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Level Four
| Unit 1: Making Friends |
When we meet someone for the first time, it can be difficult to create the right first impression. Even before we speak, the other person is reading our body language.
After creating a good first impression, we still need to get along with the people we meet. There are lots of tips on the WWW about getting along with others in different situations like at school and at work. One of the most important ideas to remember is that it is more important to get along with others than for them to think that you are always right or always in charge.
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| Unit 2: The Rise of the WWW |
The rise of the WWW means anyone can now create their own website. The WWW is a good place to learn how to design a website and get ideas about what to include.
With so many people making their own websites, be careful about believing everything you read. Computers have helped create and spread urban legends. These are often humorous stories that appear to be true, but may not be. Have a look at some examples and decide if you think they are true or not.
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| Unit 3: Child Prodigies |
Child prodigies are children who exhibit the talents of people much older than themselves. These talents can be in subjects like art, music or sports. You can read about the lives of child prodigies and their exceptional talents on the WWW.
Another type of extraordinary person is called a savant. A savant has special mental talents, but is unable to do the most basic tasks that other people can do, such as getting dressed.
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| Unit 6: Pirates |
Lords of the Realm is a website full of pirate biographies, tales of adventures on the high seas, illustrations and maps.
The Microsoft website talks about pirates, too software pirates! Read about how software piracy affects you. |
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| Unit 7: Painted Faces |
Camouflage and makeup share similar properties; one property is the art of concealment: to hide from someone or something, or to hide wrinkles or blemishes on your skin.
There are many kinds of camouflage. A new type is called optical camouflage. In this, you wear clothes made of a material like a video screen. An image of the scene behind you is projected on to your clothes, which allows you to blend in with your surroundings.
People are often interested in makeup because they want to look like movie stars, but what do movie stars look like without their makeup?
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| Unit 8: Why do People Lie? |
Tall tales are made-up stories told to entertain. People make up these stories for many reasons including to test how easy it is to fool others. For example,"A new law has been passed in California making it a legal requirement for parents of twins to spray green paint on the forehead of one twin and red on the other." It's a silly story, but some silly people might believe it!
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| Unit 9: You Won the Lottery! |
Winning the lottery is a national obsession in many countries. However, people often only think about winning the lottery and how they will spend the prize money; they do not usually consider the odds of winning.
To calculate your odds of winning the lottery, check out the lottery odds calculator. The science of calculating the odds that something will happen is called probability.
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| Unit 10: Pompeii |
The town of Pompeii was destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius on
24 August, 79 AD. Many years after the eruption, archeologists found and unearthed Pompeii. You can see the pictures of what they found on the WWW.
In addition to the photographs, Pliny the Younger witnessed the eruption from a neighboring town and wrote two letters describing what he saw.
Today, Vesuvius is not dead, it's only dormant; it could erupt again, perhaps causing similar damage as it did on 24 August, 79 AD.
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| Unit 11: Eccentrics! |
Eccentrics are people (often with a lot of money) who live life quite differently from others in society. One famous eccentric who wrote about people who were different was Henry David Thoreau: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." Much of Thoreau's philosophy was captured in a book called Walden.
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| Unit 12: The Library |
The greatest library in history was arguably the Ancient Library of Alexandria. It was considered great because of its comprehensive collection of scientific and literary works, and the many famous scholars who worked there as librarians. Although the library no longer exists, a beautiful modern library, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, stands near the site of the original.
The growth in popularity of the WWW has helped make more information available to more people than ever before. One interesting project, the Guttenberg Project, collects as many non-fiction and fiction works as possible and makes them widely available on the WWW.
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