Q3e Listening & Speaking 4: Audio Script

UNIT 1

Unit 1, Business, The Q Classroom

Page 3
Teacher: Today we’re beginning Unit One. Every unit in Q starts with a question. As we
go through the unit, we will continue to discuss this question. Our answers
may change as we explore the topic. The question for Unit 1 is: “What makes
a good leader?” Think about some people in leadership positions, like
executives of large corporations or captains of sports teams. What kinds of
positive or negative qualities do they have? What do you think, Marcus?
Marcus: I think when some people are bad leaders, they feel that they are better than
others, or that they don’t have to follow the rules the way other people do.
Teacher: What do you think, Yuna? What do you think is a good quality for a leader to
have?
Yuna: I think people should be more responsible when they become leaders.
Teacher: You mean responsible for other people?
Yuna: Yes, they have to understand that their decisions affect a lot of people.
Teacher: How about you, Sophy? What do you think makes a good leader?
Sophy: Well, I agree with Yuna that a good leader understands the effects of their
decisions on everyone, but it isn’t easy to make everyone happy. Bad leaders
think that they should be making all of the decisions, or they don’t really
need to consider how other people think or feel.
Teacher: Felix, what’s your opinion? We’ve heard that good leaders should have a
strong sense of responsibility but that reaching the best decision for
everyone isn’t easy. What do you think?
Felix: Well, sometimes leaders are kind of isolated because everyone is looking to
them to make the decisions, but at the same time, everyone wants the
decisions to go their own way. That’s a difficult position to be in. I would say
that being a leader is very difficult in some ways, so you have to have a strong
character.

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Q3e Listening & Speaking 4: Audio Script

Unit 1, Note-taking Skill, Activities A and B

Page 4
Speaker: If you are a leader, then you know that highly motivated people do better
work than people who are discouraged, tired, or just unenthusiastic 1. But
how can you keep a team excited over the long haul 2? How can you motivate
them to do their best? Those aren’t easy questions to answer, but here are
three simple ways to start.
First of all, make sure you’re communicating your expectations clearly. When
you explain what you expect, you’re providing your team members with a
specific goal. And this will help your team focus their energy and efforts on
what is important.
Also make sure to provide your whole team with feedback that will help
them improve. Having helpful feedback makes it easier for us to learn and
develop, and it also helps us identify and correct problems before they get
too big.
Lastly, remember to reward good work. Don’t just be a critic. Rewards can be
anything from a “thank you” to a party, a pay raise, or even a day off. Be
creative, and don’t be cheap. Make sure your team knows when they’ve done
well. They’ll get excited when they know a reward is on its way, and they’ll
feel like their hard work is actually paying off.

Unit 1, Listening 1, Activities A and C

Page 6
Leadership Isn’t Just for the Boss
Mark Connolly: While every company needs a great leader, some of the most effective
ones encourage their workers to take on some kind of leadership role as
well. Our workplace columnist, Margot Ross-Graham, joins us now to talk
about leadership. Good morning, Margot.
Ross-Graham: Good morning, Mark.
Connolly: So, how does it help to have leaders at every level of an organization?
Ross-Graham: So, I think what’s helpful is to have leadership qualities at every level . . .
Connolly: Uh-huh.
Ross-Graham: . . . and that there really actually is a distinction between being in a
leadership role, which we often think of someone who supervises people . . .

1 unenthusiastic: adjective not feeling a lot of excitement and interest about someone or
something
2 long haul: noun a difficult task that takes a long time and a lot of effort to complete

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Q3e Listening & Speaking 4: Audio Script

Connolly: Right.
Ross-Graham: . . . versus being a leader in your role, which is, in my opinion, around an
attitude of how you approach your work. So I think organizations have every
opportunity to create opportunities for people to act more leadership-like in
their roles, and I think that’s good for an organization because it describes
innovation and creativity and motivation to people all around you.
Connolly: So what are ways that companies can create leadership opportunities, I
guess?
Ross-Graham: So, one thing they have to do is have a leadership, uh, philosophy
themselves, and what I mean by that is, in my opinion, one of the greatest
ways to promote leadership is to promote cross-teamwork, so cross-borders
team activities, because what it does is it puts people out of their comfort
zone, it gives them an opportunity to try something new, to practice their
skills with a different group, which means they have to try a different way of
interacting. But that means organizations have to provide those
opportunities and have to believe in people moving outside of their boxes
and moving outside of their silos 1, which creates different kinds of
communications as well. So I’d say that’s a big piece, is let people move
outside of their normal duties and, in fact, encourage them to do that,
because it gives them an opportunity to try different things. So that would be
one thing. And, the flip side 2 of that is be really clear on your expectations of
people within their roles and within new roles that they’re taking on.
Because one thing that happens in organizations is a lack of clarity creates a
lot of chaos.
Connolly: Right.
Ross-Graham: And, so, it really doesn’t create an environment where people thrive 3. It
creates an environment where people are muddled 4 and sometimes not
achieving all of the goals that they set out because they actually don’t know
what those goals are. So being really clear on the roles and expectations is a
big thing you can do.
Connolly: But obviously, um, everybody can’t be a leader, right? You can’t have that
expectation of everyone, can you?
Ross-Graham: Well, I think that you can have the expectation that everyone can be leader-
like.
Connolly: Mm-hmm.

1 silo: noun a system, process, department, etc., that operates separately or is thought of as
separate from others
2 flip side: noun a different way of looking at an idea, argument, or action
3 thrive: verb to become, and continue to be, successful, strong, healthy, etc.
4 muddled: adjective confused

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Ross-Graham: But it’s impossible to have an organization of two hundred people and all of
them be in leadership roles . . .
Connolly: Right.
Ross-Graham: . . . uh, in the traditional sense of a leadership role, which, because that
would mean that all three of us would be in supervisory roles and we’d be
tasked with supervising, but we’d have nobody to supervise . . .
Connolly: (laughs)
Ross-Graham: . . . and nobody to set expectations with, and we’d have all different things
that we would be doing, so it isn’t realistic to think you’re going to create
two hundred jobs in a two-hundred-person organization that are considered
management.
Connolly: So, so, what does leadership look like, then, if you’re in your role, uh, you’re
doing your job? I mean, are there qualities, are you talking about qualities or
things that you do or how you approach your job, or — ?
Ross-Graham: Absolutely. So, I’d say an example would be initiative, so, demonstrating
initiative. So, rather than sitting and waiting for someone to give direction, so
in a traditional form a supervisor gives you direction and you take that
direction and you go and do it, and then you hopefully evaluate how you did,
but for sure your supervisor would. In a leader-like organization, individuals
would take initiative without waiting to get direction, because they were
very clear on what the organization was doing and where they were going.
They were clear in their own expectations of their job, so they don’t need to
wait for direction.
Connolly: And, and that’s where the organization comes in, to make that, that clarity, as
you said earlier, right?
Ross-Graham: Exactly! So if . . .
Connolly: If you know what that is, then you can . . .
Ross-Graham: You can go do it. Which saves a lot of time for people . . .
Connolly: Yeah.
Ross-Graham: . . . because people are just doing what they need to do to get things done.
But also that means you might be more creative in how you approach your
work, and you would be encouraged to be more creative, which is more
leader-like, because it requires different skills to be creative than it does to
be a task- or a rule-taker. So I think that’s some qualities: motivation, how
you are motivated at work and how you bring that motivation to the people
that are around you. An example I could think about would be when you
come to work in the morning, or you guys come in the middle of the night.
Connolly: We come in very early in the morning.

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Ross-Graham: Very early in the morning, or whenever you start work, wherever that is in
a workplace, whatever time of day you show up at work, the attitude that you
bring to work. So are you excited to be there? Are you talking with people in
the environment around you? Are you welcoming and saying hello? Versus
you come to work, you put your head down, you get your job done, you don’t
engage 5 with anyone, and you get out. Which actually is what we would want
an employee to do. We pay you to come to work to do your job . . .
Connolly: Right.
Ross-Graham: . . . to do it well, and then to go home and come back the next day. And, so,
both of those are things that we expect, but leaders in organizations or
people who have leadership qualities come to work with an enthusiasm and
a motivation that’s infectious . . .
Connolly: Mm-hmm.
Ross-Graham: . . . which creates other people to be excited about being in the workplace.
So, in the past, I’ve talked about the importance of leaders or bosses walking
around and saying hello to people at work . . .
Connolly: Right.
Ross-Graham: . . . and really excited to see people, but that goes to employees, too. So, you
and I, if I came to work every day and never said hi to you, it’s not my
responsibility to say hi to you, but I create an environment where you might
be more excited to come to work if we actually have an amicable 6 and maybe
a good relationship.
Connolly: Right.
Ross-Graham: So . . .
Connolly: It makes it much, much easier for everybody.
Ross-Graham: And more fun. I am sitting beside you all day long, so that relationship-
building quality would be a leadership quality that’s not expected of you to
do your job, but it creates an environment for all those around you that you
want to be there.
Connolly: Hmm.
Ross-Graham: So it’s quite easy to demonstrate leadership in a workplace without actually
being in a leadership job.

5 engage: verb to become involved with and try to understand something/somebody

6 amicable: adjective done or achieved in a polite or friendly way and without arguing

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Unit 1, Listening Skill, Activity A

Page 9
1. For most people, business meetings are boring, but they don’t have to be that
way. Today I’m going to give you a few tips on how to run an effective
business meeting. Although not every tip might work for you, meetings don’t
have to put everyone in the room to sleep.
2. There are many job-finding tools available online. For instance, some
websites tell job searchers about positions that are available, while others
give tips on writing a résumé or answering questions in a job interview.
Today, I’d like to focus on how to make the best use of these online tools.
Online job resources are valuable, but they won’t help us much if we don’t
know the best ways to use them.
3. Hiring the right employees can be a real challenge. Many managers add a
new person to their staff who is not a good choice. Let’s consider some
techniques to evaluate potential employees and explore ways to successfully
pick the best people to hire.

Unit 1, Listening Skill, Activity B

Page 10
Speaker: What do you need to start a new business and make it succeed? Many people
would answer that what you need is a great idea. Others would say money. Of
course, money and ideas are important. Unfortunately, when people think
about starting a new business, they often ignore the single most important
factor in the success of any company: people. Only people can make those
great ideas happen. So, in order to start a successful business, you need to
start with the right people. But how do you identify the right people? That
seems like a difficult question to answer because every business is different.
Nevertheless, if you want to build a good team, there are some characteristics
of the right people, no matter the business. We’re going to focus on some of
those characteristics and how to identify people who have what it takes 1 to
help make a new business a success.
First of all, your new business will need people who understand your vision
and share your commitment to it. In other words, you need to build a team
that truly understands what your goals for the business are.
Your new business will also need people who are creative, independent
thinkers. You can’t build a successful business based on your ideas alone. You
want your business to be a place where people learn from each other and
inspire each other to do their best work.

1 have what it takes: phrase to possess the necessary attributes or qualities for success

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Lastly, your new business will need people who are willing to work hard. You
need to find people who are ready to put in the long hours and all the hard
work it takes to build a successful business.
No, starting a new business is not easy. Perhaps you’ve got a good business
idea. Perhaps you have the money you need. But that’s not enough to
guarantee success. It’s the people you hire that matter most. Remember that
if you’re going to find success, you need people who are creative,
hardworking, and committed to seeing your dream become reality.

Unit 1, Listening 2, Activities A and C

Page 12, 13
Myths of Effective Leadership
Speaker: Podcasts from the Leading Effectively series are provided by the Center for
Creative Leadership, an educational institution dedicated exclusively to
leadership development and research worldwide. Information available at
[Link]. Today’s topic: myths of effective leadership.
There’s a difference between leadership and power. Successful executives
know that difference and lead their teams more effectively because of it.
Unfortunately, many executives on the rise in an organization forget the
leadership skills and contacts that put their careers on track 1 in the first
place.
A study by the Center for Creative Leadership shows that as executives
advance in a company, they begin to blur 2 the lines between leadership,
power, and influence. They see themselves as more intelligent and capable
than those around them in the organization. They see people who agree with
them as more capable, intelligent, and ethical than those who might
disagree.
The result? Executives get affirmation from a small, expected group, which
inflates 3 their idea of how powerful and influential they are among the
people who work with them. Their influence becomes constricted 4, and their
leadership erodes 5.
Some people overtly 6 use power to accomplish their goals, says CCL’s Pete
Hammett, who is also the author of Unbalanced Influence. He says others

1 on track: idiom to be doing the right thing in order to achieve a particular result
2 blur: verb to become difficult to distinguish clearly
3 inflate: verb to make something appear to be more important or impressive than it really is
4 constricted: adjective limited or restricted
5 erode: verb to gradually destroy something or make it weaker over a period of time
6 overtly: adverb done in an open way and not secretly

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become used to having tools of power, such as the ability to dictate 7 and set
agendas 8.
Over time, that access to power distorts 9 an executive’s influence in the
organization. They may have the title and power, but their disenfranchised 10
team members won’t see them as an effective leader. Those with different
opinions choose to remain silent. Or they leave. With them, they take away a
whole range of ideas. CCL and Hammett recommend that executives
calibrate 11 their spheres of influence 12 and see whether their team members
perceive them as leaders or merely as suits with powerful titles.
Here are three ways to proceed:
Number 1: Find and listen to other voices. A leader should keep in touch with
new ideas and fresh perspectives. If all you’re hearing is one voice, then
invite others to the conversation, and let them know you really want to hear
them.
Number 2: Find a sparring partner 13. Find someone who’s comfortable and
capable of taking an opposing point of view. That doesn’t mean you should
seek out every malcontent 14 in an operation. It means you should find
someone who is intelligent, thoughtful, and open to tackling a discussion
from an opposing view. Don’t be seen as a leader who refuses to listen to
different ideas or, worse, one who penalizes people for suggesting them.
Number 3: Leadership can be cultivated, but only in a self-aware person. Sign
up for a leadership program. Get some feedback that assesses your
leadership style. Make a point to hold a mirror up 15 to your conversations
and interactions within your organization. Only by seeing yourself through
others’ eyes can you go from someone who holds power to someone who
leads.

7 dictate: verb to tell someone what to do, especially in an annoying way

8 agenda: noun a plan of things to be done, or problems to be addressed
9 distort: verb to change the shape, appearance, or sound of something so that it is strange or not
clear
10 disenfranchised: adjective having had one’s rights taken away
11 calibrate: verb to check the measurement on an instrument against a standard instrument, and
adjust the first instrument to keep it accurate
12 sphere of influence: phrase a field or area in which someone has power to change events and
developments
13 sparring partner: noun a person that you regularly have friendly arguments or discussions
with
14 malcontent: noun a person who is not satisfied with a situation and who complains about it,
or causes trouble in order to change it
15 hold a mirror up: phrase to think very deeply about

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Unit 1, Vocabulary Skill, Activity A

Page 17
1. The job didn’t pay very well, but I loved the office and my co-workers. It was
a great environment to work in.
2. It’s impossible to function well when you don’t get along with your co-
workers. I can’t work in a situation like that.
3. I’m sure you can resolve the conflict with your co-worker if you listen to each
other’s opinions.
4. James has great aptitude, but he needs more training. In a year or so, he’ll
probably be our best programmer.
5. The members of Emily’s group are experienced and talented. Besides, they
exhibit great teamwork.

Unit 1, Vocabulary Skill, Activity B

Page 18
1. And that there really actually is a distinction between being in a leadership
role, which we often think of someone who supervises people, versus being a
leader in your role.
2. One of the greatest ways to promote leadership is to promote cross-
teamwork, so cross-borders team activities, because what it does is it puts
people out of their comfort zone, it gives them an opportunity to try
something new.
3. All three of us would be in supervisory roles and we’d be tasked with
supervising, but we’d have nobody to supervise.
4. Find someone who’s comfortable and capable of taking an opposing point of
view. Don’t be seen as a leader who refuses to listen to different ideas.
5. They may have the title and power, but their team members won’t see them
as an effective leader. CCL and Hammett recommend that executives see
whether their team members perceive them as leaders or merely as suits
with powerful titles.

Unit 1, Pronunciation, Example

Page 21
negotiate

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Unit 1, Pronunciation, Activities A and B

Page 21
1. excerpt
2. aspect
3. enforce
4. effective
5. leadership
6. acknowledge
7. perspective
8. opposing
9. promotion
10. interaction

Unit 1, Pronunciation, Activity C

Page 21
Speaker: What do you need to do to be a great leader in sports? Today, we’re going to
look back at some of the greatest coaches in history and learn from them.
Let’s start with a name many of you will recognize, Sir Alex Ferguson, the
legendary Manchester United soccer coach. He has some helpful leadership
advice for us to consider. First, he recommends that leaders take time to
listen to their people and get to know them personally so we know the best
way to motivate them. Second, he also reminds leaders to encourage
employees rather than criticize them. He says coaches should still correct
players but that people really respond best to praise. In order to give
effective praise, though, we have to know our people well enough to know
what words they will appreciate. Third, Sir Alex Ferguson says good leaders
recognize the difference between talent and hunger. Talent is, of course, very
important. But, it might be better to hire a person who is really motivated
and who has a strong work ethic even if they are less talented than another.
So, even though Sir Alex Ferguson was a leader on the soccer field, a lot of his
advice is relevant in other workplaces as well.

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Unit 1, Speaking Skill, Activities A and B

Page 22
Manager: OK, guys, this project is huge, and it’s going to be challenging. Here’s what I
need all of you to do. First of all, we all have to put in extra hours. That means
long days for the next few weeks.
It also means that we need to pull together and work extra hard as a team.
That means all of us. Do you know what I mean?
Staff: Yeah / Sure.
Manager: OK. It also means that you need to drop all your other projects for now.
Please, focus on this project. It is our top priority. Does everyone
understand?
Staff person: You mean stop working on every other project?
Manager: That’s right. This account demands all our attention right now. Richard,
please call the office in Tokyo, and let them know that we need all the
information they have on this client. And we need the information by Friday
at the latest. Are you following me?
Richard: Yep. Call Tokyo, get information on the client, tell them we need it by Friday.
Manager: Friday at the latest. Great! As for the rest of us, we’ll be meeting again today
at 3:00. Before that, read over the project description. If you have any
questions, please bring them to the meeting. Got it? OK, let’s get to work!

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UNIT 2

Unit 2, Behavioral Science, The Q Classroom

Page 27
Teacher: In Unit 2, we’re going to talk about appearances. The Unit Question is, “How
does appearance affect our success?” Sophy, what do you think?
Sophy: Oh, in lots of ways. Our appearance influences what people think of us.
Teacher: Can you give me an example?
Sophy: Sure. The way you dress, for example. If you dress well, people will think
you’re more successful or more competent. They’ll treat you more
respectfully, and that will help you succeed.
Teacher: Yuna, do you agree? Does dressing well help you be successful?
Yuna: Yes, I agree. If you’re careful about your appearance, people think you care
about yourself.
Teacher: OK, what else? Marcus, how about the appearance of other things, for
example, your desk or your bedroom? Does that affect your success?
Marcus: Well, it could. How people look at you is important. If they look at you and
think you’re disorganized or not in control of your life, they’ll be less
interested in working with you. That could affect your success.
Teacher: Anything else? Any other ways that appearance affects our success? Felix?
Felix: I agree with everyone else that appearances affect how other people react to
you, but not everyone needs to be neat and well dressed and good-looking to
be successful. Your appearance also involves your style, and you can use that
to help you fit into the group you want to be in. For instance, if I want to be a
successful businessman, I would have a completely different kind of look
than if I want to be a successful sports star.

Unit 2, Listening 1, Activities A and D

Page 29
A Perfect Mess
Announcer: A Perfect Mess is a new book that explores the benefits of being messy. Our
reviewer, Henry Rubins, finds reasons in the book to embrace his own habits
of chaos.
Henry Rubins: Finally, in A Perfect Mess by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman, I read
the words I’ve been waiting for all my life:

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Neatness is not a virtue 1. It’s OK to be a little disorganized. As someone who

is frequently criticized 2 for being messy, I know now I’m not such a bad
person after all.
I’ve been messy since I was old enough to dress myself. As a child, I had the
usual arguments with my mother about cleaning my room, putting my
clothes and books away, and making my bed.
At college, I was even worse. Books, papers, and dirty dishes were
everywhere. Oh, part of it was because I was lazy, but I also felt so stifled in a
neat, too-tidy room. I couldn’t even think. I mean, I need a certain amount of
chaos to feel comfortable.
But it wasn’t until I got my first job that I found out how deep the world’s
bias toward neatness and order is. I mean, I didn’t know I would be expected
to have a neat desk in order to do my job. But after reading A Perfect Mess, I
see I have had it easy at work compared to other people.
The book mentions a woman who worked at a post office in Australia. She
was fined 3 more than two thousand dollars at work. Why? Because she had
four personal items on her desk. The post office only allowed her to have
three. Maybe it was an extra photo of her kids—and for that she had to pay
two thousand dollars? The police chief in a Pennsylvania town had it even
worse. He was actually fired from his job because of a messy desk. At least
I’ve never lost a job!
A Perfect Mess might help people like them, and me. The book begins with a
description of the National Association of Professional Organizers, or NAPO,
conference. NAPO is a professional organization I could never join. Anyway,
NAPO has thousands of members. Thousands. These are people who have
gone to graduate school in business, or education, or even law, and now
devote their lives to helping the rest of us get organized.
The authors, Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman, interview dozens of
members of NAPO. And they point out that not once in any of the interviews
does anyone answer the big question: What’s wrong with being messy?
In fact, throughout the rest of the book, the authors show us that being
moderately messy can actually be good for us. A Perfect Mess takes the
reader on a tour of the various messy parts of our lives, starting with those
messy desks. The book argues that a messy desk can actually help you find
things more easily because they’re right out in the open.
And it can help people make connections between ideas in new ways.

1 virtue: noun a particular good quality or habit

2 criticize: verb to say what you do not like or think is wrong about someone or something
3 fine: verb to make somebody pay money as an official punishment

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Here’s a great example. Leon Heppel was a researcher at the National

Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, in the 1950s. One day, he was
working at his desk. He stumbled upon letters written by two different
scientists. The letters were in the piles of paper on his messy desk. If the two
letters had been neatly put away he would never have looked at them side by
side. But he did, and he suddenly recognized an important connection
between the two scientists’ research. This connection eventually led to a
winning discovery and a Nobel Prize.
The book mentions he wasn’t the only scientist like this. Albert Einstein was
another great scientist who was known for having a very messy office.
Next, the book looks at our messy homes. The authors say a messy home isn’t
so bad either. A very neat home can be impersonal and cold, but a home full
of photos, personal items, and pieces of clothing strewn about 4 shows others
who we truly are.
Many people believe that an untidy house sets a bad example for children.
Abrahamson and Freedman reassure us it’s not true. In fact, children may
learn better in a messy space. The book gets support from research
suggesting that a stimulating environment full of clutter 5, movement, and
noise may actually help children remember information. And it turns out
that keeping your house too clean can actually be bad for children’s health.
Dirt and germs help children build up protection against diseases.
And the authors offered more evidence in favor of mess. It seems not only are
messy people often more successful than neat people, they tend to be more
creative and open-minded. Take, for example, the mystery writer Agatha
Christie. The authors describe her disorganized approach to writing her 60-
plus novels. Apparently, many times when she began writing a mystery, she
had no idea how the mystery would be solved. She wrote down her ideas in
notebooks, but they were completely disorganized. To make matters worse,
Christie often lost her notebooks in the mess of her workspace and worked
from several notebooks at one time. One notebook contained ideas for 17
novels!
In spite of this mess, Christie’s books were, and still are, wildly popular and
have sold more than two billion copies in 45 languages. Clearly, an inflexible
approach to organizing her stories didn’t work well for the creative genius
Agatha Christie. As the authors Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman look
into our messy lives, they show us how a little chaos can be good for us. They
tell us that mess may help us relax, be more creative, learn better, or even
make an important scientific discovery. A Perfect Mess is a fascinating look at

4 strewn about: verb, usually passive covered a surface with things

5 clutter: noun a lot of things in a messy state, especially things that are not necessary or not
being used

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the unexpected benefits of mess. I’d recommend it to anyone—except

possibly my kids.

Unit 2, Listening Skill, Activity A

Page 33
Ella Oskey: If you are one of the millions of people who just can’t stay on top of your
mess, don’t worry. There is hope for you! Hi, and welcome to this workshop,
Getting It Together. I’m Ella Oskey. I assume that you have come today
because you feel like your life is too disorganized. If this is true, I have some
suggestions that will help you organize yourself, both at home and in the
workplace. OK, let’s get started.
How many of you have spent hours searching for an important document or
paper? How long did you look for your car keys before leaving the house to
come here today?
The first strategy I suggest is simple: put everything in its place. In other
words, put everything into the room or space it belongs in after you use it. If
it doesn’t have a place, make one. This is not a radical idea, folks! If you
always put your keys in the same box next to the door every night, they will
always be there in the morning. How many of you think you can do that?
Great! Now, strategy number two is just as simple: follow a filing and
organization system. Every time you find a piece of paper, decide which of
these three groups it belongs in: now, later, or never.
If it is a “now” item, like a bill that needs to be paid today, deal with it
immediately. If it is a “later” item, like a magazine you still want to read, put it
in its place, like I talked about in suggestion one. If it’s a “never” item, throw
it away in the garbage immediately. So remember: now, later, or never. This
filing system requires immediate action, though. This is the key point: do
something immediately with all papers and documents. OK? How would you
feel if you never had to sift through piles of papers again?
Great! Now, on to the third strategy: Do a little at a time. Instead of trying to
change your whole life in one afternoon, work on it step by step. One day,
organize a drawer. The next day, organize something else. If you try to do too
much at once, you might feel frustrated. Making this change little by little will
not only ensure that you get organized, but will also help you stay organized.

Unit 2, Note-taking Skill, Activity

Page 34
Speaker: Sure, we all look better when we smile, but can our facial expressions really
cause us to succeed or fail? Many scientists believe that smiling can lead to more
success in life, while frowning can lead to more problems. Some researchers

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discovered that people who smiled in school pictures were more likely to have
longer, happier marriages in the future than those who did not. In contrast, people
who didn’t smile in their class photos tended to get divorced more often. Also,
people who smiled in job interviews were more likely to get the jobs than
candidates who didn’t smile. Smiling also reduces stress, some scientists say. In fact,
in one study, smiling while doing a stressful job helped workers’ brains and bodies
recover from the stress more quickly afterward. On the other hand, people who
didn’t smile had faster heartbeats long after they finished the stressful job. Maybe
this is why smiling can even cause people to live longer. One research study
discovered that if baseball players were smiling on their cards, they lived almost
seven years longer than players who weren’t smiling. So remember to smile!

Unit 2, Listening 2, Activities A and C

Page 37
Color Schemes: How Colors Make You Buy
Terry O’Reilly: For the first one hundred years of modern branding 1, you could not
trademark a color. But all that changed, once and for all, thanks to
insulation 2.
Owens Corning began making fiberglass insulation in 1938. When insulation
is manufactured, it is white. So after many years of all insulation looking
alike, Owens Corning made the decision to dye 3 their product red in 1956.
But the red dye made the fiberglass wool look pink. The pink insulation was
shipped out, but the company wasn’t happy with the color. After all, it was a
male-dominated industry. So when Owens Corning sent the next shipment
out, reverting back to the original color, they got the most unexpected
response. Installers began asking for the pink insulation. So, the company
stuck with pink, and it was a marketing masterstroke 4. Then in 1987, Owens
Corning made legal history when it became the first company to trademark a
single color. They had proved to the courts that their insulation was clearly
identified as pink, that they had spent over 50 million dollars marketing it as
such, and they had even licensed 5 the Pink Panther as a mascot. Hence, the
courts agreed it was a protectable trademark. According to reports, pink
insulation commands over 50 percent of the home insulation market. When I
worked on the advertising for Fiberglass Canada in the 80s, it claimed over
70 percent of the Canadian market, due in large part to funny commercials
like this:

1 branding: noun giving a particular name and image to goods and services so that people will
be attracted to them and want to buy them
2 insulation: noun a material that prevents heat, sound, electricity, etc. from passing through
3 dye: verb to change the color of something
4 masterstroke: noun something clever that you do that gives a successful result
5 license: verb to give somebody official permission to do, own, or use something

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Announcer: More than two million Canadians have insulated their homes with Fiberglass
Pink. Here’s what one particular couple did with the money they saved.
Canadian Male Homeowner: We saved enough to buy 252 beautiful pink flamingos.
Canadian Female Homeowner: Two hundred and sixty-two, Walter.
Canadian Male Homeowner: I stand corrected. Notice that all of their beaks are a
beautiful hue 6 of yellow.
Announcer: What you do with the money you save is your business. Our business is
making sure you do save money. Fiberglass Pink home insulation—do it for
the money you save.
O’Reilly: That product was one of the biggest lessons in color I ever had. Insulation is a
hidden purchase. People buy it once or twice in their lives, stick it between
their walls, and never see it again. I’ll never forget the challenge our
fiberglass client, Grant McDermott, put to us. He said, “I sell the most boring
product in the world. Make me famous.” And, by leveraging 7 nothing other
than that counterintuitive 8 color, we did. The color pink gave us a marketing
edge, and the resulting campaign became one of the most famous in the
1980s. We created pink print ads, pink-themed radio ads, and a series of
award-winning TV commercials, which you can watch on our website.
In order for the courts to grant a color trademark, a company must prove
their color has acquired a secondary meaning. The robin’s egg blue Tiffany
boxes are a great case in point. First seen on the cover of their catalog in
1878, that blue now immediately signals Tiffany as a brand to a large
percentage of the population. The brand and the color have become
inseparable in the minds of consumers.
But the trademarking of colors has hit a speed bump due to a court case
going on right now between two famous fashion designers. Christian
Louboutin is famous for his glamorous shoe designs that cost anywhere from
$400 to 4,000. His shoes all have one distinguishing feature, a bright red
sole 9. If you’ve ever seen celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker at the Oscars,
flashing red on the undersides of her high heels, those would be Louboutins.
Back in 1992, Louboutin saw an assistant painting her nails a bright red, and
he decided to try lacquering 10 the soles of his shoes the same shade. The
bright red sole became a sensation and a symbol of the Louboutin brand. In
2008, he obtained a US patent and trademark for his signature red soles.
But, three years later, Yves Saint Laurent came out with red-soled shoes as

6 hue: noun a color; a particular shade of a color

7 leverage: verb to get as much advantage or profit as possible from something that you have
8 counterintuitive: adjective the opposite of what you would expect or what seems to be
obvious
9 sole: noun the bottom of a shoe
10 lacquer: verb to cover something such as wood or metal with a liquid to give it a hard shiny
surface

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well. Louboutin immediately sued. It’s an interesting case. The question

became: Should anyone in the fashion industry be given a monopoly on a
single color? Can one designer own the color red? The courts ended up siding
with the Yves Saint Laurent company, allowing them to continue selling red-
soled shoes. The judge also implied that Louboutin’s 2008 trademark should
be canceled. Louboutin’s lawyer insisted they are not claiming basic red but
are trying to protect a particular Chinese red color in a particular place on a
particular item. Tiffany’s rushed to Louboutin’s defense, as this ruling would
have implications for their famous blue boxes. As of this writing, Louboutin
has appealed the decision.

Unit 2, Listening 2, Activity D

Page 38
1. Owens Corning made the decision to dye their product red in 1956.
2. Then in 1987, Owens Corning made legal history when it became the first
company to trademark a single color.
3. According to reports, pink insulation commands over 50 percent of the home
insulation market.
4. Christian Louboutin is famous for his glamorous shoe designs that cost
anywhere from $400 to 4,000.
5. The judge also implied that Louboutin’s 2008 trademark should be canceled.

Unit 2, Pronunciation, Example

Page 46
appearances

Unit 2, Pronunciation, Activities A and B

Page 47
1. pleasure
2. forgotten
3. successful
4. habit
5. business
6. allow

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7. cautious
8. professional

Unit 2, Speaking Skill, Activity A

Page 48
1.
A: Did you hear that the “Made in Britain” logo is changing from blue and red to
gray and red?
B: What? Do you mean they’re not using the colors in the British flag anymore?
A: Yes. That’s what the news said.
B: Oh.
2.
A: More and more customers are looking for a sign of professionalism.
B: Are you saying they prefer less casual dress?
A: Yeah, that’s right.
B: Got it.
3.
A: If my desk is too organized, I can’t be creative.
B: If I understand you, you need to be messy to work well?
A: Yeah, I need a little mess.
B: OK.
4.
A: Most people can’t get organized all at once.
B: Does that mean it’s better to work on it step by step?
A: Yes, it does.
B: I see.

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UNIT 3

Unit 3, Developmental Psychology, The Q Classroom

Page 53
Teacher: OK, the Unit 3 question is, “What skills make someone an adult?” What do
you think, uh, Felix? How would you answer this question?
Felix: I think you start becoming an adult when you have to take care of yourself—
pay your own rent, make your own meals, take yourself to the doctor when
you’re sick. Those are the things that make you grow up.
Teacher: It sounds like you associate adulthood with economic independence.
Felix: Yeah, I guess I do.
Teacher: What about you, Sophy? What skills make someone an adult?
Sophy: I agree with Felix about financial independence being important, but I think a
lot of people don’t really feel like adults until they get married and have
children of their own. That’s when you start to understand what life was like
for your parents and the kinds of responsibilities they had. So, learning how
to be a parent is really an important skill for many adults.
Teacher: Good. What do you think, Yuna? Do you agree with Felix or Sophy?
Yuna: No, not really. I think of myself as an adult even though my parents help me
financially and I’m not married. I manage my own life. I make decisions.
Teacher: OK, well, we have three completely different definitions! Where do you stand
on this, Marcus? What skill made a difference between feeling like a child and
feeling like an adult for you?
Marcus: I really felt like I had become an adult when I hosted Thanksgiving dinner at
my house for the first time. I cooked all the food, and my parents came as
guests. It might seem kind of silly because it’s not as serious as having
children or paying bills, but that felt like a really defining moment for me. So,
I guess hosting a family dinner might be a skill that draws a line between
childhood and adulthood.

Unit 3, Note-taking Skill, Activity A

Page 54
Speaker: In some cultures, many around the world actually, the question about when a
child becomes an adult is easily answered because there is a special
ceremony to celebrate it. It’s very interesting, really. For example, in Japan,
there is a special national holiday every second Monday in January called

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Seijin no Hi. In English, this translates into the Coming of Age Day. On this
day, many young men and women who turned 20 years old that year dress in
traditional clothes, participate in a ceremony at a government office, and
then attend parties with their friends. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer young
people are participating in this holiday these days. One tradition that is still
popular, however, is the Quinceañera. In Mexico, girls have a Quinceañera to
celebrate their fifteenth birthday. They wear long, formal dresses, attend
church, and then celebrate with a party where they dance with their fathers.
So, as you can see, different cultures mark growing up in very different ways.

Unit 3, Listening 1, Part 1, Activities A and B

Page 56, 57
“Adulting” School
Professor: OK, so how many of you are Millennials? Remember that people in this
category were born between the early 1980s until about the early 2000s. If
you are a Millennial, can you raise your hand? Yeah, a lot of you are. You
learned from this week’s reading that Millennials are generally associated
with an increased familiarity with digital technologies and that they tend to
have a stronger sense of community, both local and global, than previous
generations. However, some research suggests that Millennials may not be
learning some of the survival skills that their parents know. So, a couple of
entrepreneurs in Portland, Maine, have come up with a school that targets
precisely those of you who put up your hands—Millennials. They claim that
many Millennials haven’t learned many of the practical life skills they need to
be successful adults. We’re talking about things like searching for a job,
buying insurance, saving for retirement, healthy eating, minor car repairs,
buying a home, that sort of thing. They call these skills “adulting,” basically
living as an adult.
Now, you might guess by looking at me that I am not a Millennial. In fact, I
was born in 1972, so that makes me Generation X. And, a lot of people my
age, a lot of Gen Xers, really wonder why “adulting” lessons are necessary. I
mean, I learned how to “adult” from my parents and from classes in school. If
I don’t know how to do something, I find a video online. For instance,
recently I wanted to make pickled 1 jalapenos with peppers from my garden. I
learned how to pickle vegetables from my grandmother, but it’s been about
20 years, so I watched a video on YouTube. So, you can see how it might be
confusing to people my age why Millennials would pay a monthly fee for
these lessons.
Before you guys weigh in, and I want to hear from Millennials and Gen Xers
and Baby Boomers in the class, too, let’s watch a brief video about the

1 pickled: adjective preserved in vinegar

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“Adulting” School set up by Katie Brunelle and Rachel Weinstein that

combines adult skill development with fun, social events. Then I’ll open the
floor for some class discussion on the topic.

Unit 3, Listening 1, Part 2, Activities A and B. Video also available on iQ Online.

Page 56, 57
Katie Brunelle: How to fold a fitted sheet 2.
Teacher 1: Those two corners together. So what I end up with is kind of a halved sheet.
Rachel Weinstein: If you get a flat tire, how to put on the spare and get to, get yourself
where you’re going.
Brunelle: Being healthy with basic exercising and nutrition skills.
Weinstein: Knowing to start your retirement fund early so that you can take advantage
of compound interest.
Brunelle: Keeping things alive, whether it’s your plants or your children or your pet.
Weinstein: Anyone who is over 18, 22, is an adult. And it’s just a matter of how well are
you adulting.
Heather Noe: I came from a generation where our public school system pushed for, you
could be whatever you want to be. The sky’s the limit. Just go to college and
everything’s going to be great. You can just go for whatever you want to be
and dream as big as you possibly can.
What I’m hoping to take away from any of the courses that I will be attending
in the Adulting School is filling in any gaps that I feel like I have. I was never
told anything about credit score or the weight of having to pay back student
loans or I have no idea how to buy a house or even how to really get started
outside of looking online at pretty houses that seem wonderful and totally
out of reach.
Brunelle: We offer, kind of, you know, what do you do with your debt? How can you
budget and live on the income that you’re bringing in? We’re basically
sneaking 3 education into these fun events.
Teacher 1: You are going to fold your fitted sheet.
Teacher 2: I want each and every one of you to understand that from birth, you are
wired to do value a certain way. So when you leave here tonight, you will
know yourself better than you ever knew yourself before. That’s pretty cool.
She’s excited.

2 fitted sheet: noun a large piece of thin cloth with round corners that is used on a bed
3 sneak: verb to do something secretly

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Q3e Listening & Speaking 4: Audio Script

Weinstein: This generation has been encouraged to think outside the box. And that’s a
beautiful thing, but it comes with some challenges because if you don’t have a
circumscribed 4 path to follow, you know, you have to figure it out yourself.
Noe: To me, it seems like the Adulting School is basically a really jazzed-up 5
version of adult ed, which we’ve had for a really long time.

Unit 3, Listening Skill, Activity B

Page 60
1.
Lecturer: Today’s topic is “Proper Behavior in the Workplace.”
We’ll be discussing several issues, including how to deal with a workplace
disagreement, why it’s important to be punctual, and how to dress
appropriately in any work environment.
2.
Rudolph: Adam, I can’t keep up with the homework. I am just too tired after a long day
of work.
Adam: I know what you mean. I took an online business class last semester. It was
tough getting all the work done at night. I had to come up with a plan.
Rudolph: How did you do it?
3.
Yukio: I’m excited about going to study in London for a year, but I’m going to miss
you a lot, Tara.
Tara: I know. I’ll miss you, too. But . . .
4.
Maria: Oh, thanks for stopping by. I’m trying to get all the employees together for a
meeting. It’s been very slow lately and morale is pretty low, but I want to
share some important news with them. I just heard that our company won
the Williams contract! That means we have a lot more business coming to us.

4 circumscribed: adjective limited

5 jazzed-up: adjective made more interesting or exciting

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Unit 3, Listening Skill, Activity C

Page 61
Lecturer: We know that 1.2 billion people don’t have access to clean drinking water.
Today, let’s talk about the reasons why that is, including increased pollution,
increased human demand, and of course, climate change. You’ll know from
the reading that climate change means changing weather patterns,
specifically droughts and floods.

Unit 3, Listening 2, Activities A and D

Page 63, 64
Financial Literacy Among Young People
Speaker: It was not my finest hour. Some years ago, my partner and I were invited into
our bank manager’s office to discuss, in great detail, the truly remarkable
elements of the mortgage we had applied for. As with Stephen Leacock, banks
make me nervous, especially when forced to deal with numbers in the six-
figure range. The manager began talking about amortization 1, monthly
payments, accrued 2 interest, payment speed-up, principal and interest
combinations, and so on. My partner began to question him. She was very
good.
I suddenly found my mind drifting. I looked out the window. I tapped my feet.
I wrung 3 my hands. I blinked furiously. Quietly and inevitably I fell asleep. I
nodded off. After what I guess was a moment or two, a sharp dig in the ribs.
“Wake up,” she said. “This is important.” The bank manager couldn’t believe
that I had fallen asleep. But it was important. A house is, after all, the largest
purchase most of us will ever make. But talking about money I find can be
tedious beyond measure. The reason for that is simple: I am a financial
illiterate. I take no comfort in the fact that there are millions like me who
don’t understand the first or even the second thing about finances. I never
have.
Once, as a member of the editorial board of a large newspaper, I had to sit
through a lunch with the sitting finance minister. Every other member of the
board was asking about trade deficits and current accounts and so on. The
editor asked me if I had a question for the minister. I said, “What is the
difference between fiscal 4 and monetary? 5“ The finance minister, Edgar
Benson at the time, took a drag on the great log of a pipe and rolled his eyes.

1 amortization: noun paying back a debt by making small regular payments over a period of
time
2 accrue: verb to increase over a period of time
3 wring: verb to twist and squeeze
4 fiscal: adjective connected with government or public money

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Q3e Listening & Speaking 4: Audio Script

I was reminded—as if I had to be reminded—of how badly I deal with things

financial when I read a piece in Forbes magazine entitled in bold letters,
FINANCIAL ILLITERACY IS KILLING US. The story described the great
canyons of ignorance about financial matters among teenagers. Said the
writer, quote, “That teenagers are allowed to drive, vote, and parent, all while
not knowing the difference between an asset and a liability 6, is nothing short
of a travesty 7.” End quote.
While the article naturally focuses on the United States, there are elements
which echo the situation in Canada. In the US, efforts to improve financial
literacy target high school students, but even there surveys have shown that
what is learned lasts a maximum of two years. I was taught nothing about
money during a less than distinguished high school career. Nothing about
mortgages, interest, pensions, profits, investments, insurance—nothing.
Neither were my children.
I spent a lot of time in the chemistry lab doing God knows what. I sat through
long descriptive explanations about physics and algebra, but nothing about
personal debt or savings plans. The closest I came to understanding anything
at all about money was a weekly allowance 8 and opening what was called a
Christmas Club account at our friendly local bank. And of course, learning to
play Monopoly, probably the greatest financial educational tool ever created.
When I started a working life, my dream was for a salary of $10,000 a year
and buying a house for $25,000. But I still didn’t know the difference
between a stock and a bond 9. Which is why it is encouraging to learn, as I did
this week, that the Canadian government has an agency called the Financial
Consumer Agency of Canada. It was set up in 2001. Part of its mandate 10 is to
oversee the operations of financial institutions, but part of it is to expand the
financial literacy of Canadians.
It has held national conferences on the subject and conducted surveys on
various levels of financial literacy. It issues reports from time to time. It even
has its very own financial literacy month: November. As it points out on its
website, financial literacy is critical to the prosperity 11 and financial well-
being of Canadians, and it is never too early to start acquiring it. Schools in
Ontario have started to talk about money to children in elementary school,
usually around grades four and five.

5 monetary: adjective connected with money

6 liability: noun a person or thing that causes you a lot of problems
7 travesty: noun something shocking or offensive
8 allowance: noun money that is given to somebody regularly
9 bond: noun an agreement by a government or a company to pay you interest on the money you
have lent
10 mandate: noun an official order given to somebody to perform a particular task
11 prosperity: noun the state of being successful, especially in making money

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A series of surveys across the country shows that the financial literacy
among young people is very low. For example, 95 percent of young people
interviewed knew what a budget is, but only 20 percent knew how to stick to
it. Nearly 55 percent of teenagers say they wouldn’t pay off their credit card
balance every month. And nearly 40 percent of students said that how to
save money was the most important topic in the school curriculum.
Now, if I had gone through a rigorous course in financial literacy and
management, I might now be in a position where I could balance my
checkbook. Or . . . probably not.

Unit 3, Grammar, Activity A

Page 70
1. Those are the things that make you grow up.
2. Before you guys weigh in, let’s watch a brief video about the “Adulting”
School.
3. I was never told anything about having to pay back student loans.
4. We’re basically sneaking education into these fun events.
5. You have to figure it out yourself.
6. I like to drop in on my dad to see how he’s doing.

Unit 3, Pronunciation, Example

Page 71
I became an adult when I got married and started a family.

Unit 3, Pronunciation, Activity A

Page 71
1. When you become employed, you can call yourself an adult.
2. I think it’s how much you can provide for yourself.
3. I think it’s when you get married.
4. I think you become an adult at 16.
5. The day that I’m an adult is the day that I can do whatever I want to do.
6. The age at which you become an adult varies.

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Unit 3, Speaking Skill, Activity A

Page 73
Speaker: Uh, hi. Um, today my presentation is about an important turning point in my
life. Um, OK. So, a few years ago, I got my first job. I was really, really excited
because I was making my own money. I felt completely grown up.
Uh, on the way home from work, I used to stop at stores and buy things I
liked just because I could. Uh, I bought clothes and a new watch and books. I
really felt like an adult when I paid with my own money.
But this bad habit caught up to me. One day, in the middle of the month, I
realized that I had spent all my money already and I, uh, wouldn’t get paid
again for another two weeks. I didn’t even have enough money to buy myself
lunch.
Uh, where was I? Oh yeah, um, so I didn’t have enough money. I had to ask
my parents to give me some. They were happy to help, of course, but, um, I
sure didn’t feel very grown up having to ask them. Since then, I have learned
to budget my money better so my paycheck lasts all month. Um, that’s it.

Unit 3, Unit Assignment, Consider the Ideas, Activity A

Page 74
Speaker: Hello. I’m Tony, and today I’d like to tell you about an important turning
point in my life. When I was 18 years old, I went to Europe for a long
vacation. I had a lot of interesting adventures, and I grew up a lot on that trip.
However, one event sticks out in my mind as a moment in my life when I
really left childhood and entered adulthood. I was traveling in Russia at the
time. My father’s voice sounded so far away on the phone when he called. I
couldn’t believe his news: my mother had a problem with her brain, and the
doctors didn’t know if she was going to live.
I got on a plane the next day and hurried across the planet hoping that my
mom would still be alive when I got back home. When I walked into her
hospital room, she recognized me but couldn’t talk. She got better, bit by bit,
and, one day, I was allowed to take her outside in the hospital garden. As I
pushed her wheelchair, I realized that my mom would need me for a while. I
understood that even though traveling was my dream, it was more important
to stay home and take care of my mom. I guess that I learned that being an
adult means putting other people’s needs first. I think I grew up a little more
as my mom and I enjoyed walks in the hospital garden.

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UNIT 4

Unit 4, Science, The Q Classroom

Page 79
Teacher: The unit question is, “How do the laws of science affect our lives?” What do
you think, um, Marcus?
Marcus: The laws of science affect the world around us all the time. Like how gravity
keeps us on the Earth. Learning about how the world works is an important
part of human progress.
Teacher: OK. I agree. Can anyone give any specific examples of how the laws of science
impact our lives?
Sophy: I can. So, I remember learning about Archimedes’s buoyancy principle when I
was a kid. Basically, it explains why things float instead of sinking in water. It
helped me to understand how a big boat can float on the water but a little
rock sinks to the bottom.
Teacher: Yes, that’s a perfect example. Yuna, can you think of any examples of laws of
science affecting our lives?
Yuna: Well, I’ve been reading about space travel a lot recently, and I learned that
Newton’s third law of motion is an important part of how we get rockets into
space.
Teacher: That’s interesting. Can you explain that?
Yuna: Sure. So, Newton’s third law says that when one object exerts a force on
another object, the second object also exerts a force on the first object.
Teacher: That’s difficult to picture. How does that relate to rockets?
Yuna: Well, jet propulsion involves pushing something through an opening with a
lot of force. This causes the thing to move fast.
Felix: Oh, I get it! So, the rocket pushes gas out of the bottom of the rocket really
fast and with a lot of power, and it pushes the rocket into space. It’s kind of
like how a squid or octopus moves in the water.
Yuna: That’s right. So, the rocket pushes the gas out and the gas pushes the rocket
up.
Felix: And the octopus pushes water out and the water pushes the octopus forward.
Yuna: Yes! That’s basically Newton’s third law in action.

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Unit 4, Note-taking Skill, Activity A

Page 80
Podcast host: Hello everyone. Welcome to The Science of Our Lives! Today I want to talk
about an exciting new invention by a young scientist, Hannah Herbst. When
she was a 17-year-old high school student, she transformed her love for the
beach into an idea for offering a reliable power source to developing
communities. Amazing, right? So, she invented something called BEACON,
which stands for Bringing Electricity Access to Countries through Ocean
Energy. It’s a small machine. It’s a box, and it has wheels with blades. The box
sits on floating tubes. It takes energy from moving water and changes it to
electricity. So, basically, Hannah’s machine uses hydropower, or the power of
water, to generate electricity. The science behind this goes all the way back to
Newton’s third law. We know that when one object exerts a force on another
object, the second object also exerts a force on the first object, right? So,
when the ocean waves hit the blades of the turbine, they move. As the blades
move, they cause a generator to turn, and that makes electricity. Hannah’s
small machine will mean that people around the world who live near water
can have electric power. Pretty amazing, right? And to think, when I was 17
years old, I didn’t even know what I wanted to be when I grew up!

Unit 4, Listening 1, Activities A and C

Page 82, 83
Gravity at Work
Professor: OK, in your assigned reading you learned about Newton’s law of gravitation.
To summarize, gravity is a force of attraction between objects. So, when I
drop this pencil and it falls to the ground, the pencil is “attracted” to the
ground because of gravity. Remember, the ground is also attracted to the
pencil. Thanks to Newton’s laws, we know that objects that are bigger have
greater forces of attraction. That’s why the pencil, which is small, falls toward
the Earth, which is big, and not the other way around. Newton also showed
that the closer objects are to each other, the attraction is stronger. That’s why
the pencil falls to Earth and doesn’t go flying out into space to a bigger planet
like Jupiter, which is millions of miles away. Hopefully this is clear for all of
you.
For homework, I asked you to each prepare a short presentation about an
innovative way scientists and inventors are using gravity. Most importantly,
I asked you to answer three questions: Where did the idea come from? How
does the invention work? And what’s the science behind it? So, let’s get
started on the presentations. Nydia, can you please go first?
Nydia: Ah, sure. Uh, today I am going to talk about an exciting new invention called
GravityLight. Where did the idea for GravityLight come from? Well, the

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inventors, Jim Reeves and Martin Riddiford, were trying to find a cheap
alternative to dirty and hazardous kerosene 1 lights that are used
throughout the developing world. They considered lots of different lights,
but there was always a problem with the battery 2. Their intention was to get
rid of the battery completely. Batteries are just too expensive, and people
can’t always afford them. That’s why many people around the world have
been using kerosene lights for years: because they have been the cheapest
way to light your home. But they can cause fires really easily, and the smoke
can be poisonous. So, Reeves and Riddiford wanted a light that didn’t need
batteries but was also affordable. So, they invented GravityLight.
OK, so, how does GravityLight work? Essentially, to turn on GravityLight, you
need to lift a weight that is attached to a small generator 3 and a light. As the
weight slowly falls, it turns a gear, which drives a generator that powers the
light. You get 20 minutes of light every time you lift the weight.
What is the science behind this? This is a bit complicated, but inside the
GravityLight, there are plastic gears. The gears control how quickly the
weight falls. They also turn on the generator, which runs on a rubber band
and powers the light. I think this is a really important invention because it
can provide people with a healthy, safe, and cheap alternative to kerosene
lights in their homes. It has already been sold in countries like Kenya.
Professor: That was really interesting! Thanks, Nydia. Now, um, Rowan, can you please
come up to the front of the room and go next?
Rowan: OK. My presentation is about a machine called Mr. Trash Wheel. First, I will
tell you where the idea came from. Mr. Trash Wheel’s home is Baltimore City
in the United States. This city has had a problem with garbage in its harbor
for many years. People have always thrown garbage on the street, or maybe
it blows out of someone’s garbage can. Then, when it rains, the rain carries
the garbage into the harbor. After a strong storm, you could see all sorts of
trash in the water. It was unacceptable.
So, this guy, John Kellett, is a sailor and an engineer in Baltimore. He worked
for years in the harbor. He was tired of seeing all the garbage in the water, so
he worked with the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore to build a trash
wheel.
Next, I am going to explain how Mr. Trash Wheel functions. It’s a big
waterwheel that sits right in front of where the Jones Falls River empties into
the harbor. It’s surrounded by floating tubes that direct the trash into the
machine. When rain falls, water and trash stream down the river to the
harbor. The running water pushes the waterwheel and turns it. The wheel is

1 kerosene: noun a type of fuel oil that is made from petroleum

2 battery: noun a device that is placed inside a car engine, clock, etc. and that produces the
electricity that makes it work
3 generator: noun a machine for producing electricity

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connected to these fork-shaped parts that also turn and pick up the garbage
from the water and put it onto a conveyor belt 4 that is also powered by the
wheel. The trash moves up the conveyor belt and falls into a big box. So the
trash goes into the box and not out into the harbor. The conveyor belt is
covered by a white cloth, and on top are solar panels. There are also two big
eyes because the conveyor belt kind of looks like a mouth.
OK, so finally, I want to talk about the science behind this invention. Gravity
pushes the water down toward the harbor. The force of the water pushes the
big waterwheel, which turns the “forks” and the conveyor belt. I love this
invention because it’s doing a pretty good job of helping to keep the
Baltimore harbor clean. It’s already taken more than a million pounds of
trash out of the water! It’s kind of cute, too.
Professor: Great job, Rowan! OK, let’s go ahead and take a short break. When you come
back, we’ll continue with the presentations.

Unit 4, Listening Skill, Example

Page 85
Rowan: So, this guy, John Kellett, is a sailor and an engineer in Baltimore. He worked
for years in the harbor. He was tired of seeing all the garbage in the water, so
he worked with the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore to build a trash
wheel.

Unit 4, Listening Skill, Activity A

Page 86
Excerpt 1.
Professor: Hopefully this is clear for all of you.
Excerpt 2.
Professor: Most importantly, I asked you to answer three questions: Where did the idea
come from? How does the invention work? And what’s the science behind it?
Excerpt 3.
Nydia: Batteries are just too expensive, and people can’t always afford them. That’s
why many people around the world have been using kerosene lights for
years.

4
conveyor belt: noun a continuous moving band used for transporting goods

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Unit 4, Listening Skill, Activity B

Page 86
Items 1 and 2.
Nydia: I think this is a really important invention because it can provide people with
a healthy, safe, and cheap alternative to kerosene lights in their homes.
Items 3 and 4.
Rowan: I love this invention because it’s doing a pretty good job of helping to keep
the Baltimore harbor clean. It’s already taken more than a million pounds of
trash out of the water! It’s kind of cute, too.

Unit 4, Listening 2, Part 1, Activities A and D. Video also available on iQ Online.

Page 88
Moore’s Law
Announcer 1: Today, hugely sophisticated computers can be held in the palm of your
hand. But originally, computers filled an entire room.
Announcer 2: Preparing Nellie to do a day’s work has become a well practiced routine 1.
Speaker 1: Right, keys in. Can you check disk oil level please, Harry?
Speaker 2: Oil OK.
Speaker 3: OK, disk up to speed.
Speaker 4: Hello, alternator house, disk oil and temperature OK, is it OK your end?
Speaker 5: Motor on. OK for standby 2.
Announcer 1: Forty years after the first electronic computers were developed . . .
Speaker 6: Standby coming on.
Announcer 1: . . . their size has decreased dramatically. How has computing technology
advanced so rapidly? The answer lies in the size of circuit boards, which
have rapidly become smaller and smaller.
Gordon Moore was the co-founder and chairman of Intel, back in 1965, when
he formulated 3 what has come to be known as Moore’s law. Observing how
technology had advanced up to that point, Moore said that the number of
transistors that can fit on a circuit board would double every two years. This
increases computational power very quickly. In fact, each doubling of

1 routine: noun the normal order and way in which you regularly do things
2 standby: noun something that is ready
3 formulate: verb to express your ideas in carefully chosen words

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transistor density actually quadruples 4 the effective computational power,

because as transistors shrink 5, so does the time it takes to perform their
switching operations—so, we get twice the amount of transistors in the same
space, working at twice the speed. This also results in a lower cost per unit as
the same computational power can be created more cheaply.
The effect has been very noticeable in the consumer market. For example,
the development of cell phones, from early models to complex smartphones,
in less than 30 years is strongly linked to Moore’s law, as are processing
speed, memory capacity, and even the number and size of pixels in digital
cameras.
Industry experts now believe we are approaching the end of Moore’s Law.
Current techniques are reaching their capacity, and the technology required
to go even smaller would cost too much. Since 1965, much of the computing
industry has set its targets for development based on Moore’s law, but with
the technology apparently nearing its limits, the future is harder to predict.

Unit 4, Listening 2, Part 2, Activities A and D

Page 88
Professor: OK, any reactions to the video?
Female 1: The computer from 1968 was hilarious! It was huge! It’s really amazing
when you compare, what did they call it, Nellie? When you compare Nellie
with my smartphone.
Professor: Exactly! Fifty years ago, computers were enormous. Twenty years ago, my
computer took up most of my desk. Then we started carrying around laptops.
Now, computers are, well, phone-sized. Or even smaller, really. Scientists at
MIT are testing a tiny computer “pill” that has a microphone, a thermometer,
and a battery. The idea is that we could swallow it, and it would collect
information about us from inside our bodies. Astonishing, right?
So, the video focused on the size of circuit boards, more specifically how
circuit boards have decreased in size since the 1960s. Before we go any
further, can anyone remind us what a circuit board is?
Male 1: Um, it’s a board that holds electrical circuits inside a computer. The main one,
the motherboard, basically facilitates communication between different parts
of the computer.
Female 2: And it provides connectors with external electronics, too. It’s like the brain of
the computer.

4 quadruple: verb to make something four times bigger

5 shrink: verb to become or make something smaller

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Professor: OK, yes, the brain. That works. So, to extend that comparison, a circuit board
could have millions of transistors, which would be like the brain cells. The
video introduced us to Gordon Moore. Way back in 1965, he predicted that
transistors would get smaller and smaller, meaning that we could put more
of them on each circuit board. This has allowed computers to become not
only smaller, but also faster. So, the video says that experts believe that we
are reaching the limits of Moore’s law. Some scientists predict that we’ll have
the smallest transistors possible within the next couple of years.
And, to an extent, the “computer pill” coming out of MIT reflects this. I mean,
it’s pretty tiny, but it’s not any faster than a normal-sized smartphone. But
maybe the debate over whether the limit of Moore’s law is in sight or not is
not really all that important. I mean, a pill-sized computer has a pretty
specific function, right? And while people are still excited by smaller, thinner
phones, I can imagine that a time will come when we can’t make the latest
phone any smaller and still be able to use it easily. So, in the end, what is easy
and comfortable for us might slow technological advances more than the
limits of Moore’s law.

Unit 4, Pronunciation, Examples

Page 95
I enjoyed it very much.
Hand me that brush, please.
What have you seen?
Are you concerned?

Unit 4, Pronunciation, Activity A

Page 96
1. Gordon Moore made an important prediction.
2. Where did he work?
3. Did Moore’s law create new industries?
4. What has Moore’s law changed?
5. Will Moore’s law continue forever?
6. Computers are not rare and expensive anymore.
7. Can you imagine a day without your smartphone?
8. How do you feel about computers being able to read your mind?

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Unit 4, Pronunciation, Activity B

Page 96
Alex: What’s that?
Lee: It’s a cool new flashlight.
Alex: What’s so cool about it?
Lee: The power for it comes from the heat of my hand.
Alex: How does that work?
Lee: It’s the thermoelectric effect. It changes the heat into electricity.
Alex: Can I see it?
Lee: Here you are.
Alex: It really works!

Unit 4, Speaking Skill, Activity A

Page 97
1.
A: How old are you?
B: I’d rather not say.
2.
A: What did you think of the company president’s speech?
B: You might say it gives a very unique point of view.
3.
A: Hello. Is Nick there?
B: Who’s calling?
4.
A: Is Joseph doing a good job?
B: Joseph is a very hard worker.
5.
A: Can I have your address, please?
B: I’m sorry, but I don’t give out that information.

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6.
A: Where were you on Friday?
B: Why do you need to know?

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UNIT 5

Unit 5, Nutritional Science, The Q Classroom

Page 103
Teacher: We’re going to talk about the science of food. So let’s start off with the Unit
Question, “How has science changed the food we eat?” Yuna, what do you
think?
Yuna: Science has changed packaged food a lot. They add vitamins because they’re
good for us, and they use less fat and things that aren’t good for us.
Teacher: What do you think, Felix? How has science changed the food we eat?
Felix: Well, I think it’s because of science that people eat so much packaged food.
They’ve discovered ways to create food that people like, usually by adding a
lot of salt or sugar. It’s not healthy at all.
Teacher: How else has science changed the food we eat? Marcus?
Marcus: They’ve learned to make all kinds of things out of corn. They use corn syrup
to sweeten sodas and candy, and corn oil for frying. Corn is cheap to grow, so
a lot of food is less expensive, like fast food. But I agree with Felix—it’s not
healthy.
Teacher: Sophy, do you have any other answers to this question? How else has science
changed the way we eat?
Sophy: Well, science has changed the plants and animals we eat. A long time ago,
corn was a small plant, but now it’s a huge one. And the animals are bigger,
too, because they figured out just the right diet to feed them to make them
larger.
Teacher: Some of you feel that science has made food less healthy. Do you think
science has done anything good for our diets?
Sophy: Absolutely. Because of science, we’re able to grow more food and feed more
people. Less hunger in the world is a very good thing.

Unit 5, Note-taking Skill, Activity A

Page 104
Professor: Hello, everyone! Today, I’m going to be talking about the study of using food
in place of medicine. Traditionally, in many cultures around the world,
people have used food to cure illnesses.

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For instance, in China, one famous and delicious dish is Peking duck. Have
any of you ever tried it? Have you ever wondered how it gets that beautiful
red color? Well, it is also very healthy because the skin of the duck is colored
with red rice powder that contains a natural chemical that lowers
cholesterol. Maybe this is one reason why fewer people have heart disease in
China than in many other countries. Perhaps doctors in China advise their
patients with heart problems to eat more Peking duck.
Another example of using food for good health comes from Brazil. Some of
the indigenous, or native, populations that live near water use specific kinds
of fish as medicine. For example, they use the oil from the liver of a shark
called a hammerhead to cure asthma. So, when someone is having an asthma
attack and they have trouble breathing, they may drink shark liver oil. Now
that these traditional cultures have more access to modern medicine, their
use of fish as a source of medicine, especially fish that are endangered, like
the hammerhead, is decreasing. Nowadays, people are more likely to visit a
doctor than to go fishing for their medicine. However, even as the practice of
using food as medicine seems to be disappearing in some places, modern
drug companies are looking to traditional foods for new medicines. Right
now, researchers are testing new asthma drugs that contain oil from other
sharks, like nurse sharks and blue sharks. In your text, you will read more
examples of food being used in medicine. Please open to page 271. . . .

Unit 5, Listening 1, Activities A and D. Video also available on iQ Online.

Page 106, 107
Improving Farming with Flying Robots
Chris Anderson: It’s a bit of a cliché 1 but, William Gibson’s famous quote, “The future is
already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.” We have seen the future of
aviation. We have seen the future of food. We have seen the future of
robotics. Right now, it’s too hard. It’s not reliable enough. It’s too expensive.
But as we work on that, as we make it cheaper and easier and more
ubiquitous 2, then it becomes more evenly distributed. Then regular people
can have these powerful tools and we can see what they’ll do with it. So,
we’ve already seen robots can fly; the question is how do we make it so that
everybody can see that?
We know that we’ve got to feed more people, and we have to lower the
chemical load in our, in agriculture and use less water. How are we going to
do that? Well, the answer is going to be essentially technology, that where
farms are becoming increasingly automated—robotic tractors, robotic

1 cliché: noun a phrase or an idea that has been used so often that it no longer has much meaning
and is not interesting
2 ubiquitous: adjective very common

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milking machines, et cetera—and farms are increasingly becoming a big data

opportunity. We realize that the more you know about the farm, the better
you can manage it, and the better you can optimize 3 your yield 4 and decrease
your chemical load.
How are we going to get big data? How are we going to measure our farms?
And the answer is you can either, you know, scatter sensors 5 like seed, which
is hard and we don’t know how to do that, or you can just take the sensors to
the farm, which is what drones can do.
So the irony of this whole thing is that when I got started in this whole thing,
I thought, you know, autonomy—drones—are the future of flight. In reality,
they may in fact be the future in of food. It’s been a long time since farming
was dominated by the, you know, the family plots and the small holdings.
Today, farms are huge. There’s—the farms are getting bigger and bigger with
consolidation 6 in big ag 7, and there’s fewer and fewer people on them. And
they’re, and as the sort of demands for productivity go up, they’re being
scientifically managed by what’s called precision agriculture. So a tractor
today typically drives itself, GPS-guided, within centimeters’ precision to
exactly know where things are planted. They can also pick, you know, crops
that same way. The farmer sitting in that cab is probably watching a movie,
not driving the tractor. Cows, when they want to be milked, cows go into the
milking shed and the robots then milk them.
You know, this is, this sort of robotic, you know, revolution in agriculture,
you know, 300 years after the original mechanization of agriculture, is going
to be the way we get to that next level of productivity that feeds the planet.
I think we’re right there with drones, which is to say our job, as technologists,
is to make them cheap and easy and ubiquitous, and then ultimately the
users figure out what the application is for. And farming is a perfect example
of that. It was farmers who told us that these things were fantastic crop
survey, you know, devices and we didn’t realize that crop surveys were
important until we started talking to farmers and they explained that
agriculture is the biggest industry in the world, that right now because farms
are so big, the farmers can’t walk their fields anymore. They don’t actually
know what’s going on, and as a result, they use more chemicals and more
water than they need to simply because they’re suffering from ignorance.
They can’t afford the cost of a disease/infection, so they overspray.

3 optimize: verb to make something as good as it can be; to use something in the best possible
way
4 yield: noun the total amount of crops, profits, etc. that are produced
5 sensor: noun a device that can react to light, heat, pressure, etc. in order to make a machine,
etc. do something or show something
6 consolidation: noun making a position of power or success stronger so that it is more likely to
continue
7 ag: noun abbreviation for agriculture

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If they could get, you know, a sensor, by this I mean a simple camera, to just
fly every day and say, here’s what’s going on with your crops today, maybe
they wouldn’t be spraying those chemicals. Maybe we could lower the
chemical load in our food and our environment.
And so it’s not only the biggest industry in the world with the highest
economic potential of bringing this sort of data, big data approach to crop
management, but it’s also the safest place to be using things because there’s
no people there. It doesn’t, it’s not over your backyard, it doesn’t trigger 8
privacy issues. It’s private land, it’s under 400 feet. You know, if we do our
job right, today you think of drones as military weapons; tomorrow you’ll
think of drones as farm equipment. You’ll just, there’ll be these things
buzzing over crops as you drive through the countryside.

Unit 5, Listening Skill, Activity A

Page 109
Speaker: Don’t believe the organic hype.
For too many people, eating healthier means buying organic food. People
think that just because the label says “organic” that the food is better for
them. However, a quick look at the list of ingredients on many organic
products shows that they can be just as high in salt, calories, and fat as
normal foods. Just because some potato chips are made from organic
potatoes doesn’t mean it’s a healthy choice to eat the whole bag.
Furthermore, research shows that the dangers associated with eating too
much high-calorie food are worse than eating food with additives or artificial
coloring.

Unit 5, Listening Skill, Activity B

Page 110
Excerpt 1.
Speaker 1: As the sale of fast food increases internationally, people’s weights are
increasing, too. Several important international organizations, including the
World Health Organization, are very concerned about the growing rate of
obesity around the world. Scientists believe that fast-food restaurants play a
substantial role in more and more people becoming overweight.
Excerpt 2.
Speaker 2: Can it really hurt your heart to drink one soda a day? A recent study
published by the American Heart Association says it can. The report suggests

8 trigger: verb to make something happen suddenly

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that drinking even one soda a day can increase your chances of getting heart
disease.
Excerpt 3.
Speaker 1: Tea is one of the world’s oldest and most popular drinks. In spite of the
recent popularity of fancy coffee in parts of Asia, most people in China still
look forward to the peace and calm they associate with the ancient practice
of drinking tea.
Excerpt 4.
Speaker 2: Can we believe what the food labels claim? Labels say things like “all natural”
or “helps build healthy bones” or “made with real fruit” or “contains real
chocolate” or “helps burn fat.” But research shows that food labels can often
be confusing. Or they try to make you believe something that isn’t quite true.

Unit 5, Listening 2, Activities A and C

Page 111, 112
The Science Behind Food Cravings
Host: Welcome back to Why in the World? Turning now to Twitter, we are going to
try to scientifically answer some of your questions. Today, the question
comes from Chuni in Beijing. She tweets, “Sometimes in the evening, when
I’m sitting at my desk and working on homework, out of nowhere, I really,
really want to eat something salty. It’s a bit disturbing because I’m not even
really hungry. I just can’t think about anything else until I go to the kitchen
and open a bag of potato chips. Why in the world do I have these strong food
cravings?” Well, I certainly can relate to Chuni, except I often crave sweet
foods, not salty foods. For me, chocolate is the ultimate snack! So, in order to
answer Chuni’s question, we asked Lara Jones, a nutritionist from the
Baltimore Institute of Food Sciences, Dr. Svacina, a dietary psychologist, and
Howazen Al Ganem, professor of ethics in advertising at the University of
Vancouver. First, Ms. Jones, what can you tell us about food cravings?
Ms. Jones: Well, I think most people have experienced this kind of intense desire for a
particular food. However, even though they are really common, there is not a
lot of agreement about what causes these food cravings. In fact, there is an
interesting debate among some experts right now. Many nutritionists
believe that a food craving is a message from your body signaling a need for a
particular nutrient or vitamin.
Host: So, Chuni’s craving for potato chips might signal a lack of sodium?
Ms. Jones: Yes, these nutritionists would say that her desire for salty food is a reaction
to not having enough salt or sodium in her diet. Similarly, your desire for
chocolate might come from a lack of the mineral magnesium.

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Host: Really? So, Dr. Svacina, do you agree that I should eat more chocolate?
Dr. Svacina: Well, unfortunately not everyone agrees with this. Some psychologists point
out that there is other food, like spinach or fish, that has much more
magnesium than chocolate does, but most people don’t crave this food.
Host: That’s true. I never crave spinach.
Dr. Svacina: Also, while our cravings may start from real hunger, some scientists believe
they are compounded by our feelings. Being sad, worried, stressed, bored,
or lonely can make food cravings more likely. So, maybe while Chuni is doing
her homework, she is feeling stressed or bored, which makes her a target for
food cravings. Other researchers have discovered that where we live affects
what we crave. Americans, for example, tend to crave chocolate . . .
Host: Like me!
Dr. Svacina: Exactly. However, Egyptians tend to crave more flavorful dishes, like stuffed
eggplant. We also crave things that are in our immediate space. For example,
if I walk past a bowl of nuts my co-worker has on her desk, I often start to
think about how much I want to eat them.
Host: Howazen Al Ganem, some of your research has focused on how TV
advertisers use pictures of food to trigger cravings.
Prof. Al Ganem: That’s right. When we turn on the TV, we see image after image of rich,
fatty, sweet, and salty food. So, just like Dr. Svacina craves the nuts on her co-
worker’s desk after she sees them, I might start to crave a hamburger if I see
one on TV. Suddenly, I just can’t live without one.
Host: So, what does this mean for consumers? For those of us who race to the
store when we experience a food craving?
Prof. Al Ganem: Well, that’s a good question. I think we really do need to think about the
ethics of advertising unhealthy food to children, for instance. We may need to
make modifications to our laws to protect young people from food cravings
caused by TV. On the other hand, perhaps adults simply need to be aware of
the effect TV can have on our desire for certain foods. We can also alter our
TV watching habits, like walking to another room when the advertisements
are on.
Host: And what should I do if it’s too late, if I’ve already seen that delicious ice
cream cone or slice of cheesy pizza, and I can’t get it out of my mind?
Ms. Jones: Well, in that case, some experts have some surprising advice. They say we
should let ourselves have a little bit of the food we are craving, so we can
move past the craving and return to whatever it was we were doing.
Host: That’s interesting advice! Thanks so much to our panel of experts for setting
us straight about food cravings.

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Unit 5, Listening 2, Activities H and I

Page 115
Speaker 1: Here at Freddy’s Fitness Center, our associates can help you get fit fast. Gain
muscle and lose up to five pounds per week on our Starter Plan. Achieve even
more on our Advanced Plan. All of our Freddy’s Fitness plans are based on
the latest scientific research. Getting fit can be fun again with Freddy’s
Fitness Center.
Speaker 2: Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have found evidence that our
diet may affect how our brain functions. For instance, a diet that is rich in
omega-3 has been shown to help the brains of mice stay healthy. But diets
that are high in fat cause slow brain processing.
Speaker 3: People wonder if genetically modified food—or GMOs—are safe. Research
has repeatedly shown GMOs to be safe for humans to consume. Yet so many
people get incredibly angry at scientists who are doing the research. It seems
that as a society, we have lost our ability to be objective about this topic.

Unit 5, Pronunciation, Examples

Page 120
This tomato is genetically altered?
You eat five sandwiches a day?
I ate eggs, toast, and cereal.

Would you like coffee?

Would you like coffee or iced tea?

Unit 5, Pronunciation, Activity A

Page 120
1. What? You’ve never eaten a tomato?
2. Do you prefer water or juice?
3. My favorite foods are rice, yams, and pizza.
4. What did you say? You don’t like ice cream?
5. Are you hungry? Do you want some bread and cheese?

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Unit 5, Speaking Skill, Activity A

Page 121
Faisal: Hey, Marc. Is this seat free? Do you mind if I sit here?
Marc: Not at all! How are you doing?
Faisal: I’m absolutely starving!
Marc: Really? Why?
Faisal: I went to the gym this morning before school, and by 11:00, my stomach was
growling in class.
Marc: Wow, that had to be embarrassing.
Faisal: Definitely. So, what did you get for lunch?
Marc: Well, they’re serving French onion soup today, so I got some of that. It’s not
bad, but not like home.
Faisal: Yeah! French food is famous around the world, but I’ve never had it.
Marc: Well, I am from Provence, in the south of France. People take food very
seriously there.
Faisal: Mm-hmm.
Marc: People buy fresh fruit and vegetables from the market every day.
Faisal: Every day?
Marc: Yeah, and the cheese is amazing! It tastes nothing like what we buy in the
grocery stores here.
Faisal: That’s interesting. I feel that way about Saudi Arabian food here, too. It’s not
quite the same.

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UNIT 6

Unit 6, Education, The Q Classroom

Page 127
Teacher: “Is one road to success better than another?” Marcus, what do you think? Is
there a best road to success?
Marcus: I think that in most cases it’s better to take a nontraditional road. If you have
a different kind of experience than other people in your career, then you’ll
have a different perspective. You might know things other people don’t
know.
Teacher: Good point. What do you think, Sophy, is one road to success better than
another?
Sophy: I guess I’d say no, that there are many different ways of reaching your goals.
The best way for one person might not be the best for someone else. Maybe a
nontraditional road works for Marcus, but a more traditional one works for
someone else.
Teacher: What do you think, Felix? Marcus feels it’s best to find your own unique path,
and Sophy feels that while that might work for some people, it won’t work for
everyone. What do you think?
Felix: I agree with Sophy in the sense that everyone is different and everyone needs
to find their own way. But one argument for a more traditional path to
success—say, studying hard, getting a degree, getting an entry-level job, and
working your way up—is that you gain a lot of work experience along the
way. If you take a less traditional path, you might miss out on that valuable
work experience.
Teacher: OK. How about you, Yuna? Would you say that one road to success is better
than another?
Yuna: No. I agree that there are advantages and disadvantages to every choice.

Unit 6, Note-taking Skill, Activity A

Page 128
Professor: OK, so in the reading you did to prepare for this class, you learned about
several different businesses that have taken kind of a nontraditional
approach to success. In other words, these companies have achieved success
without focusing only on making money. Who can tell me about one of the
businesses from the chapter you read? Yes, Brian.

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Brian: Well, one of the examples was the American ice cream maker, Ben and
Jerry’s. The two guys who started the company, Ben and Jerry, were
childhood friends. They took a college course in ice cream making, and they
opened their first ice cream shop in, um, 1979, I think. What made Ben and
Jerry’s different from many other ice cream companies was their focus on
charities and their opposition to using any chemicals. They wanted to build a
company that had a conscience. They received the US Small Business Persons
of the Year award in 1989, and they sold their company in 2000 for a huge
profit. They had some problems along the way, though. They were involved
in lawsuits with another ice cream company, and they needed help with their
business to deal with the fast growth of their company.
Professor: Right. Very good, thank you. OK, how about another company . . . Kurumi.
Kurumi: Another company that has succeeded because of its nontraditional approach
is Lululemon. It’s a Canadian sportswear company. It was started in 1998 by
Chip Wilson in Vancouver. His idea was for the store to be like a community
meeting place where people could learn about healthy living. Now the
company is valued at $10 billion! But, some people think the company grew
too fast. Chip Wilson has disagreed with board members about the new focus
on making more money.
Professor: Thanks for the summary, Kurumi. We have time for one more. Um, OK, Ali.
How about you?
Ali: Well, since I love coffee, I was the most interested in Starbucks. OK, so it
opened in 1971, and there has always been a focus on creating a feeling of
community for its customers. But, like with Lululemon, the company has
grown really quickly. There are more than 21,000 stores in 65 different
countries. But, in 2008, the company had some financial problems. Now it
seems that Starbucks is interested in returning to its core values.
Professor: Thanks everyone! Now, for next class, please read . . .

Unit 6, Listening 1, Part 1, Activities A and D

Page 130, 131
Failure and Success in Startups
Professor: So, for the past few weeks, we’ve been talking about starting a business and
what it takes to be successful. Over the weekend, your assignment was to
research a successful startup. Can I get a couple of people to start off? Yes,
how about Elena and . . . Rob.
Elena: So, I read about Scott Nash, who is the founder of MOM’s Organic Market. He
started his business with only a hundred dollars. When he was 22 years old,
he opened a business in his mother’s house. First, he delivered food to
people. He even brought people food in the middle of the night. Then he

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opened a store selling organic stuff. Because his company grew slowly, he
could focus on his values, which were the environment and his customers.
That was good. However, he didn’t really start making a profit for the first 20
years. Then, in 2009, there was an economic crisis in the United States, and
he had to start thinking more about money and not just about the
environment. He says it was a very scary time. However, he just took it step
by step, and slowly his small company grew into a chain of stores that makes
200 million dollars every year.
Rob: Hmm. That’s interesting. Some of it sounds a little like the business owner I
researched, the chairman of John Paul Mitchell Systems.
Elena: The shampoo guy?
Rob: Exactly! His real name is John Paul Dejoria. He started his career by trying to
sell all sorts of things to people at their doors. Unlike Scott Nash, he wasn’t a
very successful salesperson at the start, and he was even homeless a couple
of times and had to sleep in his car. However, he thinks these failures were
important lessons, because he learned how to deal with rejection. He became
a better salesperson than he was before. Then he met Paul Mitchell, a good
hairdresser. Paul had quality hair products to sell, and John Paul was a good
salesman. They started their company with only $700. Now, the company
sells more than 80 hair products and is very successful. Like Scott Nash, John
Paul Dejoria also focused on his values as his business expanded. He gives a
lot of his money to help solve environmental and social problems.
Professor: OK. Thank you for sharing. So, sometimes entrepreneurs start small and
steadily grow a business. More often, starting a new business is a journey of
mistakes and failures. Now, we’re going to watch a video about another
famous businessperson whose journey to success was full of failures. This is
an interview with Michael Acton Smith, the creator of Moshi Monsters, a
children’s website.

Unit 6, Listening 1, Part 2, Activities A and D

Listening Skill, Activity B. Video also available on iQ Online.
Page 130, 131, 134
Peter: So, Michael, I’d love to know where it all started and what was your first
business?
Michael: Went to university up in Birmingham and met a friend of mine called Tom
Boardman. And we had this idea to sell toys and gadgets and games. And a
wonderful chap 1 called Tom Teichman decided to invest half a million
pounds into our business. And we decided to do it on the Internet, which was
very new and shiny back in 1998. And the great thing then was that there

1 chap: noun used in Great Britain to talk about a man in a friendly way

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weren’t many competitors. The downside was there were hardly any
customers either.
Peter: And then from there where did—
Michael: Well, then—
Peter: What was your next—
Michael: Then we almost lost everything in the dot-com 2 bust 3 in early 2000. We
overextended 4 ourselves. We spent too much money. We got carried away 5.
We teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. It was a pretty, pretty scary time.
Peter: Michael’s business might now be a multimillion-pound hit, but he’s clearly
had more than his fair share of near misses. After the dot-com bubble burst,
Michael swapped selling gadgets for developing an adventure game. Perplex
City launched in 2005. Players bought puzzle cards and followed clues in a
bid to find buried treasure worth a hundred thousand pounds. Amazingly,
having nearly lost it all, Michael persuaded his previous investor and others
to give him another chance and more money.
Michael: I’d managed to raise further financing 6, and in total, I’d raised about six
million pounds for this business. Yes, so I got some very, very well respected,
huge venture capital 7 firms came in and invested between them many
millions of pounds. So the pressure and the stakes 8 really, really raised at
that point.
Peter: Did it succeed? Was it good for you?
Michael: There were people in different countries around the world helping expand
this treasure hunt. It was a pretty big operation, but unfortunately there
weren’t enough people playing to cover the costs of running this very
expensive business.
Peter: But what did you put—you didn’t spend six million, surely, on a website and
a treasure hunt?
Michael: Well, helicopters are pretty expensive.
Peter: Real helicopters, you mean?

2 dot-com: noun a company that sells goods and services on the Internet
3 bust: noun a period of economic difficulty in which people and businesses struggle to survive
4 overextended: adjective involved in more work or activities or spending more money than you
can manage without problems
5 get carried away: phrasal verb to get very excited or lose control of your feelings
6 financing: noun money used to run a business, an activity, or a project
7 venture capital: noun money that is invested in a new company to help it develop, which may
involve a lot of risk
8 stakes: noun something that you risk losing, especially money, when you are involved in an
activity that can succeed or fail

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Michael: Real helicopters we hired to do flyovers of these live events we did. We had a
massive burn rate 9, and our outgoings were a lot higher than our incomings.
Peter: Wow.
Michael: Very, very—
Peter: Six million.
Michael: Six million pounds. And you can imagine how stressful and tense it was to
have all this money, but the business not working.
Peter: So did you lose all the money then?
Michael: Well, we had about six hundred thousand pounds left in the bank, about a
million dollars.
Peter: And how did you front the investors? Were they camping outside, like sort of
protestors?
Michael: Well, we had to go to the board and tell them in a very stressful board
meeting that, you know, that six million pounds you’d given me? Well, most
of it has gone. I’m really sorry this idea hasn’t worked out. But I’ve got one
more idea, one final roll of the dice.
Peter: What did they say? I mean, if you came in to me and said, “Peter, look, it’s not
all bad. You gave me six million and I’ve got six hundred K 10 left. So, hey,
we’re all right.” No, we’re not all right. It’s like what is going on?
Michael: I was terrified. But to their credit the board were supportive. You know, they
listened and they said, “Michael, fair enough. You know, we invested in you
more than the idea. And if you’ve got one more idea, let’s see what happens.”
I think if I’d screwed up 11 with Moshi Monsters, there wouldn’t have been a
third chance. So fortunately it worked.
Peter: Have you been told that you were mad before?
Michael: Well, I think there’s always been a very fine line between insanity and
genius. And a lot of entrepreneurs with big visions kind of weave between
that line.
Peter: Insane or genius, Michael certainly doesn’t lack confidence.

9 burn rate: noun the rate at which the money available for a project or new company is spent
10 K: noun abbreviation for $1,000
11 screw up: phrasal verb to do something badly or spoil something

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Unit 6, Listening Skill, Activity A

Page 133
Mr. Doshi: Bob Quintero and Susan Miyamoto are the final candidates for the marketing
position at our company. Bob has a degree from Harvard University in the
USA, whereas Susan has a degree from Keio Business School in Japan.
Ms. Stanz: Bob and Susan both have good work experience. Bob has worked for five
years at a small marketing company. But Susan has worked for eight years at
our company.
Doshi: Susan speaks more languages. Bob speaks Arabic and Spanish. However,
Susan speaks French, Spanish, and Japanese.
Stanz: Bob has a lot of sales experience. On the other hand, Susan has a lot of
experience at our company.
Doshi: Hmm. This is going to be a tough decision!

Unit 6, Listening 2, Activities A and D

Page 136

Interns in New York

Instructor: OK. Last class, we talked about the benefits of internships, both for
companies and for individuals. Today, we’re going to look at the biggest
downside of being an intern. So, we learned last class that some industries in
particular, such as film production, journalism, and politics, are the most
likely to employ interns.
Let’s start by taking a closer look at journalism. According to the National
Union of Journalists, a group in the United Kingdom, 82 percent of people
who start to work in journalism do so as interns, and 92 percent of these
interns are unpaid. That’s right, almost all of the people who start careers
related to reporting the news are unpaid interns!
It’s gotten so bad that some interns have even sued 1 their employers for
unpaid wages, and they are winning these legal battles. For example, one
former intern, Lucy Bickerton, sued a famous New York film production
company. Her lawsuit claimed that, as an unpaid intern, Lucy worked an
average of six hours a day for several days a week over four months. In
interviews, Lucy has said that she isn’t against internships altogether. She
learned a lot through her internship and was grateful for her experience, but
she believed that the job she was doing was that of a full-time production
assistant and that she should have been paid for her work. Her complaint

1 sue: verb to make a claim against somebody in court about something that they have said or
done to harm you

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was about the fairness of the internship system. So, in the end, a judge
agreed with her and awarded Lucy and some of her predecessors $110,000.
Other interns have joined groups such as Intern Aware and the Global Intern
Coalition that have protested and organized strikes to draw attention to the
problem of unpaid internships. According to experts, while internships are
valuable opportunities for young people to get a taste of working in an
industry, many have become unpaid entry-level positions. Interns are not
always thought of as students and instead can be viewed by some companies
as free, disposable workers. Why has this change come about?
Many researchers point to the high youth unemployment rate for this trend.
It was 12.5 percent last year for 20- to 24-year-olds. Young people are
graduating from university and flooding 2 the workforce, and the
competition for jobs is fierce. So, we might conclude that government
policies that lower the unemployment rate might be a good way to ensure
that interns are paid. Until then, companies can take advantage of these
young workers.
OK, so, what do you think? Is an unpaid internship worth it? I’d like to hear
your thoughts on this. For homework, please participate in the online
discussion in our class website. Give your opinion and respond to two other
classmates. See you next week!

Nicholas: Well, what did you think of the lecture today, HyoJin?
HyoJin: Hmm. It was pretty interesting, since I’m actually planning to do an
internship after I graduate from university next year. I mean, I’ve heard that
interning can be hit or miss. It could be a really great chance to learn a lot if
I’m lucky and get hired by a good company. My older brother landed an
internship at a big tech company a few years ago, and he said it was amazing.
He got to work with cutting-edge 3 technology, and he was given a lot of
responsibility. He was paid for his work, not a lot, but enough to cover his
rent and living expenses. But my older sister had a very different experience.
She studied history at university, so she interned at a museum. It was
terrible. She was stuck scanning papers in a windowless office eight hours a
day all summer long. Her co-workers treated her really badly and made her
get coffee for them and do the boring jobs that no one wanted to do. She
basically hated every minute of her internship, and because it was an
internship, she wasn’t paid anything for her work.
Nicholas: Oh, wow. That sounds pretty miserable. So, why are you going to do it, if you
can’t really be sure that you’re going to get an internship with a decent
company?

2 flood: verb to arrive or go somewhere in large numbers

3 cutting-edge: adjective the newest, most advanced stage in the development of something

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HyoJin: Well, my brother wound up meeting some really important people in the tech
community. He made a lot of great contacts that he could call on when he
started up his own small company. My sister obviously didn’t want to work
in the museum where she did her internship, but having that work
experience made her more competitive when she applied for jobs at other
places. The employers were impressed that she had a big, important museum
on her CV 4, and she also got a job pretty quickly. If you ask her now, she says
it was totally worth it.
Nicholas: I guess that makes sense. So, where are you going to intern?
HyoJin: Well, I’ve applied at two different nonprofit organizations. One is really big
and well known. The other is a smaller, grassroots 5 group. I’m not really sure
which I would prefer, to be honest.
Nicholas: What are the pros and cons of each of them?
HyoJin: Well, the internship with the big nonprofit is paid and the other one isn’t. But
from what I’ve heard, it seems like I’d be able to work on more interesting
and meaningful projects at the smaller organization.
Nicholas: Hmm. That’s a tough choice.
HyoJin: Right?
Nicholas: I guess you need to ask yourself where you think you might like to really
work. I mean, after your internship.
HyoJin: Yeah, I have some thinking to do. So, what are you up to this summer? Are
you doing an internship?
Nicholas: I’ll be working all summer at my father’s landscaping company. It’ll be hot,
dirty, hard work, but the pay is pretty good, and I like the guys I’ll be working
with. Besides, I’ll get to be outside a lot, which I really like, and I’ll be finished
every day by five.
HyoJin: That doesn’t sound too bad. It sounds like both of us will be pretty busy for
the next few months.

4 CV: noun a written record of your education and the jobs you have done, that you send when
you are applying for a job (a résumé)
5 grassroots: adjective ordinary people in society or in an organization, rather than the
leaders or people who make decisions

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Unit 6, Pronunciation, Examples

Page 144
He started his business with only one hundred dollars.
He started his business with only one hundred dollars.
He started his business with only one hundred dollars.

Unit 6, Pronunciation, Activity A

Page 144
1. I would love to do an internship at a major tech company.
2. If I had to pick just one place to work, it would be New York City.
3. When Carlos was there, they didn’t have the internship program.
4. She’s working at a new engineering company.
5. You’ll learn a lot while you’re there, and you’ll have so much fun!

Unit 6, Pronunciation, Activity B

Page 145
1. I would like to get a job in Zambia working with wild animals.
2. I change jobs often. My father’s career path was more traditional.
3. I think I can build skills for this career if I take a year off to study.
4. The best reason to do an internship is the chance to learn about yourself.
5. No one ever told me that the group would leave before school is over.

Unit 6, Speaking Skill, Activity A

Page 146
A: I’ve had a very long day. I just came from my job.
B: That reminds me. I need to get your résumé. My company is hiring, and you
would be perfect for the position.
A: Really? That’s great! You make your job sound fun.
B: It is, most of the time. We all get along well at work.
A: Oh, I wanted to ask you if you have time to help me with my homework.

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B: Sure I can. We’ll do it after class.

A: Anyway, I’d love to give you my résumé. I’ve been looking for a new job.
B: I know. Speaking of which, my boss says she’s interviewing people next
week. Are you free in the morning?
A: I’ll make sure I’m available if she calls me.
B: Hold that thought. I have to get to my next class. We’ll talk about this later.
A: See you.

Unit 6, Unit Assignment, Consider the Ideas

Page 148
Narrator: Susan Jones
Jones: I was a housewife for most of my life, but after my divorce, I decided I wanted
to travel and see the world. For 11 years, I’ve taught outside of the US, in
Poland, Morocco, and Peru, where I’ve learned so much about other cultures.
Sometimes, I think my students have taught me more than I taught them!
My son just had a baby, and I want to come back to the US so that I can be
closer to my family. I still want to travel, though. And I want to have a job
where I can help students and inspire them to have some new experiences in
other countries. I speak Spanish, Polish, and a little Arabic.
Narrator: Doug Orman
Orman: I have taught history at a university for my entire career. I wanted a
promotion, but it didn’t happen, and I can see that my career is going
nowhere. So now I am ready for a complete change.
I’ve spent most of my summers traveling around the world, visiting historical
sites and museums. I have studied Russian and French, but I don’t speak
either very fluently.
Narrator: Narayan Tej
Tej: I just finished college, and I’m ready to start my career. I’m from India
originally, so I would bring a multicultural element to your team. In addition,
I love to travel. I went to Europe, Brazil, and Ecuador when I was in school,
and I traveled all over Asia with my family when I was a child. I speak English
and Hindi, and a little Spanish and French.
Narrator: Teresa Lopez
Lopez: I took a gap year when I finished high school, and I think it really helped
shape who I am. It broadened my world and made me aware of so many
things. I’d like to help students have the same experience, encourage them to

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stretch themselves a little. I don’t speak any other languages, but I would love
to learn.

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UNIT 7

Unit 7, Anthropology, The Q Classroom

Page 153
Teacher: The question is, “How can accidental discoveries affect our lives?” Yuna, what
do you think? Has an accidental discovery ever affected your life?
Yuna: Yes. I learned about this school by accident. I was at a cafe back home, and I
ran into an old acquaintance from high school. She told me about this school,
so I went home and looked it up on the Internet.
Teacher: So if you hadn’t run into your friend, you might not be in this class today.
Yuna: That’s right.
Teacher: Well, I’m glad you made that discovery! So an accidental discovery can affect
where you go to school. How else can these discoveries affect our lives?
Sophy?
Sophy: They can also affect your career. My brother happened to sit next to a man on
an airplane who owned an import/export company. The man and my brother
got along really well. They spent the whole flight talking and getting to know
each other. Now my brother works at the man’s company.
Teacher: Another accidental meeting! Felix, do you have any other examples of how an
accidental discovery can affect our lives? Maybe a discovery that doesn’t
involve meeting someone?
Felix: Well, I discovered soccer by accident. I was in this shopping mall with my
parents when I was a kid, and I wandered off into a sports store. They were
looking all over for me, and when they found me I was playing with a soccer
ball. Pretty soon after, I joined the local soccer team. It’s been a big part of my
life ever since.
Teacher: How would you answer the question, Marcus? How can accidental
discoveries affect our lives?
Marcus: I think it’s clear they can affect just about everything in your life. That’s why
it’s important to keep learning and having new experiences.

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Unit 7, Listening 1, Activities A and C

Page 155
The Power of Serendipity
Mary Tanner: Nothing like starting off with a bang. In 1867, Alfred Nobel accidentally
discovered dynamite after putting a popular but flammable salve on a cut
finger. Call it serendipity 1. Rubber—indispensable today. Before Charles
Goodyear mixed it with sulfur and accidentally dropped it on a hot stove, it
was a smelly, unreliable mess. Again, serendipity. The list of serendipity
stories is as long as the history of discovery.
Dr. Morton Meyers: Serendipity refers to looking for one thing and stumbling over
something else that proves to be of greater value.
Ms. Tanner: Radiologist Dr. Morton Meyers accidentally figured out how stomach cancer
metastasizes by watching where dye he injected for X-rays would spread and
then collect. He has written Happy Accidents about serendipity in medicine.
Dr. Meyers: What serendipity means is misadventure, an inadvertent observation that a
sharp, open mind can exploit to find its true benefit.
Mr. Adrian Jones: So, the story goes that Caldi, who happened to be a goat herder, stood
back and watched his goats eating coffee in . . . coffee beans in Ethiopia. Wild
coffee beans. And he sound . . . saw that they really engaged in some strange
behavior afterwards, because of the caffeine.
Ms. Tanner: Animals, according to food historian Adrian Jones, played an important role
in early food serendipity. You like cheese? Think dead camel stomachs.
Nomads filled them with milk and hung them like sacks from live camels’
saddles.
Mr. Jones: . . . So, you got the shaking motion of the camels, you got the rennet of the
stomach, you got the milk in the stomach, and that really is the beginning of
cheese.
Ms. Tanner: My favorite serendipity story, for obvious reasons? Post-it Notes. In 1968, a
scientist at 3M made an adhesive that wasn’t sticky enough. A thousand
Post-it products later, a world without them seems inconceivable. After the
fact, serendipity seems so obvious. If there ever was a place literally in the
serendipity business, the MIT Media Lab is it.
Mr. Wells: The whole idea is to bring together people with vastly different
backgrounds—scientists, engineers, designers, biologists—and have them
interact in open, play-like environments, to experiment, not to be afraid of
failure, and to build.
I think serendipity is mandatory. It’s not, it’s not a luxury.

1 serendipity: noun the fact of something interesting or pleasant happening by chance

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Ms. Tanner: But it can be fun. During World War II, GE tried to make synthetic rubber. It
failed. Nobody could figure out what to do with it until a marketing genius
put it in a little plastic egg and sold it as a novelty toy. More than 300 million
little eggs have been sold. Here’s the best part: When Silly Putty turned 50 in
the year 2000, it got the white glove treatment 2, as it was solemnly installed
in the Smithsonian Institution.

Unit 7, Listening Skill, Activity A

Page 158
Professor: Many people use a microwave oven every day. How many of you know that
the microwave oven was the result of an accident?
During World War II, scientists invented the magnetron, which is a kind of
electronic tube that produces microwaves. We’re all familiar with microwave
ovens, but what is a microwave? Well, it’s a very short electromagnetic wave.
Anyway, in 1946, an engineer named Dr. Percy Spencer was standing close to
a magnetron he was testing. He suddenly noticed something unusual. He felt
something warm in his shirt pocket. He reached in and discovered that the
candy bar in his pocket was a hot, chocolaty mess. In other words, the candy
bar had melted. Dr. Spencer was so excited because he realized that
microwaves could raise the internal temperature of food. In other words,
microwaves were able to cook food from the inside out! And do it very
quickly.
Dr. Spencer saw the possibilities here. His next step was to build a metal box
into which he fed microwave power that couldn’t escape. He put various
foods inside the metal box and tested cooking them. In time, he invented
something that would revolutionize cooking—the ubiquitous microwave
oven. By that I mean that we see microwave ovens just about everywhere.

Unit 7, Note-taking Skill, Activity A

Page 160
A Walk to Remember
The year was 1940, and Marcel Ravidat was a French 18-year-old. One day he did what he
often liked to do. he went for a walk in the woods near his home. He was with two friends
and his dog, Robot. They had strolled along those same trails many times, but this day
would be different. Marcel would stumble upon something amazing.
Actually, you could say that Robot literally stumbled upon it. Some say that as the group
was walking through the woods, the little dog ran off. Marcel and his friends ran after it,

2 white glove treatment: (phrase) handling something in a very careful and respectful way

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trying to keep up. When they finally caught up to Robot, they found him digging down into
a hole that had been left by a collapsed tree. And for some reason Marcel began to help
Robot dig. He didn’t realize that he was about to make a huge archaeological discovery.
The hole he was digging turned out to lead to a system of caves. Marcel climbed down into
the cave through the widened hole, and there he found a series of prehistoric wall
paintings. There were many of them, and they depicted animals—bulls, horses, and deer—
in bright colors.
The discovery became a major news event. Researchers were amazed by it, and tourists
flocked to the site from around the world. In fact, so many people visited the cave that in
1963, it had to be closed off again to protect the paintings.
Marcel’s discovery was as historic as it was unexpected. When he headed out into those
familiar woods that morning, he had no idea that he would find a passageway to another
time, to another world.

Unit 7, Listening 2, Activities A and C

Page 163
Against All Odds, Twin Girls Reunited
Harriet Stern: Over the past 14 years, 45,000 Chinese children have been adopted by
American families. So what are the odds that sisters, separated at a very
early age, could actually find each other again half a world away? To see Ruby
Smith now, a happy eight-year-old who loves gymnastics, you would never
know she was once a sad and scared orphan in China.
Emma Smith: She was crying so hard she was turning all red. She was very scared. She’d
never seen anyone who looked like us.
Stern: Emma and her husband, Dan, brought Ruby back to their home in Florida to
shower 1 her with love, but they could tell her heart still ached.
Emma Smith: Her sense of loss was just so big, and she was just so afraid to be alone. And
at first, I thought it was because in the orphanage she wasn’t alone, but it—it
seemed bigger than that.
Stern: Meanwhile, just outside Philadelphia, Kate Bern, also eight, loves her new
home a world away from the orphanage in China. Her parents, Amy and Carl,
remember their daughter as a bright little girl.
Amy White: She was very alert and bright. She was very aware—she was looking around,
and she was very aware of what was going on.
Stern: But Kate also seemed very deprived, because they noticed she ate as if she’d
never eat again.

1 shower: verb to give someone a lot of something

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Amy White: She wouldn’t want to leave the table. All the other kids seemed to eat and be
satisfied, but all this food was around her and she wasn’t stopping.
Stern: Amy sought help from a support group on the Internet, and one of the many
who responded was a mom named Emma.
Amy White: Her answer was the best answer, which was to try sharing a plate in the
middle of the table, and we’d both eat from the same plate. It was incredible.
It was—it stopped it immediately.
Stern: These two moms, who lived 1,000 miles apart, noticed their daughters were
from the same orphanage and decided to exchange pictures.
So when you opened up her email, do you remember that moment of what
that was like when you saw her daughter’s picture?
Amy White: I—I—I was shocked.
Stern: The girls had the same hairline, same nose, same chin, same mouth. After
exchanging more pictures, they just had to bring their two-year-olds face to
face.
Emma Smith: It was . . . it was . . .
Dan Smith: Amazing!
Emma Smith: Amazing. That’s the word, yeah.
Stern: What did you think?
Emma Smith: I thought they were twins. Yeah.
Stern: Amy didn’t believe it, but she did notice the girls seemed to have a special
connection.
Amy White: We have pictures where Ruby has her hand on Kate’s stroller, and Kate
would never let even us, like tou—touch the rim of her stroller, but she
seemed like there was some kind of comfort level there.
Stern: But it would be four more years before Ruby and Kate saw each other again,
in July 2004, at a reunion of families who had adopted children from the
same orphanage.
Dan Smith: And they never left each other the whole time.
Emma Smith: When Ruby came back to the room she would say things like, “Please don’t
tell my best friend at home, but Kate’s my best friend.”
Kate Bern: Best, best friends.
Ruby Smith: Sisters!
Stern: Since the reunion, the families have met three more times. We brought them
together again for another visit.

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Ruby Smith: Sometimes me and Kate trade places.

Stern: What? You play tricks on people?
Kate Bern: Yeah.
Ruby Smith: Sometimes I say, “I’m Kate,” and sometimes Kate says, “I’m Ruby.”
Stern: Do you wish you guys lived closer together?
Kate Bern: Yeah. I would like to live next door to her, too. To play together, like—or have
play dates, like, right after school.
Stern: Four months ago the families tested their daughters’ DNA.
Amy White: They were really beginning to consider themselves to be sisters, and I didn’t
want them to have false hopes that this was, you know, a relationship that
had a biological root and it didn’t.
Stern: The DNA results: the girls are almost certainly sisters, which means, because
they’re the same age, Ruby and Kate, in all probability, are fraternal twins.
Emma Smith: Ruby, she just started jumping up and down and squealing, “Yes, we’re
sisters, we’re sisters. Yeah, we’re sisters!”
Stern: Finally, Emma and Dan understood why their daughter Ruby never liked to
be alone.
Emma Smith: She was never alone, not even in the womb. So for her, she needed Kate.
Carl Bern: Since it’s important to Kate, I think it’s important to all of us.
Stern: OK, you tell me why—why you love Ruby.
Kate Bern: Because we hardly ever fight, and we agree on a lot of things.
Stern: And why do you love Kate?
Ruby Smith: Because she’s my sister, and I just love her.
Emma Smith: My daughter has—has not asked me a single question about her birth family
or searching for them since she’s got Kate in her life.

Unit 7, Vocabulary Skill, Activity A

Page 167
1. She was looking around and she was very aware of what was going on.
2. Since it’s important to Kate, I think it’s important to all of us.
3. Because we hardly ever fight, and we agree on a lot of things.
4. My daughter has—has not asked me a single question about her birth family
or searching for them since she’s got Kate in her life.

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Unit 7, Grammar, Activity A

Page 170
1. Ellen said she was excited about the reunion.
2. She said, “I can’t wait to get there.”
3. Tonya shouted, “I haven’t seen you in so long!”
4. She told me she was glad I could come.
5. Ray called to tell me he would be late.
6. He said he had missed his bus.
7. I told Teresa I was bringing dessert.
8. She said, “I hope it has chocolate in it.”

Unit 7, Pronunciation, Examples

Page 171
She always wants to say it.
Tell me why it’s important to be early.

Can she go out with us?

Please show us your new invention.

Unit 7, Pronunciation, Activity A

Page 171
1. early age
2. very alert
3. stay awake
4. fly out
5. you opened
6. know about
7. go over
8. how interesting

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Unit 7, Pronunciation, Activity B

Page 171
1. Kate also seemed very deprived, because they noticed she ate as if she’d
never eat again.
2. After the fact, serendipity always seems so obvious.
3. Because we hardly ever fight, we agree on a lot of things.
4. Try and spot the next big thing.
5. So after you opened the file, can you recall how it felt?

Unit 7, Speaking Skill, Activity A

Page 172
1.
Female: And in 1879, Thomas Edison finally created a working lightbulb. What’s the
main reason this invention is so important? It changed the way we live today.
2.
Male: Why did Henri Becquerel leave dangerous chemicals in his desk drawer?
Well, he didn’t know they were dangerous. But that helped him to discover
what we call radioactivity.
3.
Teacher: Does anyone know who invented the first plastic? Over there, in the front.
Student: Leo Baekeland, right?
Teacher: That’s right. Mr. Baekeland was looking for a new kind of material to use on
wires, and he accidentally created the first plastic.
4.
Teacher: William Perkin accidentally created the first artificial color for clothing. What
was he really trying to make? Yes, Colin?
Student: I think it was a medicine.
Teacher: Correct. Mr. Perkin was trying to create an artificial medicine that people
needed.

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Unit 7, Speaking Skill, Activity B

Page 173
Speaker: The PopsicleTM is a popular summertime treat in the United States. Kids have
been enjoying them for decades. But most people don’t know that the
PopsicleTM was invented by an 11-year-old.
In 1905, Frank Epperson filled a cup with water and fruit-flavored “soda
powder,” a mix that was used to make a popular drink. Frank left his drink
outside on his porch with a stir stick in it. He forgot all about it, and went to
bed. That night, the temperature dropped to below freezing in San Francisco,
where Frank lived. When he woke up the next morning, he discovered that
his fruit drink had frozen to the stir stick. He pulled the frozen mixture out of
the cup by the stick, creating a fruit-flavored ice treat.
In 1923, Frank Epperson began making and selling his ice treats in different
flavors. By 1928, Frank had sold over 60 million PopsiclesTM, and his business
had made him very wealthy. Nowadays, over three million PopsiclesTM are
sold each year.
PopsiclesTM aren’t the only invention made by accident, but they might be the
tastiest.

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UNIT 8

Unit 8, Engineering, The Q Classroom

Page 179
Teacher: In Unit 8, we’re going to talk about the idea of scientific progress. The Unit
Question is, “What are the consequences of progress?” Yuna, what do you
think?
Yuna: Hmm. Well, I think progress is usually a good thing, right? I mean, without
engineering inventions, we wouldn’t have things like cars or computers. The
things engineers invent make our lives more comfortable and easier.
Teacher: Sophy, do you agree? Is progress always a good thing?
Sophy: I think it can be. But there are always consequences to everything new we
create. For example, I can’t imagine living without my cell phone, but I read
something online that said smartphones might be bad for my health. Some
studies show that using your phone too much might increase your chance of
developing some health problems like a sore neck, or even change the way
your brain works. That seems pretty scary.
Teacher: OK. That certainly might be one unintended consequence of the invention of
smartphones. Can you think of any others? Mmm, Marcus?
Marcus: Yeah. Smartphones are terrible for the environment. The battery contains
dangerous chemicals. So, when we throw them away, we can create toxic
waste. And the circuit board contains rare minerals, so we’re using up limited
resources.
Teacher: Yeah. Those are consequences of using smartphones that we don’t think
about every day. Felix, do you have something to add?
Felix: OK, so I’m not in favor of pollution or anything like that, but I have to agree
with Yuna. Yes, there are unintended consequences to technological
progress, but we have to honestly ask ourselves if the pros outweigh the
cons. I mean, sure, our phones might be bad for our health or for the
environment, but are we actually going to stop using them? Let’s be realistic.
Progress might not always be perfect, but imagine where we would be
without it.

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Unit 8, Listening 1, Activities A and D

Page 181, 182
Automation and Us
Host: Now as we heard earlier from Andrew McAfee, our increasingly automated
world is cause for concern and planning, especially when it comes to the
future of employment. Or . . . automation could give us what we always
wanted: a life free from the drudgery 1 of work. Right?
Nicholas Carr: There have been studies that show that we think we don’t like to work, so
when people are at work and you ask them what they’d rather be doing, they
say, “Well, I’d rather be at leisure 2, or idle.”
Host: Mm-hmm.
Carr: And yet, when you actually study their feelings, you see that when people are
at work, they tend to be happier, more satisfied, more fulfilled than when
they’re not at work.
Host: That’s Nicholas Carr, author of the new book The Glass Cage: Automation and
Us. He’s thought a lot about humans and work.
Carr: So we have this situation that psychologists refer to as “mis-wanting”: that
we think we want to be freed from labor 3, but actually it’s when we’re
working hard and facing challenges and exercising our talents that we feel
most fulfilled and most satisfied with life.
Host: Part of your argument is that our overreliance 4 on expert systems and
artificial intelligence 5 is actually having a negative impact on performance,
for instance with doctors. So what are some of the problems with doctors
relying on automation?
Carr: There’s been an assumption that you can just bring computers into the
medical profession. For instance, changing paper record-keeping with
electronic record-keeping, and that would make things more efficient, allow
doctors to share patient records more quickly, but it wouldn’t really change
the way doctors practice medicine. And what we’re finding, in fact, is that
there are all sorts of unanticipated 6, very subtle changes that happen when,
for instance, primary care physicians start bringing computers or tablets into
the examination room. When you have a doctor with a computer, the doctor

1 drudgery: noun hard, boring work

2 at leisure: idiom with no particular activities; free
3 labor: noun hard physical work
4 overreliance: noun relying too much on something
5 artificial intelligence: noun an area of study concerned with making computers copy
intelligent human behavior
6 unanticipated: adjective that you have not expected or predicted

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will tend to order more diagnostic tests—more that turned out to be

unnecessary—with a computer. Everybody thought, oh, if you have a tablet,
that you can call up previous blood tests or X-rays, then doctors wouldn’t be
so quick to order new ones, and in fact, it seems to work exactly the opposite
way: that doctors think, well, if I order a test, it will be really easy to get it on
my tablet, so I’ll just go ahead and order tests. And as anybody who has gone
in for a physical or an exam and had their doctor use a computer, which is
now more and more common, you certainly know that the doctor spends a
lot of time, in general, looking at the computer screen, and this too comes out
in the research that’s been done, that when you’re in an exam room with a
doctor with a computer, the doctor spends about 25 to 50 percent of the time
looking at the screen. And that leaves both patients and doctors a little
uncomfortable. They’re both aware that there isn’t as intimate a connection
being made between doctor and patient as there used to be when the doctor
gave you his or her full attention.
Host: Right. You know, one of my personal obsessions is the role of the body and
how we understand the world around us and how we behave intelligently. So
what’s your sense of the role of the body and what’s at risk with increased
automation?
Carr: If there’s, you know, one overarching 7 kind of philosophical concern I have,
it’s that we’re trading deep engagement with the world—an engagement
that includes our mind, but also our body—and we’re replacing that with a
more generic form of simply doing things through computer screens. So if
you look at pilots, for instance, there’s a job that requires—or at least in the
past—you know, a great deal of psychomotor 8 skills—thinking but also
acting with your body, coordinating all that. Now, more and more the flying
of a plane—the actual physical flying of a plane—is done by autopilot
systems and other automated systems. The pilot’s job becomes one of
looking at screens and entering data into computers. Architects, the same
thing; lawyers, more and more that’s happening . . . and in our personal lives
too, a lot of our time now is devoted to looking at screens and being kind of
data-entry clerks for our own lives. And so what you see is this kind of
uniformity in activity, uniformity in skill and talent, where you used to have
this great deal of diversity, and you used to have people building these very
subtle talents that involved engaging with the world in all sorts of different
ways, and it could be, you know, the early stages of a great loss in the
diversity of human activity, human thought, human talent as all of us come to
spend more and more time just interacting with a computer and a computer
screen.
Host: But on the other hand, isn’t flying, for instance, safer than ever before, thanks
to automation?

7 overarching: adjective very important, because it includes or influences many things

8 psychomotor: adjective relating to both the brain and the movement of the body that is
produced by muscles; connected with the nerves that control movement

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Carr: It’s certainly much, much safer. The whole history of flight over the last
hundred years has been one of, you know, steady increases in safety, and I
think it’s pretty clear that autopilots and other automation systems have
played an important role in that—not the only role. What the aviation
experience tells us is that some degree of automation may be good, and then
if you push it even further, it may start turning bad. So we’ve had this history
of automation helping to increase flight safety, but in recent years, as the
computer has kind of taken over more and more of the job of the pilot, and
you know on an average flight these days the pilot is actually in manual
control of the plane for only about three minutes. And what happens then is
that they start to lose situational 9 awareness. They fall victim to what
researchers call “automation complacency 10.” And then if something
happens—if the autopilot system breaks down or they run into some unusual
weather and are suddenly forced to retake manual control of the plane—
because their skills have gotten rusty 11, because they’ve lost the awareness of
what’s going on around them, they start making mistakes. And unfortunately,
you know, there have been some catastrophic plane crashes in recent years
that are associated with this kind of dependency on automation. What the
airline example tells us is not that automation is bad but that more
automation is not necessarily good and also that the way you design these
systems is incredibly important. . . .

Unit 8, Listening Skill, Activity A

Page 186
1. As many as one in every five jobs is under threat as a result of the growth of
automation.
2. However, new jobs will be created by automation, too. Because of this,
economists are not terribly worried about the impact automation will have
on our economies.
3. One area that has already begun to feel the impact of automation is human
resources, or HR. This change is largely due to the invention of programs that
can respond to simple employee questions.
4. When employees type questions, like “When will the office be closed for
vacation?” the program automatically replies. The result is that companies
don’t need to employ and pay someone to respond to standard questions.

9 situational: adjective depending on the circumstances and things that are happening at a
particular time and in a particular place
10 complacency: noun a feeling of satisfaction with yourself or with a situation, so that you do
not think any change is necessary
11 rusty: adjective not as good as it used to be, because you have not been practicing

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5. However, automation, like job application filters, also assists HR employees

by identifying the best candidates for a job from a pool of online applicants.
Therefore, there is less work for the HR employee and a more focused job
search.
6. Now that we have that information, we can clearly see that there are two
kinds of automation: technology that replaces workers and technology that
assists workers.

Unit 8, Note-taking Skill, Activities A and B

Page 187
Digital camera technology has made it possible for just about anyone anywhere to take
pictures of anything. When you take a picture, the camera captures light rays that enter
through the lens. Engineers invented an image sensor chip. When light hits the chip, it
basically turns the light rays into a long number. Because of this, they have been able to put
digital cameras into our smartphones. Since smartphones are available to almost everyone,
it means that everyone can take pictures whenever they have their phones. Also, because
digital images are essentially numbers, the pictures we take are easy to edit. We don’t need
to hire professional photographers as often because we can do the work ourselves for free.
So, these days, regular people can take pictures of everything from their meals to events of
political or historical importance. While this has resulted in some very silly pictures on the
Internet, it has also meant that we can find out about current events more quickly because
we are all “journalists” now. The consequences of this change are yet to be determined.

Unit 8, Listening 2, Activities A and C

Page 189, 191
Driverless Cars
OK, so we’ve been talking about some of the consequences of automation, both expected
and unexpected. Now I want to dive into a form of automation that’s now becoming a
reality: driverless cars. In the readings you did to prepare for this week’s class, you came
across several prospective effects associated with the possibility of driverless vehicles.
The most obvious is, of course, that jobs will potentially disappear. Some experts are
predicting that as many as 4 million jobs will be lost as a result of the introduction of
autonomous 1 vehicles. We’re talking about truck drivers, taxi drivers, ambulance drivers,
even pizza delivery drivers, right? But there are other jobs on the line here, if and when
driverless vehicles become the norm. Take a minute to think about the jobs loosely related
to transportation industries. For instance, take insurance. If cars are self-driving and at
least theoretically incapable of making a mistake, would people need to buy insurance?
Would insurance salespeople lose their jobs because of driverless cars? Also consider the

1 autonomous: adjective governing or controlling itself

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industries that cater to long-distance drivers, the truck stops and the hotels. Will some go
bankrupt 2 because driverless cars don’t need to stop for a rest or a good night’s sleep?
When we talk about job loss, we need to keep in mind that we’re not just talking about the
actual drivers, but also the parts of the economy that support drivers through the sale of
goods and services.
OK, so that’s one imaginable result of the invention of driverless cars. Another, as you know
from your readings, is the fact that our very notion of what a car is will surely change. If
you close your eyes and imagine a car, you think of, usually, five seats, four doors, windows
all around, a steering wheel—you get the idea. But, if we aren’t actually driving the car, do
we need, say, windows? Would we need to face forward? Would we even want five seats?
What if we could request a specific kind of car depending on what we felt like doing, like an
office car to catch up on emails or a movie car to watch the latest blockbuster? Maybe we
could put our kids into a babysitting car for a long journey while we rode in a spa car. If
you’re not actually driving, how would you like to spend your time? The way cars look,
inside and out, could change completely due to these endless possibilities.
However, there is one main effect that we haven’t yet discussed, and that is the issue of
morality 3. So, imagine that a driverless car is humming along with one passenger inside. All
of a sudden, a group of pedestrians 4 steps into the street. At that point, hypothetically 5 of
course, only one of two outcomes is possible. The car could hit the pedestrians, protecting
the passenger, or the car could swerve and hit a wall, protecting the pedestrians but putting
the passenger in danger. What should the car be programmed to do? Really. What’s your
answer to that question? Would it surprise you if I told you that the vast majority of people
respond that the car should be programmed to do the most good and/or the least harm? In
other words, most people say the car should swerve to protect the pedestrians instead of
protecting the passenger. But our answer to this question dramatically changes when the
question is made less abstract and people are asked if they would buy a car that was
programmed to protect pedestrians instead of the passenger. In that scenario, if we are the
passenger, our answer is completely different. No way! Right? This gut reaction may be the
reason why car makers initially said, when asked by reporters, that the car should be
programmed to save the passenger in every situation. I can see some of you making faces.
Exactly. That policy might leave a bad taste in many people’s mouths 6.
In the end, I’d say these cars are coming to our streets, and sooner rather than later.
Experts agree that the overall number of accidents is going to sharply decrease, and that
would obviously be a good thing. But maybe it’s not an entirely good thing. As we can see,
this example of technological progress does have some unintended consequences,
primarily that we are giving machines the responsibility of making potentially life-or-death
decisions. There will be some very interesting effects of seeing more and more self-driving
cars on our roads.

2 bankrupt: adjective without enough money to pay what you owe

3 morality: noun principles and standards relating to whether something is right or wrong
4 pedestrian: noun a person walking in the street and not traveling in a vehicle
5 hypothetical: adjective based on situations that have not yet happened, not on facts
6 leave a bad taste in the mouth: idiom (of events or experiences) to make you feel disgusted or
ashamed afterward

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OK, now I’d like you to break into your discussion groups . . .

Unit 8, Vocabulary Skill, Activity A

Page 196
1. There have been studies that show that we think we don’t like to work, so
when people are at work and you ask them what they’d rather be doing, they
say, “Well, I’d rather be at leisure, or idle.”
2. And then if something happens—if the autopilot breaks down or they run
into some unusual weather and are suddenly forced to take manual control
of the plane—because their skills have gotten rusty, because they’ve lost the
awareness of what’s going on around them, they start making mistakes.
3. Now as we heard earlier from Andrew McAfee, our increasingly automated
world is cause for concern and planning, especially when it comes to the
future of employment.
4. But there are other jobs on the line here, if and when driverless vehicles
become the norm.
5. When we talk about job loss, we need to keep in mind that we’re not just
talking about the actual drivers, but also the parts of the economy that
support drivers through the sale of goods and services.

Unit 8, Pronunciation, Examples

Page 199
Automation isn’t always a good thing.
I’m not worried that robots will take over the planet.
However, I think my father is suspicious about his new virtual assistant.
Ultimately, we usually like technology that makes life easier.

Unit 8, Pronunciation, Activity A

Page 199
Speaker: People always ask me, “What advice do you have for workers who are facing
an increasingly automated workplace?” First, get a college education. Experts
agree that blue collar jobs will be most in danger. Second, focus on working
in a job that machines and robots haven’t proven very good at, such as
working with customers, being creative, planning, managing people, or

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directing. Finally, if it looks like the writing’s on the wall 1 for your particular
field of expertise, be flexible. Consider transitioning to other work.

Unit 8, Speaking Skill, Example

Page 200
Sung-ju: So, while I really enjoy using social media to keep in touch with friends and
family, it’s a bit creepy when the site automatically labels or tags my photos. I
am all for intelligent machines, but I’m not sure I like the idea of my
computer watching and remembering what I do.
David: That’s true! Plus, I hate when social networking sites push advertisements
that they think I’m interested in.

Unit 8, Speaking Skill, Activity A

Page 200
A: Do you ever use the voice recognition technology on your phone?
B: Sometimes, but I don’t really like it.
A: I know! It never understands me.
B: Exactly! I was just reading that people often have to actually hide their
regional accents in order for computers to understand them.
A: Another important point is that it’s opened the door for telemarketers to use
voice recognition software to make sales calls. At first, it sounds like you are
talking to a real person because there is interaction. That’s very misleading.
B. That’s a good point. Also, you never really know who is listening to your
conversations, do you? I’m not sure people realize that they’re trading their
privacy for convenience.

1 the writing is on the wall: saying used when you are describing a situation in which there are
signs that something is going to have problems or that it is going to be a failure

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