Friday, January 30, 2009

Article or no article?


We don't use an article:
1. to talk about plural and uncountable nouns or when talking about things in general:
I'm terrified of heightsI'm into drum and bass. I hate cheese.
Article or no article?
This is a complex area and correct use of articles is one of the most difficult things to get right in English. However, there are a few basic ground rules which we can try to follow:

referring to particular 'definite' things or people: we use the
When it is clear to both people in the interaction which things or people are being referred to, we use the:
The children (= our children) must be awake. I can hear John playing the piano in the sitting room (i.e. in our house)
The book you gave me last weekend was so exciting. I couldn't put it down.
When you next go to the supermarket, could you get me some pizza bases?

second or subsequent mention: the
When we refer to something for the first time, we use an indefinite article (a/an) because the person we are talking to knows nothing about it. But when it is recognized or known, we use the:

I saw a squirrel in the garden (= our garden) this morning ~ Was it a red squirrel or a grey squirrel? ~ It was a grey squirrel. I think the squirrel was looking for a nut it had buried under the apple tree (i.e. the apple tree in our garden).
unique objects: the
When we refer to unique aspects of our environment that everybody is familiar with, we use the:
I love listening to the wind and the rain beating on the window panes when I am inside my cottage.
One day I would like to fly to the moon and visit the nearest planets.

categories or groups of people: the
If we are referring to groups of people the is required. Here are some examples:
The homeless are well looked after at Christmas, but not at other times of the year.
The poor may benefit more from the tax change than the better-off.
with superlatives: the
It is normal to insert the before the adjective + noun in superlative sentences as there is only one of its kind in this category:
Jane is quite a good swimmer.
Rachel is a better swimmer.
But Jacky is undoubtedly the best swimmer in the class

seas / rivers / mountain ranges / island groups / deserts : the
I would never swim in the English Channel. It's far too polluted.
Did you see the fireworks on the Thames on the Eve of the New Millenium?
Have you ever been skiing in the Alps?
Would you choose the Leeward Islands or the Windward Islands if you were thinking of a holiday in the Caribbean?
The Gobi Desert is one of the most inhospitable places in the world.

continents / most countries / counties / states / towns / buildings / most streets / lakes / most single mountains : zero article
'Most' in the above listing indicates that there are occasional exceptions to the general rule of no article before examples in these categories. See below:
Cairo is a good example of a city in Egypt where Asia and Africa meet.
The UK, Ireland, the US and Canada are all popular destinations for students of English who want to study overseas.
Buckingham Palace, the main residence of the Queen is located at the end of the Mall in central London
Lake Como has always been popular as a holiday retreat for the English.
Kent and Essex are to the Thames what Lousiana and Mississippi are to the Mississippi river.
Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn are two well-known mountains in the French and Swiss Alps.
things in general: zero article
When we are discussing things in general, we normally use zero article with plural and uncountable nouns:
Formal education in Britain begins when children reach the age of five.
Basketball is more popular in China than football.
Patience and gratitude are qualities which are rarely observed in the youth of today.
But note, when we want to be specific:
The education I received was substandard.
The football played by Liverpool in their last match was awesome.

common expressions: zero article
There are a number of common fixed expressions used with certain prepositions involving everyday time and place nouns where zero article is required:
At university I never bother with lunch, but always eat breakfast and supper. At school I always ate lunch and dinner, but never breakfast.
In Newcastle, you can always get into town late at night and home again by tube, bus or taxi.
Note that the prepositions listed above are often not the only prepositions possible. We can also say e.g. to/at/into/from church and to/in/into/out of bed/prison.

Pronunciation tips

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/vowel_short_1.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/

Report: Fund-raising day


From Advanced Expert CAE
Suggested answer
JULY FUND-RAISING DAY

Introduction
This report is intended to:
1 give an overview of our recent fund-raising day for your charity;
2 indicate who raised the money and how:
3 make recommendations for next year.
Overview
On 22 July this year, a substantial sum of money was raised for the charity. The total raised for disadvantaged children exceeded the sum achieved last year. In the main, the day was very successful.
Participation
Most of the 50 volunteers were students from the university.
How the money was raised
The largest part of the total raised (40%) came from visiting houses and knocking on doors. Collections were also carried out in the street, accounting for 3010, and we raised a further 20% from a jumble sale. The remainder came from a variety of sources.
Recommendations
In the light of this year's experience, I would make the following recommendations:
1 that we organize a wider variety of activities, including street parties (if we could make them work successfully);
2 since some members of the public thought our street collectors were not legitimate fund raisers, we should, in future, issue them with special badges to avoid misunderstanding.
Conclusion
To sum up, I would say that this year's fundraising day was a great success and that we could make it even more successful next year. (220 words)

Westfield shopping centre

It’s a bright new future for London shoppers; the Westfield Mall is finally open, 20 years the making at a cost of about 3 billion dollars
Well, it’s opening day here at the Westfield but as you can see it’s packed in fact they expect more than 20 million people a year to walk at these doors. The question is in the middle of a financial crisis will people be buying. It’s got all the big names and a few luxury ones too, but are our customers shopping or just window shopping.
The Westfield is not the only shopping centre hoping for such optimism. The Dubai mall is due to open next week after several delays. The developers say it will be one of the world‘s largest, with an ice-skating rink and aquarium. But behind the glids there’s genuine concern. Retail sales in the UK has slumped for six out of the last seven months and the story is the same across Europe and the US.
Managing Director Michael Gutman insists that Westfield can weather the storm.
“These building are built for the long term and lastly we prefer building in a different environment and retailers is a cyclical business and I think retailers understand that we are investing for the long term. To build up a business in a new location and there’s a huge level of confidence”.

How long will it be before window shopping becomes actual sales.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Writing an essay

In about 200 words write an essay, giving your opinion on the following statement.Plastic surgery is worth the health risks and the money. Do you agree?
Introduce the topic in the first paragraph, giving "the whole picture" and an introduction to both sides of the argument.
Explain the topic giving specific examples.
Use linking words to show the sequence of your ideas and when you are making an extra point.
First ........................... Besides, ...............In my opinion, there are many advantages to ..............
Have a separate paragraph for the other side of the argument. On the other hand, there are some drawbacks .......
Summarise your view in the conclusion, using different words from the introduction. You might want to add some further comment.
In my view ...................... However, ....................... , I think
More useful language:
I think/believe that/ It is often said that/ People claim However, in my view,/opinion
Firstlly it is clear that ..........While it is true that ..............From my point of view .........Finally it is important to remember that ...............On balance then, I feel that ..........To sum up/ In conclusion, it seems to me that ........................
Linkers of contrast: however, nevertheless, alhough, is spite of , whereas, on the other hand

Hypnosis Giving up smoking



www.bbc.co.uk/kent/content/articles/2007/06/28/smoking_hypnosis_video_feature.shtml
script
His role essentially is to help a client to bypass the conscious thinking mind in a clinical context; a client will be guided into very deep relaxation, their conscious thinking mind rather like a screen saver switches off and their unconscious mind becomes more receptive to suggestion. It’s not something that the therapist does to their client so it’s not like it’s portrayed on television where you have a hypnotherapist saying things like: look into my eyes, you won’t go will go under, that’s very authoritarian. That doesn’t tend to work.
In order to give up smoking one condition is necessary which is that the clients need to be motivated, they’ve got to want to give up in the sense that if a client rings up and says I really want to give up smoking because it’s bad for my health and it costs me a lot of money bla, bla , bla , that’s really good but if they round it off with “but I really enjoy my cigarette after a meal” or “my wife sent me here” or “I really enjoy that cigarette with the boys, you know, I can’t smoke at work” then they don’t really have the motivation, they are doing it for somebody else.
They’re more likely to relax, they’re more likely to go back to smoking and after for a slight trauma or incident like for example having an argument at work, they might go back smoking or if they find they had a particularly stressful day, they go back smoking but if the client comes in and says “I really don’t want to smoke any more, it’s really affecting my health, I’ve got two young children, it’s costing me a lot of money, I really want to stop but I don’t know how to do it”.
Then I can help them and any good therapist can then help. GPs, surgeons, the medical profession as a whole is beginning to recognize that hypnotherapy and self-induced relaxation is a very powerful therapeutic tool and often is used for where medicine can’t be used or when drug therapy is not a viable option. In fact a lot of my clients have actually come having been recommended to go and find a hypnotherapist by the GP. Hypnotherapy has grown a lot in the last few years.
Smoking is a good success rate because I do paradoxically; I do try to put my clients off, because I really want to test whether they want to give up. It is a one non-stop session but it is full on, in the sense, you know, there’s a lot of information that I give clients and it’s for two and a half hours, that’s the bad part, but after the two and a half hours they will no longer smoke. From the feedback that I’ve got we are looking at between about eighty-ninety per cent so it ¡s quite high Hypnotherapy is according some research the most effective technique to give up smoking simply because it by-passes your conscious mind and it gets to the root cause of why people smoke which is the stress.

the cost of living


http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/1630_144_6min_backup/page24.shtml

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Keep to your resolutions

American Morning “ Keep to your resolutions”
Jeff Gardere, Clinical Psychologist
You need to be specific, realistic and you need to make a plan. If you say you’ve gonna lose weight whatever you do be specific as to how much weight you wanna lose. Be realistic as whether you can actually lose it by a certain amount of time and of course make that plan written down and follow it.
Interviewer : Any plan I make I’m prone to change it immediately.
So see how you can improve it and see how you can follow through. The other thing you have to do is to write down your goal, put them on the fridge so you can remind yourself and chart your progress.
Smoking for instance:
Even if you don’t quit completely the fact that you quit for maybe 20 days is more days. It’s ok to slip.
What about family and friends?
Your mother haranguing
Family and friends are there for you and that’s great. That’s reinforcement. Maybe you can find family and friends who have made the same kind of resolution and you can do it together and be an informal support for one another. It’s the important thing that you have the tenacity, move forward and follow through. (pursue)
What should you do when you fail?
Don’t look at it as a failure. Look at it as a temporary setback because if you see it as a failure our chances are we gonna give it up, we’re not perfect and that’s part of the picture.

Understanding odds. Winning the lottery

6,399,818 dollars.
Late one evening in 1993 Judy purchased 20 dollars for a ticket at 7.11 in Richmond. That night when the number came in Judy and her husband Frank were the only winners.
To win Judy had to match 6 out of 6 numbers between 1 and 44. That may sound easy enough but when you consider all the possible sets of numbers changing just one number at a time. You find 7 million 59 thousand and 52 different combinations.
The odds against winning them are 7 million 59 thousand and 51 to one.
Frank and Judy beat the odds. Over 5 years before they won they purchased maybe 2 or 3 thousand dollars worth of tickets wherever they could afford to lose that wig.
I’ve been telling her you never win the lottery unless you have a ticket in your pocket.

Ron Howard.
Someone might buy a lottery ticket which has a very poor chance of paying off and he might win. Well, that would be a bad decision with a good outcome.
Ron Howard is a professional decision theorist. He helps people and corporations learn how to make better decisions.
The fundamental distinction that you have to make is between the quality of the decision and the quality of the outcome and the consequences that follow from it.


By buying 20 tickets Judy try to improve her odds of winning even though she won, buying a lot of tickets didn’t help much.
Buy one ticket in seven million chances and you have a 99. 99999 % chance of losing.
Buy 20 your chance of losing is 99.99972% at a dollar each you would have to buy 3 and a half million different tickets to have almost a 5050 chance of winning.
The numbers are just too big to carry them in your mind. So instead of figuring the odds people trust in luck.