Listening test: Are you clever

Listen to a segment of BBC's Today where John Farndon is interviewed about his book Do you think you are clever? Complete the blanks in the sentences below with up to THREE WORDS. 0  is an example.



0 Example:
One way to know how clever you are would be answering some of questions that are asked in Oxford or Cambridge entrance exams.

1 An example of a serious question is whether it is more important to focus on poverty at ____________ .

2 To weigh your own head, you find the volume of your body by immersing it ____________ , first without your head, then with it.

3 Students are completely shocked by ____________ and find them easier to remember.

4 These questions don’t normally have right or wrong answers but simply want to provoke you ____________ a bit.

5 The writer, John Farndon, thinks that in ____________ people would be driven into panic by some of these questions.

6 The reporter says that adults don’t get asked many questions like these, that it is ____________ where you get a lot of these questions.

7 Another example questions the reporter gives at the end are, If you’re not in California, how do you know it exists? Why are big fierce ____________? Are there too many people in the world?

8 When later in life you have young children and you get asked questions, the answer is always ____________.

Now, do you think you’re clever? One test would be how successful you are at answering some of the daft questions that are asked in Oxford or Cambridge entrance exams. John Farndon has compiled a book called Do You Think You’re Clever? which simply takes a bunch of those questions and he tries to answer them. He’s with us now. Good morning.
Good morning.
Let’s have some examples. There are the sort of deep ones like does a snail have a consciousness? There are the serious ones like is it more important to focus on poverty at home or poverty abroad? And there are the really interesting taxing ones like how would you weigh your own head? John Farndon, how would you weigh your own head?
Well that’s just a tricky one, it’s not one of those ones that you’re going to be asked in a scientific exam very often. Weighing it on a scale is not very practical because there’s a lot of muscle contraction, you can’t chop your head off and weigh it either, so the way round that is to use the volume, you find the volume of your body, you immerse your body in a bath to find out the volume of your body without your head and with it, and then essentially you weigh your whole body, you know what the proportion of your head is, and you can work it out from that.
Got it, it’s the use of water, very clever. These are real questions, are they? Because there are some apparently quite silly ones, aren’t there?
Yes, there are indeed, yes they are. Basically in fact quite often the silliest ones are the ones that have been memorable. They’ve all been compiled, they were compiled by the publisher and various other things, because the students who’ve been asked these questions are completely shocked and so they remember them, they report them and say, God did you remember the question I was asked, I was asked that really silly, what happens when you drop an ant?
So normally there aren’t right or wrong answers to a lot of these. [No.] They’re kind of provoking you to think a bit.
Absolutely not.
That may be the fascination of why a book like this is such a great book. You can hardly stop yourself wanting to just see the next question?
Absolutely, I think that’s one of the interesting things. I don’t think in an interview situation you… most of us would be driven into sheer panic by some of these questions, but out of that context it’s great, because what they do is they make you think along different lines, the more bizarre the question, the more thought-provoking it is.
And actually I suppose adults don’t do questions that often, do they? [No.] I mean basically you get a lot of questions at school, don’t you? And then you grow up and...
Absolutely. I mean even at school you stop thinking, but the nice thing is that actually we don’t, it’s so easy just to give a stock response to answer, and it’s the easy way out, so it’s actually very nice just to kind of relax and think, oh I can come up with an answer like this.
If you’re not in California, how do you know it exists? Why are big fierce animals so rare? Are there too many people in the world? Full of things. You’re appearing at the Oxford Literary Festival talking about it?
Yes indeed.
John Farndon, thank you very much. Thank you very much.
You do get asked questions later in life at one stage, and that is when you have young children, and the answer is always ask your mother.

KEY:
1 home or abroad
2 in a bath
3 silly questions
4 to think
5 an interview (situation)
6 at school
7 animals so rare
8 ask your mother

Extensive listening: The future we're building — and boring

Elon Musk discusses his new project digging tunnels under LA, the latest from Tesla and SpaceX and his motivation for building a future on Mars in conversation with TED's Head Curator, Chris Anderson.

Elon Musk is the CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors and the CEO/CTO of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX).

At SpaceX, Musk oversees the development of rockets and spacecraft for missions to Earth orbit and ultimately to other planets. In 2008, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft won the NASA contract to provide cargo transport to space. In 2012, SpaceX became the first commercial company to dock with the International Space Station and return cargo to Earth with the Dragon.

At Tesla, Musk has overseen product development and design from the beginning, including the all-electric Tesla Roadster, Model S and Model X, and the rollout of Supercharger stations to keep the cars juiced up. (Some of the charging stations use solar energy systems from SolarCity, of which Musk is the non-executive chair.) Transitioning to a sustainable energy economy, in which electric vehicles play a pivotal role, has been one of his central interests for almost two decades. He co-founded PayPal and served as the company's chair and CEO.

You can read a full transcript here.

Extensive listening: 3 ways to plan for the (very) long term

We increasingly make decisions based on short-term goals and gains — an approach that makes the future more uncertain and less safe. How can we learn to think about and plan for a better future in the long term ... like, grandchildren-scale long term?

Ari Wallach shares three tactics for thinking beyond the immediate.

Ari Wallach challenges the perception that "the future" is solely a technology-fueled project occurring at some far off point in time. By exploring the underpinnings of civilizational potential over the ages he shows the future is actually manifesting right now, and that it is very much human.

You can read the full transcript here.

Extensive listening – How to get better at the things you care about

Working hard but not improving? You're not alone. Eduardo Briceño reveals a simple way to think about getting better at the things you do, whether that's work, parenting or creative hobbies. And he shares some useful techniques so you can keep learning and always feel like you're moving forward.

Eduardo Briceño leads Mindset Works, which helps people develop as motivated and effective learners through training and resources to foster growth mindset beliefs and behaviors. He co-founded Mindset Works in 2007 with the foremost growth mindset researcher, Carol Dweck Ph.D., and education expert Lisa Blackwell Ph.D. Prior to his current role, Briceño was a Principal at the Sprout Group, a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, where he was part of the technology investment team.

Briceño grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, before moving to the US when he was in high school. He now lives with his wife in San Jose, California. He holds Bachelor's degrees in economics and engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an MBA and an MAin Education from Stanford University. Most important, he continues to enjoy lifelong learning every day.

You can read a full transcript here.

Talking point: Intelligence

This week's talking point is intelligence. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas flow more easily when you meet up with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

• Being good at school subjects like languages and maths is a sign of true intelligence.
• How should parents and society treat very intelligent children?
• Brains or beauty? Which brings greater success in life?
• Can you tell us about a time when you acted intelligently, or wished you had?
• Which animals do you think of as being intelligent? What about birds and sea creatures?

Do you … ?
1 have to solve unexpected problems on a regular basis
2 control your behaviour after learning from past bad experience
3 act intelligently, doing every day what you are supposed to do
4 think studying is a wise choice
5 regret not acting more wisely in a particular situation

Classify the statements into advantages and potential dangers of using technology, machines and robots. Add your own ideas.

1. Machines can’t interpret feelings, so interaction is more dehumanised.
2. We are too dependent on computers and technology, which is problematic if a machine breaks or crashes.
3. Machines don’t make mistakes, people do.
4. Workers are replaced by machines, which increases unemployment.
5. People stop thinking about how to solve problems because machines can do it for them.
6. Technology means more people have access to education, health care, etc.
7. Artificial intelligence can benefit society in numerous ways but it must be controlled.

To illustrate the point you can watch this EuroNews video on gifted children.