Now listen to a conversation between two students of biology.
(man) Are you still working in Professor Green's laboratory?
(woman) Yeah, he's been supervising my research on eating behavior in mice.
(man) Sounds interesting.
(woman) It's fascinating. I've got a few more observations and experiments to do. It's another three month of work and I'll start writing my paper.
(man) Wow! Sounds like it'll be a great paper.
(woman) Thanks, I hope so. There's a problem, though.
(man) What?
(woman) Professor Green has been invited to teach at a university in France for a semester. And obviously, I still need a lot of help with the project.
(man) Hum, what are you gonna do?
(woman) Well, Professor Green suggested Professor Baker that I can work with another.
(man) Oh, I've heard of her. Professor Baker is quite famous.
(woman) Yeah, but I don't know her at all. And my research isn't in her area of expertise. She works with fish, my works on mice, not exactly the best match.
(man) Well, you’ll get to know her eventually. And she’s a great biologist. So she’ll still be able to help you even if your topic isn’t exactly her specialty. She may give you some new perspective on your work.
(woman) I know, I’m considering it, but still, I’m thinking about asking Professor Green if he could advise me long-distance.
(man) That’s a thou ght! You think he’d do it?
(woman) He probably would. But I don’t know if it’s a good idea. I mean, he could always look at my data and read my write-ups through email. But the thing is, he wouldn’t be here to supervise my experiments.
(man) Yeah, well, I’m sure you’ll figure out the best thing to do.
Briefly summarize the woman’s problem, then state which solution you would recommend. Explain the reasons for your recommendation.
Well the woman's problem is that she's been working on a project and she needs a lot of help from her professor but her professor will be away for a semester. There are two solutions for the woman's situation: first she could change a professor to work with or she could still work with her professor and receive long-distance advice. I guess the second solution is a better one for some reasons. First of all, it is unwise to change a professor when in the middle of the project, no matter how famous the new professor is. It could always take a whole lot of time for the new professor to get familiar with the woman's project, so it'll be definitely a pretty waste of time The second reason is that, receiving long-distance help from the professor wouldn't make any difference with the convenience of Internet communication tool such as e-mails, Snapchat and stuff like that. And I bet it could even improve the efficiency of her project as long as the woman could handle the time lag well. So I think the second solution would be better. (188 words)
