UNIT TEST 7 ● GROUP B

Dictation, Listening and Reading

Name: ____________________________________ Listening

Class: ____________________________________ 2 [Track 15] You will hear four different recordings.
Total: _ /30 For questions 1–4, choose the correct answer, A, B
or C.

Dictation 1 The speaker is

1 [Track 14] Listen and write the sentences you
hear, including the punctuation.
A criticising people for wasting time on the
Internet.
B encouraging younger people to learn from the
older generation.
C pointing out ways you can use the Internet to
your advantage.

2 Which sentence best describes the situation?

A Beth shows her grandfather how to open an
attachment.
B Beth discovers why her grandfather is confused.
C Beth finds the photos her grandfather has
downloaded.

3 The speaker says that Michael’s mother should

A encourage him to change his diet.
B be happy with his current weight.
C be worried because of a recent weight gain.

4 Before her illness, Sally

A was eating unhealthy food.
B was suffering from insomnia.
C wasn’t doing any exercise.

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© Pearson 2020 PHOTOCOPIABLE Focus 4 SECOND EDITION (B2/B2+)

 UNIT TEST 7 ● GROUP B
Dictation, Listening and Reading

Reading without knowing whether any robot would ever

manage to pass his test but, in 2014, on the sixtieth
3 Read the text and answer the questions.
anniversary of his death, Eugene Goostman
managed to do it.
EUGENE GOOTSMAN PASSES A TEST Not everyone is impressed by Eugene’s
Eugene Goostman is a thirteen-year-old boy from accomplishment. Some say that Eugene wasn’t the
Odessa in Ukraine. He has got a pet guinea pig and first chatterbot to pass the test. This is technically
his father is a doctor. In 2014, he passed a test that true but the previous tests were either too short or
some people say had never been passed before. Is they were judged by an audience rather than
Eugene a genius? In fact, he doesn’t really exist at experts. These factors meant that the results weren’t
all. conclusive. Eugene’s test involved many more
questions but there were still criticisms. The main
Eugene is a chatterbot. That is, a computer
one involves Eugene’s ‘human’ profile. His designers
programme which can listen and reply to questions.
deliberately made him a thirteen-year-old with poor
You may have one on your smartphone. You can
English so that judges would be more likely to
ask it to do simple tasks like find out what the
ignore his strange or irrelevant answers than they
weather is like in Portugal or how many dollars there
would if he was a native speaker adult. Finally, even
are to the euro. You can also try to have a
if he was the first chatterbot to really pass the test,
conversation with your chatterbot, although their
many people argue that Eugene doesn’t actually
answers don’t always make sense. However,
possess real intelligence. All it can do is imitate
Eugene is more advanced than these very basic
intelligence. In other words, it is unable to think or
versions. He actually managed to fool some people
learn like a real human being.
into thinking he was human in a test thought up over
60 years ago. Chatterbots may not be ready to take over the
world yet but they can have uses. They can
The test he passed is called the Turing Test, named
perform basic tasks on a smartphone while we are
after the computer expert, Alan Turing, who became
unable to press buttons on our phones ourselves,
famous for his work on the Enigma code machine
such as while driving. They can also be used to
during the Second World War. This was a German
create believable characters in video games which
machine which was brought to England in 1939 from
can follow orders and report on what is happening.
Poland. By breaking the code, Turing was able to
However, robots with real intelligence are still a
find out German war plans in advance. In 1950,
long way off. You won’t be able to get one to do
Turing wrote a paper which predicted that, one day,
your homework for a few more years, I’m afraid!
robots would have the intelligence to carry out a
human-like conversation. Two years later, in 1952,
1 Why can it be difficult to talk to smartphone
he finalised the rules of a test which would show
chatterbots?
whether or not this intelligence existed. The main
________________________________________
rule was that, if any computer persuaded 30
percent of the people reading or listening to the ________________________________________
answers that it was human, it would pass the test.
2 What could Eugene do that other smartphone
Turing passed away in 1954 but the challenge lived
apps couldn’t?
on.
________________________________________
Interestingly, Turing based his test on a party game,
called Imitation, which he enjoyed taking part in. In ________________________________________
this game, a set of questions were given to a man 3 After breaking the Enigma code, what did Turing
and a woman. They typed their answers, not believe about the robots of the future?
necessarily truthfully, and the other party guests had ________________________________________
to try to guess who had written which set of
answers. The theory was that there would always be ________________________________________
some clues that would give them away. Turing died

© Pearson 2020 PHOTOCOPIABLE Focus 4 SECOND EDITION (B2/B2+)

 UNIT TEST 7 ● GROUP B
Dictation, Listening and Reading

4 What was believed about the game Imitation?

________________________________________
________________________________________
5 Why was Eugene’s test more reliable than
previous tests passed by other chatterbots?
________________________________________
________________________________________

6 What are the main uses for chatterbots at the

moment?
________________________________________
________________________________________

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© Pearson 2020 PHOTOCOPIABLE Focus 4 SECOND EDITION (B2/B2+)