今日無事テスト終わりました。1ヶ月、ブログお休み宣言した割には、一生懸命勉強したのは2週間くらいになってしまいましたが、結果でたらまたご報告します。2週間後。やさしい励ましのお言葉ほんとうにありがとうございました。テストはいくつになっても嫌なものです。
さて、一部の人にしか面白くない話ですがIELTSです。
リスニングですが、なんだか難しかったという印象あり、どうもわざとアメリカンアクセントでしゃべらせてるのと、テープの質が悪いんではないかと思います。この時代、ブリカンもIELTSでもうかってるならデジタル化くらいしてほしいものです。
いつもなら住所とか名前とかスペルアウトしてくれるのに今回はなし、で埋められなかったところがパートワンから続出。スピードも結構はやくてしゃべりだしのところ、たとえば今日はお疲れのところ、から設問ありで(なんで疲れてるか、travelling、lecture、assingnment-宿題 から選ぶ)、あれって思ったらもう第2問に進んでいた、という感じのパート2でした。パート3、4は比較的いけたかな。でもいつものようにひっかけ、のような箇所が何個もあって、たとえばオーストラリアに何年いるかという質問の答えがはっきり1年半といえばいいものの、1年はアデレードにいて半年はシドニーとか分けて言ったりして、、自分にあてはめれば、日常生活では1年半、て最初に言う気がしますけどねえ。パート4では 「cooperate crime」 という会社全体で違法をするという話。会社がもうけるために、少し人員削減したっりちょっとレーベル変えたりする、っていうことらしいですが、あのオイルタンカーがひっくり返ったのもこのcooperate crime にはいるらしいです。 ちょっと難しい単語 indifference というものがでてきてこれは無関心という意味らしいですが、最後の設問ではこれがマルになるような気がします。しらないより知ってた方がよさそうなので書いときました。
さてリーディングですがラッキーなことに1問目は日本の五重塔についてだったので12、3分で終わらせることができました。近くにいた人たちは難しくて25分くらいかかったって言ってたのでこれはちょっと不公平かも。 2問目は難しく、3問目ももちろんむずかしかったのですが。
1、2問目はなんとインターネットでキーワードグーグルしたら今回のリーディングに使われたもとになったのだろうと明らかに思われるものが見つかったのでのせておきます。実際は直しがはいってもう少し短じかくなっていたと思いますがもしかしたら同じ問題がでるかもしれないので最後にのせておきます。練習用に使ってください。
ライティングですが、これが苦手で苦手で、、、
タスク1はこんなんでした (年齢別です)
Task 2 は
More and more young people are gradiating from university without getting a job, so the graduate unemployment is increasing.
What do you think young unemployed can affect to society and individuals?
What measures can we take to reduce the young unemployed?
うわーunemploymentーまったく何かいていいかすこしパニくりました。準備不足でした。
そしてスピーキングはけっこう楽勝でした。
the questions were
1. Are you a student or working?
2. What are you going to do in the future?
3. Is it difficult to find a job?
4. Are you enjoying living here?
[ceremony]
1. What is wedding ceremony like in Japan
2. What kind of people are invited?
3. Has it changed very much?
4. What is the meaning of ceremony generally?
[transport]
1. What kind of transport are you using?
2. What kind of transport do you want to use?
3. What kind of transport is needed in Edinburgh/Japan?
4. benefit/problem of transport?
[advertisement]
1. What is the role of advertisement?
2. Do you think advertisement affect people's buying pattern?
3. How about you?
card
--- please explain the biggest decision you have ever made in your life
when, why, and how
followed by
what is Parents'role to make a decision for family?
Has it changed compared 30 years ago?
what is teachers'role/school's role to make a decision?
Why and how you have decided your career?
How young people nowadays make a decision?
何か質問あったらどうぞご遠慮なく。
あーそういえば今までライティングのタスク1はグラフの他に例えばプロセスとか地図とかを説明させるのもでるって聞いてたのですが、噂によるとみんなグラフになったとか? 知ってる方いたら教えてください。で、もしIELTSのほんものの過去問集あったら教えてください。中国語ではいくつかあって結構いろいろ書いてあって役に立ったのですが、やはり読みづらいしどこまで信用できるか、、、興味のある方、念のためのせときます
http://www.audiy.com/ielts4/ieltsa15.htm
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reading
1問目
WHY PAGODAS DON'T FALL DOWN:
THE ANSWER TO AN ENGINEERING MYSTERY
Visitors to Kyoto and Nara, Japan's ancient capitals, invariably retain in their memories the evocative silhouette of a wooden pagoda--at times towering gracefully above the tiled rooftops of an old neighborhood, at times rising abruptly from the midst of a huddle of modern buildings. Most people familiar with the Kansai region will know the stately five-story pagoda of Kyoto's Toji (Kyoo Gokokuji) temple, clearly visible from the Shinkansen bullet train, or the pagoda of Nara's Kofukuji, standing at the edge of Sarusawa Pond.
At 55 meters in height, the pagoda of Toji is the tallest such structure in Japan. It is far from the tallest pagoda ever built, however. The octagonal nine-story pagoda of Kyoto's Hoshoji was 83 meters tall, and the seven-story pagoda of Shokokuji, also in Kyoto, is said to have risen a full 108 meters. These towering structures, along with many other wooden pagodas built over the centuries, were destroyed by fire--generally either struck by lightning or caught in the crossfire of civil war.
Because of their wood construction, Japan's pagodas have always been extremely vulnerable to fire. At the same time, these tall, slender towers, built of interlocking posts and beams, are so resistant to earthquakes and typhoons that Japan's long architectural history records only a very few instances of their collapsing. Some 1,300 years after it was built, the five-story pagoda of Horyuji in Nara, recently added to UNESCO's "world heritage" list of cultural assets, shows not the slightest sign of instability.
Although built primarily of wood, pagodas are by no means lightweight structures. Like most traditional wood-frame architecture in Japan, they display wide eaves, giving considerable prominence to the tiled roof. If we compare the charming octagonal Yumedono, or "Dream Hall" of Horyuji with the octagonal pagoda of Fogongsi temple in China's Shansi Province, the difference is instructive: The eaves overhang of the Yumedono is 3 meters, more than one-fourth the building's total diameter of 11 meters. The pagoda of Fogongsi, which measures 29 meters across, has an overhang of only 2.5 meters--less than one-tenth the building's diameter. The jutting eaves of Japan's wooden pagodas lend a powerful rhythm to their silhouette, but their purpose is by no means solely aesthetic. A wide overhang means a larger roof relative to the rest of the structure. The large roof, consisting of clay and tiles laid on top of wood rafters, is extremely heavy. A heavy roof relative to the size of the building is one of the main characteristics of traditional Japanese wood architecture. With five such overhanging roofs, a five-story pagoda is a heavy structure indeed.
Why such pagodas, despite their height and weight, have remained upright and intact through numerous earthquakes and typhoons is something that no one has been able to explain satisfactorily from the standpoint of modern architectonics. This is because building science evolved in the West as a discipline dealing with the structural mechanics of rigid bodies, that is, buildings of stone, brick, or concrete. In the article that follows, architect Ueda Atsushi elucidates the ingenious techniques by which the Japanese of earlier times built their pagodas to withstand even the strongest winds and earthquakes.
QUAKE TOWERS
In Central Tokyo where they fear a giant earthquake might strike in the near future, Mitsubishi is going to be one of the first companies to build a skyscraper that owes its modern design to the ancient pagoda. Its impressive 37 stories will stretch 180 metres into the skyline, but the building will be supported from within by the central column borrowed from the ancient pagoda. The building will have four huge shafts at each corner and will be stabilised by a huge central pillar standing in the centre. The central column will be attached to the four steel supports by a softer steel, which will allow the central column to move about and when the building shakes, the central column will provide the extra strength and stability which will help to absorb the shock.
From BBC-Online
Of course, high towers have been built in the West ever since the Middle Ages. In all cases, however, the material is masonry--stones or bricks joined to form a single mass of wall capable of withstanding this or that impact from without. In the case of Japan's wooden pagodas, however, each story is structurally independent.
Each story of the pagoda is basically a square box with no bottom, built around twelve outer pillars, or gawabashira. The pagoda as a whole is, in essence, five stacked boxes. Since each story is smaller than the one beneath it, the placement of the gawabashira moves inward as one proceeds up the pagoda, meaning that horizontal beams are needed to support the gawabashira of each story above the first. In fact, these pillars rest on horizontal bases, which in turn are supported by taruki--slanting beams that run from the inside of the structure diagonally downward to the outside, where they support the eaves. The weight of the upper story, pushing down on the inner ends of the taruki, would cause the outer ends to rise if there were no counterweight. The heavy tiled roof of the eaves performs precisely this function. In short, the taruki functions as a lever arm, while the top of the gawabashira serves as the fulcrum. The story above bears down on the inner end of the lever, and the overhanging roof balances this load at the outer end.Or, to put it another way, the heavy eaves are in effect supported by the story above. When one reaches the uppermost level, of course, there is no story above to counterbalance the overhang. Here, however, the tall copper or iron spire, or finial, performs that function. The finial of the Horyuji pagoda, we are told, weighs a full three tons.1
Ueda explains in detail how this lever construction ensures that, during typhoons and earthquakes, pagodas swing and sway but almost never collapse. Built not to resist the forces of nature head-on but to accept and absorb their impact, pagodas epitomize the ingenuity of traditional Japanese wood architecture. This solution to the problem of structural stability could be said to manifest the Japanese approach to nature--not only to observe it carefully but also to learn from it and coexist harmoniously with it.
Ueda's essay concludes with a discussion of the central pillar, or shinbashira, a feature absent in the wood pagodas extant in China, where the form originated, but present in virtually all Japanese pagodas. Ueda's theory regarding the changing religious and structural significance of this basically free-standing (or hanging) pillar provides much food for thought on the dynamics of Japan's adoption and transformation of mainland culture.
(Takashina Shuji, Director, National Museum of Western Art)
1. Nishioka Tsunekazu, Ki ni manabe (The Lessons of Wood) (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1988).
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2問目
The Milgram experiment was a scientific experiment of social psychology described by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram in his 1974 book Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. It was intended to measure the willingness of a subject to obey an authority who instructs the subject to do something that may conflict with the subject's personal conscience.
The method of one experiment was as follows: The subject and an actor pretending to be another subject are told by the experimenter that they will be participating in an experiment to test the effectiveness of punishment on learning behavior. Two slips of paper marked "teacher" are handed to the subject and actor; the actor claims, however, that his says "learner", so the subject is led to believe that his role has been chosen randomly. Both are then given a sample 45-volt electric shock from an apparatus attached to a chair into which the actor is strapped. The "teacher" is then given simple memory tasks to give to the "learner" and instructed to administer a shock by pressing a button each time the learner makes a mistake.
The "teacher" is then told that the voltage is to be raised by 15 volts after each mistake. He is not told that there are no actual shocks being given to the actor, who feigns discomfort. At "150 volts", the actor requests that the experiment end, and is told by the experimenter "The experiment requires that you continue. Please go on." or similar words. He continues, and the actor feigns at first greater discomfort, then considerable pain, and finally screams for the experiment to stop as the simulated shocks continue. If the teacher subject becomes reluctant, he is instructed that the experimenter takes all responsibility for the results of the experiment and the safety of the learner, and that the experiment requires that he continue.
Before the experiment was conducted Milgram polled fellow psychiatrists as to what the results would be. They unanimously believed that only a few sadists would be prepared to give the maximum voltage.
In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65% of experimental subjects administered the experiment's final "450-volt shock", though many were quite uncomfortable in doing so. No subject stopped before the "300 volt" level. The experiment has been repeated by other psychologists around the world with similar results. Variations have been performed to test for variables in the experimental setup. For example, subjects are much more likely to be obedient when the experimenter is physically present than when the instructions are given over telephone.
The experiment raised questions about the ethics of scientific experimentation itself because of the extreme emotional stress suffered by the subjects (even though it could be said that this stress was brought on by their own free actions). Most modern scientists would consider the experiment unethical today, though it resulted in valuable insights into human psychology.
In Milgram's defense, given the choice between "positive", "neutral" and "negative", 84% of former subjects contacted later rated their role in the experiments as a positive experience and 15% chose neutral. Many wrote later expressing thanks.
Why so many former subjects reported they were "glad" to have been involved despite the apparent levels of stress, one subject explained to Milgram in correspondence six years after he participated in the experiment: While I was a subject in 1964, though I believed that I was hurting someone, I was totally unaware of why I was doing so. Few people ever realize when they are acting according to their own beliefs and when they are meekly submitting to authority. ... To permit myself to be drafted with the understanding that I am submitting to authority's demand to do something very wrong would make me frightened of myself. ... I am fully prepared to go to jail if I am not granted Conscientious Objector status. Indeed, it is the only course I could take to be faithful to what I believe. My only hope is that members of my board act equally according to their conscience...
Milgram summed up in the article "The Perils of Obedience" (Milgram 1974), writing: "The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation." The experiments began in July 1961, a year after the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised the experiment to answer the question "Could it be that Eichmann, and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?" (Milgram, 1974) Thomas Blass of the University of Maryland writes in Psychology Today (March/April 2002) that he has collected results from repeats of the experiment done at various times since, in the US and elsewhere, and found that the percentage of subjects who are prepared to inflict fatal voltages remains remarkably constant, between 61% and 66%, regardless of time or location. The full results were published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology (see reference below).
A documentary was made showing the experiment and its results. It is now very hard to find copies of it, but it is a very informative and chilling viewing.