TEXTO A: Housing and youth
For many young people the possibility of owning their own home is a distant dream. The word 'home' used to mean long-term stability in a community to which we belonged. Home meant being able to have a pet, come and go as we pleased and rely on the people next door to feed our cat and put out our garbage bins when we were on holiday. However, young people are faced with a wide range of housing challenges in today's society, generally trapped in a cycle of short-term rented housing and devastating homelessness problems.
There are some groups of young people who are particularly vulnerable to housing problems. These include NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training), young parents, young people with disabilities, and those who find living with family a desperate struggle. Day by day, more teens and young adults live like nomads, living place to place with friends and trying to find a job while they make an effort to continue studying, they start borrowing from people money they don't have and cannot pay back, so they eventually become homeless, in a situation in which it is hard to find a job or get into a school because of not having an address.
Young people think that being able to afford some type of housing —renting or buying property— is another important factor in the current economic climate. Not being able to afford housing is the reason for more young people to remain within the family home for longer. Securing suitable housing away from the parental home is essential for many young people's transition to adulthood and independent living. Having a job and having left the parental home are the most important requirements 'to be considered an adult'.
When in trouble, disconnected youth try to be accepted into what are called transitional programmes. These programmes help teens move forward in life by providing them with a place to stay, food, clothing, good hygiene, and all types of life skills they will need to know for the future.
QUESTIONS. Do not copy literally from the text.
1. What associations did the word 'home' use to have?
2. Who are most likely to have housing problems?
3. How can a youth eventually become homeless?
4. What is the relationship between housing and being considered an adult?
5. Fill in the gaps with the correct, most appropriate word in each case.
Young people often adopt a 'live for today' attitude (A) ________ financial planning. Saving is (B) ________ as an 'adult' behaviour. Leaving (C) ________ parental home generally (D) ________ a greater sense of financial responsibility.

TEXTO B: Virtual reality
Looking at his laptop screen during a Skype videocall, Professor Mark Mon-Williams declares 'It's going to change the way we live, work, and play. And a lot of that is for the better.' Mon-Williams is talking about virtual reality (or VR), the next technology that many tech industry experts say will shake the foundations of how we do things, from communicating to learning to healthcare.
'Twenty-five years ago, the idea that I could sit here now with a wireless device to talk to somebody and see their face sounded fantastical,' says Mark. But now the idea is a reality, he thinks that a more natural experience could be delivered by virtual reality. VR is not new, of course. It was around in the early 1990s, and at this time Mark started to use it as a human psychology research tool. However, VR never became generally established: it was prohibitively expensive, patients reported experiencing headaches, sore eyes and motion sickness when using VR systems. Today, the computing and technology landscape is transformed. Smartphones and the internet are everywhere, technology is more affordable and, thanks to Facebook, Apple and Google, VR is making a big revival.
VR can help millions of children globally who are not in school. VR headsets can enable a child in the developing world to sit in on a lesson as if s/he were in the classroom of one of the top schools in the world. When you put a headset on, you feel as if you are in a classroom and it is a very different experience from the passive idea of watching a screen.
VR is also beneficial in medicine. Doctors and patients are finding that VR, used as a high-tech distraction technique, can relieve the pain and stress of operations; it is safer and cheaper than sedatives and painkillers. Patients can be operated on while being awake, not sedated, with a headset on, immersed, for example, in a three-dimension recreation of their favourite place in the world.
QUESTIONS. Do not copy literally from the text.
1. In what way do experts claim that VR may generally revolutionize our world?
2. When and how did VR start? Why did it have a particularly difficult start?
3. How can VR be applied to education?
4. Explain the advantages of using VR in medicine.
5. Fill in the gaps with the correct, most appropriate word in each case.
Mark Zuckerberg says he's building virtual reality because he isn't satisfied (A) ________ reality, which he (B) ________ to be 'limited'. He believes that the future can be a (C) ________ better. VR is unique (D) ________ creating this sense of presence, like you're right there with another person or in another place.

6-A. Rephrase the following sentences so that their meaning is as similar to the original as possible.
a) The remark was so unexpected that she didn't know what to say. // It was such…
b) If she hadn't helped me, I wouldn't have passed the exam. // Without…
c) 'I'm sorry that I was rude to you yesterday,' Amy said to me. // Amy apologized…
d) Cairo is my place of birth. // I…

6-B. Rephrase the following sentences so that their meaning is as similar to the original as possible.
a) If only I hadn't eaten all that chocolate. // I regret…
b) He studied all night, but the exam was easy so it wasn't necessary. // He needn't…
c) That cat's owner feeds it on the finest salmon. // That's the cat…
d) 'Don't go out at night on your own,' he told us. // He warned us…

7-A. Write a composition about the following topic (100-120 words): What are your future plans for housing and living away from your parents?

7-B. Write a composition about the following topic (100-120 words): Describe the way in which you interact with technology in your everyday life.