Hands Off the Controls

C2 Proficiency · Word Formation · Cambridge Ready original exercise

For questions 1–8, read the text below. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the lines to form a word that fits in the gap in the same line. There is an example at the beginning (0).

COMFORT

DANGER

TEND

FLAW

NOTICE

STRIKE

ACCUSTOM

MEANING

Modern airliners can fly themselves for almost an entire journey, and the technology is remarkably (0) ___ . Yet researchers have identified an (1) ___ side effect: pilots who seldom fly by hand may be (2) ___ out of practice on the rare occasions when the machine hands control back to them. Psychologists describe a related (3) ___ . When a system performs (4) ___ for months on end, the people supervising it stop watching closely. Their attention drifts, and faint signs of trouble go (5) ___ until it is almost too late. The problem is hardly confined to the cockpit. Drivers who depend on satellite navigation often have a (6) ___ poor sense of where they actually are, and doctors (7) ___ to software that flags abnormal test results may overlook whatever the program happens to miss. The answer is not to abandon automation, which has made countless tasks far safer, but to design systems that keep people (8) ___ involved, asking them to make real decisions rather than simply to watch screens and wait for an alarm that may never sound.

Hands Off the Controls

RELY

Available as a free printable PDF worksheet with an optional answer key.

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