ACA FLEX Reading 21-10

When you want to hang the American flag over the middle of a street, suspend it vertically with the blue field (called the union) to the north and east-west street. When the flag is displayed with another banner from crossed staffs, the American flag is on the right. Place the staff of the American flag in front of the other staff. Raise the flag quickly and lower it slowly and respectfully. When flying the flag at half-mast, hoist it to the top of the pole for a moment before lowering it to mid-pole. When flying the American flag with banners from states or cities, raise the nation's banner first and lower it last. Never allow the flag to touch the ground.

• AThe American flag is the symbol of American freedom.
• BThe American flag has fifty stars.
• CPlacing the American flag inappropriately will draw government intervention.
• DThe American flag should be own differently in certain situations.
• EThe flag should be lowered quickly and respectfully.

Did you know that the surface of the water is elastic? When you venture deep into the Amazon Jungle, you may encounter a lizard-like creature that runs across the top of the water. He does not swim the water; he runs it like it is a solid surface. It is amazing to see! The combination of his light weight, the speed at which he runs, and the surface of the water giving slightly he maintains his precarious balance on top of the water.

• ALizards in the Amazon Jungle are different from those in America.
• BThe elasticity of the water's surface is one component of the lizard's ability to run on water.
• CAll lizards are able to run on water if it has elasticity.
• DWater in the Amazon Jungle has elasticity because of the hot climate.

People modify cultural ideas in their minds, and sometimes they pass on the modified versions. Inevitably, there are unintentional modifications as well, partly because of straightforward error, and partly because inexplicit ideas are hard to ________ (3) accurately: there is no way to download them directly from one brain to another like computer programs. ________ (4) native speakers of a language will not give identical definitions of every word. So it can be only rarely, if ________ (5), that two people hold precisely the same cultural idea in their minds. That is why, when the founder of a philosophical movement or a religion dies, or ________ (6), schisms typically happen. The movements most devoted followers are often shocked to ________ (7) that they disagree about what its doctrines—really are.

Underground houses have many advantages over conventional housing. Unlike conventional homes, they can be built on ________ (8) surfaces and can maximize space in small areas by going below the surface. In addition, the materials excavated in construction can be used in the building process. Underground houses have less surface area so fewer building materials are used, and ________ (9) costs are lower. They are also wind, fire, and earthquake resistant, providing a secure and safe environment in extreme weather. One of the greatest benefits of underground living is energy ________ (10). The earth's subsurface temperature remains stable, so underground dwellings benefit from geothermal mass and heat exchange, staying cool in the summer and warm in the winter. This saves around 80% in energy costs. By ________ (11) solar design this energy bill ________ (12) to zero, providing hot water and heat to the home all year round.

Roads of rails called Wagonways were being used in Germany as ________ (13) as 1550. These ________ (14) railed roads consisted of wooden rails over which horse-drawn wagons or carts moved with greater ease than over dirt roads. Wagonways were the beginnings of modern railroads. ________ (15) 1776, iron had replaced the wood in the rails and wheels on the carts. Wagonways evolved into Tramways and spread throughout Europe. Horses still provided all the pulling power. In 1789, Englishman, William Jessup designed the first wagons with flanged wheels. The ________ (16) was a groove that allowed the wheels to better grip the rail, this was an important design that carried over to later locomotives.

In terrestrial affairs we think of “big” as being complicated; a city is more intricate than a village, an ocean more complicated than a puddle. For the universe, the reverse seems to be the case bigger is simpler Galaxies have some puzzling features, but on the whole, they are scarcely more complicated than the stars that compose them Beyond the galaxies, in the hierarchy of the cosmos, there are clusters of galaxies; these clusters are loosely bound by the gravity of their largest members and tend to look very much the same in all directions. Simplest of all is the universe at large, it is far less complicated than the Earth, one of its most trivial members. The universe consists of billions of galaxies flying apart as if from an explosion that set it in motion, it is not lopsided, nor does it rotate. The more thoroughly scientists investigate the universe, the more clearly its simplicity shines through.

• AThe universe is a relatively simple phenomenon.
• BBillions of galaxies are predicted to explode, adding to the universal complexity.
• CGalaxy clusters are an illusion.
• DClusters of galaxies are held together by gravity.

Naval architects never claim that a ship is unsinkable, but the sinking of the passenger-and-car ferry Estonia in the Baltic surely should have never have happened. It was well designed and carefully maintained. It carried the proper number of lifeboats. It had been thoroughly inspected the day of its fatal voyage. Yet hours later, the Estonia rolled over and sank in a cold, stormy night. It went down so quickly that most of those on board, caught in their dark, flooding cabins, had no chance to save themselves: Of those who managed to scramble overboard, only 139 survived. The rest died of hypothermia before the rescuers could pluck them from the cold sea. The final death toll amounted to 912 souls. However, there were an unpleasant number of questions about why the Estonia sank and why so many survivors were men in the prime of life, while most of the dead were women, children and the elderly.

• Athe lifesaving equipment did not work well and lifeboats could not be lowered
• Bmost victims were trapped inside the boat as they were in their cabins
• Csurvivors of the accident were mostly young men but women, children and the elderly stood little chance
• Dthere were enough lifeboats for the number of people on board
• E139 people managed to leave the vessel but died in freezing water

There has been a significant decrease in the number of laptops bought and used over the last few years, according to a recent study. With the development of hybrid products such as tablets with keyboards, it’s no wonder that only around a fifth of adults now say that a laptop is an essential device. There are several reasons to consider using alternative technologies to the laptop, among these are a lack of software updates to older systems. Companies have admitted to slowing down older models, as they believe it is easier for hackers to find a vulnerability that leads to a data leak or allows access to sensitive information on these devices. Despite this, many older adults recently reported that they tend to prefer their outdated equipment, which has further contributed to the decline in numbers of laptop sales overall. With our current devices, we’re expected to update the software on them regularly, as well as upgrading by purchasing completely new software. But what would happen if we didn’t follow ‘the norms’ created by tech companies? Would it lead to a collapse in sales of certain technological products as is seemingly happening with the laptop?

• ACompanies anticipate that consumers will buy upgraded versions of existing products.
• BPeople currently using old-fashioned laptops are more likely to buy hybrid devices.
• COlder users prefer not to put sensitive information into their devices.
• DApproximately twenty percent of adults said they intended to buy hybrid devices.
• ECompanies deliberately make certain machines slower by not providing updates.

‘Hypotheses,’ said Medawar in 1964, ‘are imaginative and inspirational in character’; they are ‘adventures of the mind’. He was arguing in favour of the position taken by Karl Popper in TheLogic of Scientific Discovery (1972, 3rd edition) that the nature of scientific method is hypothetico- deductive and not, as is generally believed, inductive. Hypotheses arise by guesswork, or by inspiration, but having been formulated they can and must be tested rigorously, using the appropriate methodology. If the predictions you make as a result of deducing certain consequences from your hypothesis are not shown to be correct then you discard or modify your hypothesis. If the predictions turn out to be correct then your hypothesis has been supported and may be retained until such time as some further test shows it not to be correct. Once you have arrived at your hypothesis, which is a product of your imagination, you then proceed to a strictly logical and rigorous process, based upon deductive argument — hence the term ‘hypothetico- deductive’. The myth of scientific method is not only that it is inductive (which we have seen is incorrect) but also that the hypothetico-deductive method proceeds in a step-by-step, inevitable fashion. The hypothetico-deductive method describes the logical approach to much research work, but it does not describe the psychological behaviour that brings it about. This is much more holistic — involving guesses, reworkings, corrections, blind alleys and above all inspiration, in the deductive as well as the hypothetic component -than is immediately apparent from reading the final thesis or published papers. These have been, quite properly, organised into a more serial, logical order so that the worth of the output may be evaluated independently of the behavioural processes by which it was obtained. It is the difference, for example between the academic papers with which Crick and Watson demonstrated the structure of the DNA molecule and the fascinating book The Double Helix in which Watson (1968) described how they did it. From this point of view, ‘scientific method’ may more usefully be thought of as a way of writing up research rather than as a way of carrying it out.

• APopper says that the scientific method is hypothetico-deductive.
• BIf a prediction based on a hypothesis is fulfilled, then the hypothesis is confirmed as true.
• CMany people carry out research in a mistaken way.
• DThe ‘scientific method’ is more a way of describing research than a way of doing it.
• EHypothetico-deductive method is inevitably a step- by-step method.