A survive the education system

B learn better than teenagers

C get extra training

D start degrees

E reach secondary school

F increasing numbers

G get ahead of the rest

H cover the courses

I successes

Some lexical units:

ethos – fundamental principles

OAP – Old Age Pensioner

Hothousing – to intensely educate young children (as a plant in a hothouse gets intense heat)

For questions 1-15, read the text below and think of one word which best fits each gap. All the words are given in the box below. There is an example at the beginning (0).

~~often~~	less	order	what	with	for	as	among
contrast	without	with	where	on	from	in	has

CREATING A CULTURE OF IDEASBy Nicholas Negroponte

Nicholas Negroponte, a Greek-American digital innovator and a computer scientist, says expertise is overrated. To build a nation of innovators, we should focus on youth, diversity, and collaboration.

Innovation is inefficient. More (0) …often… than not, it is undisciplined, contrarian, and iconoclastic; and it nourishes itself (1) …… confusion and contradiction. In short, being innovative flies in the face of (2) …… almost all parents want for their children, most CEOs want for their companies, and heads of states want for their countries. And innovative people are really annoying.

Yet (3) …… innovation we are doomed – by boredom and monotony – to decline. So what makes innovation happen, and just (4) …… do new ideas come from? The basic answers – providing a good educational system, encouraging different viewpoints, and fostering collaboration – may not be surprising. Moreover, the ability to fulfill these criteria (5) …… served the United States well. But some things – the nature of higher education among them – will have to change in (6) …… to ensure a perpetual source of new ideas.

One of the basics of a good system of innovation is diversity. In some ways, the stronger the culture (national, institutional, generational, or other), the (7) …… likely it is to harbor innovative thinking. Common and deep-seated beliefs, widespread norms, and behavior and performance standards are enemies to new ideas. Any society that prides itself (8) …… being harmonious and homogeneous is very unlikely to catalyze idiosyncratic thinking. Suppression of innovation need not be overt. It can be simply a matter of people’s walking around (9) …… tacit agreement and full comfort (10) …… the status quo.

A very heterogeneous culture, by (11) ……, breeds innovation by virtue of its people, who look at everything from different viewpoints. America, the so-called melting pot, is seen by many as having no culture (with either a capital C or a lowercase c). In rankings of students in industrial countries, U.S. high school students come across (12) …… average, at best, in reading, mathematics, and science. And unfortunately, the nation is unrivaled in gun-related crimes (13) …… young people. Yet, looking back over the past century, the United States has accounted (14) …… about a third of all Nobel prizes and has produced an unrivaled outpouring of innovations – (15) …… factory automation to the integrated circuit and gene splicing – that are the backbone of worldwide economic growth.

4*. For questions 1-15, read the text below and think of the word which best fits each gap. Use only ONE word in each gap. There is an example at the beginning (0).

CREATING A CULTURE OF IDEASBy Nicholas Negroponte

Nicholas Negroponte, a Greek-American digital innovator and a computer scientist, says expertise is overrated. To build a nation of innovators, we should focus on youth, diversity, and collaboration.

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<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
Carbon footprint – the total set of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions caused by an organization, event or product.	\|	Listen to Adam Phillips’ report for VOA news about Nicholas Negroponte, who combines imagination, engineering and idealism to bring laptops to the world’s children.

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