NOTE: Choose option A or B, and answer the questions from 1 to 4.

For question 5, you can

choose to write the composition that you like best, from either option A or option B.

OPTION B

COMPUTER IMPACT

In 1996, Garry Kasparov, the world’s number one chess player, played six chess games
against the computer Deep Blue. Kasparov won 4-2, but today, a computer would easily beat any
human at a game of chess.
Computers can do this because they are able to find the best move by calculating every
5 possible continuation in a way that no human brain could ever do. As a result, the computer
sometimes comes up with an astonishing move which even a chess grand master would never have
considered. As well as being an unexpected move, human players can ultimately learn from it.
Something similar may be happening in the music industry. To identify new talent, music
companies have traditionally relied on people with “golden ears”, who use their intuition and
1 experience to find tomorrow’s stars. But increasingly, music companies are starting to use
0 computerised analysis to do this job.
Using home computers, almost anybody can now make high-quality recordings and this
home-made music can be uploaded to sites like YouTube. Now it’s possible to find out how many
people have been listening to this new music, to analyse all this Internet data and to discover which
of these unknown singers is suddenly becoming “hot”.
1
5 Sometimes, the data points to an unknown artist that the human experts would never have
considered. “The other day, we were listening to this rap artist and, you know, she seemed pretty
awful,” comments one music business executive. “But at the same time, the numbers she was
getting were fantastic. And because of those statistics, we had to start taking her seriously … . And
then as we went on listening, we started to think, ‘Hey, actually she’s really good’ … .”
2 The reality is that nobody knows what humans were missing before we had computers –
0 and that applies to music as much as chess.

1) BRIEFLY ANSWER ONLY 4 OUT OF THE FOLLOWING 6

QUESTIONS WITH ONLY THE DATA REQUIRED (NOT A WHOLE
SENTENCE) (2 POINTS; 0.5 POINTS EACH).
1. In the phrase Computers can do this (line 4), the word “this” refers to
…
2. In the phrase who use their intuition and experience (line 9), the word
“their” refers to …
3. In the phrase had to start taking her seriously (line 19), the word “her”
refers to …
4. What advantage does a computer have over a human chess player?
5. What is meant by “golden ears”?
6. Do human experts and computer data always reach the same
conclusion?
2) ARE THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS TRUE OR FALSE? INDICATE
THE LINES THAT SUPPORT YOUR ANSWER (1 POINT).
1. When playing chess, computers produce new ideas that grand masters will
never understand.
2. The executive thought the rap artist should be taken seriously even though not
many people
were taking her seriously.

3) CHOOSE a OR b. ONLY ONE CHOICE IS CORRECT ACCORDING TO THE

TEXT (1 POINT).
a) The computer thinks in the same way as a grand master, but much quicker.
b) The computer can consider every possible move in the game.

4) VOCABULARY (2 POINTS).
4.1 Choose one of the options below and find one word in the text for its
definition (0.6 POINTS):
a) more and more
b) very popular and in demand
4.2 Find a synonym in the text for one of the two words below (0.6 POINTS):
a) surprising
b) unpredictable
4.3 For one of the following words from the text, give a synonym that fits the
meaning of the text (0.8 POINTS):
a) beat (line 2)
b) awful (line 17)

5) WRITE ABOUT THE FOLLOWING TOPIC USING BETWEEN 120-150

WORDS (4 POINTS).
Would you want to be interviewed for a job by a computer? Give reasons for
your answer.