Summarize Spoken Text – You will hear a short report. Write a summary for a fellow student who was not present. You should write 50-70 words.
You have 10 minutes to finish this task. Your response will be judged on the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the key points presented in the report.
Note: This transcript is given for your reference purpose only. It will not be given in PTE Academic examination.
- TRANSCRIPT
About 20 years ago Kent Anger and Barry Johnson came up with 750 chemicals that could harm the brain during development.
Nobody has since then dared to update that number, it’s just a guess today, there has to be more than a thousand if there was 750 twenty years ago. But the problem is also that we have put too little emphasis on this type of, uh, research. For example, it has taken so far the OECD 10 years to devise a battery of tests that they could recommend for systematic testing of chemicals for developmental neurotoxicity. That panel, that battery, has not yet been completed and authorized by OECD so it’s taking way, way, way too long because it is complicated. But there is so much at stake.
Children are just losing IQ points and losing their concentration span, memory or motor functions. But in the present world where there’s so much emphasis on knowledge and brain functions this can also translate into dollars. The EPA has calculated that every time a child loses one IQ point because of chemical pollution it costs society something like $8,000 or $10,000.
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Solution
About twenty years ago, it was estimated that there are 750 chemicals that can affect the developing human brain, and today there may be over 1000. There is little emphasis on the possible damage caused to developing children from these chemicals. It has taken the OECD ten years to develop an index to test for developmental neurotoxicity. Economically, each IQ point lost to chemical poisoning has an impact of $8,000-$10,000.