Life skills
Reading articles critically
Before watching
1 Write the missing vowels in the words in the
glossary.
Glossary of scientific journalism
1 c _ _ s _ l mechanism: the way that one thing causes
a particular outcome
2 c _ nt _ nt: material that appears on a website or
other digital medium
3 c _ rr _ l _ t _ _ n: a connection between two or more
things that is not caused by chance
4 j _ _ rn _ l: a magazine containing articles relating to
a particular profession
5 _ _ tl _ t: a newspaper, TV channel or other publisher
of news stories
6 p _ p _ r: a piece of writing on an academic subject
7 pr _ ss r _ l _ _s _: an official statement that an
organisation gives to journalists
8 r _ p _ rp _ s _: reuse something in a different way
than was originally intended
9 r _ s _ _ rch: the detailed study of something to
discover new facts
10 s _ _ rc_: someone who provides information for a
journalist
While watching
2a 12 VIDEO SKILLS Read the video skills box. Then read
the summary below and watch the video. Complete
the summary by writing one word in each gap.
Kerry Smith works as a journalist for a science
(1) . She makes (2)
and videos and writes some news. She has a science
background and did a master’s degree in
(3) . She stopped working in science
because it required too much (4) .
Kerry says that the main problem in her profession is
that journalists don’t have enough (5)
This means they often don’t talk to the
(6) of a story, and end up copying
information from a (7) release instead.
Another problem is that funny or unusual content is
sometimes presented in the media with no
(8) , making it impossible to know what
its scientific importance is.
VIDEO SKILLS: Recognising collocations
It’s important to notice collocations when you’re listening.
This will aid both comprehension and vocabulary learning.
verb + noun adjective/noun + preposition
make podcasts associated with
do a degree/research a correlation/relationship between
draw a conclusion a link to
write/report/broadcast/
publish news
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B2+ Unit
2b 12 In the second half of the interview Kerry talks
about an article that claims there is a correlation
between eating chocolate and intelligence.
Watch again and answer the questions.
1 What arguments does she give to doubt the
conclusion in the article?
2 What does she say is reliable about the article?
3a 12 Watch again and listen for the underlined
words and phrases. What do they mean? Write a
brief definition.
1 a bit more fast-paced
2 get all of their facts straight
3 the point of the research
4 for the sake of argument
5 people have more disposable income
6 see if the conclusions match up
3b Which part of the interview did you find most
interesting? Why?
After watching
4a Think about science stories that have been popular
on the news over the last few years. Did any of
them surprise you? Did you read more about them
and try and find out if the news was really true?
If not, why not?
.
4b SKILLS 4 LIFE Write an article reporting some false
science news. Follow these steps.
1 Think of some false science news that lots of people
would like to hear.
2 Think of details to add to your article. Which
scientist(s) made the discovery? What university do
they work for? How did they make the discovery?
3 Write your article. Make the news sound as
sensational as you can.
REFLECT ON IT
Stories related to what food we should eat and
how much we exercise are very common in the
news, but the advice they give seems to change
regularly. Why do you think this is? What could
we do to prevent it from happening?
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