PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD JAVERIANA

FACULTAD DE COMUNICACIÓN Y LENGUAJE

DEPARTAMENTO DE LENGUAS
LECTURA EN INGLÉS 1
Student’s copy

EXPOSITORY TEXTS
TASK 2
Read the texts and deduce the corresponding information. Text 1 has been
done for you.

TEXT 1.
Each museum object is individually numbered to identify and distinguish it
from all other objects in a collection. All the information relating to an object is filed
and accessed using this unique number. Writing a number directly on an object is
the most secure method of labelling but it is not always the most suitable. A record
photograph of each object, including its correct registration number, provides
additional security. This guide has been prepared to assist you with labelling
museum collection objects. Six alternative methods of labelling are outlined and a
range of suitable materials are identified.
Basics
There are a few basic things to consider when labelling objects. These are:
• When objects are made from a number of different materials, always label the
most durable or stable material. If all of the materials are fragile, use a tie –
on label.
• Use a standard and easily accessible location for the position of the number.
For example, we suggest the reverse (back), bottom right corner, or on the
hem at the left side seam. This will minimize handling and possible damage
when finding the number.
• Consider and select the best numbering location, material and application for
each object because removing numbers will cause damage to the object. This
decision will become easier with experience. With many objects, you will be
deciding between the Tissue or Paraloid Methods. If you are unsure which
method is most suitable, please use the Tissue Method, as there is less risk
of causing damage to the object.
Taken and adapted from: https://maas.museum/app/uploads/2017/02/A_Simple_Guide_to_Lablling_Museum_Objects.pdf

1. Topic: Methods to label objects at the museums

2. Purpose of the writer: to explain different methods of labelling objects at
a museum
3. Field of study: Arts
4. Intended reader: Museum’s workers who are in charge of organizing
(specialized reader)

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 5. Source: Guide for a museum
TEXT 2.
In a remarkable study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, Kymberly
Young and colleagues report that depressive symptoms can be substantially diminished
by training a region of the brain known as the amygdala to respond more strongly to
positive memories. In earlier work, Young and associates used a technique called real-
time functional MRI neurofeedback to show that individuals can train their amygdalae to
increase hemodynamic responses (a surrogate for “activity”) if provided immediate
feedback of amygdala activity in real time during a positive memory retrieval task.
In this recent study, 33 adults with moderately severe major depressive disorder
completed the research protocol. None was being treated with an antidepressant. The
study consisted of four visits: During the first visit, participants completed several clinical
and self-report assessments of depression and anxiety, as well as an autobiographical
memory test. This set of assessments was repeated at each subsequent visit. Five to
seven days after the first visit, study participants completed the first neurofeedback
training session, and one week later, they completed a second session. During the fourth
visit 5 to 7 days later, participants completed the assessments one last time.
At the start of the study, participants were divided into two groups that had almost
identical scores on the various depression scales. One group (18 individuals) received
neurofeedback from the amygdala; the other (15 individuals) received neurofeedback
from a region of parietal cortex that is not known to be involved in emotional regulation.
One week after the first neurofeedback session, participants in the amygdala
training group exhibited decreases in depression scores compared to baseline scores.
By the end of the study, decreases in depressive symptoms were even greater in this
group and were associated with increased amygdala activity during positive memory
retrieval. Twelve of 18 participants experienced a greater than 50% decrease in
depression scores (defined as a “response”), and 6 met criteria for remission (defined
as reporting very few depressive symptoms). Only 2 depressed participants who
received real-time feedback from the parietal cortex demonstrated 50% decreases in
depressive scores, and only 1 remitted.
Currently, this technique requires an individual to be trained for several hours
utilizing expensive functional imaging equipment. However, if additional research
indicates long-term effectiveness of this approach, it is likely that more affordable
methods will be developed.
Taken and adapted from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/demystifying-psychiatry/201704/treating-depression-training-your-amygdala

1. Topic: a study that says that training the amygdala can decrease depression.
2. Purpose of the writer: To report on a study about how depression can be
reduced by training the amígdala.
3. Field of study: psychology and neurocience .
4. Intended reader: Psychologists, social workers, sociologists
5. Source: Journal of Psychiatry

TEXT 3.
The difficult economic times have seen school budgets getting cut lower and
lower, leading them to cut both jobs and programs to save more money. The arts
programs have been an unfortunate target, often becoming the first program to be
cut. Times may be difficult, but arts programs should definitely not be cut in any

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school. Studies have shown many excellent benefits which schools should be more
reluctant to let go of before keeping the arts programs in schools.
Many researchers have shown that students enrolled in an arts program are
4 times as likely to be recognized for academic achievements, to participate in
science or math fairs, and to win awards for exceptional essays or poetry. Studies
also show that students enrolled in such programs are 3 times as likely to be elected
as a class officer, and to win a school attendance award. More studies have even
related a link between arts programs and better test scores. In a time where the “No
Child Left Behind” policy specifically emphasizes test scores, these benefits seem
to be worth keeping the arts program alive.
Many of high school students enrolled in the arts began with a rotating
“specials” program in elementary school. The “specials” program led them through
small classes exposing them to music, art, math, science, a computer lab, and
sometimes dance or another class, such as global studies, which differed school to
school. When students completed elementary school, they had the option to take an
arts class in school such as chorus, drama, art, orchestra, or band in middle school.
In high school, they often have the choice to take different types of band, chorus,
orchestra, art, drama, or the added options of music theory, music appreciation, art
appreciation, or art history. As you can see, that is quite a number of classes and
thus there are quite a number of students enrolled in them. Therefore, if the program
is cut those students will have to take other classes which they might not find any
interest in. It is well known that students who have no interest in a class are more
likely to skip or to not turn in assignments.
Despite so many schools choosing to drop their arts programs, there are
some who see the benefits and appreciate their program even more. Powell Middle
School in Spring Hill, Florida, managed to turn their school into a public performing
arts school. They introduced more performing classes that other schools in the
county did not offer and, even though we all know that the times are tough, they
managed to do this with the help of fundraising instead of cancelling another
program. Students who are not zoned for the school are also allowed to apply to
attend if they have an interest in the arts. One county in Texas has a page with what
they believe the benefits of the arts are: “Arts education benefits the student because
it cultivates the whole child, gradually building many kinds of literacy while
developing intuition, reasoning, imagination, and dexterity into unique forms of
expression and communication. This process requires not merely an active mind but
a trained one. An education in the arts benefits society because students of the arts
gain powerful tools for understanding human experiences, both past and present.
They learn to respect the often very different ways others have of thinking, working,
and expressing themselves. They learn to make decisions in situations where there
are no standard answers. By studying the arts, students stimulate their natural
creativity and learn to develop it to meet the needs of a complex and competitive
society. And, as study and competence in the arts reinforce one other, the joy of
learning becomes real, tangible, and powerful.” Other schools should pay more
attention to these examples and realize that their arts program is an important and

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beneficial educational program that influences students to be better in life and
school.
Both the performing and visual arts program is an immensely important
program in each and every school. They offer benefits that many other programs do
not, which include higher test scores. The program also gives students something to
look forward to every day and encourages them not to skip. The benefits of the
program far outweigh any reasons to cut it from the budget and thus many schools
should reconsider their decisions.
Taken and adapted from: http://www.teenink.com/opinion/school_college/article/192254/The-Importance-of-the-Arts/

1. Topic: the importance of the arts programs in the school

2. Purpose of the writer: to defend the importance of the arts programs in the
school
3. Field of study: education
4. Intended reader: students, teachers or people that are related with
educations.
5. Source: an opinion blog
TEXT 4.
Facebook allowed the president of Honduras to artificially inflate the appearance
of popularity on his posts for nearly a year after the company was first alerted to the
activity. The astroturfing – the digital equivalent of a bussed-in crowd – was just one
facet of a broader online disinformation effort that the administration has used to attack
critics and undermine social movements, Honduran activists and scholars say.
Facebook posts by Juan Orlando Hernández, an authoritarian rightwinger whose
2017 re-election is widely viewed as fraudulent, received hundreds of thousands of fake
likes from more than a thousand inauthentic Facebook Pages – profiles for businesses,
organizations, and public figures – that had been set up to look like Facebook user
accounts. The campaign was uncovered in August 2018 by a Facebook data scientist,
Sophie Zhang, whose job involved combatting fake engagement: comments, shares,
likes and reactions from inauthentic or compromised accounts. Zhang began
investigating Hernández’s Page because he was the beneficiary of 90% of all the known
fake engagement received by civic or political Pages in Honduras. Over one six-week
period in 2018, for example, Hernández’s Facebook posts received likes from 59,100
users, of whom 46,500 were fake. She found that one of the administrators for
Hernández’s Page was also the administrator for hundreds of the inauthentic pages that
were being used solely to boost posts on Hernández’s Page. This individual was also
an administrator for the page of Hilda Hernández, the president’s sister, who served as
his Communications Minister until her death in December 2017.
Although the activity violated Facebook’s policy against “coordinated inauthentic
behavior” – the kind of deceptive campaigning used by a Russian influence operation
during the 2016 US election – Facebook dragged its feet for nearly a year before taking
the campaign down in July 2019. Despite this, the campaign to boost Hernández on
Facebook repeatedly returned, and Facebook showed little appetite for policing the
recidivism. Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice-president of integrity, referred to the return of
the Honduras campaign as a “bummer” in an internal discussion in December 2019 but
emphasized that the company needed to prioritize influence operations that targeted the
US or western Europe, or were carried out by Russia or Iran. Hernández’s page
administrator also returned to Facebook despite being banned during the July 2019

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takedown. His account listed his place of employment as the Honduran presidential
palace and included photos taken inside restricted areas of the president’s offices. The
page administrator did not respond to queries from the Guardian, and his account was
removed two days after the Guardian questioned Facebook about it.
A Facebook spokesperson, Liz Bourgeois, said: “We fundamentally disagree with
Ms Zhang’s characterization of our priorities and efforts to root out abuse on our
platform. “We investigated and publicly shared our findings about the takedown of this
network in Honduras almost two years ago. These investigations take time to understand
the full scope of the deceptive activity, so we don’t enforce piecemeal and have
confidence in our public attribution ... Like with other CIB takedowns, we continue to
monitor and block attempts to rebuild presence on our platform.”
Facebook declined to comment on Hernández’s page administrator’s return to
the platform. It did not dispute Zhang’s factual assertions about the Honduras case.
Hernández did not respond to queries sent to his press officer, attorney, and minister of
transparency. Deceptive social media campaigns are used to “deter political
participation or to get those who participate to change their opinion”, said Aldo Salgado,
co-founder of Citizen Lab Honduras. “They serve to emulate popular support that the
government lacks.” Eugenio Sosa, a professor of sociology at the National Autonomous
University of Honduras, said the government’s use of astroturfing to support Hernández
“has to do with the deep erosion of legitimacy, the little credibility that he has, and the
enormous public mistrust about what he does, what he says and what he promises”.
Beyond the president’s loyal supporters, however, Sosa said he believes that it has little
effect on public opinion, due to a steady stream of headlines about Hernández’s
corruption and ties to the narcotics trade.
Hernández’s brother was convicted of drug trafficking in US federal courts in
October 2019, and the president has himself been identified by US prosecutors as a co-
conspirator in multiple drug trafficking and corruption cases. Hernández has not been
charged with a crime and has denied any wrongdoing. Until recently, he was considered
a key US ally in Central America. Salgado said that the Hernández administration began
resorting to social media disinformation campaigns in 2015, when a major corruption
scandal involving the theft of $350m from the country’s healthcare and pension system
inspired months of torchlit protest marches. “That’s when the need for the government
arises and they desperately begin to create an army of bots,” he said. Facebook, which
has about 4.4 million users in Honduras, was a double-edged sword for the non-partisan
protest organizers, who used the social network to organize but also found themselves
attacked by a disinformation campaign alleging that they were controlled by Manuel
Zelaya, a former president who was deposed in a 2009 coup.
“The smear campaign was psychologically overwhelming,” said Gabriela Blen, a
social activist who was one of the leaders of the torch marches. “It is not easy to endure
so much criticism and so many lies. It affects your family and your loved ones. It is the
price that is paid in such a corrupt country when one tries to combat corruption. “In
Honduras there are no guarantees for human rights defenders,” she added. “We are at
the mercy of the powers that dominate this country. They try to terrorize us and stop our
work, either through psychological terror or campaigns on social networks to stir up
rejection and hatred.” The disinformation campaigns are most often employed during
periods of social unrest and typically paint protests as violent or partisan, according to
Sosa, the sociologist. “It scares people away from participating,” he said. Hernández
won a second term in a 2017 election plagued with irregularities. With the country rocked
by protests and a violent government crackdown, researchers in Mexico and the US
documented the wide-scale use of Twitter bot accounts to promote Hernández and
project a false view of “good news, prosperity, and tranquility in Honduras”.

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 Taken and adapted from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/apr/13/facebook-honduras-juan-orlando-hernandez-fake-engagement

1. Topic: how facebook allowed the president of honduras falsely inflated his
posts’ popularity
2. Purpose of the writer: to give information of the corruption among Facebook
and the hondura’s president
3. Field of study: technology, social networking
4. Intended reader: general readers
5. Source: newspaper on a website
TEXT 5.
Early in her career, Samira Negm, a Cairo-based engineer, programmed self-
parking features for cars. But she spent nearly as much time driving a car as she
spent programming one. Millions of people moved from home to work every day in
her city of more than 20 million; her daily commute to work could at times run to three
hours or more. She started wondering if she couldn’t do more useful things with her
skills — and her time. Perhaps she could connect co-workers looking for efficient
ways to travel to work in Cairo’s chaotic traffic. Perhaps she could even design a
car-pooling app, to provide workers, particularly women, with safer and cheaper
ways to travel while helping cut down traffic congestion. Ms. Negm quit her job and
Raye7, a car-pooling app, was born. Ms. Negm is the new face of tech
entrepreneurship in the Muslim world. And she is not alone. The number of women
at work across the Muslim world is swelling, as numbers have demonstrated during
the last 13 years. Across the 30 largest emerging-market Muslim countries, 100
million women were working in 2002. Today, that number is 155 million. Economic
necessity, more education, new technologies and changing social norms have been
at the core of this shift. And among these new entrants to the labor force, women
like Ms. Negm —a new generation of educated, female, dynamic, tech-savvy,
globally connected but locally committed entrepreneurs— hold the most promise for
delivering an outsize impact on their countries’ prosperity.
Across most countries of the world, however, women make up a much smaller
proportion than men of those skilled in coding and the sciences. In fact there are
only five countries where among students enrolled in science, technology,
engineering and mathematics, or STEM programs, women outnumber men. Two of
those, Brunei and Kuwait, are Muslim-majority economies. Across 18 countries,
women only make up 40 percent or more of STEM students. More than half of the
countries have Muslim majorities. (In the United States, women make up just 30
percent of STEM students.) When it comes to entrepreneurship, Indonesia and
Malaysia are among the 13 economies in the world where there is a higher
percentage of early-stage entrepreneurial activity among women than men. Other
Muslim countries also show high percentages: In Kazakhstan, women’s
entrepreneurial activity is 80 percent that of men, while in the United Arab Emirates
it is 63 percent. In all four countries, the ratio of female-to-male entrepreneurs is
higher than in the United States, where it’s 60 percent.

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 As more women create entrepreneurial ventures, generating jobs and income
for ever-larger segments of the population, governments can facilitate this new
avenue of growth for their economies. The social payoff, in the form of women’s
empowerment, breaking stereotypes and stronger communities, may be even
greater. And as digital platforms and tools make economic activity more easily visible
and measurable, policymakers have an opportunity for smarter regulation. Laws are
often behind the economic realities of female (and male) citizens. While most
emerging markets in the Muslim world have high internet and mobile penetration
rates, women still tend to have less digital access than men. While public transport
infrastructure in many Muslim emerging markets needs overall upgrading (in terms
of infrastructure, prices, and general quality of the service), it also needs to take into
account women’s concerns around safety and harassment to truly open up mobility
options for them.
Governments across the economies of the Muslim world will need to
reconsider policies in a range of areas —digital inclusion, labor, parental leave, child
care, taxation, safety, access to finance and transport— and apply a gender lens to
developing new areas to wholly unleash the potential of their female work force,
including entrepreneurs. Globalization and technology have at times had a harsh
impact on parts of the working class in the United States and elsewhere in the
developed world in recent years. On the other side of the world, those same forces
have empowered millions of women, with far-reaching consequences for their
families, communities and countries. If the image of a typical entrepreneur in Silicon
Valley is a young man in a hoodie, in many urban areas of the Muslim W orld, it could
easily be a young woman in a hijab. The passion, energy and desire to solve local
problems are the same. Their governments should now recognize and back these
new employers, consumers and taxpayers for the genuine economic force that they
are.
Taken and adapted from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/opinion/muslim-women-techentrepreneurs.html

1. Topic: the importance of the women’s entrepreneurial activity in the muslim

economy
2. Purpose of the writer: to explain the importance of the women’s
entrepreneurial activity in the muslim economy
3. Field of study:
4. Intended reader: general readers
5. Source: Articles in newspapers
Say if the following statements are true (T) or false (F). Support every answer
providing clear explanations based on the text.

1. According to the text, women will play a decisive role in Muslim countries’ growth. ( T )
This is true because in the text mentions that the women’s entrepreneurial activity is even
higher than in the United States

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2. Based on the number of female entrepreneur Muslim women, one can deduce that they
are more creative and more innovative than men. (T)
I think that this answer depends if we’re talking about only in the muslim contexts, in that
case it can be true, but if is a general opinion, i think that the answer can be questionable,
indeed, in the text mentions:
‘Across most countries of the world, however, women make up a much smaller proportion
than men of those skilled in coding and the sciences.’

3. The writer uses the Silicon Valley example to portrait how different the dressing customs
are in Muslim-majority countries and the USA. (_T_)
That its mention in the last paragraph

Identify the underlined words in the text. For the definition you can use any of the
strategies we studied before.

WORD MEANING / STRATEGY USED

1.swelling It can be something that is increasing

2.payoff I think that for the context the synonym can be ‘reward’

3.upgrading something that it's getting better and innovating

4. wholly The Word can be replace by the synonym completely

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