MATTEO SALVINI unleashed a furious response to Italy's decision to approve Brussels' European Stability Mechanism on Thursday, claiming it gives a preview on the Italian Government's intention to keep itself shackled to the bloc.
THE WORLD Health Organization has issued a warning to the public over a rise of fraudulent emails and cyber attacks aimed at tricking people into donating money to help the coronavirus crisis.
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ANGELA MERKEL insists she is willing to offer major financial support for a European Union coronavirus recovery package worth as much as 2 trillion euros but wants to see how the money would be used before committing Germany to the plan.
THE European Union is walking into the same mistakes the bloc committed when handling Greece's debt crisis with its proposals to help member states through the coronavirus pandemic, Yanis Varoufakis has warned.
THE UNITED STATES has accused China of ratcheting tensions by sending a ship to the South China Sea to stop other countries from developing hydrocarbon resources there. This comes as Washington accuses Beijing of using global chaos to continue to assert its power in the region.
A lifetime payout annuity is a type of retirement investment that pays out a portion of the underlying portfolio of assets for the life of the investor.
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Snap's DAU came in above expectations, as user-base growth continues to accelerate. EPS fell slightly short of expectations, while revenue came in ahead.
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Candidates who have completed their teacher training and looking for the teacher job in Odisha must prepare for the Odisha TET Exam. Odisha Government Education Board is shortlisting the eligible teachers by conducting TET Exam. Candidates who are scoring high will be hired for the teachers post across the schools in Odisha. So aspirants who are eagerly waiting for the Odisha TET Exam prepare hardly to score more than others and got placed. This page will be helpful during the exam preparation for the Odisha Teachers Eligibility Exam.
The Board of Secondary Education, Odisha has updated the OTET Syllabus 2020. Therefore, candidates who have applied for the OTET exam are now searching for the Odisha Teacher Syllabus. Here, you can easily find the Odisha TET Syllabus 2020. Also, you can find the OTET Exam Pattern & Syllabus 2020 on our page. We have provided the updated Teacher Eligibility Test Exam Syllabus & Test Pattern 2020 for the OTET Exam conducted on upcoming days. Refer to those and start your preparation. You can also know more about the Odisha Teacher Eligibility Test Syllabus 2020 at www.bseodisha.ac.in.
The Selection of the candidate for Teacher Posts in Odisha is based on the Written Exam of 2 papers (Paper 1 & Paper 2) followed by an interview.
Odisha TET Exam Pattern 2020 | OTET Exam Details
OTET Paper I Exam Paper Pattern 2020
Subject Name
No of Questions
Total Marks
Child Development & Pedagogy
30
30
Language-I (Odia/ Urdu/ Hindi/ Telugu/ Bengali)
30
30
Language-II (English)
30
30
Mathematics
30
30
Environment Studies
30
30
Total
150
150
OTET Paper 2 Exam Paper Pattern 2020
Subject Name
No of Questions
Total Marks
Child Development & Pedagogy
30
30
Language-I (Odia/ Urdu/ Hindi/ Telugu/ Bengali)
30
30
Language-II (English)
30
30
Optional Paper (A or B)
A – Mathematics & Science
Maths
30
60
Science
30
B – Social Studies
History
30
60
Political Science
30
Total
150
150
The Board of Secondary Education is conducting a Paper I and Paper II test for Teacher Post. However, each individual candidate is eligible for only one Paper at a time. If candidates are submitting OTET Application Form for both the Papers then their Application Form will be rejected.
It is suggested to all applicants that before appearing for the exam, go through the OTET Syllabus Pdf. If you check the OTET Odisha Exam Syllabus, you will be able to prepare well for the OTET exam. Read the detailed syllabus for the exam provided here.
Odisha TET Paper I Syllabus
Child Development and Pedagogy
Understanding Child Development during Childhood (focus on children at the primary level).
Understanding the Learning Process and Learners.
The concept of Inclusive Education and Understanding Children with special needs.
Approaches to teaching and learning.
Assessment.
Mathematics
Mathematics Education in Schools.
Aims and objectives of teaching Mathematics.
Methods and Approaches to Teaching-Learning Mathematics.
Jharkhand TET Syllabus along with the Test Pattern is here. Download JAC Teacher Eligibility Test Selection Process, JTET Exam Dates. You may also download the Jharkhand Teacher Eligibility Test Exam Syllabus & Previous Paper at the official website jac.nic.in. Jharkhand TET 2020 Exam is going to conduct on upcoming days at various test centers. For a candidate to be eligible as a teacher in the primary as well as secondary schools then, he/she should pass the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) which will be conducted by the Jharkhand Government.
Jharkhand TET Syllabus 2020
The selection of the candidates who have applied for the Jharkhand Teacher Eligibility recruitment will be based on their performance in the written Test called TET(Teacher Eligibility Test). Competition is very high for these Teacher jobs. So, the candidates who are searching for JAC TET Syllabus and Exam Pattern can reach the right place to download it. The Jharkhand TET syllabus & Test pattern helps the candidates to know the level of the Exam and the pattern of the written test. The Jharkhand TET Previous Papers help the candidates for time management. Time management plays a key role in the Examination. So read this page completely and know the complete information about the written test.
Job hunters of Jharkhand state who have been seeking for the Jharkhand Govt Jobs can use this golden opportunity and apply before the last date. A person who wants to be a teacher for both levels (classes I to V and classes VI to VIII) will have to appear in both the papers (Paper I and Paper II). And the candidate who wants to be a teacher for a particular level needs to attend the particular Level of JAC TET Exam.For complete details of Jharkhand Teacher Eligibility, Test recruitment need to go through the official website and know the JAC TET Eligibility Details, Application fee, Exam Fee, etc.
Jharkhand Teacher Exam Syllabus – Overview
Description
Details
Board Name
Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC)
Post Name
Teacher
Vacancies
Various
Category
Syllabus
JTET Exam Date 2020
Updated Soon
JTET Official website
jac.jharkhand.gov.in/jac
JAC TET Exam Pattern 2020
The Exam pattern of Jharkhand TET is tabulated here. The Jharkhand Teacher Eligibility Test exam pattern may help the applied candidates to know the various details like Exam type. No of questions, Total marks, etc. The JAC TET is an objective-based written test consisting of multiple-choice questions. The candidates who are eligible for Level 1 such as from class I to V must attend the primary teacher exam. Similarly, the applied candidates need to attend the level exam to teach the classes from classes 6 to 8.
JAC TET Level 1 Exam Pattern
The candidates who are eligible for the primary section you need to face the written test as follows.
Subjects
No. of Questions
Total Marks
Child Development and Pedagogy
30
30
Language I(Hindi/English )
Urdu/English for Urdu Teacher)
30
30
Language II ( Regional Language)
30
30
Mathematics
30
30
Environmental Studies
30
30
Total
150
150
It is an Objective Based written test.
Each Question carries ONE Mark.
There shall no negative marking for the wrong answer question.
Level Test will be conducted for a total of 150 marks with 150 Multiple choice questions.
Jharkhand TET Level 2 (Mains) Exam Pattern
level 2 test will be conducted for the candidates who are suited for higher-level school.
The Exam will be conducted for 210 marks with 200 Multiple choice questions.
Subjects
No. of Questions
Marks
Child Development and Pedagogy (compulsory)
30
30
Language I (compulsory) (Hindi/English
Urdu/English)
30
30
Language II (compulsory) Regional Language
30
30
For Mathematics and Science teacher
60
60
For Social Science teacher
60
60
Total
210
210
Download Jharkhand Teacher Eligibility Test Exam Syllabus
The complete details of the Jharkhand Teacher Eligibility Test Exam syllabus for Level 1 as well as level 2 is given below. Note down the various sub-topics under each category to start the test preparation.
JAC TET Level 1 Exam Syllabus
Child Development and Pedagogy
Understanding diverse learners.
Personality.
Adjustment.
Action Research.
Theories of learning and its implication.
How Children learn and think.
Motivation and Implications for Learning.
Individual Differences.
Teaching-learning process.
Intelligence.
Child Development.
Learning Difficulties.
Meaning and Concept of learning and its processes.
The Role of Heredity and environment.
Meaning and purposes of Assessment.
Factors Affecting Learning.
Right to Education Act 2009.
Language – I
Teaching Learning Materials.
Principles of Teaching English.
Framing Questions Including Wh-questions.
Unseen Prose Passage.
Comprehensive & Continuous Evaluation.
Development of Language Skills, Teaching Learning Materials.
Unseen Prose Passage.
Language – II
Basic knowledge of English Sounds and their Phonetic Transcription.
Principles of Teaching English, Communicative Approach to English Language Teaching, Challenges of Teaching English.
Modal Auxiliaries, Phrasal Verbs and Idioms, Literary Terms.
Mizoram TET Syllabus – Hi Folks!! Have you applied for the Mizoram TET Exam 2020? Then you must plan to start your preparation for the Eligibility Test. So to kick start your preparation you have to know about the syllabus, exam pattern, important topics, previously asked questions. Getting a basic knowledge about the exam design will be more helpful to prepare well. So to help the aspirants who are getting ready for the Mizoram Teacher Eligibility Test, we have updated the exam pattern and syllabus details. Reach down and make use of the given details to prepare well and score superiorly in the written test.
Mizoram TET Paper – I Pattern (Class I to Class V)
Subject Name
No.of. Question
Marks
Child Development & Pedagogy
30
30
Language I
30
30
Language II (English)
30
30
Mathematics
30
30
Environmental Studies
30
30
Total
150
150
Mizoram TET Pattern – Paper – II (Class VI to Class VIII)
Subject Name
No.of. Question
Marks
Child Development & Pedagogy
30
30
Language I
30
30
Language II
30
30
Mathematics & Science
30
30
Social Studies
30
30
Total
150
150
Mizoram TET Exam Syllabus
Here we have listed the important topics required for the Mizoram TET Exam Preparation. So go through the given details and plan your preparation according to that. Ensure that you have covered enough to score well.
Child Development & Pedagogy
Approaches to teaching and learning
Understanding the Learning Process and Learners
Understanding Child Development during Childhood (focus on children at the primary level)
Concept of Inclusive Education and Understanding Children with special needs
Assessment
Mizoram TET Syllabus – Language-I
Unseen Prose Passage
Principles of Teaching English
Teaching Learning Materials
Developments of Language Skills
Teaching Learning Materials
Comprehensive 7 continuous Evaluation
Framing Questions Including
Language II
The Language items
Comprehension
Language Learning
Skills in learning English
Learning English at the Elementary Level
Assessment of English
Mathematics
Shapes and Spatial Relationship
Assessment in Mathematics
Number System and Operation in Numbers
Mathematics Education in Schools
Measurement
Data Handling and Patterns
Methods and Approaches to Teaching-Learning Mathematics
Hindustan Shipyard Previous Papers can be downloaded here for free by aspirants. All candidates interested in the Hindustan Shipyard Previous Year Papers can get it here in the pdf format. You can download the sample papers and exam pattern here. Along with the HSL Previous papers, also find the link to the Hindistan Shipyard Syllabus. This will make your preparation easier. Understand the syllabus and practice the HSL Model Papers. You can get all the details about the Hindustan Shipyard Sample Papers before you start to prepare for the exam.
Hindustan Shipyard Previous Papers with Answers Pdf
Candidates can download the Hindustan Shipyard Old Question Papers in pdf format here. Get the entire details of the HSL Sample papers and download quickly. You only have to click on the previous paper links given below. The Hindustan Shipyard Limited Exam Pattern has also been made available below. Go through the exam pattern, syllabus and the previous years old question papers to get a complete idea about the Hindustan Shipyard exam and then start preparing.
Hindustan Shipyard Model Papers Pdf
Interested candidates who have applied for the Hindustan Shipyard exam can find all the model question papers provided here. Check them and download them for free for Hindustan Shipyard exam 2020. This will help you to prepare well for the exam and score good marks. We have provided a list of previous year question papers for you to start practising. It will also help you to understand the structure of the exam, all the important topics, types of questions asked and other details that are important from the Hindustan Shipyard exam point of view. For more details, read the sections in this article. You can also visit the official portal of the Hindustan Shipyard Limited for more details.
Hindustan Shipyard Practice Papers – Details
Description
Details
Organization Name
Hindustan Shipyard Limited
Posts Name
Designer, Junior Supervisor, Office Assistant, Junior Fire Inspector, Driver
Category
Previous Papers
Job Location
Vishakapatnam
Official website
hslvizag.in
Selection Process:
Written Exam [Designer Gr-IV (SR4) (Mechanical), Designer Gr-IV (SR4) (Electrical), Jr. Supervisor Gr-III (SR4) (Mechanical), Jr. Supervisor Gr-III (SR4) (Electrical), Jr. Supervisor Gr-III (SR4) (Civil), Office Assistant (Secretarial) Gr-V (SR3)]
Trade Test, Written Test [Driver Gr. V (SR2) and Junior Fire Inspector Gr-IV (SR3)]
Hindustan Shipyard Exam Pattern 2020
The entire details of the Hindustan Shipyard exam 2020 is given under this topic. It includes all the details that the candidates need to know.
Hindustan Shipyard Exam Pattern
The Hindustan Shipyard exam pattern is given in detail below. The officials will conduct the Hindustan Shipyard Junior Supervisor Exam. This exam will be conducted for 50 questions for 50 marks. The total duration will be for 60 minutes (1 Hour). The subjects that the candidates will have to prepare for are General Awareness, Quantitative Aptitude, reasoning, and General English. Check the details below for more detailed information. The direct links for Hindustan Shipyard sample papers are given for you to download for free and prepare well. Practice well for these exams to score well in the exam. Get the Hindustan Shipyard Syllabus and Exam Pattern Details here.
Hindustan Shipyard Exam Pattern 2020
Subject Name
Questions
Marks
General Awareness
20
20
Quantitative Aptitude
10
10
Reasoning
10
10
General English
19
10
Total
50 Questions
50 Marks
Time Duration – 60 Minutes (1 Hour)
Download Hindustan Shipyard Previous Year Question Papers Pdf
Here we have provided the Hindustan Shipyard Previous Papers for candidates who want to prepare for the exam. By preparing well you can secure very good marks in the exam. You can find the direct link here to download the Hindustan Shipyard model papers. These papers are as per the exam pattern making it easier for candidates to prepare. Download the part wise old question papers of Hindustan Shipyard exam below.
Subject Name
Previous Papers
Hindustan Shipyard Junior Supervisor General Awareness Sample Papers
Candidates, please remember that the papers that are given above for Hindustan Shipyard are Previous Papers/ sample papers only. They are only for reference use. All interested candidates can download the subject wise exam papers for free. Prepare well for the exams by practising these papers and referring to the Hindustan Shipyard Syllabus also. This will help you score better marks in the exam.
MAHADISCOM Previous Papers Pdf for Deputy Executive Engineer posts. All the candidates who are looking for MAHADISCOM exam question paper pdf can download for free here. You can also find the MSEB exam pattern and syllabus here. Interested can also visit the official Mahavitaran for more details @mahadiscom.in.
MAHADISCOM Engineer Exam Question Papers Pdf
MSEB exam question paper pdf is given on our page for free to download. As the previous year question papers are helpful for the candidates in the preparation we provide them for free on our page. Aspirants who have applied for the MSEDCL Recruitment 2020 can find the sample papers for MSEB exam below. Also, find the exam pattern and syllabus details here along with the exam material.
MAHADISCOM which is also known as MSEDCL (Maharastra State Electricity Distribution Co. Ltd.) releases notification for Apprentice vacancies. However, the job seeker who is waiting for the MSEB vacancies might apply for the jobs. Hence, to help those candidates we are providing sample material for various MSEB exams in the sections below. Find the respective links and download the material and start your preparation.
MAHADISCOM Exam Previous Question Paper Pdf – MSEB/MSEDCL
Description
Details
Department Name
Maharastra State Electricity Distribution Co. Ltd. (MSEDCL)
The exam date for MAHADISCOM Engineer recruitment written test is given by MSEDCL. Generally, MSEB announces the exam dates in its official website a few days after the release of official notification. Hence, candidates who applied for the vacancies can check the exam pattern details in the section below. Find the written test details in our MAHADISCOM exam syllabus page.
MAHADISCOM MSEB Exam Question Paper Pattern Details 2020
MSEDCL recruitment board selects the candidates based on their performance in the written test. Applicants who applied for MSEB recruitment need to attend the written exam. Candidates will be tested on general aptitude and professional knowledge. MSEB follows the same exam pattern for all the engineer vacancies. Go through the exam pattern details below and start your preparation.
MSEB Deputy Executive Engineer Paper Pattern 2020
The entire MSEB exam pattern is given below. There will be 130 questions. The exam will be conducted for 150 marks. The total duration of the exam will be 120 minutes (2 Hours). The subjects that the candidates will have to prepare for are Reasoning, Quantitative Aptitude, General Marathi, and Concerned Subject related questions.
Subjects
No of Questions
Marks
Reasoning
40
20
Quantitative Aptitude
20
10
General Marathi
20
10
Concerned Subject
50
110
Total
130 Questions
150 Marks
Candidates can find the topic wise syllabus details in out MAHADISCOM exam syllabus page. Also, download the syllabus pdf and make use of the previous year question paper given in the section below.
MSEB Exam Sample Question Paper with Answers Pdf
In this section find the direct download link for MSEB exam question paper pdf. Candidates just need to click on the download link given in the table below. We recommend practising all the sample question paper pdf for better understanding and scoring marks. Find the links for the MAHADISCOM question paper for Deputy Executive Engineer written test below.
Candidates remember that the exam papers given are the previous years exam papers. The questions may differ. These MSEB previous papers are given for reference only. Prepare well for the exam.
Mahadiscom Previous Papers Pdf for Apprentice, AE, JE, Executive Engineer, Additional, Deputy Executive Engineer and other here. Candidates who are searching for MSEB exam question paper pdf can download for free on our page. Along with the MSEB exam books, pdf find the written test question paper pattern and exam date details below. Interested can also visit the official Mahavitaran for more details @mahadiscom.in.
MSEB Exam Question Papers Pdf
MSEB exam question paper pdf given on our page are free to download. As the previous year question papers are helpful for the candidates in the preparation we provide them for free on our page. Job seekers who applied for the MSEDCL Recruitment 2020 can find the sample papers for MSEB exam below. Also, find the exam pattern and syllabus details along with the material.
Mahadiscom which is also known as MSEDCL (Maharastra State Electricity Distribution Co. Ltd.) releases notification for Apprentice vacancies. MSEB used to release engineering vacancies like AE, JE, EE, Dy Executive Engineer & other. However, the job seeker who is waiting for the MSEB vacancies might apply for the jobs. Hence, to help those candidates we providing sample material for various MSEB exams in the sections below. Find the respective links and download the material and start your preparation.
Mahadiscom Exam Previous Year Question Paper Pdf – MSEB/MSEDCL
Description
Details
Department Name
Maharastra State Electricity Distribution Co. Ltd. (MSEDCL)
Post Name
Apprentice, Assistant Engineer, Jr Engineer, Dy Executive Engineer & Other
The exam date for Mahadiscome Apprentice recruitment written test is given by MSEDCL. Generally, MSEB announces the exam dates in its official website a few days after the release of official notification. Hence, candidates who applied for the vacancies can check the exam pattern details in the section below. Find the written test subject details in our Mahadiscom exam syllabus page.
Mahadiscom Exam Question Paper Pattern Details 2020
MSEDCL recruitment board selects the candidates based on their performance in the written test. Applicants who applied for MSEB recruitment need to attend the written exam. Candidates will be tested on general aptitude and professional knowledge.
MSEB follows the same exam pattern for all the engineer vacancies. Will update the details if the board make any updates regarding the upcoming recruitments. However, go through the exam pattern details below and start your preparation.
MSEB Deputy Executive Engineer Paper Pattern 2020
Subjects
No of Questions
Marks
Professional Knowledge
70
110
Reasoning
40
20
Quantitative Aptitude
20
10
Marathi Language
20
10
Total
130
150
Questions Type – Objective Type Multiple Choice Questions.
Time Duration: 2 Hrs.
Maximum Marks, No of Question and all other details are updated later.
However, refer the MSEB Exam Syllabus topic wise below.
MahaVitaran Apprentices Exam Pattern Pdf
Exam Type
Subject Name
Written Exam
General Knowledge
English
Aptitude
Reasoning
KPWD JE, AE Exam Question Paper Pattern 2020
S.No
Subject
Questions
Marks
1
Professional Knowledge
70
110
2
Reasoning
40
20
3
Quantitative Aptitude
20
10
4
Marathi Language
20
10
Total
130
150
Candidates can find the topic wise syllabus details in out Mahadiscom exam syllabus page. Also, download the syllabus pdf and make use of the previous year question paper given in the section below.
MSEB Exam Sample Question Paper with Answers Pdf
In this section find the direct download link for MSEB exam question paper pdf. Candidates just need to click on the download link given in the table below. We recommend practicing all the sample question paper pdf for better understanding and scoring marks. Find the links for the Mahadiscom question paper for Apprentices written test below.
Hindustan Shipyard Syllabus 2020 is given below for free download. Check the Hindustan Shipyard Syllabus available on our website for download. Find the details like Educational Qualification, Selection process, etc. at the official website @ hslvizag.in. Here is good news related to the Hindustan Shipyard Exam Syllabus and exam pattern for all the aspirants. We have gathered some latest updates of the Hindustan Shipyard Exam recruitment and Exam Pattern for the candidates who have applied for the posts and are searching for the Hindustan Shipyard Previous Papers. The Selection of candidates will be made based on their performance in the Written exam conducted by the Hindustan Shipyard Limited Officials. Aspirants can also get the Hindustan Shipyard’s Previous Papers direct link on this page. You can also find the Hindustan Shipyard Admit card on our website.
Hindustan Shipyard Syllabus 2020
Candidates who are going to attend this Hindustan Shipyard exam are advised to check and download the Official recruitment notification at the official website to verify the details like educational qualification, Age limit, and Selection Process, etc. The official HSL direct link will be updated on this page for the guidance of candidates. Click on the link we have provided and download the Official recruitment Notification.
Hindustan Shipyard Exam Syllabus Details
Name of the Organization
Hindustan Shipyard Limited
Name of the Post
Designer, Junior Supervisor, Office Assistant, Junior Fire Inspector, Driver
The exam Pattern may help the candidate at the time of preparation. You can also check the Hindustan Shipyard Notification for more details. The application details have been given. The subjects included will be General Awareness, Quantitative Aptitude, reasoning and General English. The HSL exam will have 50 questions for 50 marks. The total duration of the exam will be 60 minutes (1 hour). The Hindustan Shipyard Syllabus and Exam Pattern have been provided on this page. Meanwhile, the applied candidates need to follow the Test Pattern and Syllabus we update on this page.
Subject Name
Number of Questions
Total Marks
Total Time Duration
General Awareness
20
20
60 Minutes (1 Hour)
Quantitative Aptitude
10
10
Reasoning
10
10
General English
10
10
Total
50 Questions
50 Marks
Download Hindustan Shipyard Syllabus 2020
The Hindustan Shipyard Syllabus is the major part of the test preparation. Candidates can guess the Topics covered in the written exam with the help of Syllabus. You can also download the Hindustan Shipyard Syllabus PDF from the link below.
Gujarat TET Syllabus2020 and Exam Pattern for Teacher Eligibility Test is available here. Hence, candidates who are going to attend the exam can refer to the GTET Syllabus. We have also updated the direct link to download Gujarat Teacher Eligibility Test Syllabus. So, interested applicants can check the GTET Exam Syllabus here or visit www.ojas.guj.nic.in.
Gujarat Teacher Eligibility Test Syllabus
Students who are searching for GTET Syllabus and Exam Pattern. The Gujarat TET syllabus helps the candidates to have the knowledge about the level of the Exam. Once you know the level of the Exam, you can plan the preparation strategy. Nowadays the perfect preparation plan is very important to get a good score in the written test. But to have a smart preparation we need to know the topics under Gujarat Teacher Eligibility Test. For that, we have attached the GTET Syllabus and Gujarat Teacher Eligibility Test pattern along with the previous papers. The Gujarat TET Previous Papers helps the candidates for time management. Time management plays a key role in the Examination.
The aspirants who are appearing for the exam can also check the examination scheme and know the details such as the duration of the exam, marks allotted for each section and the total number of questions. So, we suggest the individuals go through the Pattern of the Examination and updated in the below table. So that the individuals can able to prepare according to the weightage of the marks.
Recently, Gujarat State Education Board released a notification in the Employment News for recruiting the talented candidates for various Teacher posts. A huge number of candidates have applied for the exam. Almost all the contenders are willing to attend the exam. So, the applicants are searching for the Gujarat TET Syllabus 2020 on this page.
Selection Procedure for GTET Recruitment 2020
The candidates who applied for the Gujarat TET Notification are selected based on their performance in the following rounds. Applicants who got the minimum cut off marks in the written test are allowed to attend the interview.
Written Examination
Interview
Exam Pattern for Gujarat TET
The Exam pattern for the TET Exam is clearly mentioned here. So, the applicants who have any doubts regarding the Exam pattern can check the Official Notification also. The Gujarat TET will be conducted in 2 parts. Paper-I will be conducted for 150 marks. There will be 150 questions for the same. The subjects that the candidates will have to prepare for the paper I are Child Development & Pedagogy, Language I, Language II, Mathematics and Environmental Studies. Paper-II will be conducted for 150 marks. There will be 150 questions for the same. The subjects that the candidates will have to prepare for the paper I are Child Development & Pedagogy, Language I, Language II, Mathematics & Science for Mathematics and Science Teachers, Social & Science for Social Studies and Science Teachers or any other teacher.
GTET Paper I:
Subject Name
Questions
Marks
Child Development & Pedagogy
30
30
Language I
30
30
Language II
30
30
Mathematics
30
30
Environmental Studies
30
30
Total
150 Questions
150 Marks
GTET Paper 2:
Subject Name
Questions
Marks
Child Development & Pedagogy
30
30
Language I
30
30
Language II
30
30
Mathematics & Science for Mathematics and Science Teachers Social & Science for Social Studies and Science Teachers Any other Teacher either 1 or 2
30
30
Total
150 Questions
150 Marks
Gujarat TET Syllabus – Subject Wise
The Gujarat TET Syllabus covered topics are as follows. Applicants can use this syllabus for the better result.
NRHM MP Recruitment 2020: Online Application for 39 District Data Manager Jobs in Madhya Pradesh @ www.NRHMmp.gov.in!! The National Health Mission Madhya Pradesh has released the NRHM Notification recently. This was done to announce the 39 vacancies in the organization. These vacancies are for the post of District Data Manager. The officials are inviting online applications from eligible and qualified candidates to fill up this NRHM MP Vacancy. Aspirants can get all the details and start to apply online from 22nd April 2020. The last date to apply for NRHM MP Recruitment is 27th April 2020. Make use of this opportunity now.
National Health Mission Madhya Pradesh Recruitment 2020-21
Interested candidates can get all the details regarding the NHM MP Jobs below. Here you will be able to get clear details about the vacancy, age limit, application process, salary, selection process, application process, etc. You can also refer to the NRHM MP Notification for more details. Once you go through all the details, you will be able to confirm your eligibility for the posts. Eligible candidates can proceed to apply online. The NHM MP Apply Online link has been provided below. You can click on the link and follow the instruction given to apply. To know more about the National Rural Health Mission Madhya Pradesh, click on the official website link below or visit the website @ www.nhmmp.gov.in.
166 – Assistant E-Governance Manager (AeGM), District E-Governance Manager (DeGM), Lead Trainer and Trainer posts
About the National Health Mission (NHM)
National Health Mission (NHM) was propelled by Hon'ble Prime Minister on 12 April 2005 under which open, moderate and quality wellbeing offices are given to the country populace, particularly the more fragile segments, dated 1 May 2013. The Union Cabinet has given its choice to the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) just as the National Health Mission to the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM). Mission (NHM) has affirmed the dispatch as a sub-mission. The mission's accentuation is on neatness, instruction, sustenance as a completely useful, network possession, with between sectoral combination at all levels to guarantee concurrent activity on a wide scope of wellbeing determinants. The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), presently under National Health Mission is an activity attempted by the administration of India to address the wellbeing needs of under-served country regions.
The Union Cabinet headed by Dr Manmohan Singh vide its choice dated 1 May 2013, has affirmed the dispatch of National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) as a Sub-mission of a larger National Health Mission (NHM), with National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) being the other Sub-mission of National Health Mission. Under the NRHM, the Empowered Action Group (EAG) States just as the North Eastern States, Jammu, and Kashmir, and Himachal Pradesh have been given exceptional core interest. The push of the mission is on building up a completely useful, network claimed, decentralized wellbeing conveyance framework with between sectoral intermingling at all levels, to guarantee concurrent activity on a wide scope of determinants of wellbeing, for example, water, sanitation, instruction, nourishment, social and sexual orientation uniformity.
Group messaging (AKA group texting) is a pretty awesome feature o iPhones and iPads running iOS 10 and iOS 11. Group messaging is an excellent feature that allows cell phone users to stay connected with multiple friends, colleagues, and acquaintances.
As your message evolves you may want to include more people. It’s important to mention that there is a difference between Group iMessage and Group Messages. In the Apple lingo: a Group iMessage is when everyone in the group is using an iPhone. This makes it possible to add/delete members from your text group.
Group messages are actually sent using the SMS functions of the cellular network because active users are using a mixture of iPhones and Android devices. If this is your predicament; you’ll have to create a new text thread with or without the contacts.
How to Begin a Group Message on iOS 10 or iOS 11
There are quite a few other apps on the market that support group texting but for this particular article, we’ll be focusing on the ubiquitous iMessages app that most iPhone and iPad users use every day.
One of the great things about Apple products is the ability to use the iMessage application on various devices. The options listed below apply to all Apple products such as; Mac, MacBook, iPhone, and iPad.
So, if you’re ready to invite people to your group chat, please follow these instructions:
From your iPhone, locate the Messages app and tap to open it
Back out of any conversation you may already be in by tapping the arrow key at the top-left. From the “Messages” screen tap on the ‘New Message’ icon located in the top-right corner (looks like a note pad with a pen).
You can begin typing in the individual’s names you want to invite in the To: area. If the invitees are people already located in your address book, it should autocomplete as you type in their name or number. You can also tap the + icon in order to browse through your list of contacts. For those not in your address book, inside the To: field, type the phone number of the recipient. If you’re intending on adding individuals who are using an iPad, you can type in their Apple ID instead.
Repeat the above steps until all intended recipients have been added into the To: field.
Type out the message you want to send out. You’ll only need to type it in once.
Finally, hit the Send button.
Now each member you added will receive that message. This allows all members of the text group to reply and see one another’s replies as well. Of course, recipients can opt-out of the group text at any time or you can remove them from the group yourself (see the TechJunkie article on removing someone from a group message).
If anyone in the group text isn’t an iPhone user, then they aren’t using the iMessage app. You’ll be able to tell who is and is not using the iPhone by the color of the Send button. If the Send is blue, they are an iPhone user. If it’s green, then the person is not an iPhone (or iOS in general) user and you’re instead receiving standard texts.
Keep in mind that not all emojis or animations will work for all individuals within the group. This is especially true for those with different versions of iOS or alternate operating systems in general. However, the text messages themselves should be fine.
Adding/Removing Group Chat Members
If you’re already actively engaged in a conversation with one or more people, or simply forgot to add someone originally, I can walk you through how to add them. What you do is:
From your iPhone, locate the Messages app and tap to open it.
Select the conversation you want to add an individual to and tap to open it.
Tap on the Details icon (looks like I in a circle), which is located in the top right corner of the screen.
Tap on Add Contact.
Within the Add: field, type out the name of the person you’re adding (if they’re already located in your address book) or type of their full phone number. Again, for those using iPad, you can type in their Apple ID if it makes things easier.
To finish it up, go ahead and tap Done.
If you’d prefer to remove a contact from the conversation follow the same steps listed above to access the details of the group. Once you’ve reached the contacts list you can swipe the contact name left which will bring up a red remove option. Tap on the option to Remove, and confirm the task when it pops up. MacBook and Mac users will see an option to “delete” rather than using the swipe method.
Leave The Group Message Conversation
Too much going on in a conversation that you no longer care to listen to? It’s actually quite simple to leave a group conversation so long as that group consists of three or more people. If a particular conversation has run its course, you can:
Open up the Messages app and head to the conversation in which you wish to liberate yourself.
Tap the Details icon(that i within a circle, located in the top right corner of the screen.)
Quickly mash on the option to Leave this Conversation listed in bright red and located at the bottom of the page.
Tap the confirmation option when it appears and you’ll no longer be notified of the activity.
Group messaging is an outstanding feature but some people do not enjoy constant updates and alerts on their phone. It’s a great feature, it just has to be used carefully to avoid overwhelming yourself and others with messages to groups.
Troubleshooting for Group iMessages
Some users have reported that they’re unable to add more than a certain number of contacts to their text messages on an iPhone. This may surprise you but certain carriers have created these limitations to protect users from spam messages.
If you need to network with large groups of people it’s best to choose another messaging application. Google Hangouts, Slack, and more are available in the App Store. Many of these third-party applications are more versatile and user-friendly for communicating across various platforms and operating systems.
If you’re having issues adding multiple members it may be due to carrier limitations. It may also be attributed to incorrect contacts.
If you’ve ever synced your contacts with your email you may have some with email addresses rather than phone numbers. This may work with iCloud accounts but not other emails. Check that the contact you’re trying to add is the right one.
Another issue you may have adding a contact to a group iMessage is trying to add someone with Screen Time limits. With the addition of Apple’s Screen Time comes users’ ability to shut down functions on their Apple devices including iMessage. If you’re having trouble adding a contact it’s a good idea to ask them if they have these limitations set.
Since its introduction, Instagram Live has become one of the most popular features on this social media platform. The live feed begins to broadcast as soon as it’s initiated. You can enjoy live feeds of your friends and favorite influencers. What’s even better is that Instagram even sends you a notification once some of your friends go live.
What’s more, if you are an influencer or a minor Instagram celebrity, the live feature is a great springboard for personal promotion. This is why it would be quite handy if Instagram showed you who exactly is watching or interacting with your live broadcasts.
Other social media platforms like Periscope and Facebook Live actually display how many users are watching, so you might be wondering if Instagram offers the same functionality. This article will answer answers the question: Does Instagram Live show you who is watching your Instagram Live Video feed?
Can You See Who’s Watching Your Instagram Live Video?
The simple answer to this question is yes, you can. As soon as you start broadcasting a live video on Instagram, people will start joining. This, of course, means that they are actually watching your broadcast and you will be able to see each individual that joins and starts watching your Instagram Live Video.
There is a small counter with an “eye” icon that gives you the latest number of people who are watching your live feed. If you tap on the “eye” icon, you can see all the usernames that have joined your live broadcast.
Things get even better if some of your followers decide to interact with your Instagram Live video. Interacting means that they can send comments, emoticons, or any other reaction to your live broadcast. These reactions will be displayed at the bottom of your screen, so you can easily react to your audience during the broadcast as some Instagrammers do. This personalization makes live videos more engaging than other forms of content.
However, the comments, views, and your live Instagram broadcast don’t last forever. Your Instagram Live video will be available for 24 hours and it will then disappear from the feed together with the view count and comments.
There is an option to record the live video to your camera roll if you wish to keep it for later use. To access the option, you have to go to the Instagram Live Controls menu.
Instagram Live Controls
Instagram gives you a lot of options when it comes to controlling your Instagram Live and Instagram Story. You can actually make a precise selection of people you wish to see your story and make other necessary adjustments before you go live.
The Live Story controls are surprisingly simple to use. You just have to do the following:
Tap on the Instagram app to launch it and swipe right to access the camera.
Once you are inside the camera, select the Live option by tapping on it.
Tap on the Settings icon in the top-left corner of the Live window to access the Story Controls and make the desired tweaks.
These controls give you a few options to customize your live stream. If you’d like to keep some viewers from tuning in you can select the option “Hide Story From.” This will work for your Instagram stories and your live show. Once you’ve tapped on the option; you will see a list of people who you can select. Tap those you’d like to avoid and click back to the camera.
How to Get More People to Watch Your Instagram Live Broadcast
It is nice that Instagram actually tells you who is watching and joining your Instagram Live Stories. However, it can be a drag to realize that there are only five or ten people in the view count. Luckily, there are some tips and tricks you can use to ensure a five-digit view counts.
Take a look at the following tips that can boost your Live Story views:
Follow an Instagram Live Schedule
A consistent schedule is something your Instagram friends and followers just love. Scheduling can be a universal tip that also applies to your other posts on Instagram or any other social media. If you set a determined schedule, soon there will be people lining up to see your next story.
Here’s an extra tip: be patient. Five-figure view counts won’t happen overnight, but it pays to be persistent.
Prepare for Your Instagram Live Broadcast
Random ramblings on Instagram Live during a night on the town might be interesting for your friends, but they usually don’t get you more views. If you are seeking some Instagram stardust or just want to share quality content, you have to be prepared.
Being prepared doesn’t mean you need to do extensive rehearsals. You should get the right camera angle, some decent light, and share an actual story rather than just go live for the sake of it. Things might a bit more complicated if you’re aiming for Instagram stardom. In that case, everything must look professional and the broadcast must run smoothly, without any interruptions or dead air during the broadcast.
Hype Your Next Live Broadcast
One of the best ways to ensure an enviable view count on Instagram Live is to create a teaser video or post before you go live. You can share this teaser on other social media as well and make sure to stick to the above-mentioned broadcasting schedule.
The teaser video or post should give your potential viewers a glimpse of the things they’ll see in the actual live broadcast. Also, don’t forget to include the exact time when you will go live.
Instagram Live is a great way to interact with your friends and followers, so you shouldn’t hesitate to use it. Remember, the more creative you are, the greater the number of people you’ll be able to see in your Live view count.
Partake in Other Live Broadcasts
Instagram has a unique culture of following. Those who are looking to increase their followers can begin following others with similar interests. You can comment, like, and share other users’ content to gain followers.
This is true with Instagram Live shows as well. If you’re looking to increase your own followers it’s a good idea to tune into and remain active in others’ live videos. Aside from promoting your upcoming feed, gain followers, and use hashtags to increase your won views.
Discord is a social platform for gamers so wanting to be invisible on Discord seems like a contradiction. However, if you’re preparing for a raid, taking care of support tasks for your guild, or concentrating on crafting or leveling, there may be times when you want a little peace and quiet without logging out of your chat server. That is when appearing as invisible comes in.
Why Set Status to ‘Invisible’
Sure it only takes a second to log out of Discord but then you could miss important messages, calls for help, or some interesting chat. If you’d like to stay logged in without notifying everyone you’re in DnD, you can use the ‘Invisible’ option instead.
If you’re familiar with Discord you may understand that the colored dots next to an Avatar indicate the users’ activity. Green for Online, Yellow for Idle, Red for Do not Disturb, and the Grey symbol means you’re not online. If you’re using the Invisible status for a little privacy, you will appear Offline.
A prominent feature in Discord, the Invisible setting will allow you to play your games or perform various tasks undisturbed while staying in the loop with conversations and updates.
Discord status
There are four online statuses for users of channels: Online, Idle, Do Not Disturb, and Invisible. When you’re status says ‘Online’ other users know you’re open to communications. You’re online, interacting, and playing a part. ‘Idle’ triggers when you are AFK (away from keyboard) for a given time which is set by your server admin.
DnD (Do Not Disturb) shows a red circle when users attempt to initiate a conversation with you. DnD is a manual setting which means you’re online but not ready to chat. Invisible is another status that hides you from the channel users’ view but leaves you logged in.
The first two statuses are server controlled although you can manually set ‘Idle’ if you wanted. ‘Do Not Disturb’ and ‘Invisible‘ are both user-activated functions.
To manually set yourself to invisible in Discord, just click your avatar located in the lower left-hand corner of the app and select ‘Invisible’ from the popup box. It will remain active until you log out of Discord or manually set your status to something else.
Once you’ve set yourself to ‘Invisible’ you can continue to play your games and perform necessary tasks undisturbed. Opposed to the other methods available; no one will know you’re status is set to invisible.
Invisible Status Per Server
Aside from the fact that going invisible is undetectable among friends and acquaintances, you do have the option to choose which servers you’d like to be invisible on.
For example; if you are planning a raid or some big gaming event with one group, you can set your status as online for the relevant status and invisible for the others.
This will allow you to communicate openly with those you’re playing with undisturbed by others. Some people have loyal groups of people they play with regularly. Setting your status as ‘Invisible’ serves to spare feelings and deter negative conversations.
Custom Status
Another cool feature for your online status in the Discord app is setting a custom status. This allows you to put whatever you’d like as your visible status message.
Assuming you’re doing something really neat; you can name this status whatever you’d like to let friends and connections know what you’re doing and why you aren’t communicating within chats.
The ‘Clear After’ option allows you to choose the length of time you’d like this message to display. From 4 hours to indefinitely, setting a custom status is yet another way to easily communicate your current activities.
Can you tell if someone is invisible in Discord?
If you’re a server admin or even another user, can you tell if you have invisible users or if a particular user is invisible? The answer to both questions is no. An invisible user is exactly that for everyone. Even the server admin cannot tell if there are invisible users on the server at any given time.
This does present a bit of a problem if you run a Discord server and want to know peak time and low time using numbers or when you are planning an event or raid. So far, most admins work around it and will shout out or DM. Messages, both verbal and Direct Messages will be delivered to invisible users.
Can you hide what game you are playing?
Discord has a setting called ‘Display currently running game as a status message’. It doesn’t pick up every game you play but can detect a lot of games whether they use Discord or not. Sometimes, it may be useful to turn this setting off. Here’ how:
Select the small cog Settings icon in the bottom left of your Discord screen.
Select Games from the left menu.
Toggle off ‘Display currently running game as a status message’.
This may be toggled off anyway as not all servers or devices are configured to use this or are able to use it. Either way, if you want a little extra privacy, that’s how to get it.
Managing Friend Sync
Finally, if you use Discord’s Friend Sync feature, you will be notified when friends use Steam, Skype, or Battle.net. If you don’t want this feature, you can turn it off. The feature is quite secure and uses decent security to protect your data but is a theoretical weakness in an otherwise secure system.
To turn off Friend Sync.
Log into Discord and select User Settings.
Select Connections.
Select Disconnect Sync to turn it off.
Select Display Username and toggle it to off.
There are no security implications for using sync but if you want to maximize privacy, it is one setting you might like to change.
Amazon markets itself as a customer-friendly retailer that puts its consumers first. However, things aren’t that simple. Although Amazon’s customer support is always at your disposal, Amazon may cause you problems with some returns.
For instance, returning multiple items at once has been met with a lot of resistance from Amazon. It can be a risky endeavor when it comes to refunds. So, you should learn how to package the items correctly to increase your chances of a proper refund. Here’s how to return multiple items at once on Amazon.
How to Return Items
Returning multiple items on Amazon is done pretty much like any other Amazon return. All you need to do is select every item that you want to return.
For starters, go to the Amazon orders page on your account. Every order that you’ve made will appear in a box. To start the process of returning the items, click Return items on this page. You’ll see a checkmark next to each order that you’ve made. Click the checkmark next to each order that you want to return.
Once you’re done, to the right of each product that you’ve selected, you’ll see a box that allows you to choose a reason for the return. Clicking this box will open a drop-down menu. You’ll have to explain why you’re returning the item in question, and you’ll see a text box once you’ve selected your reason for the return.
Now, select Continue. You’ll go to a new page, where Amazon will try and help you resolve your problem. As a rule of thumb, the only selected option will be the Refund option. If you’ve read everything carefully and made sure that the Refund option is selected, click Continue.
You’ll go to a new page. You’ll use this page to schedule a pickup by Amazon. You’ll see a drop-down menu, which allows you to select the date. By default, you’ll see your regular delivery address displayed. That means that you’re scheduling a pickup to that address. To change it, click Change address.
Check all the info that you’ve provided and select Submit to set the return process in motion. Of course, you’ll get a return receipt. Be sure to keep this receipt safe until you’re refunded.
That’s about it. Returning multiple items on Amazon is straightforward, and it works the same as returning a single one. But there are many stories from users who didn’t end up refunded for all their items when returning multiple ones. That’s why you need to make sure you did everything correctly.
Packaging
Once your return gets approved, you’ll get a return label. If you have a printer, make sure that you’ve printed this label or labels. If you don’t own a printer and want Amazon to send them to you via mail, you can request this, as well.
As a rule of thumb, Amazon frowns upon multiple item returns. Many users abuse Amazon’s lenient return policy and often end up ordering many items, only to keep one and return the others. Usually, it’s a much better idea to put the things that you’re returning in separate boxes. However, this will set you back more.
The best way to go here is to take a box that can store all the items that you’re returning. Tape or stick one of the return labels to the big box. Then, tape or rubber band the other labels to the remaining items. It’s always preferable to tape them, as rubber bands won’t secure them correctly. If an Amazon worker fails to find a label on an item, you may never get refunded.
If you package the items in the same box and label everything correctly, the combined weight of the items shouldn’t lead to any additional expenses or cause problems.
Should You Combine Multiple Orders in the Same Return?
As mentioned earlier, Amazon frowns upon excessive returns. While there is no official policy regarding how many returns are “excessive.” However, there have been cases where six returns over the year have led up to blocked Amazon accounts.
Still, if you label everything correctly, you shouldn’t experience any issues. It would be best if you bundled returns as you received them. In other words, if you’ve bought multiple items from the same retailer and in the same purchase, you can package these items together when returning. However, bundling items from different retailers may cause you some issues.
Various Refund Types
Some customers, however, do complain about not receiving an instant refund. The thing is, refund methods are as varied as Amazon payment methods. They don’t work the same way. One thing is sure, though, you get refunded after the return is received.
Now, for example, if you use a payment card, the refund should be instantaneous. If you’re using a payment card to get refunded to a gift card, the refund comes after the completion of the return request. On the other hand, some payment card refunds may take up to 7 business days.
A gift card balance refund process should be over within a business day. If you’re looking for a promotional credit refund, don’t keep your hopes up – Amazon doesn’t offer refunds in this instance.
Returning Multiple Items at Once
Amazon does allow you to return multiple items at once. Of course, there is a degree of risk involved here, as Amazon doesn’t look forward to this type of return. To make sure that you get refunded adequately and that everything runs smoothly, make sure that you’ve made proper requests and that you’ve packed and labeled everything correctly.
Have you ever made multiple Amazon returns at once? Did you experience any refund issues? Did it go smoothly for you? Feel free to tell your story in the comment section below.
Music makes everything better, and PowerPoint presentations – depending on the occasion and their purpose, of course – are no exception.
If you’ve used PowerPoint before, you probably already know that you can insert songs, sound effects, and other audio files in your presentations. But did you know that you can program that audio to play automatically instead of having to start it manually?
Depending on your preference, you can choose to start the audio immediately with the first slide or have it delayed until a specific slide appears.
In this article, we will explain how to do both these things.
How Do I Get Audio to Play Automatically in PowerPoint?
Playing audio automatically in PowerPoint is fairly easy to set up, and depending on your needs, you can customize it to better suit your presentation.
Below, we’ll take a look at how to set it up to play audio from the beginning, only for specific slides, and across multiple slides.
Playing Audio from the Beginning
If you want to play an audio file from the very beginning of your presentation, the process is very simple.
Here is what you need to do:
Go to the first slide of your presentation and click on the Sound icon in the Normal view.
Click on the Playback tab in the Audio Tools section.
Under Audio Options, open the dropdown menu next to Start and select Automatically. If you’re using a more recent version of PowerPoint (2016 and newer), you can also choose the option labeled In Click Sequence from the dropdown menu to achieve the same effect.
Once you’ve set this up, make sure to double-check that everything is as it should be. To preview your presentation (and test your audio), click on the Slide Show tab, and then choose “From Beginning”.
Playing Audio from a Specific Slide
If you want to have your audio play from a specific slide and/or with a predefined time delay, the process is a bit more complicated. Here is how to do it:
As in the previous section, go to the slide during which you want the audio to start playing and click on the Sound icon in the Normal view.
Click on the Animation tab and then on Add Animation.
From the media section, choose Play, the first option to the left.
Click on the Animation Pane next to the Add Animation button.
In the Animation Pane, reorganize the items so that the audio file is first on the list.
Click on the down arrow next to the audio file and select Effect Options… from the dropdown menu.
In the Effect tab, select From Beginning under the Start Playing option. While in that same tab, under the Stop Playing option, choose After Current Slide.
Now click on the Timing tab. Next to the word Start, you’ll see a dropdown menu. Click on it and select the option labeled With Previous.
If you don’t want the audio to start as soon as the slide loads, you can set a custom delay in the designated field. Simply add the number of seconds that you want to pass before the audio starts. If you don’t want to delay the audio, leave the box empty and move on to the next step.
Finally, click OK to confirm your changes.
Once again, click on the Slide Show tab and then choose “From Beginning” to preview your presentation and see if the audio will start playing from the slide you chose.
Playing Audio Across Multiple Slides
If you’re giving a long lecture and just want random, non-distracting music to play in the background, you can also make it part of your presentation and set it to play across multiple slides.
To do this, follow the next steps:
Go to the Insert tab, click on Audio, and then choose Audio on My PC. If you’re using Office 2010 or an older version, the option will be labeled Audio from File.
Browse your computer for the file you want to play. Once you’ve found it, either double-click on it or select it and then click on Insert.
Under Audio Tools, click on the Playback tab and select the option Play in Background. In older versions of PowerPoint, you should click on the dropdown box next to the Start option and select Play across slides from the list. In both versions, the file will start playing automatically as soon as you start the slide show.
If the audio you chose is too short to cover the duration of your whole presentation, you can do a test run of the presentation, time it, and insert more audio files on other slides so that there are no silent intervals.
You can also use free audio-editing tools like Audacity or Free Audio Editor to combine two or more audio files into one, thus ensuring that the audio keeps playing for as long as necessary.
Saving Audio Files
If you’re saving your presentation to a flash drive, make sure to keep the audio files and the presentation in the same folder. Otherwise, PowerPoint won’t be able to locate the files you inserted and your presentation will be silent as a result.
The only thing to do in such situations would be to edit the path of each audio file in your presentation, which is very time-consuming and therefore best avoided.
Final Thoughts
Microsoft PowerPoint is incredibly flexible and allows you to customize your presentation with a variety of useful tools and features.
By taking the steps outlined above, you can easily set up audio to play automatically in PowerPoint.
Some complain that they can’t find files on their desktop, even though they’re sure they’ve saved them there. We know that this can be irritating, but we have good news for you. Your files aren’t lost, and there’s a way to find them.
There are various reasons why this could happen, from not updating your Mac to clicking on something wrong. In this article, we’ll show you how to find your files and move them back to the desktop.
Search Your Files in Spotlight
The quickest way to find your missing files is to search them in Spotlight. You can use this method to find any file or document, no matter where it is on your Mac.
Enter the Spotlight by clicking on the small magnifying glass in the top right corner of your screen. Type the name of your file and then click on Search. If you’ve entered the correct name, your file will most likely appear as a search result.
If you want to know where that file has been stored, select it and then press and hold Command. Its location will appear under the name. You can then move it back to the desktop where it was supposed to be.
Your Desktop Files Could Be Hidden
Did you know that you can hide any file or folder on Mac? It can be useful in some situations, for example, if you don’t want your kids to access some critical work-related data.
However, you’re pretty sure you haven’t hidden the missing file. Well, maybe it was accidentally hidden, or perhaps some app you installed did that for you. It happens more often than you think, although many people aren’t aware of it.
It’s straightforward to check whether there’re any hidden files on your Mac. Open the Terminal app and see whether there are any hidden files on your desktop. Click on Show All Files, and you’ll be able to see both public and hidden ones. Hopefully, you’ll find the missing file among them.
Check Your Trash Bin
This tip may sound too obvious, but sometimes the most straightforward solutions solve the problem. Maybe you’ve accidentally deleted the file, or it got automatically deleted. The only good thing is that most probably, it isn’t permanently deleted, and you can recover it.
Check your trash bin, and you may be positively surprised. Fortunately, you can recover anything you want from your trash bin in a couple of seconds.
Check Your iCloud
iCloud is one of the best inventions ever as it helps us save our files and use them whenever and wherever we want. You can connect more devices and access your data even if your Mac breaks down or you’re no longer using it. However, iCloud can sometimes be a bit confusing.
Some users complained that when they’ve turned on Desktop and Document folders in iCloud, their files disappeared from the desktop. You can easily find them by opening your iCloud and opening the Documents section. In other words, they’ve been moved there from your desktop.
If you want to avoid this in the future, there’s a way to do so. Here’s what you have to do:
Go to System Preferences.
Click on iCloud.
Click on the Options.
Enter iCloud Drive.
Unselect the checkbox for Desktop and Document folders.
Select “Keep a local copy.”
That way, even when you save files to your iCloud, a local copy will remain on your desktop. As you know, it’s always a good idea to have multiple copies of essential files. You never know what could happen to your device or even iCloud.
Reach Out to Apple Support
If this issue keeps occurring, we suggest you reach out to Apple Support. It may be the best solution, especially if you’re not an IT professional. Maybe there’s some issue with your Mac, and they can show you how to solve it.
If your iCloud isn’t the culprit, as we mentioned above, it could be one of the apps you have installed. Many apps have background processes unknown to users. It sometimes doesn’t make any sense, but that’s the way it is.
However, this is usually easy to solve. Don’t worry as this probably won’t keep happening after you repair your device.
Stay Cool
Our devices can be unpredictable. They can perform even the most difficult tasks quickly and efficiently, and then they do something as silly as hiding files from the desktop. Fortunately, this issue is typically a minor one. If you don’t know what to do, leave it to the professionals.
Have you recovered your desktop files? Where were they? If you have any other questions about Mac, let us know in the comments section below.
If you’re using Amazon Prime, then you know that it has a vast library of movies and TV shows. But did you know that you can also download them and watch offline?
Amazon Prime has a solution for those situations when you don’t have Internet access, such as long flights or camping trips. You can simply download a movie to your tablet or your phone and watch it wherever you are. We’ll now show you how to do that.
Compatible Devices
To download a movie for offline watching, you need Amazon Prime subscription and the Prime Video app. The app is free and available for all Amazon Prime users. Don’t worry, as most devices are compatible with this app. You can download it to your tablet or your phone.
If you’re using an iPad or iPhone, you can download the app from your App Store. If you have an Android device, go to Google Play and download the Prime Video app. The app is available for many other devices, such as the Fire tablet and Amazon Firestick. All you have to do is go to the store and download it.
How to Download a Movie?
Assuming that you now have the Prime Video app and a good Internet connection, we’re ready to start. Bear in mind that download may depend on your Internet speed, but it shouldn’t take too long.
Here’s what you have to do:
Open the app and log in to your Amazon Prime account.
Select the movie you’d like to download.
Click on the Download button (You’ll find it below the Watch Now button).
Choose where you would like to save the file.
Select the video quality.
Click on Start Download.
There you have it! The movie will be saved in the section called My Stuff. You can use that section to browse your downloaded films or watch them whenever you want.
Are There Any Restrictions?
Unfortunately, it’s not possible to download every video from the Amazon Prime library. However, you can download almost all popular movies and TV shows.
Every movie that we could think of was available for download, and we tried a lot of them. If you’re not sure whether the one you want to watch is available, type its title and click on Search. You’ll then see whether you can download it or not.
Also, there are some location-based restrictions. However, the good news is that most of the content is available in the United States.
If you’re planning a vacation abroad, it may be a good idea to download movies before the trip. That’s because you can’t use the download feature in every country. However, if you’ve downloaded movies beforehand, you’ll be able to watch them wherever you are.
What About Memory Storage?
We know that everyone likes to watch movies in high-quality. However, there’s a big difference between streaming a film online and saving it to your device. Therefore, bear in mind that the higher the quality, the larger the downloaded file will be.
To illustrate this, we’ve tried to download one movie at the Best quality, and it took up almost 1GB of storage space. We’ve then tried to download it at Good quality, and it needed only around 300MB. As you can see, the difference is enormous.
If you want to save the movie to your phone, you may have to choose the lower quality of the video if you don’t have enough space. That also applies if you’re going on a long trip and want to download many movies or TV shows. Plan everything according to the memory storage of your device.
How to Delete a Movie?
Now, you may be worried that you won’t have enough storage to download all the movies you want. The good news is that you can quickly delete one to free up some space. Here’s how you can do it:
Open the Prime Video app.
Open the My Stuff section.
Select the movie you’d like to delete.
Tap on three dots at the bottom right corner.
Select Delete download or tap on a small trash bin sign.
You’ve successfully removed a movie from your device, and you can download another one.
Can I Download TV Shows?
In this article, we’ve focused on downloading movies, but you can also download your favorite TV shows. You get to choose whether you want to download a single episode or the entire season. The process is similar to downloading a movie:
Open the app and log in to your Amazon Prime account.
Select the TV show you’d like to download.
Select a single episode or tap the season you’d like to download.
Click on the Download button.
Choose where you would like to save the file or files.
Select the video quality.
Tap Start Download.
If you’re downloading the whole season, you may have to be patient. Sometimes, you might be downloading more than ten hours of video material, and that may take a while.
Watch Your Favorite Movies Wherever You Are
With Amazon Prime, there’re no limits. You can now watch your favorite movies even on a camping trip, miles away from civilization and without network. Amazon Prime is there for you whenever you need entertainment.
Have you already tried this feature, and did you like it? What do you usually watch on Amazon Prime? Tell us in the comments section below.
Amazon is one of the largest e-commerce sites in the world. From its humble beginnings as an online bookstore, it quickly expanded into the juggernaut of electronics and household items that we have today. With over 95 million Amazon Prime members in the United States alone, it’s a popular online resource for shopping, entertainment, and home-based solutions.
Amazon Prime is likely the company’s most innovative and successful contribution to online retail with the additional benefits of video streaming, free ebooks, and unlimited 2-day shipping. Access to these benefits alone makes Amazon Prime accounts a natural target for unauthorized guests and familial freeloaders alike. Add to the fact that there is such a lucrative wellspring of prospective victims and you have a hacker haven in the making.
If you want to avoid becoming a statistic or already have and need to rid yourself of the nuisance, follow these necessary precautions I have laid out for you below. It’s time to safeguard your coveted account and secure the privacy it so rightfully deserves.
How to Know if Someone is Using Your Amazon Account
There are a few indicators that someone is using your Amazon account. Although it may be difficult to pinpoint who it is in some cases; understanding the things to look for will prove someone else is using your Prime account.
Aside from understanding the signs of an intruder, we’ll also go over how to get rid of the person and secure your Amazon account.
Personal information has changed – this may seem obvious but checking for addresses and payment information that doesn’t belong to you is a good indicator someone is accessing your account.
Check the Recent Orders and Recently Searched For items – Traces left behind from others who are searching or ordering merchandise will be found here.
Communications from Amazon – If you’re getting communications that items have shipped and you didn’t order anything someone is using your account
Amazon Prime Video and other services – Movies and books may begin to appear in your list of purchases or recently watched. If these aren’t something you initiated it’s time to take action.
Whether you’ve given permission to a friend or family member to use your prime account, or someone has accessed it without your consent, following these instructions will ensure they’re no longer able to get in.
Give “Them” The Boot
First thing’s first, we’ll need to show these unwanted “guests” the door. We’ll kick things off with a password change to immediately remove anyone currently enjoying an unauthorized jaunt through your account. We’ll be changing up a few things with your account moving forward so stick with me and follow along.
Change Your Password
Let’s regain control of your account and change your password. So long as you can still access your Amazon account:
Log in with your current credentials, hover your cursor over “Account & Lists” for a drop-down menu. Click on Your Account.
From your Amazon Homepage, click on Login & security.
Look for the “Password:” row and click on the Edit button located to the right.
Fill in your current password and enter a new one into the appropriate field.
Make sure that your new password is more complex than the current one. Add both capital and lower case letters, digits, and even symbols to make it harder for hackers to crack. Avoid using full English words, personal information, and familiar phrases. An attacker’s algorithm will easily decipher something popular or readily available in a dictionary. If they can’t crack your password, they’ll likely move on to an easier target.
Avoid using words and numbers that are common knowledge such as birthdates, addresses, anniversaries, kids’ names, etc.
Finally, reenter your new password into the text block provided before clicking on Save changes to complete the process.
Verify The Accuracy of Your Account Information
Another thing that hackers enjoy doing is changing up your account information to make it harder to remove them. Within the same Login & security page, make sure that the “Name”, “Email”, and “Mobile Number” rows are all correct.
Verifying that this information is correct ensures that you get any alerts or updates. It’s also a good idea to remove any addresses and card information that does not belong to you. Doing this means it will be easier to detect a change in information when you log in again.
If everything seems to be correct, we can move on to the next step. For anything showing incorrectly, hit the Edit button off to the right and correct it accordingly. The “Mobile Number” row will be especially important to what comes next.
Adding Two-Factor Authentication
The final row on the Login & security page is your “Advanced Security Settings”. When you click the Edit button for this row, it will take you to a new page where you’ll be able to set up 2FA for your Amazon account.
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) is designed as a second wall of protection by creating an additional passcode for entry into your account. Passwords are easily stolen but adding this extra layer of defense will aid in your Amazon account remaining secure.
Click the Get Started button from the “Advanced Security Settings” page to begin.
The first step will be selecting how you want to receive the 2FA passcode. You have the option to choose between an SMS Text Message, an automated phone call, or an Authorization App like Google Authenticator.
Choosing either of the first two options will require you to click on the “Phone Number” radial button as well as the “Receive code by:” radial button, and entering in the phone number from which you’d like to receive the passcode.
Simply choose which international code pertains to you from the drop-down and then type your phone number into the box provided.
Finalize the process by clicking on Send code.
If you prefer the Authenticator-app option, you’ll need to break out your mobile phone, launch the authenticator-app of your choice, add a new account, and then scan the barcode on the screen with your camera.
Once scanned, a new code will pop up on your authenticator-app for the account created. Enter those digits into the field provided on the Amazon site and hit Verify Code and Continue, prior to the code’s expiration.
If the code expires before you can add it in, just add the next one displayed.
After the initial step, you’ll be prompted to add an additional security measure by creating a backup method. This method will be whichever one you didn’t choose during step 1. You can choose to not require this step by filling in the box marked as such.
The third and final step is more of a “heads up”. Amazon lets you know that some devices are unable to display a second screen for you to enter in your 2FA passcode. It provides instruction on what to do in this case with a visual aid.
You can also choose to set it to not require a 2FA passcode for the current device and browser being used. If you’d like to do this, check the box labeled “Don’t require codes on this browser” before clicking the Got it. Turn on the Two-Step Verification button.
Removing Unauthorized Devices
Another way to ensure those who’ve used your account in the past are further removed from a repeat is to rid your account of their devices. You can do this step from either the Amazon or Prime Video website.
From the Amazon website:
Log in with your current credentials, hover your cursor over “Account & Lists” for a drop-down menu. Select Your Content and Devices.
Swap over to the “Devices” tab for a list of all currently registered devices on your account.
To remove a device from your account, select Deregister next to the device.
From the Prime Video website:
Log in and go to Account & Settings.
Click Your Devices from the menu at the top. All of your devices will be listed under “Registered Devices”.
To remove a device from your account, select Deregister next to the device.
For future reference, if you sign out of Prime Video, the device you are currently using will no longer be connected to your account. Prime Video is no longer accessible with this device until you’ve logged back in.
To sign out of Prime Video:
At the upper-right corner of the main page, open the Account menu.
From the drop-down list, select Sign Out.
Additional Security Measures to Take
If the person who is accessing your account is someone who you do not know: it’s likely because they’re trying to make purchases using your payment information. It’s imperative that you do a bit of due diligence and scour your account for recent purchases that you did not make.
You can head over to the Your Orders page from the “Account & Lists” drop-down. All of your recent orders will be on display stemming back over 6 months by default.
Find something that you didn’t order? Immediately get in contact with the credit card company attached to the card used as well as Amazon’s Customer Service in order to dispute the charges.
Removing Household Members From Your Account
If you’ve set up an Amazon Household account to share your Prime benefits with a now-former member of your household, you can end it. To stop sharing your Prime benefits:
On the left panel, under the avatars, you can choose to leave the household or remove the other.
Click Leave, located just below your name to leave the household or Remove below the name of the other member to send them packing.
If you choose to leave the household, you will not be able to join a new household for 180 days. This is also true for the member who is kicked. However, should you choose, you can rejoin or reinvite the same household at any time.
Screencastify is one of Chrome’s most popular screen recording tools, and it comes in the form of an extension. And, the fact that it’s a browser extension doesn’t mean that it can’t record your desktop.
However, to master Screencastify, you need to make the most out of the available shortcuts. Oh, and Screencastify has many cool ones that stand at your convenience. Here are some must-know Screencastify keyboard shortcuts that will help you make the most out of this brilliant extension.
Open Screencastify
You can open the extension at all times, wherever you are in your browser with a simple Alt + Shift + S command. On macOS, press Option + Shift + S. This is very useful for making quick adjustments to your video recording settings.
Stop/Start Recording
One thing that makes you look less professional and makes your videos less smooth is having to stop the recording manually. There’s a way around it, of course, and that’s cutting out the tail end of the video. But why do that during editing when you can use a neat shortcut that will stop recording for you. Press Alt + Shift + R (Windows) or Option + Shift + R (Mac) to stop or start screen recording.
Pause/Resume Recording
Even more important is the pause/resume command. Without using this shortcut, you’ll have to pause your video manually and then tweak these pauses in postproduction. Instead, use the Alt + Shift + P (Option + Shift + P) command to pause or resume recording at your convenience.
Show/Hide Toolbar
To toggle the annotation toolbar, press Alt + T or Option + T. This command may not be a game-changer, but it’s undoubtedly useful.
Focus Spotlight on Pointer
If you’ve ever seen tutorial videos online, you’ve seen people highlighting their pointer. That will make things significantly easier to follow for your viewers. It’s a simple command that turns the spotlight focus on the mouse on or off. You should press Alt + F or Option + F to activate this.
Highlight Clicks
Sometimes, you want your viewers to know when you’ve clicked and how many times you did it, without having to listen carefully. The Alt + K (Option + K) shortcut can help you with that. Use it to highlight each mouse click with a red circle.
Pen and Eraser
If you want some advanced showcase options, employ the pen and eraser tools to make your videos even clearer. Press Alt + P (Option + P) to activate the pen tool or press Alt + E (Option + E) to use the eraser tool.
Press Alt + Z or Option + Z if you want to wipe the screen clear of all your edits.
Other Shortcuts
To return to the mouse cursor, press Alt + M or Option + M. If you want the mouse pointer to disappear when not moving, press Alt + H or Option + H. To toggle the embedded webcam press Alt + W or Option + W. To show or hide the recording timer, press Alt + C or Option + C.
Customize Shortcuts
A very cool thing about Screencastify is that you don’t have to use the mentioned shortcuts. You can customize each one to your preference. To do this, open the extension. Then, open the Main Menu and click Options. Find the Keyboard Shortcuts section and then select Configure Recording Shortcuts. From here, choose a shortcut and configure it to your preference. You can even change the shortcut preferences for different browsers.
Screencastify Shortcuts
To make the most out of your videos, introduce the mentioned shortcuts. They may not look like much, but each one has its benefits. If you don’t like one, no worries, you can change it.
What are your most-used shortcuts from this list? Have you changed the keys? Hit the comment section with your thoughts on Screencastify shortcuts and the extension in general.
Discord lets you decorate your messages with emojis, gifs, and images, but some people are unaware of the Markdown formatting features included in the application. Using keyboard commands on your computer or mobile device can change the way viewers and readers see the content you publish.
This incredibly useful feature enables users to add all sorts of formatting to messages, including bold, italics, code formatting. Discord Markdown even enables Discord users to indicate a “spoiler alert!”
Spoiler tags are useful to alert others that you are about to give information about something that someone is not ready for. As an example; telling someone what happens at the end of a movie is known as a “spoiler.” Once this tag is added another user will only see a grey or black box over the content.
If you’ve been looking for a way to make a spoiler tag in Discord, keep reading. There are a few ways to add spoiler tags in Discord depending on which works best for you.
How To Create A Spoiler Alert Tag in Discord
The developers that work with Discord have heard the cries of the people and have made it incredibly simple to add spoiler tags that block out any content the writer chooses to input.
There are a few different ways to add a spoiler tag in Discord. The first option is a newer method that seems very simple. The second may be slightly faster for those who have a strong command of a standard keyboard.
The “Easy Way”
Thanks to Discord’s newest addition, adding spoiler tags are easier than ever. Once you’ve completed typing the content you’d like to send (but before actually sending it) you can highlight the chosen piece and right-click on the section. This will reveal the option to add a spoiler tag.
Click “Mark as Spoiler.”
Once you’ve done this you will still see the content you’ve written but two vertical pipes will appear on both sides of the selected content. This means that other users will be unable to see the content until they initiate a reveal of it. By clicking on the spoiler tag, other users will then have access to read the hidden content you’ve sent.
The “Old Way”
The old way may be faster for those who are familiar with the option to do so. All you need to do is type your phrase out, and surround it by two bars on either side. These vertical bars appear with a simple keyboard command: “Shift + Back Slash.” When typing it may be faster to use this method than the new “easy” method.
Represented by the || key, || these bars will ensure all of your chat is hidden within a spoiler tag, requiring others to click to reveal the information. These vertical bars are also referred to as the pipe symbol in more technical circles, especially developers.
When you put the spoiler in between two sets of double pipes the || Words that are part of the spoiler phrase || will only be seen by other Discord users who click on the phrase to expand and read what it says. Those who want to keep the spoiler a secret (e.g., they have not yet seen the movie or show the spoiler talks about) refrain from clicking on the spoiler phrase.
Once you’ve uncovered a spoiler you can’t give back the information you’ve seen, but you can re-hide the content. Many users have reported difficulty with this but if you back out of the chat and go back in, the spoilers should be hidden.
You can also hide attachments as spoilers. During the process of uploading; Discord gives you a checkbox option to “Mark as Spoiler.” Simple for videos, photos, or other forms of content; Discord is focusing on protecting those who are not ready to find out the ending of something. Beware though: this only works on the desktop version of Discord.
Other Markdown Tags
Now that you know how to make a spoiler tag in Discord, check out these other Markdown tags available on the Discord platform to help you format your text:
Italics: *phrase* or _phrase_
Bold: **phrase**
Bold Italics: ***phrase***
Underline: _phrase_
Underline Italics: _*phrase*_
Underline Bold: _**phrase**_
Underline Bold Italics: _***phrase***_
Strikethrough: ~~phrase~~
Also, if you have no desire to use Markdown but want to use Markdown symbols in your text, place a backslash at the start of the phrase. That way, you can use asterisks and other Markdown symbols. However, this backslash feature doesn’t work in messages that have edits or underscores.
Hiding Spoilers on Mobile
When you’re on the go you can still add spoiler tags to your written content within Discord. Following the same directions as the “Old way,” you can add the double vertical pipe bars on both sides of the content to achieve these tags.
The vertical pipes are available on most phone’s keyboards, you may just have to look for it. On the Google Keyboard and Apple Keyboard, it can be found by clicking on the symbols icon twice.
If you are using another version of the keyboard for your phone you may have to do a little more digging to find it. Either way; typing two vertical bars before and after content will add a spoiler tag.
Disengage Spoiler Tags on Your Server
For whatever reason you may have, you’re in control of the spoiler tags in your server. This means that you can visit the “User Settings” and click on “Text & Images.”
To change your server’s ability to allow spoiler tags choose one of the following options:
Choosing the “On Click” option means that members of your server can click on the spoiler tags within the content to reveal the spoilers.
Choosing “On Servers I Moderate” means you control tags on all the servers you manage.
Finally, choosing “Always” means there simply aren’t any spoiler tags. Regardless of the reason you’d like to disable spoiler tags, this is the option for you to do just that.
Socially Acceptable
Coders, gamers, writers, blockchain enthusiasts, and more have all found their home in Discord. The versatility of the application such as voice chat and screen sharing features as well makes it a wonderful chat forum.
Working with game developers to enable special integrations; Discord is compatible with several other accounts and tech options. Spotify, Xbox Live, and Twitch are all featured benefits of using and better understanding the Discord application.
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New Delhi: India's top leadership is working on a careful strategy to lift the lockdown without losing the gains that have been achieved through the stringent nationwide shutdown, said a senior government official. "Imposing a lockdown is very easy — you stop everything," he said. "However, opening a lockdown is difficult. The mindset of the system also has to change. There is no formula for that."The Centre is monitoring various challenges related to resumption of economic activities on a day-to-day and case-to-case basis, he said. One key obstacle is economic hubs being located in red zones, where the disease needs to be curbed. Centre Keeping WatchThe three-week lockdown imposed on March 25 was extended to May 3 as India seeks to control the coronavirus outbreak."We have divided the country into zones — hotspots and non-hotspots — and permitted economic activity in the second zone," the official said. "Even as we try and do our best to resume operations, the economic activity hubs are where the hotspots are and they can only be opened once they shift to the other side."The Centre has been keeping a close watch on state and district-level administrations and trying to assist them as well as helping businesses to resume operations.But many issues on the ground need to be resolved. "In starting rural activities, there are issues such as taking permissions from district magistrates," the official said. "In Gujarat, they have permitted many industries. On a daily basis, they have given permission… but some industries can't be started with depleted labour strength."Giving an example of speedy government reaction to resolve industry's grievances, the official cited fears expressed by owners and managers of business units of police action in case a worker is found to be Covid positive. "So, we clarified on the fact check portal, then we tweeted from the official handle," he said.The government has reached out to industry leaders and asked them to communicate the message that no penal action will be taken against proprietors, managers and supervisors if a worker tests positive for the disease, said people aware of the matter.Availability of labour is a key issue, with movement of workers being a big challenge, said the official. A decision on the post-May 3 scenario, including inter-state movement, will be taken closer to the date based on data provided by health authorities, government officials said. As and when this happens, the movement of people will have to be allowed in a phased manner."There are people, especially students, who are stranded; then there are labourers, and so on. We obviously don't want a sudden rush of people like we saw at the Anand Vihar bus depot in Delhi. So we are working on how to ease the movement of people," said the official.The infection numbers are better than initial projections, he said. "The graph is not very alarming on the health side. India is in a much better position than what was predicted by our health authorities," the official said.
Bengaluru | New Delhi: Facebook could find itself sparring with Reliance Jio in policy debates over how data is collected, stored and shared in India, said legal experts, as the two technology giants differ markedly in their stance on these issues.The American social media company, which is paying $5.7 billion for a minority stake in the digital arm of India's largest conglomerate, has opposed the Centre's demand that data of Indians be stored locally. Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, on the other hand, has been unequivocal that data of citizens must be controlled and owned by Indians, and not foreign corporations.COS UNLIKELY TO DILUTE STANCE: EXPERTSFacebook and Reliance Jio's views also diverge sharply on the matter of providing access to private social media data to law enforcement authorities.Last year, Jio told the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) that all over-the-top (OTT) platforms should give full data access — including decryption keys — to Indian law enforcement authorities. However, Facebook-owned WhatsApp has been fighting off requests from the Indian government for tracing origin of messages citing end-to-end encryption. The company believes that breaking encryption would compromise user privacy. 75339246In October, Facebook told the Supreme Court that it was not obliged to share user data with the Indian government.Experts said that while the two companies may not dilute their stance, especially with respect to encryption or data localisation, they could co-exist in many areas.DIFFERENCES DISCUSSEDA person with direct knowledge of the developments in the runup to the mega deal said the differences (about policy matters) were discussed before inking the agreement. "During due diligence, we had come across such concerns. All litigations that were (ongoing) and the policy positions that both parties have taken were part of the disclosures," the person said. "But these issues are separate from the deal, which is purely commercial. No policy conflict has come in the way of moulding the deal."In response to fresh queries on the issue, a spokesperson for Reliance Jio referred ET to an earlier reply from Anshuman Thakur, Reliance's head of strategy, who had said that Facebook and Jio are independent entities and "there'll be areas that we will collaborate in, but there will be areas where we will potentially not agree with each other either"."Both the organisations are very conscious about consumer data and just making sure that consumer data is respected. And also, by abiding by all the regulations. There will be things where we'll have a difference of opinion … but that's the way it is," Thakur said.INDEPENDENT VIEWSFacebook said the intent of its collaboration with Jio Platforms is to enable new opportunities for the millions of micro and small businesses in India. "We will continue to have independent views on a number of topics," a Facebook spokesperson said in an emailed response.The Facebook-Reliance Jio deal will go to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for approval amid concerns over control of data, privacy and net neutrality.Since its launch in September 2016, Jio has emerged as India's largest telecom company with over 388 million subscribers. Facebook has over 328 million users on its social network and over 400 million users on its WhatsApp messaging platform in India.Experts believe that while there are areas of contradiction, mutual benefits will outweigh those."Facebook is unlikely to change its stance on issues such as end-toend encryption just for India and Jio, because it is a global company and its policies are standard across the globe," a former top bureaucrat told ET. "(Mukesh) Ambani also has strong views on issues such as data localisation, so it will be interesting to see how it pans out," the person added.SETTING PRECEDENTLegal experts feel FB's stance on allowing access to law enforcement agencies and encryption will not change. "If they start giving law enforcement access in India, it sets a precedent for other countries," said Vrinda Bhandari, a Supreme Court lawyer.Last year, without specifically mentioning WhatsApp, Reliance Jio had told the government that many companies were employing end-to-end encryption under the guise of providing better security to users, and India must enable traceability on encrypted platforms. WhatsApp has resisted the government's demand on traceability for two years now.Bhandari said that while Reliance Jio may tone down its attack on WhatsApp, it will not back down on its demand that Indian data be stored locally. "Its business interests there are much stronger than Facebook's investment," she said.Anu Monga, partner of Indus-Law, said the companies would have envisaged this issue while finalising the deal. "By lending different views to a debate, I don't see it as one party losing and the other one winning. But it will be interesting to watch the policy positions presented by them now."
Mumbai: Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund said on Thursday it has voluntarily decided to wind up its suite of six yield-oriented, managed credit funds, effective April 23, citing the severe market dislocation and illiquidity caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.These six funds are: Franklin India Low Duration Fund, Franklin India Dynamic Accrual Fund, Franklin India Credit Risk Fund, Franklin India Short Term Income Plan, Franklin India Ultra Short Bond Fund and Franklin India Income Opportunities Fund."In light of the severe market dislocation and illiquidity caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, this decision has been taken in order to protect value for investors via a managed sale of the portfolio," Franklin Templeton said in a late evening release.The fund house said this action is limited to the mentioned funds, which have material direct exposure to the higher yielding, lower-rated credit securities in India that have been most impacted by the ongoing liquidity crisis in the market.It clarified that all other funds managed by Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund in India – equity, debt and hybrid – are unaffected by this decision. "The decision to wind up these funds was an extremely difficult one, but we believe, it is necessary to protect value for our investors and presented the only viable means to secure an orderly realization of portfolio assets," said Sanjay Sapre, President, Franklin Templeton – India."Significantly reduced liquidity in the Indian bond markets for most debt securities and unprecedented levels of redemptions following the Covid-19 outbreak and lockdown has compelled us to take this decision," he added."While these funds are getting wound up, accruals into these funds should continue in the same way as now, as the underlying securities held by these funds remain sound," Santosh Kamath, CIO, Franklin Templeton Fixed Income India, said.
New Delhi | Kolkata: The lockdown isn't sparing IITs' sought-after engineers — in the final phase of the placement season and it's estimated that 3 out of 10 do not have job offers yet. IITs are in constant touch with recruiters, who were supposed to come in March and April, as well as those who have already made job offers."This is an unprecedented situation," said Kantesh Balani, chairman, Students' Placement Office at IIT Kanpur.IITs are also reaching out to alumni (most of who are either startup founders or hold senior positions in India Inc) to help students get jobs, including for those whose offers have been revoked.Most IITs including Madras, Kanpur, Delhi, Roorkee, Guwahati and Bombay that ET reached out to confirmed that so far only Gartner has revoked offers. Some like Schlumberger are readjusting students within the firm for a different role instead of the one it had originally hired for. IITs like Guwahati, Roorkee, Kanpur, Bombay and Madras have either taken placements online or are in the process of taking them online. Some like Guwahati, Kanpur, Madras are looking at holding on-site placement drives in July. But with several firms freezing new hiring, taking the placements process online is not helping much.75339413At IIT Madras, 924 of the 1,331 students have jobs. Around 30% are yet to be placed at IIT Bombay. At IIT Roorkee, companies have been requesting to interview the students through online mode, said a spokesperson at IIT Roorkee. At Roorkee no offer has been revoked so far but a few companies are considering extending joining dates.In Touch with RecruitersIIT Bombay is also extending placements till mid-July."Till now, there is no withdrawal of offers for IIT Guwahati," said its head for Centre for Career Development, adding they may have a special placement drive in July, if required.At IIT Gandhinagar, around 25% of the undergraduate students are still waiting for their first offer, the number is a little higher for post graduate students. The institute said it is in touch with various recruiters and carrying out virtual interview processes.
Kolkata: ITC Ltd chairman Sanjiv Puri said the longer the country is in lockdown, the greater the stress on the economy, which will result in an increase in the government support needed for getting micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and even large companies back on track. All industries are facing a liquidity squeeze given weak revenues and need assistance so that jobs can be protected, he said, calling for more measures and pointing to stimulus plans elsewhere in the world."Various countries have announced fiscal packages, which are 1-20% of GDP," Puri said in a video press conference on Thursday. "A large support will be required to revive the economy, which will be done as per assessment from the quantum of stress, depending upon how long economic activity is constrained… Industry needs support to protect jobs and to support all these costs while revenues are weak."ITC is adapting to a post-Covid world by minimising expenditure, recalibrating investment, delaying FMCG launches unless they are products in demand. The hotel business is coping with new norms of physical distancing and no-contact services, he said, adding that ITC won't cut salaries.'Liquidity Issues'"The longer economy is shut down, there will be more stress in the economy and more support from the government might be required," Puri said. "MSMEs and even larger industries will face liquidity issues. Some steps have already been taken, but more needs to be done. Office work can happen digitally, and restrictions can be reduced following all government safety norms other than in the containment zones."Puri said most manufacturing locations are on the periphery of urban centres and need to be allowed to start functioning. It may, however, take a long time for capacity to build up to a reasonable level, since vendors or employees could be in containment zones. "The government has been proactive in dealing with Covid-19 which is a welcome move," ITC chairman said."However, the manufacturing value chain should be allowed to operate end-to-end and the agri-value chain (has) to be fully functional outside containment zones, following the strict protocols laid down by the government. These sectors create majority direct and indirect employment. We have to look at both lives and livelihood as stressed by the Prime Minister."Puri said it's difficult to say when FMCG demand will revive to previous levels. Considering these factors, there could be a realignment of ITC's long-term goal to achieve ₹1 lakh crore in sales from the FMCG businesses by 2030, although that remains the aspiration, he said."Staples are on a decent trajectory, but discretionary product demand will take a little longer to revive," Puri said. "In the short term, there will be greater focus on staples, health and hygiene products. And, going forward as the situation normalises, we will get back to our plan and start to promote the products launched in recent past."Before the Covid-19 pandemic, ITC and other major FMCG companies had predicted consumer sales will revive in the second half of the year with the harvesting of the rabi crop. Puri said ITC is readying itself for the future, considering the fight against Covid-19 could be long and there are chances of the disease resurfacing after this initial outbreak is quelled."Anything indexed to travel like airlines and hospitality may take a couple of years to revive. Some are capital intensive and very high economic multipliers with a lot of employment. Tourism is 10% of GDP," he said.ITC is running its factories at 20-60% capacity, restricting production lines to essential items. Of its 120 plants, including those of contract manufacturers, about 80 are currently operational. Some of them are in hotspots and a few are in states that have not allowed any relaxation until the lockdown ends. All its cigarette factories are shut.The country's second-largest hospitality chain, five of ITC's hotels are accommodating stranded guests or being used as quarantine centres, he said.
MUMBAI: Audiences for traditional TV channels has rocketed during the lockdown buoyed in part by the popularity of mythological shows like 'Ramayan' and 'Mahabharat' on Hindi general entertainment channels (GECs).As per latest BARC India viewership data for week 15 of 2020 (April 11-17), mythological shows were watched by 353 million viewers for 109 billion minutes, making up nearly 43% of overall Hindi GEC viewership. In pre-Covid-19 period (January 11-31), total viewership share of mythological content on Hindi GECs was just 14%, which jumped to 37% by week 14 (April 4-10). And looking at the emerging viewership trend, broadcasters have also increased the mythological content on Hindi GECs. It has gone from 311 hours per week in pre-Covid19 period to 466 hours in week 15.Shashi Shekhar Vempati, CEO, Prasar Bharati, feels that looking beyond the narrow prism of current circumstances, shows like 'Ramayana' and 'Mahabharata' have a broader appeal that is timeless. "At a time when the entire nation is grappling with the pandemic, the shared viewing experience is having both an unifying and an uplifting effect on national psyche," Vempati said.While 'Ramayan' has clocked highest viewership for any show on a Hindi GEC in recent times, due to 'Mahabharat' DD Bharati entered in the top five channels' list for the first time ever.And it's not just viewers but also the advertisers, who are making a beeline for the mythological shows. BARC India data suggests that advertisers are now keen to place ads on these two shows. As per the available data, the two shows are airing almost 190-200 slots of 10 seconds each per day during the telecast of the shows.
WASHINGTON: The World Bank slashed its outlook for oil and metals prices on Thursday due to the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and said the commodity market shock could hit developing countries hardest.Crude oil prices are expected to average $35 a barrel this year, down 43 per cent from the average in 2019, the World Bank said, marking a sharp downward revision from its October forecast."The downward revision reflects an historically large drop in demand," the World Bank said in a press release. It said overproduction from Opec and other major world oil producers was exacerbating the price decline.Metals prices, meanwhile, are seen dropping 13 per cent overall this year, the World Bank said. But gold, a traditional safe-haven investment, is seen up nearly 15 per cent.It added that the impact of the health crisis on agricultural commodity prices is expected to be moderate, but that supply chain disruptions could raise the food security risk in some places."This enormous shock to commodity markets and low oil prices could deliver a serious setback to developing economies," said Makhtar Diop, World Bank Vice President for Infrastructure, in the press release.The organization recommended that world governments reform energy subsidy programs to free up funds for emergency coronavirus response, and advised against the use of tariffs or other trade protections to shield domestic industries.
By Shruti RajanThe precipitous crash in crude oil prices and its consequential impact on the settlement price of crude oil futures is the latest in a volley of jolts that Covid-19 has unleashed on the financial markets this year. The dramatic dip in the settlement price of MCX crude oil futures was well reported by now and will likely beckon judicial as well as regulatory intervention. And in doing so, it will be interesting to observe whether this will put to test some well-established legal tenets that have guided financial markets so far.The factsThe story so far is simple yet riveting, even if one accounts for the constant bustle that typifies a commodity such a crude oil, infamous for its price volatility. The MCX platform is home to more than 94 per cent of trades in crude oil futures across India, where contracts are settled, in cash on a monthly basis, on the date of the expiry of the contact. As per existing contract specifications, the final settlement price of such contracts is pegged to the settlement price of NYMEX crude oil front-month contract, as reflected in rupee value, on the expiry date of the MCX contract.On April 8, 2020, an advisory was issued by CME Clearing, the clearing arm of NYMEX, to assure the clearing firms that testing plans were under way to support the possibility of negative prices and to enable normal functioning of the business. A week later on April 15, 2020, CME Clearing announced that its trading and clearing systems had been enabled to trade in zero or negative prices and allowed trading firms to test such negative futures in the new systems released by the clearing corporation.Here in India, on April 20, 2020, the due date for contract settlement ended at 5 pm on account of Covid-19 modified market timings, with the last trade made at Rs 965 per barrel. Hence the Indian market woke up the next day to an overnight crash in crude oil prices at NYMEX, where prices plunged to a negative $37.This posed a unique quandary for MCX, in terms of determining the due date rate or settlement price, and the exchange rolled out the following responses to control market sentiment :-Due to unprecedented market fluctuation in the international markets, it initially, by a circular dated April 20, 2020, provided for a provisional settlement price of Re 1 per barrel for computation of brokers' obligations for April futures.Thereafter, by a circular dated April 21, 2020, MCX published the final rate for crude oil futures contract ending on April, 20 2020 at Rs (-) 2,884 per barrel, consistent with its contract specifications and in line with NYMEX WTI crude oil front-month contract's settlement price.It is relevant to mention here that although the rules and regulations of Sebi or MCX do not preclude a negative price settlement, they do not expressly contemplate such a possibility either. Neither do they recommend any contingency measures that can be implemented by exchanges in such circumstances. Faced with losses of more than Rs 450 crore, brokers are reported to have approached the Bombay High Court, challenging the final settlement price ascertained by MCX.Legal IssuesA number of interesting legal issues will emanate from any judicial scrutiny of the facts as well as the legal regime applicable to such contracts.First, the sanctity of the terms of the contract itself. Contract specifications serve as the standard terms and conditions between the buyers and sellers of futures contracts. In this case, fixation of the settlement price appears to be in accordance with the benchmark identified in contract specifications. Should an exception be made to the express terms of the contract on account on an unprecedented event, how will that balance with the principle of contractual sanctity, which recognises the primacy of a written agreement between two parties and discourages interference? Any curative measures taken to now modify the settlement price also run the risk of operating as a precedent and will, therefore, have to be approached with a degree of caution that befits the setting of such a yardstick.Various other factors will also have an important role in determining the fate of this controversy. Central to this will be the amendments to the contract specifications that were undertaken by the exchange to accommodate the change in trading hours. This is particularly crucial since the contracts were amended by a circular dated March 26, 2020 (for the period between March 30 and April 14) directing closure of trading hours at 5 pm (as reduced from the original 11:30 p.m.), whereas trading at NYMEX was uninterrupted and continued to commence at 7 pm IST, impairing brokers from exiting positions to limit losses.In line with applicable Sebi circulars, the change in timings was treated as a material amendment and undertaken in consultation with Sebi. However, only a five-day notice period was provided, as opposed to the 30-day notice mandated under the law. Whether this will amount to a unilateral alteration or novation to the contract terms and how substantial a modification this is proven to be will be at the heart of the party's ability to strike at the root of the contract and repudiate its payment obligations. Brokers will also undoubtedly rely on the systemic constraints in the exchange architecture, which are not geared towards recognising negative pricing and identify this as the realistic perimeter within which the terms of the futures contract must operate.Finally, there will be the interplay of all of the above with the principle of settlement finality, the sine qua non of any exchange. Trades executed on an exchange platform are inviolable, final and irrevocable, and this principle is unambiguously ensconced in regulatory guidance as well as exchange bye-laws.Settlement of contracts executed on an exchange platform are also guaranteed by the clearing corporation and cannot be annulled unless on account of fraud, mistake or wilful misrepresentation – in other words, grounds based on which a contract per se can be declared void. Unconditional settlement finality is the holy grail of any exchange traded system and an important international metric to determine sophistication of financial markets. Re-interpreting or reading in exceptions, even through interim injunctive reliefs, will require careful consideration.Although MCX has settled the contracts and reverted to its standard trading hours, the judicial reaction to the challenge posed by brokers will be interesting to observe. The court's inclination to interfere with settlement finality and established, automated market processes will also be conditioned by the "materially adverse," unforseeable nature of prevailing circumstances and the ability of parties to demonstrate injury that is so irreparable and compelling, that it necessitates the unscrambling of an egg.While the jury is out on these key questions of contract law as well as established securities law principles, the regulator will undoubtedly also use this as an opportunity to commission renovations to the contract architecture itself, weed out lacunae in the current price mirroring system for internationally referenceable commodities and implement international best practices to restore market confidence.(Shruti Rajan is a Partner at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. Views are her own)
Bengaluru | New Delhi: Facebook could find itself sparring with Reliance Jio in policy debates over how data is collected, stored and shared in India, said legal experts, as the two technology giants differ markedly in their stance on these issues.The American social media company, which is paying $5.7 billion for a minority stake in the digital arm of India's largest conglomerate, has opposed the Centre's demand that data of Indians be stored locally. Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, on the other hand, has been unequivocal that data of citizens must be controlled and owned by Indians, and not foreign corporations.COS UNLIKELY TO DILUTE STANCE: EXPERTSFacebook and Reliance Jio's views also diverge sharply on the matter of providing access to private social media data to law enforcement authorities.Last year, Jio told the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) that all over-the-top (OTT) platforms should give full data access — including decryption keys — to Indian law enforcement authorities. However, Facebook-owned WhatsApp has been fighting off requests from the Indian government for tracing origin of messages citing end-to-end encryption. The company believes that breaking encryption would compromise user privacy. 75339246In October, Facebook told the Supreme Court that it was not obliged to share user data with the Indian government.Experts said that while the two companies may not dilute their stance, especially with respect to encryption or data localisation, they could co-exist in many areas.DIFFERENCES DISCUSSEDA person with direct knowledge of the developments in the runup to the mega deal said the differences (about policy matters) were discussed before inking the agreement. "During due diligence, we had come across such concerns. All litigations that were (ongoing) and the policy positions that both parties have taken were part of the disclosures," the person said. "But these issues are separate from the deal, which is purely commercial. No policy conflict has come in the way of moulding the deal."In response to fresh queries on the issue, a spokesperson for Reliance Jio referred ET to an earlier reply from Anshuman Thakur, Reliance's head of strategy, who had said that Facebook and Jio are independent entities and "there'll be areas that we will collaborate in, but there will be areas where we will potentially not agree with each other either"."Both the organisations are very conscious about consumer data and just making sure that consumer data is respected. And also, by abiding by all the regulations. There will be things where we'll have a difference of opinion … but that's the way it is," Thakur said.INDEPENDENT VIEWSFacebook said the intent of its collaboration with Jio Platforms is to enable new opportunities for the millions of micro and small businesses in India. "We will continue to have independent views on a number of topics," a Facebook spokesperson said in an emailed response.The Facebook-Reliance Jio deal will go to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for approval amid concerns over control of data, privacy and net neutrality.Since its launch in September 2016, Jio has emerged as India's largest telecom company with over 388 million subscribers. Facebook has over 328 million users on its social network and over 400 million users on its WhatsApp messaging platform in India.Experts believe that while there are areas of contradiction, mutual benefits will outweigh those."Facebook is unlikely to change its stance on issues such as end-toend encryption just for India and Jio, because it is a global company and its policies are standard across the globe," a former top bureaucrat told ET. "(Mukesh) Ambani also has strong views on issues such as data localisation, so it will be interesting to see how it pans out," the person added.SETTING PRECEDENTLegal experts feel FB's stance on allowing access to law enforcement agencies and encryption will not change. "If they start giving law enforcement access in India, it sets a precedent for other countries," said Vrinda Bhandari, a Supreme Court lawyer.Last year, without specifically mentioning WhatsApp, Reliance Jio had told the government that many companies were employing end-to-end encryption under the guise of providing better security to users, and India must enable traceability on encrypted platforms. WhatsApp has resisted the government's demand on traceability for two years now.Bhandari said that while Reliance Jio may tone down its attack on WhatsApp, it will not back down on its demand that Indian data be stored locally. "Its business interests there are much stronger than Facebook's investment," she said.Anu Monga, partner of Indus-Law, said the companies would have envisaged this issue while finalising the deal. "By lending different views to a debate, I don't see it as one party losing and the other one winning. But it will be interesting to watch the policy positions presented by them now."
New Delhi | Kolkata: The lockdown isn't sparing IITs' sought-after engineers — in the final phase of the placement season and it's estimated that 3 out of 10 do not have job offers yet. IITs are in constant touch with recruiters, who were supposed to come in March and April, as well as those who have already made job offers."This is an unprecedented situation," said Kantesh Balani, chairman, Students' Placement Office at IIT Kanpur.IITs are also reaching out to alumni (most of who are either startup founders or hold senior positions in India Inc) to help students get jobs, including for those whose offers have been revoked.Most IITs including Madras, Kanpur, Delhi, Roorkee, Guwahati and Bombay that ET reached out to confirmed that so far only Gartner has revoked offers. Some like Schlumberger are readjusting students within the firm for a different role instead of the one it had originally hired for. IITs like Guwahati, Roorkee, Kanpur, Bombay and Madras have either taken placements online or are in the process of taking them online. Some like Guwahati, Kanpur, Madras are looking at holding on-site placement drives in July. But with several firms freezing new hiring, taking the placements process online is not helping much.75339413At IIT Madras, 924 of the 1,331 students have jobs. Around 30% are yet to be placed at IIT Bombay. At IIT Roorkee, companies have been requesting to interview the students through online mode, said a spokesperson at IIT Roorkee. At Roorkee no offer has been revoked so far but a few companies are considering extending joining dates.In Touch with RecruitersIIT Bombay is also extending placements till mid-July."Till now, there is no withdrawal of offers for IIT Guwahati," said its head for Centre for Career Development, adding they may have a special placement drive in July, if required.At IIT Gandhinagar, around 25% of the undergraduate students are still waiting for their first offer, the number is a little higher for post graduate students. The institute said it is in touch with various recruiters and carrying out virtual interview processes.
How to talk about practical skills in the IELTS Speaking Test
Audio for IELTS Speaking Practice Test 27
CUE CARD
Describe a practical skill that you have.
You should say:
What this skill is
How you learned it
When you use this skill
and explain how this skill is useful to you.
Well one skill that I have is playing the guitar.
I learned it when I was young. I learned how to play because I had many friends that played the guitar and when they played and sang, I knew I just had to learn. At first it was a little difficult because to be quite frank, I really didn't see myself as someone who was musically inclined. I had to tell myself that I could do it and little by little, a note here and a chord I there, I managed to pick it up. Even now I have a long way to go with playing but I have found it enjoyable not just for myself, for others have said they enjoy it as well. I have had a few guitars and although there arc different styles and qualities, to me it seems that as long as they have strings on them and you can tune them they arc fine.
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I use the guitar to cheer myself up when I am feeling a little down and also use it to teach songs to others. I have never made money teaching guitar but I have made a little money playing and singing. I don’t know if I would want to pursue this skill as a career but as long as I still enjoy it, I am going to do it.
Practical Skills
1. Compare the importance of practical skills and academic skills.
Well actually both are much needed in society. It seems to me that practical skills such as knowing how to cook a meal or clean a house or take care of children arc slipping, whereas academic skills such as teaching a class or doing research seem to be on the rise. This is not bad in itself because there need to be people who are thinking about how things work and how to improve them, but the skills needed for everyday life shouldn’t be looked on as any less important than others.
2. How can people learn practical skills?
A lot of these skills can be learned at home with their mother and father and family. Skills such as sewing, budgeting or maintenance can be learned from an aunt or uncle, grandfather or grandmother. If more difficult trades want to be learned, such as plumber or electrician or mason, there are vocational schools that could leach those. The main thing to learning a skill is the motivation that is involved.
Children and practical skills
3. What practical skills do children leant at school in your country?
I’m afraid that there are not many. Academics are stressed so highly in schools that they seem to overshadow practical skills. I suppose students probably leant to listen to their teacher and how to behave and sit for long periods at a time and apply themselves. They also have to learn how to interact amongst themselves in a satisfactory way. They have to learn how to get up on time and be at their school, which teaches them responsibility. I guess it would help to define what practical skills we are talking about.
4. Do you think children should learn some practical skills at school?
I think that children should learn practical skills at school. This would help to prepare them for life outside of school. A lot of times not much thought is put into how to manage money or take care of an apartment but I think these skills would be helpful. Life in the working world can be a lot different than the sheltered life of schooling, so having some practical skills such as those learned from a part-time job would be beneficial to a student.
5. How useful will these skills be to the children alter they leave school?
Well as I was saying in the previous question, these skills would be very helpful to children after they leave school. When a teenager goes from high school to college he has to start managing things on his own without the security of mom and dad. Even more so when a young adult graduates from college or university, he would also be very grateful to have some practical knowledge on how to survive in the working world.
Adult education
6. Do you think it’s useful for adults to attend classes to further their education?
Sure, why not, if it is something that they find useful in their lives and something that they enjoy. Learning is lifelong and I don't know if it has to stop in old age. Now I know that a lot of times these adults are looked upon as teachers, but if they feel so inclined why not attend a class to further their education. If they are not able to keep up with the young students then this would be a detriment, but if there are no disruptions why not?
7. What kinds of courses exist in your country for adults?
There are wonderful exercise classes that are available for adults. I don’t know if you have seen large groups of older women out on the streets performing with various percussion instruments, but these are classes that help them to work together and perform for audiences. There arc dancing classes available. There are even English classes available for senior citizens. There are Tai Chi classes also available to seniors here. As time goes on and the country develops there will be more classes that will be available for seniors.
8. What are some reasons why adults might attend classes?
Well I guess one of the main ones is that they arc working and they need to keep up with the latest technology that will help them to stay abreast of the latest in their fields. Sometimes they might even be thinking of switching careers so they take classes to get the training to do so. Other times they might just want to learn some things in their spare time that will enhance their life on a recreational level. Other times their bosses might want them to learn some special skill for the good of the company.
9. Who do you think should pay for adult education—the government, the student or the company (if it is a work-related course)?
Again it depends on the course and why they are taking it. If it is for personal gain or gratification then of course students should be responsible to pay for it. If the government is offering a course and adults are interested in it then it is already paid for. If it is going to move the company ahead and bring financial results then of course the company should pay for it. Now if the company can't pay for it and it interests the individual then it is up to him to get the money together to attend the class.
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You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
Prehistoric Cave Paintings Took up to 20,000 Years to Complete
It may have taken Michelangelo four long years to paint his fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but his earliest predecessors spent considerably longer perfecting their own masterpieces. Scientists have discovered that prehistoric cave paintings took up to 20,000 years to complete. Rather than being created in one session, as archaeologists previously thought, many of the works discovered across Europe were produced over hundreds of generations, who added to, refreshed and painted over the original pieces of art.
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Until now it has been extremely difficult to pinpoint when prehistoric cave paintings and carvings were created, but a pioneering technique is allowing researchers to date cave art accurately for the first time and show how the works were crafted over thousands of years. Experts now hope the technique will provide a valuable insight into how early human culture developed and changed as the first modem humans moved across Europe around 40,000 years ago.
Dr Alistair Pike, an archaeologist at Bristol University who is leading the research, said: The art gives us a really intimate window into the minds of the individuals who produced it, but what we don’t know is exactly which individuals they were as we don’t know exactly when the art was created. If we can date the art then we can relate that to the artefacts we find in the ground and start to link the symbolic thoughts of these individuals to where, when and how they were living.’
Hundreds of caves have been discovered across Europe with elaborate prehistoric paintings and carvings on their walls. It is thought the designs, which often depict scenes of animals, were created up to 40,000 years ago – some time after humans began moving from southern Europe into northern Europe during the last ice age.
Traditional dating techniques have relied on carbon dating the charcoal and other pigment used in the paintings, but this can be inaccurate as it only gives the date the charcoal was created not when the work was crafted. ‘When you go into these caves today there is still charcoal lying on the ground, so the artists at the time could have been using old charcoal rather than making it fresh themselves/ explained Dr Pike.
‘If this was the case, then the date for the painting would be very wrong. Taking samples for carbon dating also means destroying a bit of these precious paintings because you need to take away a bit of the pigment For carvings, it is virtually impossible to date them as there is no organic pigment containing carbon at all.’
The scientists have used their technique to date a series of famous Palaeolithic paintings in Altamira cave, northern Spain. Known as the ‘Sistine Chapel of the Palaeolithic’, the elaborate works were thought to date from around 14,000 years ago. But in research published by the Natural Environment Research Council’s new website Planet Earth, Dr Pike discovered some of the paintings were between 25,000 and 35,000 years old. The youngest paintings in the cave were 11,000 years old. Dr Pike said:’We have found that most of these caves were not painted in one go, but the painting spanned up to 20,000 years. This goes against what the archaeologists who excavated in the caves found. It is probably the case that people did not live in the caves they painted. It seems the caves they lived in were elsewhere and there was something special about the painted caves.’
Dr Pike and his team were able to date the paintings using a technique known as uranium series dating, which was originally developed by geologists to date rock formations such as stalactites and stalagmites in caves. As water seeps through a cave, it carries extremely low levels of dissolved radioactive uranium along with the mineral calcium carbonate. Overtime small amounts of calcium carbonate are deposited to form a hard layer over the paintings and this layer also traps the uranium. Due to its radioactive properties, the uranium slowly decays to become another element known as thorium. By comparing the ratio of uranium to thorium in the thin layers on top of the cave art, the researchers were able to calculate the age of the paintings.
The researchers have also applied their technique to engravings found in rocks around Creswell Crags in Derbyshire, which are Britain’s only examples of ice age cave art They proved the engravings were made at least 12,000 years ago. Professor Pablo Arias, an expert on Palaeolithic cave art at the University of Cantabria, Spain, said:’Until about ten years ago it was only possible to date cave art by using the style of the figures, but this new technique developed by Bristol University allows that date to be accurately bracketed. We want to study how the people of the time behaved and how they felt and Palaeolithic art gives us a way of looking at the type of symbols that were important to them, so we need to know when the people who were making the art actually lived.’
Questions 1-5
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? Write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
1 Cave paintings inspired Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
2 It now seems that cave paintings were painted in one go and then left untouched.
3 Dr Pike is focusing on dating artefacts found on the ground in the caves.
4 There are a number of disadvantages to using carbon dating to date paintings and carvings.
5 The Allamira cave contains more cave paintings than any other cave in Europe.
Question 6-8
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
6 Dr Pike believes that
A most caves remained undiscovered for thousands of years.
B archaeologists should not have excavated the caves at all.
C the caves were uninhabited but were treated as important.
D the paintings were painted by the people living in the caves.
7 Uranium series dating
A was previously used for other purposes.
B is a technique which was invented by Dr Pike.
C relies on the presence of stalactites in the caves.
D only works with caves which are underwater.
8 Professor Pablo Arias
A is sceptical about the benefits of the new dating technique.
B is enthusiastic about what the new technique will achieve.
C used the technique to successfully date Creswell Crags.
D believes it is necessary only to study the symbols in the art.
Questions 9-14
What is said about each of these things found in the caves?
Choose your answers from the box and write the letters A-H next to Questions 9-14.
A When this is removed, it damages the painting.
B This can damage the stalactites and stalagmites in the caves.
C Over time, this turns into a different element.
D We could determine when it was made, but not when it was used.
E This is produced as a result of radioactive decay.
F Scientists used to think that this was a mineral.
G This contains no carbon-based elements at all.
H This can act as a firm coating over something.
9 charcoal
10 pigment
11 carving
12 uranium
13 calcium carbonate
14 thorium
Section 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 15-27, which are based on Reading
Passage 2 below.
Children Tested to Destruction?
English primary school pupils subjected to more tests than in any other country.
English primary school pupils have to deal with unprecedented levels of pressure as they face tests more frequently, at a younger age, and in more subjects than children from any other country, according to one of the biggest international education inquiries in decades. The damning indictment of England’s primary education system revealed that the country’s children are now the most tested in the world. From their very earliest days at school they must navigate a set-up whose trademark is’high stakes’testing, according to a recent report
Parents are encouraged to choose schools for their children based on league tables of test scores. But this puts children under extreme pressure which could damage their motivation and self-esteem, as well as encouraging schools to’teach to the test’at the expense of pupils’wider learning, the study found. The findings are part of a two-year inquiry – led by Cambridge University – into English primary schools. Other parts of the UK and countries such as France, Norway and Japan used testing but it was,’less intrusive, less comprehensive, and considerably less frequent’, Cambridge’s Primary Review concluded.
England was unique in using testing to control what is taught in schools, to monitor teaching standards and to encourage parents to choose schools based on the results of the tests, according to Kathy Hall, from the National University of Ireland in Cork, and Kamil Ozerk, from the University of Oslo, who conducted the research. ‘Assessment in England, compared to our other reviewed countries, is pervasive, highly consequential, and taken by officialdom and the public more generally to portray objectively the actual quality of primary education in schools,’their report concluded. Teachers’leaders said the testing regime was ‘past its sell-by date’and called for a fundamental review of assessment
Steve Sinnott, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said England’s testing system was having a’devastating’impact on schools.’Uniquely, England is a country where testing is used to police schools and control what is taught,’ he said.’When it comes to testing in England, the tail wags the dog. It is patently absurd that even the structure and content of education is shaped by the demands of the tests. I call on the Government to initiate a full and independent review of the impact of the current testing system on schools and on children’s learning and to be prepared to dismantle a system which is long past its sell-by date.’
John Dunford, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, warned that the tests were having a damaging effect on pupils.The whole testing regime is governed by the need to produce league tables,’ he said. ‘It has more to do with holding schools to account than helping pupils to progress.’ The fear that many children were suffering intolerable stress because of the tests was voiced by Mick Brookes, General Secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. There are schools that start rehearsing for key stage two SATs [Standard Assessment Tests] from the moment the children arrive in September. That’s just utterly ridiculous/ he said. There are other schools that rehearse SATs during Christmas week. These are young children we are talking about. They should be having the time of their lives at school not just worrying about tests. It is the breadth and richness of the curriculum that suffers. The consequences for schools not reaching their targets are dire – heads can lose their jobs and schools can be closed down. With this at stake it’s not surprising that schools let the tests take over.’
David Laws, the Liberal Democrat schools spokesman, said:The uniquely high stakes placed on national tests mean that many primary schools have become too exam focused.’ However, the Government rejected the criticism. The idea that children are over-tested is not a view that the Government accepts/a spokesman said. The reality is that children spend a very small percentage of their time in school being tested. Seeing that children leave school up to the right standard in the basics is the highest priority of the Government.’
In another child-centred initiative, both major political parties in the UK – Labour and the Conservatives – have announced plans to make Britain more child-friendly following a report by UNICEF which ranked the UK the worst place to be a child out of 21 rich nations.
Parents were warned that they risked creating a generation of’battery-farmed children’ by always keeping them indoors to ensure their safety. The family’s minister, Kevin Brennan, called for an end to the’cotton wool’culture and warned that children would not learn to cope with risks if they were never allowed to play outdoors.
Questions 15-19
Complete the sentences.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
15 According to the inquiry, the amount of testing puts a lot of _______________ on young children.
16 The education report describes testing in England as_________________________ testing.
17 Parents often select their childrens schools after studying test results in _________________ .
18 Kathy Hall and Kamil Ozerk believe testing in England is also used to evaluate ______________ in schools.
19 The major political parties have promised to make Britain _______________ in view of the UNICEF report.
Question 20-23
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? Write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
20 Steve Sinnott says what is taught at school should be more tightly controlled.
21 According to John Dunford, children would make more progress with much shorter and easier tests.
22 Mick Brookes wants to see earlier student preparation for SATs.
23 David Laws agrees with the opinions of Mick Brookes.
Questions 24-27
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
24 What does the government argue?
A There is not enough testing at present.
B Tests at primary school are too easy.
C Tests are not given too frequently.
D Teachers should take more tests.
25 The government spokesman
A is extremely critical of the way exams are written.
B accepts many of the points made by the teachers' leaders.
C thinks education is what the government is most interested in. D argues it is the teachers fault that students are tested so much.
26 According to UNICEF, children in the UK
A often spend too much time in the worst kind of places.
B are not so well behaved as in other countries.
C are not as rich as children in 21 other countries.
D could be having much more fulfilling childhoods.
27 What is the point Kevin Brennan makes?
A Children use too many electrical devices.
B Children would learn by being outside more.
C Its too risky for children to be outside on their own.
D The most important thing is children’s safety.
Section 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.
Three ways to Levitate a Magic Carpet
It sounds like a science fiction joke, but it isn’t. What do you get when you turn an invisibility cloak on its side? A mini flying carpet- So say physicists who believe the same exotic materials used to make cloaking devices could also be used to levitate tiny objects. In a further breakthrough, two other research groups have come a step closer to cracking the mysteries of levitation.
Scientists have levitated objects before, most famously using powerful magnetic fields to levitate a frog. But that technique, using the repulsive force of a giant magnet, requires large amounts of energy. In contrast, the latest theories exploit the natural smaller amounts of energy produced by the quantum fluctuations of empty space.
In May 2006, two research teams led by Ulf Leonhardt at St Andrew’s University, UK, and John Pendry at Imperial College, London, independently proposed that an invisibility cloak could be created from exotic materials with abnormal optical properties. Such a cloaking device – working in the microwave region – was manufactured later that year.
The device was formed from so-called ‘metamaterials’, exotic materials made from complex arrays of metal units and wires.The metal units are smaller than the wavelength of light and so the materials can be engineered to precisely control how electromagnetic light waves travel around them. They can transform space, tricking electromagnetic waves into moving along directions they otherwise wouldn’t says Leonhardt.
Leonhardt and his colleague Thomas Philbin, also at St Andrew’s University, realised that this property could also be exploited to levitate extremely small objects. They propose inserting a metamaterial between two so-called Casimir plates. When two such plates are brought very close together, the vacuum between them becomes filled with quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. As two plates are brought closer together, fewer fluctuations can occur within the gap between them, but on the outer sides of the plates, the fluctuations are unconstrained. This causes a pressure difference on either side of the plates, forcing the plates to stick together, in a phenomenon called the Casimir effect.
Leonhardt and Philbin believe that inserting a section of metamaterial between the plates will disrupt the quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. In particular, metamaterials have a negative refractive index, so that electromagnetic light waves entering a metamaterial bend in the opposite way than expected, says Leonhardt. That will cause the Casimir force to act in the opposite direction – forcing the upper plate to levitate. The work will appear in the New Journal of Physics.
Federico Capasso, an expert on the Casimir effect at Harvard University in Boston, is impressed.’Using metamaterials to reverse the Casimir effect is a very clever idea’ he says. However, he points out that because metamaterials are difficult to engineer, it’s unlikely that they could be used to levitate objects in the near future.
But there are good signs that quantum levitation could be achieved much sooner, by other methods. Umar Mohideen at the University of California Riverside and his colleagues have successfully manipulated the strength of the Casimir force by increasing the reflectivity of one of the plates, so that it reflects virtual particles more efficiently. Modifying the strength of the Casimir force is the first step towards reversing it, says team member Galina Klimchitskaya at North-West Technical University in St Petersburg, Russia.
Capasso and his colleagues have also been working on an alternative scheme to harness a repulsive Casimir effect Their calculations show that a repulsive Casimir force could be set up between a 42.7 micrometre-wide gold-coated polystyrene sphere and a silicon dioxide plate, if the two are immersed in ethanol. ‘Although the Casimir force between any two substances – the ethanol and gold, the gold and the silicon dioxide, or the silicon dioxide and the ethanol – is positive, the relative strengths of attraction are different, and when you combine the materials, you should see the gold sphere levitate’ he says.
Capasso’s early experiments suggest that such repulsion could occur, and that in turn could be used to levitate one object above another. It’s very early work, and we still need to make certain this is really happening, but we are slowly building up experimental evidence for quantum levitation/says Capasso, who presented his results at a conference on Coherence and Quantum Optics in Rochester, New York, in June.
This is a very exciting experimental result because it is the first demonstration that we can engineer a repulsive Casimir force/ says Leonhardt.
Questions 28-32
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3? Write
YES if the statement agrees with the writers claims
NO if the statement contradicts the writers claims
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
28 A mini flying carpet is a possibility according to some scientists.
29 Cloaking devices can be used for levitation.
30 Scientists now know all about levitation.
31 Things can be transported from place to place using empty space technology.
32 The most recent research into levitation has made use of large magnets.
Question 33-37
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
33 Ulf Leonhardt and John Pendry
A worked together on a project in 2006.
B both came up with the same idea.
C invented the microwave oven.
D used only basic objects in their research.
34 Metamaterials are
A similar to light, but with a smaller wavelength.
B a combination of simple metals and wires.
C able to change where electromagnetic waves go.
D engineered when light waves travel around them.
35 The importance of the Casimir effect is that it
A doesn’t require a vacuum in order to work.
B increases the number of plates that can be used.
C creates large and frequent fluctuations.
D creates pressure difference and stickiness.
36 Leonhardt and Philbin think that putting a metamaterial between two plates will A cause the top plate to rise above the bottom plate.
B stop electromagnetic light waves bending.
C stop the Casimir force from working.
D not affect electromagnetic fluctuations.
37 Why is it important to change the strength of the Casimir force?
A to reflect the plates
B to help reverse the force
C to see virtual particles better
D to enable other scientists to progress
Questions 38-40
Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-F below.
38 Capasso is unconvinced that ________________________________
39 Capasso has calculated that _________________________________
40 Capasso has admitted that __________________________________
A gold can be used to produce levitation.
B a particular type of ethanol has to be used.
C the levitation will last for only a few seconds.
D using metamaterials will help lead to levitation in the short term.
E his experiment will be extremely costly to perform.
F his idea is still only a theory.
ANSWER KEY FOR IELTS READING PRACTICE TEST
1 NOT GIVEN
2 FALSE because it says in paragraph 1: 'Rather than being created in one session, as archaeologists previously thought, many of the works discovered across Europe were produced over hundreds of generations, who added to, refreshed and painted over the original pieces of art.'
3 FALSE because it says in paragraph 3: 'If we can date the art then we can relate that to the artefacts we find in the ground'.
4 TRUE because it says in paragraph 5: 'this can be inaccurate'; 'Taking samples for carbon dating also means destroying a bit of these precious paintings because you need to take away a bit of the pigment.'; 'For carvings, it is virtually impossible to date as there is no organic pigment containing carbon at all’.
5 NOT GIVEN
6 C because it says in paragraph 6: 'It is probably the case that people did not live in the caves they painted. It seems the caves they lived in were elsewhere and there was something special about the painted caves'
7 A because it says in paragraph 7: 'uranium series dating, which was originally developed by geologists to date rock formations'.
8 B because it says in paragraph 8: 'this new technique developed by Bristol allows that date to be accurately bracketed'.
9 D because it says in paragraph 5: 'it only gives the date the charcoal was created not when the work was crafted .'
10 A because it says in paragraph 5: 'destroying a bit of these precious paintings because you need to take away a bit of the pigment'.
11 G because it says in paragraph 5: 'For carvings, it is virtually impossible to date them as there is no organic pigment containing carbon at all.'
12 C because it says in paragraph 7: 'uranium slowly decays to become another element known as thorium'.
13 H because it says in paragraph 7: 'small amounts of calcium carbonate are deposited to form a hard layer over the paintings’.
14 E because it says in paragraph 7: 'the uranium slowly decays to become another element known as thorium'
15 pressure
16 high stakes
17 league tables
18 teaching standards
19 more child-friendly
20 FALSE because he says in paragraph 4: “England is a country where testing is used to police schools and control what is taught’ and he says that this is 'devastating’, suggesting he thinks there should be less control over what is taught, not more.
21 NOT GIVEN
22 FALSE because in paragraph 6 he opposes early preparation:
'There are schools that start rehearsing for key stage two SATs [Standard Assessment Tests] from the moment the children arrive in September. That's just utterly ridiculous' he said.
23 TRUE because in paragraph 7 he says: 'many primary schools have become too exam focused'. This is the same point Mick Brookes makes in paragraph 6: 'They should be having the time of their lives at school not just worrying about tests.'
24 C because in paragraph 7 it says: 'The idea that children are over-tested is not a view that the government accepts.'
25 C because it says in paragraph 7: 'Seeing that children leave school up to the right standard in the basics is the highest priority of government.’
26 D because it says in paragraph 8: 'a report by Unicef which ranked the UK the worst place to be a child out of 21 rich nations'.
27 B because in paragraph 8 it says: he 'warned that children would not learn to cope with risks if they were never allowed to play outdoors'.
28 YES because in paragraph 1 it says: 'So say physicists who believe the same exotic materials … could also be used to levitate tiny objects'
29 NO because in paragraph 1 it says: 'the same exotic materials used to make cloaking devices' It is the materials that are used, rather than the cloaking devices themselves.
30 NO because in paragraph 1 it says: 'two other research groups have come a step closer to cracking the mysteries of levitation, suggesting there is still much to learn.
31 NOT GIVEN The reference to empty space' in paragraph 2 is concerned with levitation – raising and keeping an object up – rather than transporting things from place to place.
32 NO because in paragraph 2 it says: 'In contrast' – this is in contrast to 'using powerful magnets'; 'the latest theories exploit the natural amounts of energy produced by the quantum fluctuations of empty space.'
33 B because it says in paragraph 3 that they 'independently proposed' the idea.
34 C because in paragraph 4 it says: 'They can transform space, tricking electromagnetic waves into moving along directions they otherwise wouldn't.'
35 D because it says in paragraph 5: 'this causes a pressure difference on either side of the plates, forcing the plates to stick together, in a phenomenon called the Casimir effect.'
36 A because it says in paragraph 6: 'forcing the upper plate to levitate'.
37 B because it says in paragraph 8: 'Modifying the strength of the Casimir force is the first step towards reversing it.'
38 D because it says in paragraph 7: 'he points out that because metamaterials are difficult to engineer, it's unlikely that they could be used to levitate objects in the near future.'
39 A because it says in paragraph 9: 'when you combine the materials, you should see the gold sphere levitate.'
40 F because it says in paragraph 10: 'It’s very early work, and we still need to make certain this is really happening’
We know that IELTS candidates will have only 60 minutes for this IELTS Reading part with a total of 40 questions. Therefore, it is necessary that you invest time in practicing the real IELTS reading tests for this module. Apart from the Cambridge IELTS Practice Tests series published by Oxford University Press, IELTS Reading Recent Actual Tests with Answers aims to develop both test-taking skills and language proficiency to help you achieve a high IELTS Reading score. So practicing is really important if you are going to take the IELTS reading test.
READING PASSAGE 3
The Ingenuity Gap
Ingenuity, as I define it here, consists not only of ideas for new technologies like computers or drought-resistant crops but, more fundamentally, of ideas for better institutions and social arrangements, like efficient markets and competent governments.
How much and what kinds of ingenuity a society requires depends on a range of factors, including the society’s goals and the circumstances within which it must achieve those goals—whether it has a young population or an aging one, an abundance of natural resources or a scarcity of them, an easy climate or a punishing one, whatever the case may be.
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How much and what kinds of ingenuity a society supplies also depends on many factors, such as the nature of human inventiveness and understanding, the rewards an economy gives to the producers of useful knowledge, and the strength of political opposition to social and institutional reforms.
A good supply of the right kind of ingenuity is essential, but it isn’t, of course, enough by itself. We know that the creation of wealth, for example, depends not only on an adequate supply of useful ideas but also on the availability of other, more conventional factors of production, like capital and labor. Similarly, prosperity, stability, and justice usually depend on the resolution, or at least the containment, of major political struggles over wealth and power. Yet within our economies ingenuity often supplants labor, and growth in the stock of physical plant is usually accompanied by growth in the stock of ingenuity. And in our political systems, we need great ingenuity to set up institutions that successfully manage struggles over wealth and power. Clearly, our economic and political processes are intimately entangled with the production and use of ingenuity.
The past century’s countless incremental changes in our societies around the planet, in our technologies and our interactions with our surrounding natural environments, have accumulated to create a qualitatively new world. Because these changes have accumulated slowly, it’s often hard for us to recognize how profound and sweeping they’ve been. They include far larger and denser populations; much higher per capita consumption of natural resources; and far better and more widely available technologies for the movement of people, materials, and especially information.
In combination, these changes have sharply increased the density, intensity, and pace of our interactions with each other; they have greatly increased the burden we place on our natural environment; and they have helped shift power from national and international institutions to individuals and subgroups, such as political special interests and ethnic factions.
As a result, people in all walks of life—from our political and business leaders to all of us in our day-to-day—must cope with much more complex, urgent, and often unpredictable circumstances. The management of our relationship with this new world requires immense and ever-increasing amounts of social and technical ingenuity. As we strive to maintain or increase our prosperity and improve the quality of our lives, we must make far more sophisticated decisions, and in less time, than ever before.
When we enhance the performance of any system, from our cars to the planet’s network of financial institutions, we tend to make it more complex. Many of the natural systems critical to our well-being, like the global climate and the oceans, are extraordinarily complex, to begin with. We often can’t predict or manage the behavior of complex systems with much precision, because they are often very sensitive to the smallest of changes and perturbations, and their behavior can flip from one mode to another suddenly and dramatically. In general, as the human-made and natural systems, we depend upon becoming more complex, and as our demands on them increase, the institutions and technologies we use to manage them must become more complex too, which further boosts our need for ingenuity.
The good news, though, is that the last century’s stunning changes in our societies and technologies have not just increased our need for ingenuity; they have also produced a huge increase in its supply. The growth and urbanization of human populations have combined with astonishing new communication and transportation technologies to expand interactions among people and produce larger, more integrated, and more efficient markets. These changes have, in turn, vastly accelerated the generation and delivery of useful ideas.
But—and this is the critical “but”—we should not jump to the conclusion that the supply of ingenuity always increases in lockstep with our ingenuity requirement: while it’s true that necessity is often the mother of invention, we can’t always rely on the right kind of ingenuity appearing when and where we need it. In many cases, the complexity and speed of operation of today’s vital economic, social, and ecological systems exceed the human brain’s grasp. Very few of us have more than a rudimentary understanding of how these systems work. They remain fraught with countless “unknown unknowns,” which makes it hard to supply the ingenuity we need to solve problems associated with these systems.
In this book, I explore a wide range of other factors that will limit our ability to supply the ingenuity required in the coming century. For example, many people believe that new communication technologies strengthen democracy and will make it easier to find solutions to our societies’ collective problems, but the story is less clear than it seems. The crush of information in our everyday lives is shortening our attention span, limiting the time we have to reflect on critical matters of public policy, and making policy arguments more superficial.
Modern markets and science are an important part of the story of how we supply ingenuity. Markets are critically important because they give entrepreneurs an incentive to produce knowledge. As for science, although it seems to face no theoretical limits, at least in the foreseeable future, practical constraints often slow its progress. The cost of scientific research tends to increase as it delves deeper into nature. And science’s rate of advance depends on the characteristic of the natural phenomena it investigates, simply because some phenomena are intrinsically harder to understand than others, so the production of useful new knowledge in these areas can be very slow. Consequently, there is often a critical time lag between the recognition between a problem and the delivery of sufficient ingenuity, in the form of technologies, to solve that problem. Progress in the social sciences is especially slow, for reasons we don’t yet understand; but we desperately need better social scientific knowledge to build the sophisticated institutions today’s world demands.
Questions 27-30
Complete each sentence with the appropriate answer, A, B, C, or D. Write the correct answer in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet
The definition of ingenuity
The requirement for ingenuity
The creation of social wealth
The stability of society
depends on many factors including climate.
depends on the management and solution of disputes.
is not only of technological advance but more of institutional renovation.
It also depends on the availability of some traditional resources.
Questions 31-33
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write your answers in boxes 31-33 on your answer sheet
What does the author say about the incremental change of the last 100 years?
It has become a hot scholastic discussion among environmentalists.
Its significance is often not noticed.
It has reshaped the natural environments we live in.
It benefited a much larger population than ever.
The combination of changes has made life:
easier
faster
slower
less sophisticated
What does the author say about natural systems?
New technologies are being developed to predict change with precision.
Natural systems are often more sophisticated than other systems.
Minor alterations may cause natural systems to change dramatically.
Technological developments have rendered human being more independent of natural systems.
Questions 34-40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 34-40 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
The demand for ingenuity has been growing during the past 100 years.
The ingenuity we have maybe inappropriate for solving problems at hand.
There are very few who can understand the complex systems of the present world.
More information will help us to make better decisions.
The next generation will blame the current government for their conduct.
Science tends to develop faster in certain areas than others.
Social science develops especially slowly because it is not as important as natural science.
Useful sentence structures for IELTS Writing Task 1
A rich variety of sentence structures is one of the most important key to get a 7 or higher for your grammar score in IELTS Writing Task 1.
As far as you know, you will most likely be given a graph, chart, diagram or table to write about.
Firstly, you have to choose the most important figures/features to write about and make a comparison among them to meet Task Response requirement in IELTS Writing Task 1.
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Below are useful high – level sentence structures which you can utilize to get a higher score for IELTS Writing Task 1.
1. As / Whereas/ While X verb, Y verb (at the same time).
Whilethe figure forfactories in Japan went up dramatically to 120,000 in 2010, the quantity in Koreaplummeted to12,000 at the same time.
2. Clause, followed by + Noun Phrase
There was a dramatic growth in the number of factories in Japan to 120.000 in 2010, followed by a sharp decrease to 1,000 in 2015.
3. Clause, prior to/before Verb-ing
The number of factories in Japan experienced an increase to 120,000 in 2010, before hitting a free fall to 1,000 in 2015.
4. Clause, after Verb – ing
The figure for factories in Japan hit a free fall to 1,000 in 2o15, after undergoing an increase to 120,000 in 2010.
5. In comparison to/with X, which verb, Y verb.
In comparison with the number of factories in Japan, which witnessed a dramatic increaseto 120,000 in 2010, the quantity in Korea plummeted to 12,000 at this time.
6. X verb, Verb-ing, (which verb).
The quantity of factories in Japanwent through a period of dramatic increase to 120,000 in 2010, exceedingthe number in Korea, which had only 12,000.
As can be seen, the sentences above all contain numbers which you must include in your Task 1 Writing to get a 7.0
in Task Achievement.
Plus, they all use high-level vocabulary, most assuredly earning an 8 or 9 in that category.
To see more about IELTS Writing Task 1, click here.
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People's lives are now surrounded by advertisement. This affects what people consider important and has a negative impact on people's lives. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Model Essay
Advertisement is dominant in people's daily lives nowadays, with the high frequency of people having to see the same products or services over and over again. Some people think that this phenomenon is negative because it distorts people's perspective on life. I completely agree with this statement.
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Admittedly, advertisements have certain benefits to modern lives. First of all, the purpose of a piece of advertisement is to deliver key information of a product to the public. This would assist a person in choosing a product, saving both time researching for the right product and potentially, money from overspending. Secondly, the advertising industry is getting more creative than ever, incorporating many current social issues in ads. Some people even consider advertisement nowadays as a form of entertainment, especially with commercials in forms of short movies or music videos.
However, I believe that the ubiquity of advertisement is distorting people's perception on what is important in life. Seeing too many pieces of advertisement is thought by many experts to be the cause of excessive consumerism. People are encouraged by these ads to buy and own more stuff than needed. One consequence of this indulgence in buying new things is that people are buying more, they are also throwing out more stuff than ever, causing a burden on the environment. Another consequence of this phenomenon is that it makes younger generations become more superficial and only care about owning whatever's considered popular.
In conclusion, although advertisement can introduce many benefits to its audience, I still think that the oversaturation of advertisement can bring negative impacts on individuals and society as a whole.
[City 1] and [City 2]. The former used to be our country's capital and the latter has been for more than a thousand years. In both of these cities there are lot of historical monuments and cultural attractions.
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Why do they attract tourists?
They attract tourists because of their historical significance; many people visit these cities to learn more about past events and historical sites they have only read about. Ancient cities also contain old buildings that have been preserved architecturally, that have cultural or religious values.
How to preserve these cities?
Historical sites should be restored. Their history and cultural aspects should be promoted through classes in schools and the construction of museums and galleries. Tour guides should also be vetted by the government to ensure that they're knowledgeable about the historical sites they introduce to visitors.
Do you think modern cities are built the same now?
No, I don't. In my country, for example, our roads are pretty narrow and people largely use private vehicles instead of public transportation. In developed countries, I think the roads are wider and public transportation is much better and more popular.
How will cities look like in the future?
I think cities will still have a lot of tall buildings, but they will use green energy and be more environmentally friendly than they are now. Roads will be wider, cleaner and have fewer vehicles, which can drive themselves.
What are some improvements taking place in your cities?
Many roads, bridges and highways are being built to make transportation more convenient. Millions of trees have been planted to reduce air pollution, and projects have been proposed to remove trash from rivers and streets.
Describe something you bought but you were not happy with.
You should say:
What this thing is?
When did you buy it?
Why were you not happy with it?
How did you react?
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Band 8.0+ Sample Answer
Actually in my life, I have performed many different transactions which give me both sense of satisfaction and discontent. However if I have to pick out one item that really let me down, I would name the birthday cake that I bought for my sister 2 years ago. Now with reference to why I were not content with is, I suppose there was a combination of reasons here. One of them was its exorbitant price. On my sister's birthday, I had an emergency at work and it took me almost all day till 11 pm to resolve it. Although it cost me an arm and a leg to buy the cake, I still decided to take it since it was the only bakery shop stayed open that late. Everything would be fine if it tasted good but unfortunately the cake was of terrible quality. It tasted way too sweet and was not appetizing at all. Thus, I was kind of regretful, choosing to purchase the cake instead of any other present for my sister. Actually as I had to splash out on the cake and received almost nothing back, I tended be more careful to make really sensible buying decision from that on.
Vocabulary
Transaction (n): an instance of buying or selling something
Discontent (n): dissatisfaction, lack of contentment
Pick out (phrasal verb): to choose
Let someone down (expression): fail to support or help someone as they expected
With reference to (expression): about
Content (a): in a taste of peaceful happiness
Exorbitant (a): (price) unreasonably high
Cost an arm and a leg (idiom): be extremely expensive
Appetizing (a): delicious
Splash out (phrasal verb): to spend a lot of money on something
Sensible (a): in accordance with wisdom and prudence
AThe recognition of the wealth and diversity of England’s coastal archaeology has been one of the most important developments of recent years. Some elements of this enormous resource have long been known. The so-called ‘submerged forests’ off the coasts of England, sometimes with clear evidence of human activity, had attracted the interest of antiquarians since at least the eighteenth century but serious and systematic attention has been given to the archaeological potential of the coast only since the early 1980s.
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B It is possible to trace a variety of causes for this concentration of effort and interest In the 1980s and 1990s scientific research into climate change and its environmental impact spilled over into a much broader public debate as awareness of these issues grew; the prospect of rising sea levels over the next century, and their impact on current coastal environments, has been a particular focus for concern. At the same time archaeologists were beginning to recognize that the destruction caused by natural processes of coastal erosion and by human activity was having an increasing impact on the archaeological resource of the coast.
C The dominant process affecting the physical form of England in the post- glacial period has been the rise in the altitude of sea level relative to the land, as the glaciers melted and the landmass readjusted. The encroachment of the sea, the loss of huge areas of land now under the North Sea and the English Channel, and especially the loss of the land bridge between England and France, which finally made Britain an island, must have been immensely significant factors in the lives of our prehistoric ancestors. Yet the way in which prehistoric communities adjusted to these environmental changes has seldom been a major theme in discussions of the period. One factor contributing to this has been that, although the rise in relative sea level is comparatively well documented, we know little about the constant reconfiguration of the coastline. This was affected by many processes, mostly quiet, which have not yet been adequately researched. The detailed reconstruction of coastline histories and the changing environments available for human use will be an important theme for future research.
D So great has been the rise in sea level and the consequent regression of the coast that uch of the archaeological evidence now exposed in the coastal zone, whether being eroded or exposed as a buried land surface, is derived from what was originally terres-trial occupation. Its current location in the coastal zone is the product of later unrelated processes, and it can tell us little about past adaptations to the sea. Estimates of its significance will need to be made in the context of other related evidence from dry land sites. Nevertheless, its physical environment means that preservation is often excellent, for example in the case of the Neolithic structure excavated at the Stumble in Essex.
E In some cases these buried land surfaces do contain evidence for human exploitation of what was a coastal environment, and elsewhere along the modem coast there is similarevidence. Where the evidence does relate to past human exploitation of the resources and the opportunities offered by the sea and the coast, it is both diverse and as yet little understood. We are not yet in a position to make even preliminary estimates of answers to such fundamental questions as the extent to which the sea and the coast affected human life in the past, what percentage of the population at any time lived within reach of the sea, or whether human settlements in coastal environments showed a distinct character from those inland.
F The most striking evidence for use of the sea is in the form of boats, yet we still have much to learn about their production and use. Most of the known wrecks around our coast are not unexpectedly of post-medieval date, and offer an unparalleled opportunity for research which has as yet been little used. The prehistoric sewn-plank boats such as those from the Humber estuary and Dover all seem to belong to the second millennium BC; after this there is a gap in the record of a millennium, which cannot yet be explained, before boats reappear, but built using a very different technology. Boatbuilding must have been an extremely important activity around much of our coast, yet we know almost nothing about it, Boats were some of the most complex artefacts produced by pre-modem societies, and further research on their production and use make an important contribution to our understanding of past attitudes to technology and technological change.
G Boats needed landing places, yet here again our knowledge is very patchy In many cases the natural shores and beaches would have sufficed, leaving little or no archaeological trace, but especially in later periods, many ports and harbors, as welJ as smaller facili- ties such as quays, wharves, and jetties, were built. Despite a growth of interest in the waterfront archaeology of some of our more important Roman and medieval towns, very little attention has been paid to the multitude of smaller landing places. Redevelopment of harbor sites and other development and natural pressures along the coast are subject- ing these important locations to unprecedented threats, yet few surveys of such sites have been undertaken.
H One of the most important revelations of recent research has been the extent ofindustrial activity along the coast. Fishing and salt production are among the better documented activities, but even here our knowledge is patchy Many forms of fishing will eave little archaeological trace, and one of the surprises of recent survey has been the extent of past investment in facilities for procuring fish and shellfish. Elaborate wooden fish weirs, often of considerable extent and responsive to aerial photography in shallow water, have been identified in areas such as Essex and the Severn estuary. The production of salt, especially in the late Iron Age and early Roman periods, has been recognized for some time, especially in the Thames estuary and around the Solent and Poole Harbor, but the reasons for the decline of that industry and the nature of later coastal salt working are much less well understood. Other industries were also located along the coast, either because the raw materials outcropped there or for ease of working and transport: mineral resources such as sand, gravel, stone, coal, ironstone, and alum were all exploited. These industries are poorly documented, but their mains are sometimes extensive and striking.
I Some appreciation of the variety and importance of the archaeological remains preserved in the coastal zone, albeit only in preliminary form, can thus be gained from recent work, but the complexity of the problem of managing that resource is also being realised. The problem arises not only from the scale and variety of the archaeological remains, but also from two other sources: the very varied natural and human threats to the resource, and the complex web of organisations with authority over, or interests in, the coastal zone. Human threats include the redevelopment of historic towns and old dockland areas, and the increased importance of the coast for the leisure and tourism industries, resulting in pressure for the increased provision of facilities such as marinas. The larger size of ferries has also caused an increase in the damage caused by their wash to fragile deposits in the intertidal zone. The most significant natural threat is the predicted rise in sea level over the next century especially in the south and east of England. Its impact on archaeology is not easy to predict, and though it is likely to be highly localised, it will be at a scale much larger than that of most archaeological sites. Thus protecting one site may simply result in transposing the threat to a point further along the coast. The management of the archaeological remains will have to be considered in a much longer time scale and a much wider geographical scale than is common in the case of dry land sites, and this will pose a serious challenge for archaeologists.
Questions 1-3
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write your answers in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet.
1.What has caused public interest in coastal archaeology in recent years?
A Golds and jewelleries in the ships that have submerged
B The rising awareness of climate change
C Forests under the sea
D Technological advance in the field of sea research
2. What does the passage say about the evidence of boats?
A We have a good knowledge of how boats were made and what boats were for prehistorically
B Most of the boats discovered were found in harbors
C The use of boats had not been recorded for a thousand years
D The way to build boats has remained unchanged throughout human history
3. What can be discovered from the air?
A Salt mines
B Shellfish
C Ironstones
D Fisheries
Questions 4-10
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 4-10 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE
if the statement is true
FALSE
if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN
if the information is not given in the passage
4. England lost much of its land after the ice-age due to the rising sea level.
5. The coastline of England has changed periodically.
6. Coastal archaeological evidence may be well-protected by sea water.
7. The design of boats used by pre-modem people was very simple.
8. Similar boats were also discovered in many other European countries
9. There are few documents relating to mineral exploitation.
10. Large passenger boats are causing increasing damage to the seashore.
Questions 11-13
Choose THREE letters J-G Write your answer in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet Which THREE of the following statements are mentioned in the passage?
A Our prehistoric ancestors adjusted to the environmental change caused by the rising sea level by moving to higher lands
B It is difficult to understand how many people lived close to the sea.
C Human settlements in coastal environment were different from those inland.
D Our knowledge of boat evidence is limited.
E The prehistoric boats were built mainly for collecting sand from the river.
F Human development threatens the archaeological remains.
G The reason for the decline of salt industry was the shortage of laborers.
SECTION 2
Activities for Children
A Twenty-five years ago, children in London walked to school and played in parks and playing fields after school and at the weekend. Today they are usually driven to school by parents anxious about safety and spend hours glued to television screens or computer games. Meanwhile, community playing fields are being sold off to property developers at an alarming rate. ‘This change in lifestyle has, sadly, meant greater restrictions on children,’ says Neil Armstrong, Professor of Health and Exercise Sciences at the University of Exeter. ‘If children continue to be this inactive, they’ll be storing up big problems for the future.’
B In 1985, Professor Armstrong headed a five-year research project into children’s fitness. The results, published in 1990, were alarming. The survey, which monitored 700 11-16-year-olds, found that 48 per cent of girls and 41 per cent of boys already exceeded safe cholesterol levels set for children by the American Heart Foundation. Armstrong adds, “heart is a muscle and need exercise, or it loses its strength." It also found that 13 per cent of boys and 10 per cent of girls were overweight. More disturbingly, the survey found that over a four-day period, half the girls and one-third of the boys did less exercise than the equivalent of a brisk 10-minute walk. High levels of cholesterol, excess body fat and inactivity are believed to increase the risk of coronary heart disease.
C Physical education is under pressure in the UK – most schools devote little more than 100 minutes a week to it in curriculum time, which is less than many other European countries. Three European countries are giving children a head start in PE, France, Austria and Switzerland – offer at least two hours in primary and secondary schools. These findings, from the European Union of Physical Education Associations, prompted specialists in children’s physiology to call on European governments to give youngsters a daily PE programme. The survey shows that the UK ranks 13th out of the 25 countries, with Ireland bottom, averaging under an hour a week for PE. From age six to 18，British children received, on average, 106 minutes of PE a week. Professor Armstrong, who presented the findings at the meeting, noted that since the introduction of the national curriculum there had been a marked fall in the time devoted to PE in UK schools, with only a minority of pupils getting two hours a week.
D As a former junior football international, Professor Armstrong is a passionate advocate for sport. Although the Government has poured millions into beefing up sport in the community, there is less commitment to it as part of the crammed school curriculum. This means that many children never acquire the necessary skills to thrive in team games. If they are no good at them, they lose interest and establish an inactive pattern of behaviour. When this is coupled with a poor diet, it will lead inevitably to weight gain. Seventy per cent of British children give up all sport when they leave school, compared with only 20 per cent of French teenagers. Professor Armstrong believes that there is far too great an emphasis on team games at school. “We need to look at the time devoted to PE and balance it between individual and pair activities, such as aerobics and badminton, as well as team sports. “He added that children need to have the opportunity to take part in a wide variety of individual, partner and team sports.
E The good news, however, is that a few small companies and children’s activity groups have reacted positively and creatively to the problem. Take That, shouts Gloria Thomas, striking a disco pose astride her mini-spacehopper. Take That, echo a flock of toddlers, adopting outrageous postures astride their space hoppers. ‘Michael Jackson, she shouts, and they all do a spoof fan-crazed shriek. During the wild and chaotic hopper race across the studio floor, commands like this are issued and responded to with untrammelled glee. The sight of 15 bouncing seven-year-olds who seem about to launch into orbit at every bounce brings tears to the eyes. Uncoordinated, loud, excited and emotional, children provide raw comedy.
F Any cardiovascular exercise is a good option, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be high intensity. It can be anything that gets your heart rate up: such as walking the dog, swimming, miming, skipping, hiking. “Even walking through the grocery store can be exercise,” Samis-Smith said. What they don’t know is that they’re at a Fit Kids class, and that the fun is a disguise for the serious exercise plan they’re covertly being taken through. Fit Kids trains parents to run fitness classes for children. ‘Ninety per cent of children don’t like team sports,’ says company director, Gillian Gale.
G A Prevention survey found that children whose parents keep in shape are much more likely to have healthy body weights themselves. “There’s nothing worse than telling a child what he needs to do and not doing it yourself,” says Elizabeth Ward, R.D., a Boston nutritional consultant and author of Healthy Foods, Healthy Kids . “Set a good example and get your nutritional house in order first.” In the 1930s and ’40s, kids expended 800 calories a day just walking, carrying water, and doing other chores, notes Fima Lifshitz, M.D., a pediatric endocrinologist in Santa Barbara. “Now, kids in obese families are expending only 200 calories a day in physical activity,” says Lifshitz, “incorporate more movement in your family’s lifepark farther away from the stores at the mall, take stairs instead of the elevator, and walk to nearby friends’ houses instead of driving.”
Questions 14 -17
The reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-G.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-G, in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.
14. Health and living condition of children
15. Health organization monitored physical activity
16. Comparison of exercise time between UK and other countries
17. Wrong approach for school activity
Questions 18-21
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 18-21 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE
if the statement is true
FALSE
if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN
if the information is not given in the passage
18. According to American Heart Foundation, cholesterol levels of boys are higher than girls’.
19. British children generally do less exercise than some other European countries.
20. Skipping becomes more and more popular in schools of UK.
21. According to Healthy Kids, the first task is for parents to encourage their children to keep the same healthy body weight.
Questions 22-26
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write your answers in boxes 22-26 on your answer sheet.
22. According to paragraph A, what does Professor Neil Armstrong concern about?
A Spending more time on TV affect academic level
B Parents have less time stay with their children
C Future health of British children
D Increasing speed of property’s development
23. What does Armstrong indicate in Paragraph B?
A We need to take a 10 minute walk everyday
B We should do more activity to exercise heart
C Girls’ situation is better than boys
D Exercise can cure many disease
24.What is aim of First Kids’ trainning?
A Make profit by running several sessions
B Only concentrate on one activity for each child
C To guide parents how to organize activities for children
D Spread the idea that team sport is better
25. What did Lifshitz suggest in the end of this passage?
ACreate opportunities to exercise your body
B Taking elevator saves your time
C Kids should spend more than 200 calories each day
D We should never drive but walk
26. What is main idea of this passage?
A health of the children who are overweight is at risk in the future
B Children in UK need proper exercises
C Government mistaken approach for children
D Parents play the most important role in children’s activity
SECTION 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 on the following pages.
Mechanisms of Linguistic Change
A The changes that have caused the most disagreement are those in pronunciation. We have various sources of evidence for the pronunciations of earlier times, such as the spellings, the treatment of words borrowed from other languages or borrowed by them, the descriptions of contemporary grammarians and spelling-reformers, and the modern pronunciations in all the languages and dialects concerned From the middle of the sixteenth century, there are in England writers who attempt to describe the position of the speech-organs for the production of English phonemes, and who invent what are in effect systems of phonetic symbols. These various kinds of evidence, combined with a knowledge of the mechanisms of speech-production, can often give us a very good idea of the pronunciation of an earlier age, though absolute certainty is never possible.
B When we study the pronunciation of a language over any period of a few generations or more, we find there are always large-scale regularities in the changes: for example, over a certain period of time, just about all the long [a:] vowels in a language may change into long [e:] vowels, or all the [b] consonants in a certain position (for example at the end of a word) may change into [p] consonants. Such regular changes are often called sound laws. There are no universal sound laws (even though sound laws often reflect universal tendencies), but simply particular sound laws for one given language (or dialect) at one given period
C It is also possible that fashion plays a part in the process of change. It certainly plays a part in the spread of change: one person imitates another, and people with the most prestige are most likely to be imitated, so that a change that takes place in one social group may be imitated (more or less accurately) by speakers in another group. When a social group goes up or down in the world, its pronunciation of Russian, which had formerly been considered desirable, became on the contrary an undesirable kind of accent to have, so that people tried to disguise it. Some of the changes in accepted English pronunciation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have been shown to consist in the replacement of one style of pronunciation by another style already existing, and it is likely that such substitutions were a result of the great social changes of the period: the increased power and wealth of the middle classes, and their steady infiltration upwards into the ranks of the landed gentry, probably carried elements of middle-class pronunciation into upper-class speech.
D A less specific variant of the argument is that the imitation of children is imperfect: they copy their parents' speech, but never reproduce it exactly. This is true, but it is also true that such deviations from adult speech are usually corrected in later childhood. Perhaps it is more significant that even adults show a certain amount of random variation in their pronunciation of a given phoneme, even if the phonetic context is kept unchanged. This, however, cannot explain changes in pronunciation unless it can be shown that there is some systematic trend in the failures of imitation: if they are merely random deviations they will cancel one another out and there will be no net change in the language.
E One such force which is often invoked is the principle of ease, or minimization of effort. The change from fussy to fuzzy would be an example of assimilation, which is a very common kind of change. Assimilation is the changing of a sound under the influence of a neighbouring one. For example, the word scant was once skamt, but the /m/ has been changed to /n/ under the influence of the following /t/. Greater efficiency has hereby been achieved, because /n/ and /t/ are articulated in the same place (with the tip of the tongue against the teeth-ridge), whereas /m/ is articulated elsewhere (with the two lips). So the place of articulation of the nasal consonant has been changed to conform with that of the following plosive. A more recent example of the same kind of thing is the common pronunciation of football as football.
F Assimilation is not the only way in which we change our pronunciation in order to increase efficiency. It is very common for consonants to be lost at the end of a word: in Middle English, word-final [-n] was often lost in unstressed syllables, so that baken 'to bake' changed from [‘ba:kan] to [‘ba:k3],and later to [ba:k]. Consonant-clusters are often simplified. At one time there was a [t] in words like castle and Christmas, and an initial [k] in words like knight and know. Sometimes a whole syllable is dropped out when two successive syllables begin with the same consonant (haplology): a recent example is temporary, which in Britain is often pronounced as if it were tempory.
Questions 27-30
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet.
The pronunciation of living language undergo changes throughout thousands of years. Large scale regular Changes are usually called
27___________ . There are three reasons for these changes. Firstly, the influence of one language on another; when one person imitates another pronunciation(the most prestige's), the imitation always partly involving factor of 28______________ . Secondly, the imitation of children from adults1 language sometimes are 29___________ , and may also contribute to this change if there are insignificant deviations tough later they may be corrected Finally, for those random variations in pronunciation, the deeper evidence lies in the 30______________or minimization of effort.
Questions 31-37
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 31-37 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE
if the statement is true
FALSE
if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN
if the information is not given in the passage
31. it is impossible for modern people to find pronunciation of words in an earlier age
32. The great change of language in Russian history is related to the rising status and fortune of middle classes.
33. All the children learn speeches from adults white they assume that certain language is difficult to imitate exactly.
34. Pronunciation with causal inaccuracy will not exert big influence on language changes.
35. The link of can be influenced being pronounced as ‘nf’
36. The [g] in gnat not being pronounced will not be spelt out in the future.
37. The sound of ‘temporary’ cannot wholly present its spelling.
Questions 38-40
Look at the following sentences and the list of statements below. Match each statement with the correct sentence, A-D.
Write the correct letter, A-D, in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet
A Since the speakers can pronounce it with less effort
B Assimilation of a sound under the influence of a neighbouring one
C It is a trend for changes in pronunciation in a large scale in a given period
D Because the speaker can pronounce [n] and [t] both in the same time
38. As a consequence, 'b' will be pronounced as
39. The pronunciation of [mt] changed to [nt]
40. The omit of ‘f in the sound of Christmas
ANSWER KEYS
1 B 2 C 3 D
4 TRUE 5 FALSE 6 TRUE
7 FALSE 8 NOT GIVEN 9 TRUE 10 TRUE
11 B 12 D 13 F
14 A 15 B 16 C 17 D
18 NOT GIVEN 19 TRUE
20 NOT GIVEN 21 FALSE
22 C 23 B 24 C 25 A 26 B
27 Sound laws 28 Fashion 29 Imperfect 30 Principle of
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Govt's wish: IndiGo rolls back April pay cut for most staff One reason for it could be that IndiGo, with its free cash of over Rs 9,400 crore as on December 31, is in a better position than most peers to tide over the crisis.
On Thursday, the House passed the newest federal stimulus package aimed at providing financial relief for businesses and institutions hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis.
The bill lingered in the Senate for two weeks of debates, with Republicans seeking to pass a less comprehensive version of the legislation and Democrats working to weave other funding into the package. In the end, the interim legislation will allocate $310 billion to replenish the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), $75 billion for hospitals and $25 billion for COVID-19 testing. The bill also includes additional funds for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program.
The funding for tests comes with specific requirements for the Trump administration to formulate a “strategic plan” in coordination with states to expand national testing capacity — a key effort that public health experts say is necessary before states begin to reopen for business.
For small businesses around the country, many devastated by the ongoing crisis, the SBA program for forgivable loans began with hope but quickly descended into frustration. The loans are intended for small businesses to put toward payroll and if used to retain employees, they turn into grants. Many small business owners, scrambling to find banks handling PPP loans, were shut out of the program shortly after applications went live. Others never heard back about the loans and still remain in limbo. Within days, the funds had dried up.
Large banks are accused of eschewing a first-come-first-served system, instead doling the loans out preferentially based on their potential to make money. Some relatively large businesses also used gaping loopholes in the program to soak up the free funds. In one example, the restaurant chain Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse secured $20 million, which the company now says it will repay.
Democrats fought to include new carve-outs that could address some of these problems, and the final bill allocates $30 billion in loans for banks and credit unions with $10 to $50 billion in assets and another $30 billion for banks with less than $10 billion in assets.
The president previously expressed his approval of the bill and his intention to sign it and make the funds available as quickly as possible.
Prompted by Jeff Bezos's plans to test all Amazon employees for the virus that causes COVID-19, we wondered whether employers can mandate employee testing, regardless of symptoms. The issue pits public safety against personal privacy, but limited testing availability has rendered the question somewhat moot.
But as the World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have noted, asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers can spread the virus without realizing they’re infected. To learn more about workers’ rights in this arena, we spoke to Tricia Bozyk Sherno, counsel at Debevoise & Plimpton, who focuses on employment and general commercial litigation.
The answer, for now, is not entirely straightforward, though updates from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission could make the situation clearer going forward as more tests are made available and state governments begin pushing to reopen businesses.
Sherno offered a fair amount of insight into the EEOC's updated guidance and made some predictions about how things may look for both employers and workers going forward.
TechCrunch: Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, what sorts of laws governed an employer's ability to test employees for infectious diseases?
Tricia Bozyk Sherno: Covered employers (employers with 15 or more employees) must comply with the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which limits an employer’s ability to make disability-related inquiries or require medical examinations. (Note that certain states may also have similar statutes in place.) Generally, disability-related inquiries and medical examinations are prohibited by the ADA except in limited circumstances. A “medical examination” is a procedure or test that seeks information about an individual's physical or mental impairments or health — so infectious disease testing would fall into this category.
Tesla has added Hiromichi Mizuno as a new member to its board of directors and audit committee — the former chief investment officer of Japan’s $1.5 trillion pension fund and a longtime opponent of common market practices like short selling.
With Mizuno’s appointment the Tesla board now has 10 members, including Oracle founder, chairman and CTO Larry Ellison and Walgreens executive Kathleen Wilson-Thompson. Mizuno will also sit on the board’s audit committee.
Mizuno has a long career in finance and investment that include a stint as executive managing director and chief investment officer of Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), the largest in the world with about $1.5 trillion in assets under management. Mizuno left his position in late March.
During his time at GPIF, Mizuno promoted environmental, social and governance practices. He was also known for challenging short selling — a practice that has plagued Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk . During his tenure, the GPIF suspended stock lending, which caught many by surprise. Mizuno’s opposition to short selling is at odds with some market purists who believe the investment strategy — which speculates on the decline in a stock — actually provides greater price transparency. Mizuno has said in previous interviews with media outlets like the Financial Times that it conflicts with his long-term perspective.
Mizuno is on a number of government advisory boards, including the board of the PRI, the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council and the Japanese government's strategic fund integrated advisory board.
He also challenged many established market practices, including short-selling, to promote long-term value creation by corporations.
As a director, Mizuno will get an initial award of an option to purchase 2,778 shares of Tesla’s common stock, vesting and exercisable on June 18, 2020. For serving on the audit committee, he will get an initial award of an option to purchase 4,000 shares of Tesla’s common stock, vesting in 12 equal monthly tranches, assuming continued service on each vesting date, according to a regulator filing Thursday.
Tesla’s board had sat unchanged for years until late 2018 when Ellison and Wilson-Thompson joined the board as independent directors as part of a settlement with U.S. securities regulators over CEO Elon Musk's infamous tweets about taking the company private. Under the settlement, Tesla agreed to add two independent directors and Musk would step down as chairman for three years. Robyn Denholm, the former chief operations officer of Telstra Corporation Limited, a telecommunications company, was named chairman in November 2018.
In April 2019, the company said it would cut its board down by more than one-third, to seven directors, by 2020, a move that included the loss of some of Musk's early advisers and allies.
Longtime board members Brad Buss and Linda Johnson Rice, who joined two years ago as independent directors, did not seek re-election in 2019 and their terms expired at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in June. The board said in the proxy filing at the time that it didn't plan to fill their seats.
Antonio Gracias, whose term ends in 2020, and venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson will leave the board in 2020, according to a regulatory filing last year.
Is “Too Hot to Handle” the dumbest show on Netflix … or the most diabolically brilliant?
The reality TV series brings a group of twentysomethings together on a secluded tropical retreat, then — after a brief getting-to-know-you period — warns them that anything even coming close to sex will result in a reduction of the $100,000 prize. Not only does this force the contestants to wrestle with their own physical desires — it also encourages them to point fingers and police each other’s behavior.
The show is obviously ridiculous (we haven’t even mentioned Lana, the virtual assistant who explains the rules and supposedly monitors everyone’s behavior) and hypocritical. It simultaneously invites you to ogle the hardbodied cast members as they dance around in swimsuits and to judge them for indulging in “meaningless” hookups.
But as we discussed “Too Hot to Handle” on the latest episode of the Original Content podcast, another thought occurred to us: Maybe these aren’t just hedonistic morons showcasing the worst parts of their personalities at the encouragement of reality TV producers. Maybe, instead, this is a brutally honest documentary capturing how all human beings would behave if we could get away with it.
As you ponder that possibility, you can listen to our review in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)
And if you’d like to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down: 0:00 Intro 0:27 Netflix earnings 18:27 “Too Hot to Handle” review 40:48 “Too Hot to Handle” spoiler discussion
Representatives from the government and the utility managing the power of Los Angeles are proposing a sweeping infrastructure package worth roughly $150 billion centered on the broad electrification of transportation and industry.
Drafted by the Los Angeles-based public-private Transportation Electrification Partnership, a collaboration between the Office of Mayor Eric Garcetti, Southern California Edison, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, the proposal lays out a number of initiatives based on work that’s already being done in Los Angeles to electrify the city’s infrastructure.
As the nation’s second-largest metropolitan area, boasting an over $1 trillion economy, decisions made in the city can have broad economic and social implications that ripple far beyond the Southern California region. Alongside New York, Los Angeles has set some of the nation’s most aggressive targets for the rollout of renewable and sustainable industries.
The proposal sets out four big initiatives, including zero-emissions vehicle manufacturing, assembly and adoption; zero-emissions infrastructure investments; commitments to public transit investments; workforce development; and job training. There’s also a relatively modest request (of only $4 billion) for funding devoted to pilot projects, startup companies, and public clean technology investment initiatives (like LACI).
The initiative reserves the largest cash pile for the development of electric charging infrastructure around the country, according to the proposal seen by TechCrunch and sent to House and Senate leadership including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Image Credits: Monty Rakusen / Getty Images
Of the $85 billion set aside for the deployment of zero-emission vehicle infrastructure, the TEP proposal reserves roughly one-fourth for upgrades to the electricity grid. The funding would include $20 billion for utility upgrades. Of that, $10 billion will go toward solar and energy storage projects designed to make grids more resistant to climate-related catastrophes like extreme weather events, wildfires and other disasters. The remaining $10 billion would support commercial and residential vehicle charging, solar energy development and energy storage projects.
Another $15 billion is dedicated to medium- and heavy-duty vehicle charging that would be administered by state governments, transit agencies or regional agencies. New developments could be added to truck yards, truck stops and plazas, as well as strategic locations, such as ports and airports.
“Funding of the scale proposed here could enable a transformation not only in the LA metropolitan area, but across the country, as well as provide opportunities where possible for local hire through community benefit agreements, which are an effective mechanism to ensure charging infrastructure projects include workers living local to a project, as well as other targeted hiring policies, such as US Veteran hiring, are achieved,” writes LACI chief executive, Matt Peterson.
Light-duty charging infrastructure occupies another $10 billion of the suggested stimulus measures. The goal, is to get local, shovel-ready projects the financing they’d need to start the process of hiring workers immediately. One project that’s already being rolled out in Los Angeles is the development of curbside charging infrastructure on streetlight poles to serve drivers who don’t have access to charging infrastructure at home.
Finally under the infrastructure bucket, the proposal recommends that Congress set aside $11 billion for transit and school bus charging to be administered via states, transit agencies and school districts; $5 billion for state and local government fleets; and $4 billion to support the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.
The LIHEAP money is critical for the over 12 million Americans who have recently lost their job, the consortium argues and could also help finance the Department of Energy’s Weatherization program.
Popular programs like Opportunity Zones, New Market Tax Credits and Community Development Finance Institutions could be used to boost the government’s commitment with private capital, the plan’s authors argue.
Non-Electric vehicles fill a parking lot in Rosemead, California, where two Electric Vehicle charging stations are offered on September 12, 2018.
All of that charging infrastructure and grid upgrades are in part designed to help meet the increased power demands that the proposal expects to bring onto the grid through another $25 billion in government funding for electric vehicles of all types. The funds could be allocated through existing programs including the extension of the electric vehicle tax credit for automakers and new programs that would allow consumers to trade in older model vehicles for newer, preferably electric, vehicles.
An additional way the government could juice the auto industry — and specifically electric vehicles — is by providing point of sale rebates for all vehicles that could be issued through car dealerships, according to the proposal. “This will also help dealerships increase sales and bring needed sales tax revenues to local and state governments,” Peterson writes.
There’s $25 billion in money set aside for public transit and $12.5 billion set aside for workforce retraining and education.
For startups, the programs that could have the most impact — aside from the broad infrastructure package that could mean additional demand for new technologies — is a far smaller and more targeted proposal for roughly $4 billion that would allocate money directly to small and medium sized businesses and local incubation and corporate development programs.
“Startups and small businesses are the engine of every local and regional economy,” writes Peterson. “Targeting resources to this sector is critical to help entrepreneurs continue America’s leadership in technology innovation, restart small businesses, and help put people back to work.”
TEP is proposing a $1 billion grant for early stage research and development of cleantech and zero-emission mobility innovations and $1 billion for shovel ready pilot projects deployed by startups and small businesses via local governments.
Still more money would include $500 million in emergency loans and grants for cleantech startups and small businesses that are involved in solar installations, energy storage, and electric vehicle technology development. Revenues for these companies have dropped precipitously as consumer-facing demand has fallen off a cliff.
There’s also a $500 million pot targeted for startups and small businesses founded by women and people of color and $500 million for nonprofit cleantech and innovation incubators.
Alongside LACI, there are a few of these nonprofit investment programs which have cropped up across the Midwest that could be a boon to budding entrepreneurs.
Finally, the proposal advocates for at least $500 million in funding to train unemployed or underemployed would-be laborers along with veterans and the formerly incarcerated.
Some of these initiatives have been tried in the past, and despite partisan complaints, proved effective. The Obama-era loan program established to boost clean energy companies generated revenues for the government despite the much-publicized flameout of the solar startup, Solyndra. Even Tesla benefited from the program, paying back a $460 million loan from the program a decade ahead of schedule.
With increasing volatility in oil prices, the move to an increasingly electric infrastructure makes sense because it offers more stability for energy buyers, including consumers and businesses.
Leaked images obtained by TechCrunch reveal that Google considered and designed a feature that would let people donate money to websites to help support news publishers, bloggers and musicians. But Google scrapped the idea and chose not to build out the product, despite these kinds of businesses and creators often struggling to earn revenue.
Google’s design for tipping money to The New York Times
Last year, Google explored tipping as a new wing of Google Contributor, a service that lets people pay around 1 cent per page view to remove ads from partnered websites. Screenshots of the tipping feature showed the ability to make one-time donations of $0.20 to $5 to help support sites. “Want to see more content like this on our site? Support with a contribution” one version explained. It’s unclear if Google would have taken the same 10% cut of tips as it does from Contributor ad removal fees. Google mocked up designs for tipping on the sites of The New York Times, Wired, “Tech Crunch” [sic] and more.
If Google had launched the tipping feature, it could have provided a valuable tool to sites battered by the declining display ad market. And now amid coronavirus lockdowns that have canceled events and reduced podcast listenership that media publishers rely on for revenue, the ability to accept donations could have helped sites avoid laying off staff. Perhaps Google should consider resurrecting tipping as a more sustainable form of assistance alongside its new Journalism Emergency Relief Fund.
Google’s designs for tipping money to news sites
TechCrunch obtained these screenshots from a source that provided evidence that they came directly from Google. When asked, Google confirmed that the designs were of an internal idea it explored last year but decided not to pursue as part of Contributor and Google Funding Choices, which lets sites ask visitors to disable ad blockers, or instead buy a subscription or pay a per page fee to remove ads. Google shared the idea with a handful of publishers in a request for feedback. The company decided to prioritize other products, including a way for sites to request consent to personalize ads using their data amid strengthened regulations like GDPR.
A Google spokesperson provided TechCrunch with a statement that said: “We recognize that there isn't a single business model that works for all publishers today and think it's critical to explore new technologies that can help publishers make more money. Funding Choices is a great example of a product we have invested in significantly and will continue to evolve to support publishers and their monetization strategies.”
A design for the floating button to be overlaid on websites for making a contribution
In fact, few business models work for publishers at all. With layoffs common across local news, national papers and digital outlets, publishers could use have used all the help they could get, even if long-term subscriptions would be more lucrative than one-off tips.
Google’s unlaunched patronage feature
Designs for Google’s tipping feature show a floating “Support New York Times” button overlaid at the bottom of the screen as you scroll. Tapping it reveals instructions to “Select an amount below using Google Contributor to help fund this site,” with options like $1, $3 or $5.
Google’s designs for tipping on a musician’s website
After choosing one, users log into their Google account if they aren’t already, and then “By clicking ‘Pay now’ you agree that: You will use your Google Payments account to make this one-time payment.” You’re then returned to the page you were viewing, with the button saying “Thank you for your support!” before shrinking to just the Contributor logo.
Google also designed a micropayments version of the feature where users could make smaller donations, such as $0.20. This call to action could be inserted into a static position inside a website. When a user’s contributions totaled $1 or more, they would be billed. They’d also have the option to save their contribution and make it later.
Google’s designs for micropayment tipping to blogs
To drive home the emotional satisfaction of making a donation, this design shows a profile photo of you and tip recipient with a heart in between. Afterwards, a cute cat photo illustration shows a message saying “Thanks for the support. Your contribution is saved and we will send a confirmation email,” with a cheeky “Purrrrrfect, thanks!” before returning you to the site.
Beyond traditional news sites, Google mocked up the tipping feature for The Points Guy travel advice site, the Spiritual Boss Babe blog, the Miranda Sings musician site and the Forest Research UK government site. TechCrunch was not aware that Google was using our site in mockups for the tipping feature. Other sites included in the mockups did not respond to inquiries about if they were asked for feedback.
News sites could feasibly build a tipping feature themselves or integrate a lesser-known third-party tool. But a ubiquitous platform like Google that already has user accounts and payment methods on file that could offer this across many sites would make giving money much easier for users.
Publishers in need
Google got into the publisher funding space with Google One Pass in 2011, helping users buy subscriptions to sites before it was shut down a year later. In 2014, Google Contributor launched to let people pay a monthly fee in exchange for ad removal on partnered sites, but that program concluded around the end of 2016.
In 2017, Google relaunched the program with users paying up front to fund a per-page view fee for removal, and that program remains active with some publishers. The tech giant also operates Subscribe With Google, which lets people buy and manage publisher subscriptions or fan club entry from their Google account, and then surfaces that site’s content atop related Google searches.
If Google ever chose to revive the tipping feature and taxed it 10% like Contributor, it could create a modest new revenue stream. But more importantly, it could help fuel the creation of the content that fills its News and Search results. It would also allow Google to double-dip, potentially earning money from tips and from the ads users see on those sites.
A tipping feature could be especially helpful for websites that haven’t figured out a premium subscription strategy and mostly rely on ads. The fall of display ad prices, worsened by the COVID-19 recession, could put these publishers in danger of closing. BuzzFeed and Vox have cut staff pay or furloughed team members while tons of newspaper and sites like Protocol have suffered layoffs.
Tips might not replace other revenue streams, but could extend sites’ runway. A voluntary option to accept tips without having to build all the payments infrastructure could be a lifeline for the news business, if Google would ordain it a priority.
The FCC has finally gotten around to updating its 15-year-old orbital debris rules, adding new requirements and streamlining the approval process. With hundreds of satellites going up every year into increasingly crowded orbits, these rules are more important than ever.
In stating the necessity for mitigating the accumulation of orbital debris, the FCC noted that while some like to downplay the problem, there is already significant danger:
Studies indicate that already in some regions of LEO, the number of new objects and fragments generated from collisions exceeds those removed by natural atmospheric drag. Other regions have sufficient densities of orbital debris to lead some analysts to conclude that they are close to or have already reached a “runaway” status, where the debris population will grow indefinitely due to collisions between debris objects.
To be clear, the rules are not anything along the lines of “your spacecraft can’t break up into more than 20 pieces” or anything like that. They’re more along the lines of requiring satellite operators to show that they’re operating in a safe and sustainable way, making guarantees like the ability to track or deorbit the craft if there’s a problem.
The new rules are not wildly different from those that came before, but rather reflect the new reality of satellite constellations thousands strong and changes resulting from improvements to technology and launch methods. (The 2004 rules have been tweaked here and there, but this is the first “comprehensive” update since then.)
For instance, with launches of multiple spacecraft like SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, it’s important that each craft is uniquely identifiable, trackable either via ground radar or some other telemetry method, and so on. The new rules require satellite operators to disclose exactly how and to what extent this is done, and also whether and how they plan to share with spacecraft tracking authorities things like orbit adjustments and other maneuvers.
They also have to estimate the likelihood of collision with large and small objects, the possibility that the satellite will fail and what risk that creates for anyone on the surface.
The biggest change in rules is probably the requirement that any spacecraft going above the International Space Station be capable of some kind of maneuvering in order to avoid collisions.
Considering what goes on in those orbits — imaging and communications, mainly — maneuvering is something most craft need to do already. But if there’s no requirement, and the price of satellites and launches continues to drop, it would only be a matter of time before someone decides to spray a thousand tiny, dumb satellites into orbit with empty assurances that they definitely won’t hit anything.
And the thing is, if the FCC doesn’t make rules, no one will. It’s strange that the same agency is responsible for broadband speeds, obscenity on TV and orbital debris, but that’s just how it is.
As Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel noted in her statement accompanying the new rules: “We need to recognize the FCC has unique authority. We are the only ones with jurisdiction over commercial space activities. That makes our work to update the agency's 2004 orbital debris policies really important.”
Although they work in concert with NASA, NOAA and international authorities trying to develop global best practices, the FCC is the one making the rules when it comes to the vast majority of satellites going up today.
One proposal not adopted today but which the FCC is publicizing in order to generate discussion is a potential requirement for companies to put up a bond that’s redeemable when their satellite is successfully retired as planned.
Essentially a company that wants to launch a satellite would be asked to put down, just for example, $10,000 in a government bond before it goes to orbit. A few years later, when the satellite has finished its job and is ready to be scuttled, that $10,000 could be redeemed if all goes according to plan. But if the craft fails, or goes out of control, or otherwise departs from the plan, the $10,000 is forfeited.
The idea makes sense intuitively — a sort of security deposit for spacecraft — but the specifics are very difficult to work out. So the FCC is soliciting comments to see how best to approach the requirement, or whether to at all.
You can read the full set of new rules and justification thereof at the FCC’s website.
U.S. companies rely on Mexican manufacturers for goods ranging from automotive and aerospace parts, to avocados and other produce, to electronics and furniture. But the trucking system that transports these things across the border relies on an inefficient mix of paper, phone calls, faxes and too many stakeholders who drive up costs.
These snarls congesting border traffic are precisely why Nuvocargo founder and CEO Deepak Chhugani has raised a $5.3 million seed round for a managed marketplace for door to door freight transportation, serving trade routes between the United States and Mexico.
Investment came from both sides of the border. The round was co-led by Silicon Valley-based NFX and Mexico City-based ALLVP. And Nuvocargo marks the first deal forAntonia Rojas-Eing, the youngest female VC in Latin America, under ALLVP, which she joined earlier this year as a partner.
The seed round also saw participation from One Way Ventures, Maya Capital, Magma Partners, the co-founders of Rappi, the former CMO of Cabify and other angels. The total includes earlier backing from Y Combinator, when Nuvocargo existed under a different name.
Chhugani joined Y Combinator’s W18 class with a startup called The Lobby, which sought to connect job seekers to personalized coaches. Heraised $1.2 million for the startup, but decided to pivot into logistics and work on Nuvocargo. The change in direction was fairly natural for the Ecuador-raised entrepreneur, who cited his family's previous work in the Latin American logistics industry.
When the time came to pivot, Chhugani offered investors their money back. Some chose to leave, but Y Combinator elected to stay under the new promise of digitizing trucking between Mexico and the U.S. Nuvocargo says that the $5.3 million seed is its first round, and what they’ve raised to date. Investors who stayed in from The Lobby are part of this round for Nuvocargo.
Nuvocargo, which calls itself a modern managed marketplace for door to door freight transportation, has set up shop with fully bilingual teams in both New York and Mexico.
Mexico is already one of the United States' largest trade partners, and Chhugani predicts that relationship will only strengthen in the next decade. The U.S.-China trade war shows no signs of easing and tariffs have increased buying friction. With the 2018United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that aims to renegotiate NAFTA and uncertainty around coronavirus, Chhugani believes Mexico will become an even more attractive trade opportunity to capitalize on with Nuvocargo.
To the company's knowledge, U.S.-Mexico trucking is within the top five biggest trade lanes in the world, with 6.5 million trucking shipments going between Mexico and the U.S. every year. Notably, 80% of all the goods transported between the U.S. and Mexico move by truck.
VCs have jumped on the freight and logistics opportunity as startups like NEXT Trucking, Convoy and Flexport secure hundreds of millions dollars from investors like Sequoia and SoftBank.
Now, smaller startups like Nuvocargo that specialize on specific routes and countries are focusing in regionally to bring online these systems that rely on paper, phone calls, faxes and spreadsheets to do business.
Nuvocargo's free software digitizes the different steps with timestamps, geo tracking and document housing in a centralized cloud-based dashboard, providing a snapshot understanding of every step of a cross border shipment. Customers can request new shipments using Nuvocargo using a WhatsApp integration, email or SMS.
The 15-person startup wants to house the entire shipping process within its tracking software, simplifying the customer experience. The customer, Chhugani says, is any company that needs to move goods between Mexico and the U.S., and he notes that Nuvocargo is working with dozens of customers ranging from beverage companies to multi-billion-dollar corporations — though he declined to specify who.
Chhugani says that in a typical U.S.-Mexico cross-border trucking transaction, up to 12 stakeholders are involved in a single shipment, and that is too many. Multiple people on the U.S. side are procuring the trucks and managing customs, FDA inspection and warehouse storage. On the Mexico side there are even more entities handling scheduling and pick up for the trucking companies and drivers.
With the new seed funding, Nuvocargo will prioritize early hires in product, operations, finance and engineering in its New York and Mexico offices on its fully bilingual team.
Chhugani says he's especially appreciative of the truck drivers that put themselves in harms way to ensure critical items are getting to the right destination, ensuring shelves are stocked. He says that in this uncertain time, Nuvocargo is working to give drivers predictable business near their homes, and pay them faster. "All of us as a society should be more appreciative of truck drivers and the trucking industry, because this is something that really fuels the economy in both the United States and in Mexico."
In the current age of the coronavirus pandemic, Nuvocargo says it is focusing significant efforts on working with companies that are transporting essential goods to aid in the supply crisis.
Fresh off a successful earnings report, Snap announced today that it was looking to raise $750 million in a new debt offering.
This upcoming offering will consist of $750 million in convertible senior notes that will mature May 1, 2025. It will be a private placement to qualified institutional buyers and Snap is looking to give buyers the option to secure $112.5 million worth of notes down the road, as well.
Snap’s Q1 earnings impressed investors but the company is still losing plenty of cash and it’s clear that the full impact of the digital ad market’s downturn won’t be seen until the company’s Q2 earnings. On Tuesday, the company shared it had logged $462.5 million in revenue for the quarter and a $306 million net loss.
The COVID-19 crisis has pushed private and public companies to take a long, hard look at their balance sheets. For well-positioned companies, raising debt is an attractive option for combating looming market uncertainty.
This isn’t the first time Snap has looked to a debt offering either. In August, the company announced they were pursuing a $1.1 billion debt offering.
Digits, a fintech startup hailing from the same team that built and sold Crashlytics to Twitter, is officially launching today after two years of development. It’s also announcing a $22 million Series B round of funding led by GV, as it makes its public debut.
While the company had been fairly quiet about product details while in stealth mode, it’s today unveiling its first product: a visual, machine learning-powered expense monitoring dashboard aimed at startups and small businesses.
The dashboard, called Digits for Expenses, helps business owners track how their company is spending money, by showing things like spend by category, by identifying vendors and recurring expenses and by offering real-time alerts, among other features.
Instead of requiring business owners to make a switch from their existing financial solutions, Digits connects with the accounting software, banks, payroll providers, financial packages, sources of revenue and credit cards the business already uses — like Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite, Citi, Bank of America or Chase, for example.
At launch, the list includes more than 9,000 banks, with support for Xero and NetSuite coming soon.
After setup, Digits will then automatically analyze the company’s spend and visualize it, in real time.
While visualizations of data may be reminiscent of personal finance startup Mint, Digits’ web-based solution is more technical in nature and offers an expanded analysis of the data on hand. Plus, as a business solution, it has to offer features like security, permissioning and collaborative workflows, which results in a more sophisticated product.
Digits also uses machine learning technology to predictively categorize transactions as they happen and the software can alert users to anomalies — like suspicious activity or unexpectedly large transactions — in real time. Business owners can use the dashboard to find out things like how quickly expenses are growing, what the cash flow looks like, where costs can be trimmed, what services are being paid for on a recurring basis and more, and can search for transactions.
The software also supports the ability to comment on transactions, loop in a colleague to ask for clarification about a charge and upload missing receipts. Everything uses HTTPS along with TLS and certificates so data is encrypted between Digit’s services and at rest.
The original idea for Digits came from a problem that co-founders Wayne Chang and Jeff Seibert faced themselves when building Crashlytics. As they explained previously, their focus as entrepreneurs was on solving technical challenges, not on the operational side of running a business.
Many entrepreneurs also find themselves in this same space. They’re trying to solve a problem or crack a tough engineering puzzle, but instead have to redirect their time and resources to spreadsheets, financial reports, transaction records and other paperwork required to actually run the business.
“Startups and small businesses today simply don't have the resources to manage their finances internally. Most of them still settle for spreadsheets, and the lucky ones work on an hourly basis with external accountants,” explains Seibert. “As a result, their accounting itself is seen as a cost-center, and they pay for little beyond the basic monthly financial statements — Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, etc. By the time those statements are delivered — weeks after the end of each month — they’re already out of date,” he said.
That means things businesses need — like updates, one-off reports and new budgets — can require additional costs and longer wait times, so they get skipped.
The COVID-19 pandemic has put even more pressure on small businesses, many of which are now struggling to even survive. As a result, Digits has decided to launch the product for free to those who sign up — not a free trial, but actually free. It plans to later charge for additional products and paid upgrades to support its own business.
Digits is able to make this offer because of its now-expanded venture funding.
Already, the company had raised $10.5 million in Series A funding in a round led by Benchmark. That round had included a sizable 72 angel investors as well, including founders and CEOs from companies like Box, GitHub, Tinder, Twitch, StitchFix, SoFi and several others — entrepreneurs with an understanding of the problems Digits is aiming to solve.
Today, Digits is announcing an additional $22 million led by Jessica Verrilli at GV, who also now joins Digits’ board alongside Benchmark’s Peter Fenton. (Benchmark also participated in the new round).
“Jeff and Wayne are masterful at creating intuitive, high-utility products from complicated data,” said Verrilli about the GV investment. “I saw this up close with Crashlytics and Twitter, and I'm thrilled to partner with them on Digits as they reimagine financial software for startups,” she added.
The startup, now a team of 18 and hiring, was already offering its software solution to a group of customers ahead of today’s public launch, who effectively operated as beta testers allowing Digits to refine its product. Digits isn’t able to share its customer names, for the most part. However, it noted that Coda was one of early adopters and provided valuable feedback.
It also has over 10,000 companies who joined its waitlist over the past two years who are now being let in.
At the time of its Series A, Digits saw more than $1.5 billion in transaction value flowing across its production systems. That number has since grown to $8 billion.
The software is free starting today for U.S.-based small businesses. The company plans to add support for international markets later this year.
With another major round of COVID-19 federal financial assistance around the corner, two lawmakers in states with previously booming cannabis businesses are asking for the federal government to bring the industry in from the cold.
The legislation, proposed by Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Ed Perlmutter (D-CO), would make cannabis companies eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program, Economic Injury Disaster Loans and emergency advances through the disaster loan program.
Cannabis companies have been given essential business status, allowing them to continue operating in most states where marijuana has been legalized for medical and recreational sale. Still, cannabis companies aren’t able to apply for loans or other COVID-19 aid through the Small Businesses Administration, even if they would otherwise meet a program’s requirements. That includes the PPP, a forgivable loan program introduced after the last major COVID-19 financial relief package.
While many small business owners scrambled to apply for PPP loans, which turn into grants if applied toward keeping workers employed, few were able to secure the funds. Worse, some of the loans were awarded to major restaurant chains, hedge funds and other companies that defied the definition of a small business.
“Cannabis businesses are major employers and significant contributors to local economies in Colorado and across the country,” Rep. Perlmutter said. “They should receive the same level of support as other legal, legitimate businesses and be eligible for SBA relief funds during this COVID-19 crisis.”
Instacart's aggressive hiring spree is continuing due to COVID-19 shelter in place orders. Today, the company announced it is adding 250,000 more shoppers to meet consumer demand, and to help the company return to “one-hour and same-day delivery,” according to a statement.
Along with the hiring announcement, Instacart is implementing a slew of new policies, including extended COVID-19 sick pay and bonuses for both part-time employees and full-service shoppers, and in-app check-ins for shoppers that need health and safety kits.
In just one month, Instacart has announced plans to grow its shopper network 250%.
In March, the company announced it will hire 300,000 new full-service shoppers on top of its existing 200,000 shoppers. It has since met that goal, and with today's hiring news, Instacart's shopper network will be 750,000 shoppers. The company also announced earlier this month that it is more than doubling its care team, from 1,200 agents to 3,000 agents.
The company’s recent hiring illustrates how essential businesses are disproportionately in demand while other companies struggle with layoffs.
Aggressive hiring and new policies could level out some of the stresses that Instacart shoppers have recently been inundated with from unprecedented demand from customers.
Last month, some Instacart shoppers went on strike, demanding the company provide personal protective equipment, add hazard pay of $5 per order, change the default tip minimum, extend the sick pay policy to those who have pre-existing conditions and more.
Instacart has responded to some of these demands. Last month, the company outlined an extended pay policy and contactless pay option. The company also introduced new product features aimed at making delivery windows for shoppers more flexible and fast.
While Instacart's news today shows the company focusing on quality return to shoppers and customers, the existing damage control is not stopping the company from looking for new opportunities.
For the vast majority of startup founders who were planning their capital raise in Q1 2020, the COVID-19 blow was so dramatic and sweeping, we cannot see all its effects at once.
One big question on the minds of most founders: How should we plan our next raise in terms of timing, valuation and amounts?
Sarah Guo, partner at Greylock Partners, says the fundraising environment has slowed down significantly, but founders who have built ties with VCs via informal coffee updates and check-ins are at a clear advantage. "Early-stage bets require relationship-building," says Guo, who has been investing in seed through Series B rounds.
Ram Shanmugam, founder and CEO of AutonomIQ*, a seed-stage code and process automation company, has been strengthening his relationships. For a company that has low operating expenses and a community of 600,000 developers, he says he is not fazed. "Our automation code brings efficiencies and in fact, we have nine inbound leads in Q2. Having said that, we are being realistic at the pace at which we can close these contracts."
Similarly, Fred Blumer, who exited Hughes Telematics at an enviable $750 million, says he is taking a more pragmatic approach to the Series A raise for his new company, Mile Auto. “We expect to have a 5x growth in our business in 2020, even after adjusting for COVID,” he said. “Our pay-per-mile insurance is a great fit for people who are driving less.” Because so many drivers are sheltering in place, legacy insurance companies are refunding hundreds of millions of dollars to customers, which offers an advantage (and an opportunity) to a startup like his.
“But we need to be patient and mindful. While our families, health and safety are top priority, we are staying focused on our customers,” Blumer said. “Insurtech is a resilient arena, and in my past company we raised $100 million, so working with investors has never been a challenge. Keeping up with growth and perfecting the customer experience are what keep us up at night.” He said he plans to get out in the market after investor confidence returns.
Which may be a good idea, considering Jason Lemkin's Twitter survey, where only 32% of respondents said they plan to deploy the same amount of capital as in the past. But another 30% are on the opposite end of the spectrum, deploying 40% to 60% less capital.
Even as Mark Zuckerberg touted the "hundreds of thousands of pieces of misinformation related to COVID-19" that the site had pulled in recent months, Facebook continued to offer targeted ads classified as "pseudoscience." It was an odd choice from a social network so publicly declaring its own campaigns to remove junk science amid a global pandemic.
Using Ad Manager, advertisers were able to serve ads to some 78 million people "who have expressed an interest in pseudoscience." Following an investigation by The Markup that found the site buying ads to target that category, Facebook says it's done with the pseudoscience tag.
In a statement to TechCrunch, the company reconfirmed the move. “This interest category of advertising should have been removed in a previous review and we've removed it,” Director of Product Management Rob Leathern said. There was never a great time to run junk science ads, of course, but the issue has come to a head in recent weeks and months, as COVID-19 has become a massive hotbed for conspiracy and dangerous cures.
As Zuckerberg noted in his piece last week, popular theories flagged by the company include the notions that "drinking bleach cures the virus or that physical distancing is ineffective at preventing the disease from spreading." It's unclear (beyond the obvious answer of ad revenue) why Facebook continued to offer the category until it was essentially called out on the matter.
Other ad networks and social media sites have been taking pains to slow the spread of misinformation. Twitter recently added 5G-related conspiracies to its list of COVID-19 related guidance, while Google just announced that it would be extending its ID verification for its ad systems.
Virgin Orbit has secured an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its ventilator, which the small satellite launch company designed and prototyped within the past few weeks in response to growing need for ventilator hardware to address the most severe cases of COVID-19 infection. Virgin Orbit anticipates deliveries of the ventilator hardware to start “within the next few days” now that it has secured the agency’s authorization.
Virgin Orbit designed its ventilator, which is a take on an automated version of the manual resuscitators used most frequently in ambulances by paramedics responding to calls where a person has lost the ability to breath on their own, based on guidance from a group of experts and doctors called The Bridge Ventilator Consortium. It’s designed mostly as a stop-gap and supplement to free up use of proper ventilator hardware to treat the most severe respiratory symptoms in COVID-19 patients, but should still free up valuable medical resources that are in short supply as the pandemic continues.
Already, Virgin says it’s manufacturing the ventilators, and is making “over 100 per week” in terms of its ongoing production rate. The initial delivery set to go out this week will be 100 units that will be shipped to California’s Emergency Medial Services Authority for distribution depending on need in that sate.
While it has done a lot to quickly ramp up this production line and start shipping ventilators, Virgin Orbit says that it’s been continuing to build out its own small satellite launch system. In fact, it just recently flew a key final test of its LauncherOne vehicle and the carrier aircraft that brings it to its launch altitude — the last big step before it runs a full demonstration of its system, including an orbital flight, later this year.
A German research institute that’s involved in developing a COVID-19 contacts tracing app with the backing of the national government has released some new details about the work, which suggests the app is being designed as more of a “one-stop shop” to manage coronavirus impacts at an individual level, rather than having a sole function of alerting users to potential infection risk.
Work on the German app began at the start of March, per the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft institute, with initial funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Federal Ministry of Health funding a feasibility study.
In a PDF published today, the research organization reveals the government-backed app will include functionality for health authorities to directly notify users about a COVID-19 test result if they’ve opted in to get results this way.
It says the system must ensure only people who test positive for the virus make their measurement data available to avoid incorrect data being input. For the purposes of “this validation process,” it envisages “a digital connection to the existing diagnostic laboratories is implemented in the technical implementation.”
“App users can thus voluntarily activate this notification function and thus be informed more quickly and directly about their test results,” it writes in the press release (which we’ve translated from German with Google Translate) — arguing that such direct digital notification of tests results will mean that no “valuable time” is lost to curb the spread of the virus.
Governments across Europe are scrambling to get Bluetooth-powered contacts tracing apps off the ground, with apps also in the works from a number of other countries, including the U.K. and France, despite ongoing questions over the efficacy of digital contacts tracing versus such an infectious virus.
The great hope is that digital tools will offer a route out of economically crippling population lockdowns by providing a way to automate at least some contacts tracing — based on widespread smartphone penetration and the use of Bluetooth-powered device proximity as a proxy for coronavirus exposure.
Preventing a new wave of infections as lockdown restrictions are lifted is the near-term goal. Although — in line with Europe’s rights frameworks — use of contacts tracing apps looks set to be voluntary across most of the region, with governments wary about being seen to impose “health surveillance” on citizens, as has essentially happened in China.
However if contacts tracing apps end up larded with features that are deep linking into national health systems, that raises questions about how optional their use will really be.
An earlier proposal by a German consortium of medical device manufacturers, laboratories, clinics, clinical data management systems and blockchain solution providers — proposing a blockchain-based Digital Corona Health Certificate, which was touted as being able to generate “verifiable, certified test results that can be fed into any tracing app” to cut down on false positives — claimed to have backing from the City of Cologne’s public health department, as one example of potential function creep.
In March, Der Spiegel also reported on a large-scale study being coordinated by the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in Braunschweig, to examine antibody levels to try to determine immunity across the population. Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI) was reportedly involved in that study — and has been a key operator in the national contacts tracing push.
Both RKI and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft institute are also involved in parallel German-led pan-EU standardization efforts for COVID-19 contacts tracing apps (called PEPP-PT) that’s been the leading voice for apps to centralize proximity data with governments/health authorities, rather than storing it on users’ device and performing risk processing locally.
As we reported earlier, PEPP-PT and its government backers appear to be squaring up for a battle with Apple over iOS restrictions on Bluetooth.
PEPP-PT bases its claim of being a “privacy-preserving” standard on not backing protocols or apps that use location data or mobile phone numbers — with only arbitrary (but pseudonymized) proximity IDs shared for the purpose of tracking close encounters between devices and potential coronavirus infections.
Yet, at the same time, regional privacy experts, the EU parliament and even the European Commission have urged national governments to practice data minimization and decentralized when it comes to COVID-19 contacts tracing in order to boost citizen trust by shrinking associated privacy risks.
If apps are voluntary, citizens’ trust must be earned not assumed, is the key argument. Without substantial uptake the utility of digital contacts tracing seems doubtful.
Apple and Google have also come down on the decentralized side of this debate — outting a joint effort last week for an API and later opt-in system-wide contacts tracing. The first version of their API is slated to be in developers’ hands next week.
Meanwhile, a coalition of nearly 300 academics signed an open letter at the start of this week warning that centralized systems risked surveillance creep — voicing support for decentralized protocols, such as DP-3T: Another contact tracing protocol that’s being developed by a separate European coalition which has been highly critical of PEPP-PT.
And while PEPP-PT claimed recently to have seven governments signed up to its approach, and 40 more in the pipeline, at least two of the claimed EU supporters (Switzerland and Spain) had actually said they will use a decentralized approach.
The coalition has also been losing support from a number of key research institutions which had initially backed its push for a “privacy-preserving” standard, as controversy around its intent and lack of transparency has grown.
Nonetheless, the two biggest EU economies, Germany and France, appear to be digging in behind a push to centralize proximity data — putting Apple in their sights.
Bloomberg reported earlier this week that the French government is pressurizing Apple to remove Bluetooth restrictions for its COVID-19 contacts tracing app which also relies on a “trusted authority” running a central server (we’ve covered the French ROBERT protocol in detail here).
It’s possible Germany and France are sticking to their centralized guns because of wider plans to pack more into these contacts tracing apps than simply Bluetooth-powered alerts — as suggested by the Fraunhofer document.
Access to data is another likely motivator.
“Only if research can access sufficiently valid data it is possible to create forecasts that are the basis for planning further steps against are the spread of the virus,” the institute goes on. (Though, as we’ve written before, the DP-3T decentralized protocol sets out a path for users to opt in to share proximity data for research purposes.)
Another strand that’s evident from the Fraunhofer PDF is sovereignty.
“Overall, the approach is based on the conviction that the state healthcare system must have sovereignty over which criteria, risk calculations, recommendations for action and feedback are in one such system,” it writes, adding: “In order to achieve the greatest possible usability on end devices on the market, technical cooperation with the targeted operating system providers, Google and Apple, is necessary.”
Apple and Google did not respond to requests for comment on whether they will be making any changes to their API as a result of French and German pressure.
Fraunhofer further notes that “full compatibility” between the German app and the centralized one being developed by French research institutes Inria and Inserm was achieved in the “past few weeks” — underlining that the two nations are leading this particular contacts tracing push.
In related news this week, Europe’s Data Protection Board (EDPB) put out guidance for developers of contacts tracing apps, which stressed an EU legal principle related to processing personal data that’s known as purpose limitation — warning that apps need to have purposes "specific enough to exclude further processing for purposes unrelated to the management of the COVID-19 health crisis (e.g., commercial or law enforcement purposes)".
Which sounds a bit like the regulator drawing a line in the sand to warn states that might be tempted to turn contacts tracing apps into coronavirus immunity passports.
The EDPB also urged that “careful consideration” be given to data minimisation and data protection by design and by default — two other key legal principles baked into Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, albeit with some flex during a public health emergency.
However the regulatory body took a pragmatic view on the centralization vs decentralization debate — saying both approaches are “viable” in a contacts tracing context, with the key caveat that “adequate security measures” must be in place.
Founders have always faced big challenges, but they pale in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Moving your business forward will require new thinking, new tools and new opportunities along with tried-and-true essentials. We've got you covered on all fronts.
Case in point — catching investor attention in this climate will require a pitch par excellence. Pour yourself a cold one (or a tall glass of water because that’s great, too!) and join us on May 13 at 4pm ET / 1pm PT for Pitchers and Pitches, an interactive elevator pitch feedback session with TechCrunch editors. Get feedback that can help you take your pitch to a whole new level.
Our first Pitchers and Pitches session is free and open to the public — register now. You can let us know during registration if you want to participate and we’ll randomly select five startups to give us their best 60-second pitch. Even if you’re not selected to pitch, it’ll be a learning experience for all who attend and you can also give feedback via live polling. You’ll gain valuable insight into the art of telling your startup’s story in under a minute.
Wait — you haven't heard about the Digital Startup Alley? We tapped our resources and industry connections to replicate the Startup Alley experience as a truly world-class virtual event. It's designed to help you keep momentum despite lockdowns, travel restrictions or budgetary concerns.
We don't have a crystal ball to see how long this pandemic will remain in play. However, if it turns out you can attend Disrupt SF in person, you have the option to upgrade your exhibit package and still access the benefits of Digital Startup Alley. Value, meet add.
Startups in the age of COVID-19 will need every tool in the shed — and a few new ones — to adapt and keep moving forward. Start with exceptional coaching and sharpen your pitch to a keen edge.
Register now for our free Pitchers and Pitches session, which takes place on May 13 at 4:00pm ET / 1:00pm PT.
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HealthJoy, a platform that helps employees get the most use out of their benefits, launched its revamped user interface and technology stack today. The startup told TechCrunch that usage has doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the new platform, called HealthJoy 2.0, has been in the works for two years, it is now helping the company handle increased demand for services, including telemedicine.
Launched in 2014, HealthJoy now has more than 500 employers on its platform. It has raised a total of $53 million so far, including a $30 million Series C announced in February.
The new interface includes features that tell users expected wait times for services like its inbox and healthcare concierge, and a new benefits wallet. Last month, HealthJoy also added features to address the pandemic, including help to get testing, online consultations and a guide to nearby in-network healthcare facilities with low wait times.
Co-founder and CEO Justin Holland told TechCrunch that the platform “initially saw a huge spike in telemedicine visits as awareness of the virus grew and people started looking for ways to avoid physically visiting a doctor's office. Usage for telemedicine has stabilized in the last couple of weeks and is now only a little bit above our baseline.”
He added that HealthJoy is now encouraging more employees to use the HealthJoy Employee Assistance Program (EAP), which helps them find services like mental health counseling, financial planning and child and elder care assistance.
“We've seen a corresponding spike in EAP utilization as people are seeking help,” he said.
HealthJoy 2.0's improvements, which moves more processing away from local clients to the cloud and includes an updated CRM and dashboard for employers, will also make it easier for the company to implement new features in the future.
Other health benefit engagement platforms include Collective Health, League and Lumity. Holland said that HealthJoy 2.0 will help the startup better compete by “allowing for greater integration with partners, a larger collection of APIs and easier integration with third-party data.”
Neighborhood social network Nextdoor and Walmart are teaming up today to launch a new “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” program that will make it easier for vulnerable community members to get assistance from neighbors who are already planning a trip to Walmart. The new in-app feature will allow Nextdoor users to post to groups associated with their local Walmart store to request shopping assistance.
To find the new option, Nextdoor users can either use the Nextdoor website or mobile app.
From there, users will click on the “Groups” tab where they’ll see local Walmart stores pinned to the top of the page. Members can then post a message to the group feed where they can ask for help or offer to help others.
Members who connect in the feed can then work out the details on the message board or through direct message, where they can share more private details like their address and what they need from the store.
The feature is designed to help elderly, high-risk or other vulnerable members find someone who will pick up groceries, medications or other essentials when they’re planning a trip to the store.
This could also offer a low-cost alternative to using online grocery delivery services, which require tipping. In the case of a neighbor helping a neighbor, the assistance is offered on a volunteer basis, not as someone’s job. That could be potentially life-saving for low-income community members who can’t risk shopping in a store during the coronavirus pandemic, but who also struggle to afford alternatives like online grocery.
Walmart isn’t moderating or managing these Nextdoor groups, to be clear, but worked with Nextdoor to make the feature available.
For the retailer, the addition isn’t just beneficial in terms of directing customers to Walmart to shop, it’s also seen as a way to reduce the number of people who come to the store in-person.
“I've seen first-hand the countless ways our Walmart team is working together during this challenging time, leading with humanity, compassion and understanding to serve our customers,” said Janey Whiteside, Walmart's chief customer officer, in a statement about the feature’s launch. “We're continuing to do that through our new program with Nextdoor. We're connecting neighbors to each other so that more members of our communities have access to essential items, while limiting contact and the number of people shopping in our stores,” she added.
Nextdoor has launched several new features in response to the coronavirus pandemic in recent weeks.
Its new “Help Maps” allowed members to post and offer help in their neighborhood, for example. But this feature had been buried on the “More” menu in the app and was being underutilized as a result. A dedicated place within Nextdoor Groups for these sorts of requests is more visible, making it easier to offer assistance or to ask for help.
Over the past few weeks, Nextdoor says it has seen a 7x increase in people joining groups to help one another, a not surprising figure given its recent exit from beta.
Nextdoor will also make the Walmart groups easy to find by pinning them to the top of the Groups tab, it says.
Meanwhile, Walmart store locations and hours where “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” is available can be found on Nextdoor's “Help Map.”
“We're inspired everyday by the kindness of people around the world who are stepping up and helping out. In recent weeks, we've been blown away by the number of members who have raised their hand to run an errand, go to the grocery store, or pick up a prescription for a neighbor,” said Sarah Friar, Nextdoor CEO, about the feature. “We're grateful for Walmart’s partnership to make this important connection between neighbors around vital services, and we're proud to come together to ensure everyone has a neighborhood to rely on,” she said.
The new initiative is launching nationwide starting today, but may not be immediately available in the app as the rollout could take time to complete.
According to security firm ZecOps, the bug is in the iPhone's default Mail app. By sending a specially crafted email to the victim's device, an attacker can overrun the device's memory, allowing the attacker to remotely run malicious code to steal data from the device.
The bug dates back to iOS 6, but on the latest version of iOS 13, it doesn't require any user interaction. Motherboard, which first reported the story, said the bug has been fixed in a beta version of the software, and a fix will be rolled out in an upcoming update.
Magic Leap announced today that it has laid off a "number of employees" and is backing away from its consumer ambitions to focus more heavily on selling to enterprise customers. Bloomberg reports that half of the company’s employees were laid off, roughly 1,000 in total.
The identity verification feature was first introduced in 2018, requiring political advertisers to provide documents to verify their identity, which is then displayed as part of the ad itself. Moving forward, Google says it will make identity verification a required part of the ad buying process, regardless of topic.
The UK’s competition watchdog officially gave a nod to the merger between UK's JustEat and the Netherlands' Takeaway.com. And the merged company announced that it had raised an additional €700 million ($756 million) in funding.
Lee and her fellow Cowboy Ventures partner Ted Wang joined us for our first episode of Extra Crunch Live, a virtual speaker series for Extra Crunch members. They covered a wide range of topics, including PPP loans, advice for business leaders around layoffs, the right time to seek funding and the right firms from which to seek that funding, how to pitch during a downturn and which sectors in particular Cowboy is interested in financing right now. (Extra Crunch membership required.)
For two weeks, Boston Dynamics' Spot robot has been walking the halls of local hospital Brigham and Women's. Telemedicine wasn't generally listed as one of the primary applications for the company's first commercial product, but Boston Dynamics is only one in a long list of tech companies that's found itself shifting on the fly as the COVID-19 pandemic has become an all-consuming part of life.
Gurley's transition out of the firm won't surprise many. Benchmark — which has always run a fairly small operation — has routinely groomed new investors as veterans of the firm have moved on.
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Instead of requiring business owners to make a switch from their existing financial solutions, Digits connects with the accounting software, banks, payroll providers, financial packages, sources of revenue and credit cards the business already uses — like Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite, Citi, Bank of America or Chase, for example.
Digits also uses machine learning technology to predictively categorize transactions as they happen and the software can alert users to anomalies — like suspicious activity or unexpectedly large transactions — in real time. Business owners can use the dashboard to find out things like how quickly expenses are growing, what the cash flow looks like, where costs can be trimmed, what services are being paid for on a recurring basis and more, and can search for transactions.
