Research that this policy is misguided

Research that this policy is misguided

This IELTS Reading post focuses on all the solutions for IELTS Cambridge 14 Reading Test 2 Passage 3 which is entitled ‘Why companies should welcome disorder’. This is an aimed post for candidates who have major problems in finding Reading Answers. This post can easily guide you the best to comprehend every Reading answer. Finding IELTS Reading answers is a gradual process and I hope this post can help you in your IELTS Reading preparation.

IELTS Cambridge 14 Test 2: AC Reading Module
Reading Passage 3:

The headline of the passage: Why companies should welcome disorder

Questions 27-34 (List of headings)

[In this question type, IELTS candidates are provided with a list of headings, usually identified with lower-case Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, etc,). A heading will refer to the main idea of the paragraph or section of the text. Candidates must find out the equivalent heading to the correct paragraphs or sections, which are marked with alphabets A, B, C and so forth. Candidates need to write the appropriate Roman numerals in the boxes on their answer sheets. There will always be two or three more headings than there are paragraphs or sections. So, some of the headings will not be used. It is also likely that some paragraphs or sections may not be included in the task. Generally, the first paragraph is an example paragraph which will be done for the candidates for their understanding of the task.

TIPS: Skimming is the best reading technique. You need not understand every word here. Just try to gather the gist of the sentences. That’s all. Read quickly and don’t stop until you finish each sentence.]

Question 27: Section A

These lines suggest that people are increasingly expected to organise their companies.

So, the answer is: vi (What people are increasingly expected to do)

Question 28: Section B

So, the answer is: i (Complaints about the impact of a certain approach)

Question 29: Section C

So, the answer is: iii (Early recommendations concerning business activities)

Question 30: Section D

The first line of section D gives us the answer. The writer states, “New research suggests that this obsession with efficiency is misguided.” It means that the beliefs regarding efficiency are misguided or incorrect.

So, the answer is: ii (Fundamental beliefs that are in fact incorrect)

Question 31: Section E

This question’s answer can also be traced to the first line of section E. “What’s more, recent studies show that order actually has diminishing returns.” It means the order (organisation) brings problems. Also, take a look at the following lines. “Order does increase productivity to a certain extent, but eventually the usefulness of the process of organisation, and the benefit it yields, reduce until the point where any further increase in order reduces productivity.” So, it is clear that order does more damage than progress.

So, the answer is: ix (Evidence that a certain approach can have more disadvantages than advantages)

Question 32: Section F

The answer is in the last lines of section F. “These environments can lead to new solutions that, under conventionally structured environments …….. would never be reached.”

Here, would never be reached = impossible

So, the answer is: vii (How to achieve outcomes that are currently impossible)

Question 33: Section G

The second and third paragraph talks about the approach which is taken of Oction, a large Danish manufacturer of hearing aids and the former chairman of General Electric.

So, the answer is: iv (Organisations that put a new approach into practice)

Question 34: Section H

The last lines of section H indicate the answer. Here, the writer says, “This research also shows that we should continually question whether or not our existing assumptions work.” It means there is no guarantee that any approach may work.

So, the answer is: viii (Neither approach guarantees continuous improvement)

Questions 35-37 (Completing sentences/sentence completion with ONE WORD ONLY)

Here, candidates have to complete sentences by using ONE WORD ONLY from the passage. Candidates need to check the keywords from the question parts and try to match those keywords with the information given in the passage.

Question 35: Numerous training sessions are aimed at people who feel they are not _________ enough.

Keywords for this question: numerous, training sessions, aimed at, people who feel,

The answer is in the second paragraph of Section A. Take a look at lines 2-5, “….We are told that we ought to organise our company, our home life, our week, our day and even our sleep, all as a means to becoming more productive. Every week, countless seminars and workshops take place around the world to tell a paying public that they ought to structure their lives in order to achieve this.”

The lines suggest that countless seminars and workshops (Numerous training sessions) are targeted at people who are not productive.

So, the answer is: productive

Question 36: Being organised appeals to people who regard themselves as ____________.

Keywords for this question: being organised, appeals, regard themselves,

The answer is in the first lines of paragraph no. 2 of Section A. “This rhetoric has also crept into the thinking of business leaders and entrepreneurs, much to the delight of self-proclaimed perfectionists with the need to get everything right.”

Here, self-proclaimed = regard themselves

So, the answer is: perfectionists

Question 37: Many people feel _________ with aspects of their work.

Keywords for this question: many people feel, aspects of work

The answer is in paragraph no. 1 of Section B. “A large proportion of workers from all demographics claim to be dissatisfied with the way their work is structured and the way they are managed.”

Here, A large proportion of workers = Many people

So, the answer is: dissatisfied

Questions 38- TRUE, FALSE, NOT GIVEN

In this type of question, candidates are asked to find out whether:

The statement in the question matches with the account in the text- TRUE
The statement in the question contradicts with the account in the text- FALSE
The statement in the question has no clear connection with the account in the text- NOT GIVEN

[For this type of question, you can divide each statement into three independent pieces and make your way through with the answer.]

Question 38: Both businesses and people aim at order without really considering its value.

Keywords for this question: businesses and people, aim at, order, without considering, value,

The answer is found in the last lines of Section D. The writer says, “The result is that businesses and people spend time and money organising themselves for the sake of organising, rather than actually looking at the end goal and structure of such an effort.”

The lines mean that people and different businesses actually aim at order (organisation) rather than looking at the goals. So, they are not considering the real value of order but aiming at it for the sake of organising.

So, the answer is: TRUE

Question 39: Innovation is most successful if the people involved have distinct roles.

Keywords for this question: innovation, most successful, people involved, distinct roles,

We can find the answer for this question in Section F. Here, in the first lines, the writer says, “In fact, research shows that, when innovating, the best approach is to create an environment devoid of structure and hierarchy and enable everyone to engage as one organic group.”

Here, one organic group is an antonym for distinct roles.

So, the lines suggest that if people work together as one organic group, innovation is most successful, not if people have distinct roles.

So, the answer is: FALSE

Question 40: Google was inspired to adopt flexibility by the success of General Electric.

Keywords for this question: innovation, most successful, people involved, distinct roles,

So, the answer is: NOT GIVEN

Why Sharing Academic Publications Under “No Derivatives” Licenses is Misguided

Brigitte Vézina

In this blog post, we explain that applying restrictive licenses to academic publications is a misguided approach to addressing concerns over academic integrity. Specifically, we make it clear that using Creative Commons “No Derivatives” (ND) licenses on academic publications is not only ill-advised for policing academic fraud but also and more importantly unhelpful to the dissemination of research, especially publicly-funded research. We also show that the safeguards in place within truly open licenses (like CC BY or CC BY-SA ) are well-suited to curbing malicious academic behavior, above and beyond other existing recourses for academic fraud and similar abuses.

Researchers are the ultimate remixers

ND licensed publications are not Open Access

For instance, ND licenses prevent translations. Hence, given that English is the dominant language of academia, ND licenses place barriers to accessing knowledge by non-English speakers and limit the outreach of research beyond the English-speaking world. ND licenses also prevent the adaptation of the graphs, images or diagrams included in academic articles (unless separately licensed under a license permitting their adaptation), which are essential to achieve wider dissemination of the ideas expressed therein.

Reusers might also be discouraged by how differently “adaptations” might be defined under copyright law in different jurisdictions and how differently exceptions and limitations (E&L) might apply. A notable example is the use of text and data mining ( TDM ) processes to generate new knowledge. Some laws are very clear about the ability of researchers to do TDM as an exception to copyright even when an adaptation is arguably made during the TDM process, and even when the output can almost never be said to constitute an adaptation of any one input. The use of an ND license might be erroneously interpreted to discourage such perfectly lawful activity altogether, and therefore present another hurdle to the progress of science. 2

Some remixes are still possible under ND licenses

Moreover, anyone wishing to adapt ND-licensed publications can seek authorization from the author, who may grant an individual license. This, however, adds unnecessary transaction costs for reusers, who might choose to use different sources rather than go through the often tedious process of requesting permission.

Despite the ways other researchers are legally able to reuse ND-licensed works, they leave much to be desired in the academic context.

All CC Licenses require attribution

Multiple protections against reputational and attribution risks are embedded in all CC licenses, which have a strong legal history of enforcement actions against reusers that violate the licenses’ terms. These safeguards, that are in addition to and not in replacement of academic norms and practices, are in place to provide an additional layer of protection for the original authors’ reputation and to alleviate their concerns over changes to their works that might be wrongly attributed to them, such as:

Copyright is not the best framework to uphold academic integrity

Overall, copyright law and CC Licenses are not the most appropriate frameworks to address problems of academic integrity. Better results can certainly be achieved through compliance with and enforcement of relevant, well-established and enduring institutional and social norms, ethics policies, and moral codes of conduct. All told, researchers are not doing themselves or the global academe a favor when they share their publications under ND licenses. To optimize their dissemination and increase their social impact, we recommend sharing academic publications under the most open terms possible, i.e. by applying a CC BY license to the article and CC0 to the data.

We’re happy to provide further assistance and support in the interpretation of CC licenses, as well as in understanding open access for researchers. If you need help, get in touch 👉info@creativecommons.org.

Notes

Thanks to efforts by our community, this article has now been translated into français.

Criticisms About Community Preference Policies Are Misguided

Community preference policies have been challenged by those inside and outside of government who fail to see or value the anti-displacement benefits of the policy.

More than 10 years ago Mindy Fullilove wrote, “Displacement is the problem the 21st Century must solve.” Across the country residents of low-wealth communities organize in gentrifying areas and in neighborhoods that others have written off. They stand in front of bulldozers, mount lawsuits, and organize tenants. National efforts by the Anti-Displacement Policy Network, the Right to the City Alliance, SPARCC, and Grounded Solutions Network connect local advocates, foundations, and policymakers to address displacement. Local governments in Austin, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Boston, and elsewhere are responding too, creating and implementing anti-displacement plans and programs.

This national movement has brought rent control back to the policy agenda in some places, has produced greater tenant protections and legal rights, and has exposed the financing practices of banks that contribute directly and predictably to displacement in others. Common to most efforts is the preservation of existing affordable housing and the development of new subsidized housing in order to give households a way to remain in their neighborhoods even as rents rise around them.

One important way to optimize this strategy is a community preference policy that allows residents priority access to subsidized housing built in their neighborhoods. Preference policies have been strongly advocated by residents as an effective way of allowing people to continue living in their neighborhoods. They have been adopted in San Francisco, Seattle, New York City, and Austin, Texas, and are being considered in other places as well.

Regrettably, community preference policies have been challenged by those inside and outside of government who fail to see or value the anti-displacement benefits of the policy and instead criticize it for its alleged impacts on segregation and fair housing. These criticisms, which I list below, are mistaken for a number of reasons.

Displacement is a public policy concern that requires a strong and multi-layered response. Community preference policies are an important and effective strategy for minimizing displacement and ensuring that long-term residents benefit from neighborhood improvements occurring around them.

Time to rethink misguided policies that promote biofuels to protect climate, experts say

Policymakers need to rethink the idea of promoting biofuels to protect the climate because the methods used to justify such policies are inherently flawed, according to a University of Michigan energy researcher.

In a new paper published online in the journal Climatic Change, John DeCicco takes on the widespread but scientifically simplistic perception that biofuels such as ethanol are inherently «carbon neutral,» meaning that the heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas emitted when the fuels are burned is fully balanced by the carbon dioxide uptake that occurs as the plants grow.

DeCicco’s paper is unique because it methodically deconstructs the life-cycle-analysis approach that forms a basis for current environmental policies promoting biofuels. Instead, he presents a rigorous carbon cycle analysis based on biogeochemical fundamentals to identify conditions under which biofuels might have a climatic benefit. These conditions are much more limited than has been presumed.

«Plants used to make biofuels do not remove any additional carbon dioxide just because they are used to make fuel as opposed to, say, corn flakes,» DeCicco said.

DeCicco stressed that research and development are important to create better options for the future. R&D is especially needed for bio-based or other technologies able to efficiently capture and use more carbon dioxide than is already being captured and stored by natural vegetation. But going beyond R&D and into subsidies, mandates and other programs to prop up biofuels is unwarranted, he said.

DeCicco’s direct carbon accounting examines carbon sources and sinks (storage sites, such as forests or crop fields) separately, an approach that lends greater clarity about options for addressing carbon dioxide emissions from liquid fuels.

«Biofuels have no benefit at the tailpipe,» DeCicco said.

Per unit energy, the carbon dioxide emissions from burning ethanol are just 2 percent lower than those from gasoline. Biodiesel yields carbon dioxide emissions about 1 percent greater than those from petroleum diesel.

«If there is any climate benefit to biofuels, it occurs only if harvesting the source crops causes a greater net removal of carbon dioxide from the air than would otherwise have occurred,» DeCicco said.

His paper concludes that for now, it makes more sense to enable plants to soak up carbon dioxide through reforestation and to redouble efforts to protect forests, rather than producing and promoting biofuels.

Corn ethanol production of 14 billion gallons supplied 4.4 percent of total U.S. transportation liquid fuel use in 2011. However, even that small share of liquid fuel supply required 45 percent of the U.S. corn crop.

Biofuels are the presumed replacement for the petroleum-based transportation fuels, gasoline and diesel, that dominate liquid fuel use. In the United States, the federal Renewable Fuel Standard mandates a large increase in biofuels use, which has now reached 16 billion gallons a year, mainly ethanol. But DeCicco pointed out that a recent National Academy of Sciences report concluded that the Renewable Fuel Standard may not reduce greenhouse gas emissions at all, once global impacts are counted.

New View Calls Environmental Policy Misguided

Send any friend a story

As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.

Give this article

A generation after the United States responded to poisoned streams and filthy air with the world’s first comprehensive strategy to protect the environment, many scientists, economists and Government officials have reached the dismaying conclusion that much of America’s environmental program has gone seriously awry.

These experts say that in the last 15 years environmental policy has too often evolved largely in reaction to popular panics, not in response to sound scientific analyses of which environmental hazards present the greatest risks.

As a result, many scientists and public health specialists say, billions of dollars are wasted each year in battling problems that are no longer considered especially dangerous, leaving little money for others that cause far more harm. At First, Clear Benefits

To that end, states and the Federal Government began writing sweeping environmental laws, some of which included strict regulations to insure that certain toxic compounds were not present in air, water or the ground at levels that did not exceed a few parts per billion, concentrations that could be measured with only the most sophisticated equipment.

And with rare exceptions, Congress approved new laws without subjecting them to even rudimentary cost-benefit analyses. One reason was that during the 1980’s, when the economy seemed healthier, there was far less pressure on Congress to consider the cost of environmental policy. Overpriced and Misguided?

This view is the vanguard of a new, third wave of environmentalism that is sweeping across America. It began in the late 1980’s among farmers, homeowners and others who were upset largely by the growing cost of regulations that didn’t appear to bring any measurable benefits. Corporate executives had long been making similar arguments but had gone unheeded, even during 12 years of Republican rule, because often they were seen as interested only in saving money.

Richard J. Mahoney, chairman and chief executive of Monsanto, the chemical company, said the nation may start listening to industry now.

«People want to know, even with the environment, what we are getting for our money,» he said. «The most positive thing since the election is that we are beginning to recognize that we do have finite resources, and one must make choices.»

But leaders of the nation’s conservation organizations believe the new view is misguided.

«We don’t need a new paradigm,» said David D. Doniger, a senior lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council. «For 35 years, the policy of the Government has been that when there is uncertainty about a threat it is better to be safe than sorry. When you are operating at the limits of what science knows, the big mistake would be to underestimate the real danger and leave people unprotected.»

Still, in the last few years the wave has moved into universities, city halls, state capitols and even to the highest levels of the E.P.A., whose Science Advisory Board in 1990 concluded that environmental laws «are more reflective of public perceptions of risk than of scientific understanding of risk.» Law Follows Panic

William K. Reilly, the E.P.A. Administrator at the time, agreed. And in a recent interview, he argued: «People have a right to expect that public officials are making the right choices for the right reasons. We need to develop a new system for taking action on the environment that isn’t based on responding to the nightly news.

«We’re misallocating large amounts of money,» added Mr. Reilly, who is now a senior fellow at of the World Wildlife Fund. «What we have had in the United States is environmental agenda-setting by episodic panic. We’ve had Love Canal, Valley of the Drums, the Exxon Valdez and with virtually every case of a new environmental crisis, there is a new legislative priority and a new budget allocation. That has created a mix of programs that don’t respect the biggest risks to health and ecology.»

Richard D. Morgenstern, the acting administrator for policy planning and evaluation at the E.P.A., explains the problem this way: «Our society is very reactive, and when concerns are raised people want action. The problem in a democracy is you can’t easily sit idly back and tell people it would be better to learn more.»

The result, he added, is that «we’re now in the position of saying in quite a few of our programs, ‘Oops, we made a mistake.’ «

The new school of thought has blossomed as policy makers confront planetary threats like global warming, ozone depletion and deforestation in which the consequences of wrong action are much greater. Unless the nation rethinks its approach to environmental protection, some experts say, the United States could repeat its mistakes.

«The President is aware of this dilemma, and there is leadership in this Administration for trying to change the way we do business in every aspect of governing, including environmental protection,» said Carol M. Browner, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. «We have to allow for change to occur as new information becomes available. This is not an area where a solution will fit forever.» Policy Now Costly Solutions Seeking Problems

Almost everyone involved, including community and local environmental groups, agrees that the toxic waste program stands as the most wasteful effort of all. It began 15 years ago when the nation rose in revulsion over the discovery of seeping chemicals at Love Canal in New York. Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes.

The Superfund law, which is a foundation for the Government’s toxic cleanup policy, established a formula for ranking the potential hazards of toxic sites, and then devised a rigid recipe for cleaning them up. ‘Throwing Money at a Problem’

«Does it make sense to spend millions of dollars cleaning up a site that only has a tenth of an ounce of contamination?» asked Dr. Richard Goodwin, a private environmental engineer in Upper Saddle River, N.J., who has overseen more than 20 toxic waste cleanups. «I say no. All we’re doing in most cases is throwing money at a problem without improving public health or the environment.»

Hugh B. Kaufman, a hazardous waste specialist at the E.P.A. who helped uncover the problem at Love Canal, said that in the few cases in which a site is near populated areas, «the best thing we can do is evacuate people if they want, then put up a fence and a flag that says ‘Stay Away.’ «

Even a principal author of the Superfund law, Gov. Jim Florio of New Jersey, who was chairman of a House environmental subcommittee in the 1970’s, now argues that inflexible rules mean that Superfund resources are too often devoted to making sites pristine.

«It doesn’t make any sense to clean up a rail yard in downtown Newark so it can be a drinking water reservoir,» he said, speaking rhetorically.

Toxic waste cleanups are one example of a program gone awry. Here are others:

Yet even as enormous sums of money were being spent on these problems, Washington was doing little about others. Here are two:

*Mercury, a highly toxic metal, has contaminated thousands of lakes across the nation, poisoning wildlife and threatening human health, state environmental officials say. Twenty states, including New York, have warned consumers not to eat lake fish because they are tainted by mercury, which can cause nervous system disorders. During debate on the Clean Air Act, in 1990, Congress considered limiting mercury emissions from coal-burning electric plants, but lawmakers decided not to act because they believed utilities had already been asked to spend enough to control acid rain, Senate and House leaders said.

Even the advocates of change acknowledge that as science evolves, experts may change their views again on the dangers posed by these and other substances. But at the least, «sound science should be our compass,» as Mr. Reilly put it two years ago.

After all, it was politics, misinterpreted or inaccurate scientific findings and a newly influential national environmental movement that combined to set America down its present path.

By the late 1970’s, many Democrats in Congress believed the public wanted even stricter environmental law. But when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, he promised to reduce regulation. While the White House and Congress battled over this, the national environmental movement, with help from the news media, took on the job of warning the public about new threats and enlisting popular support for new regulations. They were spectacularly effective at this, and Congress passed two dozen bills that laid down mandates.

In the 1970’s, environmental statutes rarely ran more than 50 pages. In the 1980’s, these bills seldom numbered fewer than 500 pages. The reason was that Congress wanted to mandate safety limits so specific that the Administration could not ignore or evade them. Mr. Reilly, the former E.P.A. chief, said he was largely unable to change the Government’s thinking, despite his strong opinion that environmental policy was on the wrong course, because «this represented a pretty significant change of direction.» Legitimizing Pollution?

At the leading environmental groups, staff members dispute the developing view that environmental policy is off track.

«It’s an effort to legitimize pollution,» said Daniel F. Becker, director of the Global Warming and Energy Program at the Sierra Club. «There are powerful forces who have an economic stake in de-emphasizing environmental damage.»

But others who analyze environmental issues said these groups are in danger of becoming the green equivalent of the military lobby, more interested in sowing fear and protecting wasteful programs than in devising a new course.

«We are in danger of losing credibility and thus losing public support if we don’t modify the whole way we go about protecting public health and the environment,» said Dr. Devra Lee Davis, a senior research fellow at the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. A Case Study Making Dirt Safe Enough to Eat

Some evidence suggested that this was an exaggerated concern. In 1981, a study for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, which has been endorsed by the National Cancer Institute, found that only 1 to 3 percent of all cancers in people are caused by exposure to toxic chemicals in the environment. This finding, however, has had little influence on Federal policy.

The problem in Columbia was an 81-acre site that over its long life had been home to a lumber mill, a naval turpentine and pine tar plant and a chemical manufacturer.

Soil tests taken in 1986 showed traces of compounds the Government defines as hazardous. The concentrations rarely exceeded 50 parts per million, or about two ounces of chemicals mixed in a ton of soil. But that level exceeded the Federal limit, and the E.P.A. placed the land on its list of dangerous toxic waste sites.

«I don’t think any way you look at this it could be seen as a practical solution,» said W. Scott Phillips, an engineer with Malcolm Pirnie, an environmental planning company that manages the cleanup. «It’s a lot of money to spend moving dirt.»