Intermediate

It is not a secret that people might judge you by the way you speak. For example, if you sound confident, people might trust you. 

But for some people, it is also about what accent you have. Studies showed that people might link your accent to not only your place of birth, but also your personal characteristics. Some accents are perceived as "good" or "correct." Listeners think that the speaker is intelligent, honest and hard-working because of their accent. On the other hand, some accents are seen as something negative and needing correction, with speakers seen as less intelligent. Both positive and negative conclusions are stereotypes.

Professional cyclist Greg Lemond said, "It doesn't get any easier; you just get faster."

Lemond is a 3-time winner of the Tour Dr France. He also won a great many other cycling races. He is considered by many to be the all-time greatest American cyclist. While other cyclists have been caught cheating via blood doping, Lemond was so strongly opposed to cheating that he quit his team when his teammates were found breaking the rules.

Cycling is an endurance sport, meaning effort matters as much as strategy. The Tour de France is so hard that in 1967 a race leader died from over-exertion. So when Lemond says it doesn't get easier, he's speaking from experience. 

Without white and yellow lines on streets and roads, we wouldn't know where the lanes are, or where to turn or stop or walk, etc. Car accidents would be much more frequent, many with fatalities.

A specialized sector of the construction industry paints lane markings on roads. One company in Michigan, PK Contracting, estimates that one worker paints about 400,000 ft (122,000 m) of lines every day. Over the 6-month construction season, the company stripes and re-stripes about 50,000 mi (80,500 km) of roads. Put those markings end-to-end and you could cross America 16 times.

According to the Harvard Business Review, asking for a promotion can be nerve-wracking. How do you prepare for that conversation with your boss? What information should you have at the ready? And how exactly do you make your case?

The first step is to think through what you want. Do you want more power? More money? More managerial responsibility? Also, consider getting feedback from a personal "board of directors" on your strengths and weaknesses. Speak to peers to try to measure your reputation. Find out how others successfully pressed their cases for promotion. 

Once you’ve clarified exactly what you’re looking for, build a compelling case for why you deserve to move up. Consider preparing a one-or-two-page memo that clearly outlines your track record. The memo’s bullet points should provide metrics of the impact you’ve had, descriptions of solutions you’ve delivered, and financial outcomes for which you’ve been responsible.

New smartphones come on the market at least every year. Each model has its own pros and cons, giving that company the opportunity to beat out its nearest competitors for a share of the market. But it's a tough market! If you were going to introduce a new phone, you'd need to make it pretty special.

That's exactly the task required here: you and your teacher are going to come up with a new phone and create an ad that will persuade consumers to buy it.

Try to include two or more of the following power words:

• hottest;
• effortless;
• daring;
• savings;
• attractive; and/or
• phenomenal.

Dr. Nhung Tran-Davies was only five years old when she needed to flee home because of the Vietnam War. She and her family spent eight months in a refugee camp in Malaysia. Then an Alberta church sponsored their immigration to Canada.

Nhung arrived in Canada on a boat with 300 other refugees. She remembers it was nauseating and suffocating. 

At the airport gate, a little Canadian girl called Adrienne gave a doll to Nhung. 

"This little girl presented a little gift... This doll lit up my heart and in that moment, it meant everything to me," says Nhung. After that, the girls stayed friends. This doll has also inspired Nhung to become a doctor and help others, as this girl has helped her.

Dogs have already been trained to smell drugs, cancer, and even blood sugar changes in people with diabetes. Now they're learning how to smell Covid-19. In trials, dogs detected the virus over 95% of the time, more accurately than rapid blood or swab tests. The dogs have even been able to detect Covid in people who aren't showing symptoms yet, which taking temperatures can't do.

Several countries around the world are working to develop these skills in dogs. To train them, sweat from people with Covid is collected and put on cottonballs. After they've learned to identify the scent, they then have to choose the cottonball with the sweat on it from lots of untreated cottonballs.

Decoding cryptograms is a great way to sharpen your English. A cryptogram with a simple substitution code is fairly easy to decipher, but it forces you to think carefully about spelling and vocabulary. As your English improves, you can move on to harder codes, like ones that don't put spaces in between the words so you have to figure out yourself where one word ends and the next begins.

This simple code uses the English alphabet. Letters are swapped for letters:

Decode this sentence:  "B l f   x z m   g l g z o o b   w l   g s r h !"

Did you get it right? The answer is in the last discussion question.

Were you aware that you practiced English spelling, vocabulary, and colloquial expressions by decoding that saying?

Since smartphones first connected us to the Internet, the time we spend on our phones has been increasing. 

2020 showed us that our whole life can be on the Internet. It is no longer a tool to work. It is something that gives us a voice, an opportunity to build relationships and connect with people. Some people find this useful. Others are worried about developing Internet addiction—when people use the Internet so much that other areas of their lives are damaged (relationships, work, studies, etc...) The American Academy of Pediatrics even proposed the idea of Facebook Depression. It is when people compare themselves with what they see on mass media platforms, and they feel incomplete, depressed and unhappy. 

Most of us have the Internet in our pocket at all times. That means our media consumption and screen time has changed significantly over the last decade.

Please have a look at the graph below about American media consumption.