Saturday, November 11, 2006

Verbal Reasoning

I had to go into an important governmental building to to teach how to do the verbal reasoning exam to 15 Slovaks connected to the European Union. This test is cruel, nasty and doesn't really test one's knowledge of English. This test is enough to catch out some of the smartest people out. I had to go through a Powerpoint presentation and show students how they can fail this horrid test that most Slovaks seem to fail. I tried to do some of this test myself, and found myself losing concentration very quickly.
So then, why should someone like me show them how to do it? Marta, my lovely colleague insisted that I would be good for the job as I am a native speaker and an English teacher. Although I am sure others could do it better, it makes a break from the bog standard English teaching I usually do.

Here is one of the questions

FIRST, READ THE TEXT AND DEDUCE THE ANSWER THAT FITS BEST WITH THE TEXT

120 million people worldwide suffer from depression. A European Union-funhded research project was carried out recently to uncover the genetic factors linked to depression. with a view to developing new drug treatmen, named, NEWMOOD, has received several million euro in funding and aims to identify genes triggering depression. This will help researchers to develop new drugs over the next five years to treat and improve understanding of its causes. The drugs are set to revolutionise antidepressant drugs, which haven't changed much oer 30 years. Researchers will develop a microchip carrying 800 genes to ones are active in healthy and depressed animals and humans

Q: Which of the following suggestions about current anti depressants is correct?
a: for 30 years they have been acting on the symptoms of depression and not tackling its causes
b: they still fail to take specific account of the genes responisible for causing depression
c: they have evolved considerably since tresearch started, specifically over the past 30 years.
d: they act on genetically induced depression and not on other types of depression

send your answers in the comments part

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