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CULTURE STYLISH EYEWEAR SPEAK UP IN CLASS EXERCISES IN Work It Out! Sunglasses are an ancient idea, but a modern fashion phenomenon. Like other premium brands, Ray-Bans1 are worn as much for their stylish look as the practical protection they offer from the sun. A pair of these iconic American shades2 can cost you anything from a couple of hundred to over three thousand dollars. SNOW GOGGLES The earliest sunglasses were created for snow blindness3. In ancient times, the Inuit, an indigenous people of the Arctic region, wore goggles4 made of driftwood5, bone or walrus ivory6 with slits7 cut into them to protect their eyes. In the 12th century, Chinese opticians made their own sunglasses using the gemstone8 smoky quartz9. HIGHER GOALS The story of modern sunglasses begins in the United States.…

SPEAK UP IN CLASS Sadiq Khan is the current1 Mayor of London. A member of the Labour Party, he was re-elected for a third term2 this May. As mayor, Khan must set the budget and direct the entire metropolitan area of London, known as Greater London. The position is different to that of the Lord Mayor of London, a non-political figure who promotes and represents the City of London, the capital's financial district. BACKGROUND Khan was born in South London in 1970 to Pakistani immigrant parents. His father worked as a bus driver and his mother was a seamstress3. He began his career as a human rights lawyer and then entered politics, becoming the Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and the Shadow Minister for London. SCAN, READ & LISTEN…

PLACES EXERCISES IN Work It Out! The Wimbledon Championships are a quintessential date in the British social season. Like Royal Ascot and the Henley Regatta, the tennis tournament is steeped in history1 and tradition. Since 1877, it has been held2 at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon, London, at the end of June and the start of July. MAJOR EVENT What started as a garden party competition is today a major international sports event. Along with the Australian Open, Roland-Garros in France and the US Open, Wimbledon is one of the world's four Grand Slam tournaments and the only one played on grass. It ends on the second weekend, with the women's and men's singles finals held on Centre Court3. The British summer being what it is, Centre…

LANGUAGE Morning! What can I get you? Hello. I would like a cup of tea, please. Of course! Here you go, one lovely cuppa. Thank you. Oh, excuse me? It has milk. Yes, of course. You asked for tea. Most of our customers have it like that. But I don't want milk. I want tea. Fine, one tea without milk coming up. Thanks. But this is very black! Well, that's what it looks like without milk… But… but I would like English breakfast tea that is… a little bit brown? Oh, you want it weak and watery. I'll brew you a fresh pot and you can leave it to steep as long as you like. How does that sound? That is perfect, thank you. NOW LET'S REVIEW THE VOCABULARY! The…

ARTICOLI PER LIVELLI Tutti i nostri articoli hanno un codice di colore che indica il livello di difficoltà dell'inglese in base al Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. A2 PRE-INTERMEDIATE B1 LOWER INTERMEDIATE B2 UPPER INTERMEDIATE C1 ADVANCED C2 PROFICIENCY GLOSSARIO In ogni articolo troverai le parole più rilevanti affiancate da un numero del colore corrispondente al livello di difficoltà, oltre alla traduzione nel glossario correlato. Gin and tonic is arguably1 Britain's favourite drink GLOSSARY 1 arguably: probabilmente 2 to skyrocket: andare alle stelle EXPLAINS Le frasi evidenziate in giallo sono quelle che hanno bisogno di approfondimenti, come nel caso di riferimenti storici o culturali, frasi fatte, proverbi o espressioni di slang. Troverai la spiegazione alla fine dell'articolo. ESERCIZI WORK IT OUT! La rivista è accompagnata dal Work It Out,…

CURRENT AFFAIRS 60TH ANNIVERSARY SPEAK UP IN CLASS Sixty years ago, US congressmen passed1 a new law to end discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex and national origin. The Civil Rights Act2 of 1964 was the crowning achievement3 of the civil rights movement. It marked a new era of legislative equality. The landmark4 law continues to protect voter rights and prohibit racial segregation and employment discrimination. Its introduction, however, was the result of a long and difficult journey. RACIAL TENSION After the American Civil War, the abolition of slavery did not create equality in the United States. The 14th Amendment5 was added to the Constitution in 1868, granting6 citizenship to formerly enslaved people. It also gave citizens equal protection under the law. However, over a century later, despite many additional…

PEOPLE As Taylor Swift rolled into1 Los Angeles this past week, the frenzy2 surrounding her record-breaking Eras Tour was already in high gear3. Headlines gushed4 that she had given $100,000 bonuses to her crew. Politicians asked her to postpone her concerts in solidarity with striking5 hotel workers. Scalped tickets6 were going for $3,000 and up. And there were way, way too many friendship bracelets to count. These days, the center of an otherwise splintered7 music world can only be Taylor Swift. The pop superstar's tour has been both a business and a cultural juggernaut8. Swift's catalog of generation-defining hits and canny9 marketing sense have helped her achieve a level of white-hot10 demand and media saturation not seen since the 1980s heyday11 of Michael Jackson and Madonna — a dominance that…

SCIENCE The Guardian Modern physics deals with some Mtruly mind-boggling1 extremes of scale. Cosmology reveals the Earth as a tiny dot amid an observable universe that is a staggering2 93bn light years across3. Meanwhile, today's particle colliders4 are exploring a microcosmic world billions of times smaller than the smallest atom. These two extremes, the biggest and smallest distances probed5 by science, are separated by forty-seven orders of magnitude. That's one with forty-seven zeros after it, a number so ludicrously huge6 that it isn't worth trying to get your head around7. And yet, despite exploring such radically different distances and phenomena, cosmology and particle physics are deeply connected. Observing the motions of stars and galaxies can reveal the influence of as-yet-undiscovered8 particles, while studying fundamental particles in the lab can tell us about…

CLASSIC BOOKS SPEAK UP IN CLASS SCAN, READ & LISTEN 17 UPPER INTERMEDIATE B2 GLOSSARY 1 glass jars: vasi di vetro 2 to fix: risolvere 3 hatchery: incubatrice 4 to deprive: privare di 5 semi-moronic: mezzi cretini 6 brainwashing: lavaggio del cervello 7 to carry out: eseguire 8 over and over: ancora e ancora 9 compliant: condiscendenti 10 to pump: pompare 11 high: botta, sballo 12 throughout: durante 13 loosely based: liberamente basata EXERCISES IN Work It Out! Aldous Huxley's science-fiction masterpiece imagines a futuristic dystopia, in which technological progress and state control have supplanted individuality, freedom and human connection. It is largely set in a place called World State that initially appears utopic: family structures have been abolished, babies are grown in glassjars1, and sexual promiscuity is moral. Everyone is happy, as any negative feelings are easy to fix2 using “soma”,…

LANGUAGE SPEAK UP IN CLASS EXERCISES IN Work It Out! HOW DO YOU SAY… Che figata! What a blast! The word ‘wow’ is used to express surprise, excitement or admiration. It is a versatile term with a curious history. Even though it sounds like a modern word, its origins date back1 centuries. It was first recorded in writing in a 1513 English-language version of Virgil's Aeneid translated by a Scottish bishop2. It was originally used as an interjection to express surprise or astonishment3, and may be related to the old exclamation ‘vow’, a shorter form of ‘I vow4!’ (I promise), which was used to add emphasis to a statement5. Over6 the centuries, the meaning of ‘wow’ has evolved, and by the late 1800s7 it was in common use among English…

MUSIC One of the biggest hits of recent times, Cruel Summer by American singer Taylor Swift was written in 2016, recorded for her 2019 album “Lovers”, and not released until 2023! Although she had described the song as “pride and joy1” on the album, she acknowledged that releasing a single with that title during the pandemic was “a not-so-great2 idea”. The enthusiastic reaction to the song when performed during Swift's 2023 Eras Tour finally prompted3 its late release4. The song was written when Swift was embarking on a six-year relationship with English actor Joe Alwyn, and the song is about feelings of uncertainty and desperation that accompanied the romance. In the first verse, the singer is excited about her new love story and in the second, defiantly5 commits6 to it –…

CULTURE So you have finally done it. You had been dreaming of this trip for months, maybe years, and now you really are there, in Piccadilly Circus, the rain soaking1 even your underwear, about to be run over2 by one of those massive poppy-red3 double-decker buses4 (for the third time), and surrounded by packs5 of loud tourists with no sense of personal space — or embarrassment6, because, of course, you couldn't go to London and not take that photo. Congratulations: your followers must be thrilled7 — all fifteen of them! Now, here is the article you should have read before setting foot in Albion. THE WEATHER First things first: you will need a jacket. Is it the 5 August? Jacket. The sun is shining? Jacket. The thermometer marks 30°C? Grab8 that…

FICTION THE PEOPLE IN INSTAGRAM ALWAYS LOOKED SO elegant. She knew she looked like a clown. It was embarrassing. I don’t know why you have to go all the way to 1 Hawaii,” Caoimhe's dad said, for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Don't you live a mile from…” “…the most beautiful beach in Ireland?” Caoimhe finished his phrase for him. “I know, Dad! But this is Ireland, where we had the rainiest July on record last year. I don't want to risk that again.” Last summer had been Caoimhe's first summer since completing secondary school. And she had spent all of July at home, feeling depressed because of the constant rain. Now she had finished her first year at university, and had been working part-time2 to save enough money for…