UNIT-2
HEALTH, WEALTH AND HAPPINESS
IN
THIS UNIT, YOU WILL:
PRACTISE
SKIMMING
SCANNING
AND SPEED READING TECHNIQUES
STUDY
AND PRACTISE SENTENCE COMPLETION
READ
DIFFERENT TYPES OF TEST
Skimming
“skimming” is used
to quickly find the main ideas of a text, and that skimming is often done at a
speed three to four times faster than normal critical reading speed.
·
Ask: When
might you use skimming?
·
In what
situations is it useful?
·
Suggest to
students that skimming is useful if they have a great deal of material to read
in a short amount of time, or to quickly ascertain whether a text (like the
daily newspaper) merits a closer read.
Review the following skimming strategies:
·
Read the first
and last paragraphs of an article first.
·
Notice the
titles and headings and subheadings.
·
Look at the
illustrations, graphs or other visuals on the page
·
Read the
captions of the visuals.
·
Read the first
sentence of each paragraph.
After the end of the lesson you should skim the front
page of any newspaper.
Once the class is clear on the strategies, each student
should skim the front page of The New York Times. Next, have a class discussion
about the various stories that caught their attention and why.
The Learning Network’s Daily News Quiz invariably
takes most of its material from that day’s printed front page of The Times,
though it is possible that not every question is from there.
Scanning
The scanning is a technique we already use, for instance,
when looking up a word in a dictionary or trying to find a specific phrase or
number on a printed page. When they are scanning, they move their eyes to find
specific words, numbers or phrases.
Scanning often comes before skimming. for example, scanning
can be used to determine if a resource has the information you are looking for.
once the resources are scanned, it can then be skimmed for more detail.
Reading techniques & strategies
1. skin the passage (read quickly to get general content and
layout)
2. read the questions
3. identify the type of question
4. remember your techniques and tips for that question type
5. find a key word or information in the question to help
you locate the answer in the passage.
6. Scan the passage by passing your eyes over the paragraphs
to find the key word or information from the question.
7. When you find the location, read the sentences before and
after
8. Always read around the answer to check other information
and look for traps
9. Try to understand the few sentences around the location
of the answer
10. When you find the answer, mover to next question
11. Don’t spend too long trying to find one answer
12. Remember that each answer is only worth one point.
Getting Started
SCANNING
These photos
show important factors for staying. Healthy. Discuss the questions below.
To what extend
is cost a factor in these things?
Which of these
factors most often occurs in the news in your country? Why?
Rank these
factors from 1 to 10 in term of importance for your health
1= most
important
- not
smoking
- not
drinking alcohol
- getting
enough sleep
- avoiding
stress
- eating
healthy food
- keeping
in touch with friends and family
- taking
regular exercise
- avoiding
exposure to the sun
- avoiding
polluted areas
- getting
immunized against preventable diseases
Rank the
factors from 1 to 10
|
1
|
|
5
|
|
9
|
|
2
|
|
6
|
|
10
|
|
3
|
|
7
|
|
|
|
4
|
|
8
|
|
|
|
Discuss these
questions.
1.
Why
do some people find it difficult to do the right thing for their health and
well-being?
2.
Do
you think enough is done to promote campaigns for/against any of the factors in
Exercise 2?
3.
Which
of these things should be controlled by the government, and which should be
left to the individual?
Health and
happiness collocations
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.
Chill out
|
Condition
|
Cut down on modified starch, cut down on smoking, cut down on
spirits
|
Factor
|
Feel good factor
|
Fiddle
|
On cloud nine
|
Headache
|
Out of condition
|
Lifestyle
|
Sedentary lifestyles
|
Modified starch
|
Splitting headache
|
Moon
|
Be in high spirits
|
Nine
|
Watch out, watch your weight
|
Out
|
Stop smoking
|
Smoking
|
|
Spirits
|
|
Your weight
|
Complete these
sentences with collocations from Exercise 1.
1.
Victoria
has been in high
spirits ever
since she got into Cambridge University
2. The
diet magazine says that a good way to lose weight is to cut down on modified starch.
3. When
Petra got her exam results, she was on cloud nine/over the moon. She passed
with flying colours.
4.
I
Put in such long hours at work that when I get home I just chill out
5.
My
grandfather's 93, but he's as fit as a fiddle
6. It
is common for footballers to say they are over the moon/ on cloud 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 sedentary lifestyle.
8.
That
noise is giving me a splitting
headache.
9.
The
single most important thing anyone can do to improve their health is stop smoking
10. Physical exercise releases endorphins into your blood, and that
gives you a feel-good
factor
11. I can't have any chocolate. W's not an allergy - I'm just watching my weight
12. I'm going to start jogging again because I'm out of condition
Discuss to what
extent you agree with these comments, and explain why.
You can decide to be
happy, whatever your circumstances
You have to work at
being happy is something you cant really control
Health and happiness
are connected , you cant be happy if you’re not healthy.
Skimming and scanning
While you can go into the IEL TS
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. I t 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
While skimming, u should:
·
try
to read three or four times faster than normal
·
get
a good idea of what the article is about without checking new words in the
dictionary
·
underline
key words, e.g. dates, places, figures
·
focus
on key words like nouns, verbs, adjectives.
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. While scanning, you should:
· 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.
Five ways to practise skimming and
scanning
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 dictionarPractise your skimming and scanning
with the article below about happiness. Read it quickly to find out what it
says about the following:
- sources of happiness
- the relationship between happiness
and politics
- research into happiness
- living standards and happiness
- how to measure happiness
- how different countries promote
happiness
- How can we measure happiness?y on your first reading of a text.
- Don't
try to vocalize the text as you read - use your eyes, not your voice
How can we measure happiness?
J by Philip
Johnston
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.
Personal
happiness is something we all aspire to; so what about national happiness? Can
the well-being of a country be measured? Is it possible to aggregate all those
individual experiences into a happiness index that can be published quarterly,
along with crime statistics, inflation rates and unemployment figures? Some
political leaders think it is. They subscribe to the idea that measuring a
nation's well-being by its economic output is a policy dead-end. Is this wise?
The consideration of happiness and how to
maximise it is hardly a new activity. It has exercised great minds from
Socrates to Montaigne and on to Bentham, Mill and the authors of the American
Declaration of Independence. But while philosophers tended to deal with how we
should lead our lives as individuals, the idea of happiness both as a science
and a specific aim of national policy has only taken off in the past decade or
so.
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
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.
This
realization encouraged Lord Layard, professor at the London School of Economics
and adviser to a former prime minister, to urge the last Labour government to
recognize that economic growth need not be an overriding priority. He believed
governments should embrace the principle that 'the best society is that where
the people are happiest, and the best pol icy is the one that produces the
greatest happiness'.
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 al l 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 whi.le.
Shortly after he became Tory leade~ 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.'
In order to
avoid a politically biased view of what 'constitutes national contentment, it
would be essential to have an independent body such as the Office for National
Statistics deciding what questions to ask and when to do so. A survey conducted
in the middle of a cold, wet January, for instance, might produce significantly
gloomier results than one carried out in summer months.
So what might a
list of questions contain? Measurements of national wellbeing are already
included in cross-border surveys carried out by the UN or the OECD* and include
such indicators as a perceived lack of corruption; low unemployment; high
levels of education and income; and the number of older people in the labour
market. Using such criteria, polls can try to paint a picture of what a country
thinks about itself.
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 politici~n will enjoy
being accused of making his fellow citizens less happy than they were?
If measuring happiness is a relatively new
phenomenon in the West, it has underpinned the public policy of one country for
almost 40 years. The Kingdom of Bhutan has pursued the goal of 'gross national
happiness' since 1972. In addition t6 the promotion of equitable socioeconomic
development and the establishment of good governance, it also stresses the
importance of the preservation and promotion of cultural values.
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
- Remember
you're looking for specific information.
- Do a
grammar check as your read: does the gap require a singular or plural noun, a
verb, an adjective, an adjective plus a noun.?
- Use
words from the text.
- The
stem is not likely to have the same words in the text, so skim the text for
synonyms and paraphrases.
- Be
careful with spelling.
- Remember
that the answers are in the same order as in the text.
- Numbers
can be written as words or numbers (e.g. ten or 10).
- Hyphenated
words count as one word (so well-being is one word).
Read the text
on pages 22-23 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.
- Some
politicians feel that it is not wise to focus on a country's economic output.
- Governments
have only really taken the importance of promoting national happiness seriously
in the past decade.
- While
the idea of measuring happiness appeals to some politicians, others believe it
could be criticized for lacking in seriousness.
- Although
there have been massive increases in personal wealth, people in the rich West are
not happier.
- For
David Cameron's government, the attempt to increase the sense of well-being of the people is a key
priority.
- Surveys
may have different results depending on the weather, with significant gloomier results
being possible for those carried out in winter.
- As
part of its policy of promoting happiness, the government of Bhutan thinks it
is important to ensure the country remains true to its cultural values.
- According
to the writer, Bhutan has the advantage of having almost no traffic ,
which is a source of stress in Western countries.
When you have
finished answer these questions.
1.
how long did you take on your first reading?
2.
Which
question did you manage to answer?
3.
Do
you think you need more practice skimming and scanning?
Word Builder
One good way of
building a large and flexible vocabulary is to focus on word building. For
example, in the text on pages, a key word was happiness. Related words are
happy, unhappy, happier, happiest, unhappier, happily, unhappily. Can you think
of one more?
Spend five minute 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.
1
|
Happily /unhappily Married
|
6
|
Many --happy------- returns
|
2
|
More than happy -------- to --
|
7
|
Lived ----happily ---------- ever after
|
3
|
happy---- ------ ------ ----- ending
|
8
|
------un happily----------- for me-----
|
4
|
happy-------- ------ --------- families
|
9
|
----------happy---- hour
|
5
|
Keep them happy------ ------ -------
|
10
|
-----hapiness------ is a good book
|
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?
Dealing with new words
It is likely that the texts in the
IEL TS test will contain vocabulary that you are unfamiliar with. However,
don't panic because:
- you
are sure to know the vast majority of the words and expressions in each text
- many
of the new words or expressions will not be important
- 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. Some of the most useful include:
- working
out the meaning from the context
- working
out the meaning from the form and function of the word or expression
- ignoring
the word or expression if you think it is not important.
Read the text on pages 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 expression in English before, but it
is very similar to word in my language~.
|
I have not seen this word or expression I have not seen this word
or expression in English before, but I can work out its meaning from the
context.
|
|
|
I have not seen this word or expression in English before, and I
can't work out its meaning from the context, but this meaning does not affect
my overall understanding of the text.
|
I have not seen this word or expression in English before and I
can't work out its meaning from the context, and , as a result , I don’t have
an overall understanding of the text.
|
|
|
Vocabulary builder Paraphrase
practice 1
Find two-word phrases in the text on
pages which match these definitions.
- recently
cut grass. New-mown grass.
- someone
who works in the money markets city financier.
- figures
showing the level of thefts, physical attacks, etc. crime
statistics.
- statistics
showing how many people are out of work unemployment
figures.
- an official strategy developed for a whole country by the leaders
of that country government policy.
- something
that seems to be illogical apparent paradox.
- an
organization which works separately from the government independent body.
- all
the people who are in work labor market.
Which of these phrases are most
useful? Find five more expressions in the text that you think are worth
learning.
- The problems of reading slowly:
- You
might not finish all the texts.
- You
create extra pressure for yourself.
- You
probably waste lots of time on sections of the texts that are not relevant to
the answers you need.
- Slow
reading does not necessarily make you a more accurate reader
- You,
will probably read less in preparation for die test.
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.
Read this text, paying attention to
the 'chunks' or groups of words between the I 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 14. / 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.
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).
- The
text is about the geography of Manchester. False
- The
text is factual rather than opinion-based. True
- Manchester was already an important population
center when the Romans arrived. False
- The
population only started to grow with the Industrial Revolution. False
- Without
cotton, the history of the city would have been different. True
- The
only work available in Manchester was in the cotton mills. False
- Transport
was an important element of the Industrial Revolution. True
- The
attraction of the work available was it was well paid. False
- Families
in Ireland sent their children to work in Manchester. False
- The city briefly changed its name as a result of its rapid growth. False
