Search results for 'tag:Vocabulary tag:Numbers' matching tags 'Vocabulary' and 'Numbers'

Argumentative essay 'Against Cosmetic Surgery'

Inka — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:52:47 GMT

Could someone please help me with this argumentative essay? I have to write an argumentative essay against cosmetic surgery. Could someone please look if there are mistakes (grammar mistakes, vocabulary mistakes, logical mistakes), if the text is well-structured, if everything in the text is formal? (if there are informal words, expressions in it I will not get a pass mark)

Cosmetic surgery: the magic potion?

A study by Psychology Today magazine shows that many people are not satisfied with their looks: 60,000,000 do not like their noses; 30,000,000 do not like their chins; 6,000,000 do not like their ears and 6,000,000 do not like their eyes. Unfortunately, science has achieved so far to try to meet our society's unhealthy level of âperfect body'. Cosmetic surgery: the hype of the moment. But is it the magic potion? Certainly not.

To begin with, there is no point in cutting into a healthy body. How small the operation might be, for example cosmetic nose surgery, there is always a chance something goes wrong. The numbers are very alarming: in 20% of all cases, the patient has to recover from the damage he experienced. Although serious risks such as blindness and heavy lung problems are rather rare, less serious risks may not be concealed: chronic pain, allergic reaction, delayed or prolonged healing, ... In any case, cosmetic surgery is far from pain free.

And what is more: a number of surgeries have already failed. âThe magic potion' caused a many people to die because of operations that were far from needed. To take one example: the 36-year old housewife Lorraine Batt, mother of three young children, came to an untimely death as the result of surgery that would make her belly more pretty to look at. Such tragic events are a strong warning that our society has to move into a less appearance-focused one.

In addition, the long-term consequences are often not taken into account. In fact, it is useless to go through a facelift. That is to say: the only thing such a cosmetic surgery does, is to make you younger for a few years. Life goes on and afterwards, the wrinkles come back. It is as unnatural to try to possess eternal youth, as it is to oppose the ageing process. Silicones implants have to be replaced within fifteen years. That seems to be a long time, but the fact that this implies a new surgery, is often forgotten.

Moreover, is it morally right to change the body you are given and transform it into âsomething' you are not? Every single person is unique and that is what makes life so special. Of course some do more resemble (twins and look-alikes), but nobody feels quite the same as you do. The outside appearance is the representation of the inner-self. Therefore, drastically redesigning your looks causes strange effects, take for instance Michael Jackson. If your personality is lacking, your appearance will also lack. This goes hand in hand, cosmetic surgery does not make you a different person.

A common ground to go through this procedure is to make oneself more confident, comfortable and stronger than others. Some youngster see plastic surgery as a quick fix for their physical, and their emotional problems. On the contrary, cosmetic surgery cannot produce miracles, and if teenagers keep thinking in that way, our society is facing an unhealthy future. Cosmetic surgery should not be the option, and it can definitely not be taken lightly. It will change the patient's life, and in ways they may not have expected, which is shown in the paragraphs above.

As wonderful as this piece of modern medical technology may sound, it turns out that cosmetic surgery is not at all that advantageous. That is why the ideal body image has to be thrown away, and has to be replaced by the idea that everyone is special human being, with his/her shortcomings.

Re: Idioms and vocabulary

Mister Micawber — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 02:22:15 GMT

.
1) Air pollution irritates our respiratory systems or Air pollution irritates our respiratory system ? -- Both are OK. I'd use the former.

2) Could you tell me the idiom of which the meaning is: You are angry about something and you blame it on something else?-- I can think of no single idiom for both ideas.

3) The average number of the population of a nation (number) divided by the area (km), how do we call the result? -- Population density.

4) What is the Aussie way of saying good-bye ? -- Dunno, mate

5) Do we ever add s to vocabulary, ie vocabularies? -- Only rarely

Idioms and vocabulary

Belly — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 02:02:44 GMT

1) Air pollution irrates our respiratory systems or Air pollution irrates our respiratory system ?

2) Could you tell me the idiom of which the meaning is: You are angry about something and you blame it on something else ?

3) The average number of the population of a nation (number) divided by the area (km), how do we call the result?

4) What is the Aussie way of saying good-bye ?

5) Do we ever add s to vocabulary, ie vocabularies?

Re: How to expand vocabulary

Hillis — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 07:14:57 GMT

I want to find a teacher or a expert who can finish the word which decribed as below:

writting an article or an story using special words which are listed by a table. there are two requirements on the article. first is every word in the talbe must be used by the article. second is total quantity words of the article is no more a particular number. if there are 1000 words in the table, let's say the number is 2000, or 3000. who is able to finish this game? contact me by email :hillis@163.com

If you think somebody can finish this article and use commom words, if yes. then we can read this article again and again. this method will enrich your vocabulary. me too.

Re: it's ten of 5.00

Yankee — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:04:08 GMT

Hi Openmind

Have you ever considered changing your moniker to "DoubtingThomas"? (Just teasing you a little!)

To put it in the simplest possible terms, using 'of' instead of 'to' when telling time is basically simply a matter of replacing the word 'to' with the word 'of'.

Since of basically follows the same "rules"/pattern as to, I'd say an Ameican ESL teacher is likely to treat this usage of of a bit like an idiom since it is usually covered only after the basic mechanics of time-telling with 'to' have been mastered, and also because this usage is a special characteristic of American English. (By the way, the words til and before are also sometimes used instead of to). As I mentioned, I would not expect this usage to be covered in a beginner level lesson on telling the time. Therefore, by the time an American teacher presents the usage, there is no need to rehash all of the basics of how to tell time in English. If I went into all of the basic details of telling time with students who had already mastered the basics, they'd not only be bored silly, but would probably think I was nuts to boot. On the other hand, if I had a beginner-level group and attempted to teach them 'to', 'of', 'til' and 'before' all at once, they'd only end up totally confused -- and they'd probably think I was nuts, too.

This usage of 'of' does tend to be a spoken one since people normally use numbers rather than words when writing the time. In other words, in written English you're likely to see 5:45 instead of 'five forty-five' and '(a) quarter to/of/till/before six', or 2:55 instead of 'two fifty-five' and 'five of/to/till/before three'. However, if you read novels (by authors such as Steven King, for example) or spend time talking with lots of Americans, you will be able to see/hear this usage of the word 'of' in action.

Here is a German ESL site that mentions the use of 'of' instead of 'to':

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/vocabulary/time

And here are some more sites to look at:

http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2006/08/telling-time-and-dates.html

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/ask_about_english/pdfs/aae_ag_uk_us_070424.pdf

Re: Finally i need help with something.

Feebs11 — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:36:26 GMT

BeginStudent
Hi ,
I have a little part to check from the project before I will give it tomorrow to my teacher.

This one paragraph (Summary of the project):

It wasn't easy for me to do this project because of the following reasons:
First of all, it was quite an issue for me to choose the most appropriate and most relevant materials. Furthermore, it was hard for me to divide our work load equally, because the project is quite big. We thought that everyone would do a half of the sun-topics for each part. [You start with "me" and then refer to "we" - is there a previous reference to a group doing this research together?]
Second, when I chose the articles the language was really complicated and it wasn't easy for me to understand all the words and to choose the key sentence. While doing this project the most interesting part for me was the reading because we didn't have to write a lot and all the printed material seemed rather interesting. Reading a lot of authentic English articles helped me a lot. I improved my writing skills and my vocabulary extended.

Second paragraph is :
3)How do peope spread heroin?

Heroin is being trafficked all over the world.The biggest producer is Afghanistan.According to research, 87% of heroin is being produced in Afghanistan.Heroin is very easily distribute around the world because it can be compactly packed and easily concealed. ~~Heroin is also being spread all over the world because~~ People can swallow it [the small packages of heroin] like pills and during 24 hours [ 24 hours later] they can ~~puke~~[vomit it up] easily .
Those unfortunate people who swallow the "pills" may die because of it .The "pills" are little bit bigger than the normal size pills and it they can get stuck in the throat or it [the packets] may be torn inside the stomach and cause death, even without using the heroin as a drug .
In conclusion, the heroin may be spread all over the world easily, but the consequences may be shocking .

paragraph three is :
4)What is the history of heroin ?

Heroin was first discovered in ~~1847~~ 1874 by C.R Alder Wright, a British chemist from London, by mixing different substances [what substances? and why?] together. Another scientist was Felix Hoffman~~.He~~ [who also] created ~~the~~ heroin, not as a drug but as medicine to cure people. And he invented the heroin only two days after he discovered ~~the~~ aspirin.
In 1914 , in the USA , the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was passed to limit the production of heroin all over the country to reduce the number of users.By this law, heroin could be sold to consumers such as addicts that may lie to the seller.As we see, the law didn't reduce the number of users ~~but~~; it just increased that number. In the UK, even though the heroin is considered as an 'A' class drug, it is still available on prescription~~.The heroin is~~ as a painkiller drug .
In conclusion, we see that the history of heroin is a long term history and far back at the time [not particularly far back - heroin was only discovered in 1874] we can see that this drug has been used not just for addicted people but as a medicine as well.

What can you check i really appraiser it .
Thanks.

HAve you said anywhere what heroin derives from? You also need to say that it was originally produced as a painkilling medicine, before its addictive nature was recognised.

Finally i need help with something.

BeginStudent — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:03:52 GMT

Hi ,
i have a little part to check from the project before i will give it tomorrow to my teacher.

This one paragraph (Summary of the project):

It wasn't easy for me to do this project because of the following reasons:

First of all, it was quite an issue for me to choose the most appropriate and most relevant materials.

Furthermore, it was hard for me to divide our work load equally, because the project is quite big. We thought that everyone would do a half of the sun-topics for each part.

Second, when I chose the articles the language was really complicated and it wasn't easy for me to understand all the words and to choose the key sentences.

While doing this project the most interesting part for me was the reading because we didn't have to write a lot and all the printed material seemed rather interesting. Reading a lot of authentic English articles helped me a lot. I improved my writing skills and my vocabulary extended.

Second paragraph is :

3)How do peope spread heroin?

Heroin is being trafficked all over the world.The biggest producer is Afghanistan.According to research 87% of heroin is being produced in Afghanistan.Heroin is very easily distribute around the world,because it can be compactly packed and easily concealed.

Heroin is also being spread all over the world because people can swallow it like pills and during 24 hours they can puke it easily.

Those unfortunate people who swallow the "pills" May die because of it .The "pills" are little bit bigger than the normal size pi;; and it can get stuck in the throat or it may be torn inside the stomach and cause

Death even without using the heroin as a drug .

In conclusion, the heroin may be spread all over the world easily ,but the consequences may be shocking .

paragraph three is :

4)What is the history of heroin ?

Heroin was first discovered in 1847 by C.R Alder wrights, a British chemist from London , by mixing different substances together.

Another scientist was Felix Hoffman.He created the heroin , but not as a drug but as medicine to cure people. And he invented the heroin only two days after he discovered the aspirin.

In 1914 , in USA , the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was passed to limit the production of heroin all over the country to reduce the number of users.By this law,heroin could be sold to consumers such as addicts that may lie to the seller.As we see,the law didn't reduce the number of users but it just increased that number.

In UK,even though the heroin is considered as an 'A' class drug , it is still available to prescription.The heroin is a painkiller drug .

In conclusion , we see that the history of heroin is a long term history and far back at the time we can see that this drug has been used not just for addicted people but as a medicine as well.

What can you check i really appraiser it .
Thanks.

Re: What makes English so difficult to learn?

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:34:01 GMT

Hello, another English teacher here. I have been teaching English in China for about 2 and a half years now and also speak fluent French, decent Spanish and am learning Chinese (not as hard as you may think once you get the hang of those tones, easy grammar). Now I'll start off by saying that English seems to be an incredibly easy language to communicate with (and by this I mean to give the general idea of what you're trying to say). However, if you want to learn English like a native speaker then it's a completely different story. The pronunciation CAN be difficult to learn depending on your native language and also the age you attempt to learn it at. Training your tongue and mouth to move the same way a native speaker does can be difficult to do, especially if you're like many of my students who got their start at an older age or didn't have good teachers. I've also noticed that my younger students are able to mimic my speech much easier than the older ones speaking, both of whom are studying at the same level. I started learning French when I was 4 years old (Quebec French, I'm Canadian) and because of the quality of my teachers and my young age I was able to become quite good with my pronunciation. With my Chinese because I'm learning from scratch from native speakers my pronunciation is also decent (notice I said decent, not great, although when speaking Chinese I'm always understood). Native language has a lot to do with it too as the sounds you use in one language may be very different for another. I've taught in both the north and south of China and find that the people all have the same problems. Chinese people have problems with s (they often pronounce it as a sh sound) and with closing their mouth for the letter m ("sometimes" is a nightmare for them and they often say it like "suntine"). L and R can also be troublesome. One can't forget sentence stress as well as well as linking words together to make it go smoothly.

The vocabulary can also be a pain. Someone here mentioned 150,000 words in the English language but the number is actually much higher. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition) contains over 600,000 definitions. Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged contains 475,000 main headwords and it is believed the language grows by 25,000 words a year. Don't believe me, check Wikipedia. There's also the difference in spelling and vocabulary between the different forms of English. British English and American English use different words and the words that are the same can be spelled differently. American English and Canadian English essentially share the same vocabulary to a large degree but the spelling of Canadian English in many ways is closer to British English. British English is pretty much the English form most Asian and European countries will learn but American pop culture will also have an influence, not to mention the American economy and it's impact. This can all be very confusing. To the person saying they are tired of using "well" as in "well, then..." there are many substitutes you could use.

The grammar is also a nuisance. It's not the hardest of things but certainly isn't the easiest. Sure French has a gender attached to all of it's nouns (which I hated when learning it), but English still has more exceptions to it's rules that need to me memorized. So many even native speakers have trouble with it. A language like Chinese that may seem hard to speak actually has very simple grammar. For example if you wanted to ask someone where they are you would say "ni zai na li" or simply "ni zai nar" (you where?). To ask a question in Chinese you merely ad "ma" to the end of a statement. "Ta hui shuo zhongwen" is "he/she speaks Chinese whereas "ta hui shuo zhongwen ma" is "does he/she speak Chinese?". Also in Chinese as there are no forms of he or she.

It's impossible to say which language is easy and which is hard when compared to each other because there are so many things that need to be taken into consideration. Let's just say that English has it's easy parts and it's ridiculously difficult parts as well. Speaking at a native speaker level can be done and I know people who have done this, but it takes a lot of hard work, good instruction, and a good learning atmosphere. I hope all that made sense, I stumbled onto this site a 2 in the morning and am quite tired.

Re: How to remember all the vocabulary and use them well?

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:34:12 GMT

To remember words; you rely on mnemonics my friend. Memory is one of the wonders of the world , to understand it you must learn about it . The more one knows about memory the better s/he can take advantage of it.

Back in the days we used the old fashioned method's . Simply looking at the word and recall. We then relied on "repetition" and flashcards . Back in the days.

In the new era we use phonetics, associations and visual aids. You want to memorize well is that right? Well then , get rid of the old days and walk into the new world.

Here is how one does it. If for example you get the word Aloof.The word means distant physically or emotionally ;reserved and remote. This may be a bit advanced for now but try this: use the a as an adjective , a will represent the denotation "a" . Now take a look at l . l will represent the denotation "long" . Now we have oof . Add r in front. The result is roof. Make a sentence . A LONG ROOF. So now this is one word , so if you get the word ambulate. Once again , this is the same thing , ambulance , and you got te left , spell out a word with te , make tea. Ambulance with a teapot on top. The meaning of ambulate is moving about place to place. So think of this ambulance with a teapot on top moving about , so find a word for a destination. If you want. Amatory - of , relating to or expression of love , especially sexually. Once again , split the word, A will represent a . m will represent massive , atory , make the word factory , A MASSIVE FACTORY. Now combine the amulance with the factory. Associations , dont stop! Keep going . When the ambulance is going about and about , it will arrive at the massive factory that creates sex toys representing love and sex . The person steps out of the ambulance to see a long roof on the ground , now its your turn what is on top of that roof? This is a chain method. If the chain gets too big you can then think of another world. The number system; think of it this way, 1-10 , number 1 will represent world 1 . In world one this is happening , the next chain you want for a dif category , use it in world 2 . If you play an mmorpg you have a very big advantage , you should contact me at dominator194@gmail.com . I will be able to help you out more , that is , if you play an mmorpg , because one has two worlds to memorize with. This is the step towards photographic memory , one keeps on learning this technique. Play with the words and control them.

Re: Expand your vocabulary and feed the world!

CalifJim — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 06:26:47 GMT

2200 - Level 50.

It gets a bit boring after a while.
I was surprised at the number I guessed right. I've never seen some of these words before! Others, by coincidence, I just read within the last few weeks.

CJ