All sports people are under a lot of pressure to win. They also experience powerful emotions. When they win or do well, they feel excited and extremely happy. But when things go badly, they feel depressed and anxious. This is why athletes have to be mentally strong. In the past, athletes only trained to get physically fit. Today, professional sportsmen learn to control their mind too. England rugby player Johnny Wilkinson played brilliantly at the Rugby World Cup in 2003. But after that things started to go wrong. He was injured a lot and he wasn't playing so well. He told The Times: "I couldn't control my emotions. Things were going wrong and 1 couldn't do anything about the situation. The problem was that I couldn't control my mind. If I wanted to feel better, I knew I had to learn how to control it."
He read lots of books to try to understand how to solve the problem. He found the answer in books. Wilkinson said: "The books tell us that reality changes depending on how we look at it. This made me understand that I was making my own problems. I could solve my problems if I looked at reality differently."
In team sports such as football, it is important to create a team spirit. This can be very difficult because teams consist of people with different personalities. Professor Dave Collins is a sports psychologist. He says: "A team is like a monster with 11 heads. It's not easy to get all the players think in the same way, to help one another and to work together. But when you see a team that works as a unit, everything happens naturally and easily."
When there is a team spirit, the players help one another. They all take responsibility when things go badly. They do not blame individual players for mistakes. In this way, each player feels more confident and can concentrate better on the game.
Today, sports psychologists have an important job to do. They help athletes become mentally fit and develop a winning mentality. Having a winning mentality really can make a difference between winning and losing.
2. Read aloud the extract which says about the importance of being mentally strong.
3. What does the article say about Johnny Wilkinson?
4. Why is it important to create a team spirit?
HOW TO PREPARE FOR AN ORAL PRESENTATION
As a student, you are often given a task to prepare an oral presentation such as a book report, debate or power point presentation. How can you speak to the class in an interesting way, avoid getting nervous and get a good grade? Here are a few tips to help you achieve all three of these goals.
Many people are good speakers, but most weren't born that way. What's the key to their success? Practice. Everyone who speaks well from Angelina Jolie to the president rehearses speeches and presentations ahead of time and asks others for their opinion. Practising your presentation in front of a mirror is also helpful because it gives you ideas on how to improve your posture, body language and gestures.
If you're allowed to use notes or a plan when speaking, write only main points on note cards. Avoid writing long sentences on the cards because they're harder to read and encourage you to read your speech rather than speaking to the audience.
One of the most important things to remember about public speaking is that you're speaking to an audience. Is the audience a group of your classmates? If so, what are some points about the topic that they find interesting? Add anecdotes from the class or bits of humour to keep your listeners interested. The more you can connect it with their own experiences, the better — and the more positively they will listen to you.
The biggest mistake teenagers make is talking too fast. It happens to most of us when we're feeling anxious. However, you can teach yourself to be slower by practising your speech ahead of time for a friend. You can also record it using a tape recorder and play it back to hear how fast you're speaking and how many times you say things such as 'like' and 'um.'
Making eye contact with your audience members makes you look confident and competent about your subject. If you're particularly nervous about speaking in front of the class, you can also try looking at an object just behind the people in the audience, such as a clock or board on the back wall of the room.
2. The article says that practice is very important while preparing for a presentation. Read aloud the extract which says about it.
3. What mistakes do presenters make?
4. Which pieces of advice do you find useful? Why?
Why is it important to test GM foods?
48 WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL WOMEN
The Forbes Company has released its annual list of the world's 100 most powerful women.
Forbes is an American publishing company. It is best known for its magazine. Each year the magazine also publishes lists of the world's richest people and companies. It has produced its list of most powerful women since 2004. For the fourth year running, Angela Merkel is at the top of the list. She is the elected leader of Germany. Mrs Merkel has been the German Chancellor since 2005.
To work out the list the magazine looks at the public profile of each woman. This includes how often she is mentioned in international newspapers and radio and television broadcasts. Money is also considered. Yet the Forbes Company says this does not mean how much money a woman has or earns, but how much money she controls.
The list also takes into account how much influence a woman has on decisions taken in politics and in international organisations. For example, Dr Margaret Chan, the leader of the World Health Organization (WHO) is at number 84 on the list.
The list includes Queen Rania of Jordan, who campaigns for children's health and education, as well as Aung San Suu Kyi. Ms Suu Kyi was elected prime minister of Myanmar in 1990. But the country's military government refused to accept the election result. Ms Suu Kyi was imprisoned and is still being kept under house arrest. In 1991 she was awarded the Noble Peace Prize. Several important businesswomen appear in the top ten of the Forbes list. Indra Nooyi is at number three on the list. She runs the PepsiCo Company. There are some new entries on the list this year. At number 40 is Michelle Obama, the wife of President Barack Obama and First Lady of the USA. Mrs Obama works to draw attention to the rights of working women and military families in particular.
This year Queen Elizabeth the Second of the UK moved up 14 places to number 42.
1. Read the article and say in 2-3 sentences what it is about.
2. The author says how women are chosen for the list. Find this extract and read it aloud.
3. Who is at number three on this list and why?
4. Why is it important to appear on this list?
Wall Street is a place where the sun never shines. This doesn't mean it has a different climate from the rest of New York City. It simply means that the buildings here in New York's financial centre are so high that the street is always in the shade.
The people who work in the Wall Street area are too busy to worry about the weather. They are employed by great banking houses or giant financial companies. They handle big sums of money every day.
Twenty years ago, life was a lot quieter on Wall Street. Many of the companies were old family firms. They had always been successful and did not see the need to work very hard for their money. Sons entering their fathers' businesses could come to work late, leave early and be certain that no one would notice. Those days are gone forever. Wall Street's big bosses still have beautifully furnished offices on the top floor, with wonderful views over New York. But downstairs in the trading rooms, clever young people work at their computers sending money around the world.
Americans have never quite got used to trusting their banks. They remember too well the great Wall Street 'crash' of 1929, when many banks closed and thousands of people lost their money. In order to keep the dangers small, American law prevents banks from becoming too big. No bank can have offices in more than one state. Perhaps this is why there arc so many banks in America — nearly 15,000 of them.
The advantage of having so many small banks is that each one can get to know its customers, and can offer a personal service. The problem is that a traveller who has his or her money in a bank in Denver, cannot easily get any money out from a bank in Washington. But even this is changing now Computers can send money so fast that the old system of American banks is breaking down.
Many Americans are not so happy about leaving their money in the bank. They want to see it grow, fast. That's one reason why many people spend as much money as they can on buying and improving houses. They know real estate prices often rise faster than anything else.
2. The author mentions some pluses and minuses of having many small banks. Find this extract and read it aloud.
3. Why don't Americans trust their banks?
4. What makes Americans spend money on real estate?
Martin Halstead is a normal English teenager who lives in Oxford with his Mum and Dad. There is only one unusual thing about Martin — at the age of 18 he set up his own airline!
Martin got his passion for flying when he boarded a plane for the first time at the age of six. Ever since Martin has wanted to be a pilot. Only a year ago Martin was just a student at an Oxford collcge and was preparing for his final exams in Business, History and English. However, his desire to become a pilot was so strong that he sent an application to Oxford Air Training School before taking his college exams. Martin wasn't very confident that he would get a place but much to his own surprise he was successful. Martin says: "To my surprise, I was given a chance to start at Oxford Air Training School almost immediately. Both my parents and the head of the college could see how much I wanted to become a pilot, so they supported my decision to leave college without taking my final exams." Martin started his flying course last January. He says: "Last summer I was chatting to my friend and said, as a joke, that my only chance to get a job in that field was to have my own airline."
And that was how it all began. Martin's original plan was to fly between Oxford and Cambridge. Oxford and Cambridge are the two most famous and important university cities in the UK. Although the two cities are not too far from each other, they are not well connected by road or train. However, Martin has now changed his mind. His airline, Alpha One Airways, now plans to fly between Southampton and the Isle of Man.
Where did Martin get money to start his business? Well, he got some money from his Grandmother and also had some savings from doing part-time jobs. Although Martin refuses to say exactly how much money he needed to start the business, he says it wasn't very much.
So, what is next? Martin says: "I hope that this is just the beginning and in the future I will be able to fly to other places." Good luck, Martin!
2. The author mentions Martin's plan of starting the airline. Find this extract and read it aloud.
3. What made Martin leave college and start studying to become a pilot?
4. How did Martin manage to find money for starting his business?
HOW TO BECOME RICH
I believe that even people who are deeply in debt can become wealthy in ten years or less.
The first step is taking control of spending. So, start living on less than you make. Track your spending for a month. Then review your notes to see where you can make cuts. The next step is looking towards tomorrow. Even people happy in their jobs today understand that things are changing in every profession and that they might not be secure tomorrow.
Lastly, these people are saving like crazy ones. Now is not the time to buy that 42-inch flat-screen TV if you can't afford it.
A poor person should really learn to be as optimistic as a millionaire. Try this simple exercise. For the next three days, notice and write down five good things happening in your world. After three days, you'll see that good things are part of a pattern in your life. This will make you more optimistic, and optimism is a wealth magnet. Study after study shows that people with faith in themselves and in the future get more jobs and keep more jobs. They save for tomorrow rather than spend for today because they're convinced there will be a tomorrow.
I`ve designed a set of special exercises to help people overcome financial difficulties. The exercises are valuable because they help make changes real and they give you a goal and focus. Most involve keeping a journal or asking yourself challenging questions. One that's really valuable is writing about yourself in the third person. New research shows that when you write about yourself as 'he' or 'she,' it takes away some of the self-consciousness. You can see if you're emphasizing positive or negative attributes and understand how others see you. From there, you can start to make changes.
The research being done by psychologist Bob Emmons on gratitude made a difference. His idea is that grateful individuals lead happier, more successful lives. Bob got me to appreciate the everyday — to stop comparing, to do things for others, to use visual aids to stimulate me, like the sign I put up in my house that says 'Breathe.' In this economy, it's something everyone needs to remember.
2. The author gives advice on how to become wealthy. Find this extract and read it aloud.
3. What exercises should a person do to overcome financial difficulties?
4. Why is it important for people to feel optimistic if they want to get rich?