INTENSIVE READING.

ASSIGNMENT N°2
“To Fold Evrything”

Real, María Agustina.

Language 1.
 Language I

Intensive Reading - Text 2: Fold everything.

Assignment No 2

A - Look up all the words you are not familiar with in a monolingual dictionary. Take them
down, copy a definition of the term in the given context, its pronunciation and an example.

 Crane /kreɪn/ Noun a large bird with long legs.

 Stent: /stent/ Noun a long thin object put inside a tube in the body,
f for example a blood vessel, so that its walls stay firm or
s so that body fluids can flow easily through it.

B - Summarise the gist of this article in one sentence.

How origami can be applied to engineering to help improve our lifestyle.

C - Answer the following questions on the text. Research each topic in order to account for
your answers. You must consult Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English
(Source 1) and My Grammar Lab (Source 2) and state where you take the information from.

1. Explain the use of tenses on lines 1, 2 (cf. the problem was getting the right answer.
vs. It (the cat) was making a mess.), 14, 15, 23, 28, 33. Include information on perfect
and progressive aspects. 2
Line 1: “At one time or another in your life you have probably  done  Origami…” 
The sentence is in the present perfect tense progressive aspect. It is used here because it is
referring to an action that took place in the past but has relevance at the time of speaking.

Line 2: “Even if it  was just  making a paper airplane…”

The sentence is in the past continuous, progressive aspect. It is used for repeated actions that
took place in the past.

Line 14: “Origami-inspired creations have already flown in space”. 

The sentence is in the present perfect tense, perfect aspect. It is describing an unfinished time
period. It is used for a completed action that happened in the past and may happen again in
the present.

Line 15: “In 1995, Japanese engineers launched a satellite”. 

The sentence is in the past simple tense, simple aspect. It is used because it is a completed
action in the past.

Line 23: “Lang… advised a well-known car manufacturer”. 

The sentence is in the past simple tense, simple aspect. The past simple tense is used to refer
to a completed action in the past.

Line 28: “Researchers are also working on…”

The sentence is in the present continuous tense, progressive aspect. It is used for expressing a
situation that is happening at present.
Line 33: “There’s no doubt that saving space has become important…”
The sentence is in the present perfect tense, perfect aspect.

2. Explain the use of the genitive case on line 39. 

The genitive case is a grammatical case for nouns and pronouns. It is most commonly used for
showing possession. Typically, forming the genitive case involves adding an apostrophe
followed by “s” to the end of a noun.

 “Some day,” says MIT’s Erik Demaine, “we’ll build reconfigurable robots that can fold
on their own from one thing into another.

The sentence is written with an apostrophe -'s because MIT is the acronym for Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, which is a regular singular noun that does not end in -s. Otherwise the
spelling would be different. Moving on, in this context I think the genitive is a determiner. It is
playing the role of specifying the reference of the head noun meaning that Erik Demaine works
at MIT.

3. There are verbs which may take either infinitives or gerunds after them without a change
in meaning. Is ‘stop’ one of these verbs (line 9)? Why? Account for your answer and provide
examples of verbs followed by the infinitive with ‘to’ or the gerund with and without a
change in meaning.

Some verbs can be followed by -ing form or by to + infinitive, with no difference in meaning
that is the case of the verbs begin, start, deserve, love, etc. However, there are some verbs in
which there’s a difference in meaning such as the verb “stop”.
STOP meaning + ing form Finish an action
STOP meaning to + infinitive Finish one action in order to do another one

4. Explain the use of punctuation marks in direct speech. How is it different from Spanish?

Direct speech is used to quote the exact words uttered by a person, within quotation marks.
Quotation marks can be: double and single, opening and closed. In direct speech double
quotation marks are used around a run-in quotation shorter than 50 word or five lines but not
around a block quotation; around a word or phrase that is being referred to as a term.
Single quotation marks are used around a quotation within a marked quotation.
Periods and commas go inside the quotation marks; question marks, and exclamation marks go
inside only if they are part of the quote. Semicolons and colons go outside the quotation
marks.
The main difference between the Spanish and English usage of quotation marks is that
added commas and periods in Spanish go outside the quotation marks, while in English they go
inside the quotation marks. In Spanish If the sentence is a line of dialogue, it is put it in
quotation marks. In English you need to use quotation marks to quote someone.
5. What is a modal verb? What features does it have?

A modal verb is a type of auxiliary verb that is used to express: ability, possibility, permission or
obligation. 

 Modal verbs act as an auxiliary in verb phrases

 They do not take inflections to show agreement or tense
 The precede the negative particle in not negation
 They precede the subject in yes-no questions
 They take a bare infinitive verb as the main verb in the verb phrase
 They express stance meanings, related to possibility, necessity, obligation, etc.

a. What meaning does the modal verb ‘should’ convey on line 26?
“He is currently working on a space telescope that, if all goes according to plan, should  be able
to unfold to the size of a football field.”
The modal verb “should” can have a personal meaning of obligation or a logical meaning of
necessity. In this sentence, “should” has a logical meaning that conveys necessity. It means
that, if all goes according to plan, it is expected that the space telescope will unfold to the size
of a football field. 

b. What meaning does the modal verb ‘could’ convey on line 29?
“At the other end of the scale, researchers are also working on tiny folding devices that could
lead to breakthroughs in medicine and computing”
The modal “could” can have a personal meaning of permission, possibility or ability. It can also
have a logical meaning of possibility or necessity and a personal meaning of obligation.
In this sentence, “could” has a logical meaning of possibility since the modal verb is referring to
“the folding devices”. The meaning would be that, the tiny folding devices can lead to
breakthroughs in medicine and computing.

c. What meaning does the modal verb ‘may’ convey on line 36?
“Computers of the future may contain tiny, folded motors or capacitors for faster processing
and better memory”
The modal verb “may” can take personal and logical meaning. In this sentence, it has a logical
meaning of possibility since it occurs with a non- human subject; in this case “Computers of the
future” is the subject. The meaning would be that, it is probable that computers of the future
will contain tiny, folded motors or capacitors for faster processing and better memory.
6. Explain the meaning of the expression ‘the chances are’ on line 4. Find out phrases in the
passage that express possibility and probability.
“The chances are that as you did it, you reflected on how ingenious this traditional Japanese
art is”
The expression “the chances are” means that is  likely  (that) something happens. In other
words, it means probability.  In this sentence, it expresses that people who did origami at
some point realized how complex it is.

Other phrases that express probability and possibility are:

 “And very soon origami engineering may well be seen in a host of other applications”
(Line 17)
 “He is currently working on a space telescope lens that, if all goes according to plan,
should be able to unfold to the size of a football field” (Line 24)

7. What type of clause is ‘who quit his…’ on line 21? Explain.

The clause is a “relative clause”. A relative clause is a post-modifier in a noun phrase used
to give more information about a person, thing or situation or to make clear which person or
thing we are talking about. In this sentence, the relative clause, introduced by the relative
pronoun “who” it is adding more information about the person. With this kind of relative
clause, commas are used, to separate it from the rest of the sentence.

8. What type of question is stated on line 9? Explain.

“But did you ever stop to think how the same techniques might be applied to engineering?”
This is a YES- NO question;
Its structure has the auxiliary “Do” in the past tense, followed by the subject, in this case “you”
and then the verb “stop” in infinitive. These types of questions are also called “close
questions” because there are only two possible responses: yes or no.

9. Punctuation:
a. Explain the use of the colon on line 6.
“Animals, boxes, flowers, boats: it all can be created from a single square or rectangular sheet
of paper simply by folding it.”
The colon both separates and sets up what comes next. It points to what follows in the
sentence. In this specific case, the colon is used to tell the reader that there are two separated
ideas but the two clauses are directly related in meaning since the sentence following the
colon talks about how the equipment used in space was inspired by origami.

b. Explain the use of the semicolon on line 15

“In fact, origami- inspired creations have already flown in space; in 1995, Japanese engineers
launched a satellite with solar panels that folded like a map”
Semicolons are used to make a strong break in the sentence. In this sentence, the semicolon is
used to separate independent clauses that are not joined by a conjunction.
 c. Explain the use of the M dash (—) in the last paragraph. Is it the same as the
N dash (–)? Justify your answer. What about the hyphen? Spot differences.
“Maybe —though you certainly wouldn’t want to bet against it”

The Em-Dash is twice as long as the en-dash. It highlights what it either contains (when used in
pairs) or separates from the main sentence. The dash often performs the pointing function of a
colon, and the two marks are interchangeable in those situations. Here, the em-dash is used in
place of other punctuation mark, in this case the comma, to create emphasis with a strong
break in the structure. It is used one dash alone to detach the end of the sentence from the
main body.

The em- dash has not the same use as the en-dash. The last one is longer than the hyphen but
half the length of the em-dash. It can be used to indicate periods of time or ranges of numbers,
such as pages or months or to join two terms of equal weight, either showing equality or
duality.

Hyphens on the other hand are more common, and have different uses. We use hyphens in a
compound modifier when the modifier comes before  the word it’s modifying, it is also used
with participles. They are also used in spelled-out numbers; when referring to a prefix, suffix or
letter; between a prefix and a proper noun, date or number or to break the words between
syllables at the end of a line.