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Part B: Reading Comprehension

Read the online article and do the following tasks according to the information from the text.
1
Fitness devices are getting more and more powerful every year. Companies such as Garmin,
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Fitbit, Samsung, and others are always adding new features to their devices that keep track of
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everything from simple step counts to potentially detecting sleep apnea. It’s actually crazy
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how much these little computers can keep track of throughout the day. But should you trust
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your wearable to report all those numbers accurately? Maybe not all the time. And that’s okay.
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“What metrics should be taken with a grain of salt?”
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I hate to say this, but that step count on your fitness tracker probably isn’t accurate. It may be
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accurate within a few hundred steps, but it’s definitely not right on the money.
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Most people wear their fitness trackers strapped to their wrists. Wrist-based devices need to
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do a lot of guesstimating in order to count steps. […] Why? Because we’re all human and we
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all move around throughout the day in ways that aren’t traditional steps. The trackers sense
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and record those movements and potentially think you’re taking steps. I just moved my hands
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around in the air and my Garmin running watch counted 12 steps, for example.
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Plus, different trackers are using different algorithms to keep track of all this data, so no two
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wearables will report the same numbers. Most wearables nowadays also come with optical
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heart rate sensors. […]
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Steps and heart rate are just two metrics. Fitness trackers also estimate caloric burn, sleep
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stages, and more. All of these metrics will look slightly different on every tracker you wear and
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how you wear it.
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“But I’m paying a company to track my activity! I should expect them to do it
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accurately.”
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No, no, I hear you. You’d like to spend money on something that works the way it’s intended.
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I, too, want fitness trackers to be more accurate, but that’s just not the world we live in. As a
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general rule, we should put more importance on the major trends our fitness trackers pick up,
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rather than taking each metric as fact. […]
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Also, the number of steps we take in a day is a fine metric to track, but it doesn’t always tell
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the best story of your overall health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and
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American Heart Association (AHA), we should all strive for 150 minutes of moderate and 75
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minutes of vigorous activity each week. Companies like Fitbit and Google are centering their
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activity tracking around these metrics within the Fitbit app and Google Fit. I wouldn’t be sur-
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prised if more companies followed suit in the future. It just makes more sense to track the
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duration of our exercises.
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“How can I improve my fitness tracker’s accuracy?”
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If you’re going through the trouble to wear one of these devices every day, you might as well
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make the most of it. How do you make your fitness tracker track things more accurately?
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The best suggestion I have is to follow the manufacturer’s guidelines. I don’t want to be the
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guy that tells you to read the little instruction manual that comes with your smartwatch, but you
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should probably skim it just in case there are some good tips in there. Companies have tips
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posted online, too, and many of the bigger fitness companies have forums you can join to learn
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more about your tracker.
Abridged from: Westenberg, Jimmy (2022): https://www.androidauthority.com/fitness-tracker-accuracy-1116231/ [accessed: 22 July 2024]
a)
Decide if the statements are true or false and tick the correct box. Find the lines in the text that support your decision and add them to the table.
True False Evidence in line(s)
1 Producers continually expand the functions of their fitness gadgets.
2 When worn like a watch, fitness trackers measure steps exactly.
3 Fitness trackers count various motions of the body as steps.
4 Different devices present identical results.
5 No matter how you put on your fitness tracker, you will see the same results.
(5 BE)
b)
Complete the sentences with information from the text.
6 Major trends are more than the accuracy of single numbers.
7 Every week we should aim at more than three hours of .
8 Some apps focus not as much on the number of steps as on .
9 One reason to read the manual is .
(4 BE)
c)
Choose the most appropriate headline for the text. Tick the correct box.
Major Fitness Trends
Limitations of Fitness Devices
Count Your Steps and Stay Fit
(1 BE)

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