Question:
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.A large number of inventions require years of arduous research and development before they are perfected. For instance, Thomas Edison had to make more than 1,000 attempts to invent the incandescent light bulb before he finally succeeded. History is replete with numerous other examples of people trying, yet failing to make inventions before they eventually succeeded. Yet some inventions have come about not through hard work but simply by accident.In most cases, when someone unintentionally invented something, the inventor was attempting to create something else. For example, in the 1930s, chemist Roy Plunkett was attempting to make a new substance that could be used to refract items. He mixed some chemicals together. Then, he put them into a pressurized container and cooled the mixture. By the time his experiment was complete, he had a new invention. It was not a new substance that could be used for refrigeration though. Instead, he had invented Teflon, which is today most commonly used to make nonstick pots and pans. similar, decades earlier, John Pemberton was a pharmacist in Atlanta, Georgia. He was attempting to create a tonic that people could use whenever they had headaches. While he was not successful in that endeavor, he managed to invent Coca-Cola, the world – famous carbonated soft drink. Scientists have also made crucial discoveries by accident when they were conducting experiments. In 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, an antibiotic, in this manner. He discovered some mold growing in a dish with some bacteria. He noticed that the bacteria seemed to be avoiding the mold. When he evaluated further, he determined some of the many useful properties of penicillin, which has saved millions of lives over the past few decades. Likewise, in 1946, scientist Percy Spencer was conducting an experiment with microwaves. He had a candy bar in his pocket, and he noticed that it suddenly melted. He evaluated and learned the reason why that had happened. Soon, he built a device that could utilize microwaves to heat food. the microwave oven.What does the author say about Teflon? A. It is used for kitchenware nowadays Correct Answer B. It was created many years before Coca-Cola C. The man who made it was a pharmacist D. People first used it as a refrigeration device
Reply:
Select AWhat does the author say about Teflon?A. It is used for kitchen utensils nowadays.B. It was created many years before Coca-Cola.C. A pharmacist invented it.D. It was first used as a refrigeration device. How is news different from entertainment? Most people would answer that the news is real but the entertainment is fictitious. However, if we think more carefully about the news, it is clear that the news is not always real. News does not show us all the events of the day, but only stories from a select few. The creation of news stories can be specifically bound, just like the creation of works of fiction. There are many constraints, but three of the most important are: commerciality, story formula, and source. Newspapers, radio and television stations are businesses, all competing for audience and advertising revenue. The amount of time the average broadcaster spends on news broadcasts has steadily increased over the past fifty years – largely because the news is relatively cheap to produce, but sells a lot of advertising. Some news broadcasts become advertisements themselves. For example, in a week in 1996 when the American network CBS aired a movie about the sinking of the Titanic, CBS news ran nine stories about that event (which happened 84 years ago). The ABC network is owned by Disney Studios and regularly uses Mickey Mouse stories. Furthermore, the profit motive drives news organizations to pay more attention to stories that are likely to generate large audiences and to ignore stories that can be important but dull. This need for entertainment has created shorter, simpler stories. focuses more on celebrities than on people, on gossip rather than news, and more on dramatic events than nuanced issues. As busy people under constant pressure to produce, journalists can’t spend days laboring on stories. Instead, they depend on certain story formulas, which they can reuse again and again. One example is called the inverted pyramid. In this formula, the journalist puts the most important information at the beginning of the story, rather than adding the next important information, etc. The inverted pyramid dates back to the age of the telegraph, the idea that if the line died halfway through the story, the journalist would know that the most important information had at least been relayed. Modern journalists still value the formula for a similar reason. Their editor will cut the stories if they are too long. Another recipe involves reducing a complex story to a simple conflict. The best example is the election race. Thorough interpretation of candidates’ issues and perspectives is complex. As a result, journalists focus more on who wins in opinion polls, and whether the underdog can catch up than on the campaign goals set forth by politicians. “Sources” are another limitation to what journalists are tracking and how they track them. The dominant sources for news are public information workers in businesses and government offices. The majority of such staff members always try to prove that they are qualified professionals to provide information to journalists. How do journalists know who is an expert? In general, they don’t know. They use “sources” not on the basis of actual expertise, but on the appearance of expertise and a willingness to share it. All the major news organizations use some of the same “sources” (many of them anonymous), so the same types of stories always get attention. Over time, journalists can even become close friends with their informants, and they stop looking for other points of view. As a result, articles tend to be narrow, homogeneous.
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