Knowing which words go together is important when selecting synonyms. Complete the sentences 1-6 with appropriate words.
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Tag: writing task 2
Listen to the recording. You will hear an extract from a lecture about how children learn to behave. Try to distinguish the supporting details and decided whether they are examples or argument. Choose the appropriate answer.
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- A woman turns off her cell phone as she enters a movie theater.
- A driver eats a candy bar and puts the paper wrapper in the ashtray.
- A couple decides to have a baby.
Being polite, neat, and family-oriented are characteristics of the well-socialized American. Socialization is the process of learning how to behave in the society we live in. For societies to exist, there must be some organized way of teaching the members what is expected of them and how they are to behave. Through socialization, the infant develops into a person like one of those describe above.
Every society tries to socialize its members. The task is performed by several groups and institutions (called socializing agents). The family, the school, and the peer group (that is, people of the same age) are the most important socializing agents. Of these, the family is the most important, especially during the first few years of life. A review of various studies of families has concluded that warm, supportive, moderately strict family environments usually produce happy and well-behaved children; and that cold, rigid, and overly strict families tend to cause youngsters to become rebellious, resentful, and secure (Gecas 1981).
How, then, do families and other socializing agents teach children how to behave? Two important ways are sanctions (rewards and punishments) and by modeling.
Rewards and punishments
Sanctions are consequences following a behavior that influence whether the behavior will be repeated. Positive sanctions mean that the behavior is followed by something that is a reward. If a child asks a parent “May I have some gum please?” and the parents gives the child some gum, the child learns that saying “please” at the end of a request results in getting what he asked for. Negative sanctions (also known as punishments) mean that something bad happens after a behavior occurs. When a child says “Gimme some gum” and the parent says “No gum until you learn to ask politely” and does not give the child the gum, the child learns that it is not a good idea to speak this way because he does not get what he wants.
Modeling
Modeling refers to learning by watching the behavior of others – especially parents – and copying that behavior. Modeling influences both positive and negative behavior. For example, children who are respectful to elderly people have probably seen their parents do things such as helping older people on trains and buses. On the other hand, children whose parents are alcoholics are more likely than other children to become alcoholics themselves.
Differences across cultures
It is easy to assume that every culture socializes children in the same way. Studies of other cultures, however, show that children are socialized differently depending on the culture they are brought up in.
A study of 6- to 11-year-old children in six farming communities in the United States, Kenya, Okinawa, northern India, the Philippines, and Mexico is a good example of these studies. Beatrice and John Whiting (1975) found a big difference between the types of household chores that children were expected to do in these cultures. More importantly, they found that parental expectations about work around the house were an important part of children’s socialization. Where children were expected to take care of other younger children and do chores that helped the whole household (as in the Kenya and Mexican community studied), they quickly learned to be responsible and caring toward others. In communities like the one studied in the United States, where children were only expected to do chores such as cleaning their rooms and picking up toys, they were less likely to develop these traits at an early age. Of course, not every family in a particular culture socializes their children in exactly the same way – and this would be true of expectations about household chores also. Nevertheless, many cross-cultural differences in socialization have been identified by researchers.
Other evidence of these differences in socialization practices comes from a study of how traditional Vietnamese and Chinese socialize their children. In these families, the needs of the group are seen as more important the the needs of the individual, and so children learn that their first responsibility is to their parents rather than to themselves. For example, many children work hard at school so that their parents will be proud of them.
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IELTS Vocabulary – Food
Many experts advise that you should never learn a single word by itself but learn groups of words that “travel” together. It’s simply because we don’t communicate using individual words, we communicate with phrases and sentences. So, instead of giving you a list of words, I’d ask you to learn new words through reading and listening. By doing that, you will learn how to apply those words in different contexts.
You can learn many new words and phrases related to nutrition by reading this IELTS essay about whether everyone should turn to vegetarian diet.
Listen to the following recording. You will hear some common expressions about food and eating. You can listen to it as many times as you need. After completing the transcript, you can click on the blanks to see the answers.
My mother radically changed her eating habits a few years ago. In the past, she ate a lot of(food that is not nutritious/healthy) and was overweight. Sometimes she would try to(eat less food and healthier food), but it would never last. But now she understands how unhealthyare – they’re full of(chemicals added to food) that contribute to weight gain and heart problems.
Nowadays, she eats aincluding a lot of(meals that are healthy and nutritious) that she prepares herself. She doesn’t buybecause she thinks the prices are outrageous, but she stocks up on(fresh fruits and vegetables) so that she can grab an apple or some veggies when she wants a quick snack (something small and fast to eat). She has also learned toand watch her portion sizes (how much food you take).I often stop by her house when I’m in the mood for a. The other day she made a hearty stew (a thick soup with lots of flavors and ingredients) that was full of beans and vegetables. My brother, who has a(the capacity to eat a lot), had a(a second portion) – but I found the stew so filling that I could barely finish my bowl.
My mother recently told me that she’d like to try some. I was surprised to hear that, because a few years ago she had a bad experience after getting(when you get sick because of contaminated food) at a Japanese restaurant. So tomorrow I’m taking her to a Brazilian steakhouse. I told her to eat light meals (small meals) during the day so that she doesn’tfor dinner (eating food earlier, and then not being hungry for a meal later).
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