Skill C.
√ Campus Life.√ Sociology.
√ Ecology.
√ History.
√ Paleontology.
01 Campus Life. W: How do you always pull off such high grades in English, Harry?
M: I use a computer flash card program to remember the irregular forms. It makes studying kind of fun.
W: Huh? How does that help?
M: Well, it displays a verb, like “freeze” for example. Then, I have to type in the simple past and past participle forms.
W: That would be “froze” and “frozen,” right?
M: Right. If I screw up, then it comes up again at the end of my list.
W: Wow, so it reinforces your shortcomings.
M: Yeah. It also provides adjectives with synonyms, phrasal verbs
with definitions, and it has grammar exercises as well.
02 Sociology
M: Who was Mother Teresa, then?
W: The Indian nun?
M: Actually, she was not Indian, but Albanian. She grew up in modern day Macedonia,
when it was encompassed within the Ottoman Empire.
W: But she did live in India, right?
M: That’s right. She went there as a missionary with Irish nuns. She
later started her own religious order to work with the poorest and
sickest people. She even did special training with an American
Medical Mission. She was truly a remarkable lady. She fed and taught
abandoned children who lived in abject poverty, and she gave
comfort to the dying. In 1979, she received the Nobel Peace
Prize for her valuable work.
03 Ecology
M: What exactly are the problems with the intertidal pools on the California coast?
W: For one thing, intertidal pools were once some of the most
bountiful reservoirs of marine life on the planet. It’s now difficult
to find a single animal in them, mainly due to poaching and a
lack of education. People remove buckets of snails from the
pools and use them as fishing bait. Or they pour chemicals in
the pools to catch baby octopuses. It’s shocking. Or they scrape
pool rocks bare to collect barnacles. Most people are unaware
that these areas are protected by law.
04 History
M: History can illuminate the value of tea. In the past, quality tea
has been considered more valuable than gold. Tea has even
been the impetus for war, like the American Revolution.
W: I thought that war happened because Americans didn’t want
to be ruled by the British. What did it have to do with tea?
M: One of the incidents that touched off the Revolutionary War
was a shipment of tea being dumped into the ocean by a group
of Americans. Haven’t you heard about the Boston Tea Party?
It wasn’t a party at all. It was one of the first aggressive acts of
the revolution.
05 Health Science
M: Pets actually bestow many benefits upon their owners. For
example, studies have shown that with elderly people, having
a pet nearby lowers their blood pressure and raises their spirits.
So, for all of you with grandmothers or grandfathers living alone,
maybe your next gift to them should be a puppy.
Another pertinent study from Britain showed that pets seemed
to help fight disease. The study found that people cohabiting
with pets had a lower risk of heart disease and recovered more
quickly from heart attacks than those who didn’t live with pets.
The study also found that pet owners suffered fewer colds,
headaches, and fevers than people who didn’t own pets.
06 Campus Life
M: Did you hear the weather report, Jenny? It looks like the weather will clear up by Friday.
W: Awesome! That means we can take our class trip to the mountains after all. I was afraid our prof would have to cancel it.
M: I am really looking forward to the hike.
W: Yeah. This will be my first time hiking in the mountains.
M: Are you kidding? They’re so close. I go up there most weekends with my friends.
W: I guess I’m just not the outdoors type. Are the trails on the mountain quite arduous?
M: Not really. Most of them are no sweat. Hiking on them is just like taking a nice long walk through the woods.
07 Paleontology.
W: Sixty-five million years ago, dinosaurs were ubiquitous. Then,
they all seemed to die very suddenly. So what happened?
Many scientists believe that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a
colossal meteor. According to this theory, a meteor ten kilometers
wide hurtled into the Earth. This collision propelled dust and
dirt into the sky. Imagine a really cloudy summer day. It’s a lot
cooler, right? Well, every day was like that for a long time after
the collision.
Because it was much darker and cooler, many species of plants
began to die. Soon, there was no food source for plant-eating
dinosaurs, and when they died, there was no food source for
meat-eating dinosaurs. The only animals to survive were small
ones able to subsist on many different kinds of food.
08 Campus Life
W: I’m having problems logging in to the Spanview system. It alleges
my password is invalid.
M: Hmm, when was the last time you logged in?
W: Beats me --- sometime last winter, maybe.
M: Well if you haven’t logged in for 180 days, you need to procure
a new password from the registrar’s office. Try that first. If that
doesn’t help, then maybe someone else has gotten a hold of
your username and password.
W: Ooh. What do I do if that’s the case?
M: Use your secret question, probably your mother’s maiden name,
to regain control of your account. That should solve your problem.