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A few stars are still twinkling in the inky pre-dawn sky when Koyampurath Namitha arrives for work in a quiet suburb of this south Indian city. It's barely 4:30 a.m. when she grabs a cup of coffee and joins more than two dozen colleagues, each settling into a cubicle with
A few stars are still twinkling in the inky pre-dawn sky when Koyampurath Namitha arrives for work in a quiet suburb of this south Indian city. It's barely 4:30 a.m. when she grabs a cup of coffee and joins more than two dozen colleagues, each settling into a cubicle with a computer and earphones. More than 7,000 miles away, in Glenview, Ill.1, outside Chicago, it's 5 the evening of the previous day and 14-year-old Princeton John sits at his computer, barefoot and ready for his hour-long geometry lesson. The high school freshman puts on a headset with a microphone and clicks on computer software that will link him through the Internet to his tutor, Namitha, many time zones away. It's called e-tutoring […]. Princeton is one of thousands of U.S. high school students turning 10 to tutors in India. "Hello Princeton, how are you? How was your test?" Namitha asks. "Hello, yeah… I'm good," Princeton replies. "It was good." Namitha works for a company called Growing Stars, based in Cochin and Fremont, California. Princeton and his 12-year-old sister Priscilla each meet with their online math 15 teacher twice a week. The chitchat ends quickly and a geometry worksheet pops up on Princeton's computer screen. Teacher and pupil speak to one another, type messages and use digital "pencils" to work on problems, highlight graphs and erase mistakes. Princeton scrawls on something that looks like a hyped-up mouse pad and it shows up on Namitha's screen. He can also use a scanner to send copies of assignments or textbook pages that he needs help 20 understanding. "Here we go," Princeton says, as they begin a lesson on such concepts as parallel lines and complementary angles in the quiet coziness2² of the family's suburban home… The first e-tutoring businesses started less than three years ago, and already thousands of Indian teachers coach U.S. students in math, science or English for about $15 to $20 an hour, 25 a fraction of the $40 to $100 that private tutoring costs in the United States… Princeton's mother, Bessy Piusten, is pleased with the results, saying her children have been getting all A's and B's since they started online tutoring about two years ago… Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat, Penguin Books, copyright 2005-2006 1 Ill. = Illinois 2 coziness = comfort 12ANTEPO1 2/3 I. COMPREHENSION 1. Name all the characters mentioned in the text. 2.