Listening Comprehension: My Escape From North Korea

Instructions: Listen to the TED talk and answer the questions that follow.

Link: https://www.ted.com/talks/hyeonseo_lee_my_escape_from_north_korea?language=en#t-31973

Questions

1. What did the speaker learn in school in North Korea?
2. What did the speaker see when she was seven years old?
3. What did the speaker find shocking in the letter that her mother brought home?
4. What terrible experience can the speaker not erase from memory?
5. What was the impact of the famine in North Korea in the mid- 1990s?
6. How did many North Koreans cross into China?
7. What happened to many of these Koreans as they crossed?
8. After the speaker escaped to China, how long did it take her to see her family again?
9. How did the speaker manage to satisfy her Chinese interrogators?
10. What is life like for illegal North Korean immigrants in China?

Listening Comprehension Advanced: How Schools Kill Creativity

Instructions: Listen to the TED talk and answer the questions that follow.

Link: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en

Questions

1. When will children starting school “this year” be retiring?
2. According to the speaker, what is unpredictable?
3. The speaker mentions a child named Serena. How does she relate to the topic of his talk?
4. According to the speaker, how should we treat creativity?
5. What advantage is there of not being frightened of being wrong?
6. What did Picasso say about children?
7. According to the speaker, how do we lose our creativity?
8. What, according to the speaker, is common to all education systems on Earth?
9. What does it mean to “educate children from the waist up”?
10. According to the speaker, what is the purpose of university education?

Listening Comprehension Advanced: One More Reason To Get A Good Night's Sleep

Instructions: Listen to the talk about sleep and answer the following questions.

Video link: http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_iliff_one_more_reason_to_get_a_good_night_s_sleep/citations#t-656964

1. How much of our life is spent sleeping?


2. Who was Galen and what did he propose?


3. What happens to the mind if we don’t sleep?


4. According to the speaker, the brain is “an elegant design solution to” what?


5. What is “especially critical” in the brain?


6. What solves the nutrient delivery problem?


7. Which solution is unique to the brain?


8. What surprising difference is there between the awake brain and the sleeping brain?


9. What is the connection between sleep and Alzheimer’s Disease?


10. What analogy does the speaker make between our houses and our brains?

Listening Comprehension Advanced: The Dark Side of Happiness

Instructions: Listen to the talk on the dark side of happiness and answer the following questions.

Video Link: http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxCambridge-June-Gruber-on-th

1. According to the speaker, what is going on in the pop culture media?


2. Why does the writer mention the pharmaceutical industry? How does this relate to the topic of her talk?


3. According to psychologists, why might positive emotions and happiness be good for us?


4. What three themes does the speaker focus on in discussing the dark side of happiness?
 
5. What are some negative consequences of extreme degrees of happiness?


6. What two examples does the speaker give to support the idea that there may be a wrong time for happiness?

7. According to the speaker, what is ingrained in Americans?


8. According to the speaker, should we always be pursuing happiness? Why or Why not?


9. What did John Stuart Mill say about happiness?

10. In accordance with many Buddhist traditions, what does the speaker advise us to accept?

Transition Devices- Intermediate

Instructions: Use the following transition devices to connect the pairs of sentences below. Remember to add commas where necessary.

For example                                               In other words
After that/Then                                           In fact
Therefore                                                   In addition
However                                                    Otherwise
On the other hand                                      Consequently

1. The students took the final exam. _______________ they went to the movies.
2. Your GPA is lower than 1.0. _______________ you will have to repeat the level next session.
3. My mother does not like fish. ___________ she does not like any kind of fish.
4. Study hard. ______________ you will fail.
5. When you cook chicken, you can use different types of seasoning. _____________ you can use salt and pepper.
6. John likes broccoli. _______________ his sister does not.
7. Teacher, I can't do my homework. I don't have a textbook. ______________ I don't have a pen. :(
8. I don't have enough money for a vacation. ______________ I can't take a vacation this year.
9. We have no money in our bank account. _______________ we are broke.
10. It is going to rain this weekend, so we won't be able to do anything outside. We could go to the movies.
__________________ we could just stay home and watch TV.

Transition Expressions and Conjunctions Exercise 1

Instructions: Complete the sentences below to demonstrate your understanding of transition expressions and conjunctions in bold letters. Add punctuation if necessary.

1. Susan's roommate makes a lot of noise when she gets back to the dorm late at night so _______________________________.

2. Mr. Jackson made a serious mistake at work that cost the company millions of dollars. Therefore ______________________________.

3. Rachel has been taking the medicine that the doctor prescribed but ______________________________.

4. The government has taken steps to improve airport security. However ______________________________.

5. Because _____________________________ Janet will divorce Peter and try to get custody of the two children.

6.   Our company fired the last advertising agency for ___________________________________.

7. There are two reasons that we will not go back to that restaurant. The food was not delicious and ________________________________.

8. One of the problems with this government sponsored program is that it is underfunded. In addition
_________________________________.

9. The secretary has called the maintenance people several times to complain about the problem with the air conditioning yet __________________________________.

10. Even though the United States and several other countries have imposed severe sanctions on the dictatorship _________________________________.

The Passive Perfect Modals Exercise 1

Instructions: Fill in the blanks with passive perfect modals using should/must/might.

1. The computer in my office still has not been fixed. It (fix) __________________________ yesterday.

2. Honey, the room is clean. The room (clean) ___________________________ by hotel staff while we were out sightseeing.

3. You haven't done your homework yet? It (do) _________________________ last night.

4. Janet: The pool party was supposed to have started half an hour, but there is no one here. What's going on?

   Sylvia: I don't know. The pool party (postpone)____________________. Let's call Peter. Maybe he knows.

5. Three of the soldiers have not reported in for duty. No one knows what happened to them. The soldiers (capture) _________________________ by the enemy.

6. Maurice has not received the box of novels from Amazon yet. It (deliver) ____________________ three days ago.

7. When we got to the classroom this morning, both of the windows were broken. It is not clear what happened. The windows (break) _____________________ by vandals.

8. After the nurse gave the patient medicine, he got very sick. The patient (give) ______________________________ the wrong medication or the wrong dose of the medication.

9. The neighbors heard Mr. and Mrs. James quarreling last night. This morning Mr. James' body was found in the living room with five gun shot wounds to the head and Mrs. James has disappeared. Mr. James (shoot) __________________________ by his wife, but that is just one possibility. The police investigation is ongoing.

10. Jackie got a bouquet of roses, but there was no name on the card. She does not have a boyfriend or a husband. The roses (send) _________________________ by a secret admirer.