Read the text and decide if the following statements are T (TRUE) or F (FALSE)
We’re Living Faster, But Are We Living Better?
Not long ago people believed that in the future we would work less, have more free time, and be more relaxed. But sadly this has not happened. Today we work harder, work longer hours, and are more stressed than ten years ago. We walk faster, talk faster, and sleep less than previous generations. And although we are obsessed with machines which save us time, we have less free time than our parents and grandparents had. But what is this doing to our health? An American journalist James Gleick in a new book, Faster: the acceleration of just about everything, says that people who live in cities are suffering from ‘hurry sickness’ – we are always trying to do more things in less time. As a result, our lives are more stressful. He says that if we don’t slow down, we won’t live as long as our parents. For most people, faster doesn’t mean better.
1. ...... The writer wrote the article to encourage us to work more and relax less.
2. ...... People today are having a less stressful life than they did in the past.
Prince William is a member of the British royal family. He’s the Queen’s grandson and the eldest son of Charles and Diana. His brother’s name is Harry. Diana, their mother, isn’t alive now, but they have a stepmother, Camilla.
William’s wife is Kate Middleton. She’s originally from an ordinary family- but of course, she’s now the Duchess of Cambridge and part of the royal family! Kate has a brother, James, and a sister, Pippa. Their parents, Michael and Carole, have an online business.
In some ways, Kate and William are a normal couple. They have friends from university and they have hobbies and interests too. For example, William loves football and Kate likes photography. In the winter, they go skiing together.
In other ways, their lives are very different from their friends’ lives. William is the future King of the United Kingdom – and fifteen other countries too, including Canada and Australia. Kate and William have a lot of official duties. They help charities in the UK and Africa, they visit other countries and they meet important visitors to the UK.
The Duchess of Cambridge is expecting a baby, St James’s Palace has confirmed. All the Members of the Royal Family and the duchess’s family, the Middletons, are delighted: “The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall and Prince Harry and members of both families are delighted with the news.”
The baby will be third in line to the throne, after Prince Charles and Prince William. A spokesman said the duchess has been admitted to KingEdwardVIIHospital in central London with acute morning sickness and is expected to stay for several days: “As the pregnancy is in its very early stages, Her Royal Highness is expected to stay in hospital for several days and will require a period of rest thereafter.”
6. Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, says he and his wife “could not be happier” after the duchess gave birth to a baby boy, at 16:30, 22nd July 2013 UK time at St Mary’s Hospital, west London. William was present at St Mary’s for the birth. The young parents spent time with their son before telling the news to their families and the world. The Queen’s gynecologist Marcus Setchell, who led the team that delivered the baby, described the new arrival as “wonderful baby, beautiful baby”. A bulletin signed by him was taken by a royal aide from St Mary’s to the palace under police escort. The news has been since displayed on an easel in the forecourt of BuckinghamPalace in line with tradition. A Palace spokesman said the names of the baby would be announced in due course. A BuckinghamPalace spokesman said: “The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh are delighted at the news.”
Read the text 'The Royal Family' again. Are the sentences true (T) or false (F)?
......[F] Camilla is William’s mother.
......[T] William’s wife if the Duchess of Cambridge.
......[F] Kate is one of two children.
......[F] James is William’s cousin.
...... William is a football fan.
...... The King or Queen of England is also the King or Queen of Australia.
......[F] William and Kate’s son will be first in line to the throne, after Prince Charles and Prince William.
...... Kate gave birth to a baby boy, at 4:30pm, 22nd July 2013 UK time at St Mary’s Hospital.
......[F] William was absent from St Mary’s for the birth.
......[F] Few people in England knew about Kate giving birth to a baby boy.
Prince William is a member of the British royal family. He’s the Queen’s grandson and the eldest son of Charles and Diana. His brother’s name is Harry. Diana, their mother, isn’t alive now, but they have a stepmother, Camilla.
William’s wife is Kate Middleton. She’s originally from an ordinary family- but of course, she’s now the Duchess of Cambridge and part of the royal family! Kate has a brother, James, and a sister, Pippa. Their parents, Michael and Carole, have an online business.
In some ways, Kate and William are a normal couple. They have friends from university and they have hobbies and interests too. For example, William loves football and Kate likes photography. In the winter, they go skiing together.
In other ways, their lives are very different from their friends’ lives. William is the future King of the United Kingdom – and fifteen other countries too, including Canada and Australia. Kate and William have a lot of official duties. They help charities in the UK and Africa, they visit other countries and they meet important visitors to the UK.
The Duchess of Cambridge is expecting a baby, St James’s Palace has confirmed. All the Members of the Royal Family and the duchess’s family, the Middletons, are delighted: “The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall and Prince Harry and members of both families are delighted with the news.”
The baby will be third in line to the throne, after Prince Charles and Prince William. A spokesman said the duchess has been admitted to KingEdwardVIIHospital in central London with acute morning sickness and is expected to stay for several days: “As the pregnancy is in its very early stages, Her Royal Highness is expected to stay in hospital for several days and will require a period of rest thereafter.”
6. Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, says he and his wife “could not be happier” after the duchess gave birth to a baby boy, at 16:30, 22nd July 2013 UK time at St Mary’s Hospital, west London. William was present at St Mary’s for the birth. The young parents spent time with their son before telling the news to their families and the world. The Queen’s gynecologist Marcus Setchell, who led the team that delivered the baby, described the new arrival as “wonderful baby, beautiful baby”. A bulletin signed by him was taken by a royal aide from St Mary’s to the palace under police escort. The news has been since displayed on an easel in the forecourt of BuckinghamPalace in line with tradition. A Palace spokesman said the names of the baby would be announced in due course. A BuckinghamPalace spokesman said: “The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh are delighted at the news.”
Read the text 'The Royal Family' again. Are the sentences true (T) or false (F)?
...... Camilla is William’s mother.
...... William’s wife if the Duchess of Cambridge.
...... Kate is one of two children.
...... James is William’s cousin.
...... William is a football fan.
...... The King or Queen of England is also the King or Queen of Australia.
......[F] William and Kate’s son will be first in line to the throne, after Prince Charles and Prince William.
...... Kate gave birth to a baby boy, at 4:30pm, 22nd July 2013 UK time at St Mary’s Hospital.
...... William was absent from St Mary’s for the birth.
...... Few people in England knew about Kate giving birth to a baby boy.
Etiquette is the name we give to the rules for being polite in a social group. Business etiquette is important for people who often have to make new contacts and build relationships in their work. Politeness can also help to improve the working environment for people in the same office. Some cultures and situations are formal, which means that we have to follow rules; other cultures and situations are more informal.
Text 2 Office workers “admit being rude”
Most office workers say they are rude or bad-mannered at work. Two out of three workers regularly arrive late for meetings, most ignore emails and three out of four use bad language. In a survey of 1,000 workers, two-thirds say that pressure of work is the reason for bad manners.
Other common examples of bad office etiquette include ignoring colleagues and answering mobile phone calls during meetings. Using mobile phones in meetings is impolite and distracts others, research by the University of Surrey shows. If you respond to call when speaking to somebody, it means that the phone call is more important than the person, the survey said. If you answer a call during a meeting, it could mean that the meeting is not important.
Mr Jacobs, managing director of Office Angels, a recruitment firm say it is easy for people to forget their manners in the working environment, which is often very informal and very busy. Workers can forget proper etiquette such as introducing people at meetings, and this is often bad for working relationships.
Psychologist Dr Colin Gill believes that people are not as polite as they were twenty years ago. He said: ‘Courtesy is no longer something that is so much respected in our society.’ People think it is ‘stuffy to be polite or formal.’
Now some organisations are actually investing money in training their junior managers to be polite. Office Angels is encouraging people to arrive on time for meetings, turn off mobile phones and avoid bad manners at work is such a simple thing to do,’ Mr Jacobs says, ‘ and it can have a dramatic impact on improving your working environment and your relationships with others.’
The aim of the texts is to …………………………………….
A. reflect the fact of officer’s good manners at work with illustrations
B. encourage officer’s bad manners at work
C. reflect the fact of officer’s bad manners at work with illustrations
Clothes are like a second skin. Most likely you feel good when you wear your favorite color. What happens when someone sees you wearing any color - for example blue? Does the color send a message?
What do you think about pink and blue for children?
One of the most common examples of color symbolism in clothing is the custom of using pink for girls and blue for boys, but it wasn't always this way. This tradition emerged at the turn of the 20th century. Since pink was thought to be a stronger color, it was best suited for boys; blue was more delicate and dainty and best for girls. In 1921, the Women's Institute for Domestic Science in Pennsylvania endorsed pink for boys, blue for girls.
Even more interesting is the fact that pink is the color for baby boys and blue is the color for baby girls in Belgium today.
Another interesting fact about pink is that pink is a very masculine color in Bermuda. Also, British bankers and barristers have worn pink shirts for decades. Pink goes in and out of fashion in other parts of the world. White is the traditional color for a bride's wedding gown in the U.S. and most European cultures. White symbolizes purity and innocence.
What about the color worn for weddings and funerals?
In Asia, white is the color of death. This arises from the belief that death is seen as a beginning and that white represents the purity that the deceased brings into the next life. Therefore, brides in Japan and China wear red in traditional wedding ceremonies.
White is also associated with death in India, where widows wear white. Consequently, red or pink saris are the most popular colors for brides.
What about black clothes?
Black symbolizes death and is the traditional color of mourning in Western cultures. Black clothing is associated with powerful forces in many parts of the world. Bad and good Witches, the devil, ninjas, cat burglars, Darth Vader, Cat Woman, and Batman wear black....and so do priests, nuns, judges, mimes, Mennonites, Bedouins, and monks.
Maybe the common thread is that these people are signaling their seriousness of purpose - or the need to be hard to see - or both.
Here's something else to think about: What happens when the same people wear green? Are they as powerful? Are the priest and nun as respectable?
In almost all developing countries, the lack of adequate supplies of cheap, convenient and reliable fuel is a major problem. Rural communities depend largely on kerosene, wood and dung for their cooking and lighting needs. But kerosene is now priced out of reach of many people and wood, except in heavily forested areas, is in short supply. The search for firewood occupies a large part of the working day and has resulted in widespread deforestation.
Dung is in constant supply wherever there are farm animals and, when dried, it is convenient to store and use. But burning dung destroys its value as fertilizer, thus depriving the soil of a much needed source of humus and nitrogen.
Rural areas of developing countries are also plagues by a lack of adequate sanitation. Improper waste disposal spreads disease, contaminates water sources and provides breeding ground for disease-carrying insects.
The problem of improving environmental hygiene, conserving resources and finding alternative sources of fuel may be unrelated. Their solutions, however, are not, as many countries experimenting with biogas technology are discovering. Biogas, a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide, is produced by the fermentation of organic matter. The process of anaerobic fermentation is a natural one, occurring whenever living matter decomposes. By containing the matter – and the process – in a digester or biogas plant, the combustible gas can be trapped and used as fuel for household lighting and cooking. The digested slurry that remains can be used on the land as a soil conditioner and fertilizer.
Biogas plants have attracted much interest in recent years and they are in use in several Asian countries: 38,000 are reported in rural area of India, 27,000 in Korea and more than 80,000 in China. In most countries, the value of the gas has been the prime factor leading to their adoption: 70 percent of India’s plants, for instance, were built during the energy and fertilizer crisis of 1975-76 – although their use in that country dates back to 1951. similarly in Thailand and Korea, biogas is being investigated as an alternative to costly charcoal and to save compost materials form being burned.
In Japan and China, reducing pollution from animal wastes has been an important factor. Privies, hen houses and pigpens are built in proximity to the fermentation chamber in China. Examinations of the digested slurry have shown that the total number of parasite eggs was reduced by 93.6 per cent, hookworms by 99 per cent and no schistosome flukes were found.
The greatest benefits from biogas systems, however, are probably to be derived from the manorial value of the slurry, although it is not widely used outside of India and China. Vegetable farmers near Calcutta found that the digested slurry produced bigger and better tasting peas than did other fertilizers and the weight of root vegetables increased by nearly 300 per cent.
According to the reading passage, are the statements T (True) or F (False)? 1. ...... Biogas is the answer for the lack of cheap, convenient and reliable fuel.
2. ...... The production of biogas by fermentation of animals and vegetables wastes is a technology used in developed countries.
3. ...... Family –sized biogas plants first came into widespread used in India in the 1940s.
4. ...... There are less and less biogas plants in the world nowadays.
5. ...... Biogas is for domestic use.
6. ...... The system is economically sound, in addition to other benefits such as a cleaner, healthier environment.
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