Instructions:
All student the paraphrase and summary activity. You have 1hr 50 minutes to
complete this task. Additionally, 12 cfu students write an essay. You have 1hr
30 minutes to complete this task.
Viewpoint:
are e-cigarettes really a menace?
E-cigarettes, devices that give you a
nicotine-hit by heating up a liquid which you then inhale, have become (1) all
the rage. But is the concern about them justified, asks Michael Mosley.
A few years ago they were a
rarity, but (2) now there are nearly three million e-cigarettes out
there. Many people think that they are as bad for you as normal
cigarettes. But are they? I've recently spent a couple of months making a
documentary about e-cigarettes, trying to find out truth behind the headlines.
I took up heavy vaping (that's what you do when you inhale vapour from an
e-cigarettes). I have never smoked anything before and I wanted to see what
effects inhaling nicotine in the form of an e-cig would have on a non-smoker.
The results surprised me.
(3) Everyone
knows that smoking is bad for you and can lead to lung cancer. It also increases your risk of dying
from a range of other conditions including heart attack, stroke and dementia.
If you're a man you might like to know (but then again you might not) that
smoking is one of the main causes of impotence.
Fans of e-cigarettes say
vaping can reduce the burden of smoking either by making it easier for smokers
to quit or by providing them with a safer way for them to get a nicotine hit.
(4) Critics, however, say that we are
gambling with a technology we don't understand and that there is no convincing
evidence that e-cigarettes help people quit smoking. It may even encourage
non-smokers to start.
(5)Some
countries have warily embraced e-cigarettes, while others have effectively banned
them. The UK
has so far adopted a liberal approach, but on Friday new European legislation
will come into force which will limit the size of refills and the nicotine
content of the fluids. Vaping will become more restricted. So, who's right? Are
e-cigarettes one of the greatest public health measures ever invented, with the
potential to save millions of lives, or
(6) are they just another cunning way to keep us hooked on nicotine?
I was keen to find out. The scientific consensus is that vaping,
at least in the short term, is a lot safer than conventional smoking. A recent
study for Public Health England concluded that e-cigarettes are 95% less
harmful than normal cigarettes.
To be honest when I took up
vaping I wasn't that worried about the short term health effects. What I was
far more concerned about was getting hooked on nicotine. Yet as the weeks went
by and I puffed away, nothing happened. When I leapt out of bed I didn't feel a
longing to reach for my machine. If anything (7) I found it a bit of a chore.
Chatting to experts I discovered, to my considerable surprise, that although
cigarettes are highly addictive, nicotine alone may not be. Although no-one
knows for sure, research in animals suggests that nicotine is far more
addictive when delivered in combination with the other chemicals found in
regular cigarettes. And nicotine in its pure form may have an upside. There's
evidence it can help patients with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
The National Institute on
Aging in the US has recently funded a trial of 300 patients with mild cognitive
impairment (a precursor to Alzheimer's). The patients, none of whom are
smokers, will be randomly allocated to either nicotine patches or placebo
patches. Over the next few years they will have regular health checks, as well
as memory and cognition tests. A similar, smaller study, published in
2012, found that non-smokers given nicotine patches saw improvements in memory,
attention and reaction times.
But before you start slapping
on the patches or firing up an e-cig you should be aware that though nicotine
may help people who already have impaired memory, there's no evidence it will
help the rest of us. Although I was
tested before and after doing a month of heavy vaping, the nicotine didn't
enhance my brain, apart from a small improvement in my fine motor skills.
But the main health justification for
e-cigarettes is that they can help those who are keen to quit smoking tobacco,
quit. So do they? There have been very few randomised controlled trials, but
the ones that have been done suggest it does. When (8) Horizon conducted a small
study randomly allocating a group of
hardcore smokers to either e-cigs, nicotine patches or simply giving up
(going cold turkey), we found the vapers and those who slapped on the patches
were far more successful at abandoning their cigarettes. E-cigs are not risk
free and after a month of heavy vaping there were signs of increased
inflammation in my lungs (which rapidly reversed when I stopped). Nonetheless I
think that for smokers (9) e-cigarettes could prove to be a game changer.
There is a huge amount at
stake. A billion people worldwide spend around £500bn a year on cigarettes and
around half of them will die of smoking related diseases. In the UK alone smoking
kills around 100,000 a year.(10) Anything which gets people off cigarettes
is going to save a lot of lives.
Source:
Michael Mosley, BBC News Magazine http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine
|
PARAPHRASE
Re-state
clearly and concisely the ideas expressed in the 10 underlined phrases bring
sure to reference the subject of the sentence if a pronoun is used. You may
need to reformulate the whole sentence as well as change word class to do
this effectively. You do not need to find synonyms for: e-cigarettes and
vaping.
SUMMARY
Using your own words write a clear,
concise summary of the main idea and key points raised in this article
remembering to attribute sources of information. You are advised to write a
first draft and then work on that to produce a good copy. You should write
between 140-160 words. You will be penalized if you write more.
|
SOME SUGGESTED ANSWERS
PARAPHRASES
(1) all the rage. Very popular / fashionable nowadays.
(2)
now there are nearly three million
e-cigarettes out there.
Today
almost 3 million e cigarettes have been sold /produced / e cigarette production levels have reached almost 3
million
(3)Everyone
knows that smoking is bad for you and can lead to lung cancer
It is
common knowledge / well-known that smoking is harmful to our health and may
cause cancer /causes health issues including lung cancer
(4) Critics, however, say that we are
gambling with a technology we don't understand
Those
who do not support vaping believe we are
taking a big risk with a so far untested technological invention.
Those who
criticize vaping point out that until further research is concluded we may be
unknowingly putting our health at risk.
(5)Some
countries have warily embraced e-cigarettes
E
cigarettes have been cautiously welcomed/ given a provisional thumbs up by a
number of states.
(6) are
they just another cunning way to keep us hooked on nicotine?
Is it
possible that e cigarettes are merely
part of a sly /diabolical
nicotine addiction plan?
(7) I
found it a bit of a chore
Mosley found vaping to be a burdensome /
unpleasant / hard task
Vaping was found to be a burdensome /
unpleasant / hard task by the writer
(8) Horizon
conducted a small study randomly
allocating a group of hardcore smokers to either e-cigs, nicotine patches or
simply giving up
A survey
has been conducted arbitrarily dividing
the group of heavy smokers into 3
categories: vapers, those wearing nicotine patches and those who suddenly quit.
(9) e-cigarettes
could prove to be a game changer.
These
types of cigarette might be a turning point for those wanting to quit smoking.
These
types of cigarettes might provide the
key to successfully giving up cigarettes.
(10) Anything which gets
people off cigarettes is going to save a lot of lives.
Having an alternative to cigarette smoking would
automatically mean many fewer deaths from smoking.
SUMMARY (160 words)
The article by Michael Mosley, a non-smoker who vaped
for a month, published on http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine discusses whether or not e-cigarettes are as safe as
their supporters maintain. Some countries have banned them, the UK has embraced
them while the European Union has given e-cigarettes a cautious welcome. Those
who support vaping claim that they provide an easier and safer way to stop
smoking as research by the Horizon Group found for heavy smokers. Moreover, Mosley did not
develop an addiction to pure nicotine
and a 2012 report concluded that vaping might even prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s.
Nevertheless,
Mosley noticed some lung inflammation when he stopped and the long-term effects
of vaping are still unknown. There are similar concerns that the popularity of vaping might encourage
young people to start. Even with these downsides Mosley is convinced that
anything that provides an effective way to stop smoking, reducing the 100,000
UK deaths from diseases associated with smoking each year, should be supported.
ESSAY
Criteria
for a successfully written essay are:
1.Organisation
: paragraphing / appropriate structure for argumentative / balanced essay
2.Register:
no abbreviations, short forms / formal
linkers
3.Language: range, appropriateness, accuracy of grammar
and lexis, paraphrasing source material
4.Content:
relevance /exemplification/ integration of source material.
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento