NOTE MAKING
Q.1 Read the passage given below:
In a very short period of time the internet has had a profound impact on the way we live. Since the internet was made operational in 1983, it has lowered both the costs of communication and the barriers to creative expression. It has challenged old business models and enabled new ones. It has provided access to information on a scale never before achievable. It succeeded because we designed it to be flexible and open. These two features have allowed it to accommodate innovation without massive changes to its infrastructure An open, borderless and standardized platform means that barriers to entry are low, competition is high, interchangeability is assured and innovation is rapid. The beauty of an open platform is that there are no gatekeepers.
For centuries, access to and creation of information was controlled by the few. The internet has changed that and is rapidly becoming the platform for everyone, by everyone. Of course, it still has a way to go. Today there are only about 2.3 billion internet users, representing roughly 30% of the world’s population. Much of the information that they can access online is in English, but this is changing rapidly. The technological progress of the internet has also set social change in motion. As with other enabling inventions before it, from the telegraphto television, some will worry about the effects of broader access to information – the printing press and the rise in literacy that it affected were, after all, long seen as destabilising. Similar concerns about the internet are occasionally raised, but if we take a long view, I’m confident that its benefits far outweigh the discomforts of learning to integrate into our lives. The internet and the world wide web are what they are because literally millions of people have made it so. It is a grand collaboration.
It would be foolish not to acknowledge that the openness of the internet has had a price. Security is an increasingly important issue and cannot be ignored. If there is an area of vital research and development for the internet, this is one of them. I am increasingly confident, however, that techniques and practice exist to make the internet safer and more secure while retaining its essentially open quality. After working on the internet and its predecessors for over decades, I’m more optimistic about its promise than I have ever been. We are all free to innovate on the net everyday. The internet is tool of the people,built by the people and it must stay that way.
On the basis of your reading of the passage make notes on it. Use recognizable abbreviations (min. 4) and a format u consider suitable. Also supply an appropriate title to it.
Write a summary of the above passage in about 50 words.
Q.2 Read the passage given below:
It is surprising that sometimes we don’t listen to what people say to us. We hear them, but we don’t listen to them. I was curious to know how hearing is different from listening. I had thought both were synonyms, but gradually, I realised there is a big difference between the two words. Hearing is a physical phenomenon. Whenever somebody speaks, the sound waves generated reach you, and you definitely hear whatever is said to you. However, even if you hear something, it doesn’t always mean that you actually understand whatever is being said. Paying attention to whatever you hear means you are really listening. Consciously using your mind to understand whatever is being said is listening. Diving deeper, I found that listening is not only hearing with attention, but is much more than that.
Listening is hearing with full attention, and applying our mind. Most of the time, we listen to someone, but our minds are full of needless chatter and there doesn’t seem to be enough space to accommodate what is being spoken. We come with a lot of prejudices and preconceived notions about the speaker or the subject on which he is talking. We pretend to listen to the speaker, but deep inside, we sit in judgement and are dying to pronounce right or wrong, true or false, yes or no, Sometimes, we even come prepared with a negative mindset of proving the speaker – wrong. Even if the speaker says nothing harmful, we are ready to pounce on him with our own version of things. What we should ideally do is listen first with full awareness. Once we have done that, we can decide whether we want to make a judgement or not. Once we do that, communication will be perfect and our interpersonal relationship will become so much better.
Listening well doesn’t mean one has to say the right thing at the right moment. In fact, sometimes if words are left unspoken, there is a feeling of tension and negativity. Therefore, it is better to speak out your mind, but do so with awareness after listening to the speaker with full concentration. Let’s look at this in another way. When you really listen, you imbibe not only what is being spoken, but you also understand what is not spoken as well. Most of the time we don’t really listen even to people who really matter to us. That’s how misunderstandings grow among families, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters.
On the basis of your reading of the passage make notes on it. Use recognizable abbreviations (min. 4) and a format u consider suitable. Also supply an appropriate title to it.
Write a summary of the above passage in about 50 words.