Australia is an island, and a big one. This means that it has lots of coastline. This also means it has lots of great beaches (See Cultural Insight 2), but there is also some great eroded cliff faces, and rocky headlands and peninsulas. Melbourne, my hometown, is not so well known for beaches [the water can be freezing cold], but it has by far prettier coastlines. My brother recently toured the ‘Bass coastline’ of Victoria, and sent me some pictures. Here are three of them.
When one looks at this photo on the left, one wonders, who built this place? What did it look like? Who lived there? When? How? And what happened to them?
As I said in Cultural Insight 2 (The Beaches), Sydney/NSW has the better beaches, but Melbourne/Victoria has a far more interesting coastline.
Australia is certainly a big country, and has lots of fertile land. This means that it is an agricultural country. Agriculture – that is, growing crops or raising animals – has, historically, always been one of the major industries. Last year I drove from Brisbane to Melbourne – a huge distance – and I was struck by just how much farmland there was. It seemed endless. Cows, sheep, horses, and crops (pineapples, sugar cane, vegetables, cotton, and others). Much of this is exported. Here in Taiwan, you probably eat Australian cheese, Australian beef, and wear Australian wool.
Is this good or bad? Hmmmm. Australia is generally much more expensive than Taiwan, but the milk, meat, and chicken is by far cheaper. Milk is only $25 NT/litre. You can drink it like water. Whole roast chickens are only $200 NT. And it all tastes great. However, some complain at how expensive the electronic goods are, and how primitive the technology is (compared to Taiwan). And it can be seen as too rural, as well. To me, it is peaceful and beautiful. To others, dusty and boring.
There’s good and bad in everything. I have included a photo of a beautiful (or dusty and boring) farm sent to me by my brother. It looks picture perfect, right, but would you really want to live there?
Australia is famous for … handsome English teachers? Er, actually, no.
But we are famous for our beaches. The better beaches are on the east coast, in the tropical region, and the weather is warmer there, too. Sydney has some wonderful beaches, the most famous being Bondi (shown below).
Bondi is big, clean, and very easy to get to. Melbourne, my hometown does not have the beaches, but it has a far more picturesque and pretty coastline, and many of the later ‘Cultural Insights’ will examine these places.
Anyhow, when you visit my country, get a taste of the beach life there. But remember, wear a hat, and use some sunscreen, since the sun can be very intense indeed.
Hi all. I’m from Australia, so I can tell you something about my country. I’d like to start with … something cute and cuddly. Me?
Er, not me, actually. I’m talking about my friend alongside – the koala.
Okay, can you see them in Australia? Yes, in every animal park or zoo. Can you see them in the wild? Hmmm, yes, but they can be difficult to find. They are small, and sit very high in trees, and they sleep for most of the day. Still, in some of the more ‘wilder’ parklands, you may well see them – although those fuzzy blobs sitting high in trees are not that interesting to look at.
Indicating that you are addicted or highly dependent on something
Discussion
This phrase is useful because it can describe many more extremes of behaviour, and has a fun and upbeat feel. It all comes from the formal word, ‘alcoholic’, with the ‘-holic’ suffix now being attached to many words to show a similar dependence on various forms of goods or behaviour. Many of these now appear in dictionaries, such as workaholic, shopaholic, and chocoholic.
The suffix can be playfully twisted (with the appropriate fun intonation and facial expressions) to show even greater flexibility, giving words such as…
I’m a bit of a …
coffeeholic.
chess-aholic.
bookaholic.
sleepaholic.
surfaholic.
swimaholic.
The formal forms ‘alcoholic’, ‘workaholic’, ‘shopaholic’, and a few others, can be used in writing, but all the rest (immediately above) are too playful to be in IELTS Writing.
Example Sentences
In IELTS Speaking
“Sometimes I think I’m a coffeeholic, the way I drink the stuff.”
“Stereotypically, of course, women are assumed to be shopaholics.”
Hi everyone. Guess what? My latest IELTS book has just come out: IELTS Listening (see the above picture). It was really difficult to write, actually, because it required lots of recordings (unlike the other books).
Anyhow, with this book, I complete ALL the IELTS/English skills. Here’s a picture of all these IELTS books.
That’s SEVEN books in all – which is a huge intellectual effort. If you carefully read through all of these books, doing every exercise, then ….. well, your IELTS score would be amazing! However, it is obviously better to have me as the teacher, helping through these difficult skills. And on that subject ….
– the IELTS Writing/Listening Course starts Monday July 26 (MWF night).
Contact me for details. Go to www.aisielts.com and click on ‘Contact/Registration’ Or just click here. Or you could line me directly, on
teacherandrewais
Hope to see you in my class, but it’s online (using Zoom) for now. To tell the truth, I’m getting used to Zoom now, and the online classes have some advantages (such as you not needing to travel anywhere). Why don’t you register for a FREE observation, and see for yourself.
The previous reading examined how deep, dangerous, and difficult it is to get to the bottom of the world’s oceans. Let’s keep thinking about this, but more specifically about the creatures which live down there.
For a start, let’s consider humanity’s relationship to the bottoms of the oceans. This area is so distant from human existence that for decades many countries dumped nuclear waste there. America, Russia, China, Japan, and New Zealand, and nearly all the nations of Europe freely threw drums of this stuff into the water, to sink out of sight, out of mind. After almost 50 years, this practice was banned in the 1990s, yet hundreds of thousands of barrels filled with radioactive gunk still lie at the bottom of the ocean, and we can only hope the long-term effects will be small.
The fact the human beings actually performed such horrible acts shows just how psychologically disconnected we are from the ocean depths. Even its biggest inhabitants, such as the blue whale (the biggest creature ever to have lived – look at the above picture!!!!!), which comes regularly to the surface to breathe, still has many mysteries, and is very difficult to film. As for creatures which never comes to the surface, such as the giant squid, they are still largely unknown – in fact, scientists now agree that there are still many millions of animals living in the deep sea which we haven’t discovered.
We are, actually, still largely ignorant about the ways eco-systems work in the ocean. A good example of this ignorance is in the Southern Ocean – that is, the ocean around Antarctica. Being so cold, rough, and lacking in sunlight, by any reasonable understanding, this area could not support much life, but it most certainly does. There are about 15 million crab-eating seals, four million Adelie penguins, two million Weddel seals, and half a million emperor penguins all living happily enough in an area where we, human beings, would struggle to survive. Such a top-heavy food chain would simply seem impossible to exist, but it is there, and somehow it all works. It is an interesting fact that scientists still don’t really know why.
Question Time
When was the dumping of radioactive waste banned? ……………………..……………
What is the biggest living animal? …….……………..………
Why should the Southern Ocean be unable to support much life? ……………………….……….…….
Which creature there is the most numerous? ………………………………
Word-Learning Time
Do you know the meaning of the underlined words?
A drum
A barrel
Gunk
Psychological
An inhabitant
A food chain
By the way, you can find out more about me at www.aisielts.com .
Did you read the previous post? Did you realise what material I was referring to? Yes, it is water! In fact, water is SO important, I thought I would finish this set of readings by looking at water in depth. [There’s a joke there; do you get it? ‘In depth’? Water? Get it?]
So, let’s continue thinking about water.
All the water on the earth is in a closed system, which means that the total amount cannot increase or decrease – and this water exists in …
– the oceans and seas, as salt water,
– lakes, rivers, dams and reservoirs, as fresh water,
– ice sheets, mostly in Antarctica, as ice,
– clouds, or as water vapour in the sky.
The overwhelming bulk (97%) of the earth’s water lies in its oceans – hence the above picture. There are three major oceans: the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Indian. The Pacific is by far the biggest and the deepest, and consequently holds over half of all the water on the earth.
We know about the surface of the ocean, where the friction of the wind over large areas causes constant motion in the form of waves which we can all see (again, the above picture), but it is interesting to note that we, human beings, still know very little about the deepest parts of the ocean. These parts are called the ‘abyssal plains’, and cover more than half of the planet’s surface, and are still very mysterious places. The reason for this is that it’s dark and extremely difficult to get down there.
The biggest problem being in the depths of the ocean is the pressure of the water. ‘Submersibles’ [the general name for craft that go down to the bottoms of the oceans] are hollow, and if there are people inside, need a supply of oxygen. They also need to be controlled carefully and need scientific instruments, which presents great technical challenges.
The deeper the submersible goes, the greater the weight of water which rests on top of it. If you go down to the deepest part – the Mariana Trench, near the island of Guam in the Pacific – the pressure of that water is enormous, about eight tons per square inch (which is over 1000 times greater than at the surface). This is similar to having 100 large elephants standing on your head, and just one reason why this spot has only been visited by people four times.
Question Time
Can you explain the double meaning of ‘in depth’ in the first paragraph? ……………………..……………
Where, specifically, is most of earth’s water? …….……………..………
What is the greatest challenge about travelling to the bottom of the ocean? ……………………….……….…….
What is the name of the deepest part? ………………………………
Word-Learning Time
Do you know the meaning of the underlined words?
A dam
A reservoir
Vapour
To be mysterious
To be enormous
By the way, you can find out more about me at www.aisielts.com .
Let’s think about dihydrogen oxide. This material can often kill you, or hurt you badly (depending on what people have done to it previously), but it is absolutely necessary to keep the human body going. This material can combine with other material to make something very nasty which, if thrown into your face, will burn you horribly. If you have enough of this material together in one place, and make it move a lot, it can cause huge problems, destroying buildings and killing thousands of people. It does this everywhere, all over the world, every year.
This material has no taste, yet people love the taste. It has no form – that is, it is formless – yet people love watching it and the way it acts. This material is so ordinary, yet people travel thousands of miles (and spend thousands of dollars) just to be beside it. Every year, tens of thousands of people die in it, yet millions of people are always eager to be immersed in it.
This material comes in three main states, but we mostly want it and like it and absolutely depend on it in just one of those states. Without this material, the human body quickly breaks down and goes into crisis. Take this material completely away and within a few days, people’s lips will crack and shrink and all but disappear. The nose will do the same, the body will weaken, and a painful death soon follows.
Yet, despite the body’s desperate need for this material, the overwhelming majority of it on earth is deadly poisonous, and if it is put into the human body, seizures, unconsciousness, brain damage, and death will quickly follow.
So, what material am I referring to? The next post will confirm your guess.
Question Time
What is the chemical name for this material? ……………………..……………
How far will people travel to be beside this material? …….……………..………
Without this material, how many days can we live? ……………………….……….…….
What proportion of this material is poisonous to people? ………………………………
Word-Learning Time
Do you know the meaning of the underlined words?
To be nasty
To immerse
A state
A crisis
A seizure
By the way, you can find out more about me at www.aisielts.com .
The above picture shows Mount Everest. This is the Earth‘s highest mountain, with its peak being 8,848 metres high. The mountain was given its name by the British, who controlled India at the time when this new mountain was discovered. Since it is the highest, many people want to climb it – yet it is a very dangerous mountain to climb.
When Everest was first discovered, and its height calculated, British climbers were the first to get there. In 1921 they hiked to the mountain to take photographs. The next year, in 1922, they tried to climb it, reaching above 8000 metres for the first time ever – although seven helpers were killed by an avalanche.
This same British team returned in 1924 for another try. After failing a few times, two climbers, named Mallory and Irvine, made a final try. They started from a camp high on the mountain, heading for the top, but were never seen alive again. No one is quite sure whether they reached the top or not. 75 years later, in 1999, some climbers found the body of Mallory, but they did not find Mallory’s camera and could not prove whether he got to the top or not.
For many years after Mallory and Irvine, it seems that Everest was simply too high for human beings to climb. Yet technology got better, and in 1953, two climbers – Hillary and Tensing – with more advanced oxygen equipment and warmer clothing, finally reached the top. Now, in this modern age, many people can climb Mount Everest with the help of climbing companies, which offer support climbers, all the food and equipment, and who put in special ropes along the climbing path to make it safer. This has made climbing Everest very popular – but people still die, regularly, on this dangerous mountain.
Question Time
Which people were the first to try to climb Everest? ……………………..……………
How many people died when people first tried to climb it? …….……………..………
Do we know if Mallory got to the top of Everest? ……………………….……….…….
When did the first person get to the top? ……………………………….……………….
What has made climbing Everest popular these days? ………………………………
Word-Learning Time
Do you know the meaning of the underlined words?
To discover
To calculate
To hike
An avalanche
A camp
To prove
Technology
Equipment
By the way, you can find out more about me at www.aisielts.com .
A mountain range is a place where there are many mountains, usually in a rough line. But they are certainly not regularly arranged but usually mixed and broken, with a variety of rock types.
But why do we even have mountains? The answer is that they are a result of the movement of the pieces of the earth’s outer layer. These pieces move slowly, hitting each other, pushing some parts up, other parts down, and sometimes creating volcanoes. These volcanoes can grow higher, forming their own mountains. This has happened a lot around the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’.
The longest mountain range in the world is the Andes in South America, at 7,000 kilometres, but it is the Himalayas in Central Asia which contain the highest mountains, including Mount Everest, highest of them all. [See the above picture].
Although high mountains look wonderful in photographs, they are not particularly nice places. The weather on mountains becomes colder as you go higher. The air gets thinner, and there is less greenhouse effect holding in the heat. For this reason, the highest mountains have snow, sometimes all the time, and many important rivers in the world begin from the melting snows in higher mountain ranges.
With such cold weather, and the unpredictable weather, people usually avoid living on mountains. Another reason is that the ground is not flat, which makes it difficult to grow food or raise animals. However, in recent times, tourism has become important to many villages in the higher mountains.
For the really high mountains, the activity of mountain climbing helps generate income for the local people who live there. Climbers feel that getting to the top of a really high mountain is a very special achievement, despite the dangers of extreme weather, low oxygen levels, and falling from the steep mountain slope.
Personally, I don’t intend to ever go that high, but I agree that these mountains certainly look beautiful, from a safe distance, right.
Question Time
How are mountains formed? …………………………………………………….…….……
What is the world’s longest mountain range? ………………….………………………….
Why does it get colder as you go higher? …………………………………..…….……….
Why don’t people like living on mountains? ……………………………………………….
Why is raising animals difficult on mountains? ……………………………………………
Word-Learning Time
Do you know the meaning of the underlined words?
Regular
Volcano
Greenhouse
To melt
To be unpredictable
Extreme
To be steep
A slope
By the way, you can find out more about me at www.aisielts.com .
Yes, this coming Monday night, I will begin a special discounted (= cheap) online IELTS Writing Class. All you need is a computer, my writing books, and Zoom ..etc.. and you can join. To repeat, this will be a special discounted course.
Contact me for details. Just go to my website: www.aisielts.com .
Hope to see you on my computer screen this coming Monday night, right!
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to do something by itself. They have one main part to receive the orders and information, and another part to remember and store the information. Well, this sounds simple, but, of course, it isn’t.
The first computers did not use electricity. They just used mechanical parts which connected together to do mathematics – for example, to allow ships to work out where they were, and to predict the movement of the planets.
An Englishman, Charles Babbage, is now considered the ‘father of the computer’. He made the first programmable computer in 1833. Information was given to the machine using special cards with holes in them. For the output, the machine would have a printer and a bell. The trouble was, the machine was about a 100 years ahead of its time. All the thousands of parts had to be made by hand – and the machine could not be constructed in Babbage’s lifetime.
In the 1940s, electronics were used for these machines, and suddenly these those calculations could become faster and better. However, the first electronics were not primitive by today’s standards, so the first electronic computers were the size of large rooms. Now, in this modern age, computers used integrated chips, or ICs, and this makes them billions of times faster and stronger than the early mechanical machines. This allows computers to become smaller and more convenient, and with the development of better batteries, now everyone has a ‘personal computer’ – often in the form of a laptop which they can carry around. Computers are now part of the information age. Charles Babbage would certainly have been happy to know about this.
Question Time
What did the first computers use? …………………………………………………………
Who made the first computer? ……………………..……………………………………….
What invention allows computers to become faster? …………………………………….
What invention has made them even faster today? …………..………………………….
What final invention has allowed us to carry computers around? ………………………
Word-Learning Time
Do you know the meaning of the underlined words?
Mechanical
To predict
To program
To construct
Calculations
To be primitive
Convenient
Batteries
By the way, you can find out more about me at www.aisielts.com .
In this pixnet blog, I don’t normally show my thoughts written in Chinese, but this article, which has been been printed in an online magazine, was translated for me. I had a friend check the translation, and there are indeed some unclear parts, but I hope the main meaning gets through.
Electronics is all about controlling electrical energy. Scientists and inventors have made many kinds of small objects – called components – which control this energy in different ways.
So, what are these components? They are single objects with two or more wires coming out from them. These wires all connect with other wires, and so all the parts fit together to make an electronic ‘circuit’. Yes, it can be very complicated, but these circuits can do amazing things.
Putting together all these little components takes time. Another problem is that each component produces heat, and because everything is so close together, the circuits can become very hot, which is why, for example, larger computers have fans.
But by the middle of last century, scientists began to realize that they could make another small object do the same thing as electronic circuits, all inside a single piece of this material. The material is called silicon, and the object was called a ‘chip’. The first chips could only replace a small number of electronic components – but it was still an amazing invention, since it allowed the circuits to become smaller. Many scientists became interested, and the chips become better and better, and smaller and smaller. Today, millions of electronic components can be inside just one single chip – now called an ‘integrated chip’ or IC. {See the picture above.]
ICs are very small, last a long time, can be produced quickly, and easily connected together. Even better, they cost less, and use less power. Thus, they have replaced the traditional electronic circuits almost completely, being in almost all electronic equipment today – indeed, they have completed changed the world we live in. Computers, mobile phones, and other home machines are now part of modern society, and all because of integrated circuits.
Question Time
What is the name for the small electronic parts? ………………..…………..……………
When they are all connected together, what are they called? ……………….….….…..
What is one problem with these things (put together)? ………………………….……….
What was the biggest advantage of the first ‘chips’? ……………………….………..….
What other advantages do they have? ……………………………………………………
Word-Learning Time
Do you know the meaning of the underlined words?
Electrical
A component
A wire
A circuit
A fans
To be integrated
By the way, you can find out more about me at www.aisielts.com .
These terms refer to people absorbed in technology or books to the extent that
they are socially awkward in the way they speak and act.
Discussion
These terms are useful because technology is becoming such a part of our lives that many people are becoming (overly) absorbed by it. In actual fact, the terms were once very negative, but are becoming increasingly less so, and even positive, as ‘computer nerds’ such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and many others, achieved incredible fortunes with their ‘obsession’ with computers.
Example Sentences
In IELTS Speaking
“Oh, I’m not really technologically conversant. I don’t even know what my computer is called in geek-speak. Apple-Mac, or something like that.”
“It’s really weird, sometimes, when you think of all those computer nerds who are now multi-billionaires! I guess they get the last laugh, right?”
In IELTS Writing
Technology now rules the world, and those adept in utilising it, far from being seen as ‘geeks’, are now considered visionary pioneers by the younger generation – and indeed, their ideas are changing the way people live.
