TAPESCRIPTS FOR LISTENING TEST

TAPESCRIPTS FOR LISTENING TEST PART Many of us want to become entrepreneurs Starting your own business is one of the biggest dreams of our times But how you get to be an entrepreneur? Most of the advice focuses on the practicalities: writing a business plan, raising money, finding staff, marketing and PR We'll go down a different route In our eyes at the heart of successful entrepreneurship lies something oddly more abstract: an accurate insight into the causes of human unhappiness To be an entrepreneur means, essentially, to become an expert in the things that make life difficult for people That's because every properly ambitious business is in some way trying to fix things for other people And the bigger and more original what you're trying to fix happens to be, the more successful your business can be Because consumer society is now well developed, it may be easy to think that all the big problems out there already have thousands of fixes anyway Think of all those car companies, or pizza outlets, or news websites We surely have enough of everything What could we possibly add to what's already out there? But to get a sense of the vast opportunities that still remain in capitalism all you need to is ask yourself: where and in what areas you're unhappy in the course of an average day? Every unhappiness is really a new business waiting to be born Your frustrations are a nearly inexhaustible source of raw materials out of which the businesses of the future can be built So while there may already be plenty of breakfast cereals, and t-shirts, and cell phones, and cab rides for sale, there's so much more that frustrates and depresses us: think of how difficult it is to get on with one's partner, educate children, cope with anxiety, discover what you want to with your life, find a nice place to live, calm down in the evening One could go on and on Our griefs and irritations are endless, thankfully for the budding entrepreneurs The biggest first step to take towards entrepreneurship is therefore to learn to study your own unhappiness and what might possibly heal it for you and others When profits decline in businesses it's really the result of too many people throwing themselves at trying to fix the same area 'cause they can't think of anything more innovative to rather than start a new airline, mobile phone company, or supermarket chain And by contrast, healthy profits are a reward for understanding and mastering an area of human distress ahead of anyone else Of course, ideas aren't enough on their own; you need to take care of practicalities and money but they won't help you if your original psychological insight into human unhappiness isn't sound And by the same token, if your insight into what makes people unhappy is razor sharp, and your solutions bold, then however difficult the journey, your business will stand a high chance of making money and benefiting humanity too PART Hello I'm glad so many of you have turned out to hear what I have to say today about the British Isles, that area of the eastern Atlantic that we Americans find so confusing I'm afraid just looking at a map or a page in the atlas doesn’t necessarily explain the geographic terminology In referring to the British Isles, a word of apology for those of you of Irish descent—that is, those whose ancestors come from Eire, the Republic of Ireland—no matter how geographically accurate the place names that I use today are, some of you will be understandably upset to be included in anything termed “British” I have a very useful image that might help you differentiate between the various labels that distinguish the political and geographic reality of the so-called British Isles I want to show you a Venn diagram which is a mathematical illustration that shows all the possible relationships between sets Look at this Venn diagram and you will see that the geographical terminology is in bold while the political terms are in italics See here the British Isles in bold and the British Islands in italics The aim of this lecture is to explain the meanings of and relationships among those terms In geographical terms, you will see that the British Isles is an archipelago made up of the two large islands of Great Britain and Ireland and including many smaller surrounding islands Of course, you can't tell from the Venn diagram the true comparative size of these islands—you’ll need to look at the map for that—but, take my word for it, Great Britain is the largest island of the archipelago followed by Ireland which, in reality geographically, lies to the west and there are over a thousand smaller islands Now in political terms, the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’ is the constitutional monarchy which includes the island of Great Britain, some small nearby islands (although not the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands) and the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland Thank goodness it is generally shortened to United Kingdom, the UK, Great Britain or Britain or even the abbreviation GB—although none of these are strictly correct of course You'd better listen carefully to the next part because, I warn you, it is very confusing Ireland is the name of the sovereign republic occupying the larger part of the island of Ireland But to distinguish it from the name of the island itself, and most importantly from the other part which belongs to the UK, it is called the Republic of Ireland or its Irish language name, Eire—that's E-I-R-E—even though Eire directly translates as ‘Ireland’ The smaller portion of the island is called Northern Ireland The partition of Ireland took place in 1922 after a great history of struggle that we won't go into here England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are legal jurisdictions within the United Kingdom but Great Britain refers to the countries of England, Wales and Scotland as a unit The British Islands contain the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands (made up of Guernsey and Jersey) and Isle of Man which all have the British Monarch as head of state Interestingly, the Isle of Man, although governed as a British Crown dependency, has its own parliament but relies on the UK for defense and in matters of external relations So, you've learnt something about the geographical and political confusion surrounding the British Isles; let's have a look at some of the linguistic confusion To start with, there isn't an adjective to refer to the United Kingdom, so the term British is generally used However, that means that citizens of Northern Ireland, although not on the island of Great Britain, still describe themselves as British because this reflects their political and cultural identity Irish, in a political sense, refers to the Republic only, so sometimes citizens of Northern Ireland would call themselves Northern Irish as a point of difference Of course, the 'northern' in "Northern Irish" is not completely accurate either as the most northerly peninsula on the island is in the County of Donegal which is part of the Republic OK, we might get in a muddle over the term Irish, but at least Scottish, Welsh and English should be self-explanatory apparently not to us Americans— and Europeans are often guilty of this too—we often use the term English incorrectly to mean British I'd have to be the first to admit to calling my Welsh colleague, English, which really gets his heckles up He is Welsh, he tells me, and he may also be British, but he is definitely not English! Just one more thing: what is the British Commonwealth? It's a voluntary association of independent states, many of which were former British colonies; in fact, what was primarily the old British Empire However, it's no longer known as the British Commonwealth but is now called the Commonwealth of Nations instead presumably because current members not want to remember the old colonial ties PART F: That was a really interesting session I can hardly wait to start putting it all into practice My nearest and dearest will hardly know me with my new-found selfesteem M: It’s a bright new future…And actually, we’ve already started As she said, the first thing is admitting you need to boost your self-image F: My therapist is always saying you have to want to change He’s been hammering home that change can’t happen unless you feel in your heart that your old ways must go He’s spot on there and today’s speaker would back him up on that M: Yeah, and I liked what she said about accepting new challenges, doing something positive to overcome our fears For me, that’s going to be getting that plane to Sydney to visit my sister There are times when it’s inevitable that we feel scared, especially in situations where we have no control over our fate, like with flying, I mean But you can’t let that fear spoil your life or get you down F: Absolutely! Face your fear and you’re sure to go up in your own estimation Personally speaking, though, I’ve never had any major fears to confront, just nagging doubts I’m going to take on board the thing she said about addressing issues we feel uncomfortable about There’s a lot to be said for apologizing Then at least you can stop agonizing, and it clears the air M: You’re right, but surely the point is not to be constantly saying sorry I mean, obviously we should respect others, not neglect them or, worse still, put them down But there’s a fine line between being sensitive to the feelings of others and letting them trample all over you You definitely shouldn’t shoulder the blame when you’ve done nothing wrong Be fair to yourself first and foremost, that’s what I say F: Well, you have a point there… M: Anyway, I think that guarding yourself like that goes a long way towards boosting your self-esteem F: Really? It seems to me that it might be the other way around You can only act that way if your self-esteem is already pretty high Be that as it may, I’m sure we all have genuine regrets and it does us good to own up to them M: What about this business of taking action on our insecurities immediately? Procrastination only builds up stress levels By taking the bull by the horns, taking control, you alleviate that stress You don’t have whatever it is preying on your mind any more F: Very true Another thing I’m going to try to is get out of the habit of putting myself down She said we should re-phrase our criticisms more positively M: That’s all very well, but don’t overdo it We’ve got to be honest with ourselves F: I know So, again, it’s a delicate balance, isn’t it? You have to be honest but, at the same time, don’t be too harsh on yourself That won’t come naturally to me, but I’m sure it will give my confidence a boost if I can it You know what I mean I just need to let some things go Or, instead of muttering about how lazy I’ve been, I can admit that I’ve let myself get run down and that I deserve a rest Otherwise, it’s so destructive Goodness knows, other people can be quick enough to damage our self-esteem Let’s not it for them! M: It was perceptive what she said about our tendency to feel we’re underachieving when we look at our clever, talented friends F: Yeah, it can be so insidious; you start to write yourself off as the poor relation and, before long, your relationship with them starts to suffer, which can launch a whole vicious circle that leaves you feeling even more worthless than before M: I know what you mean But I thought her way of dealing with it was clever F: Feed good by association M: Exactly If our amazing friends seek out our company, we must have something to offer; otherwise, they wouldn’t bother, would they? F: It is an interesting way of looking at it, I suppose PART In 2019, the lithium-ion battery won the Nobel chemistry prize for making a fossil fuel free world possible, not bad for something that made its commercial debut in 1991 in a camcorder The camera was revolutionary for the time, but the real game changer was the lightweight, powerful, and rechargeable battery inside Soon, lithium-ion batteries were in everything from power tools to toothbrushes They made smartphones possible and put long-range electric cars on the roads These humble batteries have been quietly powering our mobile lives for decades and are now hailed as climate heroes Batteries as we know them were invented in 1800 The first electric cars were actually developed in the 1880s but fell by the wayside as the internal combustion engine took over Now with the push to drastically decarbonize the world, the battery is back in fashion Transport accounts for about a quarter of global carbon emissions Provided the electricity is from low-carbon sources such as wind and solar, the switch to electric vehicles powered by lithium-ion batteries will stop billions of tons of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere Today there are about 10 million electric cars on the world's roads By the end of the decade, there'll be at least 145 million We're gonna need a lot of batteries Manufacturers all over the world are building giant battery-making plants for all the electric vehicles they're producing And it's not just cars these gigafactories can help Power tech billionaire Elon Musk famously said that if the world had 100 gigafactories, everything from our homes to transport to businesses could run on solar We'll need to wait to see if this happens but there's no doubt that batteries are central to a low carbon future Lithium-ion batteries can store clean energy for when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing Sending it out on gray days with the strength and reliability that rivals fossil fuels Lithium-ion batteries already power the International Space Station, charged by the sun's rays A village in Bihar, India gained electricity for the first time in 2014 thanks to this technology The village used to burn wood kerosene and diesel but thanks to lithium-ion batteries connected to solar panels, they now enjoy what they call clean and cheap energy independence In Brooklyn, New York, a neighborhood microgrid harvests, stores and distributes clean energy through a network of lithium-ion batteries, solar panels, converters and smart meters In the future, we might all generate solar power by storing it in flat power banks mounted on the walls of our homes But clean energy use on a very large scale will need a lot of new infrastructure We'll need charging points for all the millions of new electric vehicles, large and small There are other challenges, too Extracting lithium uses vast amounts of ground water pump to the surface to force out the brine It's left to evaporate The process can lead to water shortages and leaves behind toxic waste Cobalt is another challenge Traditionally, lithium-ion batteries rely on this metal and 70 percent of the world's supply is in the Democratic Republic of Congo But mining in the DRC is dangerous and despite the high-priced cobalt commands, the country is one of the poorest in the world Batteries don't last forever, either It's thought that only five percent are recycled Tons end up in landfills; if they're damaged, you can get zombie batteries that cause fires even underground But these challenges have to be understood in the context of the battery's development over the centuries Today, battery research is an exciting field Reliance on cobalt is falling as alternatives become available and although not yet widespread, recycling could grow Spurred on by e-waste regulation, a recycling plant in Singapore can turn fine powders of copper, nickel, lithium, and cobalt with a 90% recovery rate Just over the horizon, faster charging solid-state lithium batteries promise to be even more energy dense with thousands of charge cycles We're not quite there yet but with fierce global competition to perfect the technology the multi-billion-dollar planet-saving battery revolution has really only just begun, not bad for something that came for free with a camcorder ... Nobel chemistry prize for making a fossil fuel free world possible, not bad for something that made its commercial debut in 1991 in a camcorder The camera was revolutionary for the time, but the... diagram the true comparative size of these islands—you’ll need to look at the map for that—but, take my word for it, Great Britain is the largest island of the archipelago followed by Ireland... going to take on board the thing she said about addressing issues we feel uncomfortable about There’s a lot to be said for apologizing Then at least you can stop agonizing, and it clears the air