-mercy
Unit 3 Alienation and the Internet
Key to the Exercises
Text
comprehension
I. Decide
which of the following best states the author's
purpose of writing.
II.
false.
1. T
(Refer to Paragraph 1.)
2.
F
(Refer
to
Paragraph
2.
When
the
author
says
might
sound
like
an
apparent
contradiction,
he
implies
that
this
is
in
fact
not
a
contradiction
at
all.
Throughout the whole
essay, the author explains the seemingly
contradictory idea:
on
the
one
hand
the
Internet
is
responsible
for
global
unification,
and
on
the
other
it alienates the
participants.)
3. F
(Refer
to
Paragraph
3,
where
the
author,
by
saying
have
not
known
this
fellow
to
be
given
to
exaggeration
actually
means
that
to
the
best
of
his
knowledge,
this
friend of his has never
exaggerated anything.)
4. T
(Refer to Paragraph 4. At the end of this
paragraph, the author argues that
when
people spend much time developing on-line
relationships with faraway folks,
they
will
have
no
time
to
participate
in
communal
activities,
which
undermines
the
sense of
community.)
5.
T
(Refer
to
Paragraph
6.
In
this
paragraph,
the
author
argues
that
when
surfing
the Web a person might be cognitively
overloaded and that the cognitive overload
might result in a distorted sense of
reality.)
III.
Answer the following
questions.
1. Refer
to
Paragraph
1.
As
the
author
sees
it,
the
Internet
is
most
likely
to
make
our global village a better place to
live in. It provides a miraculous forum for
the
globalization
of
ideas,
which
contributes
to
the
realization
of
human
potential.
Furthermore,
it
is
a
powerful
tool
for
the
acquisition
and
application
of
knowledge.
The
benefits
of
the
Internet,
however,
may
be
darkened
by
its
negative
consequences.
It may deprive
the user of his time for necessary interaction
with other society
members so that the
whole world may be further fragmented. In
addition, there is
a
reasonable
likelihood
that
the
Internet
presents
too
much
information,
which
gives
the user a skewed
sense of reality by making him cognitively
overloaded.
2. Refer to
Paragraph 3. His friend was addicted to the
Internet. He would spend
even
over
twenty-four
hours
non-stop
on
the
Internet
so
that
he
had
to
force
himself
Judge,
according
to
the
text,
whether
the
following
statements
are
true
or
B
to go off line.
As he spent so much time in cyberspace, his sense
of reality might
have been crooked.
Moreover, without any face-to-face verbal
communication with
other people, he
felt lonely and depressed.
3. Refer to Paragraph 4. The
alienation of society members had begun long
before
the Internet started to be used
worldwide. After World War II, when the soldiers
returned
from
the
battlefields,
they
devoted
themselves
to
Large
quantities
of
cars
were
manufactured,
which
fed
the
creation
of
suburbs,
and
consequently
people
lived
far
apart
from
each.
The
Internet,
however,
has
added
to
the problem and Internet addicts are
far from rare. As illustrated by the example
of
the
author's
nephew,
it
seems
to
be
an
irreversible
trend
that
more
and
more
people,
old
and young, are becoming addicted to the Internet.
They will spend many hours
non-stop in
cyberspace rather than with their families or
friends. For lack of
communication,
they are becoming strangers to other people.
Therefore, there is a
good reason to
believe that society is being further alienated by
the Internet.
4. The
means of communicating and making
friends with people far apart on the one hand,
but
on
the
other,
it
estranges
the
user
from
the
people
around
him
by
canceling
his
availability
for
face-to-face
communication
even
with
his
families
and
close
friends
and
for involvement in community activities.
5. Refer to Paragraphs 6
and 7. The potential of the Internet as a powerful
tool
for
globalizing
ideas
and
for
acquiring
and
applying
knowledge
can
only
be
realized
when the user
strikes a balance between reality and the
Internet. Although the
Internet makes
it possible for the user to debate, shop, travel
and have romance
in cyberspace without
leaving home, the overuse of this tool probably
results in
a
distorted
sense
of
reality.
The
only
way
to
avoid
being
penalized
by
the
Internet
is
make
moderate
use
of
this
tool
without
losing
one's
sense
of
place
in
the
world.
IV.
Explain in your own
words the following sentences.
1.
As the Internet can be
reached and used with relatively few restrictions,
it
plays
a
role
in
connecting
people
globally,
which
is
comparable
to
travelling
through
international waterways.
2.
A lot of people talk
about the
are
acquainted
with
the
idea
that
the
Internet
separates
people
from
each
other
and
fragments society
further as a result.
3.
I think that in our society top
priority is given to the satisfaction of one's
immediate
needs.
The
Internet
is
the
best
means
to
achieve
this
purpose,
for
on
the
Internet one can do
whatever he likes to.
Structural analysis of the
text
The three parts of the text:
Part 1 (Paragraphs 1);
Part 2 (Paragraphs 3); and
Part 3 (Paragraph
7).
Thesis
statement: ...
the
Internet
may
be
responsible
for
furthering
the
Concluding
statement:
All
of
this
being
said,
I
believe
that
the
key
to
realizing
fragmentation of
society by alienating its individual users.
the potential of the
Internet is in achieving balance in our
lives.
Rhetorical features
of the text
More
antonyms:
real
杗
ot
real,
reality
杤
irtual
existence,
outside
playing
with
his
friends
杙
lay
his
games
against
his
friends
in
cyberspace.
The
use
of
all
these
pairs
of
antonymous
words
and
expressions
helps
to
reinforce
the
seeming
self-contradiction
that
the
Internet
can
lead
to
globalization
on
the
one
hand
and
cause the alienation of
the users from the people around them on the
other.
Vocabulary exercises
I. Explain the underlined part in each
sentence in your own words.
1. ability to develop, achieve or
succeed
2. causing to feel
very distant from or not welcome to other
people
3. liked it very
much and wanted to spend as much time doing it as
possible
4. more
information than one can cope with
5. a set of images and sounds produced
by a computer which seem so real that for
most purposes they can be regarded as
real
II. Fill
in
the
blank(s)
in
each
sentence
with
a
phrase
from
the
box
in
its
appropriate form.
1. for the better
2. at the expense of
3. was confronted with
4. took advantage of
5. in earnest
6.
are available for
7. prior
to
8. would give ... pause
to think
III.
Fill in the blanks with the appropriate
forms of the given words.
1.
alienating
2.
globalization
3.
fragmenting 4.
addict