PROGRESS TEST - SPEAKING (Test 1) - Good morning/afternoon - My full name is NPT I am from VT city - I am the student of class F114B My student ID number is thaonp019 - Today is 30/9/2021 - The test takes place at Vt city Task 1: Pronunciation (3 minutes) Try to apply appropriate intonation to read out loud the sentences below Pay attention to intonation and sentence stress We shouldn't be afraid of failure, because we can learn from it Are you interested in reading books or magazines? It is important for parents to respect children's privacy What you usually charge for delivering things? It was cold outside There was snow on the ground Task 2: Situations (3 minutes) You now have ONE minute to read the task carefully and another TWO minuts to the task as you are instructed to You are talking to your friend about your favourite food and your diet Use appropriate tenses and structures to provide him/her with some information based on the following suggestions: (Nói tình huống: Bạn nói chuyện với bạn ăn u thích bữa ăn Hãy cung cấp cho bạn thân bạn thông tin dựa theo gợi ý sau sử dụng động từ khuyết thiếu cấu trúc câu phù hợp) 1.What is your favourite food? Why; - My favoutite food is beef noodle Its easy to eat because it has lots of vegetable - What food you dislike? Why I don’t like fried food It has lots of trans cholesteron Its not good for my healt How often you usually have that kind of food; Every morning I cook for my family What kind of food is healthy Cereals, bread, potato, and other root vegetables- these are the main sources of carbohydrates The calorie obtained from them enables us to work Pulses, milk and milk products, eggs, bird meat, animal meat in limited quantity- these are great sources of protein They build muscles and repair the damaged cells of our body, that is, they are important for our immunity Ghee, butter, dry fruits and nuts, edible oil used in restrained quantity- these are rich sources of good fat They provide more energy to our body than carbohydrates but should be consumed in a less amount Fresh fruits, vegetables, and leafy vegetables, fish, egg, milk-these are good sources of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants and are essential for normal functioning of the body Though they are needed in small amounts, nowadays, nutrition experts prescribe their higher consumption as they help to fight lifestyle diseases like obesity, diabetes, and even cancer - 3: Topic Discussion (3 minutes) You have one minute to prepare and two minutes to deliver a speech on the given topic You are expected to deliver all three parts, including Introduction, Development and Conclusion Remember to use linking words (Thảo luận: “Thực phẩm có lợi cho sức khỏe có quan trọng khơng?” Bạn cần trình bày ý tưởng với ý bổ trợ ví dụ thực tiễn minh họa Phần thảo luận cần có đủ phần: Mở đầu, Phát triển Kết luận) “Is it important to you to eat healthy food.?” Present your view with clear arguments and specific, real-life examples to support your view Food is essential for our body for a number of reasons It provides us with the energy needed for working, playing, and doing day-to-day activities It helps us to grow, makes our bones and muscles strong, repairs damaged body cells, and boosts our immunity against external harmful elements Benefits of Eating Healthy: Healthy food nourishes both our physical and mental health and helps us stay active for many years - If we break down this broad benefit into micro-benefits, we will see that eating healthy: Helps us in weight management Makes us agile and increases our productivity Decreases the number of doctor visits by lowering the risk of heart diseases, stroke, diabetes mellitus, poor bone density, and some cancers, etc Helps uplift mood Improves memory Improves digestion and therefore, appetite Improves sleep In conclusion, food also gives us a kind of satisfaction that is integral to our mental wellbeing Only those food items that contain nutrients in a balanced proportion are considered as healthy Let’s be honest, English pronunciation makes no sense Unlike most other languages, where words that end in the same way usually rhyme, in English you can change the first letter of a word and suddenly you have to change the way you say the rest, too Meanwhile, words that look completely different are sometimes pronounced in exactly the same way, for example “I” and “Eye” If this drives you crazy, you’re not the first person Just look at the section of a poem (below) by Gerard Nolst Trenité, a Dutch writer who wrote a book in the 1900s called How to Lose Your Foreign Accent, which helped students to get used to the strange ways English words are pronounced He called the poem “The Chaos” and when you read the first few verses, you quickly realise why he was so frustrated! Pray, console your loving poet, Make my coat look new, dear, sew it! Just compare heart, hear and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word Now I surely will not plague you With such words as vague and ague, But be careful how you speak, Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak… Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed but vowed … What a tongue-twister! There’s no doubt about it, English pronunciation doesn’t follow logical rules The big question though, is: why? Why Is English Pronunciation So Confusing? English spellings and pronunciation are so strange because the language is really a mix of lots of different languages In fact, English is made up of words taken from Latin, Greek, French and German, as well as little bits and pieces of other local languages like Celtic and Gaelic More recently, the English language has also picked up words from countries that used to be part of the British Empire, including India - and we tend to borrow words we like the sound of from Spanish, Italian, Arabic and just about every corner of the world, too! Where Common English Words Come From? Even though English is not a Romance language like Italian or French, 60% of English words have Latin or Greek roots For example, any words that have “para” in them (like parachute or paragraph), “tele”, (e.g telephone), or “cyclo” (e.g encyclopaedia or bicycle) actually come from Ancient Greek words Thousands of words in English come from Latin, including many common words like picture, village, long, famous, pirate, quiet, priest and even language Then there are words that were brought to England by the Angles and Saxons when they invaded These people spoke Germanic languages, which is why many English words today look or sound similar to German For example: boot, night, apple, so, good, craft, ground, crystal, God, right, under, name… and many, many more In fact, most of the common words English speakers use every day come from German roots Next, there are French words The Normans, from France, took over England in the year 1066, and for hundreds of years, the Royal Family continued to use French in all important situations That meant that many, many French words also become part of the English language Words like: person, fruit, order, prayer, prince, lion, captain, justice, art, paint, November, etc Too Many Tongues! Of course, all these different languages had very different systems for spelling and punctuation, so when they were all mashed up together to make English, they didn’t follow one single set of rules So, remember: next time you get confused by English words that don’t sound the way they look, or English pronunciation that seems to make no sense, remember that it’s because you’re really speaking Latin, Greek, German, French and many other languages, all at the same time! Reason 1: Common letter combinations are confusing The English language has many combinations of letters that you see often For example, CH, EI, IE and others can be particularly confusing for English learners This is because these combinations may be pronounced differently in different words or not pronounced at all! Here are some examples Achieve (to accomplish, get something done) Common misspellings of “achieve” include acheive, acheve, archieve and even achiev To spell it right, just remember: • There is no R in “achieve” • The H is followed by I, just like in the English alphabet! Now let’s look at a few more similar words Receive (to be given something) Perceive (to become aware of something) Deceive (to lie to someone) But wait—why are they spelled with EI instead of IE like the word “achieve”? There is a great mnemonic rule in English that you may have heard: I before E, except after C, or when sounding like “A” as in “neighbor” or “weigh.” The words above are great examples that are commonly spelled wrong because people remember “I before E,” but not the “after C” part or any of the rest Recieve, percieve, decieve are all wrong! E comes before I in these examples, because the EI combination comes after C This spelling rule, however popular, has plenty of exceptions, one of the most common one being… Weird (strange, unusual) The correct spelling of “weird” is an exception to the mnemonic above There is one common, incorrect spelling: “wierd.” The pronunciation of the word may also be to blame A good way to remember to spell “weird” right is to think of “we” as part of the word You may be normal, but we can be weird Look for more ideas of mnemonic devices and rules in English here and here! Reason 2: Many English words have long strings of vowels Words in this group are difficult because the vowels in them form sounds that are normally represented by just one or two letters As a result, some vowels “get lost” in the process The best way to remember the spelling of these tricky nouns and adjectives is to make associations with other words that you know how to spell Acquaintance (someone you know) “Acquaintance” is a tough one! The combination of U-A-I is not very common in the English language, but it occurs sometimes To master the spelling of this word, keep in mind that Q is always followed by U Then memorize the A and I Beautiful (pleasing to the eye or the mind) If you have ever studied French, you are familiar the E-A-U vowel string It is quite common in French! In fact, the French word “beau” means “beautiful,” which may help you to remember how to spell this important English adjective “Beautiful” is also difficult due to the T-I part People sometimes incorrectly spell the word as “beautyful” because of the obvious connection to the English noun “beauty.” A rule of thumb to spell “beautiful” correctly is to alternate the Is and Us (U-T-I-FU) and forget the Y in the noun Conscientious (hard-working, careful, attentive to detail) This very useful adjective has a lot of Is and Os with Us and Es added It can be difficult to spell it right Remember the mnemonic, “I before E, except after C”? It does not work here— this word is another exception to the rule If you are good at spelling the word “science,” which is yet another exception to the rule, you can use this to your advantage as well Queue (a line) This word is all vowels Wouldn’t it be better if it was just spelled Q? Or Kew? Remember that a Q likes a U After that, add an E and repeat the vowel combination The term is more common in British English, whereas in the American English the word “lineup” or even just “line” is used 10 Quay (a pier, a wharf) A friend of mine once confessed that he used to spell the word “quay” as “key,” until the day he saw it in writing Just like with the word “queue” above, remember the Q-U combination The rest you just have to memorize: U-A-Y is just another tongue twister Reason 3: Double consonants are even more challenging With words in these group, the difficult thing to spell are the double consonants While there are a lot of examples and exceptions to the rules, pronouncing the words correctly will help you spell the words correctly too The sounds produced by double consonants are elongated With one exception, all words below have more than one double consonant So, remember to double up! 11 Accessible (easily reached) Common misspellings: acessible, accesible and even accesseble How to remember it: double the C and double the S! 12 Address (the location of a place) The most common misspelling is, of course, “adress” or “addres.” To make it easy to remember, recall that to send something somewhere, you need to add the address to your mail! 13 Accommodation (lodgings) Common misspellings: accomodation, acomodation It is the M and not the C that gets lost from this wonderful word more often Don’t forget that both are double consonants! 14 Committee (a group of people formed from a larger group to get something done) Such a treat to spell, “committee” has double Ms, double Ts and double Es, too! Common misspellings: comitee, commitee How to remember it: Committees are groups of people, so make sure to give M, T and E some company! 15 Occasional (occurring only sometimes) As you can see, double Cs are one of the most common double consonant combinations in the English language The way this word is most commonly misspelled is “ocasional.” Think of this word as something occurring on occasion—both words need double Cs! Reason 4: A word may change its meaning depending on how you spell it These words sound absolutely the same, but are spelled differently depending on their meaning Misspelling these words is very common among native English speakers, who automatically spell the words one way, while wanting to say something else (sometimes even without realizing it) The rule to spelling these kinds of words right is memorizing the correct spelling for all of them, then choosing the one you want to use! The difficulty is only in knowing which one is which 16 & 17 Lose / Loose Lose means to not win Loose means something about to detach or not fitting tightly You lose a game, but your T-shirt is loose, not the other way around 18 & 19 Weather / Whether Weather is the natural phenomenon of rain, sunshine, snow and other daily changes in the atmosphere Whether is a conjunction meaning “if.” Whether the weather is good or bad depends on your mood! 20 & 21 Than / Then Than is a conjunction and a preposition used to compare and/or contrast two or more things Then is an adverb meaning “after that.” For example: If one cake is cheaper than the other, then we are getting the cheap one 22 & 23 & 24 There / Their / They’re There is an adverb indicating location Their is the possessive form of “they.” They’re is a contraction of “they are.” Do not confuse the three! There is a fun (if a bit naughty) comic by The Oatmeal explaining some of the words above Reason 5: Some words are just difficult You may have trouble spelling the examples above, but the words below are just hard, period They may combine difficult consonants with lots of vowels, or be pronounced one way and spelled the other… Some are just difficult to type right Whatever the case might be, study them and memorize them You will eventually get there 25 Privilege (an advantage, an opportunity) Common misspelling: privelege How to remember it: I-I followed by E-E 26 Psychology (the science of the human psyche) Common misspellings: psichology, sychology The P is silent, and our friend CH is also here This is a hard word to spell, so you just have to remember it 27 Rhythm (a pattern of sound or movement) Common misspellings: rhytm, rythm How to remember it: There are two Hs in this word, and only one Y 28 Separate (standalone) Common misspelling: seperate How to remember it: There are two As and two Es, and the As separate the Es 29 Sincerely (honestly) Common misspelling: sencerely How to remember it: E is not the only vowel present in the word I comes before E in this word, even though the mnemonic does not apply 30 Definitely (without doubt) Common misspelling: definately How to remember it: Think about something finite when spelling this word, since “definitely” puts an end to all arguments! To sum it up… These are just some of the examples of many, many English words that are difficult to spell Every English learner is unique, so some people will have difficulty with some words but not with the others You may have your own great examples of tough English words! You may also have to come up with your own ideas and rules on how to remember their correct spellings Don’t worry if you spell something wrong Making spelling mistakes is something that happens to everyone all over the world, even to people who speak English as natives! Take the time to study the correct English spellings of words you use most often, and don’t be afraid to consult a dictionary when in doubt Happy spelling!