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Speaking exam-English I A CONFUSED GENERATION p. Bella lives with her parents, she’s a 11 years old Chinese girl. In modern Chinese society different ideologies are fighting against each other: the old values are based on the respect of family and older generations; new values make money the measure of success. People are trying to find the right balance between the new and old. In China, caring for aged parents has always been a child’s duty, but times are changing and one of Bella’s ambitions is to put her parents in the best nursing home. Her parents want to be supportive but they gave up helping because their daughter has overtaken them, she knows about the outside world more than her parents thanks to technology. When she doesn’t agree with them, she says nothing because there is no concept of rebellious teenager and her mother is sad about that. BLOODLINES p. The USA is known for being a melting pot for different ethnic groups and cultures, this is evident in New York where Puerto-Ricans, Greeks and Koreans lives together. They are all proud and curious about their ancestral roots. Richard, 38 His great-grandfather called Tomas was a builder trade like Richard. He came to America from Poland when he was a teenager. When his mother died, his father remarried but he didn’t like his stepmother so he decided to go in America owning nothing, he began to work in the railroads. One day he saw an announcement on the newspaper, his brother was looking for him. They met and worked together in NY. This story has been told by Richard’s grandmother Tanja, 29 She’s a first generation American, her parents are from Jamaica. Her father is a nurse like her mother, both have a very strong work ethic and believe in the education. Tanja and her sister followed their parents in the medical profession, in fact Tanja is a doctor.
A KEY MOMENT p. In the ’70 Niki Lauda was leading the world Formula 1 championship. The track was narrow and bumpy, it was considered by many, unsafe. Despite that the race was not cancelled. Lauda had lost time by driving more slowly in the difficult conditions but then he began to push harder. He lost control of the car, which caught fire after hitting a bank. He sits in the trapped in the heat for over a minute before help arrives, he had suffered extreme burns and was fighting for his life. Lauda got back into his racing car at the Italian Grand Prix six weeks later the plastic surgery and finished fourth. ONCE UPON A TIME p. Two German brothers in 1800s were passionate about fairy tales thanks to a wise man who led them to a treasure of old books with tales, inspired by that they published a collection of stories, which were very successful only after their death. The collection has been translated into more than 160 languages, and has become a global publishing phenomenon, competing with the bible. During their lifetime the collection sold only a few copies in Germany because they had no illustration and there had to much footnote The two brothers viewed themselves as students of local folklore , who were trying to save the stories of oral storytellers from disappearing. Storytelling had been popular before the Grimm’s time: people would keep each other entertained with tales of adventure, romance or magic. Wilhelm continued to improve and reshape the stories up to the final edition of 1857, stressing the moral of each tale to make them more acceptable to children’s parents. The collection, he said, should be used as a manual of manners. However, many of the unpleasant details of the stories were left untouched, such as the cruel treatment of children and the violent punishments handed out to the villains. Some suggest that the stories are about our struggle for happiness, such as Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. The brothers wanted to retell the stories accurately to ensure that the fairy tales would live happily even after. Footnote: a note at the bottom of the page which gives more information Folklore: traditional stories and beliefs from a particular community
But the city authorities in Sao Paulo were annoyed and decided to remove Orion’s work but also they clean all the other car tunnel in the city to prevent the artist from scratching off the dirt and create new reverse graffiti WHY DO WE NEED MUSIC? P. Music has the ability to stimulate us both emotionally and intellectually. Music produces emotions that we immediately feel and understand but we find difficult to explain. For example, when we are feeling down, we listen to sad songs because actually sad music seems to help us regulate negative feelings and even lift us out of them. Music also has the power to make a verbal message stronger like in rap or hip-hop where the singers described life for people who lacked the same opportunities as the rich. On an intellectual level, music, challenges our brains to understand and recognize certain systems and patterns like the languages. Furthermore, music fulfils the emotional and psychological needs that humans need. FROM REALITY TO FANTASY p. Dubai used to be only a land occupied by pearl divers, fisherman and traders. Sheikh Rashid decided to build a city end asked a neighbor to lend him many millions of dollars do to so. He transformed Dubai in a city with the tallest high-rise building, the world’s biggest shopping mall and the largest motorway inhabited by three million of people. It also has the Palm Jumeirah an artificial island with villas for rich and famous people. People have different opinion about Dubai: is this the model people want to copy? Or do they feel that Dubai has chosen to reject its heritage and instead become the Las Vegas of Middle East THE TEENAGE MIND p. We tend to think of adolescence as the most difficult stage in human development but it is more useful to think about what lies behind it. At around the age of fifteen, we reach a point in what scientists call “sensation seeking”: the hunt for experiences that are unusual or unexpected, this does not necessarily mean being impulsive or doing dangerous activities. It involves taking risks but it can also be a positive thing because trying new things can expand your world.
Teenagers usually takes more risks because they value the reward of getting something they want more highly, and to be successful in life, you have to move out of your home and comfort zone. Another characteristic of adolescents is they prefer the company of people their own age because their peers offer more novelty and variety than boring old family. The influence of their friends is so important in fact often teenagers strongly react when they fall out with a friend or they are excluded from a social peer group. STAYCATIONS p. Staycations are a cheaper alternative to holiday, in fact are holiday at home. They involve things that you might do on holiday-like sightseeing, eating out, going swimming ecc…but instead you do them in your local area. Staycationers like to follow a set of rules: they plan activities in advance and avoid their normal routine to help create the feel of a traditional vacation. One example is Karen’s story who lives in New York and decided not to go in Japan, but she did all the Japanese activities she could do staying in NY: she bought a postcard and souvenirs at Japanese market, admired bonsai plants, ate ramen and participated in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. UNUSUAL PLACES TO STAY p. Prison hotels: originally it housed badly behaved Russian sailors, now it’s a hotel and it offer the opportunity to stay overnight and experienced the “prison life”. Reception is a dark corridor when former prison guard explain the rules to you, after a meal of bread and tea, guests are given five minutes to wash before making their own bed, it seems unpleasant but it cost only 12 dollar per night. Period hotels: if you want to step back in time to America’s Wild West go to Virginia City, in Montana where a former gold-rush town became a large open-air museum. The cabin looks basic from the outside but inside they are comfortable. The city only really comes to life at weekends, when actors walk around dressed as sheriffs, cowboys and gold prospectors Cave hotels: if you want to experience a primitive but expensive accommodation go to Matera in Italy where the homes of local peasants who lived there with their animals, were renovated to provided hospitality in a historical setting. Art hotels: Propeller Island City Lodge in Berlin combine a modern art gallery and a hotel. The hotel is a collection of individually designated rooms, the decorations are so extreme that you are forced to get into it and often you have to share a bathroom with other guests.
SAVING MADAGASCAR p. Madagascar is one of the largest islands. The 90% or its animal and plant life is found nowhere else on the planet. Malagasy people live in a desperate poverty situation. Their land lost the 90% of the island’s original forest, cut down for selling or to create a space for cattle. The ecologists are alarmed about this situation, but the government doesn’t collaborate to solve the problem: in need of money, government made it legal to sell wood from hardwood trees which had already been cut down or had fallen during storms but this is not controlled and the loggers continued to rob the wood from living trees. The poverty has driven them to cut down also trees believed to be sacred. The wood is high demanded in China to make furniture, in America and Europe to make musical instruments. All of this also disturbs the natural habitat of the island’s animals and puts their survival at risk. One man believes that the only solution is to give local people economic alternatives. For example, he has trained the village lemur hunter to act as guide for tourists who wish to photograph them. But can a small-scale action like this compete with the greed of Madagascar wood’s industry? A LIFE REVEALED p. The photographer Steve McCurry, in the ‘80s was reporting on the lives of Afghan refugees in a camp in Pakistan. He took a picture of a young Afghan girl, it became one of the most famous images of our time. After twenty-years, the photographer returned back to Pakistan to look for the girl, he finds her. Her name is Sharbat Gula, time and hardship have erased her youth but her eyes still had the same intensity. Now she’s married and have three children. She is not aware of the impact that her photo had on the world. FROM ZERO TO HERO p. The flight captain Peter Burkill was praised as a hero for saving his plane from crashing, but days later the press accused him of freezing at the controls and he became a villain. During the landing two of the plane’s engines failed, while the plane was losing height fast, Burkill asked his co-pilot to take control while he himself adjusted the wigs flaps to reach the runway. The plane landed heavily on the grass and the passengers escaped without serious injury.
But word went around that rather than taking control of the plane, Burkill had panicked and he was not competent to fly a plane. Some newspaper, to sell more copies picked up the story, claiming that the co-pilot was the real hero. Also, the British Airways banned him from speaking about events until and indipendent investigation by Air Accidents was complete. Burkill’s life suddenly changed, due to stress he became depressed, nobody was helping him. When the investigation’s results were finally published, it concluded that the action of the crew had saved lives of all on board, in particular the action of Burkill. Despite that, the damage had been done, Burkill left the company but he could not find a new job because nobody wanted his. British Company said that he was always welcome in the company and the pilot accepted to go back in his old job. AN ORDINARY MAN p. Neil Armstrong was the most famous of the astronauts on the spacecraft Apollo 11. He did a course in aerospace engineering, after this, he served in the Us Navy as a pilot for three years, then he flew experimental aircraft. When NASA was looking for astronauts for their Apollo programme, he applied for the job and was accepted, it was never his ambition to be famous. After the mission he became a teacher. He never wanted all the attention TV shows reserved to him and he never considered himself more special than all other who worked on the Apollo space programme because he was just the pilot THE KING HERSELF p. Hatshepsut’s body lies in the Royal Mummy Rooms at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, she’s also called The King Herself. In 1903 when the archaeologist found her coffin it was empty. Later her body was found in a less important tomb, her body was not even in a coffin. Hatshepsut built numerous monuments and temples but following her death, her successor and stepson Thutmose III try to erase her memory, ordering all images of her as the king to be removed from monuments and temples. Her statues were smashed but the images of her as a queen were left undamaged. Hatshepsut was the eldest daughter of Thutmose I, he also had a son by another queen, Thutmose II, became a pharaoh when his father died. He married his sister Hatshepsut, the had a daughter, but another wife, Isis, gave Thutmose II a son.
WHO’S CLEVER BIRD THEN? p. How do you find out animal is thinking? That’s the question the Harvard graduated, Irene Pepperberg asked herself. She decided she would teach to an African grey parrot named Alex to speak English. She also wanted to ask him questions about how he sees the world. Pepperberg bought Alex in a pet store. She let the store assistant choose him because she didn’t want other scientists to say that she had deliberately chosen a clever bird. Alex learned to imitate almost one hundred English words, he could count to six, could tell what a key was whatever size or color, he also made-up words for new things. Parrots like humans live a long time in complex societies. And like humans, these birds, must adapt to changing relationships and environments. For example, they need to be able to distinguish colors to know when a fruit is ripe or unripe. Alex also expressed feeling and awareness of other’s feeling. If Pepperberg become frustrated, Alex could notice and say “I’m sorry”. Through her experiments, Pepperberg learned more about the mind of a parrot, but like the parent of a teenager, she learned the hard way. Cognitive: related to thinking and thought processes Flock: a large group of birds (and sheep) Perch: a wooden bar that a bird stands on SAVING FOR A RAINY-DAY p. Norway offers higher quality of life than other countries since it is one of the wealthiest countries in the entire world. Unemployment is only 2.5% and education is good. However, Norway has not always been a rich country. An example of this is the fact that last century many Norwegians emigrated to the US in order to find a better life. Norway’s success relies on its huge reserves of oil, which became more expensive in the 1970s. furthermore, its wealth is due to the Norwegian’s natural thrift and strong work ethic. Although Norway is one of the richest countries, it is modest in its wealth; an example is the Norwegians’ balanced life, reached also thanks to the release of new laws which underline the importance of family and time off. Moreover, Norway is saving for the future as money earned from oil is put into the world’s biggest pension fund, which is worth over 200 billion (miliardi) dollars.
START-UP p. In 2008 two friends in Los Angeles created the Kogi BBQ food truck which started a whole new trend in mobile cuisine. What Kogi BBQ food did, was to bring high quality food at a reasonable price to a new generation of customers. They managed to blend together Korean barbecue recipes with Mexican tacos. The economic recession of 2008 helped foster this kind of business as it became easier to find staff, workers and chefs. At the same time, customers were encouraged to go out and find food at an affordable price. What really helped Kogi was its early use of social media. In particular, they used Twitter to update their customers on their changing location. This raised the social status of Kogi BBQ food truck and within a few months, Kogi was attracting hundreds of customers. An important social aspect is that customers are willing to line up in queues to eat and to take pictures of their tacos, making it a shared experience and not just takeaway food. Video LADY LIBERTY AND ELLIS ISLAND This video is about Ellis Island, which is where immigrants used to arrive when they wanted to move to the USA. During the peak immigrant period between 8000 to 10000 people used to arrive every day, but at its busiest point the infrastructure processed more than 12000 people per day. David Luchsinger is a steward and he’s also the last resident of Liberty Island. He had two sets of grandparents that came to Ellis Island. All the immigrants that arrived to Ellis Island carried just one or two bags with all their belongings inside and were asked to drop them to be processed. Luchsinger is proud of the fact that they have never lost a bag. Judith’s is very proud of her Italian’s ancestors for coming to the USA, because she says that the people from her generation would never be as gutsy as they were to move to a completely different country. Pablo felt very emotional when he visited Ellis Island for the first time because he put himself in the emotion of all the people that came by boat and the first thing that they saw was the Statue of Liberty. Rea, too, felt chills down her spine imaging what her ancestors must have felt when they first arrived. Peter, whose parents came from Honk Kong, is very proud to be able to tell their stories, as he works on Ellis Island.
anonymous. One of Banksy's works has already been sold at auction: it was the Slave Labour, painted on the wall of a store in London. SCANDINAVIAN MEGA-BRIDGE This video shows the effort needed in order to build a mega-bridge in the Oresund Strait, which is a strait in the Northern Europe where the Baltic Sea converges with the North Sea. This enormous strait had kept Denmark separate from Sweden. The Oresund strait had always been considered a frustrating barrier, because each shore had something the other one needed. If the two shores were connected, a great economic powerhouse could arise, and one big metropolis could be formed. That had always been impossible, until recent years. The Oresund Bridge is the longer cable-stayed bridge in the world that can carry cars plus the weight of trains. Companies from bath countries had to form a consortium to build the bridge together. But this consortium had to face some problems while building the bridge. They couldn't design neither a bridge too tall, because right at the shoreline in Denmark is situated an airport, nor one too short because it (^) would have blocked Denmark's ship traffic. Moreover, a tunnel would have been too expensive. For this reason, they decided to build part of it above the water, as a bridge, and the other part under it, as a tunnel. The project involved also the creation of an artificial island, where the tunnel could emerge. THE UNEXPECTED BEAUTY OF TRAVELLING SOLO This video shows the strange journey of a man, who is travelling solo. He visits lots of places, beaches, funfairs and he also join festivals, parades and demonstrations. He probably had to go with someone else, a woman, who keeps calling him without success. She speaks to his answering machine saying that she is really sorry about what happened and that she really wanted to go with him but she couldn't. Despite the calls the man doesn't answer. Probably he's angry at her for not coming or because they had an argument. Nevertheless, she keeps calling him and leaving him messages on the answering machine. At the end of the video, we understand that the man finally decides to answer her. EATING INSECTS This video shows the new tendency, which is spreading also in western world, of eating insects. In California a man has opened a candy shop, where candies contain insects, such as mealworms, cockroaches and crickets. He says that he's been trying to get Americans to eat insects for more than 10 years. However, the biggest problem that he has to overcome is that from when we are young, we are told to avoid insects or to swat them and for this reason western people are not used to eat insects and can't stomach them.
Nevertheless, he thinks that this is strange because in Asia, Africa, Australia and Latin America people have been eating insects far lots of years. Insects are also more environmentally friendly than beef, because they need fewer natural resources to be produced. Moreover, they are full of vitamins and minerals. The candy shop is also a restaurant where the dishes are prepared using insects. Indeed, it serves dishes such as crickets' cocktails or a banana with whipped cream and cockroaches on top of it. The owner thinks that eventually he will win people over and that also a niche market for insect's lovers will arise. WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF MONEY DIDN’T MATTER? In the video, a college teacher tells his students that are almost finished with college and that don't know what they want to became in life, not to worry about money, but to choose a career they will be very passionate about. According to him, it is better to live a short life doing what you like than a long miserable one. Moreover, he also says that if you keep doing what you like you can eventually become a master on it and so earn a lot of money out of it. He thinks people can do whatever they want to, they just have to focus on it and desire it enough. According to his opinion, just going after money is stupid and a complete waste of time. So, to all the students who Uh him that they would like to become painters, writers and poets he just tells them to do it and forget about the money. NEWS: THE WEIRD AND THE WONDERFUL The video shows two different stories: the first one, about humpback whales, could be considered a wonderful story, while the second one, about a fried-chicken seller, could be considered a weird one. The first story deals with humpbacks, which are whales with a hump, instead of a normal dorsal fin. They are huge, with long flippers, but are also gentle animals. Indeed, they defend not only themselves but also other animals, such as seals, sea- Iions and grey whales, from orcas. Despite their smaller size, orcas are ruthless animals, that attack their prey organizing themselves in large packs. The humpbacks try to prevent the areas getting to their prey thanks to their huge body and by swiping at them with their lang flippers. What is wonderful is that they don't benefit anything by pushing themselves into these huge fights, which last between 6-7 hours. Maybe, they do so because they are just gentle creatures that defend vulnerable ones. The second story is a weird one because it is about Khan, a fried-chicken seller in Thailand, who is immune to burns from hot oil. Seven years ago, he was cooking at his stall when a squirrel, who was eating a mango on the tree above him, dropped its meal, into Khan's fried-chicken wok and the oil splashed all over him. But, when the next day, he looked into the mirror he found out that his skin had no burns. This man is able to dip his hands in hot oil without
In order to help transmit Gervasio's knowledge, scientists have also published a book, which can be used by people to study and identify local plants. However, due to deforestation, studying Paraguayan plants for possible medical cures is urgent business, because the plants that were once multiplying are today disappearing. THE FARMERS The video tells us the story of a clever entrepreneur who has planned an original and sustainable business, where he grows and sells food in a unique way. He started to think about it when he realised that food has to do a long journey before being sold to the customers. Indeed, it is grown on farms, it is harvested, packed and then transported to retail shops. The problem of all these steps is that a lot of harvest is lost. The idea of this entrepreneur was to consolidate all these stages into one site, which has been called The Farmery. The Farmery is a structure made from shipping containers and greenhouses, where the food is grown within the building and then sold from an area at the bottom of the building. He uses innovative methods: such as aquaponics, which is the process of growing plants in water populated by fish. He also grows vegetables not in usual soil, but in clay pebbles. The most produced foods are mushrooms, strawberries, herbs and salad greens. His aim is to offer customers a new experience by harvesting food personally in these greenhouses, so that they can establish a more intimate connection with their food. To expand his business, he would like to put a Farmery in every city across America not only in wealthy urban neighborhoods, but also in poorer ones, where people have a lower income. He also hopes that people, that are experiencing the Farmery, will look at food in a better way, focusing more on quality than quantity.
