BBC News summary

Listen to six short BBC news items and choose the option a, b or c which best summarizes each. 0 is an example.



0. Example:
a) The new book shows you how to purify water by adding copper and silver nanoparticles.
b) The new book's pages are contaminated with copper and silver nanoparticles.
c) The new book's pages are used as filters which can clean dirty water.

1.
a) A new superbug has been found which can’t be cured by antibiotics.
b) A new superbug has been found which can only be cured by Colisten.
c) A new antibiotic has been developed which can cure superbugs.

2.
a) The Solar Impulse has had to make an emergency landing in the Pacific Ocean.
b) The Solar Impulse is exactly halfway through its journey across the Pacific Ocean from Japan to Hawaii.
c) The Solar Impulse is crossing the Pacific Ocean and is unable to land until it gets to Hawaii.

3.
a) An unarmed black teenager has been shot dead at a rally in the US state of Missouri.
b) Two people have been killed after shooting at each other during a rally in the US state of Missouri.
c) People have started shooting guns at a rally in the US state of Missouri.

4.
a) Maria Sharapova has been banned from playing tennis after drugs were found in her body.
b) One of Maria Sharapova's sponsors has stopped employing her after drugs were found in her body.
c) Maria Sharapova has denied using banned drugs after a banned substance was found in her body.

5.
a) The World Health Organisation has published a report about red meat and cancer.
b) The World Health Organisation has published a report which says red meat causes cancer.
c) The World Health Organisation will publish a report on research about red meat and cancer.

6.
a) Researchers say there are only 2,000 types of plants left in the world.
b) Researchers have discovered 2,000 types of new plants but also say many are at risk.
c) Researchers say 2,000 plants are at risk of dying out.

0.
Researchers in the United States have designed an instruction book on how to purify water, with the pages themselves doubling as water filters. Tests show that when ripped out, the pages, which are impregnated with copper or silver nanoparticles, killed almost all of the bacteria counts in contaminated water.
1.
Health officials in the United States say a superbug resistant to all known antibiotics has been found in the country for the first time. The case involves a woman infected with a strain of the e-coli bacteria resistant to Colisten, an antibiotic of last resort.
2.
The team behind a solar-powered plane, which is aiming to fly around the world, say it's past the point of no return on the longest leg of its journey. The Solar Impulse is crossing the Pacific Ocean from Japan to Hawaii – a journey that will take five days. It's risky because there's nowhere to land in an emergency.
3.
There's been an outbreak of gunfire in the city of Ferguson in the US state of Missouri towards the end of a rally to remember an unarmed black teenager, shot dead by a white policeman a year ago. Two people were shot in an exchange of fire. One person was seriously wounded.
4.
The sportswear company Nike says it's suspending its relationship with the Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova after she announced that she'd failed a drugs test at this year's Australian Open. Nike said it would await the outcome of an investigation. Sharapova earlier said she had tested positive for meldonium, a drug used to treat blood flow restriction, and had failed to notice that the tennis authorities had moved it to the list of banned substances last December. She said that she had let her fans down.
5.
The World Health Organisation is due to publish a report today on whether some kinds of meat can increase the risk of cancer. The WHO's agency for research on cancer has been reviewing evidence on red and processed meats.
6.
A new report on the state of the world's plants says that more than 2,000 new species were discovered last year alone including a three-metre-tall orchid and a sprawling insect-eating sundew plant from Brazil. But the researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens in London warned that a fifth of all plants were at risk of extinction – vulnerable to climate change, habitat loss or disease.

KEY: 
1A 2C 3C 4A 5C 6B

Listening test: A description of Anuta

Listen to some extracts from BBC's From Our Own Correspondent about the remote Pacific island of Anuta and choose the heading A-I which best corresponds to each extract. 0 is an example.

A - A long and boring journey – 0 Example
B - A principle applied in all areas of their life
C - How to solve conflicts
D - Not a varied menu
E - Opposing worlds
F - Some misunderstandings
G - The most welcoming community
H - We might not go back
I - Youth problems

0
Sailing from Santa Cruz, in the eastern Solomons, it took us five days to reach Anuta. It was one of the most tedious journeys I have made, the continuous pitching of our small yacht making it impossible to either read or write. So it was with some relief when the speck of land that was Anuta finally appeared on the horizon.

1
We were their first visitors in two years. For a moment though, the feeling of isolation was overshadowed by Joseph’s T-shirt, which was emblazoned with the words ‘Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas’. It would be hard to imagine a greater contrast between two places. Las Vegas, the capital of excess, and little Anuta where even a mirror is considered a luxury. But while Anuta’s remoteness may have severely limited the quantity of consumer goods reaching the island, its isolation has forged a community spirit that would be very hard to beat.

2
The Anutans have their own word for this, aropa, which means love and compassion. It is an ideology that is applied to almost everything they do. You can see it at work in the way food and tasks are shared, but it goes further than this. Bizarrely they even adopt each other’s children. Joseph’s oldest daughter was adopted by a couple who gave him their son in return a few years later. When I asked Joseph about this, he simply said that it wasn’t an issue as Anutans saw children as communal. What was important was that everyone who wanted a child had one.

3
During our two-week stay we had at least one meal in at least every one of the 24 households. Sitting on the floor of each hut we were served communal dishes of fish and glutinous puddings of taro or manioc, all wrapped up in forest leaves. The meals, prepared by the women, were virtually identical from one hut to the other, but this was all about aropa, affection through sharing.

4
When I asked Joseph what the biggest changes have been in the last 20 years, he said ‘young people playing ukuleles’. Was this a problem? I asked, rather jokingly. ‘Well’, he replied more seriously, ‘before the ukuleles the younger generation would dance every evening. Now it is rare’. I got the same response from at least half a dozen other adults. As trivial as this sounds, it does make one think about our own, supposedly advanced, society. We worry about our children getting in with the wrong crowd, taking drugs, drinking, teenage knife crime, Anutan parents worry about their kids playing homemade ukuleles.

5
On the day we left, a group of men came onto our yacht and, with little notice, broke into their farewell song, ‘Sorrow come to us’. One of the chorus lines was: ‘Sorry we will never see your faces anymore’. It was enough to bring a lump to my throat. The lyrics had a point however. Anuta’s isolation has meant that few visitors ever return. But then, this is probably just as well. The beauty of the Anutan way of life comes from the relative absence of outside influence.

6
In the end it was easy to see what the island’s 300 people saw in the place. As a hardened traveller I do not say this lightly, but the Anutans were the most harmonious and hospitable people I have ever met.

KEY:
1E 2B 3D 4I 5H 6G

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

Listening test: Marathon running

Listen to Jemma talking about her experience of running marathons and choose the option A, B or C which best completes each sentence.

source: Podcasts in English

1. Jemma
A. disliked running at school.
B. has been running on and off.
C. is a professional runner.

2. Jemma goes running
A. because she lives in the country.
B. no matter what the weather is like.
C. to be with some other people.

3. Jemma
A. has run three marathons.
B. ran the London marathon with her husband.
C. trained for a year to run the London marathon.

4. In the London marathon
A. Jemma ran over Tower Bridge.
B. Jemma’s children called out her name.
C. there’s a festive atmosphere.

5. When she participated in the London Marathon Jemma
A. couldn’t really hear the spectators shouting.
B. ran alone.
C. was about to abandon.

6. Jemma
A. hit a wall when she crossed the finish line.
B. took over four hours to complete the marathon.
C. was too tired to feel anything when she finished the race.

7. At the end Jemma says that she had never done (…) until yesterday.
A. a half marathon
B. a half marathon abroad
C. a half marathon at home

London's Cutty Sark during the marathon

We're talking about running. With me is Jemma. Hi. Jemma.
Hello
Now Jemma, you're not a professional runner but I know that you take running very seriously...
Yes. Well, when I was at school I always enjoyed running anyway and then I stopped for a few years but then in the early 1980's there was quite a big boom of ...people to encourage people to start running again, to keep fit. So that sort of promoted me back into running again, so yeah, so I've been running, I suppose, ever since, on and off, yeah.
What is it about running that you like as an exercise?
I think it's to go out in the fresh air. Whether it's cold or windy or even if it's raining, it's just nice to be out in the country. You have some time just to yourself, to go out and just have that space and that sense of freedom, just go out and run for an hour or an hour and a half, it's just lovely, it's sort of my time just for me.
...and I know you actually have done a marathon, haven't you?
I have, yes. Many years ago I have to say. In 1994 I actually did the London Marathon. That was my first and to date the only marathon I have ever done and it was a fabulous experience, I really enjoyed it.
Tell me about the training that you had to do for that.
Well, I sat on the settee at home and I watched in 1993, I watched the marathon and I said to my husband, I'd really like to do a marathon. So I applied and I was fortunate enough to be accepted so throughout that whole year I gradually increased the amount of miles I was running each week so through the year I did three half marathons, which is 13.1 miles, and that led me to being fit enough to do the London Marathon the following year.
It must have been an amazing experience. How... do you know how many people took part that year?
I can't remember that year. It was still quite early on in the the popularity of running. It's certainly much, much bigger now. But it was the biggest race I had ever run in, it was just a sea of people and I just remember running under Tower Bridge and past the Cutty Sark and there were bands playing and I had my name on my T-shirt so all the children would call out your name and give you sweets and things like that so the atmosphere was fantastic and the crowds in some places were about five or six people deep even, you know sort of fifteen years ago so it was, it was amazing I don't think I would ever forget that. It was fantastic.
So do you think all those people calling out your name, that kept you going?
Oh yes, very much so, yes, I mean it was lovely, because they would say, Go Jemma, go on, well done. And just that encouragement, when you're feeling quite tired and your legs are really feeling a bit heavy just to have people calling you by your actual name makes it much more personalized; they're not just cheering anybody, they're cheering you specifically so that made a big difference because obviously I didn't have family with me, I was just running it by myself so that was lovely, yes.
How did you feel when you crossed the finishing line?
Well, it was very emotional actually because it was such a sense of achievement and I was so proud of the time that I'd run it in.
Can you remember how fast you did it?
Oh, I was four hours twelve minutes. You never forget the time of your first marathon. So I was very pleased with that and I never hit, they have a term called hitting the wall. [Right.] where if you haven't trained properly or if you run out of energy you really find it difficult to even walk let alone run and I never felt that. I felt well throughout the whole of the run, I ran continually and didn't stop.
Fantastic. You've just done a race recently. What was that?
Yes, well, I was very pleased to have done the Lisbon Half Marathon, just yesterday and that was fantastic. I hadn't run a half marathon for quite a few months. I did, I'd done one at home in November and this was my first one actually abroad, that was lovely.
Well, fantastic Jemma and long may you keep on running.
Thank you very much.

KEY: 
1B 2B 3C 4C 5B 6B 7B

Listening test: Mohter's Day

Listen to a report on Mohter's Day. Match each extract with the corresponding heading A-I. There are two headings you do not need to use.

source: 5perc Angol

A - A capitalist celebration
B - A day to celebrate some other existing traditions
C - A day to honour all mothers
D - Attempts to create a day for all mothers
E - Changing date
F - It took many years to become popular
G - Men against Mother’s Day
H - Origins
I - Prohibition of the celebration

Extract 1
Mother’s Day has been celebrated around the world since ancient times, sometimes as part of a religious event, more and more as a commercial holiday, but always to honour motherhood and mothers, their roles in our families and society.
Extract 2
However, the celebration of this holiday falls on various dates in many parts of the world. In most cultures it is held sometime in spring, mostly on the second Sunday in the month of May. In Hungary Mother’s Day falls on the first Sunday of May. It has been a holiday since 1925 when it was first celebrated by the Hungarian Red Cross Youth in connection with the Catholic traditions honoring the Virgin Mary. Three years later it was made an official school holiday.
Extract 3
Some say the tradition of Mother’s Day can be traced back to Ancient Greece, the spring festivals dedicated to Cybele, mother goddess of fertility and Rhea, mother of gods, and later to the Romans’ Hilaria festival. The Hindu religion also preceded the Western-type holiday by a couple of centuries with its “Mother Pilgrimage fortnight” celebration. It has also been present as the religious Mothering Sunday celebration in the United Kingdom since the 17th century. However, its modern-day, capitalist version originated from America.
Extract 4
There could be some debate about who actually started the Mother’s Day tradition in the US. In 1872 Julia Ward Howe created a special day for mothers through a protest for peace in Boston, remembering all mothers who were left without sons and husbands following the Franco-Prussian War. However, Anna M. Jarvis’ attempts to establish a nationally and internationally acknowledged public Mother’s Day holiday were far more effective. She chose the second Sunday of May for the day to commemorate her own and all the other mothers of the world. She dedicated seven years of energy and time campaigning to reach her goal.
Extract 5
In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson officially recognized Mother’s Day as a holiday. To Jarvis’s great sorrow and disappointment, it soon became commercialized by florists, greeting card companies, candy and gift shop merchants. It is through their propaganda that Mother’s Day soon appeared on the European continent as well and spread throughout the world in its modern form. Anna Jarvis, however, spent the rest of her life fighting against the holiday she had established.
Extract 6
The reason why the ‘original’ date of Mother’s Day was changed in some countries and cultures was because people wanted to fit it into already existing religious, historical, legendary or even political celebrations dedicated to motherhood. For example, Mother’s Day in Bolivia is also the date of a battle in which women participated and in some ex-communist countries people honor mothers on the socialist International Women’s Day.
Extract 7
Father’s Day, which is celebrated around the world on the third Sunday of June and on other dates, also originates from America. It was founded not long after Jarvis’s Mother’s Day in 1910 in Washington by Sonora Smart Dodd who felt her father, a Civil War veteran raising six children as a single parent, deserved to be honored as any mother, together with other fathers of the world. Although at first it did not become as successful as its counterpart, soon it was also discovered by manufacturers of ties, tobacco, pipes and other typically father-presents who helped Sonora spread the holiday with commercial promotion. Eventually, decades after its creation, it only became truly accepted and popular in the mid 1980’s.

KEY: 
1C 2E 3H 4D 5A 6B 7F

Listening test: Hair washing

Listen to a report on hair washing and complete the blanks in the sentences below with up to THREE WORDS. 0 is an example.

source: Gerry's News Digest

0 Example:
Queen Elizabeth I of England took a bath about 4 times a year

1. In the 16th century bathing wasn’t considered to be a _________________ thing to do.

2. When the narrator grew up, they didn’t have _________________ for their clothes.

3. Gary Barlow tweeted that he hadn’t washed his hair for _________________ .

4. The narrator’s _________________ also agrees that washing your hair isn’t necessary.

5. The anti-washing people say that after ten days the grease goes, the skin calms down and the hair _________________ .

6. According to the National Hairdressers’ Federation, shampoo is not harmful and it can make your _________________ .

7. The narrator _________________ using a normal deodorant some years ago.

Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I at the Royal Museums Greenwich

Queen Elizabeth I of England took a bath about 4 times a year, they say, even if she didn’t need to. At that time, in the 16th century, bathing was not considered a very healthy or safe thing to do. It wasn’t so much that people didn’t like to be clean; it was more a fear of immersing yourself in water. You might catch something from the water. People, or rich people at least, preferred to wipe their bodies with clean, wet cloths. When I was growing up, many people used to bath and wash their hair only once a week. And people didn’t change their clothes nearly as often as they do today. There were practical explanations for this. The bathroom in the house where I grew up, for example, was freezing in the winter. And we didn’t have modern washing machines for our clothes.
I was thinking of all this the other day, when I was reading about Gary Barlow, one of the members of the famous Take That boy band, along with Robbie Williams. He tweeted that he had just washed his hair for the first time in 14 years. This produced a lot of reaction, as you can imagine. A number of other celebrities then revealed that they too have given up washing their hair. There’s a group of people who think that washing your hair is not necessary. And my daughter is one of them. They say that not washing your hair is good for both your hair and the skin on your head. But if I don’t wash my hair for a week, my head gets itchy and my hair gets greasy. These anti-washing people say, however, that you have to be patient and that after about 10 days, the greasiness goes, the skin on your head calms down and your hair starts cleaning itself.
The story was on the BBC website, and of course, the BBC always has to be balanced in its reporting, so they asked somebody from the National Hairdressers’ Federation what they thought. ‘There’s nothing wrong with washing your hair,’ they said. ‘Shampoo does not harm your hair or the skin on your head, and it can make your hair look better. Hair cannot clean itself.’ Well, perhaps, we might expect a hairdresser to say that.
So what should I do? Follow the no-wash trend? I probably won’t, but you never know, I did give up using a normal deodorant some years ago. I switched to using what’s known as a crystal deodorant, and I’m very happy with it.

KEY:
1 healthy or safe
2 modern washing machines
3 fourteen years
4 daughter
5 starts cleaning itself
6 hair look better
7 stopped / gave up / did give up

Listening test: Google's work environments

Listen to a report on the unique work environments in Google and choose the option A, B or C which best completes the sentences or answers the questions.

1. The Google headquarters, the Googleplex, allows ______ at the office.
A. cubicles
B. pets
C. siestas

2. Employees can
A. choose who they want to work with.
B. decide where they are going to work.
C. personalise their workstations.

3. Google offers its employees
A. free clothes.
B. free food.
C. personalised menus.

4. Which Google programme is so popular that there is a waiting list?
A. company sports league
B. day care for kids
C. on-site medical care

5. Google also offers its employees the service of
A. exercise instructors.
B. massage therapists.
C. psychologists and counsellors.

6. One of Google’s most controversial programmes is
A. allowing employees to work on projects they choose.
B. not working at weekends.
C. the selection of talents for the company.

7. How many of Google's new products and services have resulted from this programme?
A. about 10%
B. almost 50%
C. around 75%

8. In Google's hiring process candidates have to
A. answer unusual interview questions.
B. be physically fit.
C. mainly demonstrate how brilliant their minds are.

What’s the best way to motivate your employees? Most companies use the standard method of offering promotions and threatening dismissal. But Google has taken an unorthodox approach to this challenge by pushing the boundaries of what can be considered a workplace further than ever before. Inside the company’s headquarters, which is known as the Googleplex, the layout itself is far from conventional. Instead of cubicles and conservative décor, Google’s office feels a little like a grown-up playground. Bright colours abound, there are secret rooms with innovative themes around every corner, and pets can accompany their masters to work. Employees are encouraged to express themselves by writing on the walls, and are also given plenty of leeway in designing their own work stations. They can even have a treadmill attached so they can walk or jog while working.
The benefits for Google employees are unmatched – from cafés and vending machines offering free gourmet food to flexible hours and casual dress. One of Google’s principles is that you can be serious without a suit. The company not only offers a healthcare plan, but also includes on-site medical staff to attend to employees. Free haircuts, laundry, and dry cleaning are all part of the package, and children of Google employees can be enrolled in the in-house day care program, which has become so popular that the waiting list now numbers in the hundreds.
If the work gets stressful at times, Google employees can enjoy a subsidized massage service from a licensed therapist. Or they can take a break in one of the recreation areas, with pool tables, ping-pong, foosball, and even a swimming pool. In stark contrast to many other cutting-edge companies in their field, there is the idea that the weekend is strictly family time, and as much as possible of the Google dynasty shuts down on Saturdays and Sundays.
One of Google’s most controversial programmes is called “Innovation Time Off,” in which engineers are allowed to spend up to 20% of their hours on projects that interest them. Although some criticize this policy as a waste of tech talent, the results speak for themselves: almost half of Google’s new products and services have originated in these independent endeavours. Having company-sanctioned time for innovation also energizes employees and increases their work output.
Working at Google sounds like a dream come true – but first you have to get through the hiring process. With such incredible perks, the company can afford to be picky when it comes to recruitment. This has led to their infamous interview questions, such as ‘How many ping-pong balls can you fit in a school bus?’ Rather than searching for the most accurate answer, Google is likely filtering out people who won’t be a good fit with their company culture. They are seeking not only brilliant minds, but also creative types who resonate with their philosophy that work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun.

Key:
1B 2C 3B 4B 5B 6A 7B 8A

Listening test: Entertianment News April 2017

Listen to some news related to the world of entertainment and choose the heading A-G which goes with each extract. There are two headings you do not need to use.


A - And they lived happily ever after
B - Battling a long-term addiction
C - Long battle to recover artist’s own creations
D - Social media addiction
E - Star sentenced to prison term
F - Stormy relationship
G - Wrong identity

1 Stormy relationship
Spice Girl Mel Brown, also known as Scary Spice or Mel B, has filed for divorce from her husband of 10 years, Stephen Belafonte. Citing irreconcilable differences, the performer filed the papers on Monday March 20 at the Superior Court of California County of Los Angeles. The couple married on June 6, 2007 and the court papers specify the pair separated on December 28, 2016. They have one child together, Madison Brown Belafonte. Belafonte is a film and television producer behind films such as ‘Thank You for Smoking’, and, with his wife, recently invested in Serafina, an Italian restaurant in West Hollywood. No statements from either party have been given regarding the split.

2 Wrong identity
Grammy award-winning hip hop artist Wyclef Jean said he was handcuffed and treated like a criminal when he was briefly detained by law enforcement officers in Los Angeles as they investigated a robbery. In tweets and video of the incident posted on his Instagram and Twitter feed, the Haitianborn former Fugees singer said he appeared to have been the victim of “another case of mistaken identity” and threatened to sue. Jean blamed the Los Angles Police Department for the incident, which occurred around 1 a.m., but in fact it involved sheriff’s deputies, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said. The department said Jean was
briefly detained while deputies were looking for a suspect matching the description who had carried out an armed robbery at a gas station in West Hollywood. The singer was placed in handcuffs and released without charge when it was determined he was not the suspect. Jean emigrated to the United States from Haiti at the age of 9, but has maintained his Haitian citizenship. Tuesday’s incident comes amid heightened sensitivity about racial issues and the US justice system following shootings by police of unarmed black people.

3 Social media addiction
Pop star Selena Gomez said she cancelled her world tour last year and went to therapy because she was depressed, anxious and her self-esteem was shot. 24-year-old Gomez, who has more than 113 million Instagram followers, also said in an interview with Vogue magazine that she was freaked out by her social media obsession and no longer has the Instagram app on her phone. “As soon as I became the most followed person on Instagram, I sort of freaked out. It had become so consuming to me. It’s what I woke up to and went to sleep to. I was an addict,” Gomez explained in a cover story of its April edition. The former Disney Channel star and actress made headlines last August when she abruptly quit her “Revival” world tour, saying she needed to take time off to deal with panic attacks and depression. She told Vogue she had entered a treatment program for three months saying: “My self-esteem was shot. I was depressed, anxious. I started to have panic attacks right before getting on stage, or right after leaving the stage. Basically I felt I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t capable. I felt I wasn’t giving my fans anything, and they could see it - which, I think, was a complete distortion.” Gomez said that she also found it hard - as have other young stars like Miley Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan - to shake off her perky “Wizards of Waverly Place” persona from her Disney days. “For a guy there’s a way to rebel that can work for you,” she said. “But for a woman, that can backfire. It’s hard not to be a cliché, the child star gone wrong.”

4 Long battle to recover artist’s own creations
Paul McCartney’s potential hold. The singer has waited decades to reclaim ownership of hundreds of Beatles’ songs and Sony/ATV Music Publishing says he should wait a little longer rather than continue his US lawsuit. In a filing with the US District Court in Manhattan, a lawyer for Sony/ ATV said the publisher had never challenged the validity of McCartney’s notices to terminate its copyright in the songs, starting in October 2018. As a result, McCartney’s lawsuit “impermissibly seeks an advisory opinion on a hypothetical claim” and
should be dismissed for the time being, a lawyer wrote. McCartney was outbid in 1985 for the rights to the songs he created with John Lennon such as “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Yesterday” and “Hey Jude” by pop star Michael Jackson. The rights were rolled a decade later into Sony/ATV, a joint venture with Sony Corp. Jackson’s estate sold its stake in the venture to Sony for $750 million last year. Lawyers for McCartney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

5 Battling a long-term addiction
Hollywood star Ben Affleck says he’s completed treatment for alcohol addiction. The ‘Argo’ director posted on Facebook on Tuesday that the treatment was the first of many steps towards recovery. He also said he wanted to be the best father he could be and thanked his ex-wife Jennifer Garner for her support. The Batman actor wrote I have completed treatment for alcohol addiction; something I’ve dealt with in the past and will continue to confront. The two-time Oscar winner is currently working on upcoming film The Batman, in which he stars as the caped crusader himself.

KEY: 
1F 2G 3D 4C 5B 

Listening test: The car accident

Listen to Melanie telling the story of a car accident she once had. Complete the blanks in the sentences with up to THREE  words. 0 is an example.

Source: English Teacher Melanie

0 Example:
Melanie has been driving for 20 years.

1. Where she lives, they drive on the __________________ of the road.

2. The accident happened at __________________ .

3. Melanie assumed that the cars in the other direction _______________ because the car in front was moving.

4. The other car slammed into Melanie’s __________________ .

5. An off-duty __________________ in the car behind Melanie’s saw the accident.

6. The police explained that both drivers were responsible and gave them __________________ .

7. After the accident, Melanie avoids making __________________ as much as possible.

Photo: English Teacher Melanie

I consider myself a good driver. I’ve been driving for over 20 years. I’ve only been in one accident and I’ve only gotten one speeding ticket. Still, I hate making left turns, because I got in an accident once making a left-hand turn. We drive on the right-hand side of the road in North America, so when you make a left turn, you’re driving in front of cars coming in the opposite direction.
The accident happened at a busy intersection. I’d been waiting a while in the left-hand turn lane at the traffic lights, and there was one car in front of me. The light turned amber and the car in front of me turned left. I followed the car hoping to beat the red light. I’d just assumed that the cars in the other direction had already stopped since the car in front of me was turning left.
I saw too late that a car had sped up and was trying to beat the red light. I was hit in the middle of the intersection. The car slammed into my passenger-side door. I completed the left-hand turn and pulled over to the side of the road. There was an off-duty police officer in the car behind me who witnessed the accident. I don’t remember who called the police, but an officer arrived at the scene. He explained that both drivers were at fault and he gave both of us tickets. I shouldn’t have tried to rush through the amber light. I should have checked that all the cars had stopped before I started the left turn.
I wasn’t hurt. The other driver wasn’t hurt, either. There was damage to the passenger-side door and it cost me a lot of money to repair the door! I didn’t fight the ticket in court. I paid the fine. Now, I avoid making left-hand turns as much as possible, especially at a busy intersection!

KEY:

1 right-hand side

2 a busy intersection

3 had already stopped

4 passenger-side door

5 police officer

6 tickets

7 left-hand turns

Listening test: Dogs

Listen to two friends talking about the fear of dogs one of them has. Choose the option A, B or C which best completes each sentence.

source: Podcast in English

1 Tricia chose to live in Jordan because
A. the dogs are not aggressive.
B. there are no dogs in the country.
C. there are very few dogs on the street.

2 Tricia has been afraid of dogs since
A. her family left England.
B. she moved to Asia.
C. she was eight or nine.

3 Africans keep dogs as
A. guard dogs.
B. pets.
C. working dogs.

4 Tricia clearly remembers
A. hearing the dogs in the distance.
B. the day she was attacked by a dog.
C. walking near the dogs.

5 When Tricia goes for a walk with her cousin in Britain, she feels
A. nervous even if the dogs are on the lead.
B. okay because the dogs are always on the lead.
C. terrified when the dogs are free.

6 Both Jackie and Tricia think dogs can
A. jump very high.
B. run very fast.
C. smell very well.

7 Jackie thinks the best think for Tricia to do is
A. lose her fear of dogs.
B. stay away from street dogs.
C. stay in Jordan.

I’m talking to Tricia, hi.
Hello, Jackie.
And Tricia works here in Jordan and I understand that she… one of the reasons she chose to work in Jordan is because there are very few dogs on the street, is that true Tricia?
It is, Jackie. It sounds a bit ridiculous but ever since I was a child I’ve had a fear of dogs, and so, perhaps, one of the reasons why I’m enjoying my time in Jordan is because there are so few dogs on the streets.
So what… what was it… what, what happened to make you frightened of dogs then?
It ’s… it ’s an interesting question. I think, very possibly my first experience or memory of dogs really is from when I was a child of about eight or nine. And my family were living in Southern Africa and a lot of families around the area where we lived kept dogs as guard dogs.
For security.
For security reasons, yes, and I have very vivid memories of, for example, walking home from school, you know, thinking about my day at school, thinking about going swimming in the afternoon and in my own little world and suddenly loud barking and ferocious, fierce dogs rushing to the gates of various gardens as I walked past . And I remember feeling terribly shocked and frightened. I mean, there was no way really, the dogs could get out of the gardens and attack me but I think it was just the… the surprise of the noise and the fierceness...
No, but that’s…
…of their faces.
Yeah, no that sounds horrible. So has… has this affected your adult life now?
In a way, I suppose it has because when I go home, when I visit the UK, one of the things I love to do is go walking.
Right.
And my cousin also loves walking but he insists on bringing his three dogs with him.
Right.
And that always, to an extent, spoils my enjoyment of…
Are the dogs, sorry, are the dogs on a lead?
They are, he’s… he’s always very careful about keeping them on a lead because he knows that I have this fear of dogs. He will occasionally let them off the lead, really hoping that they’ll sort of run into the fields and chase each other and enjoy being dogs but what tends to happen, strangely, is as soon as they’ re off the lead, they go for me.
They… they can smell, can’t they, that you’re afraid of them?
I think that’s right. I think dogs have a… a real capacity to sense and smell fear.
So you’ve come to Jordan where there are hardly any dogs but may be in a way, that’s actually not helping your… your fear, is it?
I should probably go and try, you know, get a job in a… in an animal hospice or…
Or I think you should go and live in Thailand, there are street dogs on every corner there.
It might be an interesting experience. Perhaps I’ll… take you up on that suggestion, Jackie, and learn how to overcome my fear of dogs.
Great, thanks a lot Tricia.
Thanks, Jackie.

KEY: 
1C 2C 3A 4B 5C 6C 7A