Innovations scientifiques et responsabilité

In English, present the British Industrial Revolution as the syllabus asks — that is, WITH its counter-movement. Say what changed, who resisted and how, what the state did about it, and what the episode still tells us today. About two minutes.

1. 01State the change in one sentence, then the resistance in the next

   Set the two halves side by side from the start: « From the late eighteenth century, coal and the steam engine transformed British industry. Within a generation, the machines had also made whole trades unnecessary — and in 1811 the people who held those trades began to break them. » The word « also » is doing the syllabus's work here.

2. 02Give the counter-movement a date and a place

   Precision is what separates an example from an opinion: « The first frames were broken on 11 March 1811 at Arnold, in Nottinghamshire. The movement spread to Yorkshire and Lancashire, and took its name from a probably imaginary figure, Ned Ludd. » A named place and a named day make the claim checkable.

3. 03Say what the state did — and what that reveals

   Move from the workers to the law: « Parliament's answer was the Destruction of Stocking Frames Act of 1812, which made machine-breaking a capital crime. On 27 February 1812 Lord Byron spoke against it in the House of Lords. When a state is willing to hang a man for damaging a machine, it is telling us how much the machine is worth to it. » This is where a presentation becomes an analysis.

4. 04Close on the word itself

   Use the language as evidence: « Two centuries later the word survives: a Luddite is someone who refuses new technology. It is almost always an insult — which tells us who won, and who wrote the story. All things considered, the Luddites were not against machines in general; they were against machines that were used to make them poorer. » The final distinction is the point a B1+ presentation is being marked on.

Résultat : Une bonne présentation pose la révolution ET son refus dès la première phrase, date et localise le contre-mouvement (11 mars 1811, Arnold), montre la réponse de l'État (la loi de 1812, le discours de Byron du 27 février 1812) et se termine sur une distinction, pas sur un verdict. La langue vise le B1+ : prétérit pour les faits datés, past perfect pour l'antériorité (« the machines HAD also made… »), present pour le sens actuel du mot.

A research team asks permission to use gene editing on human embryos to remove a fatal inherited disease. Write the committee's opinion in English: restate the request neutrally, list what it would make possible, list the risks and unknowns, then decide — with written conditions.

1. 01Restate the request without judging it

   Open in the register of the genre: « The committee has been asked to consider a proposal to edit the germline of human embryos in order to remove a single fatal inherited condition. The following opinion concerns that request alone, and not gene editing in general. » Narrowing the scope in the first sentence is what an opinion does and an essay does not.

2. 02State the benefit honestly and in full

   Give the strongest version of the other side: « If it worked, the procedure would spare a child a painful and fatal illness, and would spare every descendant the same illness. The committee notes that in a comparable somatic-cell therapy authorised in the United Kingdom in November 2023, 28 of 29 evaluable patients were free of severe pain crises for at least twelve months. The potential benefit is therefore not speculative. » An opinion that understates the benefit will not be believed on the risk.

3. 03Separate risks from unknowns

   Two different things, two different sentences: « The known risks include off-target edits and the impossibility of obtaining informed consent from the person most affected. The unknowns are of a different order: the change would be inherited, and no follow-up study can yet cover a full human lifetime, let alone a second generation. » Saying « we do not know » is a finding, not a failure.

4. 04Decide, and write the conditions in the conditional

   End with an operative sentence, not an impression: « The committee would approve the trial only under three conditions: unless an independent laboratory confirms the absence of off-target edits, the trial may not proceed; the family must give informed consent to lifelong follow-up; and the protocol must be limited to this single condition, with no trait selection of any kind. Should any condition fail, authorisation lapses. » « Would… only unless », « must », « should any » — the modals ARE the decision.

Résultat : Un bon avis restreint son objet dès la première phrase, donne au bénéfice sa version la plus forte (avec un repère chiffré vérifiable), sépare les risques connus des inconnues, puis DÉCIDE en écrivant des conditions opérantes au conditionnel et avec « unless ». Les tournures « the committee has been asked to consider… », « the committee would approve only under three conditions… », « should any condition fail… » sont réutilisables telles quelles.

In English, describe the Seagreen wind farm to someone who has never seen an offshore installation. Situate it in space with a range of markers, give its scale, and end by saying what it replaces — and at what social cost.

1. 01Situate before describing

   Follow the syllabus's own model: « Seagreen is an offshore wind farm located about 27 kilometres off the coast of Angus, in the North Sea. It is so far offshore that it cannot be seen from land. » Distance, direction, a named coast, and a consequence — four markers in two sentences is the B1+ standard for situating in space.

2. 02Give the scale with figures, not adjectives

   Replace « very big » with numbers: « It has 114 turbines and a total capacity of 1,075 megawatts. Its deepest foundation stands 58.7 metres below sea level. It produced its first power in August 2022 and has been fully operational since October 2023. » Note the tense pair: preterite for the dated event, present perfect for the state that continues.

3. 03Say what it replaces, and date that too

   Connect the new to the old: « Wind is taking over from an older Scottish energy: coal-fired generation ended on 31 March 2016, when Longannet power station closed after forty-seven years. For the first time in more than a century, no Scottish electricity came from burning coal. » Two dated facts are worth ten sentences of general commentary.

4. 04Name the cost, or the description is incomplete

   End on the syllabus's word — responsibility: « What a photograph of Seagreen does not show is the other side of the change. In 2022 the offshore oil and gas sector still supported 53,000 jobs in Scotland. Unless those workers are retrained and paid while they retrain, the turbines will look like progress from the shore and like redundancy from Aberdeen. » The « unless » clause is where the description becomes an argument.

Résultat : Une bonne description situe AVANT de décrire (distance, direction, côte nommée, conséquence), remplace les adjectifs par des chiffres vérifiables, date ce que la nouvelle énergie remplace, et nomme le coût social — sans quoi la description est incomplète au sens même du programme. Les tournures « located about 27 kilometres off the coast of… », « so far offshore that… », « it has been fully operational since… », « unless those workers are retrained… » sont réutilisables telles quelles.

Answer in English, in about 200 words: « Who does space belong to? ». Present the hope, present the fear, and conclude in a way that decides something — the syllabus asks you to weigh « de manière ajustée », which means a real position, not a truce.

1. 01Start from the rule, not from an opinion

   Open with the text: « The question has a legal answer, at least in part. The Outer Space Treaty, which entered into force on 10 October 1967, states that outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by use, by occupation or by any other means. » Beginning with the rule earns you the right to have an opinion about it.

2. 02Give the hope in concrete terms

   Avoid abstractions: « Because no state owns it, space has been used in common: weather forecasting, navigation, telecommunications and Earth observation all depend on orbits that belong to nobody. That is a rare success — a shared resource that was regulated before it was exploited. »

3. 03Give the fear with a figure and a source

   Fear is credible only when it is measured: « The fear is that the commons is filling up. The European Space Agency reports that about 40,000 objects are now tracked, of which only about 11,000 are active satellites, and estimates more than 1.2 million fragments larger than one centimetre. At orbital speed such a fragment can destroy a working satellite. Unless operators are required to deorbit reliably, some orbits could become unusable. »

4. 04Decide what the comparison has established

   Do not end on a balance: « Therefore the treaty has not failed — it has become incomplete. It answered the question for states at a time when only states could reach orbit, and it says nothing explicit about the companies that now launch most satellites. All things considered, the real question is no longer who owns space, but who is accountable for what they leave in it. » The shift from « own » to « accountable » IS the position.

Résultat : Une bonne réponse part du TEXTE et non d'une opinion, donne l'espoir en termes concrets (météo, navigation, télécommunications), chiffre la crainte en nommant sa source (l'ESA), et conclut en DÉPLAÇANT la question plutôt qu'en la renvoyant dos à dos. Les tournures « the treaty states that… », « the European Space Agency reports that… », « unless operators are required to… », « the real question is no longer… but… » sont réutilisables telles quelles.

A francophone friend cannot read English and asks you what a short article titled « AI helps doctors detect cancer earlier » actually says. In English, give the gist, report the benefit, name the limits the article itself admits, and end with one usable takeaway.

1. 01Give the gist in one sentence, using reporting structures

   Do not paraphrase the headline: « According to the article, a new artificial-intelligence tool can help doctors spot certain cancers earlier than they currently do, by analysing thousands of medical scans and flagging patterns that are easy to miss. » « According to » signals from the start that you are reporting, not asserting.

2. 02Report the benefit, with the reason it matters

   Say why the finding counts: « The article explains that this matters because the earlier a cancer is found, the more treatable it is. It also notes that the tool is fast, which could help departments that are short-staffed. » The comparative structure « the earlier…, the more… » is worth memorising: it is the natural English form for this kind of claim.

3. 03Name the limits the article itself gives

   Distinguish your reservations from the author's: « The article is careful, though. It says the software still makes mistakes, that a doctor must check every result, and that patients' scans raise questions about data. In other words, the article presents the tool as an assistant, not a replacement. » Attributing the limits to the source is what keeps a mediation neutral.

4. 04Close with one takeaway your listener can actually use

   End on something portable: « To sum up: the technology can make detection earlier and faster, but the accountability stays with the doctor. If you read a headline that says AI has replaced radiologists, that is not what this article claims. » A mediation ends with something the listener can carry away and reuse.

Résultat : Une bonne médiation ouvre par une structure de compte rendu (« according to the article »), donne le bénéfice AVEC sa raison, attribue les limites à la source plutôt qu'à soi-même, et se termine par un point à retenir utilisable. Les tournures « according to the article… », « the earlier…, the more… », « in other words… », « to sum up… » sont réutilisables telles quelles ; noter aussi le report du mot clé de l'axe, « accountability », dans la dernière phrase.