A. METHOD B. ORDER C. TREND D. SYSTEM PART 3

10. A. method B. order C. trend D. system

Part 3: Read the following passage and choose the best answers.

We live in a world of tired, sleep deprived people. In his book Counting Sheep, Paul Martin

– a behavioral biologist – describes a society which is just too busy to sleep and which does not

give sleeping the importance it deserves.

Modern society has invented reasons not to sleep. We are now a 24/7 society where shops

and services must be available all hours. We spend longer hours at work than we used to, and

more time getting to work. Mobile phones and email allow us to stay in touch round the clock

and late-night TV and the Internet tempt us away from our beds. When we need more time for

work or pleasure, the easy solution is to sleep less. The average adult sleeps only 6.2 hours a

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night during the week, whereas research shows that most people need eight or even eight and a

half hours’ sleep to feel at their best. Nowadays, many people have got used to sleeping less

than they need and they live in an almost permanent state of ‘sleep debt’.

Until the invention of the electric light in 1879 our daily cycle of sleep used to depend on

the hours of daylight. People would get up with the sun and go to bed at nightfall. But

nowadays our hours of sleep are mainly determined by our working hours (or our social life)

and most people are woken up artificially by an alarm clock. During the day caffeine, the

world’s most popular drug, helps to keep us awake. 75% of the world’s population habitually

consume caffeine, which up to a point masks the symptoms of sleep deprivation.

What does a chronic lack of sleep do to us? As well as making us irritable and unhappy as

humans, it also reduces our motivation and ability to work. This has serious implications for

society in general. Doctors, for example, are often chronically sleep deprived, especially when

they are on ‘night call’, and may get less than three hours’ sleep. Lack of sleep can seriously

impair their mood, judgment, and ability to take decisions. Tired engineers, in the early hours of

the morning, made a series of mistakes with catastrophic results. On our roads and motorways

lack of sleep kills thousands of people every year. Tests show that a tired driver can be just as

dangerous as a drunken driver. However, driving when drunk is against the law but driving

when exhausted isn’t. As Paul Martin says, it is very ironic that we admire people who function

on very little sleep instead of criticizing them for being irresponsible. Our world would be a

much safer, happier place if everyone, whatever their job, slept eight hours a night.