节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2012-06-08
难易度:Medium
关键字:flunk, pass out, load, definitely, caffeine, boost, vibe
Hi, everybody, welcome to Studio Classroom Worldwide.
Thanks for joining us today.
My name is Steve.
Well, where do you go, what do you do when you need extra energy?
You go to the sofa for a nap.
Do you go to the kitchen for a piece of fruit or a candy bar?
Now, how about getting your energy from a can?
That's right.
This month, in our Studio Classroom VIEWPOINTS feature, we tackle the pros and
cons of energy drinks.
Energy drinks, in some form or another, have been around for ages.
But have you noticed that in the last year or two, they really seemed to have
exploded in number.
Let's open our magazines to page 22 and meet this month's VIEWPOINTS friends
Luke and Amy.
Energy Drinks - Good or Bad?
Can you get lasting energy from a drink?
Hi, Amy.
How are you doing?
You look really tired!
I'm so exhausted.
I didn't sleep at all last night!
Why?
What were you doing?
I was studying for my world history test.
I started studying at 11:00, and I didn't stop until 8:00 this morning.
I don't want to flunk.
Wow!
How did you manage to concentrate for that many hours?
I would have passed out on my books long before 8:00 this morning.
Simple. I had an energy drink.
Really?
Do those drinks really help you study?
I know they're loaded with sugar and caffeine.
(Music).
Hello, friends, thank you so much for joining us here in the studio.
My name is Kaylah.
(Background Noise).
My name is Ryan.
Um, Ryan, you look a little sleepy.
Oh, yeah, I've felt a little tired.
I don't think I got enough sleep last night.
Well, I have an energy drink.
Would you like to try it?
Oh.
Uh, well, actually, no thanks.
I don't like to drink energy drinks.
Why not?
Well, we're going to talk a little bit about that today in our VIEWPOINTS
article which is all about energy drinks:
are they good or are they bad?
That's right.
Are they good or are they bad?
Sometimes we'd like to have an energy drink just in case we need some extra
energy.
But our question is: Can you get lasting energy from just a drink?
And that's a great question.
OK. So in order to find out, we're going to look at a conversation between Luke
and Amy.
And we start off with Luke.
And Luke says, "Hi, Amy. How are you doing? You look really tired." Now, first
of all, I said Ryan looked a little sleepy.
That's another way of saying, "You look tired." But Ryan, is that really polite?
Uh, actually, it's usually not polite to tell someone that they look tired.
That's another way of saying: You don't look very good right now.
That's right.
It's more polite than saying, "You look bad." But it's also very rude.
So just be careful how you say it and who you say it to.
Yeah. Maybe ask, "Do you feel OK?" And if they're tired, they'll let you know.
But Luke asks Amy if she is tired.
So she said, "Oh, I am. I'm so exhausted," which we remember means to be really
tired.
Well, why is she exhausted?
She says, "I didn't sleep at all last night!" Now Ryan, I think I understand why
she's tired.
Right, you're supposed to sleep every night.
And usually depending on your age, you need to get about eight hours of sleep a
night.
That's right.
Well, Luke has a good question:
Why?
What were you doing?
Why were you awake that late?
And that's a great question.
Most of us need to get a lot of sleep, and if you're staying up late, there's
probably a reason, especially if you didn't sleep at all.
Now Amy has an answer that unfortunately many of us understand.
She says: I was studying for my world history test.
I started studying at 11:00, and I didn't stop until 8:00 this morning.
I don't want to flunk.
Oh, dear!
OK. So I think many of you have probably dealt with this at some point.
I know I have.
You have a huge test coming up or you have a lot of homework to do, so you stay
up all night long because you don't want to flunk.
That's right.
Now "flunk" means to fail an exam... examination or a course of study.
So you can flunk a test.
That means you fail the test.
But you can also fail a class or a course.
That is to flunk.
Wow. So you don't want to fail. You want to do well.
But you end up spending a lot of time awake at night and that can actually be
really bad for you.
He says: Wow! How did you manage to concentrate for that many hours?
I would have passed out on my books long before 8:00 this morning.
OK. If you pass out, that means you are unconscious, which means you're not
awake.
And so he said: I would have fallen asleep much sooner than you would have.
How did you stay awake?
Simple.
I had an energy drink.
Oh, OK. Well, energy drinks can give you energy.
So Luke says: Really? Do those drinks really help you study?
Now that's a good question.
Do they help you study or are they just keeping you awake?
Right, that's a great question.
He says, "I know they're loaded with sugar and caffeine." So he knows they can
help you, uh, stay awake,
but can they really help you study if they're loaded with that much sugar and
caffeine?
Well, to be loaded with something means to have a lot of it, to... contain a lot
of something.
So if you have a lot of money, you are loaded with money.
These drinks have a lot of caffeine and sugar, so these drinks would say they
are loaded with caffeine and sugar.
Right. So they have a lot of caffeine and sugar.
And we know sugar is very common in sweet things - sweet foods and sweet drinks.
Uh, and caffeine, we think of usually coffee.
It is a chemical you can find in some drinks and some foods that gives people a
lot of energy; makes them very active.
That's right.
Now we can say that was a...
Another word for caffeine would be it gives you energy, it's a stimulant, it
makes you have a lot of energy, it keeps you awake.
We drink coffee in the morning to help us wake up, and that has a lot of
caffeine... caffeine.
Unfortunately, we can become addicted to it.
You can rely on it too much.
So be careful how much caffeine you drink.
And be careful how you drink it.
Do you get caffeine from coffee or from energy drinks?
Well, right now let's watch this interview.
In my opinion, I don't like energy drinks because it gives me the shakes in my
hands, and it also increases my heart rate.
But I did have an interesting experience with energy drinks.
I was at a job interview one day, and I was very tired, so I took half a bottle
of those Red Bull shots.
And I'm telling you, I was jumping off the walls and I was just talking so fast,
and I couldn't concentrate.
I was just looking all over the place.
Well, it was obvious that I had too much energy and I was way too hyper.
But you know what happened in the end? I was hired.
I was hired as one of the clowns in a theme park.
So, unless you want to be a clown, I suggest you stay away from energy drinks.
When I study in university, I always stay up very late to finish my artworks.
Sometimes I will buy energy drinks to keep me awake.
I see the vitamin in drinks can help me be more efficient and keep me from the
doctor.
And yes, I finish my works in the morning with an exhausted body.
But guess what?
I need twelve hours of sleeping each day for three days to recover from only one
all-night working.
Is it worth it?
No, I don't thinkso.