Selectivitat / PAU Exam Practice

Here you have the links you need to visit to prepare for the Selectivitat exam:

Exam structure and general evaluation criteria

(It is important to read very carefully the evaluation criteria for the writing part)

Exams of last 3 years: 

2010, 2009, 2008 June and September

with mp3s for the listenings 

and answer key

(in June, you will see there are two series, they always prepare two exams in case a student has a legitimate and valid excuse for not having attended the exam)  

Happy revision! 

Goodbye!

Well guys, our time in high school is ending and I just want to say goodbye to everyone. We've grown up together in many aspects and ways, and now it is time to say goodbye and just grow up by ourselves and for ourselves or with different people. Some of us have shared fifteen years of our lives together, some of us have shared six, others two and others just one. But despite this fact, I have to say that I've really enjoyed your company and I hope you've enjoy mine as well. I just hope that we'll remain friends and that we'll celebrate our victories together and that we'll support each other when one of us needs it. As you all know, I've done something as my farewell present for you, so here it is.




The songs are:
“The best years of our lives” – Evan Taubenfeld “Time of our lives” – Tyrone Wells

You can check the lyrics here:

http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-best-years-of-our-lives-lyrics-evan-taubenfeld.html
And here: http://www.lyricsty.com/tyrone-wells-time-of-our-lives-lyrics.html

Which is the most important thing in you life

Which is the most important thing in our life: a lot of money, good health, close family or an important job

Nowadays people are worried about their life and almost always, they can't choose their priorities. One part of the people is concerned in business and money, others about a good health like M. Jackson for example, someone needs to support and has a close family and there are people who donate their life to their career.

What about money, moneys rule the world, probably it's true. Everywhere we go we use money, credit cards to pay. In the modern world people are considered to raise their bank account. This kind of people think that money will solve all their problems. But in reality, there're things that you can't buy, like health, love, friendship, talent. You can pay a big amount of money to your doctor, but you won't be healthy, you can pay to speak with someone, but you won't buy their respect, and finally you can buy sex, but that woman will hate you even more...A real pleasure doesn't consist of material things.

A close family is something closer to our happiness. A really close family won't let you go alone in your life road; they will always accompany you, even if the society has left you alone. Only your close family will understand you and will give you a real support in your life.

If you like your job, you'll succeed there. But during your career people forget about others and about so many interesting things that make your life colorful, like children, family, parents, your wife/girlfriend...

A real careerist after a 20-year-work will understand that his life has passed and they have nothing to remember. Probably they are rich but they don´t have people on their side. Our ignorance might be painful for people who surround us.

In my opinion, a good health is a very important thing in our life. I wish I had always an excellent health. If you got a good health, you wouldn't have obstacles in your life. The only thing that can stop us is illness, or death. Other things can be overcome by our desires...If I really want something, maybe not now but i will get it!

So, life as a conclusion I would like to say that the most important things are a close family and a good health! I´m happy because I’ve got the first one, let´s see if the second one will be with me during my life.

Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies

Hi guys!
Today I searched talks to practice listening to the test for tomorrow, I've found this talk very interesting.
This talk is about the developmental factors that influce a baby to learn a new language.
It's very interesting to know when we are able to learn many languages ​​and how we develop our brain.
Personally, I'm trilingual since I was little, and I think it's important to learn many languages​​ since we're children, so we have the brain more developed and better able to recognize and learn foreign languages.
It is also interesting the experiments which the researchers did with the children, learning how people affect our learning, we learn more with people than watching tv.
I hope you'll like the video !
See you tomorrow in listening test!

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/spa/patricia_kuhl_the_linguistic_genius_of_babies.html

School plays a more important role than the family in shaping one's personality

It is true that school plays an important part in the psychological development of the child because children spend a lot of hours at school, with their classmates and teachers who influence them.

On the one hand, most children stay at school an average of 8 hours. They do all the activities that a child has to do in his/her daily life, 4 hours studing, 2 hours in the eating room, 2 hours doing other activities with their classmates or individually (for example sleeping).

On the other hand, the child spends a short time with the family, inside or outside the home, with a total daily time of 4 hours. In addition, at least, one of the parents usually works all the day and consequently, he comes back home tired and he doesn't pay enough attencion to his son/daughter.

All in all, school might seem more important in shaping a child's personality. However, a part of a person's personality is geneticaly determined when hi is born and he develops it during his experiences in school and at home equally.

We won the second prize! YES!!!

We are extremely happy and honoured to announce that we have received a very prestigious award. We won the second prize, a “Silver spinning top”, in the V Premio Espiral Edublogs 2011 in the category blogs of students of Bachillerato!!!

You all did a good job! I'm very proud of you!!! Congratulations to all the authors: Mireia, Carlos, Malika, Nariman, Albert, Judith, Angela, Vladimir, Delia, Lexian, Desi, Alba, David, Lucas, Aitor, Carmen!! This is also a good time to say thank you to all the commentators and all the readers who think they can learn some English by visiting our blog.


Thank you so much to the team of Premio Espiral Edublogs for this recognition. We will be delighted to continue working on it! 

On the 4th of June we are given the prize in Madrid, so hopefully we can all have a photograph taken with our "silver spinning top" on the week after!

Happy blogging!!

  

Facebook: Premio Espiral Edublogs

Twitter: #espiraledublogs

 

What do you think about vegetarians?

Nowadays there are many people that are vegetarians. Vegetarianism can be adopted for different reasons:including health, religious, political, environmental, cultural, in addition to ethical reasons. It's a diet without the inclusions of dairy products or eggs, and with the exlusion of meat.

On the one hand, they have a healthy life because they eat many vegetables and fruits add vitamins to the body. Their ethical reasons are to protect the rights of animals as they can't do it alone. They consider reprehensible and cruel the death of animals especially its abuse and explotaition with the sole purpose of producing food for animals.

On the other hand, people need to eat a little of everything for the body and have a complete diet. The thropy chains are one cycle and the human being is part of them.

To sump up, I think it's good that there is people who worri about animal rights and I respect them. For example, when I work in the bakery, we have products for vegan people they exclude all animals flesh and animal productes. We have special cakes without milk and eggs, I have tasted it, it is somehow different but delicious.

Grammar revision

Can you tell the difference between the following pair of sentences?
Think about it and if you are not clear about any of them, ask me in the next revision class.

• He must be a good musician. 
• He must have been a good musician.

• He might not have existed.
• He can't have existed.

• You must have seen the film about King Arthur.
• You should have seen the film about King Arthur.

• You don't have to do it.
• You musn't do it.  

• I have lived in Barcelona for 10 years. 
• I lived in Barcelona for 10 years. 

• When Desi got home, her parents went to bed.
• When Desi got home, her parents had gone to bed.

• I'm going to paint my room.
• I'm going to have my room painted. 

• I wish I knew that.
• I wish I had known that. 

Buying online is the best way to shop

'Buying online is the best way to shop'

Discuss

Today, we can do almost everything with the computer. Now, a lot of people are buying things online. You only need to open a bank acount, then you can buy things that you need. Now I will discuss the advantages and the disadvantagesod buying online.

On the one hand, buying online is very fast. You don't have to go out, only type on your keyboard. In addition, you can compare the price easily. Always the price of product online is cheaper than in a shop. If you buy too many things, you don't have to worry that you can't carry them, because they will take them home.

On the other hand, shopping online it is not safe, sense a virus can come in your computer anf it will store your bank acount password. Moreover, you only see photos of the product, so it's difficult to find out if it suits you. For exemple, if you want to buy a piece of cloth, you can't try it on.

In conclusion, buying online it is fast and easy. although it is not quite safe, but you should think that when you go shopping in a shop you can be robbed too. In my opinion, buying online is the best way to shop.

The evolution of internet.

At present the evolution of internet has recently inmmensely and new there are a lot of people that use it.

On the one hand, the internet has adventages;
It lets you in a simple way connect with a lot of people or distant family. Also, it makes it easy to meet people of other countries.
Searching information without moving from your house.
You can find many different perspectives about some news. Moreover, it allows you to download software, books, movies.. You can buy things or run a few errand. To finish with, you can share a lot of personal things that other people can benefit from it.

On the other hand, all things are good and bad thongs as well.
In the same way that it is easy to find good information also you can find wrong information.
Internet takes free time from and keeps you from doing you homework.
Internet makes students strive less doing their homework and students might copy English compositions.
Internet dustracts employees in their work.
The internet connection spends electrical energy and light.

To sum up, in my opinion we need to know how to balance the use of the Internet to be beneficial in our lives.

Buying online is the best way to shop

In recent years, internet shopping has increased. Many of us have bought something online but some people are afraid of buying the services which are offered on Internet. In this essay, I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of "buying online is the best way to shop".
On the one hand, buying online is the best way to shop because there you can find things cheaper than in stores. Besides, you can find brand articles at a lower price than in stores. You can also find good second-hand items at half price. Another advantage is that there is an indefinite time: you can buy at any time of day. For example, people who work and who do not have time to go shopping in a store can make all their orders via Iternet becausa in this way they save time by not having to leave home and they can buy even though the shops are closed.
On the other hand, online shopping has many risks. You must enter the credit card number on the website to buy, so they can charge you twice for the same object and it is very difficult to claim. Furthermore, they can steal your personal information to buy with your name. This means that they can cheat you. For this reason, customers are disappointed, outraged and cheated, so they do not dare to buy online. In addition, you can not try the item of clothing and objects and you can not know if that suits you or if that is your size. Moreover, you can't return something if it doesn't suit you or if you don't like it because, often, the cost of return exceeds the cost of purchase.
In conclusion, although it has many advantages, I strongly believe that buying in shops is better than buying online. Despite this, Internet shopping is good as long as you use safe web pages.

The mass media has a great influence on people and especially on the younger generation. Discuss.

nNowadays, our life is influenced by the mass media, including TV, radio, newspaper... Everywhere, people are being exposed to a boom of advertisments and information by the media. All that pressure can produce a lot of advantages and disadvantages.
On the one hand, the media can offer us a lot of opporunities and hopes according to our future. Since the last decade, everybody who has wanted to get success in his life or his job has needed to appear in the media at least once. Almost all people who have appeared in the media has had a successful life after it: everybody reconognizes him and many businesses want to sign him up. Despite of it, the media gives us a lot of information from all over the world and our mind can be influenced by all these events, perhaps, it helps us to mature.
On the other hand, the news are manipulated by the media and it's cheatting us. Therefore, young people grow up with a wrong idea from the world, which coerce us when we need to make a desition. Besides, the media controls our lives although we don't realize it. Adds, news and series tell us hoe to take part in our lifes, how to dress, how to speak, how we should have our hair cut... All that means that we cannot be free with our society.
Finally, all in all I think that the advantages are not enough and, for this reason, I can't say that the mass media has a good influence on people, But I also say that we cannot believe a society without information because it gives us culture.

The language of successful presentations

This is a really short but hopefully inspiring and relevant video (only one minute and a half).

You can see again our old friend, Steve Jobs, president of Apple.

I can tell you from my experience working in two multinational companies that the world is about presentations. Why? Because, let's be honest, nobody reads long reports and so in real life if you have a project, you will always be asked to present it to the managing team of your company, sponsors, .... Half of the people in the world are more afraid of oral presentations than death! And so, how can we overcome this fear? by preparing and over-preparing our presentation plus learning a few tips which will make us more confident and relaxed. This is a skill which is given a lot of attention in American schools. Maybe that's why some of the best speakers in the world are American.

So let's learn form the very best!! 

This one-and-a-half video is a series of short extracts taken from a 90-minute presentation. 

Can you make a list of some of the positive language that is used? 

We'll revise and put together all of these words next week in class.

How many new words did you learn?

I discovered this video in a blog I am subscribed to with Google Reader. The blog is DigitaLang and the post is: "The language of successful presentations".

We like Instalyrics

Instalyrics is a new site for music videos and lyrics. 

It shows you the lyrics to any song very, very quickly, along with a music video that goes along with it. 

The lay-out is very clear and clean. 

Have a try and have fun!  

Damien Walters

I just found a video of this guy and I thought you would love it.

Know a little bit of him:

Damien Walters is a former British gymnast of Derbyshire specialising in tumbling. He participated in four Trampoline World Championships. He won the European Title with the British team in 2006.

He also worked in many movies as a stuntman. In 2010, he won the Taurus World Stunt Awards for "Best Fight" in the film Ninja Assassin'

Damien Walters also has a passion for Parkour and Freerunning where he incorporates his gymnastic skills as well as his stuntman abilities. On YouTube he is one of the most watched Freerunners with his videos having a total of over 30 million views.

Currently he is running his own gym in Derbyshire and shooting films.

See all his videos in his youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/damienwalters

Here you have some of his videos.

The story of a sign

Hi guys!

I just found this video and I thought it would be interesting for you.

This short story, winner of the 2008 Cannes Festival, shows how the power of words and the kindness of strangers can have a big impact. Film produced by Alonso Alvarez Barreda.

Here you have the original short film and a UK version

Espiral Edublogs 2011

We’ve got excellent news today!!! I’ve just received an email saying that last Wednesday some blogs had been misplaced in the list and that we have been selected one of the 6 finalists in the category of “Blogs de alumnos –Bachillerato”! See definitive list. So we made it to the final! 

It is a great honour to be in such a prestigious list.

Congratulations to all of you who have contributed to this blog and enriched it with your posts, comments!! And thank you to all the readers! 

It is expected that the winners will be published on the 15^th of May! We’ll keep fingers crossed! 

Happy blogging!

Ric Elias: "3 things I learned while my plane crashed"

This five-minute talk is about regrets and living life to the full.

Ric Elias had a front-row seat on Flight 1549, the plane that crash-landed in the Hudson River in New York in January 2009. What went through his mind as the doomed plane went down? At TED, he tells his story publicly for the first time.

Remember you can read the subtitles in English.

Also, on the right-hand upper corner it says "open interactive transcript" and you can click on any part of the text and listen to a specific bit of the speech again.

If you go to the TED's page, you might also like to read people's comments and reactions, feel free to leave your comments below as well. What do you think about what he says?

Happy listening!

V Espiral Prize - Edublogs 2011

Today the blogs that have reached the final have been published by Espiral Edublogs.

We presented our blog under the category of “Blogs de alumnos - Bachillerato” and we didn’t make it to the final, but I advise you to check the finalists since it is an opportunity to learn from the very best bloggers of the country! 

Under the category of “blogs de alumnos –adultos-EOI–Universidad” there are three blogs about English learning which are really well-worth visiting.

Remember to subscribe to the ones you like using Google Reader (see the tutorial on our tutorials page) or subscribe by email.  

Good luck and congratulations to all the finalists!! 

It is incredible all the enthusiasm you can see in Twitter following the hashtag #espiraledublogs.

Happy blogging!

Advantages and disadvantages of being a large family

Is it a good thing being a large family? Or are there only disadvantages?

Maybe almost everybody has asked this question to himself once in a life. If you have a small family, you wonder what it is like is having a large one. In contrast, if you have a large family, you wonder what it is like having a small one. In any case, there are advantages and disadvantages of being a large family.

On the one hand, having a large family could be difficult 'cause you have to share your parents’ attention with all your siblings, and this could be really difficult, especially when you are a toddler. And of course, it is most likely that you have to share your toys and stuff too. In addition, in a large family there are a lot of things to do at home, so that means that you have to do your chores on a regular basis.

Another disadvantage could be the space in the house and privacy. That could be a problem if you live in a not pretty big house or in a normal flat, as almost everybody in our city. In that case, you would have to share a room with one sibling at least, and sure there would be a lot of problems with the bathroom.

On the other hand, having a large family could be so cool and sure you could have a lot of fun. One of the clearest advantages is that you will always have someone to talk with. Besides, if you have a problem, you have a lot of siblings who can help you. You will always have someone who will take care of you, who will protect you.
Another advantage is that as you have more chores and responsibilities with other people, that make you more responsible and considered.

To sum up, having a large family has some disadvantages, but in my opinion, the advantages are more satisfactory, so this makes up for it.

PS: pic of cheaper by the dozen

Mobile phones have become an indispensable part of our daily lives.

Mobile phones are used by almost all of the people, every day thousands of phones are activated throughout the world, and they bring everything to satisfy the final customer: internet, camera, gps, etc...

Now to buy a mobile, we have a lot of things to choose from: model, size, color, operating system. Even we don't pay much attention to its main function, the function that really matters: calling.

With flat rates, we all read the news online, check mail, chat, etc… All this with mobile phones.

The phones have had a great growth, previously we only used them for to its main function, now we use them for that and more, helping us a lot in our daily lives. We no longer rely on computers to be on the internet, but of course, computers are better, faster and more comfortable, but mobile phones are not far behind. Engineers work in pretty big companies on how to improve these characterizations and to make them more attractive to the final user. All this to make life more comfortable, but still we should not rely heavily on them; we must also learn to control our use of them, use them for what really matters.

Is it indispensable? No. It is useful, yes, but we can live without them.

Summarizing: the phones are very useful and we make things easier, but we shouldn't depend on its use.

WATCHING FILMS IN THE CINEMA IS BETTER THAN WATCHING FILMS ONLINE

Most of us have watched films online that we have downloaded, we enjoy watching films online, but some people argue that going to the cinema is better. In this essay, I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of going to the cinema instead of watching films online.

On the one hand, going to the cinema is better because there is a great atmosphere, with the loud sound and big screen, with people laughing, screaming and crying, that depends on the type os film. Another advantage is that you can go out, walking, enjoying the film and coming back home. In addition, when we go to the cinema, we help the actors and technicians.

On the other hand, cinema tickets are more expensive than online films. However, we cannot feel the film, whereas in the cinema we can feel the atmosphere. Moreover, when we download films, it is clear that there is the probability that we download viruses or anything alike.

To sum up, watching films in the cinema is a fantastic experience. However, I think it is also great to relax watching a film at home.