Exam practice

• It drives with no one in the driver’s seat, using sensors to see the road.
• It can be booked (hailed) with a phone app, and sends a notification when it arrives.
• It greets the passenger with a voice through its sound system.

Driverless technology could make commuting and long journeys easier, take people out of high-risk jobs and make industries run more smoothly. It could help build cities that depend less on cars, with lower carbon emissions and more sustainable ways of living. Above all, it could make roads safer, since most of the more than a million road deaths each year are caused by human error.

According to Camilla Fowler, automated vehicles could in the end give us safer roads with fewer deaths.

In David Hynd’s view, a driverless car should give a calm ride, but the human drivers around it will not always behave calmly: it has to cope with people who speed or break the rules of the road.

They are testing the cars in places built to copy real towns, such as Mcity at the University of Michigan, a 16-acre testing ground with roads, traffic signals, buildings, railway tracks and footpaths. There they put the cars through difficult situations, such as children playing in the street or two cars merging at a junction at the same time.

There is no single right answer; give your view with reasons. For example:
I think driverless cars will become safer than human drivers, but they are not safer everywhere yet. Most crashes are caused by human mistakes such as speeding, drinking or using a phone, and a machine never gets tired or distracted. On the other hand, driverless cars still struggle with unpredictable people and roads, and they have been tested mostly on well-marked roads in rich countries. So they may already be safer on some roads, but on busy, unmarked roads like many in Nepal, a careful human driver is still safer.

• Health: AI can study X-rays and eye scans and spot signs of disease, such as tuberculosis or damage from diabetes, helping doctors where there are few specialists.
• Farming: apps can recognize a crop disease from a photo of a leaf and suggest what to do, and forecasts help farmers decide when to plant and water.
• Education and language: AI tutors can explain a topic again in different words, and translation tools help people read and talk across languages.

The benefits are speed, help where experts are few, and fewer mistakes from tiredness; but AI can still be wrong, so people must check what it says.

• i.The robotaxi’s voice (its sound system). The car’s voice welcomed the passenger and said that the car was all theirs, with no one in front.
• ii.David Hynd, chief scientist at TRL. David Hynd said that driverless vehicles should be a very calm and peaceful way of getting from one place to another.
• iii.David Hynd again. He said that a driverless car had to be able to cope with human drivers who were speeding.
• iv.Richard Jinks of Oxbotica. Richard Jinks said that the whole insurance industry was looking into how it would deal with the change from a person being responsible to the vehicle being responsible.

• a.My teacher said that she was very busy then. (he for a man; now → then)
• b.My sister told me that the cows had been fed.
• c.Sohan told me that he knew my address.
• d.Ramila told me that she didn’t believe me.
• e.Alice said that she was too late to go out.
• f.Sophie said that her family was very supportive of her.

a – v, b – i, c – ii, d – iii, e – iv, f – vii, g – vi.
What changed: the person (I → she, he), the tense one step back after a past reporting verb (go → went, have finished → had finished, work → worked), time words (this → that, these → those), and in b and d a reporting verb that carries the meaning (apologized for, promised to). In c, says is present, so the tense and next week stay.

Look for the clue in each direct sentence: a confession, a piece of advice, a threat, an offer, news, thanks, saying yes to something, a firm “I will”, an apology.

a. admitted b. advised c. warned d. offered e. informed f. thanked g. agreed h. promised i. apologized
In g, “OK” shows Prakriti is saying yes to a request, so agreed; in h, “I will really…” is a promise. (Promised would also make sense in g, but each verb is used once.)

Plan four challenges before you write, one paragraph each, and give each an example a reader in Nepal would recognize.

AI brings new worries along with new help
By a staff reporter
Kathmandu. Artificial intelligence (AI) now writes essays, answers questions and makes pictures in seconds. Millions of people, students among them, use it every day. But as it spreads, it brings challenges we are only beginning to face.
The first is false information. AI can make photos, voices and videos of real people saying things they never said. Such fakes spread quickly on social media, and many readers cannot tell them from the truth.
The second is jobs. Work that follows fixed steps, such as typing data, answering customers’ calls or translating simple documents, can now be done by machines. Workers will need new skills to keep up.
Third, AI is sometimes wrong while sounding sure. It can invent facts, names and even references. Students who copy its answers without checking may learn mistakes, and stop learning to think for themselves.
Finally, there is privacy. AI systems learn from huge amounts of data, often collected from people who never agreed to it.
None of this means we should turn AI away. It can help doctors, farmers and students. But we must use it with care: check what it says, protect our data, and make fair rules for it. The machine is clever; whether it is used well is still up to us.

a. corporate b. tackle c. catalyze (British catalyse) d. expertise e. net zero f. at stake g. outrage

At the United Nations Secretariat, 42nd Street, New York (NY 10017), in the United States.

The purpose is to ask him to include children and adolescents under 18 in his Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change, and to ask the hosts of COP26 to give children a safe space to influence its preparations.

It was set up to advise the Secretary-General regularly on speeding up global action to tackle the worsening climate crisis.

Children have been agents of change. Millions joined school strikes in 2019 and 2020, showing both their anger and their solutions. Through schools, social media and street protests they have spread action around the world, and they have spoken to political and business leaders, at home and at the UN Human Rights Council, claiming their right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

Greta Thunberg started the global movement with a protest on her own in 2018, and showed that no one is too small to make a difference. Fabrizio, a 16-year-old boy from Peru, spoke in an online conversation led by children, warning that their future is at stake now and that tomorrow will be too late, and pressed for urgent action and a green recovery.

That the Youth Advisory Group should include children and adolescents younger than 18, so that they can be heard and give their expertise directly; and that the UK and Italy should give children a safe space to influence the preparations for COP26.

• Learn and tell others: explain what causes climate change to family and neighbors, and speak up in school and local meetings.
• Waste less: switch off lights and fans not in use, repair things instead of throwing them away, and avoid single-use plastic.
• Travel cleanly: walk, cycle or take a bus for short trips.
• Plant and protect trees, and take part in clean-up and tree-planting campaigns of the school’s eco club or the community.
• Ask for change: write to your ward or municipality, as in Writing II, about waste, transport or green spaces.

a. overpopulation b. escaping c. CO₂ (carbon dioxide) d. our health e. heavy snowfall f. higher temperatures g. solar and wind

a. the greenhouse effect b. carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide c. warmer temperatures d. exposure to smog e. solar and wind energy

is, if he meant the Sun itself, which is always very hot: a fact that is always true keeps its tense.
If he meant that the sunshine was hot that day (“The sun is very hot today”), then was. In an exam with no other clue, choose is, as a general truth. Are is wrong: the sun is singular.

Raima said that they had had to cross the river and go ahead.
Had to is past simple, which moves back to the past perfect, had had to. Since the order of events is clear, “Raima said that they had to cross the river…” is also correct.

Smarika told her friends that she would meet them the next day.
(The word friends tells us who was spoken to, so told her friends.)

Chandani said that she couldn’t come to school the next day.

Dorje apologized and said that he could not lend me any money that day.
(Sorry is turned into a reporting verb: it can’t stay as a word in reported speech.)

The teacher told us that we could solve the remaining problems ourselves then.

The police said that the incident had probably taken place the day before (or the previous day).

I told him that I lived in Changunarayan those days.

They told us that they would like to join us too. (Would doesn’t change.)

The science teacher said that coal gives off thick smoke. (A general truth, so the present may stay; gave off is also correct.)

Resham said that he had never seen such a strange animal anywhere else.

The father said that he loved his children more than wealth.

Use the open letter’s order: who you are and why you write, the problem, your reasons, your exact request, a polite close.

Ward No. 4, Suryabinayak
Bhaktapur
15 Kartik 2083

The Mayor
Suryabinayak Municipality
Bhaktapur

Subject: Request to include children in decisions about children’s issues

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am a student of Grade 10 at a secondary school in Ward No. 4, and I am writing on behalf of the members of our school’s child club.

Every year the municipality makes decisions that change children’s lives: the budget for schools, playgrounds, road safety near schools and health camps. However, children are rarely asked what we need. Last year, for example, a new road was built past our school with no crossing, and many of us still cross it among the traffic.

Children know their own problems best. Nepal’s law and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Nepal has signed, both say that children have a right to be heard on matters that affect them. If we are asked, we can point out problems early and suggest practical solutions.

I therefore request you to invite two representatives of the child clubs in each ward to the municipality’s meetings on education, health and safety, and to hold a children’s meeting with the ward chairpersons once a year before the budget is planned.

I hope you will consider this request. We would be glad to help in any way we can.

Yours faithfully,
Rina Shrestha
Grade 10

d, b, e, c, a

• a.Hari said that he was reading a novel.
• b.The captain said that they would win the match the next day.
• c.Sunita told me that she had lost my pen.
• d.The doctor said that walking every day keeps the heart healthy. (A general truth; kept is also correct.)
• e.Bishal says that his sister lives in Pokhara.
• f.Asmita told me that she had met my brother at the bus park the day before.

a. said b. would visit c. wanted d. what e. had f. turned g. to repair h. not to play i. for j. could

• a.Nirmala is a Grade 10 student from Dhulikhel.
• b.It is a “no plastic day”: students bring lunch in steel boxes.
• c.The eco club checks every class.
• d.From a younger student who had seen plastic burning behind the school.
• e.Nirmala said, “Our school has started a ‘no plastic day’ every Friday.”

A letter to the editor is a formal letter: your address and date, The Editor, the newspaper’s name and address, a subject line, Dear Sir/Madam (or Dear Editor), then the problem, an example, your suggestions, and Yours faithfully. Editors publish letters that are short and clear.

Paragraph 1: why you write: you saw a rider on a phone almost hit a schoolchild at a crossing near your home.

Paragraph 2: the danger: a driver looking at a phone for two seconds at 40 km/h travels more than 20 meters without seeing the road; walkers looking at phones step into traffic.

Paragraph 3: suggestions: traffic police to fine phone use while driving, schools to teach road safety, drivers to switch on “do not disturb” while driving, walkers to put the phone away while crossing.

Close: a hope that readers will think before they look at their phones; Yours faithfully, your name.