Listening Comprehension Test for 10th Form Students Text

Pre-listening Activity: Make sure you know the following words

adjacent –суміжний, прилеглий, сусідній

Looking for a Sign (from The Economist, Nov. 2005)

The birth of a new language is such a rare event that scientists who want to watch it
happen generally have to make due with computer simulations. Bruno Galantucci, a cognitive
scientist at Yale University in America, has developed a human alternative, based on the
necessity is the mother of invention. He asks pair of strangers to play a computer game in which
they have to find one another in a virtual bungalow. This requires them to communicate but the
only way they can do so is by inventing a language. The game is revealing some of the secrets of
successful communication
The two players cannot see or hear each other, but they are seated at connected
computers. In the simplest version of the game, each player is located. in one of four rooms and
the players must find each other in one move each. These rooms are arranged in a square, and
each pair of adjacent rooms is connected by a doorway. On the floor of each room is an icon – a
circle, a hexagon, a flower – and, prior to the start of the game, the players have a short time to
explore their surroundings. (Sometimes, a player with good spatial awareness can move quickly
through all four rooms and understand the layout but others do not grasp it at this stage.)
The players know there is another player in another one of the rooms, and that they must
both end up in the same room, but they can only ever see the room they are in. To help them
guide each other to a rendezvous, they have a device on which they can draw or write symbols
that appear on the other’s screen. But a device works like a roll of paper that constantly scrolls
downward, preventing them from writing letters, numbers or any other commonly recognizable
symbols.
The first thing Dr. Galantucci discovered was how quickly reliable symbolic systems
emerged. Nine out of ten pairs solved the game in three hours, having agreed on a set of three or
four symbols.
The languages were also very different. Dr.Galantucci had expected that the pairs would
build their language on elements of the icons that that appear on the floors of the rooms. A few
did so, but they used different features of the icons – the numbers of vertices, say, or some linear
abstraction of its shape. Others adopted a numbering system for the rooms – such as one slanting
line for the first room and two for the second, moving clockwise or anticlockwise through the
four rooms.
Having observed winning pairs at play, Dr. Galantucci says that communication is
established as soon as one player decides to copy the symbols proposed by his co-player, rather
than impose his own. At that point the pair’s chances of finding each other jump. As soon as
there is imitation, he says, there is a common currency.
One strength of Dr. Galantucci’s experiment that does not exist in the real world,
however, is that he is able to interview his subjects afterwards. What is striking, he says, is that a
pair can be successful even if a symbol represents something quite different in the virtual world
to each player – as long as they agree on what they should do when confronted by it. In other
words, people only need to convey a small amount of information to communicate effectively,
and they can do so while holding fundamentally different ideas about how their language
describes the world.
Listening Comprehension for 10th Form Students Assignments

Task 1. Put (+) if the statement is true, and (-) if the statement is false.
1. The computer game is made is made for two players.
2. Each pair of adjacent rooms is connected by one doorway.
3. In the simplest version of the game, each player is located in one of seven rooms.
4. The players can always see all of the rooms on their computer screens.
5. The players are allowed to use a device, like a scroll, to communicate with each other.
6. The majority of players solved the game in two hours.
7. The languages the players developed were very different from each other.
8. Communication is effective only when both players do the same thing when faced by a
symbol.
9. In order for communication to be effective, both parties must understand their symbols
as representing exactly the same concept or idea.
10. This computer game is revealing some of the secrets of successful communication.

Task 2. Circle the right answer A, B, C, or D

11. Bruno Galantucci is a ---- scientist at Yale University in America.
A. rocket B. ecological C. nuclear D. cognitive
12. The experiment is based on the concept that ---- is the mother of invention.
A. work B. patience C. necessity D. procrastination
13. In the game, in how many moves the players must find each other?
A. one B. two C. three D. four
14. The rooms in the game are arranged in the shape of a ....
A. circle B. square C. rectangle D. pentagon
15. The phrase “spatial awareness” has to do with the ability to ...
A. recognizes the colour-patterns of rooms
B. recognizes the speed of objects in motion
C. recognizes the location of objects in relation to each other.
D. recognizes the pitch of various musical sounds.
16. The fact that scrolling device seen on the players’ screens is constantly moving prevents the
players from...
A. drawing pictures of themselves
B. writing funny jokes
C. communicating with Dr. Galantucci
D. writing any commonly recognizable symbol
17. How mane pairs managed to solve the game in only three hours?
A. nine out of nine
B. eight out of ten
C. nine out of ten
D. seven out of eight
18. The symbols created by the pairs included the use of slanting lines to represent the ...
A. number of the room
B. size of the room
C. geometrical shape of the room
D. density of the room
19. “as soon as there is imitation”, Dr. Galantucci says< “there is a common currency”. In this
quote, the word “currency” means...
A. money B. finance C. understanding D. winning
20. According to Dr. Galantucci’s experiment, what amount of information people need to
communicate in order to be effective?
A. small B. moderate C. large D. very large