PRACTICE 3: Read the following extract and use your own words to summarize it.

Your summary should be between 100 and 120 words. You MUST NOT copy the
original.
To detectives, the answers lie at the end of our fingers. Fingerprinting offers an
accurate and infallible means of personal identification. The ability to identify a person from
a mere fingerprint is a powerful tool in the fight against crime. It is the most commonly used
forensic evidence, often outperforming other methods of identification. These days, older
methods of ink fingerprinting, which could take weeks, have given way to newer, faster
techniques like fingerprint laser scanning, but the principles stay the same. No matter which
way you collect fingerprint evidence, every single person’s print is unique. So, what makes
our fingerprints different from our neighbor’s?
A good place to start is to understand what fingerprints are and how they are created.
A fingerprint is the arrangement of skin ridges and furrows on the tips of the fingers. This
ridged skin develops fully during foetal development, as the skin cells grow in the mother’s
womb. These ridges are arranged into patterns and remain the same throughout the course of
a person’s life. Other visible human characteristics, like weight and height, change over time
whereas fingerprints do not. The reason why every fingerprint is unique is that when a baby’s
genes combine with environmental influences, such as temperature, it affects the way the
ridges on the skin grow. It makes the ridges develop at different rates, buckling and bending
into patterns. As a result, no two people end up having the same fingerprints. Even identical
twins possess dissimilar fingerprints.
It is not easy to map the journey of how the unique quality of the fingerprint came to
be discovered. The moment in history it happened is not entirely dear. However, the use of
fingerprinting can be traced back to some ancient civilisations, such as Babylon and China,
where thumbprints were pressed onto clay tablets to confirm business transactions. Whether
people at this time actually realised the full extent of how fingerprints were important for
identification purposes is another matter altogether. One cannot be sure if the act was seen as
a means to confirm identity or a symbolic gesture to bind a contract, where giving your
fingerprint was like giving your word.

Model answers:
The reading extract gives insights into the past and modern use of fingerprint as well as its
biological formation. Fingerprint provides us with an unerring confirmation of personal
identification, which is a great asset to counter crimes. While there are many variations of the
fingerprint identification techniques, their core principles are consistent since each fingerprint
is distinctive. Fingerprint represents the patterns of skin ridges, which are formed during the
fetal period and it is not subject to transformations over time. With a combination of gene and
environmental factors, the development of ridges is peculiar even within identical twins. With
respect to its ambiguous history, the first use of fingerprint dates back to ancient civilizations,
where thumbprints were utilized as tool for transaction verification. However, it is
questionable as to whether the fingerprint was regarded as an identity certification or only as
a representative mark.
PRACTICE 4: Read the following extract and use your own words to summarize it.
Your summary should be about 120 words long. You MUST NOT copy the original.
Biometrics, a little-known but fast-growing technology that involves the use of
physical or biological characteristics to identify individuals. In use for more than a decade at
some high- security government institutions in the United States and Canada, biometrics are
now rapidly popping up in the everyday world. Already, more than 10,000 facilities, from
prisons to day-care centres, monitor people's fingerprints or other physical parts to ensure that
they are who they claim to be. Some 60 biometric companies around the world pulled in at
least $22 million last year and that grand total is expected to mushroom to at least $50 million
by 1999.
Biometric security systems operate by storing a digitised record of some unique
human feature. When an authorised user wishes to enter or use the facility, the system scans
the person's corresponding characteristics and attempts to match them against those on
record. Systems using fingerprints, hands, voices, irises, retinas and faces are already on the
market. Others using typing patterns and even body odours are in various stages of
development.
Fingerprint scanners are currently the most widely deployed type of biometric
application, thanks to their growing use over the last 20 years by law-enforcement agencies.
Sixteen American states now use biometric fingerprint verification systems to check that
people claiming welfare payments are genuine. In June, politicians in Toronto voted to do the
same, with a pilot project beginning next year. To date, the most widely used commercial
biometric system is the handkey, a type of hand scanner which reads the unique shape, size
and irregularities of people's hands. Originally developed for nuclear powerplants, the
handkey received its big break when it was used to control access to the Olympic Village in
Atlanta by more than 65,000 athletes, trainers and support staff. Now there are scores of other
applications.
Model answers:
The passage sheds light on the working mechanism of biometrics and its practical
applications. Biometrics technology relies on an individual’s distinctive superficial traits in
order to verify personal identity. This technology is becoming increasingly prevalent around
the world, with biometric companies making huge profit. The system operates by matching
the users with their predetermined peculiar biological features. Although as yet, only
conventional characteristics such as fingerprint and faces are integrated into the system,
research into other less familiar features is being conducted. Fingerprint scanner is hailed as
the most prevalent biometrics technology, especially among the law-enforcement institutions.
With regard to biometric product, the hand-key, which analyze people hands’ variations, is
the most commonplace. It is initially utilized in the power industry, but its use has been
extended to other sectors as well.