Reading Comprehension: Dirty Britain

Instructions: Read through the text, answer the questions that follow, then click on 'Grade Me!' to view your score.

Dirty Britain

Before the grass has thickened on the roadside verges and leaves have started growing on the trees is a perfect time to look around and see just how dirty Britain has become. The pavements are stained with chewing gum that has been spat out and the gutters are full of discarded fast food cartons. Years ago I remember travelling abroad and being saddened by the plastic bags, discarded bottles and soiled nappies at the edge of every road. Nowadays, Britain seems to look at least as bad. What has
gone wrong?
The problem is that the rubbish created by our increasingly mobile lives lasts a lot longer than before. If it is not cleared up and properly thrown away, it stays in the undergrowth for years; a semi-permanent reminder of what a tatty little country we have now.

Firstly, it is estimated that 10 billion plastic bags have been given to shoppers. These will take anything from 100 to 1,000 years to rot. However, it is not as if there is no solution to this. A few years ago, the Irish government introduced a tax on non-recyclable carrier bags and in three months reduced their use by 90%. When he was a minister, Michael Meacher attempted to introduce a similar arrangement in Britain. The plastics industry protested, of course. However, they need not have bothered; the idea was killed before it could draw breath, leaving supermarkets free to give away plastic bags.

What is clearly necessary right now is some sort of combined initiative, both individual and collective, before it is too late. The alternative is to continue sliding downhill until we have a country that looks like a vast municipal rubbish tip. We may well be at the tipping point. Yet we know that people respond to their environment. If things around them are clean and tidy, people behave cleanly and tidily. If they are surrounded by squalor, they behave squalidly. Now, much of Britain looks pretty squalid. What will it look like in five years?

Read more at http://www.usingenglish.com/comprehension/29.html#Qb7yfmuVrWh6gYsf.99

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How to Destroy the World - Rubbish

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Diagnostic Tests For Practical English Usage

Find out what you know and what you don´t know about tenses, articles, prepositions, sentence structure, word problems and much more.Book - Grammar Scan Diagnostic Test For Practical English Usage(Oxford)

Vocabulary: ABDICATE

SAT Vocabulary Words GRE Vovabulary Words.
Videos for GRE SAT .

 ABDICATE: to give up power or control

 

Learn English With Songs

CAN´T TAKE MY EYES OFF YOU

BY 

ANDY WILLIAMS

IT IS A GAP FILL QUIZ THAT WILL HELP YOU LEARN NEW WORDS AND PRACTISE YOUR ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS.

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Insults By Shakespeare

INSULTS BY SHAKESPEARE

About This Video

“You’re a fishmonger!” By taking a closer look at Shakespeare’s words--specifically his insults--we see why he is known as a master playwright whose works transcend time and appeal to audiences all over the world.

To know more click here

English Pronuntiation !?!

ENGLISH PRONUNTIATION

Read more by clicking the link below.

English Pronuntiation .

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 

90% of the native English speakers in the world. After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he'd 

prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,

 Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,

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                                        THE LAST 18 YEARS IN RAP

Flocabulary... 18 Years in Rap...
For the High School Grads...

In 1994 - 4 million babies are born
In America. Let’s see what else was going on.
Nelson Mandela's elected in South Africa,
End of apartheid, spectacular.

95 - OJ's acquitted in LA,
OKC is bombed by McVeigh.
Israel gives back land to Palestinians,
"Toy Story," it makes a couple million.

96 - We cloned a sheep named Dolly,
Collecting Pokémon is a new hobby.
That’s the year that you could die from beef,
Whether it’s rap related or Mad Cow Disease.
Tupac dies, and in...

97 - Biggie,
So does Princess Diana, that's a pity.
Mother Teresa is RIP,
But NASA lands on Mars that’s totally sweet.

98 - Google gives us search every day,
Matthew Shepard gets killed 'cause he was gay.

99 - School shooting at Columbine,
Clinton gets acquitted, even though we caught him lying.

Some were scared of Y2K,
But we partied all night for a brand new day.
Oh hey, Bush barely beats Gore,
In fact, it’s decided by the Supreme Court.

2001 - Yeah, we’re on our science,
Map the genome, iPod arrives.
But America changed the hour,
When the two planes hit the two towers.
We invade Afghanistan, hunting Al Qaeda,
But Bin Laden won’t get found 'til later.

02 - Bush names an evil axis, lowers taxes,
American Idol smashes.

03 - Start of the the Iraq War,
Columbia explodes, death in Darfur.
Biggest US minority is now Latin,
Ask my primo, Pixar finds Nemo.

04 - W. wins four more,
Tsunami waves kill when they hit the shore.
Red Sox win, they reverse the curse,
And Facebook's started by a couple of nerds.

05 - Hurricane Katrina has no love,
The Pope dies, baseballers are on drugs,

06 - Nintendo’s "Wii," what’s next?
Saddam Hussein, he gets put to death.

07 - iPhone drops, yeah I cop it,
We see the crisis in the housing market.
But we have the first female speaker of the House,
Every year new barriers for women break down.

08 - Another barrier down, that’s evident,
Obama is the first black president.
Michael Phelps dominates the pool,
The economy tanks, banks act the fool.

09 - Stimulus, water on the moon,
RIP MJ, he is gone too soon.

2010 - Oil spill, that’s crazy,
Earthquakes in Chile and Haiti.
But some lives are saved, the miners freed!
I bet fresh air never smelled so sweet.

2011 - Occupy Wall Street,
We find Bin Laden, put his body in the sea.
Europe debt crisis is tough for the Greeks,
Steve Jobs dies, he’s resting in peace.

This year - Trayvon Martin is killed,
Tebowmania, Linsanity it’s real.

3.2 million high school graduates,
I hope you’re looking at the present, and you're grabbing it,
'Cause time passes in the blink of an eye,
When you look ahead, don’t forget to look behind...It's Flocab

     

The Junk Food

THE JUNK FOOD

SELECTIVIDAD  Inglés-2004

Oral Presentation

Five Presentation Tips

For ESL Students

Giving presentations is a great way to practice your English, whether the presentations are in class and just for practice or in the real world. But to give a great presentation, you nee a little more than just good English. 

Here are five importatnt presentation tips for you.

• Tip 1.  Why people get nervous when they give a presentation?
• Tip 2.  Use your voice as a tool.
• Tip 3.  Make it look good.
• Tip 4.  Make it interesting
• Tip 5.  Enjoy it!

Go to downloads for students and you will find a PDF that can be helpful for your oral presentation.