISION)

TEXT 83: MEN’S TRADITIONAL CULTURE

(…)The societies that follow this grisly practice –Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) have often
rejected outside criticism of it. But the tide is beginning to turn. Last month, Egypt banned doctors in
government hospitals from performing any kind of female circumcision. Previously, the government
had argued that, since it would happen anyway, it was better to have the operation performed by
trained doctors.
Yet, the FGM culture is widespread in of north and central Africa and progress in banning the
practice is low. The Egyptians change certainly owed something to arm-twisting by American aid
Officials. “A woman gets circumcised to survive”, says Nahid Toubia, Sudan’s first female surgeon
and head of the New York-based Global Action against Female Genital Mutilation Project. A girl who
does not undergo FGM in, that is to say, Somalia, will be considered sexually dubious, unfit for any
respectable man to marry.
FGM is practised chiefly in African countries with large Muslim populations: some African
Christians also do it. But there is no Coranic or Biblical backing for it, and it is not practised in the rest
of the Middle East, nor in such Islamic countries as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia or Malaysia. The
tradition predates Islam and Christianity… Without some form of circumcision, the argument goes,
women will be wracked with sexual desire. In place of which they can enjoy infection, abscesses,
gangrene, infertility, painful sex, difficult childbirth, even death.
African women are becoming less tolerant of FGM. In Nigeria, the National Association of
Nurses and Midwives has put together anti-FGM propaganda, and in one state found the practice
lessened by 30%. Kenya’s largest women’s organisation found that young girls were keen on FGM
because the ritual meant recognition, a new dress and a week of eating chicken. So the devised
alternative puberty rituals, including the dress and the chicken .It met some success…
The slow but steady spread of schooling in Africa also bodes well. Educated city families are
less prone to practice FGM than are their county cousins. Surveys in Côte d’Ivoire, Sudan and the
Central African Republic have found that women educated beyond primary level are much less likely
than the less well educated to undergo FGM.

The Economist, August 10th- 16th, 1996, (p47).

NOTES:
Grisly: causing terror or horror
To arm-twist: to force,
to be wracked: to be tortured
To bode: to be an omen, to predict, to foretell.

GUIDED COMMENTARY:
1—What, according to the text, are the consequences of female circumcision?
2—In the light of the text, can African women succeed in their struggle against female circumcision
and how?
3—How can you explain the fact that educated women are much less likely than the less well educated
to undergo FGM?
4—What are the cultural reasons of FGM? Do you agree with them? Justify your answer.

Translate into French from “…The societies that follow ….” down to “… to arm-twisting by
American aid Officials”.

THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE (TOURISM)

TEXT 84: TOURISM: GOLD OR TINSEL

Tourism is a relatively recent phenomenon—the word only appeared in a dictionary for the first
time in 1811. Modern tourism came into being with the development of the industrialised societies of
Western Europe and North America, but modern tourism really got under way only after 1936 when
paid holidays were first advocated by the International Labour Organisation.
This, combined with an increase in real income, the extension of leisure time, better transport
facilities and the introduction of cheap charter and package tours, as well as people’s insatiable desire
for exotism and novelty, produced a new industry which has become a major economic activity.
The World Tourism Organisation (WTO) estimated that international receipts were about 75
billion in 1979, making tourism the second largest item in global trade after oil. Although Africa’s
estimated share of the world tourist earnings was only 0,9% in 1978, tourism is seen as a potentially
important exchange earner in many African countries: Egypt, Gambia, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya,
Mauritius, Morocco, Senegal, Seychelles, Swaziland, Tunisia and Zimbabwe—North Africa attracts
the lion’s share of African tourists with 62%, the eastern and southern sub-region claim 22%, West and
Central Africa only 15%.
 In the past the expansion of international tourism has been seen as a way for developing
countries to secure valuable foreign exchange to stimulate economic growth. It is agreed by critics and
proponents alike that tourism was a growth sector from 1960 until 1973, and that despite the world
recession the growth trend is likely to continue until the year 2000. This also applies in general to
Africa though the growth of tourism has been highly uneven among industrial countries according to
states politics and resources allocations, and there is growing disagreement on the achievable gains
from tourism.
The oil crisis of the 1970’s emphasised the debate over whether the tourist sector produced
sufficient gains to justify the investment required. Economic estimates especially of indirect costs and
benefits and of net as opposed to gross foreign exchange earnings.

Article from Africa Now ,October 1981

THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (CONTRACEPTIVES)

TEXT 85: THE EFFECTS OF CONTRACEPTIVES

A number of long-acting and supposedly easy to administer contraceptive technologies have

emerged over the past decade with hormone—releasing intra-uterine devices (IUD 5) implants, and now
contraceptive vaccines among the best known.
These technologies are meant to increase the effectiveness of family planning programmes but
there are problems, both how they are provided and their safety. Most of the new contraceptives are
“provider dependent” (women depend on providers for administration and for removal as well), and
there is a range of health issues when providers fail to give women free choices. For example with
coercive family planning programmes, the result is that menstrual disorders often occur because
menstrual cycle is disrupted. This can lead to amenorrhea (lack of menstruation), spotting and
excessive bleeding. Studies show that 60% of the Norplant users suffer from such disorders.
Researchers tend to argue that if risks have not been proven, then the drug is probably safe.
Earlier researchers had even gone so far as to maintain that the pill helped protect women against
cancer.
During a WHO symposium on the Safety of Vaccines to Regulate Fertility, one researcher once
commented: “With hormones we are sitting on a time bomb…There is urgent need for a safer
alternative that has a different mode of action.”

From Third World, (pp.91-92).

THEME: ENVIRONMENTAL/ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS (DEFORESTATION)

TEXT 86: THE DISAPPEARING FORESTS

Trees have hundreds of useful purposes and are essential to our survival. They provide us with
good air to breath, firewood, construction material and food. In the past, there was more rain, thick
bush, more animals and less people. Now, there is less rain, less bush, many of the wild animals are
gone, and there are more people. More means an increased demand for construction of houses, fencing
medicine firewood, food for people and their animals. More trees are cut down to make more space for
growing villages, for fields and for cattle, sheep and goats. All this leads to less forest. Therefore, the
desert is not advancing as much as it is being pulled by people’s misuse of the land.
The main causes of deforestation are: population growth, cultivation, heavy grazing, and fires.
Each day, the increases. At the present rate of growing, it will double in a few years. The amount
of land remains the same. People multiply [...] land does not.
 As the population grows, more and more land is needed for cultivation. Land is cleared of trees to
make space for fields.
The herders of years ago were skilled at making the best use to the land. Now, more animals are
concentrated on land, leading to heavy grazing
Each year there are more fires, resulting in much waste of useful forest products, destroying food
for the animals, and causing soil erosion by wind and rain. Fires are a major factor in the
desertification process.
The best way to fight the desert and ensure our future survival is to plant trees and care for them.
This is everyone’s responsibility.
The main hope lies in young people like yourself, for it is you who will suffer if the desert
comes. Your future survival depends on your decisions today. It is up to you to be aware of the
problem, help other to learn, and accept the responsibility to act before it is too late.

THEME: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (GENES AND INHERITANCE)

TEXT 87: GENES AND RACE

The theory that races are biologically different has a long and ignoble history which has
brought misery and death to many people. Modern genetics
Does in fact show that there are no separate groups within humanity (although there are noticeable
differences among the peoples of the world). Biology has nothing to do with racism, nothing to do
with judging the value of one’s fellow beings.
Humanity can be divided into groups in many ways: by culture, by
language and by race – which usually means skin colour. Each division depends to some extent on
prejudice and can lead to confusion. In 1987, a secretary from Virginia, USA, sued her employer for
discrimination against her as she black. She lost the case on the grounds that she had red hair, she must
be white. She then worked for a black employer and, not discouraged by her early experience, sued
him for discrimination against her as she was white. She lost again: The court found that she could not
be white as she had been to a black school.
Nations, too, differ in how they define their racial identity. In South Africa a single African
ancestor, however long ago, meant ejection from the white race. In Haiti Papa Doc proudly proclaimed
a nation to be a white one as nearly everyone, however dark their skin, had a white ancestor
somewhere. Other countries developed fine distinctions based on skin colour. In Latin America two
centuries after the invasion of the Spaniards more than twenty races were recognised. The offspring of
a Spaniard and an Indian was a mestizo. That of a mestizo and a Spaniard a castizo, a Spaniard and a
Negro a mulatto... All this shows how difficult it is to make an objective definition of what is meant by
race.
For ethnic identity what matters most is what group we think we belong to. As far as genes are
concerned, things are not so simple. To many people, the genes which matter are those we can see the
effect of, specially skin colour. But in fact out of 100.0000 genes only about ten are to do with skin
colour. [...] A race, as defined by skin colour, is no more a biological identity than is a nation, whose
identity depends only on a brief shared history. A study of genes in different parts of the world shows
that the idea that humanity is divided up into a series of distinct group is wrong.
Steve Jones:The Languages of the genes (chapter 13 ), Harper Collins, 1993.
TEXT: IS FOREIGN AID REALLY HELPFUL?
“The money or food given does not always go to those who need it the most”. The conditions
sometimes attached to, buying equipment or services from the lending country, result in a lot of the
money lent coming back to the rich countries. To pay back their debt, the poor countries are forced to
sell their raw materials or products at very low prices.
Food aid, which is often a way of getting rid of the surplus production in the rich world, can
be a handicap in the long term because it makes local population dependent upon Western style food
and competes unfairly with local product. Food aid can only be given in an emergency. Money and
technical assistance should be provided to help develop agriculture, without which a land becomes a
desert and the people are faced with famine.
Paradoxically, there are enormous food surpluses in a world where there are more and more
hungry people.
Africa, plagued without drought, famine, diseases like malaria, cholera and AIDS, and tribal
conflicts that bring massacres and misery to whole
Populations, must be considered as a special case. Frequently large amounts of foreign food, cash and
equipment never reach their intended destination.
Africa’s ills are often blamed on 80 years of colonialism. Many African leaders,
unfortunately, reproduced and perpetuated the worst aspects of mismanagement, greed and elitism
inherited from colonial powers.
Newsweek, Nov. 1996.

THEME: TERMINOLOGIES: CONCEPTS AND CONCEPTIONS (THE NOTION OF

LIBERTY)
TEXT 89: LIBERTY OF THE INDIVIDUAL
It comprises first, the inward domain of consciousness, demanding liberty of conscience, in
the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of sentiment on all
subjects, practical and speculative, scientific, moral and theological. The liberty of expressing and
publishing opinions may seem to fall under a different principle, since it belongs to that part of the
conduct of an individual which concerns other people; but being almost of as much importance as the
liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the same reasons, is practically inseparable from
it. Secondly, the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits, of framing the plan of our life to suit
our own character, of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow without
impediments from our fellow creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they
should think our conduct foolish, perverse or wrong. Thirdly, from this liberty of each individual,
follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for
any purpose not involving harm to others, the person combining being supposed to be of full age, and
not forced or deceived.
No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be
its form of government; and never is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and
unqualified.
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE (ROLE OF CULTURE)

TEXT 91: DEVELOPING CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING

The culture in which each of us lives influences and shapes our feelings, attitudes, and
responses to our experiences and interactions with others. Because of our culture, each of us has
knowledge, beliefs, values, views, and behaviours that we share with others who have the same
cultural heritage. These past experiences, handed down from generation to generation, influence our
values of what is attractive and what is ugly, what is acceptable behaviour or what is not, and what is
right or what is wrong. Our culture also teaches us how to interpret the world. From our culture we
learn such things as how close to stand to strangers, when to speak and when to be silent, how to
greet friends and strangers, and how to display anger appropriately. Because each culture has a
unique way of approaching these situations, we find great diversity in cultural behaviours throughout
the world.
 Learning about cultural diversity provides people with knowledge and skills for more
effective communication in intercultural situations. Samovar and Porter (1999) suggest that the first
step in being a good intercultural communicator is to know your own culture and to know yourself—
in other words, to reflect thoughtfully on how you perceive things and how you act on those
perceptions. Second, the more we about the different cultural beliefs, values, and attitudes of our
global neighbours, the better prepared we will be to recognise and to understand the differences in
their cultural behaviours. The knowledge of cultural differences and self-knowledge of how we
usually respond to those differences can make us aware of hidden prejudices and stereotypes which
are barriers to tolerance, understanding, and good communication.
Extract from Forum, July 2000, (p.41).

THEME: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (NUCLEAR WEAPONS)

TEXT 92: NUCLEAR WAR: WHAT CAN WE DO?

We live in a world of forty thousand nuclear weapons—with a destructive power one million
times that of Hiroshima bomb—divided more or less equally between the United States and the ex-
Soviet Union. Even the optimistic arms negotiators would not believe it likely that total could be
reduced by more than 50% in the next ten or fifteen years. Therefore, we and our children and our
children’s children will be living in a world with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons-a few hundred
of which could destroy western civilisation for decades to come.
Neither side wants war with the other. But deterrence (preventive measures, arms) may fail—
perhaps as a result of events around NATO and the Varsaw Pact. If it does under today’s conditions,
there is a high risk of the use of nuclear weapons. We must act to reduce that risk.
We should begin by accepting two principles. First, we must recognise that each side must
maintain a stable deterrent ( a nuclear arsenal powerful enough to discourage anyone else from
thinking to use nuclear weapons). Neither the US nor the ex-Soviet Union or any other country
possessing such arms should move in a way to destabilise the other or to provide incentive for a pre-
emptive (premature) attack. That’s absolutely imperative. Second, we must recognise that these arms
have no military value other than to dissuade one’s opponent from their use. All arms negotiations,
military strategies, war plans, weapons development, and military-force structures should be based on
that principle.
If we accept those principles, we are well on the way toward reducing the risk of nuclear war.
Still, there is much more we can do.

(Former Defence Secretary, Robert MacNamara, discussing ways to reduce the chances of nuclear
war).
Adapted from Newsweek Magazine, December 5th, 1983.

GUIDED COMMENTARY:
1—How does the writer see the world today and in the future?
2—What are the author’s solutions to the probability of nuclear war? Do you agree with him? Justify
your answer.
3—What proves, according to the text, that there is such a high risk of nuclear war today?
4—Can war be a solution to the problems opposing nations in your opinion? Justify your statement.

THEME: (ABOUT PROBLEMS IN AGRICULTURAL OUTPUT IN AFRICA)

TEXT 93: DEVELOPMENT IN CHAINS

World-wide, the image of famine is often associated with drought and, in some countries,
war. But, even in the absence of drought or any other serious crisis, about 250 million Africans suffer
from chronic hunger owing to low agricultural output, extreme poverty, HIV/AIDS devastation and
to unstable agricultural markets, at national and international levels.
“The causes of food insecurity in Africa are structural”, says Kofi Annan, Secretary General
of the UN. “Most African cultivators work on small parcels whose production does not cover their
family needs. The problem is even aggravated by the fact that farmers have no power of negotiation
and can neither get access to lands or finance, let alone technology. As small farmers and other rural
African populations have scanty food stocks and meagre incomes, a period of drought can lead to
famine rapidly. It is the situation of women of rural areas particularly, the poorest among the poor,
who are the majority of agricultural workers in Africa”.
In addition, many African export crops producers are handicapped seriously by unfavourable
(and unfair) international markets and trade agreements, questions that have advanced very little in
the current negotiations at the World Trade Organisation. The large subsidies that rich
countries’farmers benefit from have weakened Africa exceptionally, causing at the same time a fall in
markets prices for cotton, sugar and other African export produce. “Consequently”, says MR Annan,
“to increase the resources of agriculture in Africa, we must “suppress rich countries agricultural
subsidies” which amount to 300 billion $ annually at the moment. “It is on this condition only that
Africa will be able to reach a truly sustainable agricultural production. The essential thing is to help
governments reinforce governance by giving again the State the capability to ensure basic public
services” [...]

Translated from L’Afrique au-delà de la Famine by Ernest Harsch in «Afrique Relance», Mai
2003.

NOTES:
Output: production
Let alone: sans parler de
Subsidy: subvention.

THEME: ENVIRONMENTAL/ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

TEXT 95: THE HISTORY OF NAMING HURRICANES

Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive given names in written as well as spoken
communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older more cumbersome latitude-
longitude identification methods. These advantages are especially important in exchanging detailed
storm information between hundreds of widely scattered stations, coastal bases, and ships at sea.
Since 1953, Atlantic tropical storms have been named from lists originated by the National Hurricane
Center and now maintained and updated by an international committee of the World Meteorological
Organization. The lists featured only women’s names until 1979, when men’s and women’s names
were alternated. Six lists are used in rotation. Thus, the 2004 list will be used again in 2010. Here is
more information on the history of naming hurricanes.
The only time that there is a change in the list is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the
future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for reasons of sensitivity. If that
occurs, then at an annual meeting by the WMO committee (called primarily to discuss many other
issues) the offending name is stricken from the list and another name is selected to replace it.
Several names have been changed since the lists were last used. Four names from the 1995 list
have been retired. On the 2001 list, Lorenzo has replaced Luis, Michelle has replaced Marilyn, Olga
has replaced Opal, and Rebekah has replaced Roxanne. Three names from the 1996 list have been
retired. On the 2002 list, Cristobal has replaced Cesar, Fay has replaced Fran, and Hanna has
replaced Hortense. Two names from the 1998 list have been retired. On the 2004 list, Gaston has
replaced Georges and Matthew has replaced Mitch. On the 2006 list, Kirk has replaced Keith. Here is
more information on the retirement of hurricane names.
In the event that more than 21 named tropical cyclones occur in the Atlantic basin in a season,
additional storms will take names from the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and so on.

QUESTIONS
1) What accounts for the names of the Atlantic Ocean hurricanes?
2) Can there be changes in the lists of hurricane names? Give reasons.
3) Do hurricanes only take women’s names?
4) In paragraph no. 4, some names have been replaced by others; can you explain why this change?
 THEME: HEALTH MATTERS

TEXT 96: USE OF MEDICINE

Most infectious diseases are cured by the correct use (of) drugs and medicines. But in many
countries, medicines are (sold) freely without a doctor’s prescription. The wrong use of (medicines)
can easily occur.
Certain medicines are effective against particular microbes. For example, antibiotics-such as
penicillin, streptomycin and tetracycline- are effective against diseases caused by bacteria. However,
they are (useless) against virus diseases. We use antibiotics against venereal diseases, bacterial sore
throat, or dysentery. All these are caused by (bacteria). But antibiotics are ineffective against
influenza, hepatitis or polio (or) even the common cold. These are virus diseases.
Antibiotics (used) wrongly can cause bacterial resistance-that is, a new (type) of bacteria
grows. The new bacteria are not killed (by) that antibiotic. They resist the antibiotic. As a result,
(certain) diseases are no longer cured with certain antibiotics. For (example), gonorrhoea-a venereal
disease- was once cured by penicillin. (Now) only half of the cases are cured by penicillin, (because)
the gonorrhoea microbe is resistant to penicillin.
The problem (of) bacterial resistance is found with TB, typhoid and many (other) serious
diseases.

From Preventive Medicine by Joanna Howard, Heinemann Science and Technical Readers series-
Elementary Level (in Evelyn Davies and Norman Whitney (1982) Strategies for Reading (Teacher’s
Guide), London: Heinemann Educational Books (pp.86-7).

EXERCISE: Close reading test: words in italics should be deleted and completed by the students.

Terminale D
THEME: SCIENCE (PSYCHOLOGY)

TEXT 98: HUMAN MEMORY

Human memory, formerly believed to be rather inefficient, is really much more sophisticated
than that of a computer. Many researchers have concluded that there is a great deal more stored in our
minds than has been generally supposed. Dr Wilder Penfield, a Canadian neurosurgeon, has proved
that by stimulating their brain electrically, he could elicit the total recall of complex events in his
subjects’ lives. Even dreams and other minor events supposedly forgotten for many years suddenly
emerged in detail.
The memory trace is the term for whatever forms the internal representation of the specific
information about the event stored in the memory. Assumed to have been made by structural changes
in the brain, the memory trace is not subject to direct observation but rather a theoretical construct
that is used to speculate about how information presented as a particular time can cause performance
at a later time. Most theories include the strength of the memory trace as a variable in the degree of
learning, retention and retrievable possible for a memory. One theory is that the fantastic capacity for
storage in the brain is the result of an almost unlimited combination of interconnections between
brain cells, stimulated by patterns of activity. Repeated references to the same information support
recall. Or, to say that another way, improved performance is the result of strengthening the chemical
bonds in the memory.
Psychologists generally divide memory into at least two types, short-term and long-term
memory, which combine to form working memory. Short-term memory contains what we are
actively focusing on at a particular time, but items are not retained longer than twenty or thirty
seconds without verbal rehearsal. We use short-term memory when we look up a telephone number
and repeat it to ourselves until we can place the call. On the other hand, long-term memory can store
facts, concepts, and experiences after we stop thinking about them. All conscious processing of
information, as in problem-solving for example, involves both short-term and long-term memory. As
we repeat, rehearse, and recycle information, the memory trace is strengthened, allowing that
information to move from short-term memory to long-term memory.

From How to Prepare for the TOEFL Test: Test of English as a Foreign
Language (10th ed.) by PAMELA J. SHARPE. 2001, p.450.
QUESTIONS:
1-) Which of the following is the main topic of the passage?
A- Wilder Penfield C- Human memory
B- Neurosurgery D- Chemical reactions

2-) The word formerly in paragraph 1 could best be replaced by

A- in the past C- in general
B- from time to time D- by chance
3-) Compared with a computer, human memory is
A- more complex C- less dependable
B- more limited D- less durable

THEME: MISCELLANIES (PHILOSOPHIES)

TEXT 101: RE-DEFINING HUMAN EXISTENCE

Unless present-day man controls the exploitation of natural resources, he will impoverish his
descendants; unless he supplements death-control with birth-control, he will become the cancer of
this planet, ruining his habitation and himself with it. His greedy desire and selfishness will lose
future generation and cost lives.
The leisure problem is equally fundamental. Having decided what we shall do with our leisure
is inevitably forcing us to re-examine the purpose of human existence, and to ask what fulfilment
really means. This involves a comprehensive survey of human possibilities and the methods of
realizing them; it also implies a survey of the obstacles to their realization.
Man is the latest dominant type of life, but he is also a very imperfect kind of being. He is
equipped with a modicum of intelligence, but also with an array of conflicting passions and desires.
He can be reasonable, but is often extremely stupid and stubborn. He has impulses to sympathy and
love, but also to cruelty and hatred, capable of moral action, but also has inevitable capacities for sin,
error and horror. He quickly engages into war and destruction for very little reason forgetting that he
is his own limit, and that beyond him is chaos.
As a result, the course of psychosocial evolution has been wasteful and full of imperfection.
Destruction mobilizes man more than construction. It is easy to take a pessimistic view of man’s
history in general, and of his present situation in particular, where force, violence and fear have
become magnified on a gigantic scale. Nations hate nations and individuals are manipulated to reach
concealed objectives. And still to come, we can’t be sure of his fate in the future…

Adapted from Julian Huxley (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, XV, 1959).

Notes:
Fulfilment (verb: to fulfil oneself): to realize one’s possibilities or qualities.
A modicum: a small quantity.
An array: an important series.

THEME: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (SCIENCE CATEGORIES)

TEXT 106: SCIENCES & FIELDS OF APPLICATION

The exact and descriptive sciences have previously been dealt with. Physics, for example, is
an exact science. It is concerned with precise measurement. Biology is a descriptive science. It is
concerned with describing life forms. A system of description, taxonomic classification, permits
biologists to refer with precision to livings. Using the knowledge and principles of the exact and
descriptive sciences is the concern of the applied sciences.
The applied sciences include the agricultural sciences and the various branches of
engineering. More recently, the space sciences, computer science and automation have become
important applied sciences. Important concerns of the applied sciences are transportation and
communication. Others are building, food and manufacturing. The applied science plan, design, and
create means for improvements in these areas. We see that the applied sciences are distinct from the
exact and descriptive sciences. They are also distinct from technology. The improvements that
applied scientists plan and design are implemented by the tools and methods of technology.
The following example illustrates the distinction among exact and descriptive sciences,
applied sciences and technology. Life scientists developed theories and discovered the various laws
of genetics…
In general, the applied sciences use methods and principles of science to solve technological
problems. The solutions have practical applications, such as building better bridges, making engines
more efficient, or growing more food. This is a primary characteristic of the applied sciences.
It is convenient to make a distinction among the applied sciences, technology and the exact
sciences and descriptive sciences. There are however, many areas of overlap. Physics and chemistry,
in particular, influence all the areas mentioned above.

THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE (FORMS OF EDUCATION)

TEXT 107: THE GIKUYU SYSTEM OF EDUCATION

The striking thing in the Gikuyu system of education and the feature which most sharply
distinguishes it from European system of education, is the importance given to personal relations.
Each official statement of educational policy declares that the aim of education must be the building
of character and not the mere acquisition of knowledge. But European practice falls short of this
principle: knowledge is the dominating objective in the European method of teaching in Africa and,
as long as exams rule, it is hard to see how anything else can be given primary importance. While the
Westerners assert that character formation is the chief end, he forgets that character is formed
primarily through relations with other people, and that there is really no other way in which it can
develop. Europeans assume that, given the right knowledge and ideas, personal relations can be left
largely to take care of themselves, and this is perhaps the most fundamental difference in outlook
between Africans and Europeans. It can be safely said that, in the Europeans system of education,
marriage, the family, the school, vocation, relation of people to the State, etc., are all regarded as
things which have evolved as historical forms which, however, are still capable of change, and over
which the free man, that is the personality, must have authority. For, freedom of personality is the
highest good, and co-ordination with other people and especially mutual subordination are on the
contrary something accidental. Here it is worth while to ask a question which seems very pertinent to
our subject: “If it is true that the Europeans system of education aims at individuality, is it then
logical that Europeans educated in this way have some difficulty in understanding African tribal
relationships?” We may sum it up by saying that to the Europeans “Individuality is the ideal of life”,
whereas to the Africans the ideal is the right relations with, and behaviour to, other people. No doubt
educational philosophy can make a higher synthesis in which these two great truths are one, but the
facts remain that while the Europeans place the emphasis on one side, the Africans place it on the
other.

From Facing Mt Kenya (Jomo Kenyatta)

(A) Guided commentary
1] What are the principles of the Gikuyu system of education? (Contrast them with the European
ones). (l.3,4,25# l.5,14,18).
2] What are the assumptions underlying the European system of education? (Historical forms, things
accidental because individuality, freedom=most important elements).
3] Comment upon this statement: “Character is formed primarily…it can develop”. (l.9-11).
4] Does school knowledge promote personality/ personal character? Justify jour answer.

(B) Translate from “the striking thing….” down to “…way in which it can develop”

THEME: DEVELOPMENT MATTERS (DEVELOPMENT DILEMMA)

TEXT 109: UNDERDEVELOPMENT

 To begin with, it is hardly necessary to point out that we live in a world of increasing
industrialization. While this process enables us to raise our standards of living at an ever-accelerating
rate, it also leads to a corresponding growth of interdependence between the different regions of the
world. Given the conditions, it is easy to see that any permanent economic or political instability in
one area is bound to have increasingly serious effect upon the rest of the world. Since the main
source of instability is underdevelopment, it is clear that this now constitutes a problem of
international proportions. What, then is to be done? Although it is difficult to know where to begin to
deal with such a large subject the first step is perhaps to consider the main economic difficulties an
underdeveloped or emerging region has to face.
First, the economies of such countries are oriented primarily towards the production of raw
materials, i.e. agricultural and mineral products; these are then exported to the industrialized
countries. A number of quite common occurrences are therefore sufficient to cause immediate and
serious interference with this export production, unfavourable weather conditions, plant or animal
epidemics, the exhaustion of soil fertility or mineral deposits, the development of substitute products
in the industrialized regions… The sensitivity of the economy is greatly intensified in cases where
exports are confined to only one or two products – “monocultures”, as they are sometimes called.
Second, being under-industrialized, the countries are largely dependent on imports to supply
the equipment needed to produce goods required to provide their populations with the “necessities of
life”, a concept which is continually enlarged through the mass media of communication such as
films, newspapers, the radio and the advertising. This economic structure makes it difficult for them
to avoid being politically dependent on the countries which absorb their exports and provide their
essential imports.
Third, since under modern conditions, a rapid rise in population is a phenomenon closely
associated with underdevelopment, this cause alone can subject the whole economy to severe and
continuous stress. Although it is obvious that industrialization is the key to development, it is usually
very difficult for emergency countries to carry out plans of this nature.

THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERIATGE (MARRIAGE)

TEXT 110: EARLY MARRIAGE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The timing of the first marriage or union is an important dimension in women’s reproductive
behaviour with far-reaching consequences, particularly for their reproductive health and social status.
In many developing countries, between one-half and three-quarters of all first births to married
women occur less than two years after the women enter their first union. Thus, early marriage
typically coincides with childbearing at a young age. Early pregnancy poses great health risks for a
young woman and, if she carries the pregnancy to term, for her infant; these risks are exacerbated by
poverty and inadequate access to maternal and child health services.
Moreover, women who marry at a young age are likely to find motherhood the sole focus of
their lives, at the expense of development in other areas such as formal education and training for
employment, work experience and personal growth. Even their marriage may be jeopardized: An
early age at first marriage is associated in the long term with a higher probability of divorce and
separation. In turn, marriage dissolution creates social and economic challenges for women who, as
single parents, often assume full responsibility for dependent family members.
Because of concern about these negative consequences of early marriage among women,
much of the discussion about the “girl child” at the recent International Conference on Women in
Beijing focused on the problem of the girls marrying at very young ages, in some cases ages even
younger than countries’ legal minimums.
Across the developing world, women’s traditional patterns of early marriage are giving way
to later ages at first marriage; nonetheless, the age at which women marry continues to vary widely
both across and within countries. This article describes these differentials and trends over time and
examines their association with socioeconomic development.
We begin by describing women’s current patterns of marriage and changes in the age at
marriage over time. How frequently do women in developing countries marry at relatively young
ages?
In seeking possible explanations for variations in marriage timing, we examine the links
between socioeconomic development and early marriage. Socioeconomic development entails many
changes in societies, ranging from industrialization, urbanization, economic growth, and structural
change in the labor force to ideational change associated with the spread of formal schooling and
developments in transportation and communication technologies. Yet, the literature singles out three
factors that are especially relevant to women’s age at first marriage - female labor force participation,
women’s acquisition of formal education, and urbanization.
Women’s increased access to paid employment - a typical outcome of structural change in the
labor market accompanying economic development - is thought to influence both women’s and their
parents’ desires and ability to postpone marriage. According to existing theory, work experience,
particularly in the formal sector, exposes women to new ideas and norms that discourage early
marriage.

Source: International Family Planning Perspectives, 1996, p.148.

A) Guided commentary
1] What are the consequences of early marriage for women in developing countries?
2] Give the risks of early pregnancy for young women and their infants.
3] What can explain the fact that most early married women seem to be less ambitious?
4] Give arguments in favour or against early marriage.

B) Translate into French from “The timing of the first marriage…” to “… child health services”.

THEME: SOCIAL EVILS (ORGANS TRADE)

TEXT 112: A GHOULISH TRADE

Not every desperate father would do what Romeo Roga did. His 1-year old son was suffering
from measles and the poor stevedore needed cash to pay for his medical bills. Carrying sacks of rice
at Manila’s harbour, he earned 1.25 a day, nowhere near enough to support his wife and five children.
Roga called his stepfather, a village guard in the city’s Tondo slum. No problem, his relative told
him: Roga could easily earn 2.125. All he needed to do was sell his kidney. “It was a matter of
survival”.
Roga’s story and reports of a ghoulish trade in human body part have sparked a furor in the
Philippines, the Roman Catholic Church denounced the business, which came to light last summer as
unethical and exploitation. In response, the government imposed a moratorium last month on organ
donations by non relatives. But doctors and needed kidney patients are lobbying to scrap the ban;
they instead have composed guidelines to bar brokers and regulate donations more stringently.
“What’s wrong with compensating donors?” asks Jhoanne Reyes, a 25-year-old kidney patient.
“Patients are willing to pay any price just to live” says Marilou Garcia, a kidney Transplant
Association of the Philippines officer. It’s the donors’ chance to break away from poverty”.
The controversy erupted after assassins last June killed 22-year-old daughter of Filiteo Alano,
former executive director of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute. Gunmen reportedly
sprayed his house with bullets last December, too; an investigator said the murder had “something to
do with the kidney business”. Alano has gone into hiding for fear of his life. Though criminals are
obviously involved, prosecution is difficult: organ selling isn’t illegal. Health Secretary Alberto
Romualdez says some doctors may be colluding with syndicates trafficking in organs.
In Tondo, kidney-selling is just another way to make a peso. Until the moratorium, Dalmacio
Zeta, Roga’s 47-year-old stepfather, earned 300 per kidney. Since 1990 he has worked as a scout for
a Japanese man and a Filipino woman who buy the kidneys. I treat this as a business, and I didn’t
force any of them to sell”, he says. “They are desperate, like gripping a knife’s blade”. People still
ask Zeta to help sell their kidneys. About 100 Tondo men reportedly sold theirs.
The government wants to ban the trade for good. Doctors are seeking a middle ground.
“Maybe we can allow some remuneration in kind”, says Juan Flavier, who launched a Senate inquiry
last month. The goal, he says is to “prevent people from commercializing the donation”. Doctors say
Japanese brokers pay the most for kidneys Japanese patients who come to the Philippines as much as
25,000, according to one transplant surgeon. “The greed behind this practice is immoral”, says
Monsignor Pedro Quitario Spokesman of the Catholic Bishops conference of the Philippines. “The
poverty that pushes people to sell their organs is also immoral”.
Roga’s kidney didn’t get him much. His son died. The money ran out two years ago. With
only one kidney, he tires easily at the docks and takes home only 1.75 each day, it’s too late for
regrets”, he says touching the scar on the right side of his body. “At least I’ve helped someone”.
Organs are scarce, and poverty is rampant, why would the trade ever stop?
By Luz Baguiro
- Ghoulish: macabre
- Stevedore: docker, debardeur
- Slum: quartiers pauvre
- To scrap the ban (here): lever, abandonner l’interdiction.
(A) Guided commentary
1- What are the reasons of Romeo Roga’s acceptance to sell his kidneys according to the text?
2- What are the consequences of Roga’s action on the Philippines? Do you think all the protagonists
were right to raise their concerns about the matter?
3- What are the possible drawbacks of this ghoulish trade in the long run?
4- Do you approve of the trade human organs? Why/why not?
(B) Translate into French from “Roga’s sad story…” to “…away from poverty”.

Terminale D

THEME: MISCELLANIES (NATURE #CULTURE)

TEXT 113: INSTINCT VERSUS LEARNING

Innate patterns of behaviour are an essential part of an animal’s equipment for survival. If
baby turtles were not instinctively drawn to the sea, their species would become extinct. If a
migratory bird was not equipped with a built-in flight plan, its journey might end in disaster. The
ready-made responses of inborn behaviour make it possible for an animal to perform acts it has
neither the time, the ability, nor the opportunity to learn […]
Instinct is too flexible to cope with every situation that may arise. In Germany, a highway was
built through a place where toads came to lay their eggs every year. Toads will lay their eggs only in
the place they themselves were born. But when these particular toads returned to their ancestral
grounds, they found a concrete street instead of a muddy pond. Though other ponds were not far
away, the toads were unable to change the pattern of behaviour passed down by their ancestors.
Crawling desperately about on the highway, they were slaughtered by passing cars.
Many species have become extinct because they were unable to adjust to change their
environment […]
Some animals can learn a great more than others. An insect is primarily a creature of instinct:
for the most part, it is locked into innate patterns of behaviour, which have developed over millions
of years. Mammals, on the other hand, learn constantly from experience.
Of all the mammals, man is the only one whose behaviour depends almost entirely on
learning. In fact, man’s seemingly limitless ability to learn has made him the most successful living
creature on earth.
No animal has been able to mold its life or environment in the way man has done. He has
levelled mountains, uprooted forests, and paved the land with cities, factories, and highways. He has
learned to travel through the air, live beneath the sea, fly to the moon, and bring the whole world into
living room. Having penetrated the mystery of life’s genetic blueprint, man is on the threshold of
controlling his heredity and shaping human destiny.

Russell Freedman and James E. Morris (Adapted).

Notes:
Concrete: béton
Pond: mare
Slaughter: kill massively

Instructions: Answer the following questions using your own words. Do not copy parts of the text to
answer the questions.
1] What, in the text, is the apparent superiority of animals over man and what are its limits?
2] Why, in the text, were toads killed?
3] Does man adjust to his environment? How?
4] “He has levelled mountains… highways”. What do you think are the most dangerous
consequences of man’s action on the environment? What must be done?
5] Are you for or against genetically controlling human destiny and heredity? Justify your position
(about 150 words).

THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE (CLOTHING)

TEXT 114: WHO CREATED BLUE JEANS?

Everybody wears jeans nowadays but very few know how they were first made. In the winter
of 1847, a ship loaded with immigrants was crossing the Atlantic Ocean to reach America. On board
there was a seventeen-year-old boy whose name was Oscar Levi Strauss … He was determined to
make his fortune.
November 1850, Oscar Levi Strauss had settled in San Francisco. He owned a drugstore in
which he sold not only medicines but boots, clothes, hardware, tools and… trousers. People came
from all around to buy what they needed.
One day, on his way to his store, he met a rather dirty man with long hair, an old battered hat
and torn trousers. After a while, he recognized Mike, a gold miner who lived further South. “I was
going to your store to buy a new pair of trousers. I’ve got a few dollars in gold powder in my pocket,
so I can afford them!”
He looked so ragged that Levi could not help saying: ‘Why do you wear out your clothes so
quickly?” “Trousers don’t last long out in the mountains”, Mike answered. “The knees wear out after
only a few days of digging”
Meanwhile they had arrived at the store. Levi asked his clerk Billy to find a very strong pair
of trousers which Mike could wear all winter long. “I sold the last pair yesterday”, Billy answered.
“And we don’t have any material left to make any more!” Levi remembered they had sold out. They
had only one roll of heavy cloth – canvas – which they used for tents. Still, he asked Billy to fetch it.
Mike protested: “I’m not going to wear trousers made of canvas”. But Oscar replied firmly: “You
need new ones and you’ve just told me that your usual trousers weren’t strong enough. At least
canvas won’t tear easily. Your trousers will be ready tomorrow”…
When Mike went back to Poker Flat Mine, thirty miles south of San Francisco, everybody
rushed to see what he had bought in town. He had brought two picks, three frying pans, a shovel,
fifteen sticks of dynamite, three knives, sixteen boxes of matches, a rifle and a pair of trousers.
Then they all started digging again. Mike worked harder than any of them. But his trousers
did not get a single scratch and they proved very strong. All the other miners wanted the same tough
trousers. Levi had to start a workshop to make them…
But one day a roll of canvas arrived from New York which Billy did not want to accept: It’s
not our usual canvas. It looks like cotton… It’s thinner but stronger than canvas. It’s called “Serge de
Nîmes”. Your brothers must have sent you the wrong material”. Levi looked carefully at the new
material and made a quick decision. “We won’t return it, Billy. It’s wonderful! This French cloth is
going to make a revolution in trousers”. The “Serge de Nîmes” soon became “denim”…
As the rolls of cloth he was sent were not exactly the same colour, he decided to dye them all
blue. That is why they are called blue jeans! Not only miners from California, but also cowboys from
Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma wanted Levi’s jeans. The workshop was soon too small. Levi had to
build factories to meet the demand…
A tailor named Jacob Davis brought Levi the last touch of genius. He had had to repair a
man’s trouser pockets again and again. He had the idea of taking them to the blacksmith and
fastening the pockets on the trousers with flat copper nails called rivets. When he heard about it, Levi
adopted the idea at once… and he added a small touch of his own. He decided to sew the trousers
with orange thread to match the rivets. He had such a tremendous success his company has now
become a major multinational firm…

POEM: COME BACK TO ME

Something told me it was over

When I saw you walking away from me
The world was falling apart
My flowers were loosing their scent
I nearly collapsed
I used to tell you
Love is what you have to give all the time
Love is what I have to give every time
When I got you on my side
I forgot the world
Something deep down in my soul
Say, cry boy
When I saw you going away with him
I would rather go blind honey
Than to see you walking away from me
Please, Diana, come back to me
Come back to me my honey
Bob Curtis

SAYINGS (Guess): What always goes up and never comes down? (AGE)
What is always in front of you and you can’t know?  (THE FUTURE)

PROVERBS: “A friend in need is a friend indeed” = When poverty comes through the door love
flies through the window”

Première A / Terminale A

THEME: CULTURAL TRAITS/HERITAGE (BEAUTY CULT)

TEXT 115: THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY

What are the practical results of the modern cult of beauty? The exercises and massage, the
health motors and the skin foods- to what have they led? Are women more beautiful than they were?
Do they get something for the enormous expenditure of energy, time, and money demanded of them
by the beauty cult? These are questions which it is difficult to answer. For the facts seem to
contradict themselves. The campaign for more physical beauty seems to be a tremendous success and
a lamentable failure. It depends on how you look at the results.
It is a success in so far as more women retain their youthful appearance to a greater age than
in the past. “Old ladies” are already becoming rare. In a few years, we may well believe, they will be
extinct. White hair and wrinkles, a bent back and hollow cheeks will come to be regarded as
medievally old-fashioned. The crone of the future [woman] will be golden, curly and cherry-lipped,
neat-ankled and slender. The portrait of the artist’s mother will come to be almost indistinguishable,
at future picture shows, from the portrait of the artist’s daughter. This desirable consummation will be
due in part to skin foods and injections of paraffin-wax, facial surgery, mud baths, and paint, in part
to improved health, due in its turn to a more rational mode of life. Ugliness is one of the symptoms of
disease, beauty of health. In so far as the campaign for more beauty is also a campaign for more
health, it is admirable and, up to a point, genuinely successful. Beauty that is merely the artificial
shadow of these symptoms of health is intrinsically of poorer quality than the genuine article. Still, it
is a sufficiently good imitation to be sometimes mistakable for the real thing. The apparatus for
mimicking the symptoms of health is now within the reach of every moderately prosperous person;
the knowledge of the way which real health can be achieved is growing, and will in time, no doubt,
be universally acted upon. When that happy moment comes, will every woman be beautiful –as
beautiful, at any rate, as the natural shape of her features, with or without surgical and chemical aid,
permit?
The answer is emphatically: No. For real beauty is as much an affair of the inner as of the
outer self. The beauty of a porcelain jar is a matter of shape, of colour, of surface texture. The jar
may be empty or tenanted by spiders, full of honey or stinking slime – it makes no difference to its
beauty or ugliness. But a woman is alive, and her beauty is therefore not skin deep. The surface of the
human vessel is affected by the nature of its spiritual contents. I have seen women who, by the
standards of a connoisseur of porcelain, were ravishingly lovely. Their shape, their colour, their
surface texture were perfect. And yet they were not beautiful. For the lovely vase was either empty or
filled with some corruption. Spiritual emptiness or ugliness shows through, and conversely, there is
an interior light that can transfigure forms that the pure aesthetician would regard as imperfect or
downright ugly.

QUESTIONS
1- What is the beauty industry?
2- What is the beauty cult?
3- What is real beauty?
4- Are all the campaign or modern efforts for more physical beauty a success or failure? Justify
yourself.
5- How important is the beauty cult?
6- Explain “beauty that is merely…genuine article”
- Comment “real beauty is as much… outer self”
- In your opinion, what may “spiritual emptiness or ugliness” stand for?
- What may be the writer’s objective (s)?
- What lesson (s) have you drawn from this text?

THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (NUTRITION)

TEXT 116: CALCIUM

When you were a child, your mother probably told you: “Drink your milk. You need the
calcium for healthy bones and teeth”. She was right. Calcium does help keep bones and teeth strong,
and it also plays a key role in other vital bodily functions. What your mother couldn’t have predicted
are the recent headlines heralding calcium as a possible player in the fight against many ailments.
Here is how children can help protect your health- and how to be sure you’re getting enough.
More than fifty million Americans have high blood pressure (hypertension). What’s so
frightening about the so-called silent killer is that it often does not produce symptoms for years,
secretly damaging arteries and organs throughout the body until it erupts in the form of stroke, heart
attack, congestive heart failure or kidney disease. If left untreated, even mild hypertension can reduce
life expectancy of a 35-year-old by several years.
That is why high blood pressure is commonly treated with antihypertensive drugs. But studies
suggest that in some people an increase in calcium consumption can help control blood pressure
without medication. Calcium also seems to help prevent high blood pressure. Evaluating the results
of a 13-year survey undertaken by the National Center for Health Statistics, James H. Dwyer,
associate professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California School of
Medicine, found that people who consumed 1,300 milligrams of calcium a day were 12 percent less
likely to develop hypertension than those consuming only 300 mg a day. In people under 40, risk was
reduced by up to 25 percent. Soon doctors may urge some hypertension patients to increase their
calcium intake, much the way they now advise sodium restriction. “It’s easier to add food or
supplements than to go on low-sodium diet” asserts Dr David Mc Carron.
Several studies suggest that there’s yet another way calcium may shield the heart from harm:
it may help lower blood cholesterol. In a study led by Dr Margo A. Denke, 13 men with moderately
high cholesterol levels were given a low calcium diet for ten days, and had their cholesterol levels
checked. Then, for another ten days, the men were on fortified diet that supplied 2,200 mg of calcium
a day. End result: the high-calcium regimen reduced their levels of total cholesterol by six percent
and slashed “bad” cholesterol by 11 percent. Mc Carron agrees: “If you increase your calcium intake
whether with diet or supplements, your cholesterol gets better”.

An excerpt from Reader’s Digest, April 1996, pp.251-54

GUIDED COMMENTARY
1- According to the text, what is the importance of milk?
2- Why does the writer call high blood pressure “a silent killer”?
3- State the easiest way to treat hypertension
4- Which milk would you recommend for a baby? Is it mother’s or artificial milk? Why?
5- Explain why the life expectancy is lower in Africa than in Europe.
 THEME: DEVELOPMENT DILEMMAS

TEXT 117: PAPER, SCHOOL AND DEVELOPMENT

Despite the pervasiveness of computers in some schools, in most of the world’s classrooms,
the traditional basics of “paper, books and rule” still rule. Adequate supplies of cheap paper are
essential to education, the social activity most likely to boost the health and economic well-being of
people living in the poorest countries. Yet the gap in per capita consumption of paper between
industrialized and developing countries is the widest of all wood product categories, with a typical
person in a developed nation consuming 15 times more paper than one in a developing country.
Future growth in per capita consumption and in population may well widen this paper gap, with
critical implications for education and economic development.
Paper can come from plants other than trees, of course, and it often does. In fact, although
most paper is made from trees, most paper consumed in developing countries comes from non-wood
fibers, from rice straw and bamboo.
This is partly an economic response to growing forest scarcity in these countries. Yet tree-free
paper crops in developing countries compete with food crops for scarce land, and tree-free paper
mills found throughout Asia have caused severe air and water pollution there. For the moment, there
is no substitute for tree-based paper that promises to resolve environmental and economic concerns
about growing demand for this essential product.
Almost four-fifths of the world’s population live in countries that do not meet the minimum
level of per capita paper consumption-30 kilograms- that the United Nations Environment
Programme considers necessary to meet basic needs for literacy and communication. Low paper
consumption is much more than a mere symptom of a nation’s poverty. It is an obstacle to its
economic and social development, because paper facilitates the education and communication that
fuel development. When children cannot afford books or even entire populations cannot afford
books, magazines and newspapers, development is a distant dream even if those populations are
literate to begin with.
Developing country paper consumption averaged just 14 kilograms per person during the first
half of the 1990’s. By contrast, per capita paper consumption in industrialized countries averaged
over 150 kilograms during the same period. In the United States, this figure averaged nearly on-third
of a metric ton per person.
Simply supplying the developing world’s current population with enough paper to meet basic
needs for literacy and communication would require an additional 100 million metric tones of paper,
or a 30 percent increase in current global production. Meeting this demand would require significant
increases in raw and recycled material supply, processing capacity, and related use of water and
chemicals. Present levels of paper production, however, already create severe environmental
problems in many countries. By 2050, meeting basic literacy and communication needs will require
between 235 and 340 million metric tons of paper, depending on the amount of future population
growth. The point here is not that developing countries should discourage paper consumption; if
anything the reverse. But their capacity to boost the universal availability of inexpensive paper will
depend to a large degree on how well they conserve their trees, and on future rates of population
growth.
Source: Forest Futures Population Action, 1999, p.63.

(A) Guided commentary

1- Does the introduction of computers succeed in eliminating paper consumption in both industrial
and developing countries, according to the text?
2- What is done to reduce the production of paper from trees and what are its consequences?
3- Is there any correlation between paper consumption and development? Justify your answer.
4- There will be a great demand for paper consumption in the future. What measures could be taken
by decision-makers to face this coming issue and how could local communities be involved in the
process?
(B) Translate into French from “Simply supplying the developing…” till the end of the text.

THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (CHEMICAL PRODUCTS)

TEXT 118: BEWARE THE MISUSE OF CHEMICALS Tle text for monday
Chemicals have long been part of every day existence, from agriculture and industry to
prevention and control of disease. While so often of inestimable benefit, they can also, if misused,
damage both health and environment.
Exposure to chemicals varies widely, from high concentrations of short duration affecting
groups of workers to entire populations subjected to continued low levels. The cumulative effect
depends on the degree and duration of this exposure and the kind of substances causing it. People
react differently. Some are markedly less resistant than others, such as pregnant women, infants and
young children, the elderly, the malnourished and the chronically ill.
While awareness of such threats is steadily spreading, politicians, administrators and
managers remain, for the most part, far from adequately informed. The same applies, even more so,
to the public at large in many countries, particularly where toxic chemicals in agriculture are
concerned. Major chemical disasters, filling the headlines, have served to further this awareness.
Over the past two decades, hundreds of accidental discharges at chemical plants and spills due to
accidents in transport have polluted the immediate surroundings with sometimes catastrophic effects
on local populations. More and more of these are occurring in developing countries, ill equipped to
cope with them. Inadvertent discharges and irresponsible, sometimes totally unscrupulous, dumping
of hazardous waste is not the sole problem. Up to half a million people die annually in developing
countries through accidental poisoning by chemicals, pesticides in particular, and natural toxins.
Through international efforts, countries have to be helped in acquiring essential knowledge of
the harm chemicals can do when incorrectly applied. They have to be advised, also, on drawing up
laws and regulations for handling, use and disposal, as well as enforcement, inspection measures and
accident contingencies plans.
Adapted from Our Planet, Our Health by WHO

GUIDED COMMENTARY
1) What positive role do chemicals play in man’s life according to the text?
2) Explain in your own words the dangers related to the use of chemicals for man and his
environment.
3) How did people become aware of the harmful effects of chemicals?
4) If you were a decision-maker, what would you do in order to eradicate, if not, limit the drawbacks
caused by the use of chemicals?

THEME: MISCELLANIES (PHILOSOPHIES)

TEXT 119: THE STUPIDITY OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE

I perceive now that the real charm of the intellectual life-the life devoted to erudition, to
scientific research, to philosophy, to criticism-in its easiness. It’s the substitution of simple
intellectual schemata for the complexities of reality of still and formal death for the bewildering
movements of life. It’s incomparably easier to know a lot, say about the history of art and to have
profound ideas about metaphysics and sociology than to know personally and intuitively a lot about
one’s fellows and to have satisfactory relations with one’s friends and lovers, one’s wife and
children. Living is much more difficult than Sanskrit or chemistry or economics. The intellectual life
is child’s play; which why intellectuals tend to become children and then imbeciles and finally, as the
political and industrial history of the last few centuries clearly demonstrates, homicidal lunatics and
wild beast. It’s much easier to be an intellectual child or lunatic or beast than a harmonious adult
man. That’s why (among other reasons) there is such a demand for higher education.
The rush to books and university is like the rush to the public house. People want to drown
their realisation of the difficulties of living properly in this grotesque contemporary world; they want
to forget their own deplorable inefficiency as artists in life. Some drown their sorrows in alcohol, but
still more drown them in books and artistic dilettantism; some try to forget themselves in fornication,
dancing, movies, listening to music, others in lectures and scientific hobbies. The books and lectures
are better sorrow-drowners than drink and fornication. I used to consider learning and philosophy as
the highest of human tasks, but now I see that they are just distractions like any others, refined and
elaborate for genuine life.
From Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley

(A) GUIDED COMMENTARY

(1) Which is easier according to the author: “to lead a good family and social life” or “to be a
scientist”? Do you share his opinion?
(2) Can you imagine in which way scientific and intellectual preoccupations can endanger your
family and social life?
(3) Do you think that we can do without scientific and intellectual preoccupations nowadays?
(4) Why does the writer describe the “intellectual life” as a stupid one according to the text?

(B) Translate into French from “It’s incomparably easier…” to “…homicidal lunatics and wild
beasts”.

THEME: SCIENCE (NUTRITION)

TEXT 120: ESSENTIAL MINERALS FOR THE BODY

The most essential minerals for a good healthy body are iodine, copper, calcium, phosphorus,
manganese, sodium, potassium, magnesium, chlorine, and sulphur. Of course, only iodine comes
from the sea. The others come from the soil. All of these mineral elements are necessary for keeping
a balanced diet.
In many countries the soil lacks a number of the essential mineral elements. As a result, the
foods grown in the soil are also lacking in minerals. As a consequence, the people living in those
countries also may lack essential minerals in their food. In a sense, some persons may be starving in
the midst of plenty.
When the body is hungry for sweets, starches, or fats, it sends signals to the brain. The brain
then sends the message to the body and our appetite tells us about the need. This is not always true
about the need or “hunger” for minerals. Scientists are making studies to learn more about the signs
of mineral hunger.
In some countries, even in the more modern area, food can be in abundant supply, but
“deficiency diseases” will appear. Each disease shows a lack of vital elements in the diet and
essential minerals are the elements most often lacking.
The thyroid gland, for example, requires iodine. The adrenal glands require magnesium. The
pancreas and parathyroid need cobalt and nickel. The pituitary gland needs manganese and chlorine
and the gonads require iron.
Science has discovered that certain minerals (iron, copper, manganese, zinc, and aluminium)
have great influence on body functions. They act as the electrifiers or self-starters in the body
processes.
Iron, for example, is important to the blood. A lack of iron in the blood causes anaemia
because iron helps in the formation of haemoglobin in the red corpuscles. Red corpuscles are the
carriers of oxygen in the blood and necessary for energy.
Today, scientists are searching for other kinds of food rich in minerals, but which are not
grown in the soil.
Science Vistas, Dean Curry

Notes:
Pituitary gland: hypophyse

GUIDED COMMENTARY
1) Why do some foods lack the essential minerals?
2) According to the text, how is it possible to starve in the midst of plenty?
3) Are diseases only caused by mineral deficiency? Give two examples and explain how they are
transmitted.
4) Why is it important to have a balanced diet?

THEME: DEVELOPMENT DILEMMA

TEXT 122: HUNGER: WHAT IS THE WAY OUT?

The problem of hunger has to be faced both as a part of domestic economic development and
in its link with the international economy. Agriculture cannot be treated separately from the essential
complementary role growth in the industrial and service sectors. First, the increased effective demand
for food, necessary to continued production incentives in agriculture, must come in substantial part
from growth in employment in the non-agricultural - though not necessarily urban – sectors. The
rural landless and even those with small landholdings cannot be fully employed in basic food
production and hence cannot drive adequate income and effective demand for food from agriculture
alone.
Second, inputs for agricultural growth such as fertilizers or farm equipment – which have to
be at appropriate prices – must either come from domestic production or from imports; in the latter
case they have to be paid for largely by more exports, including manufactured exports. Third, the
price farmers receive is not the only incentive they need for growing more crops; there must be
attractive consumer goods from other sectors of the economy which they will want to buy. Fourth,
investments in the infrastructure for agriculture are also so expensive that part of the costs must in
many cases be carried by other productive activities. Finally, manufacturing and service sectors have
potential growth rates of 10 to 15 percent compared to about 4 percent in agriculture. Thus, giving
due emphasis to agriculture is not a substitute for industrial development; it is a question both of the
balance between industry and agriculture and of effective encouragement of the components of
industrial growth which can assist agricultural development.
So the problem of hunger connects clearly with the rest. The expansion of trade and finance,
including cooperation among developing countries, which can permit incomes to rise, is as important
as producing more food or distributing incomes. The low-income countries need assistance both fro
rural development and for raising the entire productive capacity of their economies which alone can
create adequate incomes and jobs. There are shortcuts to eliminating hunger.

North-South: A Programme For Survival (Under the chairmanship of Willy Brant)

Notes:
Incentive: motivation

(A) GUIDED COMMENTARY

1-Why can’t the problem of hunger be treated in isolation, according to the text?
2- In your own words, in what ways does agriculture depend on other sectors?
3- For a developing country, what should be given priority: agriculture or industry? Justify your
answer.
4- In your opinion, how can international cooperation help solve the food problem?

(B) Translate into French from “So the problem of hunger…” to the end of the text.

THEME:

TEXT 123: THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS

I’ve known rivers;
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississipi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I’ve known rivers;
Ancient, dusty rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
(To W.E.B. DuBois)
LANGSTO HUGHES (1902-67)
THEME:
TEXT 123: BLOWING IN THE WIND
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sun
How many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they’re forever banned
The answer my friend
Is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind
How many years must a mountain exist
Before it’s washed to the sea
How many years must some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free
How many times must a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see
The answer my friend
Is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind
How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky
How many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry
How many deaths will it take till HE knows
That too many people have died
The answer my friend
Is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind

NEGRO SPIRITUALS (Bob DYLAN)

QUESTIONS
1- Considering that Negro Spirituals are related to the history of the Negro slaves (they sang to drown
their sorrows) in America, read the text and try to identify in it the words or/and expression which
refer to the Blacks and Whites.
2- In your opinion, what does HE in the 3rd stanza refer to?
3- What shows the despair of blacks in the text?
Guidelines: man=blacks; you=whites; dove=peace; cannon ball= “cessation” war; “man” in the 2nd
stanza=whites

THEME: HEALTH MATTERS (DISEASES)

TEXT 124: INFLUENZA VIRUSES

There are three types of influenza viruses: A, B and C. Only influenza A viruses are further
classified by subtype. Influenza A subtypes and B viruses are further classified by strains.
Influenza viruses are dynamic and are continuously evolving. Influenza viruses can change in
two different ways: antigenic drift and antigenic shift. Influenza viruses are changing by antigenic
drift all the time, but antigenic shift happens only occasionally. Influenza type A viruses undergo
both kinds of changes; influenza B viruses change only by the more gradual process of antigenic.
Antigenic drift refers to small, gradual changes that occur through point mutations in the two
genes that contain the genetic material to produce the main surface proteins. These point mutations
occur unpredictably and result in minor changes to these surface proteins; antigenic drift produces
new virus strains that may not be recognized by antibodies to earlier influenza strain. This process
works as follows: a person infected with a particular influenza virus strain develops antibody against
that strain. As newer virus strains appear, the antibodies against the older strains might not recognize
the “newer” virus, and infection with a new strain can occur. This is one of the main reasons why
people can become infected with influenza viruses more than one time and why global surveillance is
critical in order to monitor the evolution of human influenza virus strains for selection of which
strains should be included in the annual production of influenza vaccine. In most years, one or two of
the three virus strains in the influenza vaccine are updated to keep up with the changes in the
circulating influenza viruses. For this reason, people who want to be immunized against influenza
need to be vaccinated every year.
Antigenic shift refers to an abrupt, major change to produce a novel influenza A virus subtype
in humans that was not currently circulating among people. Antigenic shift can occur either through
direct animal (poultry)-to-human transmission or through mixing of human influenza A and animal
influenza A virus genes to create a new human influenza A subtype virus through a process called
genetic reassortment. Antigenic shift results in a new human influenza A subtype. A global influenza
pandemic (worldwide spread) may occur if three conditions are met:  A new subtype of influenza A
virus is introduced into the human population.  The virus causes serious illness in humans.  The
virus can spread easily from person to person in a sustained manner.
Humans can be infected with influenza types A, B and C viruses. Subtypes of influenza A
that are currently circulating among people worldwide. Typically, wild birds do not become sick
when they are infected with avian influenza A viruses. However, domestic poultry, such as turkeys
and chickens, can become very sick and die from avian influenza, and some avian influenza A
viruses also can cause serious disease and death in wild birds.
Influenza type A viruses can infect people, birds, pigs, horses, and other animals, but wild
birds are the natural hosts. These types are divided into subtypes and named on the basis of two
proteins on their surface. For example, an “H7N2 virus” designates an influenza A subtype that has
an HA 7 protein and an NA 2 protein. Only some influenza A subtypes are found most commonly in
other species. For example, some subtypes cause illness in horses, and others also has recently been
shown to cause illness in dogs.
However, there are substantial genetic differences between the influenza A subtypes that
typically infect birds and those that infect both people and birds. Three prominent subtypes of the
avian influenza A viruses that are known to infect both birds and people. Some types rarely cause
infection in humans but can occur among persons who have direct contact with infected birds.
Symptoms may include conjunctivitis and/or upper respiratory symptoms or even cause mild to
severe and fatal illness in humans. Influenza B viruses are usually found only in humans. They can
cause morbidity and mortality among humans, but in general are associated with less severe
epidemics than A viruses. They have not caused pandemics. Influenza C viruses cause mild illness in
humans but do not cause epidemics or pandemics.
Influenza B viruses and subtypes of influenza A virus are further characterised into strains.
There are many different strains of influenza B viruses and of influenza A subtypes. New strains of
influenza viruses appear and replace older strains. This process occurs through antigenic drift. When
a new strain of human influenza virus emerges, antibody protection that may have developed after
infection or vaccination with an older strain may not provide protection against the new strain.
Therefore, the influenza vaccine is updated on a yearly basis to keep up with the changes in influenza
viruses.
(Nov. 18, 2005)

EASY COM SERVICE