Monday, July 15, 2013

Listening: Alcoholics Anonymous (Medium)


1. What is one effect of Dave's alcoholism?
A. He is in danger of losing his job.
B. He gets his friends drunk.
C. He might lose his girlfriend.


2. Lisa thinks that Dave's friends .....
A. are buying him alcohol illegally
B. are driving while drunk
C. are getting him to attend parties


3. According to Dave's sister, a good friend is a person who .....
A. spends time with you in their free time
B. gives you money and other things you need
C. openly shares their opinions and thoughts


4. One of things that Dave can accomplish by attending Alcoholics Anonymous is to .....
A. meet people dealing with similar problems
B. undergo free drug testing to check his progress
C. get professional medical advice


5. At the end of the conversation, Dave decides to ......
A. seek professional help
B. continue his drinking habits
C. ignore his sister's advice


***Mp3***

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Listening: A Healthy Lifestyle (Medium)


***MP3 and source***

1. What does the man want to do?
A. play basketball with friends from work
B. try out for the company baseball team
C. get in shape and compete in a cycling race

2. What is the woman's main concern?
A. She is worried her husband will spend too much time away from home.
B. She is afraid her husband will become a fitness freak.
C. She is concerned about her husband's health.

3. What is the woman's first suggestion to her husband?
A. He should see a doctor.
B. Her husband should start with a light workout.
C. Her husband needs to visit a fitness trainer.

4. What does the woman advise about the man's diet?
A. He should consume less salt.
B. He should eat less fatty foods.
C. He should add more protein products to his diet.

5. Why does the man's wife recommend cycling?
A. It is good for improving muscle tone.
B. It helps strengthen the heart.
C. It helps develop mental toughness.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Listening: 'Summer Work/Travel' Brings Many Students to US

MP3

Topic: Last year, 150,000 foreign college students took part in this J-1 visa exchange program during their summer vacations. Transcript of radio broadcast. Source: VOA

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

This week, we answer a question from a student in Odessa, Ukraine. Marushka wants to know about a program that lets foreign students work in the United States during their summer .

The program is called Summer Work/Travel. The State Department administers it for full-time  or university students who speak English well.

Students come on a J-one exchange visa. They can work for up to four during their school break. They generally work in service jobs in stores, resorts, , restaurants and amusement parks. But summer internships are also permitted.

"Summer" in this case means summer in the student's country. Those from south of the equator come to the United States during the northern .

Students cannot work as housekeepers in private  or be involved in patient care. And they are supposed to be paid the same as Americans.

Congress created this popular program under a nineteen sixty-one law, the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act. Last year, one hundred fifty thousand students came to the United States this way.

Students can do the Summer Work/Travel program  than once.

Sally Lawrence heads the State Department office responsible for the program. She says students should begin to gather information a year before they want to .

More than fifty organizations are approved to act as sponsors. Sally Lawrence advises students to avoid unapproved groups offering , and to research a few different sponsors.

Sponsors must confirm the English language ability of students and make sure they are currently in school. But sponsors do not all charge the same  for their services.

Another difference: some sponsors arrange employment and housing for students  they leave home. Others permit students to find their own jobs  they arrive.

Sally Lawrence says the first thing to do is to find the  of sponsors on the Web page for J visa exchange programs.

The address is a little long, but here it is: exchanges.state.gov/education/jexchanges. Click on Designated Sponsor List, then choose Summer Work/Travel under Category Description. For more information about the program, go to the main page and click on Private Sector Programs.

To make it easier, we'll post a link at voaspecialenglish.com. And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Steve Ember.

Friday, July 12, 2013

Listening: Roof Top Gardening is a Growing Trend in New York City

Video

Roof Top Gardening is a Growing Trend in New York City
Topic: New York is a city notoriously short on space, but also one whose residents are big on innovation. In the Big Apple, the latest trend is rooftop farming. Individuals and restaurants are beginning to grow some of their own food in the only space available to them - their roofs. While the practice is currently an environmental rather than a financial trend, some companies hope it can become a money-making business model, providing a cheaper alternative to store-bought produce, especially in low income neighborhoods where fresh vegetables are expensive and scarce. Source: VOA
Visualiza el video y elige la opción correcta.

Click aquí para ver el video
1. What started as an interest in sustainability has become a rooftop oasis, complete with tomatoes, cucumbers, ________ and herbs.
apples.
lettuce.
carrots.
2. The couple learned how to make soil, grow plants, capture __________, and trap urban heat.
air.
rainwater.
clients.
3. "Also, with so many people on the planet, we can't all have ____ acres," Kusmenko says.
10.
100.
1000.
4. Roberta's Pizzeria bought two old railway cars and planted vegetables on top of them.
True.
False.
It's not said on the video.
5. Rooftop farms can provide ________ produce.
cheaper.
faster.
more expensive.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Listening: Schools Look to Save Money With Four-Day Week

MP3


Schools Look to Save Money With Four-Day Week
Topic: But longer days are not always a good move. Second of two reports on the effects of high fuel prices on American education. Transcript of radio broadcast. Source: VOA

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

As we said last week, American schools are looking for ways to save money on bus transportation because of high  prices. More children may have to walk,  their bikes or find other ways to get to school.

But, as another effect of the high prices, they may not have to go to school as .

Some schools, especially in rural areas, are changing to a four-day week. That means  days instead of the traditional Monday through Friday schedule.

Beginning in the , students in the Maccray school district in Minnesota will be in school Tuesday through Friday. Each school day will be sixty-five minutes longer.

Superintendent Greg Schmidt says the district expects to save about sixty-five thousand dollars a year in transportation costs. The district has about seven hundred students living in an area of nine hundred square kilometers.

State officials have approved the plan for three years. They may change their mind before then if  suffers.

In Custer, South Dakota, students have been going to school Monday through Thursday since nineteen ninety-five. Superintendent Tim Creal says the change has saved an estimated one million dollars over just the past eight years.

But he sees other benefits, too. Students get more instructional time. And activities that used to  with classes are now  on non-school days.

He says that in the future, the growth of online classes could make it possible to require even fewer days in school. High fuel prices are driving college students to take more online classes. And in some states, high school students can take them, too.

A four-day school week sounds like a great  for students and teachers. But working parents may have to pay for child  for that fifth day. In agricultural areas, though, it can mean an extra day of helping on the family ranch.

In New Mexico, the first school district changed to a four-day week in nineteen seventy-four because of the Arab oil . Now, seventeen out of eighty-nine districts use it.

The Lake Arthur School District has just one hundred sixty students. Lake Arthur used a four-day  for twelve years. But a few years ago it went back to five days.

Michael Grossman heads the district. He says two studies there failed to show any real educational  using the four-day week. And he says not much instruction was taking place during the last hour of school, because teachers and students were too .

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Steve Ember.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Listening: Researchers Finding Babies Smarter Than Previously Thought

Video

Topic: What babies know fascinates doctors, researchers and parents. With technology that can measure brain waves and other indicators, what researchers are finding is that babies know more than we suspect. Source: VOA

1. At Northwestern University, researchers recently concluded that well before babies start to ______, they recognize words and can link them to the things they represent.
walk.
cry.
speak.
2. The Northwestern study indicates that one of the best things parents can do is _____________________.
talk to their babies.
sing to their babies.
play with their babies.
3. Researchers think babies begin developing language skills while they are in the _____.
bed.
crib.
womb.
4. Even before they are born, babies pick up the _________ of language.
words.
phrases.
melodies.
5. Babies who are frequently talked to will be more intelligent.
True.
False.
It's not said on the video.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Reading: The Kilt

The Kilt
Bagpipe performer wearing a kiltThe kilt is seen as an item of traditional Scottish Highland dress, although the origin of that tradition is more recent than is commonly believed. It was only with the Romantic Revival of the 19th century that the kilt became irreversibly associated with Highlanders, largely because of non-Highlanders reinterpreting their traditions. Today most Scotsmen see kilts as formal dress. They are often worn at weddings or other formal occasions, while there are still a few people who wear them daily. Kilts are also used for parades by groups like the Boy Scouts, and in many places kilts are seen in force at Highland games and Pipe band championships as well as being used for Scottish country dances and ceilidhs. The army still continues to have kilts as dress uniform, though they are no longer used in combat.

The Garment's name comes from the Scots word kilt meaning to tuck up the clothes around the body.

Sometime early in the 18th century the fèileadh beag or philabeg using a single width of cloth hanging down below the belt came into use and became quite popular throughout the Highlands and northern Lowlands by 1746, though the great kilt also continued in use.

A letter published in the Scots Journal in March 1785 argued that the garment people would today recognize as a kilt was invented around the 1720s by Thomas Rawlinson, a Quaker from Lancashire. Rawlinson is claimed to have designed it for the Highlanders who worked in his new charcoal production facility in the woods of northern Scotland. After the Jacobite campaign of 1715 the government was "opening" the Highlands to outside exploitation and Rawlinson was one of the businessmen who took advantage of the situation. He thought that the traditional Highland kilt, the "belted plaid" which consisted of a large cloak, was inconvenient for tree cutters. He brought the Highland garment to a tailor, intent on making it more practical. The tailor responded by cutting it in two. Rawlinson took this back and then introduced the new kilt. Rawlinson liked the new creation so much that he began to wear it as well and was soon imitated by his Scottish colleagues, the MacDonell's of Glengarry.

"Rawlinsons End" Indeed, an Englishman named Thomas Rawlinson opened an iron smelting factory in the Highlands around the year 1730. His workers all dressed in the belted plaid, not a cloak, a plaid. Rawlinson required his workers to wear only the bottom part of the plaid. This for some is sufficient to claim that an Englishman invented the modern Scottish kilt.

The problem with this story is that we know of numerous illustrations of Highlanders wearing only the bottom part of the belted plaid that date long before Rawlinson ever set foot in Scotland. The belted plaid consisted of two widths of material stitched together. If one neglects to stitch the two together and only the bottom 4 yards are worn, pleated and belted around the waist, the resulting garment is called the feilidh-beag (little wrap). The word is often spelled phillabeg in English. There is some suggestion of its use in the early 17th century, and it was definitely being worn by the 18th century. It most likely came about as a natural evolution of the belted plaid and Rawlinson probably observed it and quickly deduced its usefulness in his situation and insisted on introducing it among his workers. The first instance we have of the pleats being sewn in to the phillabeg, creating a true tailored kilt, comes in 1792 (pre Rawlinson). This kilt is in the possession of the Scottish Tartans Society. This is the first garment that can truly be called a kilt as we know it today.

The small kilt developed into the modern kilt when the pleats were sewn in to speed the donning of the kilt.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the  Wikipedia article "Kilt". You can explore more on the Wikipedia website. The text and the images are used here only for educational purposes.

Monday, July 8, 2013

The use of English

Asking for information

A: Hello, do you sell maps of the town?
B: Yes, we have two. This small one costs £2.50 and this one
is ............(11) bigger and costs £3.20.
A: Okay, I’ll take the small one please.
B: That’s £2.50, ......... (12) .
A: Here you are. Oh, I wonder if you could tell me if there is a
cafe in this town?
B: Yes, there are three. I recommend Emma’s.
A: Okay. Where is it exactly?
B: It’s in Church Street. I can show you on the map. We are
here and Church Street is there. So it’s ...............(13) five
minutes walk away.
A: Great. Do they have cakes?
B: Yes, they do and the chocolate cake is ............(14) good!
A: Thanks for your help. Bye!
B: You’re welcome. Bye.


a) A BIT
b) ABOUT
c) GREATLY
d) OKAY
e) PLEASE
f) REALLY

***Source***

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Reading: Huntington Beach, California: A Teen Paradise

Read items 39–42 and then quickly look through the text. Decide which part of the text (a–f)
matches each of the items 39–42 and mark your answers on the answer sheet.

39. You would like to find out about the writer’s surfing lesson.
40. You would like to know something about the people who live in Huntington Beach.
41. You want some information about the writer’s hotel.
42. You want to know where you can eat something in Huntington Beach.

Huntington Beach, California: A Teen Paradise


A. As a sixteen year old, I speak for myself and other teens when I say a dream vacation can be anywhere, as long as there is a beach. But with so many beaches in the world, how can one choose? Well, after visiting Huntington Beach, California last June with my mom, I think I found my perfect match. What's so great about Huntington Beach?

B. The first thing I saw as I walked along the beach was the giant pier that stretches more than 1,000 feet across the ocean. This pier was actually built over a century ago, in 1904, and has suffered through much destruction since then. Over 10 years ago, the pier was redone with new structural supports to be better suited for storms and earthquakes. One of the additions was a restaurant called Ruby’s Surf City Diner. It’s the building with the red roof, all the way at the end of the pier, and it’s where local teens go to eat burgers, fries, sandwiches and salads. The portions are huge! You can sit by the window and listen to Beach Boys music from the jukebox as you watch the surfers.

C. The view from the pier is great and you can see just how beautiful it is here. The ocean glistens in the sun as the sound of waves crashing fills your ears. Palm trees line the soft sand. Of course, you see gorgeous houses, and there’s no doubt the area is rich, but the people I met didn’t show any snobbishness whatsoever. In fact, everyone here seemed really friendly. I guess they really have no reason to be unhappy when they’re living in a place like this!

D. On the day I surfed, the water was rough and the conditions not perfect, but my mom and I tried it anyway. And it was most definitely worth it. After a quick training session on land from the instructors we were broken up into small groups and taken into the water. I’d come so close to getting up on my board and then lose my balance at the last minute. But the instructors never gave up on me. On my one last try before our lesson was over, I finally succeeded! I got up on my board! Even if it was for less than two seconds before I fell back into the water, it was still a great feeling!

E. After the surfing, we were pretty wet and cold. So after relaxing for a little while on the beautiful beach, my mom and I went back to our wonderful hotel, The Waterfront Resort. Outside, it’s surrounded by flowers, while inside, the lobby has a tropical garden with palm trees and even a waterfall! After a shower, we headed back out for a walk around the town, where we enjoyed getting a good look at other places to stay at in the future. 

F. I’ll be the first to admit that we teenagers are hard to please. But Huntington Beach should certainly be proud of how well they cater to teens. While lying on the beach once, I put together a long list of reasons to read to my parents of why we have to go back and vacation in Huntington Beach again as soon as possible. After all, what better place could there be for teens than Huntington Beach, California where the sun always shines and surfing is always so much fun?

Friday, July 5, 2013

Video: High Calorie Snacks

Study Says High Calorie Snacks Are to Blame for Obesity Epidemic


1. The study says American children eat an average of ............... a day on top of three regular meals.
  • three snacks.
  • five snacks.
  • six snacks.


2. Desserts and candy are the major source of calories from snacks.
  • True.
  • False.
  • It's not said on the video.


3. Childhood obesity has ................... over the last 30 years.
  • remained.
  • doubled.
  • tripled.


4. The federal government is encouraging schools to make more time for physical activity.
  • True.
  • False.
  • It's not said on the video.


5. The Centers for Disease Control wants the government to put taxes on sugary drinks and junk food.
  • True.
  • False.
  • It's not said on the video.



Thursday, July 4, 2013

Transformations

Complete the second sentence so that it means the same as the one printed before. For number 60, include the word given without altering it.

56. Fifty years ago farms weren´t as big as they are today.
Farms today ..................................................... in the past.

57. Whose is this bike?
Who ....................................................?

58. Last month it rained a lot.
Last month ....................................................................... of rain.

59. Millions of viewers watch the ceremony of the Oscars on TV every year.
The ceremony of the Oscars ....................................................

60. I can´t buy a new car because I don´t have enough money.
WOULD
If I ..................................................... a new car.

***Source***

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Listening: Apartments for rent


MP3


1. What is the main topic of the conversation?
A. problems with living in an apartment
B. a search for a new apartment
C. the cost of rent near universities

2. Why doesn't Ann like her current apartment?
A. It's too expensive.
B. The neighborhood is noisy.
C. It's located some distance from school.

3. How much money does Ann want to pay for rent?
A. no more than $200
B. around $200
C. a little more than $200

4. What kind of place is she looking for?
A. somewhere that is within a short driving distance of campus
B. an apartment with furniture already in it
C. a place where she can live alone

5. How is Roger going to help her?
A. He is planning on calling a friend who owns an apartment building.
B. He will check the newspapers to see if he can find an apartment for rent.
C. He is going to visit an apartment building near his place.



Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Reading: English Food

Read the following text and choose the best option a, b or c

ENGLISH FOOD

English food (31)____________a very bad reputation. People (32) ____________visit 
England complain (33) ____________British people are always (34) 
____________cups of tea and biscuits or snacks. They (35) ____________say that 
British people don’t sit down (36) ____________have a proper meal in the middle of 
the day except (37) ____________Sunday.
Most people eat (38) ____________main meal in the evening at about six or seven 
o’clock, and they usually eat their meat or fish (39) ____________the same plate (40) 
____________their vegetables and potatoes.
However, more and more British people eat foreign food: curries, pasta dishes (41) 
____________lasagne, pizzas, chicken tikka and (42) ____________more. Every 
small town has Chinese and Indian restaurants and French, Thai, Italian, Spanish, 
Greek restaurants can be (43) ____________in large towns and cities. English food is 
(44) ____________not very (45) ____________, but eating in Britain certainly is!


31 a) is b) have c) has
32 a) which b) who c) whom
33 a) that b) than c) what
34 a) have b) to have c) having
35 a) too b) also c) ever
36 a) for b) to c) they
37 a) on b) the c) in
38 a) his b) her c) their
39 a) in b) at c) on
40 a) than b) as c) that
41 a) as b) like c) such
42 a) lot b) much c) many
43 a) found b) finded c) founded
44 a) perhaps b) yet c) too
45 a) exciting b) excited c) interested


***Source***