A top judge has warned that today's young, online generation may have trouble acting as jurors because they can't listen for long stretches. But is it easier to pick up information from a written passage or a spoken version? Try this unscientific test.
The influence of the internet is threatening one of the cornerstones of British justice - the jury trial, according to the most senior judge in England and Wales. Lord Judge of Draycote, the Lord Chief Justice, says when it comes to information gathering, the net promotes reading at the expense of listening.
We've decided to put his theory to the test by inviting readers to try our reading v listening test. At the heart of it is a short piece of testimony by the infamous murderer Dr Crippen from his trial in 1910.
Click on the audio console below to hear it being read
Then answer five questions about what you've just heard
Then read the same passage in text and answer five different questions
The whole thing should take no more than 10 minutes.
LISTENING TEST
How much do you remember? Find out yourself by answering the five questions in this, first quiz.
Once you've taken the quiz, note down your score and proceed directly to the written transcript and the second quiz.
READING TEST
I am 48 years of age: I am an American, and a doctor of medicine of the Cleveland Homoeopathic Hospital in America; I have not been through a practical course of surgery but a theoretical course. I have never performed a post-mortem examination in my life. I have made certain organs of the body my special study, the eye especially, and also the nose.
I have been married twice. I met my second wife in New York: Cora Turner was the name she gave me, but her real name was Clara Mackamotski. Our first apartments were in South Crescent, just off Tottenham Court Road. In 1905 we went to live at Hilldrop Crescent. I paid a visit to America while I was living in Guilford Street; I left my wife at a boarding house in Guilford Street; I was away from November to the middle of April or 1 May. Up to that visit to America I had lived on friendly terms with my wife, but she was always rather hasty in her temper. When I came back I did not notice any change in her manner at first, but very soon after that I began to notice it; she was always finding fault with me, and every night took the opportunity of quarrelling with me. A little later on, and she apparently did not wish to be familiar with me, I asked her what the matter was, and she told me that she had met Bruce Miller and that she had got very fond of him and did not care for me any more.
On 31 January Mr and Mrs Martinetti came to dinner. While they were there she picked a quarrel with me upon a most trivial incident. During the evening Mr Martinetti wanted to go upstairs; when he came down he seemed to have caught a chill. When the Martinettis had left, my wife got into a great rage about this. She abused me; she said that if I could not be a gentleman she had had enough of it and could not stand it any longer and she was going to leave. That was similar to her former threats, but she said besides something she had not said before; she said that after she had gone it would be necessary for me to cover up any scandal there might be by her leaving me, and I might do it in the very best way I could.
On the early morning of 1 February I was left alone in my house with my wife, then alive and well; I know of no person in the world who has seen her alive since, no person who has ever had a letter from her since, no person who can prove any fact to show that she ever left that house alive. The last I saw of her would be between two and three in the morning. When I went home between five and six pm, I found she had gone. As she had always been talking to me about Bruce Miller, I thought she had gone to him in America. I did not take any steps to find out where she had gone, because she had so often threatened to go.
Up to that time I had not thought about what charge would be made against me. Dew said, "Good morning, Dr Crippen, I am Inspector Dew". If he then said, "You will be arrested for the murder and mutilation of your wife, Cora Crippen, in London on or about 2 February," I did not pay much attention to what he said, because I was in such a confusion; I was so very much surprised and confused that I did not quite have my right senses. I realised that I was being arrested for the murder of my wife; I remember hearing that.
How much do you remember? Find out yourself by answering the five questions in this, second quiz.
Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7715868.stm
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