March 14, 2019

A. Test

11) This is the best tea I’ve ……… tasted.
 a) never
b) ever
c) already
d) still
12) I’m looking ……… the summer holidays.
a) before
b) forward
c) for
d) forward to
 
13) My girlfriend ……… born on the 2nd of September 1974.
a) is
b) was
c) had
d) has been
 
14) This beer tastes ……… .
a) badly
b) lovely
c) well
d) normally
 
15) In life ……… can make a mistake; we’re all human.
a) anyone
b) some people
c) not anybody
d) someone
 
16) She knows that she ……… to pay now.
a) had better
b) needn't
c) should
d) ought
 
17) If he ……… about it, I’m sure he’d help.
a) had know
b) knew
c) has known
d) knows
 
18) I'll return the newspaper when I ……… through it.
a) will have looked
b) looked
c) have looked
d) look
 
19) They said they ……… come, but they didn’t.
a) can
b) will
c) may
d) might
 
20) They were ……… hard questions that I had no chance.
a) so
b) some
c) such
d) quite

B. Translation

Your landlord turns your apartment into a smart home. Now what?

Not everyone wants a smart home. Those who have it forced on them don't feel safe in their own residences.
Daniel Bishop remembers the day he stopped feeling safe in his own home.
In January, Bishop and his neighbors at an apartment complex in San Jose, California, got a message from their property manager.
Every apartment was going to become a smart home, with a connected lock, water sensors, a smart thermostat and a wireless control hub to manage it all. There was a meet-and-greet event five days later for tenants who had questions, and then about two weeks later, the homes were fully converted.
Bishop, like many of his neighbors, didn't ask for this, and he didn't have a say in the change. It was his landlord's decision, and so on installation day, Feb. 1, he looked at his new smart lock and tried typing in the unlock code that was texted to him.
It didn't work. For nearly an hour, the software entrepreneur worked with the property manager to open his smart lock. A maintenance worker finally fixed it by connecting the hub to Bishop's personal home network without asking for his permission, which he took as a serious breach of privacy.
Landlords are, in theory, in your apartment every day collecting information.
Kathleen McGee, former chief of the New York State attorney general's internet bureau
Bishop's story underscores the growing -- but awkward -- embrace of smart-home technology. Filling your abode with a collection of internet-connected devices is a trend that's sweeping across homes everywhere, even if it potentially creates security vulnerabilities. It's also caught on with apartment landlords, who see smart-home technology as a way to attract more tenants and save money through monitoring of energy and water usage. But the aggressive embrace of innovation could leave tenants, who don't have a say in the upgrades, steaming.
"My fiancee saw me and said, 'you look absolutely furious,' and it's because I am," Bishop said. "You don't have control in this situation, and it's being thrust upon you."
Smart-home gadgets can collect data on residents and sell it to advertisers. Then there are the hacks. But with regulations lagging behind deployments, often the only recourse tenants have for opting out of their new smart home is to move out.
"They suddenly have to choose between no home and a place where they perceive themselves to be spied on," said Kathleen McGee, the former chief of the New York State attorney general's internet bureau.
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