Quiz 6. Progress 2.1 through 2.6

Listen to a conversation in a university office.

M: Hi.

W: Hello. Can I help you?

M: Uh … yeah … I hope so. I left my jacket in the cafeteria, and I was wondering if anyone had turned it in.

W: When did you lose it?

M: Yesterday, after lunch, probably … uh … between one and two o’clock.

W: Well, no one here in the cafeteria reported finding it. Did you check Lost and Found?

M: Uh … no. Where’s Lost and Found?

W: Upstairs, in the security office. The Lost and Found desk is on the right as you go in. If anyone turned in your jacket, they would probably have it there. You can also report it missing.

M: Oh, okay. Thanks. I’ll give it a try. I’d really like to have that jacket back.

W: I hope you do. Good luck with it.

M: Oh … and another thing.

W: Yes?

M: I was … uh … Are you the person who decides what’s on the menu in the cafeteria?

W: I’m the food services manager, yes.

M: Well, I wondered if … uh … you ever thought about healthy food choices. I mean, uh …

W: Yes?

M: There’s a lot of fried food and some pretty unhealthy things, like onion rings and some pretty greasy pizza.

W: Those are the things that most people want. We try to serve what people want. We sell a lot of onion rings and pizza! And it’s not all greasy. We have a salad bar and plenty of nutritious and low–fat options. We have a vegetarian pizza on the menu.

M: Well, you never have veggie pizza when I’m here. I know it’s on the menu, but you’re always out of it.

W: Hmmm. Really? We can fix that. I’ll talk to the chef.

M: I think I had it only one time. It’s pretty good, actually. In fact, I wish you had more vegetarian options. I mean, I’m not a vegetarian or anything, but a lot of my friends are. I eat meat, but I’d still like to see more healthy options. Like the salad bar could be better. How about adding more fresh vegetables, like organic tomatoes from the farm here on campus?

W: We do use produce from the organic farm … when it’s in season … or at least we try to.

M: What about sushi? It would be great if you had sushi.

W: Hmmm. Well, you do have a lot of ideas, but some of these things would be a challenge for our kitchen. We can’t serve everything that every student would possibly want. But we can do a better job with what we have—more fresh vegetables, for instance. I work closely with the manager of the organic farm, and I’m sure we can get fresh produce during most of the year.

M: That would be great.

W: There’s only so much I can do with the budget I have. But I do appreciate your suggestions, and I’ll check into the pizza situation.

M: Thanks.

1. What topics do the speakers mainly discuss?

2. Why does the man say this:

“Well, I wondered if … uh … you ever thought about healthy food choices. I mean, uh …”

3. What is the man’s opinion of the food in the cafeteria?

4. How does the woman respond to the man’s comments?

5. What does the woman imply when she says this:

“There’s only so much I can do with the budget I have.”

An epidemiologist has been invited to speak to a public health class. Listen to part of the talk.

Epidemiology is the field of medicine that deals with epidemics—outbreaks of disease that affect large numbers of people. As an epidemiologist, I look at factors involved in the distribution and frequency of disease in human populations. For example, what is it about what we do, or what we eat, or what our environment is, that leads one group of people to be more likely—or less likely—to develop a disease than another group of people? It’s these factors that we try to identify.

We gather data in a variety of ways. One way is through what we call descriptive epidemiology, or looking at the trends of diseases over time, as well as … uh … trends of diseases in one population relative to another. Statistics are important in descriptive epidemiology, because numbers are a useful way to simplify information.

A second approach is observational epidemiology, where we observe what people do. We take a group of people who have a disease and a group of people who don’t have a disease. We look at their patterns of eating or drinking and their medical history. We also take a group of people who’ve been exposed to something—for example, smoking—and a group of people who haven’t, and then observe them over time to see whether they develop a disease or not. In observational epidemiology, we don’t interfere in the process. We just observe it.

A third approach is experimental epidemiology, sometimes called an intervention study. Experimental research is the best way to establish cause–and–effect relationships between variables. A typical experiment studies two groups of subjects. One group receives a treatment, and the other group—the control group—does not. Thus, the effectiveness of the treatment can be determined. Experimental research is the only type of research that directly attempts to influence a particular variable—called the treatment variable—as a way to test a hypothesis about cause and effect. Some examples of treatments that can be varied include the amount of iron or potassium in the diet, the amount or type of exercise one engages in per week, and the minutes of sunlight one is exposed to per day.

The Health Research Institute, of which I am the director, is mostly involved in experimental studies—I say mostly because we study treatment and non–treatment groups and then compare the outcomes. However, we do collect and study various types of data in any given year. From these different approaches—descriptive, observational, and experimental— we can judge whether a particular factor causes or prevents the disease that we’re looking at.

6. What is the talk mainly about?

7. How does the speaker develop the topic?

8. According to the talk, why do some epidemiologists observe two groups of people?

9. Which of the following statements describes experimental epidemiology?

10. Listen again to part of the talk. Then answer the question.

“The Health Research Institute, of which I am the director, is mostly involved in experimental studies—I say mostly because we study treatment and non–treatment groups and then compare the outcomes. However, we do collect and study various types of data in any given year. From these different approaches—descriptive, observational, and experimental—we can judge whether a particular factor causes or prevents the disease that we’re looking at.”

Why does the speaker talk about her own work?