Select Readings, Second EditionUpper-Intermediate, Chapter 2 TestRead the passage and answer the questions that follow.Changing Rolesby Christopher HanzieWatching television recently, I came across a very interesting program. On the show,a journalist was interviewing people from two distinct age groups. The first group wasall people in their 40s and 50s, chosen randomly on a street in the U.S. The secondgroup was elementary school children from the U.S., mainly between the ages ofeight and twelve.The interview was simple. The journalist explained the situation: A father and hisyoung son were driving along the highway, when they were in a serious accident.They were both rushed, unconscious1, to a nearby hospital, in critical condition. Thechild was immediately prepared for emergency surgery. However, the surgeon tookone look at the child and said, “I cannot operate on this boy. He is my son.” Then thejournalist asked the interviewees, “If the man in the car is the boy’s father, who is thesurgeon?”While the question seems like an easy one, many of the people in the older group hada very difficult time answering it. In fact, only a handful of the people interviewedwere able to come up with the correct answer. “Maybe the man in the car was theboy’s step-father,” some said. Others even suggested that the question was a trick, andthe term ‘father’ actually meant that the man in the car was a priest2. And many justadmitted that they simply had no idea who the surgeon could be.
