ADVANCED FLUENCY

Honey Badgers

What's fiercer than a lion but smaller than a beagle? The honey badger, one of the toughest mammals in Africa and western Asia. Honey badgers stand less than a foot high. They are only a couple feet long. They weigh just over 20 pounds. Yet they have a reputation for toughness that is far greater than their size. Some honey badgers will chase away lions and take their kills. I guess that goes to show you that size isn't the only thing that matters in a fight.

So what makes the honey badger so tough? They have speed, stamina, and agility, but so do many animals. They aren't stronger than lions, so how do they stop them?  The thing that sets the honey badger apart is their skin. Their skin is thick and tough. Arrows, spears, and bites from other animals can rarely pierce it. Small bullets can't even penetrate it. Not only is their skin thick and tough, it is also loose. This allows them to twist and turn to attack while another animal is gripping them. The only safe grip one can get on a honey badger is on the back of their necks.

Honey badgers have long, sharp claws. These claws are good for attacking and even better for digging. Honey badgers are some of nature's most skilled diggers. They can dig a nine-foot tunnel into hard ground in about 10 minutes. They love to catch a meal by digging up theburrows of frogs, rodents, and cobras. They also use their digging skills to create their homes. They live in small chambers in the ground and defend them fiercely. They will attack horses, cows, and even water buffalo if they are foolish enough to poke around a honey badger's den.

You don't get a reputation like the honey badger by running from danger. The honey badger is fearless and a tireless fighter. They will attack any creature that threatens them, man included. Because of the honey badger's reputation, most predators avoid them. Some animals use the honey badger's rep to their advantage. Adult cheetahs have spotted coats, but their kittens have silver manes and look like honey badgers. Some scientists believe that their coloring tricks predators into avoiding them. Wouldn't you walk the other way if you saw a honey badger?

You might be wondering: "If honey badgers are so tough, how did they get a name that makes them sound like a piece of candy?" The answer makes sense. Since honey badgers have such thick skin, bee stings rarely harm them. So honey badgers love to raid beehives. I can't blame them. Who doesn't like free honey? Honey badgers chase after honey aggressively. So much so that beekeepers in Africa have to use electric fencing to hold them back. There's nothing sweet about that.

Beekeepers aren't the only people who have grown to hate honey badgers. Honey badgers may be fun to read about, but they are nasty neighbors. They attack chickens, livestock, and some say children, though they usually leave people alone.  But if a honey badger moves in your backyard, there's not a whole lot that you can do about it. I mean, are you going to go and tangle with an animal that eats the bones of its prey? An animal with teeth strong enough to crunch through turtle shells? An animal that never tires, gives up, or backs down? Yeah, I wouldn't either...

TEEN ELEMENTARY

          

Jackie

My name is Jackie, I’m thirty years old and I’m a teacher at Saint Vincent School. I’m English and I live in London with my husband Mark.

Every morning I get up at about 6 o’clock and make breakfast for me and my husband. We usually have a big breakfast: eggs, bacon, toast with butter and coffee. We talk for a while before going to work. After school I usually go to the park and prepare the class for the next day. At 5 o’clock in the afternoon I go to piano lessons. I love music. My teacher is an old friend of my mum and she is an excellent pianist. My husband also loves music and he takes guitar lessons. He also goes to his lessons at 5 o’clock.  Sometimes we go to the cinema next to the park and watch a horror movie, which we both love.  If it is too late when we come back we order Chinese food. After dinner, our neighbour Connie usually comes by and we have some tea. She is new in the building and doesn’t know anybody, so we invite her over whenever we can.  At night we watch TV for a while before going to bed.

Mark likes reading too, so sometimes I watch TV in the living room while he reads in the bedroom.  We usually go to bed really late but we wake up at six o’clock every day anyway.

ELEMENTARY

BRIAN's BUSY DAY

Brian is a doctor. 

He looks after sick people. He usually gets up at 6.00 o’clock. Today he is  late, it is 6.30 and he is still in bed. He usually goes to work by train but today he is  driving to work. He arrives at work at 6.30 every morning but it is 7.30 now and he is still driving.  

It’s 12.00 o’clock now. He always has his lunch at 12.00 but today he isn’t having  lunch at 12.00, he is looking after his sick patients. It is half past seven now, Brian is watching TV. 

He usually watches TV at half past seven because his favorite  programme starts at half past seven. 

Brian has his dinner at 8.30 everyday. He usually has a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk, but today he's having some pizza. It is midnight now, and Brian is going to bed. He always goes to bed at midnight.

CAE

The Statue of Liberty

More than a million people immigrate to the United Statesto start new lives every year, and if they are arriving inNew York, one of the first sights that they will see is the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty stands on Liberty Island, near Manhattan in New York. Though she is often thought to be resident of New York, Liberty Island is actually federal property, which means that the Statue of Liberty belongs to the whole country. The Statue of Liberty is not only the tallest statue in America, it is also one of the most recognizable American symbols.

The Statue of Liberty is huge. From the tip of the torch to the pedestal on which she stands, she is just over 151 feet tall. If you include the pedestal in your measurement, she stands more than 305 feet off of the ground. That's more than 30 basketball hoops or an entire football field. Her waist size is 35 feet, which would make it awfully tough to find pants, and the tablet she holds is 23 feet long. Don't worry though; she hasn't had any trouble holding that tablet yet with her 8 foot index finger. Talk about heavy handed...

Though America financed and built the pedestal on which the Statue of Liberty stands, the statue itself was a gift from France. In this way the complete work, much like the United States, is a product of both American and French contributions. At one time America was ruled by the British. The founding fathers of America chose to fight against Great Britain for the independence of their country. France supported America by providing money, men, and weapons of war. Had it not been for French contributions during the Revolutionary War, Americawould not exist in the way that it does today; therefore, it is quite fitting that the Statue of Liberty, which represents freedom, came to being by a joint American and French effort. On October 28th, 1886, just over one-hundred years after America declared its independence from Great Britain, the Statue of Liberty was completed and dedicated by its designer, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi.

Perhaps no person did more to bring the statue into being than Bartholdi. Not only did Bartholdi gain both French and American approval for the project, he led the French fundraising efforts and designed the appearance of the statue. The appearance of the Statue of Liberty is somewhat derived from Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom. The torch represents how liberty enlightens the world. The seven points or rays coming from the top of the crown represent the sun, the seven seas, the seven continents, and (as with the torch) how liberty enlightens the world. Though much of the statue was modeled after depictions of goddesses, Bartholdi modeled the face after his mother. Now that's a Mother's Day gift that's hard to top.

Though Bartholdi was responsible for the external appearance of statute, the internal design can be largely credited to innovative designer, Gustave Eiffel. Though Mr. Eiffel is best known for his contributions to a tower inParis that is named after him, he also engineered the internal structure that holds up the Statue of Liberty. Eiffel chose to use a flexible structure, so that changes in the temperature and strong winds from the ocean would not cause the statue to crack. Because of Eiffel's crafty design, the Statue of Liberty may sway as much as three inches on a windy day. If the winds exceed 50 miles per hour, the torch may sway five inches. Eiffel is also responsible for including two spiraling staircases on the interior of the statue to help visitors reach the observation point in the crown.

While most people appreciate the Statue of Liberty today, during its construction in the 1870s, many Americans were critical of the project. Some took issue with the fact that Bartholdi was French. They believed that American monuments should be designed and constructed by Americans. Others felt that the statue wasn't much of a gift since it required Americans to foot the bill for the pedestal. After the Panic of 1873, America fell into a deep economic depression that lasted through much of the 1870s. (During an economic depression people spend less money and it is harder to find jobs.) Because the nation was going through a depression, many Americans thought that money should not be spent to support a giant French statue. I think most Americans would now agree that it was a good investment.

FCE

Tigers

Who would win in a fight, a lion or a tiger? Well, if size has anything to do with the matter, the tiger would win. That's because tigers are the largest of all cat species. They grow up to eleven feet long and weigh as much as 670 lbs. This makes tigers the third largest land carnivore. The only larger land carnivores are polar bears and brown bears. Tigers are not only large, they are also fast. They can sprint as fast as 40 miles per hour for short distances and leap as far as 30 feet horizontally.  This makes for an extremely dangerous pounce. You might not think that such large, fast, and ferocious creatures need help to survive, but they do. The tiger is an endangered species. 

Despite all of the tiger's strengths, the future of the species is uncertain. Tigers face a very high risk of extinction. It is estimated that at the start of the 20^thcentury, there were over 100,000 tigers living in the wild. By the turn of the century, the number of tigers outside of captivity dwindled to just over 3,000. Interestingly, the most serious threats that tigers face come from a much smaller species, one with an average weight of around 140 lbs. That species is Homo sapiens, better known as humans. Humans threaten tigers in primarily two ways: hunting and destroying habitat. 

Tigers are hunted for many reasons. People have long valued the famous striped skins. Though trading tiger skins is now illegal in most parts of the world, tiger pelts are worth around $10,000 on the black-market. Though the fur would be incentive enough for most poachers, other parts of the tiger can also fetch a pretty penny.  Some people in China and other Asian cultures believe that various tiger parts have healing properties. Traditional Chinese medicine calls for the use of tiger bones, amongst other parts, in some prescriptions.

Tigers have also been hunted as game. In other words people hunted tigers solely for the thrill and achievement of killing them. Such killings took place in large scale during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when a single maharaja or English hunter might claim to kill over a hundred tigers in their hunting career. Though this practice is much less popular today than it was in the past, it has not ceased entirely.

Though tiger population faces many threats and obstacles to recovery, there have been some successes in conservation and preservation efforts. For example, Save China's Tigers, an organization working to restore the wild tiger population, successfully rewilded a small number of South China tigers. These tigers were born into concrete cages from parents who were also captive and unable to sustain in the wild.

Humans have done considerable damage to the world's tiger population through hunting, but perhaps more damage has been caused through the destruction of habitat. Tigers once ranged widely across Asia, all the way from Turkey to the eastern coast of Russia. But over the past 100 years, tigers have lost 93% of their historic range. Instead of spanning all the way across Asia, the tiger population is now isolated in small pockets in south and southeastern Asia. This is because humans have drastically changed the environments. Humans have built towns and cities. Road and transit systems were created to connect these towns and cities. To feed the people living in these areas, forests and fields have been cleared to create farmland. Large tracts of land have been strip-mined to yield metals and other materials used in manufacturing. All of these activities have consumed habitats that at one time supported tigers. 

A major obstacle to preserving tigers is the enormous amount of territory that each tiger requires. Each wild tiger demands between 200 and 300 square miles. Tigers are also both territorial and solitary animals. This means that they are protective of the areas that they claim and they generally do not share with other tigers. Because tigers need so much territory, it is difficult for conservationists to acquire land enough to support a large population of tigers. Even when such these considerable spaces are allocated, it is even more difficult to patrol such large areas to prevent poaching. There is no easy way to preserve the wild tiger population without making large sacrifices.

This organization brought these tigers to South Africaand helped them learn the necessary skills for a predator to survive in the wild. Current evidence indicates that the project was been successful. While this is just a small step, it shows that restoring the world's tiger population is possible.

PRE INTERMEDIATE

CHESS

Chess is called the game of kings. It has been around for a long time. People have been playing it for over 500 years. Chess is based on an even older game from India. The chess we play today is from Europe. Chess is a two-player game. One player uses the white pieces. The other uses the

black pieces. Each piece moves in a special way. One piece is called the king. Each player has one. The players take turns moving their pieces. If a player lands on a piece, he or she takes it. The game ends when a player loses his or her king. There are a few more rules, but those are the basics.

Some people think that chess is more than a game. They think that it makes the mind stronger. Good chess players use their brains. They take their time. They think about what will happen next. These skills are useful in life and in chess. Chess is kind of like a work out for the mind.

You don't always have lots of time to think when playing chess. There is a type of chess with short time limits. It's called blitz chess. In blitz chess, each player gets ten minutes to use for the whole game. Your clock runs during your turn. You hit the time clock after your move. This stops your clock. It also starts the other player's clock. If you run out of time, you lose. Games of blitz chess are fast-paced.  

Chess is not just for people. Computers have been playing chess since the 1970s. At first they did not play well. They made mistakes. As time went on they grew stronger. In 1997, a computer beat the best player in the world for the first time. It was a computer called Deep Blue. Deep Blue was big. It took up a whole room. By 2006 a cell phone could beat the best players in the world. Chess sure has come a long way. Don't you think so?

TEEN HIGH

TV

Televisions show sounds and pictures. They get data from cables, discs, or over-the-air signals. They turn this data into sounds and images. People watch news and shows on them. You probably call them TVs.   John Baird made the first TV in 1925. It had one color. It could only show 30 lines. This was just enough room for a face.  It didn't work well, but it was a start. The first TV station was set up in 1928. It was in New York. Few people had TVs. The broadcastswere not meant to be watched. They showed a Felix the Cat doll for two hours a day. The doll spun around on a record player. They were experimenting. It took many years to get it right. By the end of the 1930s, TVs were working well. America got its first taste at the 1939 World's Fair. This was one of the biggest events ever. There were 200 small, black and white TVs set up around the fair. The U.S. President gave a speech over the TVs. The TVs were only five inches big but the people loved it. They wanted TVs. But World War II was going on during this time. Factories were busy making guns and bombs. When the war was over, TV spread across the country.

By 1948 there were 4 big TV networks in America. They aired their shows from 8 to 11 each night. Local shows were aired at other times. Most of the time, nothing was shown at all. TV was not "always on" like it is now. Color TVs came out in 1953. They cost too much money for most. Also, shows were aired in black and white. By 1965, color TVs were cheaper. TV stations started airing shows in color. People had to switch if they wanted to see the shows. Now most TVs are high-def. This means that they have many lines on them. This makes the image clear. TVs have come a long way since Baird's 30 line set. High-def TVs have 1080 lines. There are state of the art sets called 4K TVs. These TVs have 3,840 lines. Some people watch TV in 3D. I wonder what they will come up with next. Smell-o-vision anyone?

INTERMEDIATE

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

It is a video game    that came out for the Atari 2600 game system in 1982. It was based on a very popular film of the same name. It cost over 125 million dollars to make. Star programmer Howard Scott Warshaw created it with consultation from Steven Spielberg. And it is widely considered to be one of the worst video games ever created. The massive failure of E.T. and its effects on Atari is an often-mentioned reason for the video game industry crash of 1983.

It was July 27th, 1982. Howard Scott Warshaw was hot off the success of his most recent game, Raiders of the Lost Ark. He received a call from Atari C.E.O. Ray Kassar. Atari had bought the rights to make a video game version of Spielberg's movie, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which had just been released in June. Kassar told Warshaw that Spielberg had specifically asked for Warshaw to make the game. Warshaw was honored, but there was one huge problem. Atari needed the game finished by September 1st in order to start selling it during the Christmas season.

It had taken Warshaw six months to create Raiders of the Lost Ark. The game he made prior to that took him seven months. He was expected to createE.T. in around five weeks. Warshaw just did not have enough time to program the game properly, but he accepted the challenge anyway and production began. Spielberg wanted Warshaw to create a simple maze game, similar to Pac-Man, but Warshaw had a bigger vision. He wanted players to explore different environments in a 3D world. Warshaw followed his vision.

Atari anticipated that the game would be a huge success. Usually companies like Atari have people test games before releasing them. If there is something that testers really dislike, programmers can fix it before the public gets a chance to play. Atari decided to skip testing due to time limitations. They wanted the game released during the holiday season. It was: E.T. was released in December of 1982.

The game sold very well at first. It was a hot holiday item. Unfortunately, Atari overestimated how many they would sell. They made 5 million copies and they only sold 1.5 million. Most people who played the game hated it. The graphics were bad. Game play was awkward. Players got stuck in holes that they couldn't escape. A short time limit made the game difficult to explore and frustrating to play. Some people who stuck with the game grew to like it, but it wasn't the mainstream success that Atari had hoped it would be.

Too many copies of the game sat on store shelves. One employee remembers the game being discounted five times, from $49.95 to less than a dollar. Many people returned the game. Atari was left with millions of unsold copies. In September of 1983, a newspaper in New Mexico reported that between 10 and 20 semitrailer truckloads of Atari products were crushed and buried at a landfill in Alamogordo. Perhaps a million or more copies of E.T. were buried in the desert. When word got out, the drop site had to be covered with cement to prevent scavenging.

Atari lost over $100 million on E.T. The game was so bad that it was said to have affected Atari's reputation. The video game industry soon fell into a deep depression. In 1983 the industry made $3.2 billion. By 1985 profit fell to just over $100 million. This was almost a 97% drop. Many critics believe that Atari's blunder on E.T. was one of the causes leading to this depression. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial will long be remembered as one of the worst video games ever made, if not one of the causes of the decline of the entire video game industry.

SIGS UPPER

Mongooses

If you plan on going to Hawaii, don't bring any pets. Hawaiians are wary of letting in foreign animals. Your beloved Rex or Fi-fi could spend up to 120 days in quarantine. They have strict rules for importing animals. They carefully screen all incoming pets. Who could blame them? They've had problems with new animals in the past.

The black rat was introduced to Hawaii in the 1780s. These ugly suckers originated in Asia, but they migrated to Europe in the 1st century. Since then they've snuck on European ships and voyaged the world with them. These rats carry many diseases including the plague. They are also good at surviving and tend to displace native species. That means that after they infest an area, there will be fewer birds and more black rats. Most people prefer living around birds.

Since their arrival in Hawaii, black rats have been pests. They've feasted on sea turtle eggs. They've eaten tree saplings, preventing trees from being reforested.  And they've been a leading cause in the extinction of more than 70 species of Hawaiian birds. They love to climb trees to eat bird eggs. They also compete with forest birds for food, such as snails, insects, and seeds.

Perhaps more troubling, black rats threaten humans. They spread germs and incubate disease.They are a vector for more than 40 deadly illnesses. Some think that rat-borne diseases have killed more people than war in the last 1,000 years. Rats also eat our food. They eat more than 20% of the world's farmed food. And that's why the mongoose was brought to Hawaii.

During the mid 1800s, the Hawaiian sugar industry was thriving. Americans were just realizing that they loved sugar. Hawaii was pretty much the only place in America where one could grow sugarcane. But those filthy vermin were tearing up the fields. Black rats were destroying entire crops. What's a plantation owner to do? The answer is simple. Import an animal known to kill rats. What could go wrong with that? In 1883 plantation owners imported 72 mongooses and began breeding them.

People revere the mongoose in its homeland of India. They are often kept tame in Indian households. Mongooses feed on snakes, rats, and lizards, creatures that most people dislike. They are also cute and furry. And they kill deadly cobras. What's not to love? Sadly, India is a much different place than Hawaii.

When the mongooses got to Hawaii, they did not wipe out the rats as plantation owners hoped. Instead, they joined them in ravaging the birds, lizards, and small plants that were native to Hawaii. It's not that the mongooses became friends with the rats. They still ate a bunch of them. But mongooses are not too different from most other animals: they go for the easy meal. In Hawaii they had a choice. Pursue the elusive black rat or munch on turtle eggs while tanning on the beach. Most took the easy route.

Now Hawaii has two unwanted guests defacing the natural beauty. The Hawaiians have learned their lesson. Talks of bringing in mongoose-eating gorillas have been tabled. So don't get uptight when they don't welcome your cat Mittens with open arms.  They're trying to maintain a delicate ecosystem here.