COURSE: IELTS FIGHTER, TARGET 6.

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LISTENING 10
SENTENCE COMPLETION
FLOW-CHART COMPLETION
LECTURE
II.1. Vocabulary
1. amateur /ˈæmətə(r)/ (n)
someone who does something as a hobby and not as their job
nghiệp dư
2. amateur /ˈæmətə(r)/ (adj)
doing something as a hobby and not as your job
mang tính nghiệp dư
3. anonymous /əˈnɒnɪməs/ (adj)
If someone is anonymous, their name is not given.
ẩn danh
4. evolve /iˈvɒlv/ (v)
to develop or make something develop, usually gradually
phát triển, tiến hóa
5. proposal /prəˈpəʊzl/ (adj)
a suggestion for a plan
đề xuất
6. restrict /rɪˈstrɪkt/ (v)
to limit something
giới hạn
Example:
1. The tournament is open to both amateurs and professionals.
2. He’s just an amateur photographer.
3. The money was donated by a local businessman who wishes to remain anonymous.

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 4. This idea evolved from a drawing I discovered in the attic.
5. The proposal for a new high-speed railway met with strong opposition.
6. Having small children tends to restrict your freedom.
II.2. Content
SENTENCE COMPLETION
You are going to hear a lecturer talking about journalism practised by people who are not professional
journalists.
Questions 1- 5
Complete the sentences below.
Write ONE OR TWO WORDS for each answer.
1. Ordinary people can provide a news story, a .................. or a video when no professional journalist is present.
2. Amateur journalists often report on subjects which would be of little interest to a large ..................
3. In the past, someone who wanted to express an opinion used to write a .................. , while now they write a
blog.
4. An amateur journalist's subject is more likely to be a .................. rather than national or international news.
5. Amateur news websites, such as Ohmynews in South Korea, earn money from .................. .
Tips to do the task
● Read through the sentences
● Predict what types of answers you need for each gap (noun, verb, adjective)
● Listen to complete the sentences
● Pay attention to the number of words possible for each answer
Script
Lecturer
Today, I'm going to be talking about amateur journalism; in other words journalism practised by ordinary people,
not professional journalists. For people like you, who want to get some real writing experience, this can be a good
way to get started, and later I'll be offering you some practical tips to help you.
Amateur journalists are providing more and more news. I think the main cause of this change has been the
Internet. Nowadays, anyone close to an important event can write a report and email it to a newspaper, or they can
take a photo with a digital camera or use their mobile phone to make a video film of what's happening.
Also, amateur journalism isn't just for people who are in the right place at the right time. People can now
write reports and articles about things which a big organisation might not be interested in and post their ideas on
their website or blog. This means that all sorts of people can express their views.

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 Also, in the past, if you wanted to make your opinions known, one of the few ways of doing this was to send
a letter to a newspaper. But normally newspapers only print a few of the thousands of letters they receive each day.
Now, people can write about the things which are really important to them and the people around them and they
put it in a blog. As a result, amateur journalists often write about something which is a local issue, and by 'local
issue’, I mean something happening in the school in their area or the traffic in their town, but not something
necessarily of national or international interest.
Amateur journalism is a growing phenomenon. There are now major online newspapers, Ohmynews in
South Korea, for example, has a large number of readers, and for this reason, they can attract advertising and get
income from this. And, as a result, it's become a profitable business.

Explanation
Sentence 1:
The lecturer says “anyone close to an important event can write a report and email it to a newspaper, or they can
take a photo with a digital camera or use their mobile phone to make a video film of what's happening.”
Anyone = ordinary people
Write a report = a news story
Make a video film refers to a video in sentence 1.
So the missing word in this sentence is photo.

Sentence 2:
The next piece of information is “amateur journalism isn't just for people who are in the right place at the right time.
People can now write reports and articles about things which a big organisation might not be interested in and post
their ideas on their website or blog”.
People refers to amateur journalists
Write reports and articles about things = report on subjects
Might not be interested in = of little interest
So the missing word in sentence 2 is organization.

Sentence 3:
The lecturer says “in the past, if you wanted to make your opinions known, one of the few ways of doing this was to
send a letter to a newspaper.”

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Make their opinions known = express their opinions
So the missing word in sentence 3 is letter.

Sentence 4:
“As a result, amateur journalists often write about something which is a local issue, and by 'local issue’, I mean
something happening in the school in their area or the traffic in their town, but not something necessarily of national
or international interest”.
Amateur journalists often write about = amateur journalist’s subjects
not something necessarily of national or international interest = rather than national or international news
So the word we need is local issue.

Sentence 5:
Ohmynews in South Korea “can attract advertising and get income from this”. So they earn money from
advertising.

Answer key
1. photo/photograph
2. organisation
3. letter
4. local issue
5. advertising

II.2.2. Flow-chart completion

FLOW-CHART COMPLETION
Complete the flow chart below.
Write ONE WORD ONLY for each answer.
How to write an article
Put the main facts at the beginning to attract
attention.

Use a model in the shape of a 6 .................. to build

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 up details.

Include 7 .................. from people involved.

Check the accuracy of your 8 ..................

Rewrite, making sure paragraphs are short.

Don't write a 9 .................. .

Add a picture to accompany the article.

Finally, write an attractive 10 ..................

Tips to do the task

● Study the words and phrases in the chart
● Look at how the chart is organised.  The structure of the chart will also gives you clues about the
information you are going to hear.
● A flow-chart is to describe a process, and the speaker will use various sequencing words such as; ‘first of
all’, ‘then’, ‘after x has been done’, ‘finally’ etc.
● The verb tenses usually used are present simple /present perfect when describing a process and verbs are
often used in the passive voice.
● Flow charts follow the organisation of the recording you hear.  This means that the answers you have to
write are in the same order as the information on the recording.

Script
Lecturer But how can you get involved? How can you begin to write articles which will be published on sites like
these?
Well, first you must have something Interesting to say, something you want to communicate with readers.
Assuming you have this, it's important in an article to attract people's attention and gain their interest. so put the
main facts first. answering these questions: Who? Why? When? How? and Where?

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 Get those basic facts down to start with and get people interested. Then fill in the details in the rest of the
article: the best model is really shaped like a pyramid. You put the most important facts at the top of the article and
lots of smaller details down below.
Remember, you want people to keep reading, so you need to hold your readers interest. A really good
technique for doing that is to put in quotations from people who are part of the story - what they really said. You
know the sort of thing. um, 'Tanya, mother of two, said: "It all happened so quickly that we didn't have time to
react."' Quotations bring the article alive. Once you've written your article, go over it again to make sure that any
figures you quote are correct. Make sure that Tanya really has two children and not one or three. Then, after that,
once you've got your ideas down, rewrite your article, making sure that your paragraphs don't contain more than
three sentences - people like them to be brief and to the point, and this will help to hold their attention.
And another thing to bear in mind: if they're reading online, people will soon stop reading your piece and
start reading something else, so keep the whole article brief. Don't put in a conclusion - just let your article end
without it. Another good piece of advice is to remember that old cliche which we've all heard - that a picture is worth
a thousand words. It's true, so if you can, include a picture. It'll attract more attention and illustrate what you've
been saying.
Finally, you need to write a headline - something eye-catching which will get people to just skim the article
to start with, and then, if it's well written, they'll read it more carefully afterwards

Explanation
“Then fill in the details in the rest of the article: the best model is really shaped like a pyramid.”
So pyramid is the answer to question 6.

“A really good technique for doing that is to put in quotations from people who are part of the story - what they really
said.” So Quotations is the answer to question 7.

“Once you've written your article, go over it again to make sure that any figures you quote are correct.” The answer
to question 8 is figures.

“ put in a conclusion - just let your article end without it.” The missing word in number 9 is conclusion.

“Finally, you need to write a headline - something eye-catching which will get people to just skim the article to start
with”. The missing word to fill in number 10 is headline.

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 Answer key
1. pyramid
2. quotes/quotations
3. figures
4. conclusion
5. headline

IV. Homework
HOMEWORK – LESSON 10

Questions 1-5
Complete the summary below
Write OWE OR TWO WORDS for each answer.
Blogs and the History of Blogging A blog can perhaps be best described as a website that consists of a kind of
journal that is regularly updated. Blogs cover a very wide variety of topics and many of them are personal diaries.
Blogs are usually not 1…….... — because they have interactive elements, which may lead to friendships or even
2………. relationships between people.
The first blog was probably created in 1994 by a student and he called it his 3……….. Similar websites were then
created and these included both links and 4…………… In 1999, someone changed the term used for these
websites by creating the phrase 5……………. and therefore invented the term ‘blog’.
Questions 6—10
Complete the flow chart below.
Write ONE WORD ONLY for each answer

Blogging Workflow - Advice

Decide what the 6 …………….. of your posts will be

↓
Do some reading before starting a post
↓
As you compose the post, keep a record of
7………………. and links
↓
After creating the post, add some tags to it to improve

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 searchability.
↓
Use social networking sites to 8…………. a post you
think is outstanding
↓
Look at the 9…………… relating to the post
↓
Don’t simply say 10…………… to people who have
responded to your post
↓
Go on to other blogs and leave comments.

ANSWER KEY

1 monologues
2 business
3 H/home P/page
4 forums
5 we blog
6 frequency
7 sources
8 announce
9 statistics
10 thanks

TAPESCRIPT
OK, I’m going to talk today about blogs and blogging. Though I’m assuming you’re all familiar with what a blog is,
let’s just start with a definition. Perhaps the simplest definition is that blog is a type of website in the form of a
journal of one sort or another. It consists of posts - new material, or entries - that are arranged in chronological
order, with the most recent post at the top of the page.
Now, what are the typical characteristics of a blog? Well, blogs are usually written by one person, they are usually
updated regularly, though by no means always, about one particular topic. That topic might be the blogger’s own
life, as many blogs are personal diaries. But there are blogs on just about any topic you could think of - there are
political blogs, news blogs, blogs about a particular hobby, etc..etc

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Now, most blogs are not monologues, because they allow readers to make their own comments on what appears
on the blog, or to add their own information to it. In this way, people get into contact with each other, learning from
each other, sharing ideas, perhaps making friends or even doing business with each other, wherever they are in
the world.
Although blogs are very much part of modern life and there are literally millions of blogs on the web, the history of
blogging is a pretty short one. There is some disagreement on over what the first blog was, but many people
reckon it was an online diary by a student called Justin Hall in 1994. His site was called Justin’s Home Page, and
he later called it Links From The Underground
At that point, the word ‘blog’ didn’t exist. More websites like his started to spring up, in the form of regularly updated
online journals on various subjects, with links to other websites and forums for people to contribute their personal
opinions
In 1997, someone called Jorn Barger first used the term ‘web log’ to catagorise this kind of website, when he
launched his own website, Robot Wisdom. In 1999, a blogger called Peter Merholz jokingly broke this word up into
‘we blog’ and therefore invented the term ‘blog’. Pretty soon, everyone called the sites ‘blogs’ and the person
writing them ‘bloggers’.
Pause
OK, now let’s move on to how to run a blog, and what I’m going to do is to tell you what I think is the best approach
to workflow with a blog. First of all, you need to decide on the frequency of your blog posts. Some people do
several a day, which is great if you can keep it up, others one a day. Once a week might be enough, but the key
question is what the readers of your blog expect. They need to know when they can expect to see a new post on
the blog, so whatever schedule you decide on, it’s important to stick to it.
When you’re going to do a post, start by reading material to find out what’s being discussed in friends’ blogs, or in
other blogs related to the topic of yours. That way you can take these things into account to ensure that your blog is
bang up to date.
Then start composing your blog post. If you’re doing one that involves research and links, open a file for storing the
sources of your information and the links you’re going to put in the post. Also consider using pictures. These can
make your blog much more attractive than one that’s just text. If you use photos from the web, make sure you cre
the source in your blog.
When you’ve completed the post, add some tags. If you don’t have the kind of software that enables you to build
them into the post, add them at the bottom. Tags are really important for searchability - they can get you new
readers who find your blog via the tags.

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If you think this is a particular good post and you’re really proud of it, announce it by sending links to it on social
networking sites, together with a very brief summary of what it’s about.
Then check the blog statistics to see how many people are reading and responding to your blog. Find out who’s
blogged about your post and reply to them, and give them a proper reply rather than just saying thanks.
After you’ve done all that, get off your own blog and comment elsewhere. Remember that you’re not the only
person blogging and putting out new material - there are lots of others doing the same and you should show them
some respect by giving them comments and feedback on their posts where you feel it’s appropriate.
Well, that’s just some of advice on being a good blogger. Blogging’s obviously a major thing now in the world of
electronic media and it’s anybody’s guess how it will develop in the future.

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