Advantage 1 Photocopiable
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Burlington Books 1
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Extra Exam Practice 2
Read the text and answer the questions that follow.
1
Choose the correct answer.
1 MEDi .
a is a toy
b gives treatment to children who are in hospital
c can solve problems that children in hospital have to face
2 MEDi does NOT .
a give treatment to the kids in hospital
b speak to the children
c make friends with the children
3 Why does the writer mention the Broward Health Children’s Hospital?
a Because it is where MEDi was invented.
b Because it is in Florida.
c Because it is a hospital where MEDi is used.
2
The following statements are false. Correct them according to the information given in the text.
1 All American hospitals have begun to use MEDi to help them to treat child patients.
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2 MEDi helped Tommy to focus on his pain.
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Meet MEDi
Hospital can be a frightening place for children who need to spend time there. For many, it may be
the first time that they have to sleep away from home, and the treatment itself may be painful and
unpleasant. They may not like the taste of the medicines, and injections can scare them. In addition,
younger kids may not understand what is going on and why they have to be hospitalised. To solve
this problem, several hospitals in the United States are using a little blue-and-white robot called
MEDi, which stands for Medicine and Engineering Design Intelligence.
The robot has been a huge success in the hospitals that have started using it, for example, the
Broward Health Children’s Hospital in Florida. Dr Patricia Rowe-King, who works there, says that
MEDi can be the children’s friend and their teacher. It tells them what to expect when they are
having blood drawn or a cast removed. In addition, MEDi is bilingual – it speaks English and
Spanish. This is important in areas where Spanish is the main language. However, its chief task is
to make friends with the youngest patients.
For example Tommy, a four-year-old cancer patient, became close friends with MEDi in hospital. It
helped to distract Tommy’s attention when the nurses were taking blood from him so that he did not
notice the pain. Then, they could sing, dance or play together. MEDi has facial recognition software
and addresses each child by name. The little boy’s face lit up when the robot would call him Tommy.
Tommy had to spend a long time in hospital undergoing treatments. This was also a very
demanding time for his parents, who were constantly worried about him. However, thanks to MEDi,
Tommy found the hospital far less scary. Tommy’s mother said that at first there were many bad
days and they began to lose hope. “MEDi took the fear away of being here,” she said.
Dr Hector Rodriguez-Cortes, Tommy’s doctor, pointed out that when the robot helps the patient, it
helps the hospital staff as well. Dr Rodriguez-Cortes said that the robot calmed the children down so
that the nurses could do their work. He added that he had tried dancing with the robot just like
Tommy, but it seemed that the robot was better at this than he was.
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