Young people’s rights

AIMS: Vocabulary related to rights and responsibilities • Understanding sentence structure

• Matching sentence endings

Part 1: Vocabulary

C ^ ^ u c a tio r T ^
C 7 value movemen

(^ p ro te c tio n r e lig io r T ^
Hum an
Rights
C^_respect s p e e c h j^ >

C ^ /th o ught in fo rm a tio n ^

C ^ ^ p re s s

la The following words are related to professional meetings and responsibilities. Write the
words in the correct categories. Use a bilingual dictionary to help you.

minutes (of a meeting) election committee voting secretary

representative nomination member council chairperson

a group of people a person an object an activity

lb Complete the text with words from exercise la . There may be more than one possibility. You
may need to change some words to plural.

Beech Lane School Parent.............................

.............................of the meeting held on October, 2012.

Apologies were received from Mrs Smart.

There were tw o points covered:

1 Because of the long-term absence of Mrs Smart, we will have a/an ............................
for a n e w ............................ to lead the meetings. We need all th e ..............................

Get Ready for IELTS: Reading

 Unit 8

tw o weeks before the next meeting. A n y ...............................who attends that meeting

will be able to take part in th e ................................
2 The school fair was discussed. A list of duties was drawn up and will be sent to
everybody by Friday. It's expected that everyone will do their best to help out on the day.

lc Which words are being defined? Try to write the answers without looking back at the
previous exercises.

1 .............................: a group of people that controls a group or organization

2 ........................... : a group of people chosen or appointed to perform a specified service
or function
3 ............................. : a person who handles correspondence, keeps records, and does
general clerical work for an individual, organization, etc.
4 .............................: an official record of the proceedings of a meeting, conference,
convention, etc.
5 .............................: a person who has authority at a meeting, a committee, a debate, a
department, etc.

out
In English, the normal word order is subject-verb-object, so we are used to seeing a verb
and its subject together. However, sometimes the noun immediately before the verb is not
the subject, so when you are skim-reading be careful to look at the whole subject.
The sta ff members who need to speak to the parents are not here today.
(It is not the parents, but the staff members, who need to speak to the parents, who are
not here.)
The decision which was made by the school council is not popular.
(It is the decision made by the school council, not the school council, that is unpopular.)

2 Read the sentences and answer the questions with the full subject. Then underline the most
important noun in the subject.

1 The photographs o f the people partying on the beach with my sisters are beautiful.
Who or what are beautiful?
2 The importance o f the education I received in the UK should not be forgotten.
What should not be forgotten?
3 The details o f the cases involving the teenagers who travelled without passports are
not known yet.
What is not known?
4 The secret o f a successful career; according to my mother, is to have children first,
when you are still young.
What is this sentence mainly about: the secret, a career or a mother?

Young people’s rights 55

 Part 2: Skills development
r
Exam information I Matching sentence endings
In the exam, you may be given a number of incomplete sentences and you will need to
complete them by choosing from a list of options.There will be more options than you need.
The sentences will be in the same order as the information in the text.

Exam tip
Try to predict how each sentence will end before looking at the list of endings.

la Try to predict what type of word will come next in the following sentences. Choose from
verb, noun, adjective, adverb or preposition. There may be more than one possibility.

1 The African Charter on the rights and welfare of the ...

2 It was chosen ...
3 This Children's charter...
4 It covers the economic, social, political and cultural ...
5 Education needs to be ...
6 It needs to be delivered ...

lb Now use your predictions to match the sentence beginnings 1 -6 with the correct endings a-f.

1 The African Charter on the Rights and a by a national council.

Welfare of the ...

2 The name was chosen ... b in an efficient manner.

3 This Children's charter... c child has existed for many decades.

4 It covers the economic, social, political d thorough and consistent.

and cultural ...

5 Education needs to be ... e rights of African children.

6 It needs to be delivered ... f was written in 1990.

Exam tip
The complete sentences need to be grammatically correct, but they also need to
accurately reflect the information in the text. This is another type of exam task where
focusing on the key words in the instructions and looking for synonyms and paraphrasing
in the text will help. Look for the key words in the sentence beginnings, not the endings:
you may not need to read through all the endings in detail, so don't waste your time!

56 Get Ready for IELTS: Reading

 Unit 8

2 The following text has been divided into four parts. For each part, choose the best sentence
ending from a number of options.
/ Human rights ... iv The European Charter o f Fundamental Rights ...
a are about having everything you a resulted in social and technological changes.
need and want. b included information about rights related
b apply especially to people with to new technology.
disabilities. c replaced older declarations of human rights.
c are about rights and also about
freedoms. A legal basis for human rights
The European Convention of Human Rights was
//' Human rights ...
drawn up in 1963, giving a legal framework for human
a not before World War 11. rights in the UK and other European countries. Here,
b are less important when there is a war. people can complain to the European Court of Human
Rights (or ECHR), based in Strasbourg, France. In
c are now an international issue.
1998, the European Union (EU) decided to update the
list of human rights, to take account of changes in
Human rights are ideas about what everyone is
society and technology. The result was the European
entitled to. Basic human rights include the right to
Charter of Fundamental Rights (2000). This included
life, and the right to food and clean drinking water.
some newer human rights:
Others include the right to vote and to freedom of
expression. In the UK, most people have their basic • The right to a private life, including a right to privacy
human rights met most of the time. However, in and to confidentiality of letters and emails.
some countries people's freedoms may be limited.
• The right to limits on working hours and to have
Also, in the UK, there are still areas of human rights
annual paid holiday.
that some people believe could be improved, such
as the rights of people with disabilities. • The right to respect the integrity of human beings,
including a ban on financial gain from the human
The modern idea of human rights was developed after body. This includes the sale of human organs and
the Second World War, during which many people's the cloning of human beings.
rights were violated. On a large scale, these human • The right to data protection, which means that if a
rights abuses are known as war crimes. As a result, company holds data on you, you can ask where it
the United Nations (UN) was formed to provide a place got the information and what it is.
for nations to resolve conflicts peacefully. It was set up
by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), \/ If you are under 18 ...
which consisted of 30 articles describing the basic rights
a there should be economic, cultural and
of every person, and was signed in 1948 by 48 countries.
other rights.
iii According to the Universal Declaration, b you should obey the rules of the 1991
it is an issue o f fairness to be ... convention.
a accepted everywhere in public. c you have over 40 rights.

b educated. People aged 17 and under

c equal treatment. For children and young people there is The United Nation's
Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which
The first section of the Universal Declaration states: covers economic, social, cultural and political rights.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity The UK agreed to obey the rules of the convention in
and rights.' 1991, which means that every child in the UK, without
exception, has certain rights that he or she is entitled to,
Key rights relating to being 'born free' include freedom
more than 40 in total. Here are some examples:
of speech and of movement, the right to a fair trial,
and freedom from torture and from hunger. • the right to life, survival and development
Key rights relating to 'being equal' include a right to an • the right to have their views respected, and to have
education, and the right to be treated equally, without their best interests considered at all times
discrimination, in all areas of public life. • the right to a name and nationality, freedom of
The Universal Declaration was designed as a safeguard expression, and access to information concerning them
to protect the human rights of people around the world. • the right to education, leisure, culture and the arts

Young people’s rights 57

 Part 3: Exam practice

Questions 1 -5

Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-l.

1 Students' views are likely to be taken seriously if there a r e ................

2 Rules related to uniform are most likely to be discussed a t ................
3 Year councils may get involved i n
4 In the Year 8 council that is mentioned, teachers make sure that students are
5 Those in power a re ................

A bullying and fundraising.

B more likely to bully others.
C not always the best listeners.
D not left on their own.
E organizing events.
F representative from the different year groups.
G school and year councils as well as peer mentoring schemes.
H school councils.
I teachers and parents of older students.

Participating in the school community

It is important that students' feelings, opinions and suggestions are listened to, taken into
account, and that the right action is taken. There are a number of ways that this can be
achieved, i.e. school councils, year councils and peer mentoring.

School councils
Most schools have a school council which exists to let the teachers and head teacher
know what students' opinions are on a range of school issues. The school council usually
consists of tw o or three elected representatives from each year group.

A school council might meet once or tw ice a month to discuss issues such as the dress
code, the use of social areas, charity fundraising and bullying.

Year councils
Because school councils are sometimes dominated by older students, some schools have
introduced year councils. The aim of a year council is to give students the opportunity to
express opinions on matters of importance to that particular year group. The following is
an example of the rules relating to a school's council for year 8 (pupils aged 12-13).

1 The council's purpose is to act as a forum for discussion of school issues relevant
to Year 8, and to let the teachers and head teacher know what student opinion is on
these issues. The council will also take responsibility for cooperating with year staff
in the organization of one social event per term for Year 8.

58 Get Ready for IELTS: Reading

 Unit 8

2 Membership of the council will consist of three representatives from each class,
elected on a termly basis.
3 Meetings will be held once a fortnight. The council members will elect a chair to
control the meetings and a secretary who will be responsible for circulating the
agenda for each meeting and taking and circulating minutes of meetings.
4 The class representatives will be responsible for giving a report of the council's meetings to
their class. Agenda and minutes of meetings will be put up in each classroom.
5 The Year 8 council will elect tw o of its members to be members of the school council,
w ith responsibility for raising issues on behalf of Year 8 students at school council
meetings.
6 The chair, secretary and school council representatives will be responsible for taking
up matters raised at council meetings w ith the year head and other teachers, and for
reporting back on such matters to the Year 8 council.
7 The head of year will attend all council meetings as an observer and both they and
the other year staff will be available as required to offer support and advice to council
members and to assist in the settlement of disputes.

Peer mentoring
There are other ways in which students' voices can be heard. One of the most popular
schemes involves peer mentoring. Those who express an interest receive training to become
mentors so that they are better equipped to help others. This starts from primary school age,
when the mentors may get involved in issues related to conflict resolution. At secondary
school and at university, mentors are likely to deal with a larger variety of issues, such as
educational and health-related matters.

The underlying belief in schemes like these is that being heard by your peers can be more
effective and helpful as fellow students may have more time and understanding than
teachers or others in authority.

Progress check

How many boxes can you tick? You should work towards being able to tick them all.

Did you ...

read the sentence beginnings carefully?
remember to underline the key words in the sentence beginnings?
try to predict what could grammatically come next in the sentence?
check carefully if the meaning of the sentence ending you chose
corresponded exactly to what was said in the passage?

Young people’s rights 59

 Community matters
AIMS: Vocabulary about groups • Categorizing and labelling • Matching features

Part 1: Vocabulary

y«Mrr«» fliMTKB
SL J J *?.. -*

These pictures symbolize different aspects of ‘community’. Complete these definitions of

two-word phrases where the first word is ‘community’. If necessary, choose it from the box
below the table.

1 community ... a place that is specially provided for the people, groups and organizations in a
particular area, where they can go in order to meet one another and do things
2 community ... an educational institution in the USA where students from the surrounding area
can take courses in practical or academic subjects
3 community ... a system in which the police work only in one particular area of the community, so that
everyone knows them. In Britain, there are Community Support Officers, volunteers
who are trained to prevent and solve low level crimes so that people feel safer
4 community ... unpaid work that criminals sometimes do as a punishment instead of being sent to
prison
5 community ... help available to persons living in their own homes, rather than services provided
in residential institutions
6 community ... the feeling of loyalty to a group that is shared by the people who belong to the
group

spirit centre college service policing care ]

2 The word community contains information about its meaning and its grammatical category:
it is similar to the word common, and the -ity ending tells us that the word is a noun.

What do you think the words in the table opposite mean? What are their grammatical
categories? If you are not sure, choose from the options in the box below the table.

Get Ready for IELTS: Reading

 Unit 9

grammatical category meaning

communal

a commune

a communist

a a supporter of communism (the political belief that all people are equal and that
workers should control the means of producing things)
b a group of people who live together and share everything.
c belonging or relating to a community as a whole; something that is shared

3 Categorize the following words by ticking the appropriate column(s). There may be more
than one correct answer. Then complete the other boxes in the table, where possible.

adjective verb adverb noun

criminal
volunteer

loyalty
residential
punish

4 The words on the right refer to groups of people. Match them with the word on the left that
they best combine with. Use a dictionary if necessary.

1 political a party
2 online b cast
3 voluntary c band
4 film d group
5 rock e team
6 friendship f community
7 sports g organization

l/l/a,te& Ou,t/
It's important to recognize what pronouns in a text refer to. Be careful w ith they, their
and them: they do not always relate to plural forms. They are often used to talk about
individuals to avoid mentioning gender {he, she, his or her, him or her).
A team member m ust be prepared to put other people's needs before their own. (This
avoids the use of 'his/her own'.)

Community matters 61
 Part 2: Skills development

Exam information I Matching features

In the exam, you may be asked to match a list of factual statements or opinions to a
group of features taken from a text. The information in the list of statements will not be
in the same order as in the text. You may not need all the features or you may be able to
use some of them more than once.

1 Copy and complete the table, according to features they have in common, e.g. grammatical
form or meaning. Then label each of the categories. (Hint: two of the columns are
grammatical categories.)

I organization he educational community communal team her cast practical

1 crowd they loyal band academic she theirs criminal them safe mine party

Category 1: Category 2: Category 3:

0r0fliAlzfltloiA, he cduoattovu^l

2 Look at the newsletter on thenext page. Choose one or two words fromeach paragraph
(A-G) to describe what theparagraph is about.The first one has beendone for you.

A f a . Q d r f i ^ .......................................................
B ..................................... F .........................................................
C ..................................... G .........................................................
D ........................................

3 How many of the paragraphs mention the following? Write the letters A-G.

1 d o gs ............................ 5 activities that involve fo o d ..........................

2 m oney............................. 6 people who live(d) locally ...........................
3 problems in the community 7 volunteers .............................

4 activities for children.............................

Find paraphrases in the text for the following statements. Write them in your notebook.

1 As many people have been asking for i t ...

2 Many people turned up to the Forest Schools activities.
3 The winner will receive a big chocolate egg.
4 There will be another group meeting so that everyone can practise before the real
interviews.
5 We have just planted many new trees.
6 You need to enrol before you can attend any of these activities.

62 Get Ready for IELTS: Reading

 Unit 9

Welcome to our third newsletter of the year!

(A) Our main activity for March is our Walk for the Woods fundraising event on Saturday, 17th March,
starting any time between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. In recognition of locally born Jack Judge, who wrote
the song 'It's a long way to Tipperary' 100 years ago, we will be walking the distance between Warley
Woods and Tipperary. It is indeed a long way—260 miles—so we need a lot of people to do a lot of
1 mile laps round the Woods. The more people that you can get to sponsor you, the more money we
can raise to help look after our beautiful woodland. Sponsor forms are available from the shop at the
Woods or on our website.
(B) Lots of new trees have gone in recently. The Sunday volunteers planted two beeches and an oak in
the meadow last week. This was thanks to a grant from the Big Tree Plant and to Lisa and Gordon
Whitaker whose friends gave money for the big trees instead of wedding presents. Thanks to
everyone who took part including Lisa and Gordon and South Staffordshire pic who dug the big holes
for us. (There is a DVD of one of the volunteers falling in—or was he pushed?)
(C) There were 15 volunteers at the Oral History Training Day which was led very ably by Julia Letts. Lots
of issues were discussed and ideas considered. The group will be meeting again and will have the
opportunity to do some practice interviews before starting to interview the local people who have
offered to tell their stories. We are happy to hear from others who would like to be interviewed about
their memories of the Woods for the project. If you or anyone you know is interested, please contact
Viv Cole at the office. This project is funded by Heritage Lottery Fund.
(D) We already have sponsors for two of our events this year. Derek Spires, a local estate agent, is
sponsoring Theatre in the Woods which this year is Much Ado About Nothing and will take place on
Thursday, 14th June. Also, Companion Care Vets are sponsoring the Picnic. We are still looking for a
sponsor for the All about Dogs event on 9th September, so if you, or any company you know, would
like to do this, please get in touch with the office.
(E) The trustees have been giving some thought to ways of minimizing future damage to the fountain, and have
decided to contact a specialist local firm to see what can be done about the graffiti.
(F) There was a huge response to the Forest Schools activities held at half term. These will be held again
during the Easter holidays on the following dates: 4th, 5th and 11th April from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. for
over 8s. On 12th April from 10 a.m. to 12 noon there will be a Teddy Bears' Picnic for the under 8s. All
sessions must be booked in advance and forms are available at the shop or office.
(G) Finally, don't forget the Easter Egg Roll on Bank Holiday Monday, 9th April, starting at 11 a.m. Bring
your £1.00 entry money and your own hard-boiled and decorated egg to roll down the hill in the
woods. The first past the finishing line will win a massive chocolate egg! This year, due to popular
demand, there will also be an Adults' Easter Egg Roll following the children's competition.
We look forward to seeing you all soon, at one of our many events!

Glossary
trust: a group of people or an organization that has control of an amount of money or property and invests it on
behalf of other people or as a charity • trustee: someone with legal control of money or property that is kept or
invested for another person, company or organization.

Community matters 63
 Part 3: Exam practice

Questions 1 -9
Match each item 1 -9 with the correct group A-D. You can use any letter more than once.

1 people feel safe here ...........

2 these exist in different forms ...........
3 people support each other ...........
4 it is difficult to say exactly what they are ...........
5 they have a lot to offer their members ...........
6 people can do things on a bigger scale ...........
7 the members meet up in person ...........
people are prepared to take on other people's responsibilities ...........
9 people are strangers ...........

This is true for:

A all communities
B online communities
C traditional communities
D none of the mentioned communities

The importance of community

'Community' is not a concept that is easy to define. In this essay, I will examine
what transforms individuals into a community, and discuss some different types. I
will also look at what all communities have in common, the benefits they offer and
draw conclusions about their increasing importance.

The word 'community' may trigger images of traditional communities in the

developing world, where large families live together. Elderly parents live with their
children and grandchildren in one house. Parents have relative freedom: if they leave
the house there is always someone left behind to look after their children. I f it is
their own parents who need to support, their older children can take care of this.
We may also imagine the neighbours as people who are happy to help out whenever
it is needed. The stereotypical view is that of a village, where people have little
but can feel very rich because everyone takes responsibility for the welfare of the
others.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are other types of communities: ultra-
modern ones, where the community members are unlikely to have actually met each
other. These are online communities, where people blog or chat about particular
issues that are important to them. They come across others on websites and may

64 Get Ready for IELTS: Reading

 Unit 9

develop a relationship there with like-minded people, discussing the same topics. The
view is often that these are artificial bonds between people who are, in effect, still
isolated strangers.

In reality, of course, this is not true, as the connections are real. Moreover,
there are many types of communities in between these extremes: people who join
sports and leisure clubs, who sign up with voluntary, political, religious or other
organizations, who attend events such as coffee mornings (e.g. fundraising circles,
mother and baby groups), or who take part in group discussions in their local area.
They may be campaigning about issues or simply getting together for companionship
and support.

Human beings are social by nature, so it should not be a surprise that we organize
ourselves in groups. However, there is more going on: these groups provide
something that we cannot achieve on our own. The main benefit of being part of
a larger group is strength in numbers. For example, we can access and share more
information, we can take part in team sports, we can complain and campaign more
effectively and even if we are just having a chat, online or in person, we can feel
supported in whatever we do.

The stereotypical views of the happy village and the isolated computer users may
not be completely true, but what we do know is that whatever forms communities
take, what defines them is the sense of identity and security that they provide for
their members: the knowledge that there are people who we have something in
common with and who can be relied on to be there when we need each other.

Progress check

How many boxes can you tick? You should work towards being able to tick them all.

Did you ...

identify the key words in the statements?
look for paraphrases in the text?
scan the text to find the right section?

Community matters 65