ĐỀ SỐ 6 - VŨ MAI PHƯƠNG

Everyone knows that it is very important to eat a good breakfast as part of a healthy diet. (34) about 20% of British school children say they sometimes don't have time to eat breakfast, while 7% say they hardly ever eat breakfast before they leave home to go to school. This is a big problem because many pupils often eat unhealthy snacks instead of a (35) _______ breakfast and they are more likely to put on weight. They can also have (36) _______ concentrating during lessons.
In the UK, the most popular things to eat for breakfast are cereal with milk, or toast with butter and jam. The traditional fried breakfast is something that people only eat occasionally or at the weekend. But
(37) _______ breakfast cereals contain too much sugar. This is bad for your teeth and also makes you feel hungry more quickly. In some countries, people eat things such as eggs, or fish with rice for breakfast,
(38) _______ people in other parts of the world eat for lunch or dinner.
(Adapted from Compact PET for Schools)

“People are always saying that geniuses are born, not made. I want to prove that it is not true!” This was the obsession of a Hungarian teacher called László Polgár. To prove that he could make someone a genius, he took his three daughters out of school and started to teach them a specialist subject - chess. One of the three, Judit, is now the greatest female chess player of all time and the only woman so far to be in the world top 10!
László himself wasn't a great chess player, but he was a clever teacher. At first, Judit's sisters were better than her, but she gradually became more serious about playing. At first, she played just ten minutes a day. When she was 12, it had increased to ten hours. At 15 she was the youngest grandmaster ever. To win at chess, you need to be confident, hard-working and a little bit selfish. Judit's wins include victories against 10 male world champions, including Kasparov and Karpov.
Thanks to Judit, little by little, people are starting to pay more attention to women chess players. She now has children of her own but she isn't teaching them in the same way as her father. Her children don't play chess for hours every day They only play for fun.
(Adapted from Gateway)

Modern electronic devices might look clean on the outside, but inside they contain a lot of materials used in manufacture which may be dangerous to human health. Many countries have refused to make the investment in waste-handling equipment and simply shipped their e-waste abroad, usually to developing nations.
The latest United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report estimates that, worldwide, electronic waste is increasing by about 40 million tons a year. So what can we do about it?
The first thing to do is recognise the problem. We have gradually come to realise that in two ways in particular, modern hi-tech can be bad for the planet. The first is its energy use; the worldwide scale of information technology is so enormous that electronics now produce fully two per cent of global carbon emissions. The other is the hardware, when it comes to the end of its natural life. This, increasingly, is pretty short.
The European Union has recognised the problem by adopting a key principle: producer responsibility. In other words, making it the duty of manufacturers of electronic goods to ensure their safe disposal at the end of their lives.
It also suggests that all countries should start to establish proper e-waste management networks, which could both cut down on health problems, generate employment and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Groups such as Greenpeace have led the way in putting pressure on major manufacturing companies to find substitutes for the toxic chemicals inside their products. Encouragingly, they have had some success in forcing them to develop non-poisonous alternatives to these. This may be the real way forward.
(Adapted from Compact First)