Gadgets and Instruments

The unit opens with five small pictures in a row, numbered 1 to 5, that show how to make black tea (tea without milk, called kalo chiya in Nepali):

1. A jug pouring water into a kettle, with a packet of tea leaves beside it.
2. The kettle on a gas stove, with the flame lit.
3. The kettle on the stove with steam rising: the water is boiling.
4. The kettle still on the stove, with a little steam: the tea is brewing.
5. The tea being poured from the kettle through a strainer into a cup.

Instructions like these use the imperative: the base form of the verb with no subject (pour, put, let, add, serve), because they speak directly to the reader. Sequence words (first, then, next, after that, finally) tell the listener the order. You will use both all through this unit.

Before you read

The picture shows a girl sitting cross-legged on the floor, busy with her phone, while the phone is plugged into a wall socket to charge.

What kind of text it is

Save your Smartphone is an informative article that gives tips: short pieces of practical advice. After a short introduction, each tip has its own heading (Maintain a cool temperature), and most of its sentences are instructions or advice: You should…, Avoid…, Set a screen lock… Headings like these let a busy reader find the tip they need.

The text, part by part

Introduction: why phones need care

Smartphones are now part of everyday life: we use them to stay in touch with family and friends, to get work done, to keep track of our schedules (plans and timetables), and even to buy groceries or clothes online. In a world run by technology, it is hard to do anything without one, and many of us hold a phone for most of the day. Because they are so essential (extremely important), we should look after them, for two reasons: to prolong (make longer) their lifespan, and to safeguard (protect) the important information stored in them.

Tip 1: A closer look at your charging habits

When we are out, we worry about a fading (weakening) battery, but we rarely think about how long the battery itself will last. The writer’s advice: don’t charge to 100 percent, and don’t let it run down to zero either, since both can damage it. Keep the battery at 50 percent or more most of the time and top it up (charge it a little) when it falls below that, even a few times a day. And use the charger that came with your phone: cheap chargers have been known to catch fire.

Tip 2: Maintain a cool temperature

Heat harms phone batteries. A phone is safest at room temperature. Don’t put it next to other gadgets, such as a laptop, that generate (produce) heat; if your gadgets sit in a pile, spread them out. (Don’t leave a phone in direct sunlight or on a hot car dashboard, either.)

Tip 3: Invest in phone wipes or a cleaning solution

A phone is a breeding ground for germs: a place where they grow and spread. Think of everything you touch before you touch your phone: the toilet, money, food. All of it gunks up the phone (covers it with dirt). The writer reports that studies have found more bacteria on a phone screen than on a toilet seat, so clean your phone regularly: disinfect it with an antimicrobial spray (one that kills germs) and wipe it with a soft cloth.

Tip 4: Protect your phone and data

Set a screen lock (a PIN, a pattern, a fingerprint or face check). It keeps your information safe and renders the phone useless (makes it unusable) to anyone else if it is lost or stolen. A phone with no screen lock, says the writer, is like going out and leaving your front door open for burglars (people who break into houses to steal).

Tip 5: Control app permissions and notifications

A smartphone is useful because of its apps. But the more apps you download, the more notifications (alerts and messages) you get. You can choose which apps may send you prompts (messages that ask for your attention) and how they appear on your home or lock screen: just go to the phone’s settings and set them as you like.

Words from the text

Words linked here open in English Vocabulary, where you can see an example and practice them in the word game. The meanings below are the ones the words have in this text.

A. Match the words

B. True or false

C. Answer the questions

D. Your gadgets

Look up these ten words in a dictionary. A learner’s dictionary gives the British pronunciation (left) and the American one; (r) means the r is said in American English, and in British English only when a vowel follows. The mark ˈ comes before the stressed syllable.

To ask how to do something, we use polite questions:

• Excuse me, how can I…? / Could you tell me how to…? / Can you show me how to…?

To give instructions, we use the imperative (press, open, tap), one step at a time, joined by sequence words:

• to begin: First, … / To start with, …
• in the middle: Then … / Next, … / After that, … / Second, … / Now …
• to end: Finally, … / Lastly, …

And we check that the listener has understood: Is that clear? Got it?

A. A screenshot on a laptop

In the picture, two students sit at a table: a boy working on paper and a girl at a laptop. The boy asks her how to take a screenshot, and she explains.

B. Ask and give instructions

C. Making pizza

Ten pictures show how to make a pizza, and a box gives the steps, jumbled. In the pictures: hands being washed under a tap; a red apron; hands kneading dough; a rolling pin flattening it; a spoon spreading red sauce on the base; cheese being grated over it; toppings being put on; a pizza going into an oven; a pizza cutter slicing a pizza; and a cheerful cook serving it.

There are two ways to tell someone what another person said:

• Direct speech gives the speaker’s exact words, inside quotation marks: She said, “I love horror movies.”
• Reported speech (or indirect speech) gives the meaning in the reporter’s own words, with no quotation marks: She said that she loved horror movies.

When we report, the time and place have usually changed, so some words change with them. Grade 8 introduced these changes; Grade 9 practices them together.

Statements

A statement is reported with said (that)…, or told + the listener (that)…. That can be left out.

1. The tense moves one step back when the reporting verb is in the past (said, told):

2. Pronouns change to fit the reporter: “I’ll phone you,” my friend said. → My friend said that he would phone me.

3. Time and place words change when the time or place is no longer the same:

4. No change when the reporting verb is in the present (says, tells): She says that she can’t stay there anymore. And a fact that is always true may keep its present tense: The teacher told us that the Earth revolves round the Sun.

Commands and requests

A command, a request or a piece of advice is reported with a reporting verb + the listener + to + the base verb. For a negative command (Don’t…), use not to:

The reporting verb shows what kind of thing was said:

The imperative’s please, the listener’s name and the exclamation mark are dropped: “Please help me, Dawa!” → She asked Dawa to help her.

B. Report the sentences

A recipe tells someone how to cook a dish. It has three parts, the three prompts of the task:

1. The name of the dish, often with how many people it serves and how long it takes.
2. Ingredients: a list of everything needed, each with its amount (2 cups of rice flour, 1 teaspoon of salt), in the order they are used.
3. Method (the cooking procedure): numbered steps in the imperative, one action or two in each, with times and temperatures where they matter (fry for 2 minutes over a medium flame).

Before you read

Six weather symbols, of the kind on weather maps and phone apps, are to be matched with six words.

What kind of text it is

Weather Instruments is a descriptive text: it describes six instruments, one paragraph each, saying what each one measures, how it works or is used, and why it matters. Each paragraph starts with the instrument’s name in capitals, which makes it easy to find. Texts like this use the present simple (A barometer measures…) and the passive (is used for, is placed on).

The text, part by part

1. Before instruments, and now

For a long time, most people judged the weather only with their senses: they saw the wind’s direction in the moving leaves, and guessed when it would rain from the clouds in the sky. Today we have modern instruments and weather stations that help us accumulate (collect) accurate weather data. Each instrument measures one parameter: one thing that can be measured, such as temperature, pressure or wind speed.

2. The thermometer

A thermometer measures temperature. It is used in industry, in meteorology (the science of the weather) and in medicine. It has two important parts:

• a sensor, which senses the change in temperature using some physical property, such as the way a liquid expands (takes up more space) when it gets warmer;
• a converter, which turns that change into a number: in a liquid thermometer, the scale marked on the glass.

At weather stations, mercury thermometers have mostly been used, measuring from about −35 to 40 °C with marks every 0.2 °C. Below about −35 °C they become unreliable, because mercury freezes at about −39 °C. In colder places, alcohol thermometers are used: alcohol freezes at a far lower temperature, and a weather station’s alcohol thermometer can read down to about −65 or −75 °C.

3. The barometer

A barometer measures atmospheric pressure, the pressure of the air. The Earth is wrapped in layers of air (the atmosphere), and that air has weight: pulled down by gravity, it presses on everything. Weather stations measure it in hectopascals (hPa), also called millibars (mb): about 1013 hPa at sea level. (One bar is 1000 hPa, and one atmosphere is 1013 hPa.)

Pressure is linked to the weather: low pressure usually brings cloudy, windy or rainy weather, and high pressure brings fair, settled weather. What forecasters watch most is the change: pressure that keeps falling warns that bad weather is coming, and rising pressure that it is clearing.

There are three types of barometer: the mercury barometer, the aneroid barometer (a small sealed metal box that squeezes or swells as the pressure changes, moving a needle on a dial), and the digital barometer, the newest and most accurate, which is also inside many smartphones.

4. The hygrometer

A hygrometer measures humidity: the amount of water vapor (water as an invisible gas) in the air. There are two main types: the dry-and-wet-bulb hygrometer and the mechanical hygrometer.

A dry-and-wet-bulb hygrometer is two thermometers side by side. One bulb is bare; the other is wrapped in a wet cloth. Water evaporates from the cloth and cools that bulb, the more so the drier the air. So when the two read the same, the air is full of water vapor (100% humidity); the bigger the difference, the drier the air. A table turns the difference into humidity. A mechanical hygrometer uses a material, such as a hair, that gets longer in damp air and shorter in dry air, moving a needle.

5. The anemometer

An anemometer measures the speed of the wind. Wind speed says a lot about the weather: a very high wind speed means a storm. Knowing the wind speed helps us protect ourselves from disasters: airports, ships and people in the mountains all need to know it.

6. The wind vane

A wind vane (also called a weather vane or a weathercock) shows the direction of the wind. The traditional one has a cockerel (a young rooster) on top, and arms below with the letters of the compass points: N, E, S and W. It stands on top of a weather station, or a building, where the wind reaches it freely. The wind’s direction tells forecasters a lot about the changes coming in the weather.

7. The rain gauge

A rain gauge measures precipitation (rain, snow and hail) over a period of time, usually a day. It is found at almost every weather station. It must stand in an open place, away from trees and buildings, so that nothing stops the rain falling into it or splashes extra water in. It is read by hand (manually) or by an automatic weather station. It has limits: in very strong winds, such as in a hurricane, much of the rain blows past its mouth, so it can’t collect a true amount.

Words from the text

A. Complete the sentences

B. Choose the correct answer

C. Answer the questions

D. Talk about it

A. Before you listen

The first picture shows a man in a white chef’s jacket in a TV studio kitchen, with ovens and shelves behind him. The second is a set of small photos: a packet of chocolate chip cookie mix, eggs and butter being mixed, flour, chocolate chips stirred in, balls of dough on a tray, and the baked cookies.

The recording

A TV cook presents his show with his daughter, Ashley, who has had to eat his cooking experiments for years. He shares his favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. Read the questions in B and C first, then listen, as many times as you need.

B. Tick the correct answer

C. Complete the sentences

D. Cooking shows

Grammar I gave the pattern; here are the details the exercises test.

1. Choose the reporting verb by meaning: told (a plain command), asked or requested (a polite request, a question like Could you…?), advised (advice), ordered (an order from someone in charge), warned (danger), forbade (a strong don’t).
2. Name the listener: told me, asked the teacher, advised the patient. If the direct speech doesn’t say who was spoken to, use a sensible listener (him, me, them), or asked without one only before a verb of asking: She asked to see the manager (she wanted to see him herself).
3. To + base verb; not to for don’t: He told me not to use his camera.
4. Change pronouns, time and place words as for statements: “Finish this job in an hour” → He told me to finish that job in an hour.
5. A question that is really a request (Could you…, please?) is reported as a request: “Could you explain number four, please?” said the student. → The student asked the teacher to explain number four.

And two points about statements:

• After a present reporting verb (says, tells), the tense doesn’t move back: She says that she can’t stay there anymore.
• A universal truth (always true) stays in the present: The teacher told us that the Earth revolves round the Sun.

A. Report the commands

B. Choose the correct form

A newspaper article that gives your views on a topic (an opinion article) has:

Use linking words to move between points: first of all, moreover, on the other hand, however, as a result, in conclusion.

Wireless earbuds connect to a phone, tablet or laptop by Bluetooth, a radio signal that works over a short distance (about 10 meters). Connecting two Bluetooth devices for the first time is called pairing; after that, they usually connect by themselves.

Ask “what?” or “whom?” right after a verb. If the sentence answers, that answer is the verb’s object: the person or thing that receives the action.

• A transitive verb needs an object to complete its meaning: I admire your courage. (Admire what? Your courage.) ✗ I admire. is incomplete.
• An intransitive verb takes no object: The baby was crying. (Crying what? Nothing.) Words after it may say where, when, how or how long, but they are not objects: We talked for hours. I work for a large firm in Paris.

Many verbs can be both, with a different pattern: Pemba is reading a novel (transitive) / Pemba is reading (intransitive). Dolma charged her phone / The phone charged slowly. A dictionary marks each meaning [T] or [I], or vt and vi.

Practice on this unit in the style of the final exam. Try each one as in the exam, then open the answer.