English Course Note

LANGL1272 - Anglais pour ingénieurs civils 2
LANGL1282 - Anglais pour informaticiens 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Weekly planner ..………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 2
Course introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3
Unit 1: Language Learning and Computers ……………………………………………………………….. 5
Unit 2: Drones ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 7
Unit 3: AI and Machine Learning ………………………………………………………………………………. 10
Unit 4: Coding and Open Source ……………………………………………………………………………….. 15
Unit 5: Coding and Commenting Code ………………………………………………………………………. 22
Unit 6: Computer-Aided Design (CAD) ……………………………………………………………………. 26
Unit 7: Space Adventures …………………………………………………………………………………………. 28
Unit 8: More Space Adventures ………………………………………………………………………………. 28

33
Unit 9: Genetic Engineering ………………………………………………………………………………………. 37
Unit 10: Extending Human Potential …………………………………………………………………………. 46
Unit 11: The Future of Transportation ……………………………………………………………………… 50
Unit 12: Revisions ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 55
Exam Jan 2020 ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 62
1
WEEK GROUPS UNITS
S1 19/09 Group enrolment + test
S2 26/09 Resolution of schedule conflicts
S3 3/10 FSA_2 / FSA_4 / FSA_6 1+2

FSA_B / FSA_D / FSA_E / FSA_G / FSA_J
SINF_2 / SINF_A / SINF_B
S4 10/10 FSA_1 / FSA_3 / FSA_5 1+2

FSA_A / FSA_C / FSA_F / FSA_H / FSA_I
SINF_1 / SINF_3
S5 17/10 FSA_2 / FSA_4 / FSA_6 3+4

S6 24/10 FSA_1 / FSA_3 / FSA_5 3+4

SINF_1 / SINF_3
S7 31/10 SMART FSA_2 / FSA_4 / FSA_6 5+6

(Tuesday classes -> Wednesday) FSA_B / FSA_D / FSA_E / FSA_G / FSA_J
S8 17/11 FSA_1 / FSA_3 / FSA_5 5+6

SINF_1 / SINF_3
S9 14/11 FSA_2 / FSA_4 / FSA_6 7+8

S10 21/11 FSA_1 / FSA_3 / FSA_5 7+8

SINF_1 / SINF_3
S11 28/11 FSA_2 / FSA_4 / FSA_6 9+10

S12 5/12 FSA_1 / FSA_3 / FSA_5 9+10

SINF_1 / SINF_3
S13 12/12 FSA_2 / FSA_4 / FSA_6 11+12

S14 19/12 FSA_1 / FSA_3 / FSA_5 11+12

SINF_1 / SINF_3
EXAM in January
2
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4
UNIT 1 – Language Learning and Computers
IN CLASS: Warm-up
1. Discuss with your partner:
a. If you don’t know each other: introduce yourselves
b. Take a look at the screen. Discuss everything you see:
i. What website is this?

ii. Have you used this website before?
iii. What is the video going to be about?
iv. What do you know about this topic?
IN CLASS: How Computers Translate Human Language
2. Listening Comprehension - Video:
 Listen and answer the questions:
There are 2 different kinds of translation programs:
Rule
a) _______________ - based translation programs:
databases
based on a lexical ___________________ rules
and linguistic ________________
The program parses (analyses):
- Syntax (grammatical structures)

___________________________________________________________________
- Morphology (smallest meaningful units)

___________________________________________________________________
- Semantics (what those units mean)

___________________________________________________________________
Statistical machine
b) __________________________________________ translation:
database of books, articles, and documents that have already

It analyzes ______________________________________________________
been translated by humans (corpus)
5
a. Did the video explain computer dictionaries or translation tools? What’s the
difference?
b. Give examples of both. If you don’t know any, look them up online.
c. Which of these tools work best? Try them out online and compare them.
→ For your tests use the vocabulary from Unit 2, the highlighted sentence in the text.
d. Decide on a top 3 of online tools that you would recommend to the class:
Wiktionary
1) ______________________________
Can be edited by anyone

Features: - _________________________________________________
Has translation for hundreds of languages

- _________________________________________________
Has often multiple accent pronunciation (RP, GenAm, etc.)

- _________________________________________________
Longman dictionary
2) ______________________________
Definitions are written with simple words

Features: - _________________________________________________
Always has records to help you know how to pronounce

- _________________________________________________
Lots of examples
- _________________________________________________
Reverso
3) ______________________________
Picking examples from real-life contexts

Features: - _________________________________________________
You can use a rephrase button if the translation doesn't fit what you wanted
- _________________________________________________
Gives a lot of examples of contexts for the word you're translating

- _________________________________________________
6
UNIT 2 – Drones
IN CLASS: New Ways to Use Drones

a. Which historic site is shown in the video?

b. What’s the problem?
c. What could drones have to do with it?
2. Match the words with their definitions / synonyms
1) shore up A) almost
2) precarious B) under or below
3) underneath C) to be likely to cause harm or damage to something or someone
4) virtually D) to make something stronger by supporting it
5) threaten E) in a dangerous state because of not being safe or not being held in place firmly
a. How are the drones used in this video?

b. Do you know of similar uses elsewhere?
IN CLASS: Wasp-Like Drones

4. With your partner read the introductory paragraph of the text on the next page as well as part A or B of the
text (circle according to teacher’s instructions):
a. Together you will give another pair of students a summary of the features explained in your part.
b. Highlight key words in the text in order to be able to give a clear summary with the precise technical
vocabulary you need.
7
Text:
These Wasp-Like Drones Lift Heavy Loads with Their Bellies
Matt Simon, 10.24.2018
A new class of robots, called FlyCroTugs, can lift objects 40 times their weight, using design ideas borrowed
from wasps and geckos.
You might know wasps for their ability to brainwash cockroaches or inflict one of the most painful stings on Earth -
one so powerful that the actual scientific advice to victims is to just lie down and scream until it passes. Lesser-
known is the wasp's superlative ability to carry loads that are unexpectedly heavy given the creature's size.
Small drones, or "micro air vehicles," are only able to lift the equivalent of their own weight. If we want flying robots
that can move massive objects without requiring them to be the size of pterodactyls, engineers will need to come up
with new ways of lifting stuff. So drone designers are looking to wasps for help, and developing creative ways to use
the environment itself as a secret weapon in robotics.
If a wasp stings and knocks out prey that's too big for it to fly off with, the predator drags the thing away. It can do
this using a structure on its feet called an arolium, a pad that helps them get a grip on a surface. Combined
with claws on the feet, the arolium allows wasps to maneuver objects that they can't outright fly away with. Which
means they can punch - or sting - far above their weight class.
Engineers want drones to do the same. So a new class of robots, known as FlyCroTugs, takes a cue from
these feisty fliers. On the surface, they look like regular old quadrotors that would fit in your palm. But the secret is
hidden away on their bellies. While sitting on the ground, one version of the machine uses hooks to snag bumps
and pits to anchor itself to the surface like a wasp's claws do, while another version uses a pad to stick to
a smooth surface. The machines can then use a tiny winch to lift and drag things up to 40 times their own weight.
The physics of the hooks are pretty straightforward - good old anchoring for leverage. "We're just trying to get these
hooks lined up, one right next to another, and have them each be able to find their own bump and all pull together
to generate larger forces than a single hook could," says Stanford roboticist Matthew Estrada, who describes the
machines today in Science Robotics.
The physics of the pad, on the other hand, are more dazzling. The technology, which is inspired not by wasp feet but
gecko feet, isn't particularly new - Stanford researchers have already used it to, for instance, design a gripper that
might one day grab space junk in orbit. But the resulting forces can also give the FlyCroTug a gecko-like grip and give
it the ability to lift like an insect.
That trick relies on what's called van der Waals forces. A material on the bottom of the drone is packed with tiny
silicone ridges. When it makes contact with a smooth surface, and you tug on it, the ridges align to the surface in a
uniform direction. "They all lay down and create very intimate contact with whatever they're pressed up against,"
says Estrada. The contact is so intimate that a minute attraction develops on the molecular level for each ridge.
Because there's so many of them packed into the material, those forces add up to produce excellent adhesion.
That's how geckos can manage to walk up a wall, and how the FlyCroTugs can lift 40 times their weight. As long as
the robots are sitting stationary on, say, the edge of a table, they can use van der Waals forces to winch objects far
heavier than themselves. So lifting a water bottle that's sitting down on the ground, for instance.
8
B
If you wanted to lift something bigger, you could employ several of these tiny robots. That might be more useful
than simply scaling the drones up to increase their power. This approach might make them cheaper to manufacture,
and allow them to work their way into tight spaces if need be. Who needs bulk when you've got numbers?
Unlike earlier bio-inspired drones, FlyCroTug doesn't look for inspiration in a wasp merely as a flying animal, but as a
larger system. "Flying insects are not just about flying when they carry an object," says Caltech roboticist Soon-Jo
Chung, who's developed a bat-inspired drone. They also drag loads that would otherwise be too much to carry.
"That's the very interesting innovation and contribution of this paper."
In other words, making use of the ground or another feature of the environment can help supercharge new robots.
Most bots roll on the ground or fly through the air without interacting much with their surroundings. FlyCroTugs are
fundamentally different: They leverage the environment itself to increase their power. A surface isn't just something
to navigate, it's something to use as a tool for some serious winching.
This new lifting ability isn't only useful for dragging around big objects. Two robots can also work together to manage
a complex manipulation such as opening a door. The first drone wheels into position and extends a spring-loaded
hook under the door. The second robot's own spring-loaded hook snags the handle. Then, braced against the door,
the second robot tugs the handle down while the first robot tugs the door open.
The idea is that groups of adhesive robots can tackle tasks that individual robots might struggle with. "Maybe think
of each robot as a move on a chess board," says Estrada. "How are you going to build up exerting these forces in
different directions to attain more dexterous tasks?" Instead of loading complex capabilities into one highly
sophisticated and expensive robot, the solution in some cases may be to coordinate multiple bots instead.
Or at some point the researchers could combine the two techniques - hooks for grabbing onto rough materials and
pads for smooth ones - in a single drone that works on a wider array of surfaces.
While leaving out the stinger, of course. Let's go ahead and leave that path unexplored.
IN CLASS: New Ways to Use Drones
5. Think of a novel way to use drones that you are aware of or do a quick search online. It can be in all sorts of
fields: construction, health care, warfare, disaster relief, delivery, agriculture, etc.
Your partner will try and guess the drone use you have in mind, asking you questions. You’re only allowed to
answer yes or no.
Examples:
- Is this drone being used on the European continent? YES
- Is it used in agriculture? NO
When they have guessed your drone use it’s time to switch and you get to ask them questions about their
drone.
9
1. With your partner, take a look at the list below and for every word:
a. Read it out loud. How many syllables does it have? Separate them (see examples below).
b. Where does the word stress lie for every word? Read the word out loud again and exaggerate the
stress on the stressed syllable. Mark the stressed syllable (see examples below).
You can mark the main stress in different ways: com’puter OR computer
If you’re not sure where the word stress lies, check the word in your dictionary app.
c. Then copy the word into the grid on the next page, according to its stress pattern.
i/mage physical usable

ma/chine domain threshold
cha/llen/ging thousands digital
e/xam/ple unseen webcam
in/ter/act (an) object similar
cla/ssi/fi/er (to) object vehicle
con/sis/tent/ly unless network
com/bi/na/tion factor intelligence
o/ppor/tu/ni/ty technique regulated
problem mysterious projected
(a) project detect variety
(to) project prediction established
bias movement powerful
significant important correct
labeling laptop experience
camera considered relative
something platform robotic
accuracy uncover algorithms
coded result develop
technology solution purpose
software opportunity artificial
computation issue download
system entire borrowed
detected generic robot
10
Put the words from the list in the corresponding box depending on the stress pattern.
image machine
Threshold, webcam, network, purpose, download, borrowed, robot Correct
challenging example interact

Usable, digital, similar, Projected, established, robotic, develop
vehicle, powerful, relative
classifier consistently combination opportunity

Regulated, algorithms, artificial Intelligence, variety
11
2. For each excerpt: a) Decide which source it comes from: A or B
A: How Computers Learn to Recognize Objects Instantly – Video
B: How I'm Fighting Bias in Algorithms – Video
b) Fill in the missing prepositions. Prepositions are often part of phrasal verbs.
See the recap sheet of the most common phrasal verbs on the next page.
Excerpt from: __________
Unfortunately, I've run __________ this issue before. When I was an undergraduate __________ Georgia Tech
studying computer science, I used to work on social robots, and one of my tasks was to get a robot to play peek-
a-boo, a simple turn-taking game where partners cover their face and then uncover it saying, "Peek-a-boo!"
(…) The demo worked on everybody until it got to me, and you can probably guess it. It couldn't detect my face. I
asked the developers what was going __________, and it turned_________ we had used the same generic
facial recognition software. Halfway around the world, I learned that algorithmic bias can travel as quickly as it
takes to download some files __________ of the internet.
Excerpt from: __________
So we've made amazing strides _____ image classification, but what happens when we run our classifier _____
an image that looks like this? Well ... We see that the classifier comes ________ with a pretty similar prediction.
And it's correct, there is a malamute in the image, but just given this label, we don't actually know that much
about what's going ______ in the image. We need something more powerful. I work on a problem called object
detection, where we look _______ an image and try to find all of the objects, put bounding boxes around them
and say what those objects are. So here's what happens when we run a detector on this image…
Excerpt from: ________
Now you've seen in my examples how social robots was how I found __________ about exclusion with
algorithmic bias. But algorithmic bias can also lead to discriminatory practices. __________ (= all over) the US,
police departments are starting to use facial recognition software in their crime-fighting arsenal. Georgetown Law
published a report showing that one ____ two adults in the US — that's 117 million people — have their faces in
facial recognition networks. Police departments can currently look at these networks unregulated, using
algorithms that have not been audited __________ accuracy. Yet we know facial recognition is not fail proof, and
labeling faces consistently remains a challenge. (…)
Machine learning is being used for facial recognition, but it's also extending __________ (= further than) the
realm of computer vision. In her book, "Weapons of Math Destruction," data scientist Cathy O'Neil talks about the
rising new WMDs — widespread, mysterious and destructive algorithms that are increasingly being used to
make decisions that impact more aspects of our lives.
12
RECAP: COMMON PHRASAL VERBS
For a complete list (click on the corresponding letter of the alphabet): https://www.usingenglish.com/reference/phrasal-verbs/
Phrasal verb Common meaning Example

to take action because of something like information The police were acting on a tip from an informer and caught
act on
received the gang red-handed.
act up to behave badly or strangely My computer's acting up; I think I might have a virus.
Trains delays are getting worse and with the high fares, it all
add up to to have a certain result
adds up to misery for the commuters.
amount to to total Their rent bills amounted to ten thousand a year.
The government should be made to answer for their failure to
answer for to be held responsible for a problem
sort out the problem.
I have no idea, but I'll ask around at work and see if anyone
ask around to ask a number of people for information of help
can help.
ask for to provoke a negative reaction You're asking for trouble.
ask out to invite someone for a date He wanted to ask Peter out but was too shy.
The concert had to be called off because the singer went
call off to cancel
down with a bad case of flu.
When I lose my temper, it takes ages for me to calm down
calm down to stop being angry or emotionally excited
again.
Carry on quietly with your work until the substitute teacher
carry on to continue
arrives.
I was ill for a fortnight and now I've got to catch up on the
catch up on to get work, etc. up to date
work I missed.
come back to return A lot of young people leave the town and never come back.
to do something again from the beginning, especially
do over OK, we'll do it over, but try to sing the right words this time.
because you did it badly the first time
eat out to eat in a restaurant We couldn't be bothered to cook so we ate out last night.
The police couldn't figure out how the burglars had got into
figure out to find the answer to a problem
the warehouse.
I went to the library to find out all I could about the life and
find out to discover
work of Joe Meek.
give up to surrender, stop trying I can't think of the answer; I give up.
go on to happen There are loads of people out in the street; what's going on?
13
Phrasal verb Common meaning Example
go on to continue He went on talking for hours and I was so bored.
go over to look at something, revise We went over our notes before the exam.
He hacked into the government database and stole a lot of
hack into to break into a computer system
data.
hang out to spend time socially He hangs out in the pub The Monarch; he's there most nights.
hold on to wait Could you hold on for a minute; she'll be free in a moment.
keep on to continue doing something He kept on trying and succeeded in the end.
keep up to maintain a continuous action, persist Keep up the good work!
I've been looking for all their hidden files, but I can't find them
look for to try to find
anywhere.
to accept something less satisfactory because there's no
make do with There's no coffee, so we'll have to make do with tea.
alternative
pass out to faint, lose consciousness He got so drunk that he passed out.
She passed up the opportunity to go to university because
pass up to decline a chance
she'd been offered a job.
While you're in town, can you pick up my trousers from the dry
pick up to collect
cleaner?
The concert's been put off until next month because the
put off to postpone
singer's got a throat infection.
run into to meet by chance I ran into James in a bar in the City on Friday.
take off when a plane departs or leaves the ground The flight for Dublin took off on time.
turn down to reduce volume, temperature, etc. The room was too hot, so she turned the heating down.
turn off to stop a machine I turned the TV off and went to bed.
turn on to start a machine I turned the radio on to get the weather forecast.
turn up to increase volume, temperature, etc. The room was chilly, so she turned the heating up.
turn out to be known or discovered finally and surprisingly The news report about the explosion turned out to be false.
work out to find the answer or solution I couldn't work out all the answers to the crossword puzzle.
work out to exercise She went to the gym three times a week to work out
14
UNIT 4 – Coding and Open Source
To prepare AT HOME: Asking Questions: Linus Torvalds
1. Turn the prompts / statements by the interviewer into proper questions. You will check them in class with
your teacher, so write them down and bring them to class. Simplify the questions. Follow the right word
order:
Question word conjugated subject infinitive or object / rest of

verb/auxiliary participle sentence
Example:
“Tell us how you got to understand open source and how it led to the development of Linux.”
 How did you get to understand open source and how did it lead to Linux?
“Tell us briefly about that and your role in that.”
What was it, and what was your role in it ?

 _________________________________________________________________________?
“So really, both Linux and Git kind of arose almost as an unintended consequence of your desire not to have to work
with too many people.”
 _________________________________________________________________________?
“You're a visionary, right?”
 _________________________________________________________________________?
“Now, when we talked last week, you talked about some other trait that you have, which I found really interesting.”
 _________________________________________________________________________?
“So our theme at TED this week is dreams -- big, bold, audacious dreams. You're really the antidote to that.”
 _________________________________________________________________________?
15
IN CLASS: Pronunciation
2. Work with a partner. Below are excerpts from the video on Linus Torvalds or the text on Open Source.
→ Take a look at the underlined vowels and decide how they’re pronounced. Use the phonetic chart on the
next pages or your dictionary app for help.
→ Transcribe these words into the right columns in the table on the next page, according to the
pronunciation of the underlined vowel.
→ When you’ve finished filling in the table take turns in reading the words in each column.
→ Finally take turns in reading the excerpts below out loud, paying special attention to the underlined
syllables.
1) But it was really about the fact that I was looking for a project on my own and there was no open source,
really, on my radar at all.
2) Now, when we talked last week, you talked about some other trait that you have, which I found really
interesting. It's this idea called taste.
3) And I've just got a couple of images here. I think this is an example of not particularly good taste in code, and
this one is better taste, which one can immediately see. What is the difference between these two?
4) I don't know if it's essential. Going back to the "I'm not a people person," -- sometimes I'm also ... shall we
say, "myopic" when it comes to other people's feelings, and that sometimes makes you say things that hurt
other people. And I'm not proud of that.
5) Richard Stallman fit like a glove with the hacker ethos of the lab, and worked on TECO, early Emacs, and the
Lisp machine operating system (among other things) during the 1970s.
6) Unfortunately, good times at the AI Lab wouldn’t last forever. In the late 70’s and early 80’s, manufacturers
increasingly copyrighted their technologies, withheld source code, and required licensed use of software.
Proprietary software took over market share in the world of technology.
7) By the early 80’s, the MIT AI Lab would shut down. NDA’s had become commonplace, collaboration
dwindled, and the lab lost many talented developers to private companies running proprietary software.
8) What does society need? It needs information that is truly available to its citizens — for example, programs
that people can read, fix, adapt, and improve, not just operate. But what software owners typically deliver is
a black box that we can’t study or change.
9) And, above all, society needs to encourage the spirit of voluntary cooperation in its citizens. When software
owners tell us that helping our neighbors in a natural way is “piracy”, they pollute our society’s civic spirit.
16
Transcribe the words in the correct columns:
əʊ ɔː eɪ aɪ ʌ aʊ eə
phone horse/draw train bike up owl/out chair
17
RECAP: Common Spellings But also:
VOWEL
i: his this engine /’enjIn/ film six big English /’ɪnglɪʃ/
SOUNDS
swim surface /’sɜːfIs/ determine women /’wɪmɪn/
busy /bɪzi:/
build /bɪld/
building /’bɪldɪŋ/
ee: meet three people
ea: speak eat breathe police
e: me we key
machine
a: thanks flat black Japan have

stamp
a: glass façade aunt

ar: garden farther party start laugh
heart
o: cost off on long box watch, want

sausage, because
or: sport floor door (UK) course, four

al: wall talk installed bought, thought
aw: draw saw water
u: full pull could /kʊd/, should /ʃʊd/,

oo: cook book look good would /wʊd/
woman /wʊmən/
oo: school food shoe

u: June fruit juice suitcase move
ou: through queue
ew: few, interview
er: prefer her verb learn

ir: circle first third work
ur: nurse turn purpose hurt world
journey
Many spellings, always unstressed:
ago available second

teacher umbrella America famous
18
e: cent text engine friendly
ea: bread healthy many, any
said
u: construction result culture bus

o: money come other brother
ou: country enough young couple
oo: blood flood
a: name make basic data laser

ai: rain paint mainly
ea: breakthrough great
ay/ey: may say they grey
ei: surveillance
o: home drove don’t total composed slow, low
local
oa: road coach
i: climate final virus wifi turbine

crisis isolated private /’praɪvit/
ei: height /haɪt/
y: eye why hydrant hyper-loop
ou: outside thousand house ground

drought foundation
ow: how now town power brown
tower allow
oi: coin noise toilet

oy: enjoy employer
eer: beer engineer really, idea, serious

ere: here we’re
ear: year hear beard
air: airport upstairs fair hair their, there, wear, area

are: rare careful square
Unusual sound:
euro, furious, sure, plural
19
IN CLASS: Interview activity
3. Write questions to interview a colleague in your class about their life, studies, and aspirations. Use the recap
sheet on Asking Questions on the next page if necessary, and remember the right word order:
Question word conjugated subject infinitive or object / rest of

verb/auxiliary participle sentence
Then interview your partner. You can ask follow-up questions during the conversation. Then reverse roles
and answer your partner’s questions.
1) ______________________________________________________________________________________?
2)_______________________________________________________________________________________?
3)_______________________________________________________________________________________?
4)_______________________________________________________________________________________?
IN CLASS: Discussion activity
4. In The Cathedral and the Bazaar Eric Raymond points to 19 lessons learned from various software
development efforts. Discuss ten of these lessons with your partner:
a) Do they apply to Linus Torvalds’ experience?
b) Do you think they might apply to other areas of engineering?
c) Do you personally have experience with them?
1. Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch.

2. Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and reuse).
3. Plan to throw one version away; you will, anyhow.
4. If you have the right attitude, interesting problems will find you.
5. When you lose interest in a program, your last duty to it is to hand it off to a competent successor.
6. Treating your users as co-developers is your least-hassle route to rapid code improvement and effective
debugging.
7. If you treat your beta-testers as if they're your most valuable resource, they will respond by becoming your
most valuable resource.
8. The next best thing to having good ideas is recognizing good ideas from your users. Sometimes the latter is
better.
9. Often, the most striking and innovative solutions come from realizing that your concept of the problem was
wrong.
10. Any tool should be useful in the expected way, but a truly great tool lends itself to uses you never expected.
20
RECAP: ASKING QUESTIONS
The basic rule for asking questions in English is:
Invert the order of the subject and the first auxiliary verb.
- It is snowing. = Is it snowing?
- He can speak German. = Can he speak German?
- They have lived here a long time. = Have they lived here a long time?
- She will arrive at ten o'clock. = Will she arrive at ten o'clock?
- He was driving fast. = Was he driving fast?
- You have been smoking. = Have you been smoking?
If there is no auxiliary, use the verb 'to do'. ( → ‘do’ = conjugated ; main verb ≠ conjugated)
- You speak fluent French. = Do you speak fluent French?

- She lives in Brussels. = Does she live in Brussels? (NOT *Does she lives*)
- They lived in Manchester. = Did they live in Manchester? (NOT *Did they lived*)
- He had an accident. = Did he have an accident? (NOT *Did he had*)
Most questions with question words are made in the same way:
- How often does she use it?

- Why don't you come?
- Where do you work?
- How many did you buy?
- When have you started doing this?
- Which one do you like?
- Whose car were you driving?
Note: who, what and which can be the subject. Compare:
- Who comes late every morning? (who = subject → no auxiliary used)

- Who do you want to invite? (who = object → use of ‘do’)
- What happened? (what = subject → no auxiliary used)
- What did you do? (what = object → use of ‘did’)
Note the position of the prepositions in these questions:
- Who did you speak to?

- What are you looking at?
- Where does he come from?
21
Unit 5 – Coding and Commenting Code
To prepare AT HOME
1. Tips on good coding and commenting:

a. In the table below decide whether the tips are good or bad practice, according to the advice
given in the text and the video.
b. If you decide it is bad practice, fix the tip by changing the modal verb used (in bold). If you
can, improve the tips.
Use the Modals Recap on the next page if necessary.
c. Come up with 3 other tips on good practices for coding and code commenting, using three
different modals.
Good Tip
/ Bad?
Bad You must comment to explain what a function does.
Function names should make clear what a function does. You can precise how it does
FIX/IMPROVEMENT: _____________________________________________________
or indicate pre or post-condition if it makes code clearer
Bad You mustn't explain why you have chosen to implement a complicated solution for a problem.
If it's complicate, it should'nt exist in the first place. If it is really required to be complicate,
FIX/IMPROVEMENT: _____________________________________________________
comment it. But usually, you can always make it more readable.
Good! You should immediately refactor code that may be confusing in the future.
FIX/IMPROVEMENT: _____________________________________________________
Often You don't have to comment your code, ever.

bad Code should be as clear as plain English. But it can't be exactly that so sometimes
FIX/IMPROVEMENT: _____________________________________________________
you really need to comment it.
Good You cannot use inline commenting to document a library or framework you are building.
FIX/IMPROVEMENT: _____________________________________________________
Bad You may make fun of previous developers who have made mistakes on the original code.
Always respect other developpers. Not everyone is a genius like you.
FIX/IMPROVEMENT: _____________________________________________________
Good You can define variables, functions and inputs clearly so that commenting becomes unnecessary.
You even should
FIX/IMPROVEMENT: _____________________________________________________
22
My own advice for developers:
Make clear if a word is from code or English, i.e. by writign `node` instead of "node"
Code in Python (ok, just joking, Rust and Object Pascal is ok as well)
If sth is intrinsically hard to understand, it doesn't mean you have to implement it
in a complex way : you always can decompose it.
RECAP: MODAL VERBS (based on http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/rules/modal.htm)

The modal verbs include can, must, may, might, will, would, should. They are used with other verbs to
express ability, obligation, possibility, and so on. Below is a list showing the most useful modals and their
most common meanings:
Modal Meaning Example
can to express ability I can speak a little Russian.
can to request permission Can I open the window?
may to express possibility I may be home late.
may to request permission May I sit down, please?
must to express obligation I must go now.
must to express strong belief She must be over 90 years old.
mustn't to express prohibition You mustn't smoke inside the building.
should to give advice You should stop smoking.
would to request or offer Would you like a cup of tea?
would in if-sentences If I were you, I would say sorry.
Modal verbs are unlike other verbs. They do not change their form (3rd P. Sing) and they have no infinitive or
participle (past/present). The modals must (obligation) and can (ability) need substitute verbs to express
obligation or ability in the different tenses. Here are some examples:
Past simple Sorry I'm late. I had to finish my math test. obligation
Future You'll have to work hard if you want to pass the exams. obligation
Infinitive I don't want to have to go. obligation
Past simple I couldn't/wasn't able to walk until I was 3 years old. ability
Present perfect I haven't been able to solve this problem. Can you help? ability
Modals are auxiliary verbs. They do not need an additional auxiliary in negatives or questions. For example:
Must I come? (Do I must come?), or: He shouldn't smoke (He doesn't should smoke). But be careful with
possible change in meaning with negations: compare the two following sentences:
Meaning Paraphrase
mustn't She mustn't tell him about the party! Don't tell him about it, it's a surprise!
don't/doesn't He doesn't have to come, but I'd love him to. He can choose, it's not an obligation.
have to
Important: The explanations and examples on this page are just an introduction to this extensive and
complex area of English grammar. Check out the following resources for more help & explanations.
Theory by the British Council

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/english-grammar-reference/modal-verbs
Exercises
http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/multi/modal1.htm
https://www.english-4u.de/en/grammar-exercises/modal-verbs3.htm
23
IN CLASS
2. The Present Perfect Simple: Check these examples from the text you have read this week. Why do
we use the present perfect here?
In 20+ years of writing code for a living, this is the one phrase I've heard the most.
This truth has been so abused that most people who utter the phrase have no idea what it really means.
Stop me if you've heard this one before.
Again, the above is more about being funny than being helpful. But you SHOULD leave a comment warning
others not to pursue some seemingly obvious "better solution," if you've already tried and rejected it.
So, we've looked at the good and the bad, but what about the ugly?
How is it formed?
_____________________________________________________________
Why do we use the Present Perfect Simple here?
_____________________________________________________________
Why do you think the last one is separated from the others?
____________________________________________________________
Which words or expressions – signal words – can indicate that you need to use the Present Perfect Simple?
____________________________________________________________
3. Write your own sentences about your experience on coding or other work you’ve done, using Present
Perfect Simple. Use different signal words each time and compare with a partner.
What I have experienced when coding/doing other work:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
24
4. Time's Up – Computer Science Vocabulary – in groups of 4 and teams of 2
a) Open the vocabulary list of Unit 5 on Moodle. Only look at it when it’s your turn to make your
teammates guess a word.
b) ROUND 1
(8 min.)
 Make your teammate guess words from the vocabulary list.
 1 point per guessed word. Try to beat the other team.
 Each team has 4 minutes in total, 2 minutes for each player. Player A takes 2 min. to try
and make their teammate B guess as many words/expressions from the vocabulary list
as possible. Then it’s player B’s turn. After that the other team has their 4 minutes.
 You can use definitions, example sentences (beeping the word), and any other clue you
want, EXCEPT
• No part or variant of the word. Ex: You can't use "divide" or "divisible" to get the
guesser to say “division”.
• No spelling of the word is allowed, EXCEPT for the first letter.
c) ROUND 2
(4 min.)
 Make your teammate guess the same words that were used in round 1, your team’s or
the other team’s. But only ONE word can be used as a clue. You can use any other non-
verbal clues.
 Each team has only 2 minutes this time, 1 minute for each player.
 1 point per guessed word. Try to beat the other team.
25
UNIT 6 – Computer-Aided Design
To prepare AT HOME: Mini presentation
1. Prepare a mini presentation (4-5 mins) to give to a small group of colleagues on a type of Computer-Aided
Design that you find interesting. Pick one from those on the graph:
Research it in English so that you are able to explain it to your peers with the appropriate technical vocabulary.
Explain:
• What the technology is
• How it works
• In which fields and for which tasks it is used
Presentation tips:
• Go from the concrete (real life examples) to the abstract (how it works)
• Use structuring and transition phrases such as:
o Hello, I will be talking about …
o That’s why … / Therefore …
o That brings us to … / Let’s get back to…
o In addition, …
o That’s it for … / That covers …
• Be ready to answer questions.
• Use phrases such as:
o Do you have any questions?
o That’s a good question.
o I don’t have the answer to that particular question but I can refer you to a website where you can
find more specific information.
26
CAD technoloy: ________________________________________________________________________________
Introduction (keywords):
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Main points (keywords):
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Conclusion / Rounding-off (keywords):
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
IN CLASS: Questions for your colleagues
2. While you’re listening to your colleagues’ presentations make notes of a few questions you have:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
27
UNIT 7 – Space Adventures
To prepare AT HOME: A Moment in My Life
1. Find a photo of yourself at a particular time in your life and be ready to explain the story behind it to a
colleague. Think about what tenses you're going to use for the different parts of the story, pay attention to
irregular verbs.
• Set the scene – give some context:

o Background information: Past Simple
o Background information, before the past: Past Perfect
in Riga, Latvia, last summer.

This photo was from…._____________________________________________________________________
there for a 10-days summer course about artificial intelligence
I was….__________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________
• Narrate the action:
o Consecutive actions: Past Simple
o Actions in progress: Past Continuous
I and two students from respectively Chili and Croatia decided to

What happened was that …___________________________________________________________________
visit the city after the last course of the third day.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
we found a lot of beautiful churches. Riga is multireligious city (protestant, catholic
And then..._________________________________________________________________________________
and orthodox) so there's a lot of various religious buildings.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
• Make the scene more immediate and dramatic:
o Dramatic language: Present Simple or Present Continuous
, as we were pursuing our walk, we discovered a parc with a lot of old latvian
When suddenly…____________________________________________________________________________
playing chess in a very sovietic scene!
__________________________________________________________________________________________
I played a game with one of them.
And then…_________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
• Continue to narrate the action:

o Consecutive actions: Past Simple
o Actions in progress: Past Continuous
it was nice and we came back to the dormitories to spend the evening with the rest of the
So…________________________________________________________________________________________
students and the organizers.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
it was a nice day.
And fortunately… / Eventually…_________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
• Describe a consequence of the story:
o Past to now: Present perfect
I know people from all around Europe.

Since then …__________________________________________________________________________________
28
IN CLASS: Irregular Verbs Refresher
2. Fill in all the past and past participle forms that you know.
Base Past Past Base Past Past Base Past Past

form form particip. form form particip. form form particip.
Be was were Get got, gotten Read read, read
Become became, become Give Ring rang, rung
gave, given
Begin began, begon Go went, gone Run ran, run
Break broke, broken Grow grew, grown Say
said, said
Bring brought, brought Have had, had See saw, seen
Buy bought, bought Hear heard, heard Sell sold, sold
Catch cought, cought Hide hid, hid Send sent, sent
Choose chose, chosen Hit
hit, hit
Shut shut, shut
Come came, come Hold hold, hold Sleep slept, slept
Cost cost, cost Keep kept, kept Speak spoke, spoken
Cut cut, cut Lay laid, laid Spend spent, spent
Do did, done Lead led, led Stand stood, stood
Draw drew, drawn Leave left, left Take took, taken
Drive drove, driven Let
let, let Teach taught, taught
Drink
drank, drunk Lie lie, lie Tell
told, told
Eat ate, eaten Lose lost, lost Throw threw, thrown
Fall
fell, fallen Make made, made understood,
Understand understood
Feel
felt, felt
Meet met, met Wake woke, woken
Find found, found Pay paid, paid Wear wore, woren
Forget forgot, forgotten Put put, put Write wrote, written
29
IN CLASS: Narration exercise
4. You’ll re-tell one of the stories from the videos to a partner.
Team A will tell the story of Chris Hadfield’s spacewalk, of the problem he encountered, and of how it was solved.
→ First brainstorm together as a team to remember the details and make a few notes.
→ When you’re ready you will be paired with a student from team B to tell them the story.
Team B will tell the story of the space shuttle Columbia, of the problem it had, and why it couldn’t be solved.
→ First brainstorm together as a team to remember the details and make a few notes.
→ When you’re ready you will be paired with a student from team A to tell them the story.
Remember to use the narrative tenses: Past Simple or Past Continuous, and Past Perfect for background information
before the past. See the tenses recap on the next pages.
Your notes:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
30
RECAP: PAST AND PERFECT TENSES
Past Simple:
used to talk about past actions that are completely over.
e.g.: Fred played football yesterday.
Regularity in the past:

There are three forms for talking about things that happened regularly or frequently in the past.
1. the past simple (but other forms usually work better - see below)
e.g.: When Fred was a boy, he played football on the local team.
2. "Used to"
e.g.: When Fred was a boy, he used to play football all the time.
(here you are stressing the frequency/regularity of it)
3. "Would" - or the contracted form "'d"(I'd, she'd, they'd etc.)

e.g.: Stalin would just stand there and not say anything (he did it regularly).
Note: This form is to be distinguished from "would" in conditionals:
Past Continuous:
This tense is not used in the same way as the imparfait in French. Its basic use is to provide the background (a longer
period of time) against which an event of a (much) shorter period of time is set.
e.g.: While she was swimming, she saw a shark.
The murder suspect was watching television at 8 o'clock.
So, it is essential to see that

Quand elle était en vacances, elle nageait tous les jours.
translates When she was on holidays, she swam / used to swim / would swim every day.
but not* When she was on holidays, she was swimming every day(wrong
Present Perfect Simple – Present Perfect Continuous
The main thing about the Present Perfect is that is it has something to say about the present, and in French is
frequently translated by the présent. The Present Perfect basically says "I have some news for you, something that will
interest you or be relevant to you", unlike the Past Tense which simply talks about events in the past as history, what
happened then. Look carefully at these examples.
Present Perfect Simple
1. used to talk about something that started in the past and continues up to the present
e.g.: I've worked here for seven years.
(I started 7 years ago and I still work here; in French, this is je travaille ...)
2. used to talk about a past action that is still valid now
e.g.: I've never been to India.
3. used to talk about a past action with a result now
e.g.: I've broken my arm.
4. used to tell people about news (frequently with the word just)
e.g.: A plane has (just) crashed while coming in to land in Brussels.
(In French, un avion vient de s'écraser ...)
31
Present Perfect Continuous
1. used to talk about something that started in the past and has been in progress up to the present
e.g.: She has been waiting for an hour.
2. used to talk about something that started in the past, that finished in the recent past, but the action has
results in the present
e.g.: It's been snowing.
• The difference between the Present Perfect Simple and the Present Perfect Continuous often means the action
is still going on, versus the result of the action:
e.g.: I've been cleaning my car. (the process is continuing) vs.
I've cleaned my car. (the result: look, a clean car!)
• Sometimes there is hardly any difference between the Continuous and the Simple:
e.g.: I've been living in this flat for 10 years. (continuous)
I've lived in this flat for 10 years. (simple)
Note: a) "for" (duration of a period: for two years) – "since" (beginning of a period: since 2006)
b) "gone" (still away: "She has gone to NZ.") – "been" (back now: "She has been to NZ.")
Present Perfect versus Simple Past
The Present Perfect has something to say about the present (something continues to the present, has an effect in
the present, is "news" or relevant to the present), whereas the Past Tense only has reference to the past (it is
history, it is not "news", is not what is relevant to us now). Look carefully at these pairs of examples:
1. I've lived in Brussels for 5 years. (I still live there now, or I can tell you about Brussels now because I’ve lived
there in the past.)
2. I lived in Brussels for 5 years. (I don’t live there anymore and no-one has asked me about Brussels or what it
is like.)
3. Napoleon had a big effect on Europe. (When he was alive, his military campaigns influenced civil and political
life in Europe. Those are facts of history.)
4. Napoleon has had a big effect on Europe. (Even though Napoleon is dead, his influence continues in our
society, e.g. the Napoleonic Code, the fact that we use the Metric System.)
5. Where have you been all morning? (it's now, it's still morning, before midday)
6. Where were you all morning? (it's past, it's no longer morning, it's the afternoon)
Past Perfect Simple - Past Perfect Continuous
Past Perfect Simple:

• used to refer back to an earlier past than the past you're already talking about:
e.g.: We arrived at the cinema at 8:00, but the film had started at 7:30.
Simple Past Past Perfect Simple
Past Perfect Continuous:

• used to talk about something that had been in progress up to the past time we're talking about
e.g.: I had been walking for half an hour when it suddenly started to rain.
Past Perfect Continuous Simple Past
32
UNIT 8 – More Space Adventures
IN CLASS: Collaborative Writing
Work with your team to continue the short story on the next page through the following steps:
STEP 1:
- Write paragraph 3 together: Something else happens that explains why the captain was woken up.
- Include at least 3 of the words from the vocabulary box and cross them out when you’ve used them.
- Use the narrative tenses and check them off in the tenses box when you’ve used them.
- Choose a title for the story.
(20 min.)
STEP 2:
- Hand your story to another team

- Read another team’s 3rd paragraph, check it for language issues and correct if necessary.
(4 min.)
STEP 3:
- Write paragraph 4 to continue the other team’s story: There’s a new problem.
- Include at least 3 of the words that are still available in the vocabulary box and cross them out when you’ve
used them.
(15 min.)
STEP 4:
- Hand the story to another team.

- Read another team’s 4th paragraph, check it for language issues and correct if necessary.
(4 min.)
STEP 5:
- Write paragraph 5 to continue and finish the other team’s story: The resolution.
- Include at least 3 of the words that are still available in the vocabulary box and cross them out when you’ve
used them.
(15 min)
STEP 6 – after class:
- Finalize your last paragraph at home if necessary.

- Type out your group's story (the one you finished) and post it in the forum on Moodle "You are the Captain
of Your Spaceship " (in Unit 6). Only one person of your group needs to add the story to the forum, but make
sure you mention the names of all the members of your group at the bottom of the text.
- Read the other teams’ stories on Moodle and vote for your favorite story, using the comment section. The
vote is individual, not a team vote.
- All contributors to the most voted story get a prize in class.
33
sensor setback shape onion gaping to soar
to go haywire to kick in accuracy bias to astonish bathrobe
to dwindle weight to fuel to chuckle bug outdated
to catch right on cue threat buffer What the heck…
whimsical spectrum gaze to purr pattern to dial it/sthg down
to withhold blaring chunk to crawl to dock fleet
foam footage loose payload outer gizmo
Background information – before the past – Past Perfect
Narration - consecutive actions - Past Simple
Action in progress in the past / background action – Past Continuous
Title: __________________________________________________________________
§1 It was day 979 of the voyage to Trappist-1e – the planet that held all hope for the 12,857 human passengers of
the Ark 1. The data brought back by the many probes over the last decades before Ark 1's launch had all indicated
that Trappist-1e's atmosphere and gravity was close enough to that of the earth for humans to adapt without too
many difficulties. Thanks to the new Tesal-Drives, it would take a little over three years for the vessel to reach
Trappist-1e's orbit, with the passengers and the crew plunged in cryosleep until then.
§2 At least, that had been the plan. Standing in the navigation station, the captain was looking at the data feeds
provided by Stephen, the ship's AI. She frowned, her head still aching from side-effects of the emergency awakening
from cryo-sleep. But it wasn't the headache that worried her, it was the data: nothing seemed out of the ordinary:
the ship was still on course, crew and passengers were still asleep, their vitals were normal, maintenance robots
were going about their business as usual, and the oxygen supplies were even higher than expected. So why had
Stephen woken her up exactly one hundred days ahead of schedule? And why only her? "Stephen, report – why
have you woken me up? Everything seems OK to me." "I merely followed Protocol 42, Captain," answered the AI in
that metallic voice that had been imposed on all AI to differentiate them from humans. "What Protocol 42? There is
no Protocol 42, Stephen, and I should know, I wrote the fricking manual!" "I am afraid I can't help you there, Captain,
Protocol 42 has been activated, and it dictates that I have to wake you up, and only you."
§3
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
34
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
§4
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
35
§5
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
36
UNIT 9 – Genetic Engineering
To prepare AT HOME: What if you could change your DNA?
1. Think of two physical or character features of yours that you would change if you could change your DNA
today. (2nd conditional)
Ex: If I could change my DNA, I would be taller/ I would have better memory / I would be more athletic.
- I would be better at mathematics

__________________________________________________________________________
- I would correct my motricity
__________________________________________________________________________
2. Think of two instances in your life where you would have acted differently if you had been able to see
into the future. (3rd conditional)
Ex: If I had known what my hair would look like with this color, I would not have dyed it blue.
- I would have spent more time with my grandfather

__________________________________________________________________________
- I wouldn't have sold my old comic books because I miss them a lot now
__________________________________________________________________________
To prepare AT HOME: Prenatal Genome Sequencing – Pro or Con?
3. While reading the text (Moodle or further below) highlight or write down all facts and arguments that
support the position (in favor or against prenatal genome sequencing) you have been assigned by your
teacher.
Pro
Your position: ___________
It can help a lot of future children to be born and live in more human conditions. A comfortable
life should be a right.
IN CLASS: What if you could change your DNA? – Pair discussions
4. Discuss 1 and 2 above with a partner.
5. Now take a good look at your partner. Choose two of their positive attributes or experiences that you
can observe or that you know about and compare it with your own. Then tell them that you’d like to be
like them in this regard. Take a minute to think it over, then discuss it with them.
! Use the conditional and the comparative!
Ex: You seem like a very cheerful person, much more cheerful than me. If I could change my character I would be as
cheerful as you.
- Attribute 1:
- Attribute 2:
37
IN CLASS: Prenatal Genome Sequencing – Pro or Con?
6. You will participate in a debate about prenatal genome sequencing. Follow below steps:
STEP 1:
With your partner(s) brainstorm what you know about prenatal genetic testing from the text you read before class.
(See next page for full text.)
 What are the main advantages of genetic testing as it is done today? Write down keywords:
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
 What are the main problems of genetic testing as it is done today? Write down keywords:
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
STEP 2:
You were assigned a position: in favor or against prenatal genome sequencing.

With your partner(s) review your arguments and prepare an opening statement:
The cost, the depression, the discriminations (money), risk of disease and evolution,
__________________________________________________________________________
Sequels, activation of bad genes, is it really useful ?, where do we stop (will we create
__________________________________________________________________________
bat children), will we still reproduce ? Will there still be humans ? Human rights.
__________________________________________________________________________
Is there a risk of breaking the balances in society (women-men ratio, etc.)
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
STEP 3: The Debate
You will debate with another group that has the opposite position. Which team will be more convincing?
a) Opening statements 2 min. per team
b) Rebuttals/counterarguments 15 min. total
c) Closing statements 2 min. per team
38
Text
How Much Prenatal Genetic Information Do You Actually Want?
Now that dozens of tests are on the market, patients can scan their unborn children for less serious diseases too. But
what will we, as a society, do with that information?
1. Availability of prenatal genetic screening
Most nights, talk around Kristin Hamann's dinner table eventually turns to genetics. Her husband, Rodrigo Martinez,
works for George Church's whole genome sequencing company outside of Boston, so that's hardly a surprise. When
their 4-month-old daughter Julia started getting a rash on her face recently, Hamann wondered if maybe something
in her own diet was triggering it. That's when her husband, who had recently had all 6 billion base pairs in his
genome sequenced, told her that he had a genetic variation that made him sensitive to gluten. Hamann stopped
eating wheat and her daughter's rash seemed to clear up. "For a first-time parent I'm fretting all the time and it
would be so helpful to know these little things instead of just guessing," she says.
But back when Julia was still just a 10-week-old fetus inside her womb, Hamann wasn't so keen on having a giant
mountain of information . Not that prenatal whole-genome sequencing is commercially available yet (though it's
definitely coming). But what is available is something called noninvasive prenatal genetic screening (NIPT). Based
on a blood sample from mom , they have been used for several years to tell expectant parents if their baby might
have, say, a chromosomal abnormality. Then the parents might make the choice to terminate the pregnancy-or to
prepare for a child with disabilities. Makers of those tests, though, are already pushing the technology beyond its
recommended uses to flag a rapidly expanding list of the unborn's potential genetic flaws. But these bigger and
bigger menus of genetic testing also come with less and less information about how predictive the data they reveal
actually is. And as these types of tests become routine, women like Hamann have to figure out what they want to
know, and what they'll do with the information they receive.
Here's an example of some of their options, from a New York-based company called Sema4, which launched its NIPT
line in August of last year. There's a standard screen that tells you about three disorders that result from having
three copies of chromosomes 21, 18, or 13-Down syndrome, Edwards syndrome, and Patau syndrome. The next step
up is a screen that also detects any missing or extra Xs and Ys, associated with common intersex conditions . These
are not usually life-threatening, and in fact many people don't know they have one until they hit puberty; the main
features include infertility, altered sexual development, and, in some cases, intellectual disabilities. Some can be
treated with hormone therapies during childhood. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists doesn't
think NIPT screens should be used for anything beyond these conditions (though it is currently reviewing that
position). But Sema4 also offers a test that looks for trisomies in chromosomes 15, 16, and 22. And finally there's the
Expanded package-Sema4's most frequently ordered test. It also detects microdeletions-chunks of missing DNA-that
cause rare but serious developmental disorders like Prader-Willi and Cri-du-chat syndromes. Symptoms for some of
39
these microdeletions vary widely, from potentially fatal to quite mild. A few are commonly associated with attention
deficit disorders and certain forms of autism.
Sema4 is not alone in offering screens for microdeletions, which, while relatively rare, show up equally in
pregnancies for women of all ages. Leading sellers of NIPT screens, Natera and Sequenom, both introduced similar
products back in 2014. Sequenom's latest version of the test also goes one step further, picking up any large missing
or extra chunks of DNA, even if those sections are not known to be associated with any medical problems. In 2017,
Natera launched a new test that reports on 30 rare, single-gene disorders, marketed to "women who want to know
'everything.'" Hamann and her husband didn't opt for any of these; they were only interested in a potential Down
syndrome diagnosis, so went with the standard NIPT trisomy screen. "I was really pretty choosy about only taking a
test that would give us the information we needed to know at the time, to help us prepare for the baby's arrival,"
she says.
Because NIPT screens can be performed earlier than other kinds of prenatal genetic tests-as soon as 9 weeks into a
pregnancy-it gives women and their partners more of a head start for coping with the implications of any
abnormalities that might turn up. But those decisions get more complicated as NIPTs start being used to identify
genetic conditions that are not as severe as, say, Trisomy 13. (Survival rates for those babies are very, very low.)
Many people want as much information about their babies as they can possibly get, but what do you do if you
discover your kid might have not a major chromosomal defect but a more minor one? Few people know as much
about genetics as Hamann to know that more information doesn't come with more wisdom about how to wield it. As
companies amass these valuable stockpiles of prenatal DNA, should there be limits to how much data they can
report back to prospective parents? And what about people without the means to join in the genetic data sprint to
the womb? Noninvasive prenatal testing was supposed to make the modern pregnancy easier, safer, and
less anxiety-ridden. But what if all it did was move the age of information overload in utero?
Before 2011, the only way to learn anything about an unborn child's DNA was to stick a three-inch needle into the
uterus and retrieve fetal cells from the placenta or amniotic fluid, procedures that carry a small risk of miscarriage.
But then scientists discovered that a fetus sheds small fragments of DNA through the placenta and into the
mother's bloodstream. And they figured out how to collect and interpret those bits of fetal genetic material floating
in just two 10-milliliter tubes of the mother's blood.
While considered only reliable enough to function as a screening tool (a definitive diagnosis still requires the big
needle), this noninvasive prenatal screening method has exploded through the medical community since its
introduction in 2011. When WIRED wrote about NIPT about a year after the first test hit the market, four companies
offered the service. Today there are more than 40, and global revenues for the industry are expected to exceed $2.5
billion by 2025 . Earlier this month, at an international meeting of reproductive scientists in Paris, the inventor of
NIPT, Dennis Lo, told the audience that 6 million women from 90 countries have so far been screened. Some experts
say it is the most rapidly adopted test ever. "It's moving faster than maybe anything before it in medical history,"
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says Glenn Palomaki, a researcher of preventive medicine and medical screening at Women and Infant's Hospital of
Rhode Island.
2. Ethical implications of prenatal genetic screening
But the rise of NIPT has been both incendiary and chaotic, in part because there's so much money to be made, and in
part because the technology innovations that make the increasingly sophisticated tests possible have far outpaced
the research community's ability to assess both their clinical utility and their impacts on society.
"If you look historically at prenatal genetic testing, there's a very clear ratcheting effect," says Ben Berkman, a
bioethicist who studies NIPT at the National Human Genome Research Institute. In the US, no single legal authority
dictates requirements or limitations on prenatal genetic testing. Professional societies of genetic counselors, medical
geneticists, and ob-gyns provide guidelines for what should or shouldn't be included in the screens and who should
be eligible to take them. But, says Berkman, no matter what those groups actually recommend, there's always some
Saisissez du texte ici
company offering a little more, marketing to families who want to be just "extra secure." And, as his own research
shows, wherever the upper limit of information is, most people want that.
In a study published earlier this month, Berkman surveyed more than 500 women who were eight or more weeks
pregnant, and asked them to envision undergoing prenatal whole genome sequencing-what they would want to
know if they could read their unborn child's entire genetic sequence, not just look for evidence of a few conditions.
(Such technology isn't available commercially yet, but it has been done in the laboratory and the National Institutes
of Health is currently assessing its clinical utility.)
Then the women selected their level of interest in receiving results from eight different categories, ranging
from recreational traits (eye color, height, athletic ability) to fatal conditions resulting in death shortly after birth.
The majority of women opted to have information from every category. "The assumption has been that people are
more likely to want information that's actionable," says Berkman. That's why the recommendations for NIPT
currently limit tests to just a small number of serious disorders. But Berkman's study showed that women were just
as likely to want to know about their child's genetic risk of autism, or common, treatable adult conditions like breast
cancer or heart disease.
Even more surprising was what women intended to do with that information. In every category at least some
respondents said the primary reason they wanted the data was to make a decision about potentially terminating the
pregnancy. While that has been the underlying purpose of prenatal genetic testing since the beginning, the results-
while hypothetical-indicate a shifting set of criteria for what might inform such a serious decision.
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And with that comes profound ethical implications. "Everyone thinks they're going to have a perfect baby but if you
test any genome you're going to find a large number of things that each confer a little bit of risk," says Berkman. On
average, each individual carries several hundred potentially harmful genetic variants , and for the vast majority of
those variants, it's unknown exactly how severely they impact human health. "My worry is that people will panic and
make these reproductive decisions that maybe aren't in line with their values based on information that's not quite
ready for prime time."
More research is needed to investigate how the availability of new kinds of genetic information will influence
people's choices, to understand to what degree societies might slip into a eugenics mindset. Another recent
survey of 1,000 Australian women found that only one respondent would consider terminating a pregnancy based
on non-medical traits such as intelligence, and 80 percent specifically indicated that they would "definitely not" do
so. But the majority of women were interested in using NIPT for autism and 16 percent said they would consider
terminating a pregnancy if they got a result that indicated their child would have a low-functioning autism. The only
conditions that garnered more support for termination were the three major trisomies.
3. Detection versus prediction
Autism spectrum disorders are still poorly understood, particularly to what extent they are defined by one's genes .
And so no one is explicitly testing for them in prenatal screens at the present time. But some of the newer NIPT
products do scan for a micro deletion-a missing chunk of DNA-on chromosome 22 that occurs in one in every 2,000
babies born. Approximately a third of children with the deletion will develop normally (or at most suffer a
mild delay in speech)-the majority will have heart defects and more severe learning disabilities. People with the
deletion are also at a higher risk for developing schizophrenia or bipolar disorder in adulthood , and 10 to 40 times
more likely to have an autism spectrum disorder. Though these individuals represent only a small proportion
of overall autism cases, as genetic links continue to crystalize, future tests will likely detect larger and larger numbers
of people on the spectrum.
Today's microdeletion screens also rely on a newer method of analysing fetal DNA, and how it works in real-world
conditions is still not entirely clear. Data from large studies has been slow to appear, but
the sparse evidence available suggests that microdeletion screens are much less reliable than similar tests for Downs
syndrome. Marketing materials usually draw attention to a test's detection rates-how accurately it picks up a genetic
alteration. But the metric that matters most is actually something called the positive predictive value, or PPV, says
Palomaki. That's the number that tells you if you get a positive result, how likely it is to be correct. By that measure,
NIPT tests for anything besides the three major trisomies simply don't measure up. "Maybe only half the time they'll
be correct," says Palomaki. In 2016, when researchers appraised the first six months of performance for
commercially available NIPT screens that pick up the chromosome 22 microdeletion, they found the tests correctly
identified the genetic defect only 40 to 44 percent of the time in the general population.
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For that reason, Palomaki doesn't believe that more is always better when it comes to prenatal genetic screens.
"Once you get the information you can't take it back," he says. Rather than vying to provide more information of
more dubious quality, Palomaki wishes NIPT companies would instead compete on providing the information that
really matters to as many people as possible. "It'd be better to have a test that everyone can have for all the basic
trisomies than adding additional disorders that are uncommon or less severe and raise the price of testing such that
70% of the population can't afford it."
While insurance coverage in the US is expanding for NIPT screens, to include all high-risk and most regular
pregnancies (the risk of trisomies goes up after age 35), it's still not available for everyone-the tests run $800 to
$3,000 each for patients who pay out of pocket. At those prices, some of the 40-plus companies making NIPT screens
are just trying to grab a piece of a lucrative 130-million-births-per-year global marketplace. But all those
reproductive testing products are also a means of amassing valuable genetic data troves, a resource pharmaceutical
companies are increasingly interested in signing lucrative deals to mine .
4. Collecting data
For Sema4, reproductive genetic tests are the foundation of an even more grandiose undertaking-collecting a
universe of biodata so big and so powerful that it will blot out the one-size-fits-all model of care that has for so long
dictated how doctors treat their patients. Sema4 was founded in 2017 by Eric Schadt, dean for precision medicine at
the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York and a well-documented big dataphile . Like Craig
Venter and Patrick Soon-Shiong before him, he hopes to remake the US health care system in the image of
personalized medicine. But where they tried (and failed) to reach exabyte scale by selling rich folks super expensive,
super data-rich health screening services, Schadt is betting he can get there by relying on average people just trying
to have healthy babies to be Sema4's "growth hack engine."
"Pregnancy provides for a really sticky patient," says Schadt. Sema4 offers tests for women at each step of
that journey-carrier screens that assesses up to 283 genes in each parent associated with diseases that range from
mild to severe, four varieties of NIPT, and cheek-swab tests for after the baby is born. "All those provide for natural
ways of creating more engagement with a patient," says Schadt.
When a woman takes any of Sema4's tests she is walked through a multistep consent process that make it clear how
the company would like to use the genetic information from both her and her unborn child for research and provides
opportunities for opting out. In return, Sema4 says it will provide her with more personalized recommendations for
accessing care tailored just to her. "You can think of it like the Amazon model " says Schadt. " If we understand you
better than the health system, we're going to help match you with better tests and medical products."
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The consenting process is much more involved than a few simple click-throughs, but by being transparent about how
Sema4 plans to use their data, Schadt says more patients are willing to share it. In addition to consenting to have
their deidentified genetic information used for research, 50 percent of Sema4 customers also authorize the company
to retrieve every piece of medical information on them from every health care system they've been a part of. That
includes electronic health records, medical imaging, lab reports, prescriptions.
Combined with similar data from a research partnership with Mount Sinai and information scraped from public
biomedical repositories, Schadt says Sema4's database today exceeds 10 million patients. Hundreds of thousands of
them are women who've had babies, a patient population that has not been historically well-studied (pregnant
women are still excluded from clinical trials, for example). Now Schadt is using Sema4's data to try to understand
and predict what makes some women more susceptible to some of the dangerous conditions that can unexpectedly
co-occur with pregnancy, including preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, and preterm birth . Mount Sinai is embarking
on a prospective clinical study to see if Sema4's models can accurately identify women who will develop such
conditions and improve both mom and baby's chances of staying healthy through the pregnancy.
In the meantime, Schadt will keep collecting as much data as women will give his company. Sema4 is currently
changing the methods on all their reproductive testing products to an increasingly common so-called low-pass whole
genome sequencing approach, which will create a very rough sketch of the fetus's genome, including which genes
came from which parents. They'll only report back to parents on the disorders covered in whichever test they order.
But all the data will feed back into Sema4's genetic research bank. Data from patients who've consented to sharing
for research purposes can be accessed by Sema4's industry partners, including pharmaceutical companies, for a fee;
academics can collaborate free of charge.
Does Schadt worry that his competitors will start offering screens for less and less serious diseases,
potentially siphoning off this valuable datastream? "Yeah. If I could generate every molecule of data on everybody
on Earth I'd do it." But he's not yet ready to start selling frivolous genetic forecasts just to elbow out adversaries. He
says for now Sema4 is sticking to only reporting on genetic diseases that parents can do something about-whether
that's early treatment or termination of a pregnancy.
Still, he's got an eye on what else is out there, including companies developing genetic screening tests for
intelligence and inherited forms of deafness , and IVF clinics where couples can choose which sex they want their
baby to be. "People are already making selections on embryos and pregnancies far outside the deleterious stuff,"
says Schadt. "That experiment's going and we're waiting to see how societies will respond. And then as attitudes
change and studies get done on whether this information reduces health burdens or just makes people more
anxious, then we'll expand. But not before then." A prenatal test available today might not tell you what your baby
will look like or how likely they are to develop cancer or baldness as an adult, but data from that scan will almost
certainly power tests that someday will.
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IN CLASS: Brave New World
7. Discuss with your partner: What would our society look like if all humans were genetically enhanced to be
the best possible version of themselves? Consider the following:
• health and healthcare
• the job market
• sports and competitions
! Use the Conditional, especially Conditional 2 (see recap below)
RECAP: CONDITIONALS
0. General, or laws of science:

If you heat water to 100°C, it boils.
If + simple present, simple present
1. Open present or future:

If he asks me, I will help him
If + simple present, simple future
• More formal (or sometimes written) alternative:

Should he ask me, I will help him
• Alternative form with unless (= if not):

If he doesn't ask me, I won't help him
Unless he asks me, I won't help him
2. Unreal present or future:

If he asked me, I would help him
If + simple past, would + infinitive

Were he to ask me, I would help him
3. Unreal past:
If he had asked me, I would have helped him
If + past perfect simple, would have + past participle

Had he asked me, I would have helped him
45
UNIT 10 – Extending Human Potential
To prepare AT HOME: Victim of an Accident
1. Have you or someone you know been the victim of a spectacular accident? Try and remember the details
so you can tell a partner about it in class. Write down the verbs that you will use in the Passive and pay
attention to possible irregular verbs:
(Check the recap sheet on the Passive on the next pages if necessary.)
Example: I slid on a patch of ice and couldn’t control my skis anymore. At full speed I was flung over the side
of the slope into a ditch and lost consciousness. When I woke up I was being airlifted by a helicopter.
When I was eight (or nine, I'm not sure), my uncle, who had bought a very old car was
________________________________________________________________________________________
driving in the forest when the brake stopped functionning. He had to jump from the vehicle.
________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________
IN CLASS: From Amputee to Bionic Man

2. With your partner discuss what happened to the two men whose accidents were described in the text Is This
the Future of Robotic Legs? Use the Passive as much as possible.
a. Who are they?

i. Marine Cpl. William Gadsby:
ii. Dr. Hugh Herr:
b. What happened to them?
c. How did they end up with bionic prostheses?
IN CLASS: Are Athletes Really Getting Faster, Better, Stronger?
3. With your partner, discuss below questions and try to remember what you saw in the video on Moodle: Are
Athletes Really Getting Faster, Better, Stronger?
 Sports records are broken regularly. Is it only because athletes are better now, or are there other factors
accounting for the better performances?
 In the video, the speaker talked about three aspects of sports that changed over the years to produce better
athletes. Can you name them?
A. Changing _______________
B. Changing _______________
C. Changing _______________
46
4. You will watch two excerpts which were cut from the original video.
While you listen answer the questions below:
You might need this information to answer some of the questions:

- 1 mile = 1.60934 km = 1760 yard
- 1 yard = 0.9144 m
- 1 inch = 2.54 cm
- 1 pound = 0.453592 kg
Excerpt 1:
1) What cycling record is presented here?

a. The fastest mile
b. The longest distance in one hour
2) Using the conversion data above, what was the record set by Eddy Merckx in 1972?
a. 35.65 km
b. 49.43 km
c. 62.24 km
3) What happened in 1996?
4) What happened in 2000?
5) Comparing Eddy Merckx's performance with the best recent performance, we can say that
a. Eddy Merckx still holds the record with a lead of 883 feet
b. Eddy Merckx's records has been broken by 883 feet
Which corresponds to ________________meter.
6) Fill in:
Essentially, the entire ________________ in this record was _________ to ______________.
Excerpt 2:
7) Complete the figures:

Female gymnasts have shrunk on average from _____ ' _____ " to _____ ' _____ ", which corresponds
respectively to ______ meter and ______ meter.
8) Complete the sentence:

And while the large got _____________ and the small got _____________, the ____________ got
____________.
9) What changed in the average body type of

a. Waterpolo players:
b. Swimmers:
c. Runners:
10) What do Michael Phelps and Hicham El Guerrouj have in common?
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11) Fill in:
Now in some cases, the search for bodies that could ______________athletic performance ________________
ended up introducing into the competitive world populations of people that weren't previously competing _______
_______, like Kenyan distance runners. We think of Kenyans as being great marathoners. Kenyans think of the
Kalenjin tribe as being great marathoners. The Kalenjin ___________ ________ (=represent) just ____________
percent of the Kenyan population but the vast majority of ______________ runners. And they _________________,
on average, to have a certain unique physiology: legs that are very ________________ and very _______________
at their extremity, and this is because they have their ancestry at very low latitude in a very hot and dry climate, and
an evolutionary adaptation to that is limbs that are very _________________and very _________________ at the
extremity for ________________ purposes. It's the same reason that a radiator has long coils, to increase surface
area compared to volume to let heat out, and because the leg is like a pendulum, the __________________and
___________________it is at the extremity, the more energy-efficient it is to swing. To put Kalenjin running success
in perspective, consider that 17 American men in history have run faster than two hours and 10 minutes in the
marathon. That's a four-minute-and-58-second-per-mile pace. __________________ Kalenjin men did that last
October. (Laughter) That's from a source population the size of metropolitan Atlanta.
IN CLASS: Prepositions
5. Work alone and insert the appropriate preposition in the following sentences; be careful, one of the
sentences does not need any preposition!
about – across – against – as – at – behind – by – from – in – into – of – off – up – than
1) The winner of the Hawaii Iron Man crossed the finish line almost 15 minutes before the silver medallist. To
be precise, he won _________ 14 minutes and 30 seconds.
2) From a simple, recreational game, football has evolved _________ an international business with overpaid
superstars.
3) Basketball is a game where two teams compete _________ each other to score as many points as possible.
4) The bikes used for the hour record in cycling are roughly the same _________ the one used by Eddy Merckx
in 1972.
5) Elite swimmers now have much longer torsos _________ the average person.
6) Let's take a look _________ the performances of the past 15 years.
7) The slowest runner in the marathon finished a whole hour _________ the winner.
8) The cinders of the racing track of the 1936 Olympics stole far more energy _________ the runners than
modern racing tracks do.
9) They were thinking _________ a better solution but couldn't find one.
10) I can't think _________ a greater boxer than Muhammed Ali. In my opinion, he's the greatest.
11) They are exactly _________ the same size.
12) She was a promising athlete until she fell _________ (not "from") a ladder and hurt her leg.
13) In the NBA, one _________ 10 men is at least 7 feet tall.
14) She caught the ball and ran as fast as she could _________ the field (=to the other side)
15) If you go _________ this road, you'll get to the summit in no time.
48
RECAP: THE PASSIVE VOICE
Formation
Active:
Someone cleans this room every day.
Subject Verb Object
Passive:
This room is cleaned every day (by someone).
Subject Verb
to be conjugated + past participle of main verb
This room has been cleaned.

This room was cleaned.
This room will be cleaned.
This room is being cleaned.
This room will have been cleaned.
Rule: To form the passive, the Object becomes the Subject, the (unimportant) Subject disappears, and the Verb is
formed like this: the same tense of the verb to be as in the original sentence + the past participle of the main verb
Use
1. When we don't know who or what does something:
e.g.: My car was stolen last night.
2. When we are not interested in who or what does something, or in a scientific report:
e.g.: Sarah has been invited to the party.
Comparative analysis of ORF2 sequences has been used in previous studies.
3. When we don't want to say who or what does something:

e.g.: A mistake had been made. (vs. I had made a mistake.)
Verbs with two objects in the passive:

Active: Someone gave David the money.
Subject Verb Indirect Object Direct Object
There are two possible transformations into the passive, of which the first (starting with the person) is the most
common:
Passive: The Indirect Object becomes the Subject
David was given the money.
Subject verb Direct Object
The Direct Object becomes the Subject

The money was given to David.
Subject verb Indirect Object
49
Unit 11 - The Future of Transportation
To prepare AT HOME: Bullet Train
1. Find out more about the technical features of the bullet train. They are explained in more detail in the long
version of the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA4aaSzqT9s
Go to the part of the video that has been assigned to you by your teacher: listen and make sure that you
understand everything in detail. Make notes of key vocabulary so that you can explain everything to another
student in class. Practice explaining it before coming to class. Explain the experiment shown in the video and
how the final result works on the train.
Circle your team:
Team A: Wheel shape: 3’18’’ – 13’43’’

Team B: Cornering: 26’15’’ – 35’00’’
Team C: Earthquake warning system: 37’02’’ – 46’00’’
Your notes (only keywords):
Technical feature: ________________________________________________________________________________
Experiment – in the Simple Past and Past Continuous:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Result on the train - in the Simple Present:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
50
IN CLASS: Predicting the Future
2. Take a look at some of the predictions on the next pages that people of the past made for the 21st century.
 By yourself, read the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s predictions for 2019, made in 1983. Underline all
the verbs, and determine which tenses are used, or if there are any modal verbs. Compare with a partner.
 With a partner, discuss:

o Which of these predictions are more or less accurate?
o Which aren’t?
o Why?
o Pay attention to the tenses you’re using:
will-Future, going to-Future, Present Continuous, Present Perfect, etc.
 Then look at the drawings of the future made by French artists between 1899 and 1910.
With a partner, discuss:
o Which of them are more or less accurate?
o Which aren’t?
o Why?
o Pay attention to the tenses you’re using:
will-Future, going to-Future, Present Continuous, Present Perfect, etc.
 With your partner, come up with 3 predictions of your own, for 2050. Which tenses should you use?
1) _________________________________________________________________
2) _________________________________________________________________
3) _________________________________________________________________
51
52
53
RECAP: THE FUTURE
There are various ways of talking about the future. For all of these there are different forms.
1. Simple present: in timetables and fixed appointments (regular)
e.g.: The train leaves at 18.35. (it does this always)

The dean sees students between 14.00 and 16.00 on Thursdays. (every week)
2. Present Continuous: when you’ve made an arrangement (sthg you put on your calendar)
e.g.: I'm having lunch with Brian on Wednesday

I'm going on an Erasmus exchange next semester
(the arrangements have already been made; compare 3)
3. "going to": an intention or a decision you take
e.g.: I'm going to see my supervisor about a problem with my research.

(you decide to see her)
I'm going to go on an Erasmus exchange next year.
(I have decided I want to go, but it's not yet arranged)
4. "going to": to speak about an imminent future, an event that is certain to happen in the
near future
e.g.: Look, it's going to rain any minute now. (big black clouds are rolling in)
5. "will": the more distant future, one involving many uncertainties, a prediction
e.g.: (I think) it will snow tomorrow / next week.

(I am not certain, I'm making an educated guess)
6. "will": when we decide to do something on-the-spot; the meaning is "I am willing"

e.g.: I'm feeling pretty tired. I think I'll go to bed early tonight.
Can someone give me a hand moving this table? - OK, I'll help you.
54
UNIT 12 – Revisions
IN CLASS: Revision Video Paper Game
Level 1 – through the tunnels
Listen to the video to find out the following information:
Listening 1
What is the event in the video about?

__________________________________________________________
What do people say about the test that's shown in the video?
• ______________________________________________________
• ______________________________________________________
Listening 2: Fill in the blanks
It's not like he hasn't been _____________ sending rockets into space, trying to produce the Tesla Model 3, and
__________________ regulators. Well, in 2016, Musk_______________ the Boring Company to explore digging
tunnels as the answer to soul-destroying __________________ traffic. Some thought it was a joke, but _______
million dollars and two years later, Boring is ready for an over-the-top watch party and to let us go inside.
This test tunnel runs about 40 feet __________________ a mile of road alongside the _____________________ of
SpaceX, another Musk venture. At about 12 feet in diameter, the tunnel is just ________________ enough to fit in a
single car, which makes its way down to the tunnel ________________ an elevator. Batman would be jealous.
The car that goes through the tunnel is a ___________________ Tesla Model X. It's got these bumpers added to the
front that keep it aligned along the ________________ of the tunnel. Boring wouldn't let me film inside, but
provided this ______________________ of its own. Once a light at the front of the tunnel turned green, the car was
_________________. How does it feel in there? A lot more like riding a roller coaster _____________ I had
expected. The experience was ___________________. The car jostled with many bumps in the concrete along the
_________________ of the tunnel, even though our top speed reached just _______ miles per hour.
"I do warn you, it's going to be a _______________ bumpy ride. It's a little _____________ around the edges."
Once they ________________ out some of the bumps, Musk said cars could go through the tunnel at up to _______
miles per hour.
55
Level 2 – Stress Maze
Find the way through the mazes to get to the next level. You can only move up, down, left and right (no diagonals).
To move to a next zone, it must contain a word that has the same stress pattern. E.g.: "interesting" has the stress
pattern ⚫••, so from there, you could go to words such as "delicate" or "accurate"_____, which follow the same
stress pattern, but not to "important", which has the stress pattern •⚫•.
Maze 1: ⚫•
network result machine important varied
purpose bias consider unseen submit
unless software correct usable ensure
movement threshold entire detect imagine
image domain borrowed webcam system
platform something issue technique problem
Maze 2: •⚫•
biased camera digital labeling solution
algorithm artificial variety detection example
relative interact uncover interact classify
submitted prediction considered consistently technology
projected powerful challenging similar consistent
established robotic intelligence combination mysteriously
To level 3!
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Level 3 – THE SOUNDs OF ENGLISH
Don't become plant food! Draw a piranha plant on the pipes that sound different: the piranha plants are hidden in the
pipes above the words that have a different sound from the others in the line (see example) – there is one piranha
plant in each line!
clearly fear here there rear
Your turn now!
radar trait call taste ai
further cut luck done mug
dear leader even head real
through grew huge those blue
whole code open know down
source talked approach door called
57
Level 4 – "It's A me, Mario"
Put the verbs in the right Tense & Voice to complete the (abridged) history of Super
Mario Bros.
In Super Mario Bros., the player takes on the role of Mario, the protagonist of the
series. The objective is to race through the Mushroom Kingdom, survive the main
antagonist Bowser's forces, and save Princess Toadstool. The game is a side-scrolling
platformer; the player moves from the left side of the screen to the right side in order
to reach the flagpole at the end of each level.
Super Mario Bros., the successor to the 1983 arcade game Mario Bros., (to design)
____________________________ by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka and
largely (to program) ____________________________ by Toshihiko Nakago. It was
intended for the Famicom, a classic game console which had been released in 1983
in Japan.
Development was aimed at simplicity in order to have a new game available for the end-of-year shopping season.
Tezuka suggested the use of Mario after seeing the sales figures of Mario Bros., which (to sell – still)
____________________________ well at that time.
After releasing Mario Bros. two years earlier, the team had reflected that it (to be) ____________________________
an illogical gameplay decision for Mario to be hurt by stomping upon the walking turtles in the first game, so they
decided that any future Mario game would "definitely have it so that you could jump on turtles all you want." They
also wanted to come up with new features for the character. As they (to work) ____________________________ on
the character design, the team decided it would be fun to let Mario change his size via a power-up: the Super
Mushroom. The use of mushrooms to change size (to influence) ____________________________ by common
Japanese folktales in which people wander into forests and eat magical mushrooms; this also resulted in the game
world being named the "Mushroom Kingdom". The team (to choose) ____________________________ to name the
game "Super Mario Bros." after deciding to implement the Super Mushroom into the game.
During the third generation of video game consoles, tutorials on gameplay were rare. Instead, players learned how a
video game worked through being guided by level design. In an interview with Eurogamer, Miyamoto explained that
he (to create) ____________________________ "World 1-1" – the first level of the game – to contain everything a
player needs to "gradually and naturally understand what they're doing", so that they can quickly understand how the
game works. According to Miyamoto, once the player understands the mechanics of the game, the player will be able
to play more freely and it becomes "their game."
The release date was coming closer, and the team (to work)
____________________________ on Super Mario Bros. for months, when they
decided that they should introduce players with a simple, easy-to-defeat enemy
rather than beginning the game with Koopa Troopas. By this point, the project had
nearly run out of memory (Super Mario Bros. was developed for a 256-kilobit
cartridge), so the designers created the Goombas by making a single static image
and flipping it back and forth to save space while creating a convincing character
Goomba (left) & Koopa Troopa (right) animation.
As one of Nintendo's most popular games, Super Mario Bros. (to remake) ____________________________
numerous times since its first release, with every single major Nintendo console up to the Nintendo Switch sporting
its own remake of the game – with the exception of the Nintendo 64.
(heavily adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros. )
58
Level 5 – What if…?
Complete the following sentences – the funnier, the better (it may even get you a reward)!
1. If Super Mario had been a Belgian student instead of an Italian plumber,
____________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________.
2. If I had magical powers, _________________________________________________.
3. If _________________________________________________, the world would be a better place.
4. Unless ____________________________________________ , humankind will not travel to Mars.
5. If I could swap places with the English teacher, ___________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________.
59
LEVEL 6 – There seems to be something missing…
Put the missing sentences back into the text. There are two that don't fit.
???
a) Baikonur's location in the middle of the vast Kazakh Steppe presented another challenge.
b) Today, three versions of the Buran survive.
c) The only Buran used in space was destroyed after the roof fell in at its storage facility at
Baikonur.
d) Jonk and company arrived at the hangar at around 2 am, and found it unguarded.
e) For Jonk, a longtime aficionado of Soviet relics, the trip was a career highlight.
f) Baikonur was the first cosmodrome in the world and to this day it remains the largest.
g) Jonk is a veteran urban explorer, or "urbexer," who estimates he's photographed around 1,500 abandoned
places around the world.
The Quest to Get Photos of the USSR's First Space Shuttle
On November 15, 1988, the Soviet Union's first space shuttle, the Buran, blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome
in present-day Kazakhstan. The Buran (Russian for "blizzard") was intended as the future of the Soviet space
program. Instead, its first flight proved to be its last. A year later, the Berlin Wall came down, followed in subsequent
years by the dissolution of the USSR. The space shuttle program was suspended and then, in 1993, canceled by Boris
Yeltsin, the first post-Soviet Russian president.
(1)__________________________ One, a full-scale test model, is on display at the Baikonur Cosmodrome Museum.
The other two—including the shuttle that was scheduled to fly the second mission—are rotting away in an
abandoned hangar in another part of the sprawling Baikonur complex. The site has been targeted by international
adventurers seeking a glimpse at Soviet space history. Among them is French photographer Jonk, who managed to
sneak into the hangar in April 2018.
(2)______________________________ But few places were more difficult to access than the Buran hangar. For one
thing, Baikonur is still an active spaceport—the Russian space program uses it to launch its own and other countries'
astronauts into space.
(3)______________________________ To get there, Jonk and three friends flew to the nearby city of Kyzylorda and
took a four-hour bus ride to the small town of Toretam. From there, they found a local willing to drop them off on
the side of the highway at nightfall, around 20 kilometers (13 miles) from Baikonur. Using a GPS device programmed
with the hangar's coordinates, they hiked across the rocky steppe for seven hours, wearing headlamps to see their
way.
(4)______________________________ Climbing in through an unlocked window, they began looking for the shuttles
in the cavernous, pitch-dark building. "When I finally passed my flashlight over the shuttle, it was amazing," he
recalls. "To see it abandoned in the dark like that was something I'll never forget." Jonk and his three-man team
spent the next two days exploring and photographing the two shuttles. Despite the dismal storage conditions, they
found the shuttles to be in better condition than expected. "Of all the abandoned sites I've explored, this was by far
the most impressive," he says.
(5)______________________________ He hopes the surviving Burans will eventually be rescued from their current
neglect and accorded the proper respect. "It was unbelievable to me that the shuttles are still there, and that they're
so unguarded. They are what's left of the Soviet space program. They should be in a museum."
Vocabulary:
to sneak – snuck – snuck: to go in a quiet and secretive way to avoid being noticed
to rot: to undergo decomposition; to become unsound or weak
60
LEVEL 7 – Crosswords
Across Down
3. an engine (e.g. a jet engine) that creates a push by 1. no longer current, obsolete
expelling a jet of fluid or a stream of particles 2. to attribute something to some person
5. a finite sequence of well-defined, computer- 3. a book used as a standard source of
implementable instructions, typically to solve a class of information on a particular subject, can be
problems or to perform a computation (or what used to mean "classic"
programmers say when they do not want to say what they
4. to assert something as a fact, say that
did)
something is true
8. to grow vigorously, to flourish
6. a personal and sometimes unreasoned
9. a negative aspect judgment, prejudice
7. on a web page or a social network, the list of
automatic updates that show on your main
page, including status updates, photos,
videos, links, app activity and so on.
61
NOM :
Université catholique de Louvain PRÉNOM :

ILV - EPL 2019-2020
LANGL1272 NOMA :
Ch. Peters - M. Piwnik
Signature : BLEU
EXAMEN: 08/01/2020
Pour répondre, vous mettez une croix (X) dans la case correspondant à votre choix.
La case ne doit pas être complètement noircie sauf pour une correction.
Exemple :    
vide correction bonne réponse vide
Vous devez employer soit un stylo à bille à encre noire soit un porte-mine 0,7mm (HB#2).
Le stylo à plume, les crayons, le Tipp-Ex, etc ... sont formellement interdits.
Une bonne réponse vaut 1 point. Une mauvaise réponse vaut 0 point. L’examen dure 120 minutes.
Le questionnaire doit obligatoirement rester agrafé.
I. READING 1 : CHOOSE THE MOST APPROPRIATE SENTENCES.
a) A host of automatic tools now help programmers find bugs by checking their code or running
continuous tests
b) This means that to run them both uses more computing power than it would to just run the main
software
c) Suddenly, flight controllers found themselves working blind, unable to access key information on
the dozens of aircraft in the sky above them
d) Strike by air traffic controllers is set to effectively close down much of the airspace
e) Yet rather than eliminating accidents, we developed seat belts, bumpers and airbags
f) Some companies get round this by offering rewards to users who report bugs once software is
released
g) It illustrates the virtues of failure-oblivious computing with reference to the boing 777
h) For a growing number of researchers, it’s time to admit defeat
i) But there is another type of bug, known as the “heisenbug”
j) Software bugs have plagued us since we started to code
Want a computer that never crashes? Don't let bugs freak it out!
Software bugs cost billions to find and fix – some have even killed. But error-free code is almost impossible.
Perhaps it's time to roll with the glitches (= bugs).
The screens stopped working at 3.27 pm. [-----(1)-----]. Planes awaiting take-off were grounded and
inbound aircraft diverted to other countries. More than 100 flights were cancelled and tens of thousands of
passengers were affected. By taking the software out of the loop, and falling back on fail-safe procedures,
flight controllers skillfully avoided disaster. But this glitch in the computer system of the UK’s National Air
Traffic Services on 12 December 2014 could have been far worse.
[-----(2)-----]. They cost the global economy billions, and we spend billions more trying to get rid of them.
But they’re tenacious. It’s common for software to be released with at least some bugs – and more are
often discovered only once it is out in the wild. At best, these are a nuisance, causing an app to crash every
now and then. At worst, they cause serious security and safety risks, or lead companies to lose fortunes.
Some have even killed.
In just the past few years, for example, software errors have made Toyota, Land Rover and Ford recall
more than a million cars between them for safety reasons. They have crashed spacecraft, let online
shoppers buy thousands of dollars of goods for nothing, and even delayed the launch of the Apple watch.
LANGL1272 – EXAMEN 08.01.2020 BLEU 1

62
What to do? [-----(3)-----]. If we can’t beat bugs, we need to learn to live with them – switching from
damage prevention to damage limitation. Making computers more resilient to things going wrong could
mean an end to computer crashes altogether – buggy code or not. “The idea here is immortal software,”
says Martin Rinard at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
It’s not that there haven’t been advances. [-----(4)-----]. Yet finding them has become harder than ever.
As bug-hunting gets better, software gets more complex.
The UK Civil Aviation Authority highlighted the problem in its report on the air-traffic bug: “To test every
combination of workstation modes at 1 second per test would take of the order of 100 years, without
considering all the other parameters.” Most modern software involves multiple systems interacting, which
can lead to unpredictable outcomes and often makes it impossible to track down errors. What’s more,
looking for bugs can only ever confirm their presence, not their absence. In short, building large, bug-free
software systems may be beyond us.
All this means that companies may know that their software contains glitches, but it is too expensive and
time-consuming to attempt to find them. [-----(5)-----]. But increasingly, researchers are shifting their
attention away from removing bugs to simply removing their effects. A bug might lead to a software crash,
but it is often the crash itself that causes problems. To address this, Rinard has developed a technique
called failure-oblivious computing, which aims to avoid programs crashing at all costs.
When a computer program crashes, it has usually encountered an error that it doesn’t know how to handle.
In such situations, Rinard thinks the program should just do the easiest thing it can. This might not be the
correct solution and might even cause the software to do something wrong, but the result is often better
than a full-scale crash.
II. READING 2 : CHOOSE THE STATEMENT THAT BEST CORRESPONDS TO THE

MEANING OF THE TEXT.
The internet today
James Baxter reviews two books about the internet: Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection
by Ethan Zuckerman, and Untangling the Web by Aleks Krotoski.
Open a street map of any city and you see a diagram of all the possible routes one could take in traversing
or exploring it. Superimpose on the street map the actual traffic flows that are observed and you see quite
a different city: one of flows. The flows show how people actually travel in the city, as distinct from how
they could. This helps in thinking about the internet and digital technology generally. In itself, the
technology has vast possibilities, as several recent books emphasise, but what we actually wind up doing
with it is, at any point in time, largely unknown.
Ethan Zuckerman is excited by the possibilities the web provides for linking far-flung populations, for
sampling different ways of life, for making us all digital cosmopolitans. His central thesis, however, is that
while the internet does, in principle, enable everyone to become genuinely cosmopolitan, in practice it does
nothing of the kind. As the philosopher Anthony Appiah puts it, true cosmopolitanism ‘challenges us to
embrace what is rich, productive and creative’ about differences; in other words, to go beyond merely
being tolerant of those who are different. Much of the early part of Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the
Age of Connection, Zuckerman’s latest book, is taken up with demonstrating the extent to which the
internet, and our use of it, fails that test.
‘We shape our tools,’ said the philosopher Marshall McLuhan, ‘and afterwards they shape us.’ This adage is
corroborated every time most of us go online. We’ve built information tools - like search and social
networking systems - that embody our biases towards things that affect those who are closest to us. They
give us the information we think we want, but not necessarily the information we might need.
Despite all the connectivity, we are probably as ignorant about other societies as we were when television
and newspapers were our main information sources. Zuckerman – a true cosmopolitan who co-founded a
web service dedicated to realising the net’s capacity to enable anyone’s voice to be heard – provides an
instructive contrast to excessively optimistic narratives about the transformative power of networked
technology, and a powerful diagnosis of what’s wrong. Where he runs out of steam somewhat is in
contemplating possible solutions, of which he identifies three: ‘transparent translation’ – simply automated,
accurate translation between all languages; ‘bridge figures’ – bloggers who explain ideas from one culture
to another; and ‘engineered serendipity’ – basically, technology for enabling us to escape from filters that
limit search and networking systems. Eventually, the technology will deliver transparent translation; cloning
Ethan Zuckerman would provide a supply of bridge figures, but, for now, we will have to make do with pale
imitations. Engineering serendipity, however, is a tougher proposition.

63
Aleks Krotoski might be able to help. She is an academic and journalist who writes about and studies
technology and interactivity and is a keen observer of our information ecosystem. Although she’s a
glamorous media ‘star’ (having fronted a TV series about the internet), people underestimate Krotoski at
their peril. She’s a rare combination of academic, geek, reporter and essayist, which her chapter on the
concept of friendship online exemplifies: she’s read what the key social theorists say on the subject, but
she’s also alert to what she experiences as ‘emotional anaemia’ – ‘the sense that you might not feel the
online love from the people you should, because your nearest and dearest may be drowned out in the
ocean of sociability.’ Which, in a way, brings us back to Zuckerman’s thoughts about the difference between
what networked technology could do and what it actually does.
6. The metaphor of a city map, in the first paragraph, is used to illustrate

a) the difficulty in understanding the complexity of the internet.
b) the degree to which the internet changes as time passes.
c) the difference between potential and real internet use.
d) the importance of the internet in people’s lives today.
7. The test that is mentioned at the end of the second paragraph refers to
a) being tolerant of those who are different.
b) connecting in a substantial way with other cultures.
c) developing the internet in a way that makes it more rich, productive and creative.
d) demonstrating that everyone in the world is the same.
8. What point is made about the internet in the third paragraph?

a) People often struggle to find the tools they are looking for on the internet.
b) Those who are closest to us give us the information we want.
c) Everybody has some responsibility for its evolution.
d) The way in which the internet works is far from neutral.
9. What do we learn in the fourth paragraph?

a) Zuckerman’s recommendations are less impressive than his analysis.
b) Ethan Zuckerman uses TV and newspapers to understand information.
c) Ethan Zuckerman is quite optimistic about the transformative power of networked technology.
d) Zuckerman’s account of important developments is too negative.
10. What does the reviewer suggest about Aleks Krotoski in the final paragraph?
a) She has been influenced by Ethan Zuckerman.
b) Her insight into the nature of online friendship is perceptive.
c) She takes on too many roles, which rarely works to anyone’s advantage.
d) People are often misled by her TV series about the internet.
III. VOCABULARY : CHOOSE THE MOST APPROPRIATE ANSWER.
11. The Filter Bubble Transparency Act (FBTA) aims to let people opt out of echo chambers. Large
companies would have to notify users if they’re delivering content — like search results or a news
............... — based on personal information that the user didn’t explicitly provide.
a) patch b) pane c) feed d) dock
12. Today’s logo at Google.com has been replaced with an animation representing animation itself — a
modern artist’s interpretation of the phenakistiscope, a spinning disc invented in 1833 that’s
considered one of the precursors to modern cinema. Like most Google Doodles, it’s to celebrate the
birthday of a person who moved the world forward, namely Belgian physicist Joseph Antoine
Ferdinand Plateau, who’s often ............... with inventing the device.
a) credited b) mitigated c) fostered d) hindered
13. Introduced in 2014, Cardboard was one of the first DIY VR kits, and helped kick off years of interest
in phone-based VR. Now, though, that trend is officially over, with ............... no way to buy Oculus’
Gear VR in the US, and Google discontinuing Daydream.
a) unlikely b) seemingly c) exceedingly d) smoothly
14. Gainward's use of the shiny-skinned 3D woman is a(n) ............... example of a graphics card box,
but this one is notable for the expression of the 3D model. Perhaps her face is like that because she's
been told she's appearing alongside the words "golden sample."
a) dummy b) unintended c) textbook d) delighted

64
15. Behind a thin white veil separating his makeshift lab from joggers at a Massachusetts Institute of
Technology indoor track, aerospace engineer Steven Barrett recently test-flew the first-ever airplane
powered with ionic wind ............... — electric engines that generate momentum by creating and
firing off charged particles.
a) shuttles b) thrusters c) vessels d) sensors
16. Given the task of finding a ............... in a random series of numbers, Google’s quantum computer
produced an answer in 3 minutes and 20 second. Researchers in quantum computing have estimated
that even the most powerful of supercomputers would take 10,000 years to complete the same task.
a) kernel b) syntax c) spectrum d) pattern
17. “We launched YouTube Gaming as a standalone app for gamers where we tested out new features
based on the gaming community’s feedback,” the page explains. “We want to continue to build a
stronger home for the gaming community that ............... on YouTube.”
a) thrives b) taps c) weighs d) kicks in
18. The spot on the lunar surface where NASA intentionally crashed its twin gravity-mapping moon
probes on Dec. 17 has been named after the late Sally Ride. Ride, the first American woman in space,
was a(n) ............... of science and math education, including outreach projects related to the latest
moon mission.
a) freshman b) advocate c) carrier d) predicate
19. Integrating your demo with your current website design, this coding will ............... your demo
directly into your web page and into your current design.
a) harness b) devise c) overload d) embed
20. Perhaps the most frustrating thing about the Apple Watch—as with most other smartwatches, to be
fair—was the difficulty of interacting with it. It came with an abundance of controls, from taps to
presses to swipes to twists of the digital crown, plus voice controls. But they all added up to a
maddeningly complex, and at times counterintuitive, experience, especially for a(n) ............... that
was supposed to be all about convenience.
a) gizmo b) mainstay c) setback d) sample
IV. PRONUNCIATION 1: FIND THE ODD ONE OUT. LOOK AT THE UNDERLINED
SOUNDS. CHOOSE THE ONE THAT’S PRONOUNCED DIFFERENTLY.
21. a) idea b) issue c) piracy d) myopic
22. a) now b) explosive c) grow d) role
23. a) couple b) done c) understand d) taught
24. a) through b) afterthought c) roughly d) right
25. a) radar b) matter c) statement d) taste
V. PRONUNCIATION 2: CHOOSE THE RIGHT STRESS PATTERN FOR THE

FOLLOWING WORDS.
Examples:
APple: • ∙
(2 syllables, the first syllable is stressed, the second syllable is unstressed)
DInosaur: • ∙ ∙
(3 syllables, the first syllable is stressed, the other syllables are unstressed)
26. accuracy
a) • ∙ ∙ ∙ b) ∙ ∙ • ∙ c) ∙ • ∙ ∙ d) ∙ ∙ ∙ •
27. variety
a) ∙ ∙ • ∙ b) • ∙ ∙ c) ∙ ∙ • d) ∙ • ∙
28. algorithms
a) ∙ ∙ • ∙ b) • ∙ ∙ ∙ c) ∙ • ∙ d) • ∙ ∙
29. unregulated
a) ∙ ∙ • ∙ ∙ b) • ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ c) ∙ • ∙ ∙ ∙ d) ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ •
30. artificial
a) • ∙ ∙ ∙ b) ∙ ∙ • ∙ c) ∙ • ∙ ∙ d) ∙ ∙ ∙ •

65
VI. LISTENING 1 : CHOOSE THE MOST APPROPRIATE STATEMENT. YOU WILL
HEAR THE EXTRACT TWICE.
31. Todd Kuiken says that arm amputations
a) affect people more on psychological than physical level.
b) affect people more on a physical than psychological level.
c) affect people equally on both a psychological as well as physical level.
d) affect people socially above all.
32. Body Powered prostheses have

a) evolved a lot over time.
b) become a lot more expensive.
c) become a lot more efficient.
d) remained largely the same over time.
33. Myoelectric prostheses work very well for

a) people who have no hand muscles.
b) people who have very strong hand muscles.
c) people who were born without hands.
d) people who’ve only recently lost a hand.
34. Supplying robotic limbs with neural signals is difficult because

a) it takes so much research to get the configuration exactly right.
b) it takes so many connections to supply all the impulses required.
c) the signals just aren’t strong enough.
d) the current technology just isn’t advanced enough.
35. Current research is using muscles to

a) increase the signal that the neurones send.
b) control the neural signals better.
c) extend the range of the neural signals.
d) control the missing limb better.
VII. LISTENING 2 : CHOOSE THE MOST APPROPRIATE STATEMENT. YOU WILL

36. This time, October 1st

a) was celebrated in a big way for Communist China’s 70th anniversary.
b) was celebrated with flash mobs and flags at malls.
c) was not celebrated at all because of the protests.
d) was celebrated with an event featuring the national anthem.
37. The people who gathered

a) were terrorized and beaten up by protesters.
b) all carried bright red Chinese flags.
c) got on a boat to stay away from potential protesters.
d) knew each other well from previous pro-China events.
38. The pro-China people

a) have only recently started supporting the mainland.
b) are well organized and trained singers.
c) mostly grew up in pro-China families in Hong Kong.
d) grew up with the anthem.
39. Daniel
a) is worried that Hongkong citizens will lose freedom of speech and uncensored access to the internet.
b) isn’t a very strong supporter of China.
c) did not want to come to the event, he was forced by his friends.
d) is not sure that Hongkong will really return to China in 28 years.
40. Daniel thinks

a) that the protesters are trying to bring law and order and real democracy to Hongkong.
b) that he could accept more Chinese people in Hongkong.
c) that he might leave Hongkong and live in China to escape the chaos.
d) that he would be ready to sacrifice his freedom in exchange for peace and order.

66
VIII. LISTENING 3 : COMPLETE THE SENTENCE WITH THE MOST APPROPRIATE
WORD. YOU WILL HEAR EACH SENTENCE TWICE.
41. a) software b) storage c) security d) open source

42. a) bearings b) propulsion c) track d) magnets
43. a) respondents b) amounts c) predictions d) technologies
44. a) lift-off b) wing c) hole d) heat
45. a) bias b) algorithms c) benefits d) lives
IX. LISTENING 4: WHAT FOLLOWS IS A TRANSCRIPT OF A VIDEO ON

COMPUTER MEMORY. COMPLETE THE BLANKS IN THE TRANSCRIPT WITH 1
WORD MAXIMUM. WRITE YOUR ANSWERS ON THE ANSWER SHEET (PAGE 8).
In many ways, our memories make us who we are, helping us remember our past, learn and retain skills,
and plan for the future. And for the computers that often act as extensions of (46) ................................,
memory plays much the same role, (47) ................................ it's a two-hour movie, a two-word text
file, or the instructions for opening either, everything in a computer's memory takes the form of basic units
called bits, or binary digits. Each of these is (48) ................................ in a memory cell that can switch
between two states for two possible values, 0 and 1. Files and programs consist of millions of these bits,
all processed in the central processing unit, or CPU, that acts as the computer's brain. And as the number
of bits needing to be processed (49) ................................ exponentially, computer designers face a
constant (50) ................................ between size, cost, and speed. Like us, computers have short-term
memory for (51) ................................ tasks, and long-term memory for more permanent (52)
................................ . When you run a program, your operating system (53) ................................
area (54) ................................ the short-term memory for performing those instructions. For example,
when you press a key in a word processor, the CPU will access one of these locations to (55)
................................ bits of data.
X. GRAMMAR 1 : CHOOSE THE MOST APPROPRIATE TENSE. WRITE YOUR

ANSWERS ON THE ANSWER SHEET (PAGE 8).
Since the 1990s, the internet [56. to grow] ........................................ steadily to the extent that our
whole life is now closely – or inextricably – interconnected with it. But in the 1980s, a decade before the
Internet went mainstream, French citizens [57. to interact] ........................................ via Minitel on a
daily basis. The Minitel was a computer network open to anyone with a telephone.
It was the late 1970s. France had to face the fact that its telephone network was one of the worst in the
industrialized world. The country's elite [58. to feel] ........................................ that the domination of
U.S. firms in telephone equipment, computers, databases, and information networks threatened their
national sovereignty. In 1983, on orders from the president, computer engineers within the Post, Telegraph
& Telephone (PTT) ministry [59. to begin] ........................................ to roll out throughout France a
telematics system that came to be known as Minitel. It allowed ordinary people to obtain and share
information online, launching the country into the digital age and leapfrogging the United States by more
than a decade. Back in 1983 it was like nothing anyone [60. to see] ........................................ before,
eventually growing to have more than 20,000 online services before the World Wide Web even got off the
ground. And it worked pretty well: Rail travelers [61. to buy] ........................................ tickets from
3615 SNCF while news junkies gathered at 3615 LEMONDE.
At the start, though, Minitel developers faced a chicken-and-egg problem. Why [62. anyone, to adopt]
........................................ the system if there weren't any interesting things to do with it? Somehow,
Minitel needed to attract both users and service providers at the same time.
To kick-start the process, the PTT ordered millions of Minitel terminals and made them available at no cost
to everyone in the country who had a telephone line. Minitel designers made the system fully plug and
play: All you had to do was plug the terminal into the wall, dial the local gateway, et voilà, you [63. to
transport] ........................................ into cyberspace.

67
Meanwhile, would-be cybernauts in the United States who wanted to get online [64. to buy + modal–
necessity/obligation] ........................................ expensive computer equipment, install confusing
software, pay hefty long-distance phone bills, and prepay a separate subscription to each service provider
they wanted to use.
Minitel's administrators also abided by an early form of net neutrality. The network did not favor one service
over any other or otherwise discriminate. Occasionally, a service would be barred for breaking the law (by
serving as a marketplace for prostitution, for example), but any such exclusion was subject to due process,
and the system's administration could be sued if it [65. to act] ........................................ arbitrarily.
These guarantees of fairness stood in stark contrast to the situation in the United States, where private
network operators could exclude content on a whim to serve their business interests.
Minitel use peaked in 1993, when users logged more than 90 million hours at their terminals enjoying
various Kiosk services. In the years to follow, usage declined as home computing and dial-up Internet
access spread. In 2012, after nearly 30 years of continuous operation, the Minitel era came to a close.
XI. GRAMMAR 2: ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS. WRITE YOUR

ANSWERS ON THE ANSWER SHEET (PAGE 8).
For questions 66-67, write the full sentences on the answer sheet.
For questions 68-69-70, only write the missing parts.
66. Ask the question for which the underlined part is the answer.
- How ................................................................................................................. ?
- It has taken me five days to code the app, and 3 more to debug it.
67. Ask the question for which the underlined part is the answer.
- .................................................................................................................?
- Lea came up with the solution.
68. Complete the sentence using the words in brackets to compare the two elements.
For someone who does not know anything about coding, it may seem harder than learning Chinese,
but coding is actually (not – difficult) ................................................................. you may think.
69. Complete the following sentence. You can answer what you want, as long as it is a full, grammatically
correct sentence – keep it civil, of course.
- I will be very pleased when ................................................................................................ .
70. Complete the following sentence.

Is it that late already? I'm sorry, but I have to go: I (to meet) .................................................
my best friend at 7pm – he's in town tonight, we haven't seen each other in 2 years and we planned
this weeks ago.

68
NOM :

ILV - EPL 2019-2020
LANGL1272 NOMA :
Signature : BLEU
EXAMEN: 08/01/2020
IX. LISTENING 4
46. ........................................... 51. ...........................................
47. ........................................... 52. ...........................................
48. ........................................... 53. ...........................................
49. ........................................... 54. ...........................................
50. ........................................... 55. ...........................................
X. GRAMMAR 1
56. ........................................... 61. ...........................................
57. ........................................... 62. ...........................................
58. ........................................... 63. ...........................................
59. ........................................... 64. ...........................................
60. ........................................... 65. ...........................................
XI. GRAMMAR 2
66. .......................................................................................................
67. .......................................................................................................
68. .......................................................................................................
69. .......................................................................................................
70. .......................................................................................................

69
NOM :

ILV - EPL 2019-2020
LANGL1272 NOMA :
Signature : BLEU
EXAMEN: 08/01/2020
READING 1: 1.C – 2.J – 3.H – 4.A – 5.F
READING 2: 6.C – 7.B – 8.D – 9.A – 10.B
VOCABULARY: 11.C – 12.A – 13.B – 14.C – 15.B – 16.D – 17.A – 18.B – 19.D – 20.A
PRON 1: 21.B – 22.A – 23.D – 24.C – 25.B
PRON 2: 26.A – 27.D – 28.B – 29.C – 30.B
LC I PASSAGES: 31.C – 32.D – 33.D – 34.B – 35.A
LC II PASSAGES: 36.D – 37.C – 38.A - 39.B – 40.D
LC III: S/E: 41.A – 42.C – 43.D – 44.B – 45.D
LC IV: BLKS:
46. ourselves 51. immediate
47. whether 52. storage
48. stored 53. allocates
49. grows 54. within
50. struggle 55. retrieve
GRAMMAR 1 :
56. has been growing / has grown 61. bought

57. were interacting / interacted 62. would anyone adopt
58. felt 63. were transported
59. were working 64. had to buy / needed to buy
60. had seen 65. acted
GRAMMAR 2 :
66. How long has it taken you to code the app? / Did it take you…
67. Who came up with the solution?
68. not as difficult as
69. student's answers, as long as it is a simple present
70. I am meeting

70
Université catholique de Louvain
LISTENING
ILV - EPL 2019-2020
LANGL1272
Ch. Peters - M. Piwnik COMPREHENSION
EXAMEN: 08/01/2020
VI. LISTENING 1 : CHOOSE THE MOST APPROPRIATE STATEMENT. YOU WILL

QUESTIONS 31 – 35
A Prosthetic Arm That Feels (0:00 – 5:32)
https://www.ted.com/talks/todd_kuiken_a_prosthetic_arm_that_feels?utm_source=sms&utm_
medium=social&utm_campaign=tedspread#t-266832
VII. LISTENING 2 : CHOOSE THE MOST APPROPRIATE STATEMENT. YOU WILL

QUESTIONS 36 – 40
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/686/umbrellas-up
STARTS at 54:40 (music playing, “Act Five, A Slow Boat to China. So what about all the people
living in Hong Kong who have no problem with China, who like China?”)
ENDS at 59:43 (“I will give up the freedom the way they do in China to stop this.”, music)
VIII. LISTENING 3 : COMPLETE THE SENTENCE WITH THE MOST APPROPRIATE WORD.
YOU WILL HEAR EACH SENTENCE TWICE.
41. In the late 70’s and early 80’s, manufacturers increasingly copyrighted their technologies,
withheld source code, and required licensed use of
42. In order to do away with friction, hyperloop was supposed to have little jets of air on the
bottom of each pod to make it hover above its
43. Reporters surveyed over 600 users of Computer Assisted Design (or CAD for short) to
probe their awareness and usage of several CAD
44. An investigation into the accident determined that the catastrophe was caused by a piece
of foam insulation that broke off the shuttle’s propellant tank and damaged the edge of its
45. At the new Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, which specializes
in research and education on the potential uses of machine learning, Dr. Li’s goal as co-
director is to find ways in which A.I. can enhance people’s

71
IX. LISTENING 4: WHAT FOLLOWS IS A TRANSCRIPT OF A VIDEO ON COMPUTER
MEMORY. COMPLETE THE BLANKS IN THE TRANSCRIPT WITH 1 WORD MAXIMUM.
WRITE YOUR ANSWERS ON THE ANSWER SHEET (PAGE 8).
QUESTIONS 46 – 55
HTTPS://WWW.TED.COM/TALKS/KANAWAT_SENANAN_HOW_COMPUTER_MEMORY_WORKS/TRANSCRIPT
#T-90976
0’00 -1’52’’
In many ways, our memories make us who we are, helping us remember our past, learn and
retain skills, and plan for the future. And for the computers that often act as extensions of (46)
ourselves, memory plays much the same role, (47) whether it's a two-hour movie, a two-
word text file, or the instructions for opening either, everything in a computer's memory takes
the form of basic units called bits, or binary digits. Each of these is (48) stored in a memory
cell that can switch between two states for two possible values, 0 and 1. Files and programs
consist of millions of these bits, all processed in the central processing unit, or CPU, that acts as
the computer's brain. And as the number of bits needing to be processed (49) grows
exponentially, computer designers face a constant (50) struggle between size, cost, and speed.
Like us, computers have short-term memory for (51) immediate tasks, and long-term memory
for more permanent (52) storage. When you run a program, your operating system (53)
allocates area (54) within the short-term memory for performing those instructions. For
example, when you press a key in a word processor, the CPU will access one of these locations
to (55) retrieve bits of data. It could also modify them, or create new ones. The time this takes
is known as the memory's latency. And because program instructions must be processed quickly
and continuously, all locations within the short-term memory can be accessed in any order,
hence the name random access memory. The most common type of RAM is dynamic RAM, or
DRAM.

72

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LANGL1272 - Anglais pour ingénieurs civils 2

LANGL1282 - Anglais pour informaticiens 2

Weekly planner ..………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 2

Course introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3

Unit 1: Language Learning and Computers ……………………………………………………………….. 5

Unit 2: Drones ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 7

Unit 3: AI and Machine Learning ………………………………………………………………………………. 10

Unit 4: Coding and Open Source ……………………………………………………………………………….. 15

Unit 5: Coding and Commenting Code ………………………………………………………………………. 22

Unit 6: Computer-Aided Design (CAD) ……………………………………………………………………. 26

Unit 7: Space Adventures …………………………………………………………………………………………. 28

Unit 8: More Space Adventures ………………………………………………………………………………. 28

Unit 9: Genetic Engineering ………………………………………………………………………………………. 37

Unit 10: Extending Human Potential …………………………………………………………………………. 46

Unit 11: The Future of Transportation ……………………………………………………………………… 50

Unit 12: Revisions ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 55

Exam Jan 2020 ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 62

S2 26/09 Resolution of schedule conflicts

S3 3/10 FSA_2 / FSA_4 / FSA_6 1+2

S4 10/10 FSA_1 / FSA_3 / FSA_5 1+2

S5 17/10 FSA_2 / FSA_4 / FSA_6 3+4

S6 24/10 FSA_1 / FSA_3 / FSA_5 3+4

S7 31/10 SMART FSA_2 / FSA_4 / FSA_6 5+6

S8 17/11 FSA_1 / FSA_3 / FSA_5 5+6

S9 14/11 FSA_2 / FSA_4 / FSA_6 7+8

S10 21/11 FSA_1 / FSA_3 / FSA_5 7+8

S11 28/11 FSA_2 / FSA_4 / FSA_6 9+10

S12 5/12 FSA_1 / FSA_3 / FSA_5 9+10

S13 12/12 FSA_2 / FSA_4 / FSA_6 11+12

S14 19/12 FSA_1 / FSA_3 / FSA_5 11+12

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. " & -# " " .# /0, 1

D ' $ ' E ! ' = A " E ! '

1. Discuss with your partner:

a. If you don’t know each other: introduce yourselves

b. Take a look at the screen. Discuss everything you see:

i. What website is this?

IN CLASS: How Computers Translate Human Language

2. Listening Comprehension - Video:

 Listen and answer the questions:

There are 2 different kinds of translation programs:

The program parses (analyses):

- Syntax (grammatical structures)

- Morphology (smallest meaningful units)

- Semantics (what those units mean)

database of books, articles, and documents that have already

Can be edited by anyone

Has translation for hundreds of languages

Has often multiple accent pronunciation (RP, GenAm, etc.)

Definitions are written with simple words

Always has records to help you know how to pronounce

Picking examples from real-life contexts

Gives a lot of examples of contexts for the word you're translating

IN CLASS: New Ways to Use Drones

a. Which historic site is shown in the video?

2. Match the words with their definitions / synonyms

2) precarious B) under or below

3) underneath C) to be likely to cause harm or damage to something or someone

4) virtually D) to make something stronger by supporting it

3. Discuss with your partner:

a. How are the drones used in this video?

IN CLASS: Wasp-Like Drones

Matt Simon, 10.24.2018