READING
For some good extra reading exercises click HERE (Cloze tests)
For some good extra reading exercises click HERE (Cloze tests)
WEEK 26 WEEK 26 WEEK 26
There are more exercises here: ADVERBS OF DEGREE
And here too: CONTRAST AND COMPARISON
Finally, some more vocabulary for FOOD AND DIET
EXTRA READING/LISTENING ACTIVITIES
Try this CLOZE: TOO LATE TO LEARN?
NEED MORE?
SOME EXTRA READING ACTIVITIES HERE
(Open cloze tests and more...)
NEED MORE?
SOME EXTRA READING ACTIVITIES HERE
(Open cloze tests and more...)
SPEAKING
This week:
"THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEDUCTION"
Watch this video from the BBC HERE and record your own production on the topic (about four minutes).
According to psychiatrist Raj Persaud: "Seduction is the secret to success in life".
Do you agree with him? To what extent? Do perfumes help? Clothes? There are some people who are not physically attractive according to standards... and yet, we find them seductive. Why?
Enchanting
colleagues and customers is one of the keys to success in business,
says entrepreneur and former Apple chief evangelist Guy Kawasaki. In his
new book, Kawasaki lays out what he calls the "three pillars" of
enchantment: likability, trustworthiness and a great cause.
He joins Michael Krasny to discuss his book, "Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions."
Click HERE
He joins Michael Krasny to discuss his book, "Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions."
Click HERE
Sample exams and tasks
You can try an updated exam which is available on the website HERE, in case you have not tried it yet.
For those of you who have not had enough, please try this Exam (Madrid 2016) and challenge yourselves.
For the Reading section click HERE
For the Listening section click HERE
For the Audio File click HERE
For the answer key to the reading section click HERE
For the answer key to the listening section click HERE
STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW
TAKE A TOUR THROUGH THE SITE AND CHOOSE A PODCAST OF YOUR INTEREST. AMERICAN ENGLISH.
Can happiness be bought? To find out, author Benjamin Wallace sampled the world's most expensive products, including a bottle of 1947 Chateau Cheval Blanc, 8 ounces of Kobe beef and the fabled (notorious) Kopi Luwak coffee. His critique may surprise you.
WHY DO CONSUMERS SPEND BILLIONS OF DOLLARS A YEAR ON BOTTLED WATER?
Super Size Me
Super Size Me is a 2004 American documentary film directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, an American independent filmmaker. Spurlock's film follows a 30-day period from February 1 to March 2, 2003 during which he ate only McDonald's food. The film documents this lifestyle's drastic effect on Spurlock's physical and psychological well-being, and explores the fast food industry's corporate influence, including how it encourages poor nutrition for its own profit.
Spurlock dined at McDonald's restaurants three times per day, eating every item on the chain's menu at least once. Spurlock consumed an average of 20.92 megajoules or 5,000 kcal (the equivalent of 9.26 Big Macs) per day during the experiment.
As a result, the then-32-year-old Spurlock gained 24½ lbs. (11.1 kg), a 13% body mass increase, a cholesterol level of 230, and experienced mood swings, sexual dysfunction, and fat accumulation in his liver. It took Spurlock fourteen months to lose the weight gained from his experiment using a vegan diet supervised by his future wife, a chef who specializes in gourmet vegan dishes.
The reason for Spurlock's investigation was the increasing spread of obesity throughout U.S. society, which the Surgeon General has declared "epidemic," and the corresponding lawsuit brought against McDonald's on behalf of two overweight girls, who, it was alleged, became obese as a result of eating McDonald's food [Pelman v. McDonald's Corp., 237 F. Supp. 2d 512].[3] Spurlock points out that although the lawsuit against McDonald's failed (and subsequently many state legislatures have legislated against product liability actions against producers and distributors of "fast food"), much of the same criticism leveled against the tobacco companies applies to fast food franchises whose product is both physiologically addictive and physically harmful.
HERE IS THE FIRST PART OF THE FILM. YOU CAN SEE THE WHOLE DOCUMENTARY ON YOUTUBE.
SOUL MUSIC
COURTNEY, AGAIN...
You always get what you want
And you don't even try
Your friends hate it when its always going your way
But I'm glad that you've got luck on your side
You're saying definitely maybe
I'm saying probably no
You say You sleep when you're dead, I'm scared I'll die in my sleep
I guess that's not a bad way to go
I wanna go out but I wanna stay home
I wanna go out but I wanna stay home
Why are you so eager to please?
I wear my heart on my sleeve
Gets harder in the winter, gotta be a fake or shiver
It takes a great deal out of me
Yes I like hearing your stories
But I've heard them all before
I'd rather stay in bed with the rain over my head
Than have to pick my brain up off of the floor
I wanna go out but I wanna stay home
I wanna go out but I wanna stay home
SIXTO RODRIGUEZ : "A MOST DISGUSTING SONG"
I've played every kind of gig there is to play now I've played faggot bars, hooker bars, motorcycle funerals
In opera houses, concert halls, halfway houses.
Well I found that in all these places that I've played
all the people that I've played for are the same people
So if you'll listen, maybe you'll see someone you know in this song.
A most disgusting song.
The local diddy bop pimp comes in
Acting limp he sits down with a grin
next to a girl that has never been chased
The bartender wipes a smile off his face
The delegates cross the floor,
curtsy and promenade through the doors,
and slowly the evening begins.
And there's Jimmy "Bad Luck" Butts
who's just crazy about them East Lafayette weekend sluts
Talking is the lawyer in crumpled up shirt
And everyone's drinking the detergents
that cannot remove their hurts
While the Mafia provides your drugs,
your government will provide the shrugs,
and your national guard will supply the slugs,
so they sit all satisfied.
And there's old playboy Ralph
who's always been shorter than himself,
and there's a man with his chin in his hand,
who knows more than he'll ever understand.
Yeah, every night it's the same old thing
Getting high, getting drunk, getting horny
At the Inn-Between, again.
And there's the bearded schoolboy with the wooden eyes
Who at every scented skirt whispers up and sighs
and there's a teacher that will kiss you in French
Who could never give love, could only fearfully clench
Yeah, people every night it's the same old thing
Getting pacified, ossified, affectionate at Mr. Flood's party, again
And there's the militant with his store-bought soul
There's someone here who's almost a virgin I've been told
And there's Linda glass-made who speaks of the past
who genuflects, salutes, signs the cross and stands at half mast
Yeah, They're all here, the Tiny Tims and the Uncle Toms,
redheads, brunettes, brownettes and the dyed haired blondes,
Who talk to dogs, chase broads and have hopes of being mobbed,
who mislay their dreams and later claim that they were robbed
And every night it's going to be the same old thing
Getting high, getting drunk, getting horny
Lost, even, at Martha's Vineyard, again
You always get what you want
And you don't even try
Your friends hate it when its always going your way
But I'm glad that you've got luck on your side
You're saying definitely maybe
I'm saying probably no
You say You sleep when you're dead, I'm scared I'll die in my sleep
I guess that's not a bad way to go
And you don't even try
Your friends hate it when its always going your way
But I'm glad that you've got luck on your side
You're saying definitely maybe
I'm saying probably no
You say You sleep when you're dead, I'm scared I'll die in my sleep
I guess that's not a bad way to go
I wanna go out but I wanna stay home
I wanna go out but I wanna stay home
I wanna go out but I wanna stay home
Why are you so eager to please?
I wear my heart on my sleeve
Gets harder in the winter, gotta be a fake or shiver
It takes a great deal out of me
Yes I like hearing your stories
But I've heard them all before
I'd rather stay in bed with the rain over my head
Than have to pick my brain up off of the floor
I wear my heart on my sleeve
Gets harder in the winter, gotta be a fake or shiver
It takes a great deal out of me
Yes I like hearing your stories
But I've heard them all before
I'd rather stay in bed with the rain over my head
Than have to pick my brain up off of the floor
I wanna go out but I wanna stay home
I wanna go out but I wanna stay home
I wanna go out but I wanna stay home
SIXTO RODRIGUEZ : "A MOST DISGUSTING SONG"
I've played every kind of gig there is to play now I've played faggot bars, hooker bars, motorcycle funerals
Well I found that in all these places that I've played
all the people that I've played for are the same people
So if you'll listen, maybe you'll see someone you know in this song.
A most disgusting song.
The local diddy bop pimp comes in
Acting limp he sits down with a grin
next to a girl that has never been chased
The bartender wipes a smile off his face
The delegates cross the floor,
curtsy and promenade through the doors,
and slowly the evening begins.
And there's Jimmy "Bad Luck" Butts
who's just crazy about them East Lafayette weekend sluts
Talking is the lawyer in crumpled up shirt
And everyone's drinking the detergents
that cannot remove their hurts
While the Mafia provides your drugs,
your government will provide the shrugs,
and your national guard will supply the slugs,
so they sit all satisfied.
And there's old playboy Ralph
who's always been shorter than himself,
and there's a man with his chin in his hand,
who knows more than he'll ever understand.
Yeah, every night it's the same old thing
Getting high, getting drunk, getting horny
At the Inn-Between, again.
And there's the bearded schoolboy with the wooden eyes
Who at every scented skirt whispers up and sighs
and there's a teacher that will kiss you in French
Who could never give love, could only fearfully clench
Yeah, people every night it's the same old thing
Getting pacified, ossified, affectionate at Mr. Flood's party, again
And there's the militant with his store-bought soul
There's someone here who's almost a virgin I've been told
And there's Linda glass-made who speaks of the past
who genuflects, salutes, signs the cross and stands at half mast
Yeah, They're all here, the Tiny Tims and the Uncle Toms,
redheads, brunettes, brownettes and the dyed haired blondes,
Who talk to dogs, chase broads and have hopes of being mobbed,
who mislay their dreams and later claim that they were robbed
And every night it's going to be the same old thing
Getting high, getting drunk, getting horny
Lost, even, at Martha's Vineyard, again
BOOKS
"NEVER LET ME GO" by Kazuo Ishiguro
(not just another "creepy" story...)
"There is no way around revealing the premise of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel. It is brutal, especially for a writer celebrated as a poet of the unspoken. But it takes a while for us to get a handle on it. Since it's the nature of Ishiguro narrators to postpone a full reckoning of their place in the world, all we know in the early going is that we don't quite know what's going on." (SARAH KERR- New York Times)
Review here
Now, back to Ms. Atwood: "The person who puts the message in any novel is the reader".
MOVIE OF THE WEEK
This might be called a "simple" film. .. but for me it is full of values and relevant thinking. And it is set in beautiful New Zealand...
Review HERE
ANOTHER PICK
Review HERE
"NEVER LET ME GO" by Kazuo Ishiguro
(not just another "creepy" story...)
"There is no way around revealing the premise of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel. It is brutal, especially for a writer celebrated as a poet of the unspoken. But it takes a while for us to get a handle on it. Since it's the nature of Ishiguro narrators to postpone a full reckoning of their place in the world, all we know in the early going is that we don't quite know what's going on." (SARAH KERR- New York Times)
Review here
Now, back to Ms. Atwood: "The person who puts the message in any novel is the reader".
MOVIE OF THE WEEK
This might be called a "simple" film. .. but for me it is full of values and relevant thinking. And it is set in beautiful New Zealand...
Review HERE
ANOTHER PICK
Review HERE
FUNNIES
