节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-12-06
难易度:Medium
关键字:peer, cheat sheet, justify, authority, take matters into your own hands
(Music).
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And I'm Carolyn.
And your English will improve today.
Today the name of our lesson is To Tell or Not to Tell.
And the idea is that if someone cheats on a test, should you tell the teacher or
keep it to yourself?
Well, I'm sure this is something that many of you have thought about before.
Well, how would you feel if someone cheated on a test?
Carolyn, how would you feel about this?
Well, I would be pretty upset because I would have spent so much time preparing,
studying for the test, getting ready for it,
and then someone else just cheats and maybe even makes a better grade than me
after I work so hard.
And if someone cheats in a class, it might result in the teacher enforcing
stricter rules on the whole class.
So it's really not fair to anyone.
I agree with you there, Carolyn.
It's not fair to anyone.
In my mind, it's kind of like stealing.
If someone steals something of mine, that's kind of how I feel about someone
cheating on the same test that I'm taking.
Well, how do you feel about this?
How would you feel if someone cheated on a test?
Well, let's get started with our lesson today - To Tell or Not to Tell.
To Tell or Not to Tell.
Should you keep cheating a secret or tell a teacher?
Angela and Nick just finished a history test.
They stop outside the classroom to talk.
That was such a difficult test!
It's a good thing I studied so hard for it, or I probably would have failed.
Me, too.
You go on ahead.
I need to talk to Mr. Brown about something.
Oh, what about?
I saw a guy peering at a piece of paper under his desk during the test.
Really?
Yeah. I think it was a cheat sheet.
And you're going to tell the teacher? Why?
He probably had a really busy week and didn't have time to study.
Well, Nick and Angela do not seem to be agreeing on what to do in this tricky
situation.
We see at the very beginning: Should you keep cheating a secret or tell a
teacher?
This offers a very interesting question, Gabe,
because even though you see someone cheating, it's not always easy to tell
someone about it.
Well, exactly.
Of course you see someone doing something wrong; it's not easy to go and tell
that person what they did wrong.
And of course you feel even worse about telling someone else that they did
something wrong.
So of course it's not an easy decision; it's not something that you can do very
easily.
But should you keep it a secret or should you tell?
It's a good question.
Well, what other things can you keep a secret in life?
You might keep your age a secret.
Sometimes people don't like to reveal their age.
What about your salary?
You might want to keep your salary a secret as well.
Or you can tell your friend to keep your secret and don't tell anybody else.
That's right.
So there are many different kinds of secrets that can be kept.
And here we have two friends that are wondering what to do about cheating.
Do you keep that a secret or not?
We read:
Angela and Nick just finished a history test.
They stop outside the classroom to talk.
So these two classmates have just finished a very difficult test in their
history class.
And now they're taking a moment to just chat afterward.
And that's what we're doing right now, of course.
We're having a fun, little chat here.
Well, hey, um, Carolyn, I think you should be Angela today and I'll be Nick.
Well, that makes sense, Gabe.
Let's... let's do that.
OK.
Yes. Well, I... that means I start.
Yeah.
Yes.
That was such a difficult test!
It's a good thing I studied so hard for it, or I probably would have failed.
Hmm... You know what? I understand the way Angela feels right now.
Do you ever feel that way, you studied so hard for something and it's a good
thing, too?
Because maybe otherwise, you would not get a good score.
Well, what could help you to get a good score?
Of course studying is a good thing.
Good study habits will help you to get a good score in class.
And cramming, sometimes people think that cramming can help, too.
What do you feel about that, Carolyn?
Well, cramming is a very interesting phenomenon where you try to get as much
information as possible in such a short amount of time.
And actually, I think Steve and Ken have something they want to share with us
about cramming in the Information Cloud.
Most students in Asia know very well what cramming for an exam is like, and it's
no fun.
The word "cram" means to pack something into a space very, very tightly.
If you have a full suitcase, you can try to cram in one more pair of jeans.
And so if you try to cram right before an exam, it means that you try to pack
all the information into your head at the last minute.
And the last minute is often the night before the exam.
So ill-prepared students often end up burning the midnight oil.
This expression calls to mind images of a person sitting at a table, working
late into the night by the light of a candle or oil lamp, hence the word oil.
And if you burn the midnight oil all night, then you end up pulling an all
nighter.
I really like that word "pull." It implies some sort of hardship.
So if you burned the midnight oil until the sun comes up the next morning, then
you'd have pulled an all nighter.
Needless to say, cramming is not a good way to study because by the time you
take the exam, your mind is no longer at its sharpest,
and you'll likely forget a lot of the things you try to cram into your head.
So don't put off studying until the last minute, friends.
Keep a consistent study schedule and get a good night's sleep before every exam.
(Chinese).
Thank you, guys.
OK, so now you know, of course, how important it is to have good study habits,
to review on a regular basis and not just cram the night before a test.
All right. Well, Nick continues here. He says:
Me, too.
You go on ahead.
I need to talk to Mr. Brown about something.
All right.
So so far we know that Nick and Angela have both studied really hard for this
history test.
And Angela responds to him saying that he needs to talk to Mr. Brown:
Oh, what about?
I saw a guy peering at a piece of paper under his desk during the test.
Great! Well, not... not great, but there is a great word in that sentence from
our World Bank: peer.
Now to peer at something means that you look at it very closely.
Maybe you're getting ready in the morning and you peer at yourself in the
mirror.
You want to make sure that your hair is just right.
OK. So of course you would peer at yourself in the mirror.
Or maybe you want to peer over the wall or peer over the fence to see what is on
the other side.
Or maybe you are peering out across a field or a lake. OK.
So you are looking intently at something.
And of course this guy... or Nick saw this guy peering at a piece of paper under
his desk.
Really?
Yeah. I think it was a cheat sheet.
Great again... well, again, not great, but a cheat sheet.
Cheat sheet is a word from our Word Bank.
And so that means that it's a piece of paper with answers on it or information
that is related to the test.
Now sometimes teachers will allow cheat sheets to be used in their class if they
meet certain guidelines.
There are certain rules.
I remember I took a math test, and we were allowed to have one 3x5 card and we
could write whatever we wanted on it front and back.
But it was for a very big test.
And you needed to write very small if you wanted to get all of the equations on
there.
Carolyn, I like the way your teacher was thinking.
Actually, I had similar teachers in high school.
And they would also allow us to have a 3x5 card that we could write on.
So sometimes cheat sheets or cheat cards are OK.
But of course, if the teacher doesn't say you can have a cheat sheet, then a
cheat sheet is not OK.
And usually a cheat sheet is not OK.
OK, so of course we know that.
We know that it's not OK to cheat.
And Nick is upset about this.
He saw a guy looking at a cheat sheet.
And Angela responds:
And you're going to tell the teacher? Why?
He probably had a really busy week and didn't have time to study.
Hmm, didn't have time to study.
I don't know how I feel about that.
Well, we could talk about that a little bit later.
For now, let's learn something new with Michelle in the Language Lab.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.
(Chinese).