Listening Exercises for you 2

Private Lives - Part 2 

Here is the second part of the BBC learning series called “private lives” along with a quiz and its script. As the previous one first download the audio file and take the quiz and then download the PDF file and check your answers. I hope you enjoy it.

Quiz:

1. Almost any piece written in a newspaper or magazine on a particular subject can be called________.

a) the news agenda      

b) an article

c) a column

d) a page

2. ________ is a regular section of a newspaper usually written by the same person.

a) a column

b) an article

c) the news agenda

d) a page

3. If we say, 'the newspapers are __________ a certain event', it means they are reporting the news about it.

a) publishing

b) editing

c) covering

d) printing

4. When an event is so important that newspapers put their reports on it on the first page, we can use the term _____________.

a) a front page story

b) a chief page report

c) boss of the news

d) hard news

5. A journalist who is the main correspondent on key stories in a certain area (e.g. business, local news etc.) and has a team of junior reporters working in the same area is a ________ reporter.

a) hard news

b) front

c) boss

d) chief

6. An 'edition' of a newspaper is ____________.

a) its version targeted at people living in a particular area

b) all of its copies published at the same time

c) one of the many times that the newspaper is published

d) any of the above

You can download the audio file here: private_lives_2.mp3 (5.11 mb)

Listening Exercises for you

Private Lives - Part 1 

 Hi there. Here is a very useful listening, which is the first part of a series in English listening I am going to post, along with a quiz and its tape script as a PDF file you can download. First download the MP3 file, listen to it and do the quiz. After that download the tape script and check your answers.

Quiz:

1. The whole of the area of a theatre or concert hall where the audience sits is the ________.

a) tier

b) stalls

c) gallery

d) auditorium

2. The Royal Albert Hall has a rounded, or hemispherical, roof. What do we call such a roof?

a) a saddleback

b) a flat roof

c) a dome

d) a spire

3. The Royal Albert Hall is sometimes referred to as the nation's ____________.

a) local pub

b) village inn

c) village hall

d) dance floor

4. Because it can seat over 5,000 people, the Royal Albert Hall can be called a ___________.

a) medium-size hall

b) grand-scale venue

c) tall space

d) wide place

5. A net-like material that looks like a mesh formed by metal threads crossing over each other is a __________.

a) metal cloth

b) wire gauze

c) wire material

d) metal fabric

6. The annual series of about 70 concerts performed in the Royal Albert Hall is called the________.

a) Pros

b) Cons

c) Props

d) Proms

IELTS Writing Task 1

Well, this time I am going to have a review on rare types of task one in IELTS writing exam. But before that let’s have a review on the more popular ones.

As you all have studied in classes we have 4 main types of writing task 1, namely:

1-      Time based bar charts, graphs, tables and sometimes pie charts

2-      Surveys which appear in the form of bar charts, pie charts or tables

3-      Data distribution bar charts, pie charts and tables

4-      Diagrams which can be grouped into the following types:

a.      Processes and life cycles

b.      How things work

c.       Timelines

d.      Maps

e.      Organizational flow charts

As you all know we don’t cover diagrams in our writing handouts since they are mostly discussed in your reading handouts. In these series I am going to cover these types in more depth and we will practically learn how to write about these types in a structured and well organized way. And please be advised that you won’t find this classification anywhere else in IELTS textbooks. We have provided this classification in order to free you as the writer from the appearance of the writing task and help you focus on what you need to write and how to organize your essay in the best way possible.

The first type of diagrams which I am going to discuss is the processes and life cycles. When describing processes we need to describe the following items:

1-      The different stages

2-      The actions happening in each stage

3-      The parts and equipment used in each stage

4-      The method of doing actions

5-      The purpose of each stage and the whole process

Let’s take the following process and write a sample for it step by step.

The diagram below shows the typical stages of consumer goods manufacturing, including the process by which information is fed back to earlier stages to enable adjustment.

Write a report for a university lecturer describing the process shown.

In order to prevent a long post I’ll write the detailed description for the process in my next post. Meanwhile you can take a piece of paper and try to write a sample for yourselves to compare it with mine and to realize what your weaknesses and problems in writing about a process are.

Take care and so long.

1 to agree with someone or something

We can use the following verbs and phrases to show our agreement with others’ opinions and ideas:

To agree verb [intransitive and transitive] to have the same opinion as someone, or to think that a statement is correct:

• Many people agreed with his views about the war.

• I completely agree with Chomsky when he says that humans are born with a special ability to learn language.

• Most experts agree that dieting needs to be accompanied by regular exercise.

STUDY NOTE: Grammar

Don’t say ‘agree someone's opinion' or ‘agree to someone's opinion'. Say agree with someone's opinion.

To share somebody's view(s)/concern(s)/fear etc to have the same opinion, concern, fear etc as someone else:

• I share her concerns about the lack of women in high academic positions.

• A lot of people share his view that tourism will have a negative impact on the island.

Another possible way is to use these verbs in passive forms.

• This fear/view/concern was shared by union leaders, who saw the new law as an attack on their rights.

To subscribe to a view/theory etc to agree with an opinion or idea:

• There are a number of scientists who subscribe to the view that there is a God who controls the workings of the universe.

• Some people think that there are cases where torture is justified. I, for one, do not subscribe to this theory.

To be of the same opinion if people are of the same opinion, they agree with each other:

• All three specialists were of the same opinion about the cause of her illness.

• Professor Dawkins is of the same opinion as Dr Jones.

To concur verb [intransitive and transitive] a formal word meaning to agree:

• The committee concurred with this view.

• Most modern historians would readily/easily concur that (=agree without any hesitation) this was an event of huge importance.

• As most biblical scholars concur, the letter could not have been written by any contemporary of Jesus.

(Somebody) To be right/(somebody) To make a valid point used when you agree with what someone says:

• Darwin was right when he argued that humans and higher mammals are closely related.

• Cox makes a valid point when he questions our ability to remain objective.

Seventh lesson

Every text has a structure. It is not just a random collection of sentences. The parts that make up the text are related in a meaningful way to each other. Recognising the way in which a text has been organised will help you to understand it better. In order to understand the text, it is necessary to understand how the sentences are related. Words like "it", "this", "that", "here", "there" etc. refer to other parts of the text. You need to understand these connections or links.

Overall there are 4 main types of links:

1. Reference
2. Ellipsis and substitution
3. Conjunction
4. Lexical cohesion

In this lesson we are going to talk about referencing and ellipsis/substitution. For those of you who follow these lessons, I presented a lesson on referencing in the speaking forum. Here we are going to review some important grammatical structures which are used in referencing.

Reference

Certain items of language in English have the property of reference. That is, they do not have meaning themselves, but they refer to something else for their meaning. How to understand referencing in a passage? In order to do this we need to know more about the grammatical structures used in referencing. Look at the following list:

1. Using subjective pronouns: I, you, he/she/it, we, you, they.
2. Using objective pronouns: me, you, him/her/it, us, you, them.
3. Using possessive adjectives: my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their.
4. Using possessive pronouns: mine, yours, his/hers/its, ours, yours, theirs.
5. Using adjective clause pronouns: who, that, which, whom, when, whose, where, why and their leaving out in the case of referring to the object.
6. Reduction of adjective clauses to adjective phrases.
7. Using Wh-question words in questions: what, which, why, where, when, what time, who, how, how much, how many, how often.
8. Using some, most, many, much, (a) few, (a) little, another, others, the other…
9. Using here, there,

There are many other instances of grammatical structures used in referencing. These are the most common and all of them refer to a single word. There are times when referencing refers to a group of words. Take the following:

1. This/that used as pronouns
2. These/those used as pronouns
3. “Which” in adjective clauses when it refers to a whole sentence.
4. So
5. They/them
6. …

Let’s see some sample texts:

The scientific study of memory began in the early 1870s when a German philosopher, Hermann Ebbinghaus, came up with the revolutionary idea that memory could be studied experimentally. In doing so he broke away from a 2000-year-old tradition that firmly assigned the study of memory to the philosopher rather than to the scientist. He argued that the philosophers had come up with a wide range of possible interpretations of memory but had produced no way of deciding which amongst these theories offered the best explanation of memory. He aimed to collect objective experimental evidence of the way in which memory worked in the hope that this would allow him to choose between the various theories.

In this text "he" and "him" refer to "Hermann Ebbinghaus". “When” and “that” refer to the words before them, “which” refers to theories. (all refere to a word)

The word “so” refers to “memory could be studied experimentally” and the word “this” refers to “collecting objective experimental evidence of the way memory worked”. (They both refer to a group of words)

In order to understand the text, you need to know what these words refer to in the text.

Similarly,

These theories all stem from some underlying assumptions about people. To a large extent unproven, they tend to represent the dominant mood or climate of opinion at that time. Schein has classified them as follows, and it is interesting to note that the categories follow each other in a sort of historical procession, starting from the time of the industrial revolution.

Here you need to know what the words "they", "them", "it" and "each other" refer to in order to understand the text.