PTE Summarize Spoken Text Predictions – 6–12 July 2026 Weekly Study File
Smriti Simkhada
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Updated July 2026 · Reviewed by Smriti Simkhada (90/90)
PTE Academic Weekly Predictions · 6–12 July 2026
Listening → Summarize Spoken Text
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Defining Need
Let's start with a simple fact. In the English language, not in the American language, the term 'need' has different meanings. Its interpretation depends entirely on the context.Often, we use 'need' to express a strong personal desire. When you say, 'I need a vacation', it is an expression of a strong desire but not a basic need. Here, 'need' is subjective and emotional. However, it also can be an objective statement. This is its more factual application. For example, when a designer wants to design a planet, the planet needs sunlight, water, organism systems, and so on. All the things mentioned above are essential to a planet. In this context, 'need' describes an absolute, non-negotiable requirement for survival or function. Meanwhile, This term is a multifunctional word which is very important and has benefits when used in the social environment. When someone lacks something as a psychological desire, 'need' is a psychological term as humans are involved in nature. Our psychological needs, like belonging or esteem, are powerful drivers of behavior. Ultimately, people's needs advance revolutions of social structures.
Science and Human Values
Science and human values are deeply interconnected, as scientific progress alone does not determine its impact on society. While science generates knowledge and technological advancements, it is human values that shape how these discoveries are applied. For example, breakthroughs in medicine, artificial intelligence, and genetic research can lead to significant benefits, but also raise ethical concerns regarding privacy, equity, and potential misuse. This highlights the need for a moral compass to guide scientific innovation. Facts and data can inform decisions, but compassion, responsibility, and justice must influence the direction those decisions take. Education plays a critical role in fostering this balance by encouraging both scientific understanding and ethical reasoning. In solving global issues like climate change or pandemics, a blend of scientific insight and human values ensures that progress is both effective and humane. Without such integration, scientific developments risk being driven solely by profit or power, rather than the well-being of individuals and communities.
Threatening with losses
Research in behavioral psychology highlights that people are often more motivated by the fear of losing something than by the possibility of gaining a reward. This idea, known as loss aversion, suggests that the emotional impact of a potential loss is stronger than the satisfaction of a potential gain. For instance, individuals are more likely to take action when told they could lose money, health, or opportunities, rather than when encouraged with possible benefits. This principle is widely applied in areas such as marketing, health campaigns, and education. Statements like "you could lose your progress" tend to drive better results than "you could improve your outcome." The underlying reason is that humans are naturally more sensitive to threats than to rewards, which affects how decisions are made. Framing information in terms of what might be lost, rather than what could be gained, can therefore be a more effective strategy in influencing behavior and encouraging change.
Shifting Economic Priorities
America's economy has long been centered around the automobile industry, but experts argue that diversifying economic priorities is essential for long-term sustainability. Dependence on cars has contributed to issues such as urban sprawl, environmental damage, and over-reliance on fossil fuels. T o address these challenges, the country needs to invest in alternative industries, including public transportation, renewable energy, and green technology. Developing robust public transit systems can reduce the reliance on private cars while creating jobs in infrastructure development and maintenance. Encouraging the adoption of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, can not only reduce emissions but also stimulate economic growth in emerging sectors. Additionally, promoting sustainable urban planning can lead to denser, more walkable cities, reducing the need for excessive car use. Shifting away from an automobile-centric economy requires strategic investments and policy changes, but it holds the promise of a cleaner environment and a more resilient and diversified economic foundation.
Railway Cards
Railway cards are a convenient option for frequent travelers, offering flexibility and cost savings. These cards often provide benefits such as discounted fares, priority booking, or access to special seating areas, making them particularly useful for commuters and long-distance travelers. Many railway systems offer different types of cards tailored to specific needs, such as student passes, senior citizen discounts, or family travel cards. One of the key advantages of railway cards is their ability to simplify travel planning. By preloading funds or purchasing subscription-based cards, passengers can reduce the need for individual ticket purchases, saving both time and effort. Additionally, railway cards often come with loyalty programs that reward consistent usage, adding more value for travelers. Despite their advantages, it is important for users to read the terms and conditions carefully to understand eligibility and usage limitations. Railway cards have become an ezcient solution for making train travel more affordable and accessible across various demographics.
Recruitment Types
Recruitment is a critical process for organizations to identify and hire the best candidates for specific roles. There are two primary types of recruitment: internal and external. Internal recruitment involves selecting candidates from within the organization. This approach is cost-effective, encourages employee loyalty, and allows companies to leverage existing talent. Common methods include promotions, transfers, or employee referrals. In contrast, external recruitment focuses on attracting candidates from outside the organization. It expands the talent pool and brings fresh perspectives and skills to the team. Methods of external recruitment include job advertisements, recruitment agencies, campus hiring, and online job portals. However, this approach can be more time-consuming and expensive compared to internal recruitment. Both recruitment types have their advantages and limitations, and organizations often use a combination of the two to meet their specific needs. The ultimate goal is to ensure a fair, ezcient, and effective process that aligns with the company's long-term objectives.
Computers
Computers have become an integral part of modern life, revolutionizing the way people work, communicate, and access information. They are powerful tools used in almost every field, from education and healthcare to business and entertainment. By automating repetitive tasks and processing large amounts of data ezciently, computers save time and improve productivity. For instance, businesses rely on computers for tasks like data analysis, financial management, and communication through emails and video conferencing. In education, computers enhance learning by providing access to vast online resources, interactive tools, and virtual classrooms. However, their widespread use also brings challenges, such as dependency, cybersecurity risks, and the digital divide, which limits access for some communities. Despite these challenges, continuous advancements in computer technology, such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, promise to bring even greater benefits in the future. Overall, computers are indispensable, shaping modern society and driving innovation in countless ways.
New Employee Orientation
New Employee Orientation is a critical process that helps newcomers integrate into their workplace smoothly and effectively. The primary purpose of this session is to familiarize employees with the organization's mission, values, and work culture, ensuring they align with company goals. During orientation, participants are introduced to key policies and procedures, such as attendance, workplace safety, and performance expectations, which provide clarity about their responsibilities. Another essential aspect of the session is acquainting employees with available resources, such as IT support, training programs, and wellness initiatives, to enhance their productivity and well-being. Additionally, orientation often includes introductions to team members and managers, encouraging collaboration and fostering a sense of belonging. Interactive activities, like team-building exercises or Q&A sessions, are commonly incorporated to make the experience engaging and memorable. Overall, New Employee Orientation plays a vital role in setting the foundation for a successful journey within the organization by equipping employees with essential tools and knowledge.
Overrated value of travel
Travel is often perceived as an essential way to broaden perspectives, experience new cultures, and enhance personal growth. While these benefits are undeniable, the value of travel may sometimes be overrated. Many people believe that traveling far and wide is the only way to learn about the world, but this overlooks the rich experiences available within one's own local community or country. T echnology, such as virtual tours and online resources, now provides access to global cultures without the need for physical travel. Additionally, modern tourism often has environmental and cultural downsides, including increased pollution and the exploitation of local traditions for commercial purposes. It's also worth noting that the transformative effects of travel are not guaranteed;true growth comes from how individuals reflect on and process their experiences, whether abroad or at home. Ultimately, while travel can be enriching, its value should not be exaggerated at the expense of other meaningful ways to learn and grow.
Information Technology
Information T echnology, often referred to as IT , has become an essential part of modern life, revolutionizing the way individuals and organizations operate. IT encompasses a broad range of activities, including data storage, processing, and communication. Over the years, advancements in IT have greatly influenced industries such as healthcare, education, and business. For instance, electronic health records have improved patient care, while online learning platforms have made education accessible to millions worldwide. Additionally, IT has facilitated globalization, enabling businesses to communicate and collaborate across continents. However, these benefits come with challenges, such as cybersecurity risks and the ethical concerns surrounding data privacy. It is crucial for governments and organizations to implement effective policies to address these issues and ensure the responsible use of technology. Ultimately, IT continues to shape the way we live, offering endless opportunities for innovation while demanding constant vigilance to manage its risks and complexities.
Credit Card
About a study by a banker on using credit cards, examining how messages influence decisions. A bank issued credit cards to consumers, but many of them did not use the cards. Then the bank asked the inactive consumers why, and found they feared possible loss. There are two groups of inactive credit card users. One group received messages saying they would be offered benefits if they continued to use the credit cards. The other group received messages saying they would incur a penalty if they didn't use the credit cards anymore. The potential loss of not using the cards is mentioned a few times. The conclusion is that customers are more motivated by a threat to lose something than by potential gains or persuasive messages. This phenomenon highlights that the fear of loss is a more effective motivator than the promise of being beneficial or receiving cash rewards.
Interdisciplinary Organization Studies
Organization studies seem to draw on the whole family of social sciences, clearly psychology, clearly sociology, but also economics, anthropology, politics, as we said, philosophy to a degree, history, sometimes literary studies, cultural studies, so on and so forth. I think that's absolutely right. And for me, that's absolutely the pleasure and even on good days, the joy of doing organizations studies, because it enables you not just enables, but requires you in some sense, to have some kind of broad familiarization of that sort. Now, there's a price to be paid for that because that kind of breadth, if you like, does come, I suppose as the cost of depth. And I guess there would be people who are clearly within academic disciplines or sociology or economics or whatever, who might say, well, these are sort of Magpie-sh, amateurish kind of forays into our territory. You know,I wouldn't necessarily disown that idea. But I think that what studying organizations teaches us and teaches me is actually the artificiality of those academic subdivisions. And as soon as we start to actually think about something like the organized world, then immediately, the kinds of things that come into focus are things have traditionally been studied by different demands. And so, I think it's a liberating idea, the idea that we don't need to be bound by those strictures and structures of disciplinary division, and that we can be free actually to imagine and think about the social world through an agglomeration of techniques and ideas and theories and concepts from across the social sciences. Organization studies utilize a broad range of social sciences, including psychology, sociology, economics, and anthropology, fostering a deep understanding of complex societal dynamics. This interdisciplinary approach highlights the artificiality of academic divisions, encouraging a comprehensive view of the organized world. Despite critiques of superficiality, the freedom to integrate diverse theories and concepts enriches the study of organizations.
Crafting an Engaging Essay
An essay is a chance to identify your read and learned. As a writer, you first need to collect many materials, then write an essay in four or five paragraphs, structures and quotes. If someone is searching for a book or article to read, he or she will decide from the very beginning whether this work is worth attention. If you want to wow your teacher, polish the introduction, especially the first couple of sentences. Add an essay hook–something interesting, funny, shocking, or intriguing to win the reader's attention. Build an emotional connection with your reader right from the start. A hook in the essay is a catchy sentence or paragraph in the impressive introduction which serves as an attention element and an important part. An excellent hook sentence is engaging and interesting, it is a perfect method to start an argumentative or persuasive essay. The hook for your essay often appears in the first sentence. The opening paragraph includes a thesis sentence. Some popular hook choices can include using an interesting quote, a little-known fact, famous last words, or a statistic. An essay allows writers to showcase their understanding, requiring a structured format of four to five paragraphs. Captivating introductions, particularly the hook, are crucial for engaging the reader. Effective hooks, like interesting quotes or surprising facts, should appear in the opening paragraph alongside the thesis statement. These elements help create an emotional connection with the audience.
Synthetic Biology Innovation
My lab works on the applications of synthetic biology, so we're very interested in doing useful things with biological systems. Up to now, life has evolved, and now we actually have the ability and the power to engineer it, to design it. And so I'm curious about what the natural world is going to look like in the future. So synthetic biology is sort of the next level of genetic engineering. So about 40 years ago, we being scientists and engineers, developed techniques to basically move pieces of DNA from one organism to another. And this was sort of done by physically cutting and pasting. Now we're moving beyond that where we can write DNA so we're no longer limited to the pieces. We can cut from one and put in another. We can chemically synthesize this DNA on a machine and put that into an organism. And now we can even create new organisms completely from scratch. So if you imagine a cell that's programed to make a useful compound, say, material or drug, then what you have is basically a micro-scale manufacturing unit. It's basically a cellular factory. And the cool thing about cellular factory is that when you want more factories, you love that cell grow and divide. So in in the lab, if we have one bacteria, we put it in a flask. The next day we come in. We have millions, if not billions of bacteria. The lab focuses on synthetic biology, advancing from traditional genetic engineering to designing and creating new organisms. With the ability to chemically synthesize DNA, researchers can program cells to function as micro-scale manufacturing units for useful compounds, like drugs or materials. This innovative approach allows rapid scaling, as engineered cells rapidly multiply.
Roman Urban Planning
But you can see from the relatively crooked and narrow streets of the city of Rome as they look from above today. You can see that the city grew in a fairly ad hoc way, as I mentioned. It wasn't planned all at once. It just grew over time, beginning in the eighth century B.C.. Now this is interesting because what we know about the Romans is that when they were left to their own devices, and they could build the city from scratch, they didn't let it grow in an ad hoc way. They structure it in a, in a very careful, very methodical way. It was basically based on military strategy, military planning. The Romans, they couldn't have conquered the world without obviously having a masterful military enterprise and everywhere they went on their various campaigns, their various military campaigns. They would build, build camps and those camps were always laid out in a very geometric plan along a grid, usually square or rectangular. So, when we begin to see the Romans building their ideal Roman city, then we turn to that so-called castrum or military camp design. Rome's streets reflect an organic growth pattern, evolving since the eighth century B.C., rather than through meticulous planning. In contrast, Roman military camps were designed geometrically, emphasizing strategic organization. When establishing cities, the Romans implemented this structured approach of military layouts, showcasing their methodical planning in contrast with the city's ad hoc development.
Building's Natural Selection
Design of buildings is important according to architectural textbooks. At its roots, architecture exists to create the physical environment in which people live, but architecture is more than just the built environment. It's also part of our culture. It stands as a representation of how we see ourselves, as well as how we see the world. There are poorly designed buildings, but also some great building works. In the Victoria area, architects designed buildings based on bricks and other materials. The design of flaws was based on lighting, as it would not only affect appearance, but also health conditions. The materials that buildings are made of also matter. For example, the design of ground floors must ensure that the building is able to withstand the weight of the higher levels. In the 20th century, many old buildings with design flaws were demolished or modified through a natural selection process, which means they are an altered state rather than an original state. This is an application of Darwin's theory of natural selection to modification of old buildings, which means buildings should adapt to the new world to survive, or be pulled down. So, it's argued to be unfair to criticize the demolition, although some people believe that whether to be remained should be decided based on their nature and functions. As the world became more and more connected, the styles evolved. But even in modern construction, there is still an importance in honoring the cultural nuances in the built environment.
Youth Communities
A research on 7,000 young students and children in the United Kingdom is about how they participate in their communities, how they form values with character education, and what influences them the most. The outcome involves parents, friends, schools, and siblings, and researchers figure out which factors are essential and more important than others. Successful schools depend on the resources and support of their communities, and schools at the center of their communities are often the most successful schools. In turn, schools are vital to the social health of their local communities. Also, families are the first social unit in which children learn and develop. Good parenting can take different forms and be shaped by various social and cultural forces, but it invariably involves providing children with the support, care, love, guidance, and protection that set the conditions for healthy physical, mental, and social development. The research has also attracted attention and interest from many national policy makers and contacted me.
Mars and Earth
We are going to look at an very interesting and important place today. It is called Mars which is not far away from the Earth. Mars is an interesting neighboring planet to Earth with a similar geological surface and landscape, such as the desert, covered with rocks. Although there has not yet been evidence for the existence of water yet, the trace of heavy gases has existed on Mars for billions of years. Traces of a great amount of water in icy form just like mountains have been found. There is not much atmosphere, but rare gases are still found. It is possibly because heavy gases do not evaporate within a low gravity. The low gravity on Mars indicates that there may be a thin layer of the atmosphere on Mars. Therefore, Mars might be the most ideal destination other than Earth.
Clean and Safe Produce
It is essential to wash fruits and vegetables thoroughly before consumption to remove dirt, pesticides, and potential contaminants. Spinach and lettuce, in particular, are often recommended to be washed multiple times due to their intricate leaves. This process helps ensure they are clean and safe to eat. Some grocery stores offer special washers designed for fruits and vegetables, providing added convenience for shoppers concerned about food safety. These washers use techniques like gentle agitation or water filtration to cleanse products effectively without damaging their delicate textures or nutrients. This extra step can reassure consumers that their fresh produce is not only visually clean but also free from harmful residues. By making washing a routine part of food preparation, consumers can significantly reduce their exposure to potentially harmful substances, promoting better health and peace of mind. T aking these precautions ensures that fruits and vegetables not only taste better but also contribute to overall well-being.
Stock Market and Business
The stock market is where investors connect to buy and sell investments - most commonly, stocks, which are shares of ownership in a public company. When you need groceries, you go to the supermarket. When you're ready to buy stocks or mutual funds, you'll usually buy them online through the stock market, which anyone can access with a brokerage account or employee retirement plan. The term 'stock market' often refers to one of the major stock market indexes. However, there are some different uses of the stock market before and after. In the 18th century, manufacturing companies came into the market. Traditional companies used stocks to raise money, and input money into companies, while modern companies used stocks to output money. From 19th to 20th century, however, modern companies, such as Apple, Google and Microsoft are big enough to earn money, and use stocks differently. The stock market also inclined to put money into big companies.
Children Directors
Social skills are vital in enabling an individual to have and maintain positive interactions with others. Many of these skills are crucial in making and sustaining friendships. Social interactions do not always run smoothly and an individual needs to be able to implement appropriate strategies, such as conflict resolution when dizculties in interactions arise. It is also important for individuals to have 'empathy' as it allows them to respond in an understanding and caring way to how others are feeling. Children are facing social dizculties with particular risks. Young people who do not have strong relationships with the adults in their family are even more at risk. In an experiment in a high school, which lasted for 8 to 12 weeks, the students were told to be a movie director and to choose their own story structure. The students worked with each other, which involved lots of different skills, and social interactivity. The movies they had made were actually cool. Then, the researchers tested the intervention effect, finding this can improve their self- regulation, and they found this can improve their self-regulation and critical thinking skills.
Clean and Safe Produce
It is essential to wash fruits and vegetables thoroughly before consumption to remove dirt, pesticides, and potential contaminants. Spinach and lettuce, in particular, are often recommended to be washed multiple times due to their intricate leaves. This process helps ensure they are clean and safe to eat. Some grocery stores offer special washers designed for fruits and vegetables, providing added convenience for shoppers concerned about food safety. These washers use techniques like gentle agitation or water filtration to cleanse products effectively without damaging their delicate textures or nutrients. This extra step can reassure consumers that their fresh produce is not only visually clean but also free from harmful residues. By making washing a routine part of food preparation, consumers can significantly reduce their exposure to potentially harmful substances, promoting better health and peace of mind. T aking these precautions ensures that fruits and vegetables not only taste better but also contribute to overall well-being.
Patients' Recovery
We have a long history to research on hospital design and patient recovery. A long time ago, people began to study therapeutic environments. For example, in 1855, Florence Nightingale recognized that color and form enhanced a patient's recovery. They found that fresh air and sunlight had positive impacts, and architecture also played as an important part. Views of the hospital's backyards can help patients rest well and sleep fast, and can also help relieve their stress and pain easily, because of the pleasant feelings caused by nature. Being Visited by friends or family members can help patients be better off sooner, as well as living alone in a single room. 90% of patients and nurses in hospitals agree that the well-designed hospital environment links to recovery rates.
Description
Today, we'll discuss about abstraction, commonly known as description. There are two methods of description. These are symbolic language and body language. The abstraction is an important part for developing a computer. This is originated from the symbolic system in the computer system. The origin of symbolic system was developed when people try to communicate with each other. The symbolic language took communication to wider people and popularity group. The other part of abstraction is the body language. People accepted body language as well. The physical movement facilitates the development of sign language, which popularly became hand words.
Genetic Impact
Since the discovery of DNA structure, people have believed that genes have an impact only on people's physical structure. However, the study of mapping of genes in 2001 found that there is a genetic responsibility to human's physical and psychological behaviors, which has changed the way we understand our behaviors. Findings from behavioral genetic research have broadly impacted modern understanding of the role of genetic and environmental influences on behavior. The research on genes has provided integrating information, and the findings can benefit biologists, psychologists and neuroscientists. Qualitative research has fostered arguments that behavioral genetics is an ungovernable field without scientific norms or consensus, which fosters controversy.
Industrial Revolution
I want today to talk about the industrial revolution from a variety of, of aspects. I put everything on the board, I put on our website, so don't worry about copying it down. And it's all pretty, pretty obvious doing the industrial revolution across this century is no easy task. But we will do it and do the reading. Let me just say that to the way people look at what used to be called the industrial revolution and I guess some people still call it that has changed dramatically through the 1950s and into the 1960s, the idea of the industrial revolution was that it was the work of some genius inventors who created mechanism machines in the used primarily in the textile industry, but also in mining that eliminated blocks to assembly line production. And then everybody was crowded into factories and the new brave world opened up. In fact, one of the most interesting books and so great classics is still in print was written by an economic historian at Harvard, who's still around called David Landis, a good book called the unbound Prometheus, which was basically that and some of the inventions that II briefly describe in your reading, the spinning Jenny, et cetera. I refer to that. And then that kind of analysis LED one to concentrate on England where the industrial revolution began and to view and to view industrialization as being a situation of, of so winners and losers are not going as fast.
Discoveries Near Antarctica
Researchers have made some interesting discoveries near Antarctica. A team of scientists from the British Antarctic Survey and University of Hamburg have published the first comprehensive inventory of sea-and-land animals, near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula in and around the South Orkney Islands. The inventory, published in the Journal of Bio-geography, concluded there are more than 1200 known marine- and- land species in the area. Scientists claim this is more species than are found in the Galapagos Islands, contradicting the long-held notion that waters around the poles have less biodiversity than those in more tropical and temperate climates. The documented species include five that are new to science. The team spent 7 weeks aboard the RRS James Clark Ross in 2006, trawling and diving in the icy waters, where they say they observed more than 800 species living on the seabed. The scientists claim the islands have little evidence of invasive species. And that the biodiversity has remained nearly unchanged in the 100 years the islands have been studied. But the temperature of the ocean around Antarctica as well as the atmospheric temperature on the Antarctic Peninsula has continued to increase, making it one of the most rapidly warming areas on the planet.
Journalism and the Internet
David Olivia Garcia is a co-host of New Mexico in Focus and is also the managing editor for the New Mexico Independent, which is an online news site. He says that the Internet has some great benefits for journalism. You know, the Internet is this new, amazing medium. Not so new, really. I mean, it's been around quite sometime now, but it's, I think, maturing as, among other things, a place for journalism, I think. In a sense, the Internet allows you to tell stories better than in a newspaper or on television, for this reason, you can do it all online, you can have the written word, you can have still photographs, you can have video. You can link and kind of connect to the other journalism that has been done on a given topic. So it's not like you're in a vacuum. The Internet has had a negative impact on these papers. However, John Fleck, who is a columnist for the Albuquerque Journal and also has his own blog, says that he doesn't think that's entirely the case, it really makes me more ezcient as a journalist in terms of information gathering, confirmation, you know, helping me get the background necessary to write a story. So it's really good for that.
Reading Strategies
Today we're going to be talking about the categorize and classify reading strategies. You can follow along in the box as I go through the bulleted points. Information that has been classified together has been put into categories. You categorize when you put a name to the things you have classified as similar' Naming how objects or information has been classified helps to identify how the parts of the group are alike. Things might be categorized according to their physical structure, called their makeup or characteristics called features. Readers use categorization to name how items in text go together. Ozcers use the names of each chapter or section to categorize information. Let's take a look at what classified means. Again, you can follow along the bulleted points when items are grouped together based on details they have in common. It is called classifying. You can classify things based on similarities, how they are like or the same. Readers think about how new words and concepts connect together to build on what they already know and new information they are learning. Authors will sometimes classify parts of the text together in chapters or sections. Paragraphs are created to classify information to.
Bee Hives
A healthy hive of honeybees functions like a perfect and fluid organism at the center of all activity is the queen and egg laying machine. The queen is actually a slave to her duties, playing up to 2500 eggs a day, as many as two million in her lifetime. The worker bees are all female and make up the bulk of the colony. In a typical hive of 30000 bees, only about 100 are males called drones with oversize eyes and bulky bodies. Drones are not equipped to gather pollen or nectar and must rely on the workers to feed them. The invaluable work bees do takes its toll in the summer. Workers only live around 30 days, literally work to death. But the hive is constantly replenished with new generations of bees ready to go to work from the moment they hatch.
Organization Studies
It's really recommend that everybody take some organization studies courses that even if you're not planning to become a nature specialist. These courses will provide leadership skills that we've got courses such as his Rosens on Leadership Development. They're going to give you the interpersonal competencies and skills to advance in your career. So I think that's org (organization) studies give people a place to go into a number of different careers, be it in the public sector of the private sector or a nonprofit. Think everyone needs to understand how organizations are structured, how they function and how people interact. And then to get to your strategic goal. It's really important to take organization studies courses. And I know it's a bit of a hard sell for a lot of students who are appearing in it. But over and over, alumni come back to me and say, you know what, the most important course I've ever took was organization studies. And I really wish I took it more because those are the skills that really help me move up in my career. So those are the competencies or political skills for understanding myself for knowing how to work with dizcult people, for knowing how to manage my boss, knowing how to structure the organization, knowing how to create sustainable competitive advantage. And those are the skills that really differentiate people who are going to have long term successful careers.
Separation of Powers
So what is the separation of powers' So as discussed in a prior video, the US Constitution establishes the framework for the United States government. That is Article one, establish the legislative branch, the US House of Representatives and the US Senate article to establish the ozce of the presidency, the executive branch of government in Article three, establish the judicial branch, the United States Supreme Court. OK, now the powers vested in these individual branches. So the legislative branch creates law. Bills turn into statutes. Right' And then they can delegate these the statutory authority to regulatory agencies to create or administrative agencies to create regulations in furtherance of those laws. All right. Now the executive branch is charged with carrying out or executing those laws that is enforcing them against the public. As part of that role, the executive branch can create administrative agencies or the administrative agencies at least report up through there, even though the authority comes from the legislative branch to create these agencies. But they report up to the executive branch and they generally have regulatory authority. So they'll take the statutes created by Congress pursuant to an enabling statute that grants and the authority to do so and create regulations to carry out or implement these statutes that Congress passes. OK, so in this way, the president carries out the laws that that Congress makes and then the judiciary checks those laws or reviews those laws for violations of constitutionality and to make certain that they are applied correctly. So Congress cannot pass a law that's unconstitutional and the executive cannot take action enforcing law that in some way violates an individual's constitutional rights or can again cannot enforce an unconstitutional statute. OK, and so and then the judiciary, again, they simply interpret the laws and add to the law through their interpretations. That is, they form the common law.
Emotional Stability
Far more than we're inclined to accept and sometimes even realize we are creatures of mood, that is our sense of our value as human beings is prone to extraordinary fluctuation at times. We know how to tolerate ourselves. The future seems benevolent. We can bear who we are in the eyes of others, and we can forgive ourselves for the desperate errors of the past. And then at other points, the mood dips and we lament most of what we've ever done. We see ourselves as natural targets for contempt. We feel undeserving, guilty, weak and headed for retribution and disaster. But it can be very hard to grasp what causes our moods to shift. A day that started with energy and hope can by lunchtime end up mired in self-hatred and tearfulness. A sure sense that we finally turned the corner and are on the way to better things can be replaced at speed by an alternative certainty that we are a cosmic error. We cannot, it appears, ever prevent our moods from being subject to change. But what is open to us all is to learn how to manage the change more effectively so that our downturn's can be ever so slightly more gentle or sadness more containable, and our inconstancy less shameful in our eyes.
Age and DNA
How old is your four-legged best friend' Common wisdom says that a dog ages seven years for every human year. But Tina Wang, a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego, wanted a more accurate assessment. Her quest started five years ago, when she rescued a dog from a shelter. "I kind of just wanted to ask how old she was 'cause I felt like they were giving me an age that was very sensible, but I wasn't sure she was actually that old. So that kind of started this whole project." Wang worked in Trey Ideker's lab, where they study changing patterns of DNA methylation in humans. Small chemical entities called methyl groups attach to stretches of DNA, which affects what sequences are active. As we age, some stretches of DNA get more methylated, and others less. The pattern is so consistent over the course of most people's lives that it can be used as an aging "clock." The same process happens in dogs - and published reports existed from other labs about methylation patterns in dogs changing over time.
Leadership
A leader can define or clarify goals by issuing a memo or an executive order, an edict or a fatwa or a tweet, by passing a law, barking a command, or presenting an interesting idea in a meeting of colleagues. Leaders can mobilize people's energies in ways that range from subtle, quiet persuasion to the coercive threat or the use of deadly force. Sometimes a charismatic leader such as Martin Luther King Jr. can define goals and mobilize energies through rhetoric and the power of example. We can think of leadership as a spectrum, in terms of both visibility and the power the leader wields. On one end of the spectrum, we have the most visible: authoritative leaders like the president of the United States or the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or a dictator such as Hitler or Gaddafi. At the opposite end of the spectrum is casual, low-key leadership found in countless situations every day around the world, leadership that can make a significant difference to the individuals whose lives are touched by it. Over the centuries, the first kind–the out-in-front, authoritative leadership–has generally been exhibited by men. Some men in positions of great authority, including Nelson Mandela, have chosen a strategy of "leading from behind", more often, however, top leaders have been quite visible in their exercise of power. Women (as well as some men) have provided casual, low-key leadership behind the scenes. But this pattern has been changing, as more women have taken up opportunities for visible, authoritative leadership.
Absolutism
With the concept of moral objectivism, what we're looking at is the idea that there can be some universal moral principles: some rules, some ideas and guidelines that are valid for all people in all social environments and all situations. The idea that we can essentially have some signposts or a road map to guide behavior is going to be consistent across all individuals. Now if we take a look at this from another perspective, we can come up with a view of moral absolutism. In the area of moral absolutism, basically, what we have illustrated on the right-hand side of this slide, is a very firm and unyielding boundary between what is right and what is wrong. And so, within moral absolutism, basically what you have are these non-overridable principles. They must be followed. They must never be violated and there were no exceptions. It is always right. It is always wrong. And nothing is subject to interpretation, and nothing is dependent upon the situation.
History of English
English, as you have already read, is not a pure language. I don't think there really are any pure languages in the world. But English is definitely not a pure language. English, in fact, has borrowed from over 350 languages in its history. So it's a variety of many languages. Some people say it's like a dog, a mongrel dog, a dog that has been made up of many different dogs. The English language is like that. By looking at the history of the English language we learn about the history of the English people. The two things are closely connected. So, in fact, today we are not only learning about language but we are learning about history. The fact that English has borrowed words from over 350 languages has been viewed differently throughout history. So for example in Shakespeare's time people were very angry about words which were not, they thought, original English words – words which came from other languages, they didn't like them.
Climate Change
Humans are faced with many challenges, one of which is climate change. An experiment was conducted on the environment and climate in the 1930s when people first noticed climate change. Humans have been trying to change their lifestyles to deal with it, but the observation of climate change is dizcult from area to area. A method is introduced to help understand the mechanism of the climate system. Researchers predict that temperatures will increase about two to 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. What's less certain is what rising temperatures mean for the planet. Some climate models predict subtle changes. Others forecast rising sea levels, which could flood coastal areas around the world. Weather patterns could change, making hurricanes more frequent. Severe droughts could become more common in warm areas, and species unable to adapt to the changing conditions would face extinction, although much remains to be learned about global warming. Many organizations advocate cutting greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the impact of global warming. Consumers can help by saving energy around the house, switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs, and driving fewer miles in the car each week. These simple changes may help keep the earth cooler in the future.
Biological System
Now I'm going to talk about biology, especially applications used in biological systems. The biological system does not always stay the same, but it evolves. Bioengineering is the next level of engineering. Nowadays, scientists rewrite DNA by cutting the pieces and can create new organisms, so they can engineer and design nature. While scientists could only cut and paste DNA from one organism to another 40 years ago, they can now write and synthesize DNA to create new organisms with new techniques. If these organisms are a bacterium, when they go to the lab tomorrow, they will see millions of bacteria. Besides, scientists are building a cellular factory and cultivating millions of bacteria based on one bacterium. People also want to see the natural world in the future.
Newspaper Industry
Because of the economic model, the newspaper industry has been shrinking dramatically from the last 50 years of the 20th century in some states of America. Also as the economic model changed, newspapers increased the cash flow. However, there are still some newspaper industries losing money because of a decrease in advertising and buyers. They can't find buyers. Only a few newspapers have positive cash flow. Over 100 newspapers with cash flow in red had no money to publish the newspaper every day. Some of them published three days per week. Small-sized newspapers only published once a week and had to go online. Some newspapers even disappeared. The staff working in newspaper industry decreased by 30-60% or more.
Hook Sentence
Introducing your persuasive essay, Hook Your Audience. There are many different types of leads or hooks that you can use to begin your persuasive essay. A good introduction, remember, has a few functions, including grabbing the reader's attention, introducing the topic and your position, and previewing the main points of your essay. Let's look at a few examples of ways to hook a reader. A news lead sounds like a newspaper article because you simply state the facts who, what, where, how, and why. An anecdote or short story tells the story of a real person directly impacted by the topic of your essay, like a child soldier or a child slave in the tobacco fields. A question can get the reader thinking about your topic. Reader Identification is another kind of hook that shows the reader how the story relates to them. A shocking fact or statistic can surprise a reader and make him or her want to read more. Guided imagery is where you use your best descriptive five senses skills and transport the reader into the world that you were describing. Dialogue allows the story to unfold through conversation of main characters. Remember, whatever hook or lead idea you use, it should be something new and not a cliche or overused expression. Be bold and make a statement to get your reader to feel emotion or be shocked into wanting to learn more.
Tutorials
Before each tutorial, we're asked to prepare in advance. We usually give a reading lists, which we have to complete before each tutorial. We are given Web sites to look at E-journals to look at. And we have to prepare by writing our notes down. In every tutorial, there's about 5 to 15 students and these are led by the tutors, which are usually masters or PhD students. And then when we come into the tutorial, we put into small groups and we are asked to discuss our ideas, generate new ideas, and give feedback to the class. During art tutorials, there is a lot of support given our tutors are there so that we can ask questions at any time. We also have our peers there, which we can also ask questions to. If we need help before the tutorial, we can email any of the tutors and they will provide you with help. The difference between lectures and tutorials is that in lectures you usually have about 200 to 300 students, whereas in tutorials is about five to 15 students, which allows you to discuss matters, put your hand up and talk to your tutors about any dizculties you may have with the subject. The skills that I have developed through participating in these tutorials is time management, critical thinking, being able to work better in a group and improving my confidence to speak up in a group. At the end of a tutorial, each group will have to give feedback on what they've been discussing throughout the tutorial. So this may consist of having to present to the rest of the students in the class and it allows me to improve my group working skills and also working in a group allows us to generate more ideas and discuss the topic in more depth. The advice I have for potential University of Edinburgh students to make the most out of your tutorial sessions is to complete the reading that you're given by your tutors beforehand. This will enable you to discuss more in groups and generate more ideas. It's also beneficial to raise your hand and develop your confidence so that you can have better discussions in class.
Stone Balls
I suppose you wouldn't expect perhaps to find a mathematician in a museum of historical objects, but actually, the objects that I've been drawn to in this museum have quite a lot of mathematical significance. These Neolithic stones, discovered in Scotland, dating back 5,000 years, are probably the first examples of humans exploring the concept of symmetry. And that's what I do as a practicing mathematician. I spend my life trying to understand what symmetries are possible, in nature and in mathematics and abstractly. And here I've got a connection, going back 5,000 years, to people who are already trying to understand how can I arrange patches on the side of these stone balls in a symmetrical manner' One of the intriguing things about these stones is that we don't actually know what they're for. They might have been for divination trying to predict the future. They might have been part of a game. They look very much like dice, but we don't really think there is any game associated with them. Maybe they were just for chucking around, they're very nice in the hand when you hold them. Or maybe they were symbols of power in the clan. I suppose that's why I like them because we don't really know what they are. If I had a theory about why they were doing this it would be that actually, they were starting to be mathematicians, and that here we see the first example of abstract thought at work. That these weren't for a purpose. Mathematics is a great subject, created a lot of the technology around us, but mathematicians we create our mathematical objects for the joy and the beauty, so it will be lovely to think that these didn't actually have a use, that they were just really a celebration of what's possible.
Luxury Brand
The question today of what makes a luxury brand and how do we distinguish it is very hard to answer. The standard business response is to say they are more exclusive. And we get this exclusivity by having high prices and relatively small amounts of the product available. The reality, however, of luxury brands is that they are sold in their millions, and in some cases, are not priced that much higher than the standard output. So the only way I can really answer your question is to say it is all relative. As you said in your introduction, it wasn't that long ago in Australia that we would have considered two televisions to be a luxury, or even further back, one color television. And you can make a strong argument, for example, that Starbucks in China, right now, is a luxury purchase because of its cost, because of how frequently it is purchased by many people. So, I think the long answer is a complicated one, but the answer is it depends on whom you talk to. I think in the business community, what we would say is that there is a small cluster of more expensive brands which have a distinct strategy that we would identify as being luxury brands. And they start with the Rolls Royce and the Tiffanys and the Louis Vuittons of the world. And, l think that tends to be how we see them.
Survey on Happiness
So happiness economics can help us get to these questions, and I'll try to give you some examples of this. Now, even though there's a lot of skepticism, originally about using this survey - surveys what people say make them happy. The number of reasons that we are getting increasingly confident in doing so. One is that their consistent pattern - remarkable consistent pattern, that determines well-being across large samples of people, across countries, across the world, and over time. Some of the basic things that make people happy, and I will show you some of these income health, marital status, employment status. Some of these very basic things are remarkably consistent across countries across the world. So that gives us some sense that these surveys are picking up consistent patterns. And when we know what consistent patterns are, we can look how other things that very much more, affect people's well-being. The environment and equality, the nature's institution raging on living, and all kinds of other things that very much more.
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the sun and the second-smallest planet in the solar system after Mercury, named after the Roman god of the war. It is often referred to as a red planet because the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere, having surface features reminiscence both of the impact crater of the moon, and the volcanoes, valleys, deserts, and polar ice caps of the earth. The rotational period and the seasonal cycles of Mars are likewise similar to those of earth, as it was the tilt that produces the seasons. Mars is the site of the Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and the second-largest known mountain in the solar system, and the Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the solar system. Until the first successful Mars flyby in 1965 by Mariner 4, many speculated about the presence of the liquid water on the planet surface. This was based on observed periodic variation in the light and the dark patches, particularly in the polar latitude, which appeared to be seas and continents. Geological evidence gathered by the unmanned mission suggested that Mars once have a large scale of water coverage on the surface on some earlier stages of existence.
Sign Language
So the topic for today is abstraction. And this is a very important layer of computer because you can't do anything with a computer unless you have a symbolic system in place. Right. So we're talking about the origin of symbolic systems. Language is a classic symbolic system. Apparently, one theory for why language evolved is that people communicated with sign language and with movement quite well for a long time. And it turned out that they wanted to communicate even while they were doing things. So, while they were trying to strangle the dinosaur, not the dinosaurs, the rhinoceros, they wanted to say 'Come help me' and they use sign language to do it. They had to let go of the rhinoceros and the rhinoceros ran away. So you can see that it's a good idea to be able to do something with your hands and be able to communicate at the same time. Hence, words and language.
Obese Women
We would like to look at a recent survey conducted by Canadian researchers on diet of total 31 women volunteered in the survey they have been told to participate in the exercise program without changing their diet after a careful observation the researchers found that some volunteers experienced a body fat change after six months from the day they have started the experiment the findings further stated that some lost significant amount fat which leads to decrease in body mass, on the other hand, there were others who did not lose fat at all the study concludes that there must be two explanations. Those who did not lose weight must have eaten more and another factor is that it is because of their psychological reason not to believe in losing fat.
Consumers
Consumers are the core section of any business. In fact, the whole concept of any business is surrounded by the behavior of consumers. And the value of consumers is a crucial factor. Now, we have to understand a consumer is not to be taken likely. He knows what product he wants. Consumers are extremely smart. They could make decisions about the price and value of products in minutes or sometimes in a few seconds. So, a business, therefore, needs to uplift its brand image. Consumers are willing to pay 15 more for quality products. However, the conflict starts when manufacturers failed to meet the expectations. This lies in the basic fundamental of engineering in designing a product. Consumers want products to be softest. But at the same time, they also want products like toilet papers to be light and strong, something which can be easily be torn. Brand Tide is a really good example. There was a problem of shaking the washing powder before being put into the machine as it causes damage to the material of the clothes. Tide has to make up a lot of expectations for consumers.
Einstein
For thousands of years, philosophers and astronomers and thinkers of all sorts have imagined that the universe, the space around us, was rather like this floor in front of us. It was fixed and unchangeable, and things happen on it, just as people walk around. So the stars, the comets, and the planets, and the other heavenly bodies moved around and traced down their parts on this completely unchanging stage of space. In the 20th century, as a result of Einstein's work, that view of the universe was completely transformed. We began to understand that there was no absolutely fixed stage of space at all on which all celestial notions were played out. But in some sense on the larger scale in the universe, space itself was in this state of a continuous dynamic change. That was a prediction made by Einstein. But it was the astronomer Edwin Hubble who is the owner of the honor of making the discovery that our universe was really like that.
Misuse of Drugs
What are the dangers of keeping these drugs at home' There are a number of dangers. Parents should know that leftover drugs are dangerous because they may be accidentally ingested by children. Either adults don't keep the bottles properly closed and stored or because even many kids can sometimes open childproof lids. Patients may use the drugs after their expiration date. The leftover drugs may be taken for the wrong reasons. For example, someone may have a viral infection and self-prescribed to leftover into a microbial that was prescribed for a bacterial infection. But that drug will have no effect as the viral infections. Drugs that are leftover might be given to or taken by someone else who may have a serious allergy to the medicine and who for that reason would not be prescribed to medicine under the supervision of a physician. Finally, inappropriate use of drugs promotes drug resistance if the drug is taken for the wrong indication, the wrong duration, or in the wrong dosage. 'T odd, what can people do about this how can the situation be improved'' 'I think physicians, patients, and parents of patients can take steps to improve the situation. First of all, physicians should prescribe the drug only when appropriate, only in the correct amount and only for the correct duration. Also, the physician must stress to the patient that the full course of the drug must be taken. This is recommended even if symptoms resolved before the end of the prescription and parents of children on antibiotics need to ensure they complete their course as well.'
Australian Housing Price
Well, it's like, why is Australian housing is so expensive' Essentially, it's showing of how well the Australian economy has been doing over the last 15 years. We have had 15 years more or less of an uninterrupted economic growth during which average earning has been raised by close to 90 percent. While over the course of that period, the standard variable mortgage rate has roughly halved. That meant that the amount which a typical home buying household can afford to borrow under rules which aren't strictly applied as they used to be had more than doubled. Over the same period, rising immigration in falling average household size has meant that the number of households looking for accommodation has risen by about one and a half million. That's around 200 thousand more than the number of dwellings has increased by. So, you have had a substantial increase in the purchasing power of households. No net increase in the supply of housing enhances all that additional purchasing power has gone into pushing up the price of housing.
Personal Happiness
In the last 50 years, there has been no apparent increase in personal happiness in Western nations, despite steadily growing economies. In both Europe and the USA surveys have found no greater level of happiness since the 1950s, which seems strange since wealthier people generally claim to be happier than poorer people. In America, for example, more than a third of the richest group said they were 'very happy', while only half this number of the poorest made the same claim. Although it would be logical to expect that rising national wealth would lead to greater national happiness, this has not happened. Individually, more money does seem to increase happiness, but when everyone gets richer, no one appears to feel better. Economists have recently paid more attention to studying happiness, instead of the more traditional GDP per person. One suggestion has been that people rapidly get used to improvements, and therefore devalue them. Central heating is a good example: whereas 30 years ago it was a luxury item, today it is standard in nearly every home.
Global Warming
There can now be no reasonable, science-based, doubt about the reality of global climate change effects brought on by the cumulative and rapidly growing emission of so-called 'greenhouse' gases - primarily carbon dioxide - into the atmosphere. As these effects become increasingly more obvious worldwide, so commercial interests, groups of concerned individuals and national governments have been gripped by what amounts to mass panic about what to do about it. To many, Paul Ehrlich's Malthusian 'Population Bomb' of 1968 appears about to explode in the world's face in an indirect version of his millenarian vision of population growth which outpaces agricultural production capacity - with predictably catastrophic results for humanity. And his three-part crisis scenario does indeed seem now to be present: a rapid rate of change, a limit of some sort, and delays in perceiving that limit. Ehrlich's work was roundly criticized at the time, and later, from many quarters, and much of what he predicted did not come about. Nevertheless, can the world afford to take the risk that the climate scientists have got it wrong' Is it not in everyone's interests to apply the Precautionary Principle in attempting to avoid the worst of their predictions - now, rather than at some future time' As the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Mr. Rajendra Pachauri, has recently pointed out, eleven of the warmest years since instrumental records began have occurred in the past twelve years, while major precipitation changes are taking place on a global scale.
Vitamin D (Version 3)
50% of the world's population is Vitamin D deficient and we believe that it has serious health consequences for both children and adults alike. Major cause is lack of sun exposure humans have always depend on the Sun for their vitamin D requirement and it's over the past forty years that it's been suggested that you should never be exposed to direct sunlight that is one of the major causes of the vitamin D deficiency pandemic. Again, everybody thinks about vitamin D preventing rickets in children. We don't see rickets any longer so people are not thinking about vitamin D. It's incomprehensible to physicians as to how vitamin D could reduce risks of heart attack by fifty percent, reduce risk of common cancers like colon, prostate, breast by as much as fifty percent reduce risk of infectious diseases including influenza by as much as 90%, reducing risk of type I diabetes 78%, if a child is get adequate vitamin D during the first year of life reduces risk of type II diabetes.
18th-century Industrialization
Within most developed countries, we have notions of pragmatism, notions of the fact that we have democracies that have succeeded in tempering the market economy. In the 19th century, 18th-century industrial revolution had some very negative effects on people, particularly working classes all over the world. We see data where life expectancy was reduced, hikes were reduced. We can look at medical records and see that actually living standards in much of the large fractions of the population actually went down. But eventually, we passed legislation about working conditions and eventually we circumscribed some of the worst kinds of behavior. We eventually in the 20th century, we put in regulations that impose better environmental conditions. And so some of the damage was reversed. And we have made the market economy work in ways that the benefits of it are at least far more widely shared than they were 100 years ago.
Written & Spoken Language
Interviewer: Now, professor, recently you wrote a letter to a leading national newspaper complaining about falling standards in both written and spoken language among students, even graduates, and saying that you deplore the way English is being debased by change and dumbing down Interviewee: Yes, I said that standards are falling and that very few graduates these days can write a comprehensible essay their grammar and syntax is all over the place ... um ... and I do have certain regrets over the way some words have now become unusable in their full meaning because they've been sloppily misused by those who should know better, such as journalists. So, because they use, say, 'enormity' to mean something very big instead of something very wicked, I can no longer use the word in its correct sense without being misunderstood. And there are hundreds of other erases like this. But, of course, language changes, and meanings shift and change emphasis, and it's as useless to complain about that as it is to moan about the weather. The point I was making was that, at the earliest possible level, children should be made familiar with the basics of grammar and syntax, how to put sentences together, and so on. But I'm not suggesting going back to the days when, as I did, you had to analyze sentences in minute detail as if you were doing Latin. Though, of course, there is something to be said for having that kind of detailed understanding of the language.
Vitamin D (Version 2)
Okay, to understand what Vitamin D does, we need to understand the central concept. The function of Vitamin D is to maintain blood calcium. You probably think the function of Vitamin D is to maintain strong bones and teeth. But it does that by accident. Its real function is to maintain your blood calcium level in a very narrow range. And the reason for that is if your blood calcium level falls below about 9 milligrams per 100 milliliters, then you're longing to be in a big trouble, and die rather quickly. And that's because blood calcium is important for muscle contraction and nerve transmission. And if you don't have enough of it, you can't contract muscles normally. There can't be normal nerve impulses. And this results in a disease called tetany, where you got these uncontrolled convulsions followed by rapid death. Calcium is also important for enzymic activities and blood clotting.
Emotions
What is the fight or flight response' T o really understand the fight or flight response' It helps to think about the role of emotions in our lives. Many of us would prefer to focus on our logical thinking nature and ignore our sometimes trouble with some emotions. But emotions do have a purpose. Our most basic emotions like fear, anger, or disgust. They are actually vital messengers. They evolved as signals to help us meet our basic needs for self preservation and safety, and it would be really dangerous to be indecisive about a threat to our survival. So the brain runs on information from our senses through the most primitive, reactive parts of our brains. First, these areas of the brain control instinctive responses, and they don't do too much thinking this most primitive part of our brain. It communicates with the rest of our brain and our body to create signals we can't ignore easily, powerful emotions and symptoms. The fight or flight response is a physiological response triggered when we feel the strong emotions, such as fear. Fear is the normal emotion to feel in response to a dangerous threat. Fear also has a close relative, and we call this anxiety the fight or flight response evolved to enable us to react with appropriate actions, to run away or to fight, or sometimes even to freeze, to be less visible to a target. So it's important to think of this as a normal response, but one which could be treated too often by things which we perceive as a threat to us.
Globalization
So, I think you all know what I mean by globalization, don't you' This is the idea that we all live in a global village. With instant communications, we can share ideas, and consume cultural artifacts from countries all over the world, just by going into the Internet and all dream up, basically. The world is shrinking. In terms of speeds, it is accelerating, but in terms of distance, it's shrinking. What do I mean by detraditionalization' I mean the disappearance or the erosion, for the better word to use, the erosion of traditional cultures, of conventional ways of doing things, of conventional moralities. More and more young people around the world are rejecting the culture they grow up in, and it's probably a little bit cruel. But some imitating a Hollywood model of society, rather than the one which they inherit from their local tradition background.
Roman city
But you can see from the relatively crooked and narrow streets of the city of Rome as they look from above today. You can see that again, the city grew in a fairly ad hoc way, as I mentioned. It wasn't planned all at once. It just grew up over time, beginning in the eighth century B.C.. Now this is interesting because what we know about the Romans is when they were left to own devices and they could build the city from scratch, they didn't let it grow in an ad hoc way. They structure it in a, in a very care, very methodical way. That was basically based on military strategy, military planning. The Romans they couldn't have conquered the world without obviously having a masterful military enterprise and everywhere they went on their various campaigns, their various military campaigns. They would build, build camps and those camps were always laid out in a very geometric plan along a grid, usually square or rectangular. So, when we begin to see the Romans building their ideal Roman city, then turn to that so call castrum or military camp design.
Modern Food
One of the things that was going on during the Great Depression was the beginning of this sort of modern food technology that rules, you know, the way Americans eat today. That is there are a lot of canned foods were being - coming onto the market at the time. And also, refrigerators were really becoming very, very popular during the Great Depression, both in cities and in rural parts of the country. Thanks to electrification, the Rural Electrification Administration, people could buy appliances. You know, farmers could buy appliances. And that meant frozen foods were becoming big. And, you know, at that time, few people could afford to buy them during the early years of the Great Depression. But, you know, gradually, these things picked up. And so this was, like, the sort of beginning of the era when people were starting to think about supermarkets with rows and rows of freezer cases and rows and rows of canned foods.
Definitions of Globalization
Globalization is an overused and often misunderstood concept. We hear it all the time on news broadcasts and in any type of public discussion. But the starting point for understanding globalization is that it is industries and markets that globalize, not countries. That's why it's helpful to think of Globalization as 'the integration of economic activities across borders'. But why does globalization matter' I would argue globalization matters because it means the rise of interconnectedness between countries and markets across the world. For example, one of the reasons why the financial crash of 2007!2008 was so serious was because the financial and banking systems of countries around the world have become so closely interconnected with the globalization of markets. ) (
Vitamin D (Version 1)
I'm going to start with Vitamin D today, and I think probably most of you know that vitamin D is called the 'sunshine vitamin'. And it's called that because there is absolutely no dietary need for vitamin D if you get adequate sunshine. And I think the real important words there is 'if' because it turns out that in certain climates which aren't near the equator, there's a big question as to whether or not you do get adequate sunshine. So vitamin D really isn't actually a vitamin. It's a pro-hormone. When human beings evolve, we evolved in tropical climates and ran around naked with plenty of skin exposure to sunlight and so there was no dietary need for vitamin D at all. As humans migrated away from equatorial regions, they actually created a need for vitamin D in food because the sunlight wasn't adequate, I mean certainly, particularly during the winter months, it wasn't adequate at all.
Development of Genes
So, the pace, at which human minds have evolved over the last half-million years and more recently the last 200,000 years, has been so frighteningly rapid that the evolution of cognitive function and perception can only occur in a small number of genes. If one needed to adapt dozens of genes changes in concert, in order to acquire the penetrating minds that we now have, which our ancestors 5,000 years ago didn't have, the evolution could not have taken place, it could not have occurred so quickly. And for that reason alone, one begins to really suspect that the genetic differences between people who lived 5,000 years ago is evidence that the difference between their cognitive functions and ours is not actually as large. Therefore, a rather small number of genes may be responsible for the powerful minds that humans have which most of us now possess.
History of Software
The history of software is of course very very new. And the whole IT industry is really only 67 years old which is extraordinary and to be so close to the birth of a major new technology, a major new discipline is quite remarkable given where we got to in those 67 years. And the progression has been not so much a progression as a stampede because Moore's Law, the rapid expansion in the power of computing and the rapid fall of the cost of computing and storage and communications has made it feasible for information technology to move into all sorts of areas of life that were never originally envisaged. What has happened is that there has been as I said a stampede for people to pick the low-hanging fruit. And that is what's guided the development of software and information technology over the past decades and continues to do so with a number of consequences that we will explore.
Industrial Revolution
Through the 1950s and into the 1960s, the idea of the Industrial Revolution was that it was the work of some genius inventors who created machines used primarily in the textile industry but also in mining that eliminated blocks to assembly line production. Then everybody was crowded into factories and the new brave world opened up. In fact, one of the most interesting books and great classics that is still in print was written by an economic historian at Harvard who's still around called David Landes. It's a good book called The Unbound Prometheus, which was basically that. Some of the inventions that I briefly describe in your reading, the spinning jenny, etc., refer to that. Well, that kind of analysis led one to concentrate on England, where the Industrial Revolution began, and to view industrialization as being a situation of winners and losers. That analysis has been rejected greatly over the past years, because the Industrial Revolution is measured by more than simply large factories with industrial workers and the number of machines. This is the point of the beginning of this. The more that we look at the Industrial Revolution, the more we see that the Industrial Revolution was first and foremost an intensification of forms of production, of kinds of production that were already there. Thus, we spend more time looking at the intensification of artisanal production, craft production, domestic industry which we've already mentioned, that is, people, mostly women but also men and children, too, working in the countryside. The rapid rise of industrial production was very much tied to traditional forms of production.
The Republic
Why should we read the Republic' I image lots of students asked this question to me when they're given it as a set book at the beginning of their university course, but in fact there are many good reasons to read the Republic. And first one I would pick on is just that it is immensely readable. It's not Plato did not write philosophy like a dry text book. He wrote it like a living conversation. The whole of the Republic which is fairly fat book is a living conversation written in short almost soundbite type answers, but nevertheless, developing some very important ideas so my first answer then we should read the Republic just because it is readable. It is readable it was written by a genius and it's worth reading. It's easy to read. It's not dizcult. But then there's also obviously the thoughts, the content of the book and he's asking this absolutely fundamental question why should we bother to be good, what's in it for us effectively. It seems when we look at the world, it looks as though injustice pays. It looks as though crime pays or as the good people get trodden down. So, Plato addresses this absolutely fundamental question why should we be good. I'm not going to tell you his answer. Read the book.
Evolution of American Cars
For many years, most vehicles in the U.S. were gas powered, relying on [fossil fuels] for energy. These cars [contributed to] [air pollution] and climate change. The [urgency] to find cleaner alternatives led to new innovations in the automotive industry. Engineers began designing [sleek] electric cars that were both fast and stylish. They also developed [hydrogen] cars, which use a renewable energy source to reduce emissions. These advancements are helping create a more sustainable future.
Driving License Test Preparation
The driving school is always [busy] during the summer as many students sign up for lessons. They want to get their licenses before school starts. The [instructor] is responsible for teaching them how to drive safely. They are [requiring] each student to demonstrate their [ability to handle] the car properly. This ensures everyone is ready for the road. Passing the test is a big achievement for new drivers.
Free Phone
The free phone is the Samsung U740 handheld mobile device, which has MP3, video, text-message and instant- message functions. 'Students will earn text messages, talk time, and other rewards, such as free ring tones, music [downloads, or] [event] tickets, through their performance in school, 'The Education Department said in a news [release] .' Students will be evaluated on the basis of attendance and behavior, along with three other indicators - such as homework completion, class [participation] , or course grades ; chosen by educators and customized to [address academic] [priorities] in their specific schools. Administrators will have access to significant new data on student performance, allowing them to [track] the short-term indicators that contribute to larger goals of boosting student achievement and graduation rates.
Climate Change
In recent years, the [phenomenon] of climate change has garnered widespread attention. It is widely acknowledged that human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels and [deforestation] [, have significantly] contributed to this global issue. Scientists around the world are urgently researching [sustainable] [solutions to] mitigate the effects of climate change. Among these, [renewable] energy sources such as solar and wind power are increasingly being viewed as vital components of a more sustainable future. However, [transitioning] [to these] cleaner energy sources requires substantial investment and international cooperation.

About Smriti Simkhada
Smriti is a PTE Academic perfect scorer (90/90) providing structured PTE coaching for Nepali students. She has helped over 1,000 students prepare for Australia PR and Canada immigration through structured, criteria-aligned coaching.
