TOEFL SPEAKING TASK 3: SWITCH TO ELECTRONIC BOOKS

Announcement: Switch to Electronic Books
Conversation:

Woman: 
Oh, no! Did you see this?
Man: Yeah, why? You don’t like the idea?
Woman: 
Not at all.

Man: How come?

Woman: 
Well the cost for one thing. They are just not being realistic.

Man: 
Even compared to the price of textbooks?

Woman: 
Well, sure, textbooks aren’t cheap. But do you think people are only gonna use one device the whole time they’re at university? What happens if yours breaks, you’ll have to buy a new one. Or they come out with some fancy new features. Wouldn’t you want to get a new one then?

Man: 
Yeah, I see what you mean. A lot of people would probably want to replace theirs with the latest version.
Woman
Right. Maybe even every year and that can add up.
Man
True. But don’t you agree it’ll make studying and preparing for classes a lot easier?

Woman: 
I don’t think everybody is going to think it’s so great.

Man: 
What do you mean?

Woman: 
Well, it’s only helpful if it’s easy to use. And well, this thing is pretty small, it’s only about 18 or 20 centimeters tall.

Man: 
Oh, really? So that means the screen is pretty small.

Woman: 
And I heard that the keypad or control buttons ... they are small too. So if you have normal size fingers. It’s no that easy to select an item or get it to function right. You know, to do stuff like highlighting or underlining.

Man: 
I hadn’t thought of that.
Woman
: So what good are those fancy features if it’s hard to use them? Besides I like the old fashion way of studying the material, writing notes on the page and underlining or highlighting important sections of the book. I am more comfortable with that.