Đề Thi Chính Thức Môn Tiếng Anh THPT Quốc Gia 2020 - Đề 401

In many countries going through difficult economic times, job openings for new graduates can be few and far between. In this competitive environment, relevant work experience can help job seekers stand out from the crowd, and many organisations now offer temporary placements, called internships. The problem with numerous internships, however, is that they are unpaid, and this often puts young people off applying for them. Employers and interns sometimes come to mutually beneficial arrangements, however. Dinesh Pathan, applying for an internship with an IT company, negotiated a deal in which he would be given travel expenses only for two weeks, and then, as long as he could show his marketing work was adding value, he would be paid a wage. The arrangement worked well: Dinesh had an incentive to work hard, and he ended up feeling 'not so much an intern as a temporary staffer'. HR consultant Denise Baker says similar arrangements are common. What is more, 'if interns do well, employers would often rather make them full employees than recruit people whom they don't know'.

Staying in hotels and resorts has been a traditional part of travel since the beginning of mass tourism. But nowadays, many tourists want a more intimate experience. For this reason, they are choosing to 'go native'. This often means staying in the kinds of places that local people inhabit. In big cities, you can try staying with the friend of a friend. You may end up sleeping on the couch or the floor, but the advantages outweigh the discomfort. The biggest plus is that you'll be staying with a local and seeing the city from a local perspective. Another option is house-swapping. Several websites allow you to connect with people who want to trade living situations. It's usual to exchange emails about favourite places in the city before the swap, meaning you can have a truly local experience. But of course, you can only do this if you don't mind having strangers staying in your house. For the more adventurous, staying in a native structure in an African village or a hut on the water in Vietnam or Thailand can be real thrill. These might not even include plumbing or electricity, and that is part of the charm. The experience of dealing with oil lamps and carrying water really gives you a sense of how the people live. No matter how unadventurous you feel, you might want to consider crossing hotels off your list. Getting to know the local way of life is the most valuable part of travel. And what better way is there to do this than staying where the local people actually live?

One day, a middle-aged man asked a taxi to take him to see Chelsea play Arsenal at football. He told the driver 'Stamford Bridge', the name of Chelsea's stadium, but he was delivered instead to the village of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire. Of course, he missed the match. What had happened? With the Sat-Nav system in place, the driver in this story felt he did not need to know where he was going. He confidently outsourced the job of knowing this information to the Sat-Nav. Using an Internet search engine takes a broadband user less than a second. And with smartphones at hand, people will be online almost all of the time. The same could be true of university education. Today, the average student seems not to value general knowledge. If asked a factual question, they will usually click on a search engine without a second thought. Actually knowing the fact and committing it to memory does not seem to be an issue, it's the case with which we can look it up. However, general knowledge has never been something that you acquire formally. Instead, we pick it up from all sorts of sources as we go along, often absorbing facts without realising. The question remains, then: is the Internet threatening general knowledge? When I put that to Moira Jones, expert in designing IQ tests, she referred me to the story of the Egyptian god Thoth. It goes like this: Thoth offers writing as a gift to the king of Egypt, declaring it an 'elixir of memory and wisdom.' But the king is horrified, and tells him: 'This invention will induce forgetfulness in the souls of those who have learned it, because they will not need to exercise their memories, being able to rely on what is written.' Who wants to be a millionaire finalist David Swift, responding to the same question, recognises that there was a problem of young people saying: 'I don't need to know that', but he is far more excited about the educational potential of the Internet. 'There is so much more information out there, giving people opportunities to boost their general knowledge.' After all, the Internet might just help us to forget more and more. But meanwhile, the continuing popularity of quizzes and game-shows shows us that general knowledge is strong enough to remain.