IELTS Preparation Series 3, Episode 20: Giving Examples
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Hello, and welcome to Study English, IELTS Preparation. I'm Margot Politis.
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One of the things you will often need to do, in both spoken and written English, is give
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examples. Today we'll look at some of the language you can use for giving examples,
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and also for clarifying.
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First let's listen to someone talking about an analysis of bird songs:
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We're researching the effects of traffic noise on the calling behaviour of birds.
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Normally, if there was no background noise from roads or other human-generated noise,
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they'd be able to hear each other at least 100 metres apart. But where we have loud traffic,
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it's likely they can only hear each other 20 or 30 metres apart.
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We can analyse the frequency of the different notes in the calls. So for example, this is
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the grey fantail - how it would sound at a quiet site.
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She gives an example of one bird call they have analysed, and introduces that with the
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phrase 'for example'.
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So for example, this is the grey fantail - how it would sound at a quiet site.
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For example can be used to introduce the example, as it is here, or it can be placed after the
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example:
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This is the grey fantail, for example.
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But formally, it is better to introduce the example with the phrase. Listen:
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The birds aren't changing their tune very much, so on average, they're only going up
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one note on the musical scale. For example, with the grey shrike-thrush,
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it goes from here to here.
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The speaker makes a general statement about the behaviour of birds then illustrates it
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with one specific example.
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The birds aren't changing their tune very much, so on average, they're only going up
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one note on the musical scale. For example, with the grey shrike-thrush,
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it goes from here to here.
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Another phrase with exactly the same meaning is 'for instance'. Listen for the phrase used
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by this woman talking about kite-flying:
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Kiting has developed over the years. It's just amazing the difference and the variation.
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For instance, with the inflatable kites we don't use any spars with them. But you can't
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make inflatable kites unless you've got the right materials so today we work with rib-stock
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nylon so we're able to sew it. So, it's sort of like balloon fabric so we can fill them
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up with air and they go up in the sky.
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Again the phrase 'for instance' introduces the example. She makes a statement about the
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variety of kites, and then gives one example, of a kite with no spars:
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It's just amazing the difference and the variation. For instance, with the inflatable kites we
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don't use any spars with them.
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In informal language, when speaking, we can use less formal terms for giving examples.
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But you can't make inflatable kites unless you've got the right materials so today we
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work with rib-stock nylon so we're able to sew it. So, it's sort of like balloon fabric
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so we can fill them up with air and they go up in the sky.
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It's 'sort of' like balloon fabric. Here the speaker is using an example of something that
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might be familiar to the listener - balloon fabric - to clarify what type of fabric is
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used in the kites. 'Sort of' would not be used in this way in a formal essay.
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There's another way of giving examples, listen:
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We here have so far only studied two species of birds, the grey shrike-thrush
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and the grey fantail.
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Here the examples are not introduced with a phrase - the speaker simply pauses before
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giving the examples.
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We here have so far only studied two species of birds, the grey shrike-thrush
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and the grey fantail.
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When both speaking and writing, it's a good idea to try to be as specific and precise
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as possible when giving examples, or describing something. Listen to the bird scientist again,
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and see if you can hear the words that she uses to make her statements more precise.
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Normally, if there was no background noise from roads or other human-generated noise,
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they'd be able to hear each other at least 100 metres apart. But where we have loud traffic,
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it's likely they can only hear each other 20 or 30 metres apart.
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Traffic can be very noisy, depending on how many cars there are on the road and how fast
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they're travelling and how many big trucks there are. So at the largest roads that we've
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included in our study, there are about 150,000 cars coming past a day and that makes a noise,
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if you're right next to it, of up to 95 decibels, which is loud!
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Firstly, let's look at some of the expressions used to make descriptions of numbers more
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exact:
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they'd be able to hear each other at least 100 metres apart. But where we have loud traffic,