IELTS Preparation Series 1, Episode 1: Electronic Crime

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Hello.

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I'm Margot Politis. Welcome to Study English, IELTS preparation.

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In this series, we look at the skills you'll need to write formal, academic English, and

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you'll have the chance to listen to people talking about topics you'll find at colleges

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and universities.

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In today's episode were going to hear someone talking about a new type of crime - electronic

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crime.

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Listen carefully to this police officer.

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Then we're going to look at word families, and do some spelling.

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It is a new frontier, and there are old, traditional forms of crime being committed electronically,

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and via computers and the internet, but there are also new crime types emerging.

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Electronic crime really does cross over a whole range of different crime types.

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You can imagine stalking offences that may be facilitated via email, harassment, threatening

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emails, small-scale fraud offences, right up through to large-scale frauds committed

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via the internet.

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OK, so let's have a closer look at that clip.

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We're going to focus on vocabulary building, and word groups, but first, listen again to

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this sentence. See if you can hear the keyword, the main

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subject of the sentence.

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It is a new frontier, and there are old, traditional forms of crime being committed electronically,

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and via computers and the internet.

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He says there are old, traditional forms of crime being committed electronically.

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The keyword is crime. That's what the sentence is about.

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Crime is a noun.

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We say that a crime is committed, or done.

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To commit a crime is to do something illegal.

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Let's have a closer look at the word crime.

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In English, many words can change to have different uses. In this way, they form word

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groups.

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Learning words groups is an excellent way to build your vocabulary.

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You should write them down in a table like this showing adjectives, nouns, verbs, and

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adverbs.

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Of course, there are often at least 2 different sorts of nouns - nouns for things, and nouns

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for people.

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Let's have a look at the crime word group.

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Crime is a noun. It's a thing.

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A criminal is a person who commits a crime.

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Criminal is also the adjective. We can describe something by using the word

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criminal before the noun. That was a criminal act.

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And we have the adverb criminally. To behave criminally is to behave in an illegal

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way.

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There's no verb from crime. We have to use the phrase to commit a crime.

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OK. Well come back to our table a bit later.

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Right now, listen to what sort of crimes are being committed these days - and listen for

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an -ly adverb.

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It is a new frontier, and there are old, traditional forms of crime being committed electronically,

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and via computers and the internet.

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He says there are old forms of crime being committed electronically.

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Electronically is an adverb. It means in an electronic way, or using electronics.

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Electronics is the study of electricity and the things that use electricity.

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Listen to the way electronic is used here

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It is a new frontier, and there are old, traditional forms of crime being committed electronically,

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and via computers and the internet, but there are also new crime types emerging.

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Electronic crime really does cross over a whole range of different crime types.

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Electronic crime really does cross over a whole range of different crime types.

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He uses the phrases electronic crime, and committed electronically.

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Notice that electronic, the adjective, comes before the noun crime, but that the adverb

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electronically comes after the verb committed.

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Let's look at the table again. We have electronic the adjective, electronically

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the adverb, and electronics, the noun.

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You'll notice that not all words take all these different forms. But where they do exist,

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you will be able to see patterns emerging.

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For example look at the adverbs criminally and electronically.

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They both end in -l-y, -ly.

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OK, so we've looked at electronic and its word family.

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These days, electronic is often used to mean relating to computers, or new technologies.

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It sometimes gets shortened to e.

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We have e-mail: electronic mail, e-business, electronic business.

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So we could call these electronic crimes e-crimes: crimes committed using computers and the internet.

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But what sorts of e-crimes are being committed? Listen for the two main types of crimes that

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he mentions.

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Electronic crime really does cross over a whole range of different crime types.

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You can imagine stalking offences that may be facilitated via email, harassment, threatening

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emails, small-scale fraud offences, right up through to large-scale frauds committed

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via the internet.

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He mentions two main types of crimes: stalking offences and fraud offences.

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An offence is another word for a crime.

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Notice how you can build your vocabulary by looking at words on a theme.

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An offence is a crime, and offenders are criminals.

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But look at some other crime words. We've got robbery and robbers, burglary and burglars.

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And there are lots more - you should try to learn words in themes like this. See how many

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words you can find for different types of crimes and criminals.

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OK, now let's have a quick look at some spelling.

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Spelling is very important in formal writing, but English spelling is very difficult. They're

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aren't too many rules, and most of them can be broken.

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Notice that many words can have doubled letters, but you can't tell by just listening to the

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words.

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In today's story we've seen the words committed, electronically, different, cross,

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harassment and offences.

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They have all got doubled letters.

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There aren't really any rules for spelling these words - you have to learn them all one

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by one.

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When you come across new words, try writing them down a few times, and spelling them out

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loud.

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Notice in Australia and England, we spell doubled letters out by saying the word double

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before them. Double f, double s.

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But in the United States, they just say the letter twice - f-f, s-s. So you can choose

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either way, but you should learn to recognise both.

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Listen to this: Different: d-i-f-f-e-r-e-n-t, different

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Harassment: h-a-r-a-s-s-m-e-n-t, harassment

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Electronically: e-l-e-c-t-r-o-n-i-c-a-l-l-y, electronically

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Notice that even though English spelling can be very difficult, it's very important to

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make sure you spell words correctly.

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It makes your writing look bad if you misspell words in essays.

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So you'll need to work hard at it!

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So our lessons for today are: write down new words you find.

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Check the spelling in a dictionary, to make sure you've spelt them correctly.

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See if you can find other words that belong to the same family - can the word be used

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as a noun or verb?

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Write all the word forms in your word family table.

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Don't forget that it's very useful to keep your words listed according to topics - like

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crime words, or business words, or computer words.

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And that's all we've got time for today.

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I'll see you for the next episode of Study English! Bye

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bye.

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