Вы услышите диалог. Определите, какие из приведённых утверждений A-G соответствуют содержанию текста (1 — True), какие не соответствуют (2 — False) и о чём в тексте не сказано, то есть на основании текста нельзя дать ни положительного, ни отрицательного ответа (3 — Not stated).
A. The ‘smart pill’ is a new drug.
B. It’s easy for some people to take the wrong medicine.
C. People don’t mind making mistakes.
D. Most people are impressed with the new system for reading labels.
E. People can hear personal information with the new system.
F. The labels are designed to speak aloud.
G. Most people are afraid of the new technology.
A. The ‘smart pill’ is a new drug. FALSE
B. It’s easy for some people to take the wrong medicine. TRUE
C. People don’t mind making mistakes. FALSE
D. Most people are impressed with the new system for reading labels. TRUE
E. People can hear personal information with the new system. TRUE
F. The labels are designed to speak aloud. FALSE
G. Most people are afraid of the new technology. FALSE
Interviewer: My guest on today’s programme ‘What’s New in Medicine’ is Andrew Taylor. Andrew, welcome to the programme. Now I know there’ve been some pretty exciting developments recently in your area of work and one, in particular, which is close to your heart is the ‘smart pill’.
Andrew Taylor: Well, I guess ‘smart pill’ is just a convenient term for what I think is going to be a pretty important development in medical technology. But what set us off looking at this in the laboratory is the fact that thousands of people each year are admitted to hospital because they have accidentally taken the wrong medicine or the wrong dose of medicine.
Interviewer: How come? Surely it must be quite difficult to do that?
Andrew Taylor: Not really. There’re people who perhaps take quite a lot of medicine, tablets and so on, particularly elderly people, and so it’s not difficult for them to pick up the wrong bottle or packet without realising. And then there’re people with poor eyesight who can mistake one bottle for another, and for them the risk of taking the wrong medicine is even higher. People are very sensitive and they worry about getting things wrong and getting into trouble with their doctor.
Interviewer: I see — but it’s not their fault.
Andrew Taylor: Of course not. So what we’ve come up with is a simple system for reading pill labels out loud. And this will be of great benefit to people whose sight is not very good. We’ve been experimenting with the system and generally speaking most people are both amazed and delighted with it.
Interviewer: How does it work?
Andrew Taylor: Well, the system consists of special labels which contain tiny microchips. The microchip contains all the important information about the medicine for that particular patient. Their name, how many to take — if it’s pills — and when to take them, such as before or after meals.
Interviewer: What if people are still unsure about something?
Andrew Taylor: Each microchip also has the name and address of their doctor as well as a phone number which people can ring if they have any questions.
Interviewer: So what is it that speaks out loud? The label?
Andrew Taylor: No, no. It’s a thing called a reader. When a patient wants to take their medicine, they press a button on a small thing called a reader. You know the things that check-out assistants use in supermarkets which read the barcodes, the labels on whatever you’re buying, well, the readers are like that. The reader sends out a radio signal to the microchip which returns the information recorded on the label. The reader then speaks this out loud.
Interviewer: Don’t some people find that rather scary?
Andrew Taylor: A few maybe. Admittedly the voice is electronic and some people are put off by new technology. But once they get used to the voice, which is quite soft — it doesn’t shout at them — they become confident that they are taking the right quantity of medicine and at the right time and that’s really reassuring. And everyone agrees that without the new technology they could end up in hospital.
