Test: Mobile phones

MOBILE PHONES



Mobile phones are not a luxury item anymore. While they have improved people’s lives, they have some drawbacks and we need to be careful about when and where they should be used. Admittedly, they facilitate communication with other people anywhere at any time. Parents feel more relaxed knowing their children can get in touch with them immediately if they need help, and emergency services can be called without delay when there has been an accident. Advanced features such as e-mail services and image messaging are packed into extremely light and tiny models that fit into your pocket.
Yet mobile phones can be a serious threat to health, for children in particular. Experts warn that the radiation of this type of phones can cause headaches and affect your memory in a negative way, although this has not been proved convincingly. What is more, people who use a mobile phone while driving constitute a danger to others and to themselves and sometimes have had fatal accidents. Besides this, what for many people is a useful device can be a nuisance for others, who are always complaining about the constant ringing tones in public places. Some people even claim that mobile phones should carry health warnings as packets of cigarettes do.


(A) COMPREHENSION (3 points)

a) ANSWER QUESTIONS 1-2 ACCORDING TO THE INFORMATION GIVEN IN THE TEXT. USE YOUR OWN WORDS. (1 point per answer)
1) Is it true that mobile phones are dangerous for health? Why?
2) Why have some people died while using a mobile phone?

b) ARE THESE STATEMENTS TRUE OR FALSE? JUSTIFY YOUR ANSWERS WITH WORDS OR PHRASES FROM THE TEXT. (0.5 points per answer)
3) Mobile phones have reduced their size considerably.
4) Mobile phones can be risky for children.
5) Everybody is satisfied with this new device.
6) Mobile phones display health warnings.

(B) USE OF ENGLISH (3 points)

7) Find in the text a word meaning “great comfort and pleasure of expensive and beautiful things” (noun) (0.25 points)

Find in the text an opposite for HEAVY (adjective) (0.25 points)

9) Give one opposite for HEALTH (noun) (0.25 points)

10) Complete the series with another word of the same semantic group (0.25 points)
headache, backache, stomach-ache…

11) Turn the following sentence into reported speech: (0.5 points)
She said: “We’ll go and get some food.”

12) Use the words in the boxes to make a meaningful sentence. Use all and only the words in the boxes without changing their form. (0.5 points)
me- buy- I - my- asked- to- mobile- father- a

13) Turn the following sentence into the passive voice: (0.5 points)
The traffic warden gave the driver a ticket.

14) Complete the following conditional sentence: (0.5 points)
“If I didn’t have a mobile phone…”

(B) USE OF ENGLISH (3 points)

15) Write a composition (80-100 words). Choose one of the following options. Specify your option.

a) How have new technologies changed our lives?
b) Could you live without a mobile phone? Why?