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Đoạn 1 · Rethinking the Urban Forest
For much of the twentieth century, the trees that lined city streets were regarded as little more than ornament. Attractive in spring and easy to remove, they were among the first casualties whenever a road had to be widened or a car park laid out. Over the past two decades, however, that perception has been quietly overturned. Ecologists and city authorities increasingly speak of the ‘urban forest’ as a piece of civic infrastructure, as indispensable to the functioning of a city as its drains, cables and power lines.
The shift has been driven less by sentiment than by evidence. A single mature tree, through the shade it casts and the water it releases from its leaves, can lower local air temperatures by several degrees, tempering the heat that accumulates in districts of concrete and asphalt. During heavy downpours, the roots and surrounding soil intercept rainwater that would otherwise overwhelm drainage systems and spill across roads. The foliage also captures dust and a proportion of the fine particles emitted by traffic, so that streets flanked by trees tend to register measurably cleaner air than those without.
Yet planting a tree is deceptively simple, and bears little relation to the far harder task of keeping it alive. The soil in which street trees are set is frequently compacted, starved of nutrients and laced with pollutants, and saplings positioned beside busy roads commonly perish within a few seasons unless they are deliberately watered and tended. A number of cities have responded by installing a small underground reservoir beside each new tree and by enlisting residents to monitor the trees outside their own homes. In several districts this delegation of responsibility has produced an unanticipated dividend: neighbours who tend a tree in common report that they have come to know one another better.
Not everyone greets the greening of the city with enthusiasm. Shopkeepers occasionally protest that a large canopy conceals their signs from passing trade, and homeowners voice anxieties about roots that lift pavements and crack foundations. Such objections are not trivial, and the more thoughtful planners no longer assume that the remedy lies in planting the greatest possible number of trees. The emphasis has moved instead towards selecting a species appropriate to each particular location, and towards budgeting for its maintenance from the very outset rather than treating care as an afterthought.
This more calculated approach reflects a broader change in how the benefits of trees are counted. Where once their value was dismissed as merely aesthetic, economists now attempt to attach figures to the services an urban forest provides: the cooling that reduces demand for air conditioning, the flood damage averted, the respiratory illnesses forestalled. When these advantages are tallied, the sums involved in planting and upkeep begin to look less like an expense and more like an investment. Critics caution that such calculations are inevitably imprecise; even so, a benefit expressed in money has proved harder for budget-holders to ignore than one expressed in beauty.
The benefits, moreover, are not distributed evenly. Studies in several large cities have found that the poorest districts tend to have the fewest trees and the hottest streets, so that the people least able to afford air conditioning are also those most exposed to dangerous heat. For this reason a number of authorities have begun to direct new planting towards neighbourhoods that have historically been overlooked, treating the urban forest not merely as an environmental asset but as a matter of fairness. Whether such schemes endure will depend on sustained funding, for a tree abandoned after planting is worse than useless: it dies slowly, in full public view, and quietly undermines confidence in the very programmes meant to expand the canopy.
Supporters now treat the urban forest as civic , not mere decoration. A mature tree lowers local air , its roots intercept rainwater that could flood roads, and its leaves trap fine from traffic. Keeping trees alive is hard because street soil is often , so some cities fit each tree with an underground and ask residents to help. Rather than planting in large numbers, careful planners now choose a suitable for each site and budget for its from the start.
Đoạn 2 · The Hidden Language of Plants
Plants, rooted to the spot, cannot flee the animals that feed on them, and for a long time they were assumed to endure such attacks passively. Research over the past thirty years has demolished that assumption. Far from being inert, plants mount active and surprisingly coordinated defences, and they do so partly by exchanging chemical information — a capacity that some biologists, with deliberate provocation, have described as a form of communication.
The process begins the moment a leaf is damaged. As a caterpillar chews, the wounded tissue emits a plume of volatile compounds, airborne molecules that drift away on the breeze. Some of these make the remaining leaves distasteful, discouraging the insect from continuing. Others travel through the plant’s own tissues as an internal signal, so that leaves not yet under attack begin to manufacture defensive chemicals in advance, reinforcing themselves before the herbivore arrives. In this way a local injury triggers a response across the whole organism.
More striking still is the discovery that these airborne compounds can be intercepted by neighbouring plants. A tomato plant growing beside one that is being eaten will frequently begin to strengthen its own defences, despite having suffered no injury itself. For years this was interpreted as simple eavesdropping: the undamaged plant was merely exploiting information it happened to overhear. Some researchers now propose a subtler reading. Because a well-defended neighbour is less likely to shelter a growing population of insects, warning it may ultimately serve the interests of the plant that emits the signal — a possibility that blurs the tidy distinction between accident and intention.
The chemistry of defence extends beyond deterrence into something closer to recruitment. Certain volatiles released by a damaged plant are highly attractive to parasitic wasps, which lay their eggs inside the very caterpillars doing the damage; the larvae then consume the caterpillar from within. By advertising its distress, the plant in effect summons a bodyguard, enlisting a third party to dispose of its attacker. Such three-way relationships are now understood to be widespread, and they complicate any simple picture of plants as helpless victims.
These findings have not stayed in the laboratory. Agricultural scientists reason that crops able to defend themselves might reduce the need for chemical pesticides, whose cost and side-effects are considerable. Some have bred varieties that emit stronger distress signals, or sprayed synthetic compounds onto fields to prime a crop before any pest appears. Results in controlled conditions have often been encouraging. Translating them into the field, however, has proved stubbornly difficult: wind disperses signals unpredictably, and a defensive response that protects a plant may also slow its growth, so that a better-defended crop yields less. For now the practical gains remain modest.
The implications reach beyond agriculture into the way biologists think about intelligence itself. To call a plant’s behaviour ‘communication’ is, for some, a harmless metaphor; for others it is a category error that attributes purpose where there is only chemistry. What is clear is that the boundary once drawn between the active animal and the passive plant has become difficult to defend. A plant can sense which part of itself has been injured, can distinguish the saliva of one insect from that of another, and can adjust its response accordingly. None of this requires a brain, and that, perhaps, is the most unsettling lesson of all: that complex, apparently deliberate behaviour can arise from nothing more than the interaction of molecules.
When a leaf is damaged it releases volatile into the air. Some make the leaves distasteful, while others act as an internal that prepares undamaged leaves. Nearby plants can intercept these signals; a plant beside a damaged one strengthens its defences, behaviour once dismissed as mere . Some volatiles attract parasitic that destroy the caterpillars, so the plant gains a kind of . Scientists hope such signals could cut the use of , though results in the field remain limited.
Đoạn 3 · Rethinking the Working Week
The notion that a working week should consist of five days is so deeply ingrained that it is easily mistaken for a law of nature. In fact it is a relatively recent convention, and in several countries it is now being questioned. A growing number of employers have begun to trial a four-day week in which staff work one day fewer but receive their full salary, on the understanding that they will accomplish as much as before within the reduced hours. Advocates stress that the aim is not to do less work, but to do the same work in a more concentrated way.
The most widely reported experiment so far took place in the United Kingdom, where some sixty organisations allowed their employees to drop one working day a week for six months. The outcomes were closely monitored, and at the trial’s conclusion the great majority of the participating firms chose to retain the arrangement. Managers reported that the volume of work completed had not declined, and in several cases had risen slightly; employees described themselves as less exhausted and better able to balance their jobs with family life. Absence through illness fell, and fewer staff resigned.
Why a shorter week should leave output undiminished is a question that continues to divide opinion. One common explanation is that the pressure of a compressed timetable obliges people to eliminate the least productive features of office life — the superfluous meetings, the aimless correspondence — and to reserve their energy for tasks that genuinely matter. A second, simpler argument holds that rested workers are more alert and commit fewer errors, so that four attentive days may achieve what five tired ones cannot. Both explanations may contain some truth, and disentangling them is far from straightforward.
Scepticism, however, is not in short supply. Critics observe that the arrangement suits some kinds of work and not others. An office whose output is measured in reports and decisions can compress its efforts; a hospital, a factory or a shop cannot simply close for an additional day without either leaving people unattended or hiring extra staff. In such settings a four-day week would raise costs rather than productivity, and its benefits to employees would have to be weighed against that expense.
A further caution concerns the evidence itself. The organisations that have volunteered for these trials have been, for the most part, office-based firms already sympathetic to the idea, often small and led by managers eager to make it succeed. Such enthusiasts can hardly be regarded as a representative sample of the economy, and a practice that flourishes among the willing may falter when imposed on the indifferent. Whether the shorter week spreads will probably turn less on idealism than on arithmetic: for most businesses the decisive question is simply whether output can be maintained when hours are cut.
History offers a cautious parallel. When the five-day week itself was introduced in the early twentieth century, many employers predicted ruin, convinced that output would collapse once Saturday was surrendered; instead, productivity in a number of industries rose, as rested workers proved more efficient and absence declined. Supporters of the four-day week are fond of citing this precedent, arguing that today’s scepticism merely echoes a fear that history has already proved unfounded. Critics reply that the circumstances were different, and that one successful reduction in hours is no guarantee of another. The disagreement, in the end, cannot be settled by argument alone; only further trials, conducted across a wider range of industries and over a longer period, are likely to resolve it.
Under a four-day week, staff work one day fewer but keep their full . In the largest trial, in the United , most firms kept the system; work did not fall and through illness declined. Supporters say the pressure removes unproductive and that rested workers make fewer . Critics note that a hospital, a factory or a cannot simply close for an extra day. In the end, adoption will depend on whether can be maintained when hours are cut.
Nghe · 10 câu
Nói
Tea & Coffee: Which do you prefer, tea or coffee? When was the last time you had a cup? Do you usually buy it in a shop or make it at home?
Cinema: What kind of films do you like? Did you watch films a lot as a child? Do you often go to the cinema with friends?
Running: Do you go running a lot? Where do you usually go running? Do you prefer running alone or with friends?
Part 2 (nói 1-2 phút): Describe a difficult task that you completed and felt proud of. You should say what the task was, how you completed it, why it was difficult, and why you felt proud.
Part 3: What makes people feel proud of themselves? How can children make their parents proud? What are the differences between what makes older and younger people proud?
Viết
Despite better access to education, many adults today still cannot read or write. In what ways are they disadvantaged? What can governments do to help them?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
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Cô Nguyễn Hà Trang – 8.0 IELTS, 10 năm giảng dạy, 200+ học sinh đạt 6.5-8.5.
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