READING AND USE – PART 7

You are going to read part of the autobiography of a Prosthetic limb researcher. For questions 43 – 52, choose from the sections (A – E). The sections may be chosen more than once.

The Power of Will

A. A mountain-climbing tragedy cost Hugh Herr both legs. The days after the operation, Hugh had a recurring dream. He was running through the cornfields behind his parents’ house going impossibly fast, almost flying. Before his accident, he was a world-class rock climber—but a C and D high school student who “didn’t know what 10 percent of 100 was.”

B. His first prosthetic legs were made of plaster. The prosthetist who fitted them suggested he might one day be able to walk without canes and the doctors said he would never run again. By 1985 Herr had had enough. When the doctors said no solution existed for the problem, he tried to come up with one himself. First, he tried stuffing the sockets with leather. Then, a prosthetist named Barry Gosthnian, who had been a mechanic, recalled a system used in aircrafts. He suggested that perhaps a hydraulic cushion could soften the impact in the socket.

C. Herr began to work on the PowerFoot about some years ago with a simple realisation: No available prosthetic came close to replicating the beauty and simplicity of human locomotion. Even with the best available models, most amputees walked more slowly and had less balance. By 2005 Herr’s lab had produced its first portable, motorised foot and ankle prototype and had demonstrated that the device could replicate the feel of actually walking.

D. There are nearly 2 million amputees in the United States alone who could benefit from these breakthroughs. Most immediately, Herr’s inventions could soon enable the million-plus people who are missing limbs to do things they can now only dream of. Standing on tiptoes to pull a jar out from the back of a cabinet or even dancing. The fact that Herr is so close to achieving this dream is remarkable.

E. Today, Herr himself has a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from MIT and a Harvard Ph.D. in biophysics, and he is walking on motorized bionic limbs that adjust 500 times a second. Almost every other day he goes jogging for 1.7 miles on his prostheses. He has spent many years trying to perfect the PowerFoot. Still, there remains one stark difference between his invention and the real human limb: Herr’s prosthesis cannot be moved by thinking. At least not yet.

In which section does the writer mention