Problem: Musa Kayairanga of Rwanda is a traditional healer. He uses natural medicines to treat his patients. He learned how to use computers at a rural telecommunications center in his country. Musa Kayairanga says he exchanges information with doctors as far away as Canada. He also says the computer has improved his knowledge of using plants to treat diseases. Many people in rural areas are now able to communicate with the rest of the world. This is one example of how technology is changing life in developing countries.

Andrew Burns is an economist at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. He led a recent study of technology in developing countries. The study found that technology has spread faster in such countries than in rich nations. It also found that technological progress has helped raise wages in developing countries. And it reduced the percentage of people living in extreme poverty from twenty-nine percent in 1990 to eighteen percent in 2004.

Progress in communications technology has aided the growth of call centers in developing countries. Call centers are offices where most telephone calls for a business can be answered. For example, a woman in the United States who calls her computer company about a problem might speak with someone in India or Pakistan.

Call centers serve businesses in local and international markets. And they have added to economic growth by providing well-paid jobs and new skills for workers who might not have had such employment. Ahsan Saeed is a young call center worker in Karachi, Pakistan. He says the job improves his language skills, his sales skills and his ability to deal with people.( from VOA Special English )
1. Who works at the World Bank?
2. What is his position?
3. Where is it located?
4. What did his research conclude?
5. Anything else?
6. What?
7. That all?
8. Please tell me then
9. By how much?
10. Who is the first person mentioned?
11. Where is he from?
12. What does he do?
13. What treatments does he employ?
14. Like what?
15. What tools does he have?
Answer: 1. Andrew Burns
2. He is an economist
3. Washington, D.C
4. That technology has spread faster in developing countries than in rich nations.
5. Yes
6. That technological progress has helped raise wages in developing countries
7. No
8. Technologyt reduced the percentage of people living in extreme poverty
9. From twenty-nine percent in 1990 to eighteen percent in 2004
10. Musa Kayairanga
11. Rwanda
12. He is a traditional healer.
13. Natural medicines
14. unknown
15. The computer

Problem: Eight years ago, my 13-year-old son, Dustin, became very ill with a heart enlarged. For several months, he lived on life support as we were forced to stand by and watch him wither away. ks5u

While his friends were out playing baseball, and sleeping in their own beds, my son was in a hospital bed, attached to a machine that kept his heart beating. As a mother, my first reaction after crying was anger, and then I played the bargaining game: "Take my life for his, Lord. I've lived my life but he still has so much to do." People all around me were praying for a heart to become available, but it made me so angry and confused because I knew for that to happen, someone else's child would have to die. How could anyone pray for that?

I still remember so clearly the morning we got the call that there was a heart. As we stood in Dustin's hospital room watching them prepare him for surgery, we experienced the true definition of bittersweet. His dad and I realized that at the precise moment we were standing there with so much hope and so much love, another family somewhere was saying goodbye. We knelt down together and cried, and we prayed for them and we thanked them for giving such a selfless gift. To our amazement, just 10 days later, Dustin got to come home for the first time in many months. He had received a second chance at life. Over the next two years, he got to go to high school, learn to drive and put his brand new heart to good use volunteering at the homeless shelter and helping the elderly.

Dustin's new heart failed him when he was 16. A tragedy, yes, but we have to see it as the miracle it was. We received two precious years with him that we would never have had without organ donation. We have more pictures, more memories and a great satisfaction in knowing that he was able to experience some of the most exciting times and milestones in a teenager's life. When he died, difficult as it was for us, we knew that it would be Dustin's wish to give back. His eyes went to someone who wanted to see. Someone who, perhaps, had never seen the faces of the family he loved so dearly. I believe that one day I will look into the face of someone else's son or daughter, and I will see those sky blue eyes looking back at me -- the evidence of selfless giving.
1. who was on life support?
2. how old is Dustin?
3. who was forced?
4. forced to do what?
5. what was brand new?
6. who would have to die?
7. who was praying?
8. praying for what?
9. did a heart become available?
10. for who was the heart available to?
11. when did he get the heart?
12. did Dustin have heart surgery?
13. Was the surgery a success?
14. how did the surgery succeed?
15. when did Dustin come home?
16. what occurred 10 days later?
17. what did he do when he came home?
18. did he do anything else?
19. what else did he do?
Answer: 1. Dustin
2. 13 years old
3. Dustin's family
4. stand by and watch him wither away
5. his heart
6. someone else's child
7. People all around
8. for a heart to become available
9. yes
10. Dustin
11. in the morning
12. yes
13. yes
14. by allowing Dustin to come home
15. 10 days later
16. Dustin got to come home
17. he went to high school
18. yes
19. he learned to drive

Problem: Hero

Carl West is an unassuming all-American 24 year old . You might think that because he works in a convenience store that he's not the brightest guy you're likely to meet. Yet this slightly scruffy young man in his Nike sneakers , was smart enough to break a fake story that successfully fooled the world for 35 years . "I guess I just got lucky," West smiles. " It just goes to show you don't have to finish high school to be smart."

Forty Years' Study

"I've spent 40 years in astronomical study, and 20 years of that specifically in Satellite Systems study. I have a University chair in three major Universities and sat on 5 different governmental committees on Space Exploration. Hell, I wrote a research paper on the Lunar Landings that took 18 months to research, then a further 3 months just to correct it." Steven pauses to scratch his head. "Yet not once did it occur to me to wonder who filmed Armstrong as he stepped onto the moon. How could I have been so stupid? "

The Evidence

* If Armstrong was the first to walk on the moon, then who filmed him walking down the ladder?

* There's no gravity on the moon, so why didn't the astronauts just float away?

* It's really hot on the moon, so Armstrong should have died of thirst.

* The deadly radiation belts around the Earth turn everyone radioactive and make your eyes boil unless you are wearing 18 inches of lead . So how did they get through it?
1. Who spend many decades studying space?
2. How long?
3. How many years studying satellite-related things?
4. Does he have prestige at colleges?
5. How many different schools?
6. Has he written papers on outer space-related things?
7. How long did he take to write one?
8. What did he never question?
9. Who was the one who thought of it?
10. How old is he?
11. Does he have prestige at colleges?
12. Where does he work?
13. Is he clean shaven?
14. How old was the false information he was responsible for breaking?
15. Did he believe it was hard work that caused this result?
16. What then?
17. How many pieces of proof are cited?
18. What doesn't the moon's environment have?
19. What would be the result of that?
20. Is it cold on the moon's surface?
Answer:
1. Steven
2. 40 years
3. 20
4. Yes
5. three
6. Yes
7. 21 months
8. who filmed Armstrong
9. Carl West
10. 24
11. No
12. in a convenience store
13. No
14. 35 years old
15. No
16. he just got lucky
17. four
18. gravity
19. the astronauts would just float away
20. No