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Before the 1850’s, the US had a number of small colleges, / most of them dating from colonial days. / They were small churche-connected institutions / whose primary concern was to shape the moral character of their students. / Between mid-century and the end of the 1800’s, / more than 9000 young Americans went to Germany for advanced study./ Some of them returned to become presidents of honorable colleges / and transformed them into modern universities. / The new universities greatly expanded in size and course offerings, / breaking completely out of the old, limited curriculum. /
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Migration and Business
1. Migration
- Map—sharp lines divide up the world.
- Real world—No 【T1】______between lands. 【T1】______
2. Two changes of diasporas
- They become much bigger.
- Because of cheap flights and communications, people can 【T2】______【T2】______
with the places they come from.
3. Reasons: three 【T3】______【T3】______
- They speed the flow of information across borders.
- They foster trust.
- They help people 【T4】______each other. 【T4】______
4. Migration and 【T5】______【T5】______
- A quarter of 【T6】______firms between 1995 and 2005 were 【T6】______
started by immigrants.
- To exile itself has the effect.
- 【T7】______of migrants saw the solution against 42% of non-migrants. 【T7】______
- Diaspora ties help 【T8】______to collaborate. 【T8】______
- Example: Indian American engineers worked on a fridge for 【T9】______. 【T9】______
5. Hyperconnectivity, 【T10】______to today’s networked diasporas 【T10】______Migration and Business
Today, we’ll talk about migration and business. In the flat world of maps, sharp lines show where one country ends and another begins. But the real world is more fluid. First, peoples do not have borders the way that parcels of land do. They migrate. Consider the difference between China and the Chinese people. One is an enormous country in Asia. The other is a nation that spans the planet.
Second, thanks to cheap flights and communications, people can now stay in touch with the places they come from. A century ago, a migrant might board a ship, sail to America and never see his friends or family again. Today, he texts his mother while still waiting to clear customs. He can wire her money in minutes. He can follow news from his hometown on his laptop. He can fly home regularly to visit relatives or invest his earnings in a new business.
This is because the diaspora networks have three lucrative virtues. First, they speed the flow of information across borders. Second, they foster trust. Third, and most important, diasporas create connections that help people with good ideas collaborate with each other, both within and across ethnicities.
Then, there’s the relationship between migration and creativity. Immigrants are only an eighth of America’s population, but a quarter of the engineering and technology firms started there between 1995 and 2005 had an immigrant founder, according to Duke University. The work by Northwestern University suggests that to exile itself makes people creative. They compared MBA students who had lived abroad with otherwise similar students who had not, using an experiment in which each was given a candle, a box of matches and a box of drawing pins. This candle problem requires people to imagine something being used for a purpose quite different from its usual one. Some 60% of the migrants saw the solution against 42% of non-migrants.
Diaspora ties also help businesses to collaborate. What may be the world’s cheapest fridge was conceived from a marriage of ideas generated by Indians in India and Indians overseas. Three Indian-American engineers had an idea for a cooling engine and then worked on a cheap fridge for rural Indians too poor to fork out the $200 normally required, let alone the subsequent electric bills.
Finally, the “new type of hyperconnectivity“ that enables such projects is fundamental to today’s networked diasporas. Migrants are now connected instantaneously, continuously, dynamically and intimately to their communities of origin. This is a fundamental and profound break from the past eras of migration. The break explains why diasporas, always marginalized in the flat-map world of national territories, find themselves in the thick of things as the world becomes networked.
We’ve talked about the changes of diasporas, why diaspora networks are effective and how migrations can help business. Any questions?
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M: Hello, Linda.
W: Hello, Bob.
M: Now Linda, I have a question for you. Do you think you are a winner?
W: You mean someone who has a lot of success in everything?
M: Well, not exactly. I’m just talking about competitions. Do you have a lot of success or luck in winning them?
W: Competitions? No, not at all. I don’t think I’ve ever won a competition.
M: Ah, bad luck. And Linda, can you guess the biggest cash prize in the USA?
W: I don’t know. Maybe 100 million.
M: No, that’s 590 million!
W: 590 million! Who’s so lucky?
M: An 84-year-old lady in Florida.
W: She’s so lucky! I think I once, about 10 years ago, I won ￡10 on the British National Lottery.
M: Wow, that’s also a big win! But Linda, have you heard about “compers“?
W: “Compers“? No. What does it mean?
M: That’s an informal name for someone who takes part in competitions on an almost professional basis. They spend a lot of time trying to win something.
W: You mean winning prizes or free gifts?
M: Yes. Some people put a lot of effort into winning something, even if it’s just a box of chocolates or a coffee mug. It’s just the excitement of winning.
W: Just a box of chocolates?
M: But sometimes there are big prizes to win—a new car, a speedboat or a holiday of a lifetime. The only problem is that these prizes are either not easy to win or there are millions of people trying to win them.
W: I’ve certainly never won anything as fantastic as that.
M: But one man called Martin Dove has. He is a retired lecturer and an expert “comper“.
W: What has he won?
M: He’s won a yacht, a racehorse and lots of smaller prizes too. Some people have called him the King of Comping. He’s even written books on the subject and offered advice to other compers.
W: But comping has changed, Bob. There are lots of competitions to enter on the Internet now. Every webpage you look at seems to tempt us with a fantastic prize to be won.
M: That’s true. But Martin Dove doesn’t think that is necessarily a good thing. Competitions online are easier to enter—you just have to click. Martin said he could enter about 40 competitions in just 20 minutes! But because it’s so easy, more people enter and so the chances of winning are less. Sometimes, a one in a million chance of winning.
W: No wonder I’ve never won any prize.
This is the end of Conversation One. Questions 1 to 5 are based on Conversation One.
1. What is the biggest cash prize in the USA?
2. What prize has Linda won?
3. What does a comper mean?
4. What has Martin Dove won?
5. According to Martin Dove, is it easy to win prizes now? 100 million. 590 million. 950 million. 840 million.
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W: Even as smoking declines in the U.S. and other countries, a new study reveals that the use of tobacco in developing countries is booming. The report looked at tobacco users in 14 developing nations and included data from the U.S. and the U.K. for comparison. It found that about half the men across the low- and middle-income nations use tobacco. The number was much smaller for women, 11 percent. But the survey found that women are starting at younger ages than in the past. Russia had the highest rates—60 percent of men and 22 percent of women used tobacco in some form. The World Health Organization says that if current trends continue, the global death toll from tobacco will reach eight million a year by 2030. And we’re joined now by Gary Giovino, the leading researcher on the new study. Welcome to you. Let me just ask you first, what was the most important thing that came from this study for you?
M: Well, the magnitude of tobacco use in the different countries, the fact that we saw some different patterns, that smoking, for example, is very high among men and women in Russia, especially young men and women. In Russia, Turkey and Ukraine, it was very high.
W: One thing that jumped out at me was the low number of people who quit smoking once they have started, especially as compared to in the U.S., for example. What does that tell you? Why is that happening?
M: Well, I think we have some cultures, particularly, for example, in India, where quitting isn’t emphasized. Only 10 percent of people in India who have ever smoked daily have quit. That compares to about 45 percent in the United States and the United Kingdom, where tobacco control efforts, where efforts to educate people about tobacco use and encourage quitting and prevent initiation, have been going on for a long time. So, I hope that India, the government will look at that and try to improve their efforts to promote quitting among people who have become addicted and daily smokers.
W: What can we do? What do we know that does work?
M: Things that work are protecting non-smokers, of course, offering people to help with quitting, hardhitting mass media campaigns, and enforcing advertising bans or restrictions. In many countries, they can actually ban advertising. And they do. In our country, we can only restrict it. And then also raising taxes—when the price goes up, consumption goes down. But then, in many countries, they use some of the money that they get from raising taxes to fund media campaigns, for example, and other tobacco-control strategies.
W: Gary Giovino, thanks so much for joining us.
M: My pleasure. Thank you.
This is the end of Conversation Two. Questions 6 to 10 are based on Conversation Two.
6. Which country does the study focus on?
7. How many people smoke in Russia?
8. What will happen if the trend of smoking continues?
9. Why do more people quit smoking in the United States?
10. What can be done to control smoking? The United States. The United Kingdom. 14 developing countries. 40 developing countries.
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Jack: I refuse to spend Sunday at your mother’s house! Jill: Oh you do, do you? We’ll see about that. In the dialogue above, Jill uses the tag question “do you?“ to______. express surprise show confrontation seek confirmation express confidence
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Among the four sentences below, sentence______indicates the lack of ability on the part of the speaker. I’m afraid the strain is more than I can bear. I’m afraid the strain is all that I can bear. I’m afraid the strain is the most I can bear. I’m afraid the strain is beyond I can bear.
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Among the four sentences below, the preposition in sentence______carries the metaphorical meaning. The man’s father lives beyond the sea. Mary came out of the house. Such behavior is beneath him. The jet flew over the clouds.
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He sent______to us that he would not be able to come. the word words word the words
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Some Chinese kids eat______as they actually need every day. twice as much protein twice protein as much twice twice protein as much protein as twice much
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Jack is______intelligent than his sister, but he failed in the entrance exam. no less no more not less not so
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Clothing made of plastic fibers has certain advantages over____made of natural fibers like cotton, wool, or silk. one the one that what
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Evidence came up specific sounds are recognized by babies as young as six months old. what that which whose
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No one would have time to read or listen to an account of everything____ going on in the world. it is as is there is what is
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In fact, as he approached his beloved daughter, he only barely resisted the______to stroke her pretty soft hair. impulse intuition instinct incentive
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Jason is a hard-working guy, and he even made a______for upper class support. application bid proposal suggestion
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The price of the organic vegetables will vary according to how far it has to be transported and how expensive the fright______are. payment charges funds prices
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As the temperature dropped abruptly, the campers were______all over with cold. spinning shivering shaking staggering
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Our journey was slow because the train stopped ______ at different villages. unceasingly gradually continuously continually
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The ship’s generator broke down, and the pumps had to be operated______instead of mechanically. manually artificially automatically synthetically
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The English language contains a (an) ______of words which are comparatively seldom used in ordinary conversation. altitude latitude multitude attitude
