Eindexamen Engels vmbo-gl/tl 2023, tijdvak 2: vragen en antwoorden

YouTube parents sell baby replica

What “merch” can a YouTube family sell when they already do mugs, T-shirts and hoodies?

A lifelike doll of their baby, of course.

Chris and Sarah Ingham broadcast their life to 1.2 million subscribers and livestreamed the birth of Jace, their fourth child. Now they are selling a toy version with “realistically adorable features”. It costs £279.

Like other YouTubers, they sell a variety of merchandise, but the announcement drew hostile comments. “Imagine finding out your parents once sold realistic dolls of the newborn you online,” one user wrote. Referring to a dystopian TV show, another said: “Is this an episode of Black Mirror?”

The Inghams said that their actions had been “twisted” and that the doll was “a representation of what he looked like at two weeks old but not an exact copy of him”. They said that any profit would go to Jace as an adult. Mrs Ingham said that “reborn” dolls comforted infertile women.

thetimes.co.uk, 2019

Wurst luck

1 German police say they have solved a nine-year-old burglary case after DNA found on a half-eaten piece of sausage matched that of a man detained in France over an unrelated crime.

2 Police in the western town of Schwelm said on Thursday the sausage belonged to the victim, and the suspect appeared to have helped himself to a bite during the break-in in Gevelsberg in March 2012.

3 Officers from the Nordrhein-Westfalen force said in a statement the DNA pattern did not produce a direct hit at the time but that automatic comparisons with international databases led to a link later on. The connection was made after French police took a DNA sample from a man involved in a violent crime that matched the burglary sample, alerting investigators. It was not clear what type of sausage

• known in Germany as wurst
• the burglar had nibbled, though police said it was a hard variety.

4 However, the statute of limitations on the burglary has expired, meaning the suspect is unlikely to be extradited to Germany. Schwelm police said the suspect remains free.

theguardian.co.uk, 2021

Tattoo You: The Truth About Getting Inked adapted from an article by Ali Maldoff

1 Dead set on getting inked? Only slightly curious? Here’s what you need to know before facing down the needle and getting that tattoo. Tattooing is defined by Health Canada as “the art of permanently depositing pigment into the skin to a depth of 1–2 mm to create a design.” An electric machine vibrates a cluster of needles hundreds of times per minute to puncture the skin and deposit the pigment. Does it hurt? Well, yes

• at least a little.

2 …

3 …

4 …

fazeteen.com, 2016

Vienna selfie museum aims to make art more 5

1 Filled with brightly-coloured walls and giant objects, it has everything needed for the perfect selfie. “The number of young people going to a museum has fallen, so we are trying to combat that with social media,” says Petra Scharinger, co-creator of nofilter_museum.

2 The museum is filled with interactive exhibits which, Ms Scharinger says, invite people to really have fun. There are 24 different rooms at the museum. Visitors can take pictures in front of various different-coloured walls for the perfect outfit snap. There are also ball pits, floral walls and glitter confetti, designed for creative selfies. There is even a room filled with fake food such as cupcakes and macaroons.

3 A number of major influencers have already expressed interest in coming to the museum for shoots. But the idea of attracting influencers is controversial, because of the often close relationship between popular influencers and brands. Much advertising on social media is subtle or even subliminal. The Museum of Ice Cream in the US has proved popular with Instagram influencers and has more than 390,000 followers on its own Instagram account. The company behind that museum has since been valued at $200m (£161m), according to the Wall Street Journal.

4 Ms Scharinger, a business graduate, expects around 300-500 people a day to visit her museum. “I think it’s the future of museums,” she says. “The main point is that it’s not only about selfies, but also about having a good time, being able to interact while experiencing art. “I do think that people spend a lot of time on their phones and that’s why we try to combine that with something real and something fun. But I don’t think it is our responsibility to educate them,” she adds. The museum is temporary, however; Ms Scharinger and co-creator Nils Peper hope to take it on tour to other cities and countries.

adapted from bbc.com, 2019

Don’t pass your pooch off as a service dog

1 Dogs are amazing creatures ̶ they can be lovable companions, robust playmates and help those with mental and physical challenges lead more fulfilling lives. But service dogs and “civilian dogs” are not to be confused ̶ especially by deceitful owners. Representative Kimberly Ferguson filed a bill making it illegal to knowingly misrepresent a dog as a service dog or service-dog-in-training “for the purpose of obtaining any rights or privileges afforded to a person with a disability requiring the assistance of a service dog.” Sarah Peake explains why she is a supporter of Ferguson’s bill: she has run a bed-and-breakfast for 23 years and has encountered a number of guests who would claim their dog was a service animal after being informed that the inn was pet-free.

2 Defensive dog owners may ask: How bad can it be to have a pooch interacting with its owner in public, even if you have to tell a white lie about its qualifications so it can go wherever you do? In truth, that lack of consideration causes lively hounds in restaurants who bark and whine at the overload of amazing smells and new people, stressed poodles taking out their overstimulation by wrecking the office rug and bored terriers nipping someone’s pants for something fun to do.

3 And worse. Ellen Leigh of Arlington uses a mobilized wheelchair, and has a trained service dog named Ricky. She was out with Ricky last month when another dog wearing a working-dog vest tried to bite him. She said that was just one of many encounters she’s had with pets whose owners misrepresent them as service dogs.

4 The American Kennel Club states that training for service dogs can last up to two years. The dogs must be focused on their handlers and desensitized to distractions. They should not be distracted by the public. Pets without special training, Leigh said, can become stressed in hectic, public environments and become aggressive ̶ a hazard for service dogs and the people who rely on their assistance.

5 Service dogs help with more than mobility. Sheila Goffe of the American Kennel Club said the role of the dogs has expanded to include aiding people with “invisible disabilities” like epilepsy and post-traumatic stress disorder. “ 11 , increased success in the area of invisible disabilities, combined with a lack of penalties for abuse, has resulted in an epidemic of pets being misrepresented as service dogs by irresponsible dog owners seeking to benefit,” Goffe said.

6 “The bottom line is, this is legislation to combat fraud,” Ferguson said. Violators would be subject to a fine of up to $500, 30 hours of community service at an organization serving people with disabilities, or both, for a first offense. An excellent move, long overdue. We love dogs, it’s just disheartening when some owners need lessons in obedience.

adapted from Boston Herald, 2019

Hailie Deegan: NASCAR’s1) exciting young driver adapted from an article by Christian Brooks

1 In September 2018, Hailie Deegan had her debut season in stock car racing, the most popular form of automobile racing in the USA. She had recently made the switch from off-road, where she had progressed through the classes after starting to compete aged eight. Her introduction to racing came as her dad, a decorated motocross rider, was making the transition to off-road competition. It was at one of his races that she saw others her age competing in events for children and, after “begging” her parents, she received an off-road kart for her eighth birthday. Soon afterwards, Deegan began competing in the Lucas Oil Off Road Pro series’ youth events. She was the only girl and became a three-time champion. The first female to win a title.

2 By the time Deegan was 15, she was ready for a new challenge. Her mother saw an advert online for NASCAR’s ‘Drive for Diversity’ driver development program and Deegan applied and was accepted. She found stock car racing very different to off-road but she adapted quickly. She was both the youngest and only female member of the 2017-18 NASCAR Next class ̶ an initiative designed to identify emerging racing talent.

3 Still, Deegan has also encountered problems on her team. “The hardest thing for me was just getting crew chiefs and people to believe in me,” she said. “They see you as a little girl and they’re like: ‘Oh, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’ I’d say I lost about half my season just messing with my crew chief and I’m on, like, my fourth crew chief now. There’s a lot of room for improvement there.”

4 Deegan is hopeful the younger generation of which she is a part can help bring about change in this respect. “I feel like I may have had to prove myself a little bit more often because some people just weren’t prepared to accept a new reality,” she adds. “I was one of the first girls in off-road racing. And now, occasionally I’ll go back and I see a lot more girls there. I’ll even have dads come up to me and say: ‘I got my daughter into racing because of you.’ So those things are really cool to see and I love that.”

5 Deegan’s father, Brian, believes 17 and suggests his daughter has an advantage in that regard. “I feel like Hailie has a lot in her toolbox. She started as an off-road driver and I think this dirt background gives her an advantage. I think that’s what it’s going to take for a female to come to NASCAR and be competitive.”

6 Whatever success Deegan does achieve will be enjoyed on her terms, with plenty of energy and personality. “I’m just trying to be one of those people to beat,” she says. “I really don’t know what else I would do without racing in my life. It’s always been my goal from day one to race for a living. Now that we’re here, I have a set plan of where I want to be and in how many years. Now it’s the little steps.”

bbc.com, 2020

noot 1 NASCAR = overkoepelende organisatie die autoraces organiseert in de Verenigde Staten

This Musical Highway Will Play You a Song adapted from an article by Jennifer Nalewicki

1 The stretch of Route 66 that travels east out of Albuquerque, New Mexico is desolate at best. Besides a handful of gas stations and a spider web of power lines that cast their shadows onto the two-lane roadway, there’s not a whole lot to see. But for one quarter-mile stretch, there’s plenty to hear, because two years ago, the New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT) had the idea to make a roadway that sings to bring a little excitement to an otherwise monotonous highway. NMDOT created a length of roadway between mile markers four and five that plays music whenever a vehicle drives over it. But there’s a catch; the tune, in this case “America the Beautiful,” only works when cars are traveling at exactly 45 mph to encourage drivers to stay within the speed limit.

2 “Route 66 is a very historical roadway and NMDOT thought it would be neat to do something like this on such a unique piece of highway,” Matt Kennicott, director of communications for NMDOT, tells Smithsonian.com. “We chose this stretch for its historical and travel value. Albuquerque has several classic car clubs that date back to when Route 66 was in its heyday that like to cruise the roadway, so it seemed like a good fit.”

3 At one time, the historic roadway was one of the main arteries linking Chicago to Los Angeles. After World War Il, automobile ownership grew and Route 66 did too, becoming an icon of road trip freedom for cross- country travelers. Over the years, driving along the more than 2,400-mile “Mother Road” has remained a bucket-list item for road-weary travelers of all stripes, and the musical highway is just one more reason for drivers to keep this roadway on their GPS.

4 Exactly how does the musical highway work? “The road works by the simplest bit of science,” Kennicott says. “All of the sounds and music notes that we hear in day-to-day life are just vibrations through the air. For instance, anything that vibrates 330 times in one second will produce an E note ̶ a guitar string, a tuning fork or even a tire. To produce an E note with a car, we had to space rumble strips such that if driven at 45 mph for one second, the car would hit 330 strips. A bit of math tells us this is 2.4 inches between each rumble strip. After that, it’s a case of breaking down the music into exact chunks of time and applying the same technique to each space depending on what note is needed and for how long.”

5 Engineers welded metal bars together to make a template, heated up the asphalt in sections using massive blowtorches and pressed each template into the pavement. All told, it took about a day for workers to instaIl the rumble strips into the highway and paint musical notes on the pavement.

6 Currently there are only a handful of rhythmic roadways around the world, including highways in Denmark (called the “Asphaltophone”) and Japan (“Melody Road”). Perhaps one day every highway will play a song. 24 , what’s a road trip without an epic playlist?

smithsonianmag.com, 2016

Playing outside no longer an option

1 A national debate has been sparked in the Netherlands after a council ordered a primary school playground to be shut. Residents in apartments near De Buut primary school had complained that its pupils regularly exceeded a 70-decibel limit, which applies across the country for residential areas and is enforced by local councils. Official readings reached 88 decibels. The De Buut school playground has been used by children for 40 years. It was reduced in size during building works two years ago to make room for apartments to be built opposite.

2 The school’s director, Janneke Colsen, said the school had been told to close the playground by the end of the month or face a €10,000 (£9,000) fine for each infringement of the ruling, despite making repeated efforts to satisfy local residents. “It’s a bizarre situation,” she said. “And it is absolutely unfair to the children. They should be allowed to go outside and be given the chance to move more.”

3 Colsen told local media outlets: “We have moved the musical and other activities inside, the opening times of the field have been limited to eight in the evening and various structural changes have been made. But apparently we have not done enough.”

4 The row has led to reflection over city planning in a country that prides itself on using its space to the maximum. The Netherlands has one of the highest rates of urbanisation in Europe. More than 75% of the population live in urban areas. Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht have grown faster every year since 2008 than the Netherlands as a whole.

5 Noël Vergunst, a local Green councillor, defended the decision to close the playground during a council session by explaining that officials had a duty to investigate complaints and “the noise measurement showed that the noise standard was considerably exceeded so we had to do something”.

6 Erik Roelofsen, the director of the Dutch Foundation against Annoyance by Noise, believes the apartments were built too close to the schoolyard. He said: “Municipalities must continue to think about spatial planning. This field is built in on three sides, the sound can hardly go away.”

7 More than 4,000 people have signed a petition demanding a rethink by the council, which is expected to look again at the issue in coming days. Rudmer Heerema, who raised the issue with the Dutch education minister in parliament, tweeted: “You go to live next to a sports field where children enjoy sports and then you file a complaint against noise ... A solution must be found for this. Children must be able to exercise.”

adapted from theguardian.com, 2019

Blue whales’ changing song has deeper meaning adapted from an article by Ben Hoyle

1 Blue whales are not only the largest animals on Earth, they are also some of the loudest creatures in its oceans. Only the males sing but their droning hum is about as loud as a large ship and it generates a sound that can travel more than 600 miles underwater.

2 It is still unclear whether this extraordinary communication, which exists on the furthest reaches of human hearing, is intended to repel rivals, attract a mate or achieve something else. What is known is that in oceans thousands of miles apart these atonal sounds have been evolving for decades.

3 A 2009 study found that since at least the 1960s the average pitch of blue whales’ cries has dropped the equivalent of three white keys on a piano keyboard. Last year a new report confirmed that other whales around the world have exhibited the same mysterious drop in pitch.

4 Previously it had been thought that the phenomenon could be a response to noise pollution caused by increased human marine traffic, but the new study ruled that out because it used data collected from the southern Indian Ocean which has grown quieter in recent years and does not have extensive shipping traffic. 30 the researchers think that the change was a response to a recovering whale population or to changes in the ocean due to climate change. The louder a whale tries to make its calls, the higher the pitch gets. Therefore the drop in pitch would mean that whales are not straining so hard to be heard.

5 This could be a positive consequence of conservation efforts. Since

1966 Antarctic blue whales have been protected from commercial hunting and there are now more than 2,000 individuals. Overall blue whale numbers are up from a few thousand in the early 1970s to an estimated 10,000 to 25,000 today. More whales may mean that they are closer together, so that individuals do not need to communicate over such long distances.

6 An alternative possibility is that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has made the oceans more acidic and enabled sound waves to travel further underwater. The temperature, pressure and chemistry of the ocean affect the speed and distance that sound travels.

7 The research team observed a seasonal variation in calls of Antarctic blue whales. In the southern Indian Ocean, Antarctic blue whale calls increase in pitch during the summer. This may be because they have to be louder over the noise of breaking sea ice.

The Times, 2019

Time capsule turns up in Donegal

1 A time capsule that washed up in Donegal, a county in Ireland, provides a scary warning about 33 , according to the surfer who found it. Sophie Curran and her friend Conor McClory discovered the capsule while walking along the shoreside of Bloody Foreland in Gweedore. But it wasn’t immediately obvious what it was. “It’s a strange looking thing,” Ms Curran said. “We thought it was a bomb or someone’s ashes… we didn’t want to open it.”

2 Through a friend of her brother, they were able to find out that it was actually a Russian time capsule from 2018. And, of course, once they knew it was safe to open, they were quick to do so. “There was a whole array of pictures, letters, things from the ship it came from, the itinerary, the menu

• they had corks from their wines and everything.” Naturally, most of the information was written in Russian, although there were some letters in English. It’s thanks to them that Ms Curran was able to identify one of the passengers who had contributed to the capsule
• an Instagram blogger from St Petersburg.

3 The blogger, Sveta, was aboard a nuclear-powered icebreaker. Ms Curran said that the blogger 35 , as it was expected that the time capsule would probably stay put for 30 years. One of the only letters written in English in the capsule expanded on this. “Everything around us is covered by ice,” it read. “We think by the time this letter is found there will be no more ice in the Arctic.” The time capsule’s premature discovery is almost like a warning about global warming, with Ms Curran saying that it’s really scary that the ice melted so quickly.

adapted from Independent.ie, 2020

Wearable tech-glove translates sign language

1 UCLA bioengineers have designed a glove-like device that can translate American Sign Language into English speech in real time through a smartphone app. “Our hope is that this opens up an easy way for people who use sign language to communicate directly with non-signers without needing someone else to translate for them,” said Jun Chen, an assistant professor of bioengineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and the principal investigator on the research. “ 36 , we hope it can help more people learn sign language themselves.”

2 The system includes a pair of gloves with thin, stretchable sensors that run the length of each of the five fingers. These sensors, made from electrically conducting yarns, pick up hand motions and finger placements that stand for individual letters, numbers, words and phrases.

3 The device then turns the finger movements into electrical signals, which are sent to a dollar-coin-sized circuit board worn on the wrist. The board transmits those signals wirelessly to a smartphone that translates them into spoken words at the rate of about one word per second.

4 Previous wearable systems that offered translation from American Sign Language were limited by bulky and heavy device designs or were unpleasant to wear, Chen said. The device developed by the UCLA team is made from lightweight and inexpensive but long-lasting, stretchable polymers. The electronic sensors are also very flexible and inexpensive.

sciencedaily.com, 2020

Rare Burgers By Sean Poulter Consumer Affairs Editor

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has issued new guidelines that appear to be contradictory. The advice of the watchdog used to be to cook all burgers through to ensure harmful bacteria such as E.coli are destroyed. But yesterday officials recommended that food outlets no longer need to abide by the regime if they can show the meat is from a safe supplier. The move follows pressure from some gourmet burger chains, pubs and restaurants which argue that the meat tastes better if it is pink in the middle. An FSA spokesman said: “In places where people eat out, the food industry is able to implement strict controls and this helps to minimise the risk of people getting ill. It is unrealistic to expect similar controls in the home, so our advice remains burgers be cooked at home should be cooked until no pink bits remain.”

Daily Mail, 2015

Friend or Foe? Today’s cyber-attackers are masters of disguise.

Sophisticated email attacks, compromised cloud systems, vulnerable devices ̶ it’s hard to predict tomorrow’s threats. AI1) can distinguish between legitimate activity and an emerging cyber-threat, and fight back in seconds.

Start a 30-day trial and join the thousands of organizations protected by Darktrace’s world-leading Cyber AI1).

darktrace.com

noot 1 AI = artificial intelligence

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