OPTION A — READ THE TEXT AND ANSWER QUESTIONS 1 TO 5.

ROBOT COOKS ARE RAPIDLY MAKING THEIR WAY INTO RESTAURANT KITCHENS

Before the end of 2.024, a brand-new pizza firm plans to hit the Los Angeles area. But this isn't just another pizza place. This company plans to serve pizza from trucks and the pies themselves are put together not by humans but by robotics developed by engineers from SpaceX. The machine can produce a pizza every 45 seconds.

Benson Tsai, who founded Stellar Pizza in 2.019 along with fellow SpaceX engineers Brian Langone (line 5) and James Wahawisan, got about two dozen former SpaceX employees to build a touchless pizza-making machine that fits in the back of a truck.

Robot chefs becoming "commonplace"

Jake Brewer, Miso Robotics' chief strategy officer, said such machinery will soon be commonplace in restaurants: "You can go see robots cooking right now and that's only going to grow week over week." (line 10)

Chipotle Mexican Grill worked with Miso Robotics to customize the "Chippy" robot, which cooks and seasons Chipotle's chips with salt and fresh lime juice. The robot is trained to recreate the exact recipe using artificial intelligence. The company plans to use it in a restaurant in Southern California later this year and will determine if it will launch it nationally.

Part of the adoption is driven by an inability to find workers. A recent report from Lightspeed found (line 15) that 50% of restaurant owners plan to install automation technology within the next three years. For Chipotle, it's not about replacing workers but allowing them to complete more impactful tasks than repetitive things like making chips.

Clemson University professor Richard Pak, an expert on the use of autonomous technology, said automation works better for food that is cheap. "When you're paying for it, when you're paying more, (line 20) you're paying for experience and artistry," he said. "And so, I don't know if these kinds of robots would be acceptable in higher-end restaurants."

Yet there is some concern in the broader restaurant market as well. A recent poll by Big Red Rooster found that a third of diners don't want to see robots preparing their food. (line 25) (Fragment adapted from CNBC.COM.)

OPTION B — READ THE TEXT AND ANSWER QUESTIONS 1 TO 5.

DOES DNA HOME TESTING REALLY UNDERSTAND RACE?

Last year, I did what 12 million people from all over the world have done and surrendered my spit to a home DNA-testing company. (line 2) I hoped a MyHeritage test would bring me the peace I needed; my Irish mother had never been able to give me any information about my biological father. Raised by her and my white dad, I'd always longed for help answering the "Where are you from?" question. I'd spent years making up exotic-sounding combinations to justify my appearance. (line 5)

The results arrived by email on a summer's day last year. I clicked on the "ethnicity estimate" link, which offers an analysis of DNA by country. The test showed that my blackness comes from Nigeria; 43% of my DNA, in fact. Then there's 1% from Kenya, and the rest from Great Britain and Ireland (55%), as well as eastern Europe (1%). I'd often been told I looked east African, or mixed with multiple countries, so (line 10) I was surprised by what was nearly a 50/50 split. I had no cultural knowledge of Nigeria. Did the results mean my very distant ancestors were Nigerian, or that my biological father was probably from there? I felt more confused than ever.

This wasn't quite what the adverts had promised. Marketing for home-testing kits shows smiling models under the banner "find out your ethnicity", or urges people to book holidays based on their "DNA (line 14) story". While DNA home tests are more popular than ever, people are starting to raise questions about what (line 15) happens after having the results. Concerns about the storage of sensitive genetic information were highlighted recently, when an open-source DNA testing site, GEDmatch, was used by the police to identify California's Golden State Killer. As well as privacy concerns, there are the emotional consequences of receiving confusing or life-changing results. Identities that have been cherished by families for generations can be dismantled overnight. Ancestry is a legacy, not a bloodline. Our genetic script may be one of the (line 20) most valuable things we own, but it's never the whole story. (line 21) (Fragment adapted from The Guardian.)