Unit I Evaluating a Job OfferOnce you receive a job offer, you must decide if you want the job. Fortunately, most organizations will give you a few days to accept or reject an offer.There are many issues to consider when assessing a job offer. Will the organization be a good place to work? Will the job be interesting? Are there opportunities for advancement? Is the salary fair? Does the employer offer good benefits? Now is the time to ask the potential employer about these issues — and to do some checking on your own.A good job offers you opportunities to learn new skills, increase your earnings, and rise to positions of greater authority, responsibility, and prestige. A lack of opportunities can dampen interest in the work and result in frustration and boredom.The employer should give you some idea of promotion possibilities within the organization. What is the next step on the career ladder? If you have to wait for a job to become vacant before you can be promoted, how long does this usually take? When opportunities for advancement do arise, will you compete with applicants from outside the company? Can you apply for jobs for which you qualify elsewhere within the organization, or is mobility within the firm limited?When an employer makes a job offer, information about earnings and benefits are usually included. You will want to research to determine ifthe offer is fair. If you choose to negotiate for higher pay and better benefits, objective research will help you strengthen your case.You may have to go to several sources for information. Try to find family, friends, or acquaintances who recently were hired in similar jobs. Ask your teachers and the staff in placement offices about starting pay for graduates with your qualifications. Help-wanted ads in newspapers sometimes give salary ranges for similar positions. Check the library or your school’s career center for salary surveys such as those conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers or various professional associations.You also should learn the organization’s policy regarding overtime. Depending on the job, you may or may not be exempt from laws requiring the employer to compensate you for overtime. Find out how many hours you will be expected to work each week and whether you receive overtime pay or compensatory time off for working more than the specified number of hours in a week.Benefits also can add a lot to your base pay, but they vary widely. Find out exactly what the benefit package includes and how much of the cost you must bear.Unit 2 Compromise on Details, Not PrinciplesIt’s no surprise that money is one of the biggest sources of arguments among married couples, and it’s also the number one ca use of divorce in North America. When it comes to money, we often butt heads with our spouse. In fact, what we often overlook is that many times we’re not fighting with our spouse over principle, but details of a certain financial aspect.The word “compromise” has become a dirty word in marriage counseling, because it has the stigma that you’re letting go of your principles and convictions just to please your spouse, and I agree that you shouldn’t compromise your principles and convictions. However, there are ways to compromise without breaking one’s own long-held principles.The idea of “losing the battle to win the war” is to give up a little bit and essentially lose the small battle in order to make the situation right and ultimately “win the war” and ha ve a solid relationship with your significant other.1. Communication is keyStop for a second and talk about what your disagreement is about. If the disagreement is about whether you should buy a car with cash or buy a car with 100% financing, then you have a disagreement over principle. On the other hand, if your disagreement is about how much you should give to a charity or a family member, you’re actually agreeing that you should give, but you’re disagreeing over the detail of that gift.2. How to lose the battleLosing the battle involves compromising a little bit to meet in the middle about the details. If you’re fighting over how much to give to a charity, meet somewhere in the middle. Agree to give more money in months when you have managed to save more, and less in months when your expenses are higher than usual.If you’re fighting over the car financing issue discussed in the previous section, this is obviously a bigger issue since it’s over principles, but still not impossible to get over. You need to explain to each other why you have the stance that you do, and see if there is room for compromise. Perhaps you can agree to pay with cash for the car this time, and consider using financing in future scenarios where you both agree it makes sense.3. Winning the warIf you find a way for you to both partially win, then you’ve won the war, because you both put your pride aside and found a way to make each other happy. If you communicated about it and found a reasonable compromise, then you’ve each “lost”very small battles, but you’ve won the larger war. Your disagreement won’t fester and you’ll make progress without butting heads every time you talk about it.Unit 3 Shakespeare’s TragedyShakespeare wrote tragedies from the beginning of his career. One of his earliest plays was the Roman tragedy Titus Andronicus, which he followed a few years later with Romeo and Juliet. However, his most admired tragedies were written in a seven-year period between 1601 and 1608. These include his four major tragedies Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth.As one of the most remarkable playwrights in the world, William Shakespeare was greatly influenced by British traditional literature and culture, which partly originated from ancient Greek and Roman culture. He got inspiration from the European legends and historical stories. And the epics, myths of ancient Greece and Roman, the worship of heroes in the tragedy and even the sublime aesthetic style functioned as significant elements which affected Shakespeare’s dramatic creation. In Aristotle’s theory, a tragedy aims at purgatory through arousing pity and fear. Pity is aroused by unmerited misfortune of people like ourselves. As for Shakespeare, it is no doubt that he successfully aroused the readers’ pity and fear through the miserable lives of the characters in his tragedies and he presented “pity and fear” to the extreme limit.However, what makes Shakespeare a great giant in drama is not how he inherited from the Greek tragedy but how he further developed it.The Greek tragedy creates a series of gods and mankind who have lofty ideals of self-sacrifice for mankind and justice, but at last they areoverwhelmed by the irresistible fate. These heroes, shining with the halo of “god”, are out of our reach. Shakespeare shif ted the heroes from gods to the men with high social status, kings, princes and generals. These men are noble, aristocratic, but live in the real life. Although different from ordinary people, their ideas and actions can be understood and accepted more easily. This may be regarded as the reflection of Renaissance.In Greek tragedy, fate is the central cause of tragedy. The heroes fail to defeat the powerful fate and are engulfed by it. J. W. Goethe pointed out that the ancient tragedies were based on the inevitable fate. However, Shakespeare’s tragedy can be described as stories of exceptional suffering and calamity, leading to the death of a dominant figure of high social standing. Every hero or heroine in Shakespeare’s tragedy has an imperfect character which his or her fall from honor and happiness is due to. Once the weakness takes the dominant place, it shows the irresistible and destructive power, under the control of which the hero is pulled down from high status and he is destined to fail. For example, the excessive pride of Faustus, the overweening ambition of Macbeth, and the uncontrolled jealousy of Othello all attest that fate is determined by character. In this sense, Greek tragedy is the tragedy of fate, whereas Shakespeare’s is the tragedy of fl awed character.Unit 4 French and British EtiquetteThough only separated by a small channel the cultural differences between France and Britain are numerous. Neither the French nor the English, two very proud nations, will take a social mishap kindly. Here are some of their differences in etiquette.ConversationHaving a conversation with French and with English people is quite different. If a French person asks a British person for his opinion about a politician, the situation will be very awkward since in the UK politics is still slightly taboo. Philosophy is regarded as boring and stormy debates are to be avoided at all cost. And yet this is what the French love. In the same way, don’t contradict the other guests just for fun. It is not fun at all in the UK where conciliation is preferred to debates.Don’t refer to money or wealth when you speak to a French person as it will be regarded as extremely vulgar. Pay careful attention to these details and avoid being bad company.Dress codeFrench people are much less audacious than British people regarding fashion: When British people go out, they are not afraid to show off. Gorgeous dresses for ladies and dinner jackets for men are usually the norm for an evening party unless otherwise specified. For black-tie party the attire is very formal and classy: evening dresses for ladies and black-tie for men. For a white-tie party you have to dress up more. It isappropriate for men to wear swallow-tailed coats. In contrast, French people are more discreet. Most of the time parties are more casual and the dress code is not so often mentioned.In addition, British people pay more attention to clothes at work. Whereas in France a man can go to work with odd jacket and trousers, this would be unacceptable in the UK. Attire has to be formal at all times except on Friday which is more casual. Be careful this doesn’t mean that you can wear a simple T-shirt, but you can remove your tie.PunctualityPunctuality is not regarded in the same way around the world. In France punctuality can be approximate, you could even hear about the saying “being 15 minutes late to be polite”. The idea is to let the hosts finish preparing the party without rushing them. In the UK on the contrary punctuality is a golden rule. Some invitations ev en mention “8.00 for 8.30”. It means that the party or the dinner will begin precisely at 8.30 and that you are supposed to be there from 8.00. Being late in that case would be unforgivable, especially if the hostess decided to cook a soufflé!!!Unit 5Martin Cooper and the Cell PhoneApril 3, 2003 marked the 30th anniversary of the first public telephone call placed on a portable cellular phone. Martin Cooper placed that call asgeneral manager of Motorola’s Communications Systems Division. It was the incarnation of his vision for personal wireless communications, distinct from cellular car phones. That first call caused a fundamental technology and communications market shift toward the person and away from the place.Martin Cooper explained his thinkin g and said, “People want to talk to other people — not a house, or an office, or a car. Given a choice, people will demand the freedom to communicate wherever they are, unrestricted by the infamous copper wire. It is that freedom we sought to vividly demonstrate in 1973. As I walked down the street while talking on the phone, sophisticated New Yorkers gaped at the sight of someone actually moving around while making a phone call. Remember that in 1973, there weren’t cordless telephones, let alone cellular p hones. I made numerous calls, including one where I crossed the street while talking to a New York radio reporter — probably one of the more dangerous things I have ever done in my life.”Following the April 3, 1973 public demonstration, using a “brick”-like 30-ounce phone, Cooper started the 10-year process of bringing the portable cell phone to market. Motorola introduced the 16-ounce phone into commercial service in 1983, with each phone costing the consumer $3,500. It took seven additional years before there were a million subscribers in the United States. Today, there are more cellularsubscribers than wire-line phone subscribers in the world, with mobile phones weighing as little as 3 ounces.Martin Cooper’s role in conceiving and developing the first portable cellular phone directly impacted his choice to found and lead ArrayComm, a wireless technology and systems company founded in 1992. ArrayComm’s core adaptive antenna technology increases the capacity and coverage of any cellular system, while significantly lowering costs and making speech more reliable. This technology addresses what Cooper calls “the unfulfilled promise” of cellular, which should be, but still isn’t as reliable or affordable as wired telephony.ArrayComm has also used this technol ogy to make the Internet “personal” by creating a personal broadband system, which delivers high-speed, mobile Internet access that consumers can afford. Martin Cooper had this to say on the changes taking place: “It’s very exciting to be part of a movement toward making broadband available to people with the same freedom to be anywhere that they have for voice communications today. People rely heavily on the Internet for their work, entertainment and communication, but they need to be unleashed.”Unit 6 The Benefits of Buying Books OnlineBooks are one of the best things that you can possess or gift to your loved ones. From a small child to an old adult, every person finds a friend inbooks. But lately, due to busy schedule lifestyles, we often do not get much opportunity to spend time in bookstores. However, with the trend towards Internet marketing, things have become simple. Now, just by logging onto the Internet, you can come across a multitude of online book stores which offer a good collection of books. From fiction to non-fiction, from comics to award-winning works, there are plenty of choices to be seen when making a visit to the online bookshop.Buying books online is a fun and challenging experience. There are hundreds if not thousands of online bookstores to choose from with hundreds to hundreds of thousands of titles, and with the advent of search engines, any kind of used, new or rare books can be found.If one online bookstore does not have what you want, then you will be sure to find another online bookstore that does. For example, if you are interested in buying textbooks or reference books for your dissertation online, you will find websites that are college student oriented, sponsored by universities and colleges across the United States. If you’re interested in used books, you will also find online bookstores that specialize in used and discounted books. Online bookstores cater to the needs of individuals who need items shipped to them for convenience.Carrying such vast numbers of titles, online bookstores list their books conveniently by category. So some of the book categories you may find are: Biography, Comics/Graphic Novels, Children’s Books, Horror,Crime/Thriller/Mystery, Fiction, and a lot more. You may also find collectible, antique, and rare books, CDs and audiocassettes, photography, art and many other categories as well. Online bookstores make searching for specific authors, titles or ISBN numbers easy by allowing you to type in that author, title or ISBN number in a search bar to find what you’re looking for. Online bookstores also have customer service by phone line or online form if you have trouble finding what you’re looking for. Buying books online also gives you the option to purchase books through auction websites, which can discount the costs dramatically. Most book sellers believe in satisfaction guarantees in order to cover any accidentally damaged books. They may also have their own company policies on exchanges and returns. Many times you can find that their customer service is only a mouse click away. This just enhances the fact that buying your books online will not only save you money but also time.Unit 7 The Function of Sport in LifeThe word sport is a contracted form of “disport”, which means to amuse, to divert oneself. It includes play, amusement, entertainments or recreation. It is a word which signifies the outdoor pursuits, athletic exertion as contrasted with intellectual occupation.Sports existed in all past ages and have played an important role in thehistory of mankind.Nations which played an important role in ancient history all felt the necessity of sports and introduced athletic contests in their own domains. What, then, is the function of sport? The fact that athletics, a branch of sport, is of great advantage to life is evident to the experienced student of modern colleges. The argument which established its necessity is opposed only by ignorant people, for it has grown nowadays into an irrefutable fact. Athletics are necessary, if not indispensable for the future success of the nation as well as of the individual. “A sound mind in a sound body” was the motto of the Greeks and the model of the strong, healthy and vigorous Spartans. Their carrying out of the plan was a cause for the long existence of Greece and for its luxuriant literary culture. This model in just the same way should be put into action if we wish to have any success in this world.Athletics refresh the body, calm and enlighten the mind, and develop moral character. As a concrete example let us take a student in his college activities. The student who does exercise is always fresh and vigorous; he seldom gets sick and tired. His jovial character, his good disposition and his interest in life are his chief characteristics.Moreover in exercising, the student gets animated, his blood is purified and consequently his mind becomes more apt to receive the ideas and thoughts found in his lessons. The health which he acquires will help himto work harder and he becomes more successful. A weak person can seldom endure the hardship of school-life, the trouble of memorizing and persevering in his daily lessons. Lastly, when a student is busy with athletics during recess time, his ideas do not deviate any more to the path of impurity, to think of such trivial things and the health and strength which he acquires will help him in overcoming such temptations. Generally a healthy person is endowed with a will stronger than that of a weak person.We see therefore that athletics improve the condition of a person during his entire college course.Sports, in general, have had an important and estimable function in life and will inevitably in future be regarded as the indispensable factor for intellectual and moral growth.Unit 8 Cyber Charter Schools: Public School at Home?If the idea of cyber schools seems futuristic, consider this fact: around 200,000 American students attend school full-time online. Most of these kids are attending what’s known as cyber schools. These schools exist in 27 states and Washington, D.C., according to the most recent national report. Kids who learn through cyber charter schools need little more than a computer, an Internet connection and a residence in the same state as the school. And since these schools are public, the school usuallyprovides the computer and helps pay for Internet access. “Essentially, it’s public schooling at home,” says Matt Arkin, head of Georgia Cyber Academy, which serves more than 4,000 kids statewide. “Our students are held to all public school standards.”Like traditional schools cyber charters serve children from kindergarten all the way through high school. They require the same core classes taught in public schools, like English, science and even physical education. Since virtual charter schools are public, their students are required to take the same state assessment tests as children in traditional public schools. Some classes take place at specific times, while others are self-paced so students can work them into their own schedules.The biggest difference between virtual and traditional schools is that cyber charter students learn at their own pace, since they’re not assigned to a classroom with a bunch of other kids. A fourth grader might take fourth-grade English classes and third grade math, for example. As in traditional schools, students can pick more of their own classes as they get older, choosing from subjects like epidemiology, British literature and graphic design.Arkins says students aren’t entirely on their own just because they don’t hop on a school bus every day. At PA Cyber, kids interact with their teachers and an instructional supervisor who is sort of like a guidance counselor. “We actually surround the students with as many one-to-oneinteractions as we can,” says Andy Petro, supervisor of virtual classroom technology for PA Cyber, which has more than 8,000 students across Pennsylvania. In addition, some virtual charters are developing programs where students can take classes online but also get in-person instruction at learning centers.Since cyber charters are public schools, they can’t turn kids away. That means they’re to serve all kinds of children. “We believe that every student can be successful in this program,” Arkin says. “But in some cases, it’s more of a challenge.”Virtual education isn’t going to work unless the student, parent or both is committed to making it work. Because virtual education is so individualized, it works best when a child’s learning coach takes an active role. “Learning coaches” can be children’s parents, grandparents or guardians. And the nature of virtual schools means students must be able to motivate themselves and work independently.Unit 9 Light up Your Life: How the Weather Affects Our MoodsFor the past three years, I’ve been living in Southern Oregon, where the summers are very hot, sunny and dry, while the winters bring long spells of grey skies and drizzly rain. Between November and March it feels like it rains all the time, or at least stays pretty dark. Luckily, the past few days have brought some bright, sunny days, and that’s been brighteningmy mood, too.I always wondered why people —especially weather forecasters —always had to equate certain weather with being “miserable” or “dreary”.I thought it was pretty much giving our power away to let something as random as the weather affect our moods.But late ly I’ve been thinking more and more about the scientific validity of that. After a bit of digging, I got confirmation of the fact that light (and, by extension, weather) does indeed impact the way we feel. It’s laid out pretty clearly in a little informational e-book called Brighten Your Life.In the book, Dr. Kripke writes, “Think about the dark dungeons of despair, the heart of darkness, the gloominess of a funeral mood. Sadness rules where it is dark,” He goes on to say, “Think about a person who has see n the Light. Think about brilliance. Think how we describe the great joy of love by singing,’You are My Sunshine’. We know that light makes us happier.”These days, we spend more and more time indoors, and Dr. Kripke blames modern urbanization. He points out that when he was a little boy, they played outside often, and walked to school even in the winter. After all, they didn’t have all the video games and electronic toys, and there were only a few channels on TV.But we don’t need to blame technology. In f act, technology provides an answer in Kripke’s book: bright light, which is used to treat depressionand seasonal affective disorder (SAD).So if not technology, what should we blame? Laziness, perhaps, or simply routine habits. But it’s really a catch 22. We don’t feel like going outside, but we feel worse by staying in. I know that I find my head clears and my energy rises when I go outside, even if it is raining. So certainly our kids can benefit from fresh air too, not to mention the Vitamin D we get from the sun.That’s why I’m making it a personal goal this year to spend more time outside, and to take my family with me, regardless of how much my husband and I feel we need to be tied to our computers, working. After all, if you’re going to light up you r life, you might as well do it the natural way. Indoor lights might be good, but the biggest light of all — the sun — is even better.U10 Water PollutionWater pollution is defined as a change in the chemical, physical and biological health of a waterway due to human activity. Ways that humans have affected the quality of the Great Lakes water over the centuries include sewage disposal, pollution through heavy metals and pesticides, overdevelopment of the water’s edge, and air pollution. Under the belief that water could dilute any substance, industries and individuals during the 18th and 19th centuries often used rivers and lakes as garbage cans.Industrial waste water, raw sewage and bodies of dead animals would often be dumped into waterways, without much thought of pollution and downstream neighbors.This practice started changing in the 20th century as people became aware of the importance of clean water to health. However, as more industries and people moved into the Great Lakes region, the more the rivers and lakes became polluted. Today, pollutants enter the Great Lakes in many different ways, but the main three entryways of pollutants are point source, nonpoint source and atmospheric pollution.Point source pollutionWhen pollutants enter the waterway through a specific entry point, such as a drainpipe draining directly into a river, it’s called point source pollution. Industrial water discharges and sewage treatment plants are the main criminals of this type of pollution. Point source pollutants can include many different organic and inorganic substances, including human waste and poisonous metals.Point source pollution can be traced to a specific discharge point and owner; therefore, it has been the easiest source of pollution to control and regulate.Nonpoint source pollutionIn contrast to point source pollution, nonpoint source pollution comes from many different spreading sources and is extremely difficult toregulate and control; therefore, many experts believe that NPS pollution is the top danger facing the Great Lakes today.NPS pollution is mainly caused by runoff, when rain and snowmelt move over the land, picking up pollutants along the way and finally dumping the pollutants into rivers and lakes. Some common NPS pollutants include fertilizers and pesticides from agricultural lands and homeowners; oil, grease and salt from highways; animal and human waste and so on. Atmospheric pollutionAtmospheric pollution is another form of nonpoint source pollution, though instead of polluting via runoff, the pollution falls from the sky. As water moves through the hydrologic cycle, it falls as rain or snow and then evaporates into the air from land and surface water. Pollutants given off into the air, such as through smoke piles, follow this same path, and can be carried through the atmosphere and into waterways hundreds of miles away from its source. Acid rain is the most well-known form of atmospheric pollution. The major sources of atmospheric pollution include coal-burning energy plants and waste incinerators.U11 How to Make Friends for LifeFriendship and friends continue to remain central to our lives. The relationship that we share with our friends is grounded in a mutual concern as our friends help us in shaping up our personalities as well.Research has shown that the quality and nature of your friends are one of the key influencing factors in achieving happiness, self-esteem, and satisfaction. Friends often affect the health and energy of a person as well. More and more people are increasingly turning towards their friends for support and mutual sharing rather than communicating to their relatives; and this sociological phenomenon has escalated the desire to make more friends. Friendship is an impulsive relationship developed between two autonomous individuals marked by a voluntary, emotional and mutual concern, but there are certain steps, which, if implemented can win you friends or at least help you get close to those whom you want to make your friends.The first step to make friends with someone is to make them like you. To let someone know that you are genuinely interested in them, simple gestures like a little smile and calling him by his name can lay the basic foundation. To make the other person feel important you need to be a good listener and encourage the other person to talk. Give your honest and sincere opinion but do not overtly criticize or make fun of him or her. The second step of making someone your friend is to develop a mutual consideration between each other. You need to share his or her perspective and for that it is necessary for you to develop an inclination to see things from the other person’s point of view. To become best of friends you must show a genuine concern and consideration for your。
