PTE Re-tell Lecture Practice

Transcript:

In today's lecture I'm going to talk about changes in air pollution since the middle of the last century and what has created these changes. So, um, by the 1950s, air pollution was very visible with frequent thick black fogs known as 'smogs' in many large cities around the world. The main source of this pollution was from factories and it caused severe health problems. For example, a particularly severe smog in London in 1952 caused over four thousand deaths. Obviously something had to be done and in 1956 a Clean Air Act was introduced in Britain. This addressed the pollution from factories and the smogs soon disappeared. However, as you know, these days air pollution is still a big issue. The main difference between now and the 1950s is that you can't see it, it's invisible. Also, the main source of pollution now is from cars and lorries, and although these don't produce visible signs, this air pollution is still a significant risk to health. And one of the key factors in the rise of this type of pollution is that we have all become much more vehicle-dependent. There are far more cars and lorries, trains and planes than in the 1950s and this is now the main source of air pollution around the world.

Transcript:

Conduct disorder in children is very serious. It's a disorder of childhood and adolescence that is long term, that's chronic, where children have very aggressive impulses, where children are involved in difficulties with the law and really seem to have no just regard for the rules or for authority. When children have conduct disorder they are definitely at risk of carrying these difficulties into adulthood which also brings about a myriad of different problems. Children with conduct disorder often have difficulties in schools, have difficulty with relationships and have difficulty with employment and lifelong long-term relationships. It's important to recognize that if your child is not doing well in school, if your child has had difficulty where legal action was necessary, if your child is bullying, getting into fights and this is constant and ongoing, if your child does not get help these complexities will really exacerbate into other major difficulties. Look for signs of your child's grades dropping, look for signs of repeated detentions, suspensions and brushes with the law. Parents please recognize that if your child has signs of conduct disorder the sooner you get help, the sooner your child can start to learn more adaptive behaviors.

Transcript:

Now as we all know, it has long been the habit in many Countries that teachers give homework to school children of all ages. Despite the fact that a minority of educators don't agree with this practice, it has never seriously been questioned or challenged before. However, it may be that the tide is turning. These days, more people are becoming convinced that homework is of virtually no benefit, particularly for children in the younger age group. So, why have teachers always given homework? Well, the answer seems to be because they are obliged to. Most teachers don't really believe it has any real value. And the latest research supports the teachers' feelings about this. Not only does homework have very little impact on children's learning but it also puts unnecessary obligations and responsibilities onto the parents. These days not all families have the time or the necessary knowledge to help their offspring. So it would seem that now, senior educators want to start a new initiative. Rather than giving homework, they plan to encourage reading books of any kind, just reading. and they claim that this is a far more effective method of consolidating learning than wading through piles of written homework.

Transcript:

So today we're continuing to talk about the social history of foodstuffs, and we're going on to consider next the importance of salt and the significant role it has played. Salt was a highly valued commodity in ancient times. Not because it made food taste nicer, but because of the way it could be used to preserve food. This meant that people were not so dependent on seasonal variations in what was available for them to eat - they could preserve what they produced and consume it as required. It also meant that food could be transported long distances. Salt was not easy to obtain and so prices for it were high. It was often necessary to transport it long distances and it is believed that one of the reasons for building some of the roads that led to the ancient city of Rome was to make it easier to bring salt to the city from various parts of the Roman empire. Roman rulers took financial advantage of the population's need for salt. When they wanted to raise money for some war or another, they raised the price of salt. Elsewhere salt was important too. In Africa, for example, caravans consisting of up to forty thousand camels are said to have travelled four hundred miles across the Sahara to transport salt to the inland markets of places like Timbuktu.

Transcript:

Today, I want to look at some research that has been done into what motivates people and, um, particularly on what is called the 'mind set' - or more simply the mental attitude that highly motivated people have. And, of course, the attitude of those who aren't so motivated, or who lose their motivation. Now, it's obvious that motivation is crucial to performance, but that doesn't tell us where it comes from. Why is it that some people work hard and do well while others can work just as hard and don't, why some are committed to what they are doing and others aren't? Finding answers to this question would be extremely useful to educators, as well as in other areas of life. Businesses, for example, have long believed that financial incentives - bonuses, perks, pay rises - are the great motivators, and to an extent they can make a difference, but what we are calling the mind set is more important. What has made it difficult to find out what the causes of motivation are, is that motivation and the capacity for hard work can be mistaken for talent - thinking it's a gift. Either you've got it or you haven't People who believe this have a fixed mind set and are not only going to perform less well than they could, but it's also an attitude that will affect their whole Outlook on life. Some say that if talent is something people are born with and you're unlucky enough not to have any, then there's not much point in putting in all that extra effort for no real reward. However, research has shown that if you put in the hours, practice brings the same level of achievement as talent. It's a question of changing this fixed attitude and adopting a growth attitude, which includes seeing mistakes and failures as opportunities to improve.

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