Task 1 - Happiness
Task 1 - Happiness
Task 1 - Happiness
Getting started
These photos show important factors for staying healthy. Discuss the questions
below.
SPOTLIGHT ON LANGUAGE
Health and happiness collocations
1. Make as many collocations connected with health and happiness as you can by
combining words and phrases from box A with those from box B
A B
1. chill a. condition
2. cut down on b. factor
3. feel-good c. fiddle
4. fit as a d. headache
5. on cloud e. lifestyle
6. out of f. modified starch
7. over the g. moon
8. sedentary h. nine
9. splitting i. out
10. stop j. smoking
11. be in high k.spirits
12. watch l. your weight
2. Complete these sentences with collocations from Exercise 1
1. Victoria has been …….. ……. ever since she got into Cambridge University.
2. The diet magazine says that a good way to lose weight is to ………….……..
3. When Petra got her exam results, she was ………….. . She passed with flying
colours.
4. I put in such long hours at work that when I get home I just ……..………….
5. My grandfather's 93, but he's as …………….…………….
6. It is common for footballers to say they are ……….….when they are asked how
they feel about winning a big match.
7. Our dependence on computers has meant that many of us lead a
…………………
8. That noise is giving me a ………………….
9. The single most important thing anyone can do to improve their health is
……………..
10. Physical exercise releases endorphins into your blood, and that gives you a …
…… ..
11. I can't have any chocolate. I’m not an allergy - I'm just ………………..
12. I'm going to start jogging again because I'm ………….………………..
3. Discuss to what extent you agree with these comments, and explain why
While you can go into the IELTS test with a lot of confidence and even
enthusiasm, one thing you don't have a lot of in the exam is time. Your ability to
read quickly and to process the information effectively is of paramount
importance. Each text that you have to read will be up to 900 words long, so you
need to develop the ability to read quickly. Two key techniques that can help you
do this are skimming and scanning.
Skimming strategies
Skimming involves running your eyes quickly over the text to find out the main
ideas contained within it.
It is useful to:
• read the questions first to know what you are looking for
• read the title of the text and any subheadings
• read the first paragraph to see where the article is heading
• read the first line of each subsequent paragraph
• read the last paragraph, which may include a summary and/ or conclusion
• see how any diagrams or pictures could relate to the article.
Scanning strategies
When you look for someone's name in a telephone directory or look a word up in a
dictionary, you don't read every line. You can scan through the text to find the
information that you are looking for. For this to be successful, you need to know
what you are looking for. That means you should read the question first and
identify key words in it to guide you.
It is useful to:
• read the questions so you know what you are looking for
• find the relevant part of the text as quickly as possible
• avoid reading the text line by line
• avoid mouthing the words as you read
• be aware of key words in the distractors that may also occur in the text. They
may wrongly make you think you have the right part of the text.
• look for key words in the text - nouns that reflect the questions, and words like
problem, solution, idea, goal, improvement, danger
• look for key words that help you interpret the text and the writer's opinion -
verbs like must, can, help, ensure, increase, offer, measure, change and
adjectives and adverbials like probably, without doubt, definitely, possible,
much worse
• think of paraphrases for key words from the question and look for them in the
text.
The two strategies - skimming and scanning - work together. If you have skimmed
the text effectively, then you will have a better idea of where to find the
information you are looking for. You may have underlined an important fact, date,
figure or key word. While scanning, you may notice other key words which you
can underline.
1 Get into the habit of reading longer texts and articles in English regularly.
2 Pay particular attention to the first and last paragraphs of an article.
3 To get the key ideas of a text, before you read, ask yourself: who, where, what,
why, when and how? Try to find the answers to those questions as you read
through an article.
4 Don’t focus on new vocabulary, and don't use a dictionary on your first reading
of a text.
5 Don't try to vocalize the text as you read - use your eyes, not your voice.
I. Practice your skimming and scanning with the article below about
happiness. Read it quickly to find out what it says about the following:
1 sources of happiness
2 the relationship between happiness and politics
3 research into happiness
4 living standards and happiness
5 how to measure happiness
6 how different countries promote happiness
Western leaders are looking beyond traditional indices of economic and social
well-being and turning to ways of measuring national happiness.
What makes you happy? The smell of new-mown grass on a spring morning,
perhaps; or the laughter of your children. For many of us, happiness is spiritual,
individual, difficult to define and ephemeral. A Buddhist monk with no
possessions beyond his clothes and an alms bowl might consider himself happier
than a City financier with homes on three continents.
It is hardly surprising that the idea appeals to many politicians, especially when
most of the economic news is gloomy and government policy is couched in the
downbeat language of austerity. In such circumstances, looking beyond the
traditional measurements of national well-being is a great temptation, even if it
risks being criticized as a gimmick that has no place in the serious business of
politics.
Moreover, economists believe that the pursuit of public happiness as a policy goal
has merit even when the economy is booming. This is because, as their data have
become more comprehensive and sophisticated, they have noticed one apparent
paradox: that despite the fact that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has increased
substantially in the industrialized West, the levels of human contentment have
remained static.
They found this hard to do because so little was known about what made people
happy. But, as Lord Layard points out, 'The first thing we know is that in the past
50 years, average happiness has not increased at all in Britain or in the United
States - despite massive increases in living standards.' In better-off countries, in
other words, simply raising incomes does not make people any happier.
In truth, Prime Minister David Cameron has been thinking along these lines for a
while. Shortly after he became Tory leader in 2005, he said: 'Well-being can't be
measured by money or traded in markets. It's about the beauty of our surroundings,
the quality of our culture and, above all, the strength of our relationships.
Improving our society's sense of wellbeing is, I believe, the central political
challenge of our times.' He added: 'It's time we admitted that there's more to life
than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP but on GWB - general well-
being.'
It seems that modern politicians have bought so heavily into the idea that the state
can do everything that they have deluded themselves into believing it can deliver
the most elusive of all human desires: happiness. They have been persuaded that it
is possible to measure life satisfaction and that its achievement on a national scale
should be a goal of government. The difficulty is to establish an index that does not
remain static or decline. After all, which politician will enjoy being accused of
making his fellow citizens less happy than they were?
It probably helps, too, that there is little in the way of traffic, commuting into
major cities does not involve an hour-long journey crushed together like sardines,
television was banned until 1999 and the Himalayas provide a visual backdrop to a
stunning sub-tropical landscape. No wonder they are happy.
SENTENCE COMPLETION
II. Read the text again and complete these sentences with NO MORE THAN
THREE words from the text. Use the scanning techniques on page 21 to
help you find the answers. Underline the sections of the text that helped
you to find the answers.
1. Some politicians feel that it is not wise to focus on a country's …
………………….
2. Governments have only really taken the importance of promoting national
happiness seriously in … …………………..
3. While the idea of measuring happiness appeals to some politicians, others
believe it could be .. ……………….... for lacking in seriousness.
4. Although there have been ... …………........ in personal wealth, people in the
rich West are not happier.
5. For David Cameron's government, the attempt to increase the … ………. …
of the people is a key priority.
6. Surveys may have different results depending on the weather, with …
………… results being possible for those carried out in winter.
7. As part of its policy of promoting happiness, the government of Bhutan
thinks it is important to ensure the country remains true to its … ………….
………
8. According to the writer, Bhutan has the advantage of having almost no …
……………… , which is a source of stress in Western countries.
WORD BUILDING
One good way of building a large and flexible vocabulary is to focus on word
building. For example, in the text, a key word was happiness. Related words are
happy, unhappy, happier, happiest, unhappier, happily, unhappily. Can you think
of one more?
IV. a. Spend five minutes looking up the words related to happy in the
dictionary to find expressions they occur in, then decide which is needed to
complete each of these expressions.
b. It's a good idea to do this with one or two key words for each text you
read. Which other key words could you choose from the text?
It is likely that the texts in the IELTS test will contain vocabulary that you are
unfamiliar with. However, don't panic because:
1 you are sure to know the vast majority of the words and expressions in each text
2 many of the new words or expressions will not be important
3 important words or phrases are likely to be guessable from the context they are
in.
In the test, you won't be able to use a dictionary, so you need skills and strategies
for dealing with new vocabulary.
V. Read the text again and highlight every word or expression you have not
seen before. Then write them in the appropriate section of this table.
I have not seen this word or I have not seen this word or expression in
expression in English before, but it is English before, but I can work out its
very similar to a word in my language. meaning from the context.
I have not seen this word or I have not seen this word or expression in
expression in English before, and I English before, and I can’t work out its
can’t work out its meaning from the meaning from the context, and, as a result,
context, but this doesn’t affect my I don't have an overall understanding of
overall understanding of the context. the text.
VOCABULARY BUILDER
Paraphrase practice
2. Which of these phrases are most useful? Find five more expressions in the
text that you think are worth learning
Speed reading
Being able to read quickly and accurately gives you many advantages:
You get the gist of the texts faster, so can orient yourself more quickly.
You will be more confident that you can read all the texts.
You will be more confident of having enough time to answer all the
questions.
You have more time to check your answers.
When preparing for the exam, you can get more practice with a wide variety
of texts on different topics.
I. Read this text, paying attention to the ‘chunks’ or groups of words between
the marks.
One useful technique / to increase your reading speed is this: / when you read a
line of text, / which is typically 12–14 words, / don’t let your eyes rest on each
word. / This is a very inefficient way of reading. / Your brain should have no
problem / coping with chunks of language, / four or five words at a time. / This
means you will move your eyes / three times per line, not 4. / It does take
practice, / but it is a skill you should develop / if you want to get a good result / in
the IELTS test. / This type of reading is / much easier when you know collocations
and phrases / because in essence you ‘chunk’ the text / into groups of words that go
together.
Another technique you can use to improve your reading speed is to focus your eyes
more or less down the middle of the paragraph you are reading. Your brain can
actually notice and make sense of the words around your focus. At first, this can
seem strange and might not be easy to do, but it gets easier with practice.
II. Try to read the text on the next page about the history of Manchester in no
more than one minute by focusing on the words in bold. Then decide
whether each of these statements is true (T) or false (F)
Although the history of Manchester stretches back to Roman times, when a small
settlement grew up around the Roman fort known as Mamuciam, it was not until
the later years of the eighteenth century that it became a population center of any
great magnitude. Records indicate the population grew from 10,000 to approaching
80,000 in just a few decades, increasing to around 150,000 by the Industrial
Revolution, which saw its transformation into the country’s and the world’s
leading industrial metropolis. The engine for this change was cotton, which began
to be imported via the port of Liverpool and which was delivered by canal to
Manchester in the latter part of the eighteenth century. The rapid and profitable
boom in textile manufacture saw the streets of Manchester and surrounding towns
become home to huge numbers of cotton mills, textile print works and engineering
workshops. The expansion of transport links facilitated this development. In 1824,
one of the world’s first public omnibus services began in Manchester, quickly
followed in 1830 by the opening of the first steam passenger railway linking
Liverpool and Manchester. Often overlooked, however, was the ‘human fuel’ that
made all this possible. The promise of work, however poor the pay, however bad
the conditions, resulted in wave after wave of immigration from the surrounding
countryside and abroad, the villages and towns of Ireland in particular, where
terrible poverty and the threat of famine drove whole families to leave everything
they knew for a life in ‘Cottonopolis’, as the city was dubbed.
Paraphrase practice
III Decide if these expressions from the text above are similar in meaning to
the expressions in italics or not
1 of any great magnitude of some size and importance
2 metropolis capital city
3 the engine for this change what was mainly responsible for this development
4 rapid … boom in quick change in
5 facilitated this made this possible
6 often overlooked with a view over a particular place
We read different sorts of texts in different ways and for different purposes. For
example, we don’t read a telephone directory for pleasure, or try to learn facts
from an advertisement. Being able to identify what sort of text you are reading
helps you in many ways. Understanding the purpose of the text and knowing how
the author expects you to react gives you control over how to read it more
effectively.
IV Work in pairs. Discuss the differences between the types of text below.
Think about
V Read these extracts (A–H) from different types of text about immigration
and match them to the text types in Exercise 4
A Immigration derives from the Latin word migration and means the act of a
foreigner entering a country in the aim of obtaining the right of permanent
residence. Immigration may have economic or political motivation, or be a
matter of family reunification or caused by natural disaster. In many cases,
immigrants simply desire to improve their circumstances by relocating.
C The precise date of the first human from 1788, when the first transports
occupation of Australia is likely to bearing convicted criminals made the
remain unknown, but evidence has long journey south. This was quickly
been uncovered to suggest human followed in the early 1790s by the
presence on the continent for at least first wave of voluntary – and hence
40,000 years. Migration from europe free – immigrants.
dates
D
Immigration control concerns both how and why people from countries outside
the UK are allowed to enter the country and how long they are permitted to
remain. Furthermore, it governs what they may and may not do while during
their stay in the UK; for example, whether they have the right to obtain paid
employment, whether relatives may join them here, and whether they have
access to the National Health Service and similar state benefits. The paragraphs
that follow give advice about all aspects of immigration control.
E
Syed Ahmed, 22, a to renew his visa so he this country. Instead,
bright and hard-working could stay here on the fact he’d taken up
young man, is studying completion of his playing cricket for a
at a leading British threeyear degree course local club since his
university to become an was approved, the final arrival from Bangladesh
accountant. When his decision was not based turned out to be the
application on the contribution he basis of the judge’s
could make to decision.
F
With over 25 years’ experience of providing a comprehensive range of
immigration and legal services, we offer our clients a friendly and professional
service for all immigration needs. Our extensive experience enables us to
advise you on the prospects of success and problems to be aware of when
submitting an application. Working together, we will use our experience to
find a solution that matches your needs wherever possible. As specialists in
business immigration, we have developed a range of strategies that can assist
organizations in obtaining work permits, visas and rights to remain.
G
I came to this country at the age of good people, we don’t have a
12. When I started high school, I criminal record, we pay taxes, we go
could hardly understand the to school, we work hard, and we love
language. That seems an age ago. living here. I just want a chance to
Now I’m married, studying at college get the job I feel I deserve, and to
and would like to become a teacher. normalize our situation. Ultimately,
Unfortunately, that can’t happen as a we aim to use the years we’ve been
result of my status as an illegal here as justification to become
immigrant. The future now seems so naturalized, so we can be treated as
H uncertain. But we are citizens of the country.
If directions are given under Part I of Schedule 2 or Schedule 3 to the 1971 Act
for a person's removal from the United Kingdom, and directions are also so
given for the removal with him of persons belonging to his family, then if any
of them appeals under • section 59, 63, 66, 67 or 69(1) or (5), the appeal is to
have the same effect under paragraphs 10 to 14 in relation to the directions
given in respect of each of the others as it has in relation to the directions given
in respect of the appellant.
1 education?
2 nationalities?
3 work?
4 free time?
5 law and law-breaking?
6 These expressions are taken from the extracts in Exercise 5, but each
one has an extra word. Scan the extracts to find which one each
expression is from and cross out the extra word
1 speedy professional service
2 then quickly followed in
3 source of considerable confusion
4 entering a European country
5 all persons belonging to
6 have the legal right to
7 university degree course
8 hardly understand anything
SENTENCE COMPLETION
CLASSROOM WORKOUT
Arguing a position
• Work in groups. Half the groups find as many arguments as possible which
support the first statement. The other half do the same for the second statement.
• You have five minutes to think of your arguments. Try to use key expressions
from this unit. Then present your argument to the class. The group with the most
convincing arguments wins.
CHECK YOURSELF
• Make a list of five different sorts of text in English that you plan to read this
week in order to practise skimming and scanning techniques. They must come
from different sources and be on different topics. You should allow at least 20
minutes for each type of text.
• Make a list of 10-15 collocations or expressions that you could use in a
discussion on the topic of health and happiness.
• Write down three facts you now know about ways of measuring happiness as a
result of reading the texts in this unit.
SUMMARY
OVER TO YOU
1 Look online to see what health issues are likely to become more important in the
future.
2 Try to find three articles online or in newspapers and magazines about how to be
happy and healthy.
3 Some people say that happiness is the by-product of doing something else.
Think of three examples that prove or disprove this point and tell your friends.
4 Find some texts you think are interesting and practice breaking them into logical
'chunks'.
If you work with a friend, see if you both agree on how to 'chunk' the same text.