Youth today

Task 1. Read the text and fill in the table.

Youth problems

What are the main youth problems? Everyone knows and at the same time no one knows. As sand through fingers — youth problems are always changing. Thirty years ago Johnny Rotten sang ‘Problems, problems, the problem is YOU!’ The idea of that punk styled song is simple clear. All our failures depend on us. Imagine your life without money, can you do that? No fancy clothes, no fashionable clubs, no entertainments, no troubles. Americans say ‘No mass — no fuss’ in such case. Don’t you think teenagers depend on money greatly? They are obsessed with their appearance, they need to be clothed fashionable and in modern style. Some of them, who are lacking money prefer to wear jeans and plain clothes, this is their way out. The fashion industry is based on some youth preferences, there is a kind of business in producing special clothes and accessories for teens, Kira Plastinina, for example. The young try to do their best in getting labelled and fancy stuff; they are really crazy about such things. External life may force out their spiritual life, and that are dangerous circumstances. In my point of view, young should pay more attention to their inside world, to develop their selves.

Another youth problem is mutual understanding in their families. It’s hardly believable situation when a teen feels comfortable with his relatives, even in a tight-bonded family. Parents want them to be serious, to study hard and to think about their future, but rare senior could understand teen’s tormented soul. If teens could obey the rules, that’ll be very convenient for the last ones. Liberal seniors are absolute rarities, so teens have to look for common language with their parents in any case. We all know the moral disaster of being misunderstood. Try harder — and you’ll make friends with your relatives. Sometimes young fall apart with their families and begin to take drugs, alcohol. That is not the reaction on the emotional environment, that is the reflection of tortured inside world. Drug addicts are spread all over the world, but in their majority they are young people.

Your Own Problems	Problems Your Friends Have Experienced	Problems that None of You Have Experienced
_________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________	_________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________	_________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________

Task 2. Read the text. Match choices (A–G) to (1–5). There are two choices you do not need to use.

The Wisdom of Teenagers

(a report by Mathew Robson)

When Matthew Robson, on work experience from his London school at US bank Morgan Stanley, was asked to describe his friends’ media habits, he had little idea the impact his answers would have. His report has been the talk of web bosses and media analysts, and even caused a ripple at a conference in Idaho, US, attended by some of the world’s leading figures in new media.

Although some of his findings were predictable — it was already well known that teenagers don’t like to pay for music — he also said that teenagers find it hard to make time for television, don’t like traditional radio, and rarely go to the cinema. But beyond the world of new media, what else do teenagers do? Thirteen-year-old Scott Campbell, who lives in Aberdeenshire, gives his view.

1 _____________________________

Contrary to popular belief, the majority of teens are not particularly worried about the environment. There is a small minority of youngsters who are active in attempting to help the environment, but with homework, school, friendships and often a job, teens often do not have time to help the environment. Teens may also see that the gradually-worsening environment can have benefits (global warming brings warmer weather) at this current time, but often do not consider the future risks of not attempting to save it.

2 _____________________________

Teenagers have never been avid newspaper buyers. Today’s young teens think the act of parting with up to £1 for the very same words that can be read absolutely free on a newspaper website, borders on the perverse. Why pay for something that’s free? And the ‘old media’ is not as interesting to teens as it used to be, as it is often late with coverage of important events. For example, the death of Michael Jackson was on the web within minutes, whereas it was only in the newspapers the next morning. This does not mean there is a lack of teen intellect, it instead means that the majority of teenagers are utilising the new forms of media. Teens will often read free papers such as the Metro, which also include celebrity gossip and shocking stories and are more interesting than stories about the economy or swine flu.

3 _____________________________

A large percentage of teens prefer to get their news from popular YouTube stars, such as Philip DeFranco (general, odd news) and Michael Buckley (entertainment news), as it is presented in a more human, conversational format. YouTube is incredibly interactive; comments can be left and the presenter can be messaged; teens do not like a one-way conduit of information. It also takes out the inconvenience of having to trawl through news sources to try and find interesting stories, as news sources are often ‘polluted’ with uninteresting news, for example, about the credit crunch or the expenses scandal. Human interest stories which either humiliate the subject or are particularly unusual are mostly preferred.

4 _____________________________

While adults may think that computer games turn teens into gangsters, murderers and thugs (in a werewolf-like transformation), they do not. Teens play games to take on the role of the character that they are playing, and to try out the situations virtually. While games may provide the player to carry out acts which would be considered to be crimes, most games still provide the player with consequences to their actions, such as being arrested, and having weapons confiscated (in game, of course). The gamer will often begin to think morally about the situations when they take on the mantle of a particular character. Furthermore, many games present teens with a positive influence, such as Guitar Hero, which I don’t doubt has encouraged many teenagers to take up the guitar.

5 _____________________________

The wide belief that teenagers are ‘lazy’ and like to sleep in is not true. A large number of teens play sport, which regularly requires very early mornings. As well as this, most teenagers have to wake up earlier than the average adult worker to get to school on time. Also, a large amount of homework is set by multiple subject teachers, meaning that teens will have to stay up extra late to accommodate the extra tasks. Over the week (and at weekends if sport is involved) a large lack of sleep will make most people want to have a longer sleep.

A Newspapers

B Laziness

C Video News

D Magazines

E Computer Games

F Environment

G Fashion

Task 3. Read the text. For questions (1–5) choose the correct answer (A, B, C or D).

Some Important Tips on How to Overcome Problems in Life

Motivate yourself. Say YES I CAN. The challenge should bring out the best of you in this situation. Slow it down, think that process though. Develop the feeling that there’s no way you’re going to fail at this. If you develop that mind-set, you’ll get it done.

Stay calm and cool headed, when you’re facing serious troubles and problems in life. You have to recollect yourself, and calm down. You can’t panic your way through it. Take a deep breath, relax, slow it down. Think things through calmly.

Let failure fuel and fear you in a positive way. Most people will avoid any challenge, because they’re scared of failing. Running from that challenge IS failing! Everyone fails at times. It’s not how many times you get knocked down that counts. It’s how many times you get up in life that matters. If you fail the first, second, or third time, don’t give up. Pick yourself up, and learn from why you’ve failed, and move on in positive direction. Learn what made you fail at overcoming these challenge, or challenges.

Simplify the problem or challenge you’re facing. Break it down into steps, and work your way to the top of it. You have to work from the ground up. Work through each step of the process of overcoming this challenge. Make the challenge easier than it. That starts by breaking it down into steps. As you get through each step, you develop more belief you can get it done, then you will.

Maintain being positive and confident. Overcoming a challenge, you have to believe you can really do it. You have to find out all the ways you can overcome it, and put it to full use and effort. People overcome all kinds of challenges every day. Challenges aren’t nearly as hard as presented most the time. Depends exactly what this challenge is. It’s our own mental stability that’s the difficult part. When you get into the mind frame of doing it mentally, you’ll actually be able to do it. You can’t do it, until you get there mentally.

Think the best, not the worst. What can really be the worst thing that happens if you don’t overcome this challenge? Do you lose something extremely valuable? Are you afraid you’ll be mocked? Labelled a failure? The most successful people have been labelled these things at one point or another. How do you think they overcome challenges in their life? They’ve been through the process of not doing it before. Instead of staying down, they use these parts of their life to help overcome them in the future. Don’t let anything stick to you, then you’ll be able to overcome all challenges you face in your life.

Learn from watching professional sports. As silly as it seems, and I realize it’s just a game. Sports are a great way to watch, learn, and understand how to overcome challenges. When you watch teams and players, we get to see them overcome quite a bit of challenges. Sports for us are a way to experience and witness that anything is possible. That anyone can overcome a great deal of difficulty to succeed in our world. As the say goes, ‘anything is possible.’

1 To motivate yourself for a challenge, you have to________.

A feel that you may fail C rethink what you’re doing

B decide that you’ll do it D review the rules of god behaviour

2 When people avoid challenge, they________.

A loose strength C loose everything

B loose temper D loose more

3 To simplify the problem you________.

A step aside C divide it into small portions

B step back D divide it into big portions

4 To overcome the challenge you________.

A should be self-confident C should be a self-starter

B should be selfish D should be self-motivated

5 When watching professional sports, we________.

A see how challenges are set C how challenges are made

B see how challenges are overcome D how challenges are thought of

Дата добавления: 2014-11-29