Where is My Mind
Content
21/9/2015
Where is my mind?
Where is my mind?
MULTIPLE CHOICE
Read the article and for questions 17 choose the answer (AD) which you think fits best according to the
text.
At a recent concert in LA, the singer Tory Amos
was midway through her hit song Winter when,
suddenly, inexplicably, she forgot the lyrics.
Rather than warbling on about fires burning and
flowers competing for the sun as her eager fans
were expecting, she stopped in her tracks and
started singing about how tired she was feeling.
Amos, it seems, had become the latest victim of
the shortterm memoryloss epidemic.
It's a particularly modern affliction. We are fast
becoming the amnesia generation, plunged by the
everincreasing pace of our lives into a fog of
retold anectodes, lost information and missed
appointments. I was driving through London in a
friend's car recently, when the heavens suddenly
opened. "Oh dear!" my friend screamed, helplessly
cranking various buttons and levers. "I can't
remember how the windscreen wipers work."
Another friend managed to cruise through town for
a full fortyfive minutes before realising that all
those people were not, in fact, waving and pointing
at her new haircut, but at the briefcase that she
had left balanced on the roof of her car.
All the evidence is that our memories aren't what
they used to be. Indeed, in a recent report, the
think tank Demos predicts that we could become a
society of memory haves and havenots, with only
those who can afford to pay for costly brain
enhancement treatments getting the best
opportunities in life, from exam passes to the
boardroom. But are our memories getting worse, or
is it just that we don't care enough to remember?
We are bombarded with so much more information
than previous generations. In days gone by, you
might have known only thirty people in your entire
lifetime. Now, you probably talk to thirty new
people in a single day. That's a lot more to
remember. And technology hasn't helped. We no
longer dial numbers, we just press a key. We don't
need to remember birthdays or anniversaries or the
times of important meetings when we have
software to beep at us, and our brains have
adapted accordingly.
But some experts think there is another reason
why we forget the details of social conversations.
Often, we don't remember things because we're
not listening. Insted, we are turning in to our inner
dialogue, the one that's going "Does this shirt look
OK?" or, even more distracting, "What am I going
to say next?" Another hazard of socialmemory
http://www.mprestige.net/eprestige/cc/cae/caetext/reading11.htm
Show questions one by one
1.
What does the writer imply about the
singer Tory Amos?
A. ? She is not alone in
suffering from unexpected lapses
of memory.
B. ? She could give no
explanation for her sudden loss of
memory.
C. ? She is more than usually
prone to shortterm memory loss.
D. ? She may have forgotten
her lines as a result of an illness.
2.
The writer mentions two of her friends
in the context of shortterm memory
loss in order to
A. ? show how different people
react to it.
B. ? illustrate how prevalent it
currently is.
C. ? demonstrate how
embarrassing it can be.
D. ? underline how it affects
people in different ways.
3.
In the third paragraph, the writer
suggests that
A. ? there are ways of
1/3
21/9/2015
Where is my mind?
loss is unwittingly retelling the same anecdote to
the same audience on different occasions. There
is, apparently, a reason for this. "Two processes
are at work when we tell an anecdote," says Dr
Larry Jacoby at the University of St Louis. "The
first is the sheer familiriaty of the tale, built up over
many tellings. This makes it all too likely to swim
into our consciousness. The second is the recall
of whether you have told this group this story
before. As long as that works, will note bore them
with it again. But recall depends on well
functioning frontal lobes ."
It used to be widely thought that shortterm
memory worsened with age, while longterm
memory got sharper. This would certainly explain
why I can remember the songs my mother played
when i was growing up, but cannot recall the name
of our new neighbour. Alas, the memory experts
aren't prepared to let us off so easily. "Memory is
a muscle. Use it or lose it," advises expert Robert
Allen, for example, and he would seem to have a
point.
Of course, memory is not just about remembering
names or where we put the keys. It's about who
we are. If we can't even remember the details of
what we said and to whom, then how can we
possibly hope to make sense of our lives? To this
end, London's Southbank Centre recently staged
Stop the Clock, a monthlong event devoted to the
perception of time. During the event, the Dutch
thinker and memory guru Douwe Draaisma led a
discussion looking at why we remember certain
things and not others, and the impact of memory
on writers. It was very thoughtprovoking,
apparently, and I had fully intended to go. But
when it came to it, I was so preoccupied with other
things that it slipped my mind.
improving someone's memory.
B. ? people will need their
memories less in the future.
C. ? technology has increased
our potential memory load.
D. ? our brains are good at
prioritising what to remember.
4.
The writer quotes Dr Larry Jacoby to
help explain why in social situations
A. ? people often fail to
remember the details of long
anecdotes.
B. ? people tend not to pay
close attention to what others are
saying.
C. ? people don't realise when
others are not really listening to
them.
D. ? people may forget who it is
they have told a particular story
before.
5.
In the fifth paragraph, the writer
A. ? acknowledges the truth
behind a popular belief.
B. ? admits that she makes
little effort to recall certain details.
C. ? accepts that her short
term memory is bound to
deteriorate.
D. ? agrees with the suggestion
that memory loss may be
avoidable.
6.
http://www.mprestige.net/eprestige/cc/cae/caetext/reading11.htm
The phrase "to this end" in the last
2/3
21/9/2015
Where is my mind?
paragraph refers to
A. ? preventing shortterm
memory loss.
B. ? understanding ourselves
better.
C. ? remembering things in
detail.
D. ? improving social skills.
7.
What does the writer suggest about the
event called Stop the Clock?
A. X Much of it was about
memory rather than the perception
of time.
B. ? It did not really address
important issues to do with
memory.
C. ? Part of it was of particular
relevance to her professionally.
D. ? It was hard to give the
discussions her full concentration.
http://www.mprestige.net/eprestige/cc/cae/caetext/reading11.htm
3/3
Where is my mind?
Where is my mind?
MULTIPLE CHOICE
Read the article and for questions 17 choose the answer (AD) which you think fits best according to the
text.
At a recent concert in LA, the singer Tory Amos
was midway through her hit song Winter when,
suddenly, inexplicably, she forgot the lyrics.
Rather than warbling on about fires burning and
flowers competing for the sun as her eager fans
were expecting, she stopped in her tracks and
started singing about how tired she was feeling.
Amos, it seems, had become the latest victim of
the shortterm memoryloss epidemic.
It's a particularly modern affliction. We are fast
becoming the amnesia generation, plunged by the
everincreasing pace of our lives into a fog of
retold anectodes, lost information and missed
appointments. I was driving through London in a
friend's car recently, when the heavens suddenly
opened. "Oh dear!" my friend screamed, helplessly
cranking various buttons and levers. "I can't
remember how the windscreen wipers work."
Another friend managed to cruise through town for
a full fortyfive minutes before realising that all
those people were not, in fact, waving and pointing
at her new haircut, but at the briefcase that she
had left balanced on the roof of her car.
All the evidence is that our memories aren't what
they used to be. Indeed, in a recent report, the
think tank Demos predicts that we could become a
society of memory haves and havenots, with only
those who can afford to pay for costly brain
enhancement treatments getting the best
opportunities in life, from exam passes to the
boardroom. But are our memories getting worse, or
is it just that we don't care enough to remember?
We are bombarded with so much more information
than previous generations. In days gone by, you
might have known only thirty people in your entire
lifetime. Now, you probably talk to thirty new
people in a single day. That's a lot more to
remember. And technology hasn't helped. We no
longer dial numbers, we just press a key. We don't
need to remember birthdays or anniversaries or the
times of important meetings when we have
software to beep at us, and our brains have
adapted accordingly.
But some experts think there is another reason
why we forget the details of social conversations.
Often, we don't remember things because we're
not listening. Insted, we are turning in to our inner
dialogue, the one that's going "Does this shirt look
OK?" or, even more distracting, "What am I going
to say next?" Another hazard of socialmemory
http://www.mprestige.net/eprestige/cc/cae/caetext/reading11.htm
Show questions one by one
1.
What does the writer imply about the
singer Tory Amos?
A. ? She is not alone in
suffering from unexpected lapses
of memory.
B. ? She could give no
explanation for her sudden loss of
memory.
C. ? She is more than usually
prone to shortterm memory loss.
D. ? She may have forgotten
her lines as a result of an illness.
2.
The writer mentions two of her friends
in the context of shortterm memory
loss in order to
A. ? show how different people
react to it.
B. ? illustrate how prevalent it
currently is.
C. ? demonstrate how
embarrassing it can be.
D. ? underline how it affects
people in different ways.
3.
In the third paragraph, the writer
suggests that
A. ? there are ways of
1/3
21/9/2015
Where is my mind?
loss is unwittingly retelling the same anecdote to
the same audience on different occasions. There
is, apparently, a reason for this. "Two processes
are at work when we tell an anecdote," says Dr
Larry Jacoby at the University of St Louis. "The
first is the sheer familiriaty of the tale, built up over
many tellings. This makes it all too likely to swim
into our consciousness. The second is the recall
of whether you have told this group this story
before. As long as that works, will note bore them
with it again. But recall depends on well
functioning frontal lobes ."
It used to be widely thought that shortterm
memory worsened with age, while longterm
memory got sharper. This would certainly explain
why I can remember the songs my mother played
when i was growing up, but cannot recall the name
of our new neighbour. Alas, the memory experts
aren't prepared to let us off so easily. "Memory is
a muscle. Use it or lose it," advises expert Robert
Allen, for example, and he would seem to have a
point.
Of course, memory is not just about remembering
names or where we put the keys. It's about who
we are. If we can't even remember the details of
what we said and to whom, then how can we
possibly hope to make sense of our lives? To this
end, London's Southbank Centre recently staged
Stop the Clock, a monthlong event devoted to the
perception of time. During the event, the Dutch
thinker and memory guru Douwe Draaisma led a
discussion looking at why we remember certain
things and not others, and the impact of memory
on writers. It was very thoughtprovoking,
apparently, and I had fully intended to go. But
when it came to it, I was so preoccupied with other
things that it slipped my mind.
improving someone's memory.
B. ? people will need their
memories less in the future.
C. ? technology has increased
our potential memory load.
D. ? our brains are good at
prioritising what to remember.
4.
The writer quotes Dr Larry Jacoby to
help explain why in social situations
A. ? people often fail to
remember the details of long
anecdotes.
B. ? people tend not to pay
close attention to what others are
saying.
C. ? people don't realise when
others are not really listening to
them.
D. ? people may forget who it is
they have told a particular story
before.
5.
In the fifth paragraph, the writer
A. ? acknowledges the truth
behind a popular belief.
B. ? admits that she makes
little effort to recall certain details.
C. ? accepts that her short
term memory is bound to
deteriorate.
D. ? agrees with the suggestion
that memory loss may be
avoidable.
6.
http://www.mprestige.net/eprestige/cc/cae/caetext/reading11.htm
The phrase "to this end" in the last
2/3
21/9/2015
Where is my mind?
paragraph refers to
A. ? preventing shortterm
memory loss.
B. ? understanding ourselves
better.
C. ? remembering things in
detail.
D. ? improving social skills.
7.
What does the writer suggest about the
event called Stop the Clock?
A. X Much of it was about
memory rather than the perception
of time.
B. ? It did not really address
important issues to do with
memory.
C. ? Part of it was of particular
relevance to her professionally.
D. ? It was hard to give the
discussions her full concentration.
http://www.mprestige.net/eprestige/cc/cae/caetext/reading11.htm
3/3
