Reading Final Test

A. Match the synonym or definition below with the word from the paragraph. The (number) in parenthesis refers to the paragraph number. / 16
(1) interfering
meddling
(2) Amount of food collected from a field
crops
(3) person who grows plants
plant breeder
(4) make better
improve
(5) things that are planned
in the pipeline
(6) freedom from harm or danger
safe
(7) occurring in many places
widespread
(8) amount by which something is deficient
shortage

B. Comprehension / 3
1. State the thesis or main point of the text as a whole.
Genetically modified foods are not as dangerous as what the medias are telling us. There are helpful for our society and they represent a real hope for our future.

2. How, well in your opinion, does the author support her point of view? / 3
By giving clear examples of situations in which medias are not telling us the whole truth about GM foods, and in which they only present them as a bad thing. The author also writes about the good effects of GM foods can have on the population of our planet.

3. How does this text relate to the readings in our textbook in the unit, GMF? / 4
The subject is basically the same, but instead of giving us only facts on it, the author present a clear opinion on the topic. It shows how can somebody see GM foods as a solution for many problems on Earth.

4. In two or three sentences, write the main idea of each paragraph in your own words. / 24 Paragraph 1
Since the dawn of times, humans have always shown a strong interest into what surrounded them: nature. With the evolutions that we live with today, we can tell that we would not change the way we treat things that could come up now if they were not discovered before.

Paragraph 2
Breeding programmes are the sources of almost all the food we eat now. Plant breeders mix two different varieties of plants that each of them have a good characteristics which the breeder wants to keep. Then, when the new plant has been cross-pollinated and planted, the result can be as expected, or can also present a problem that was not part of either parental plants' characteristics before. It is a long process.

Paragraph 3
Genetic engineering is often used to reduce the length of time of this process. Scientists are introducing genes to plants to give them other characteristics that can be useful on the plant.

Paragraph 4
Critics of GM plants judge the insertions of genes has being inconceivable, but genes already jump everywhere into living organisms in the nature. Most of the time, it is genes that increase the productivity of a crop, and genes that give tolerance and resistance to insects and pesticides, that are inserted which are called "input traits".

Paragraph 5
"Output traits" are being planned for the second generation of GM crops, which will present more advantages to consumers. The GM foods resulted by these processes would prevent, for exemple, Asian children from blindness, because of the compounds that can be converted by the human body into, for this case, vitamin A.

Paragraph 6
People should not be worried about the "safety" of GM foods, because there is no such thing, only the use of food can be a danger. They are subject from multiple toxicological tests unlike non-GM foods, and are declared safe.

Paragraph 7
GM crops are safe for the environment, no animal can die from eating a GM plant. The results shown by medias are biased because they only want to show us the bad sides of the subject by giving us the half of the informations, like in the case of the Monarch butterfly larvae.

Paragraph 8
The author thinks that there is enough food on Earth to be able to feed everybody, like the population of sub-Saharan Africa. The people should think about the food crisis that occurs in Africa and should look a GM foods as a possible solution for the problem.