IELTS Preparation Series 1, Episode 9: ADHD

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

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Today we're going to talk about acronyms, abbreviations and names, and then we'll do

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a bit of vocabulary building as well.

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The boy in today's clip is about to have a test to see whether he has Attention Deficit

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Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD.

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While you're watching, listen for some other abbreviations.

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How do you know if your child does have ADHD? An EEG brain scan helps answer that, say the

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Swinburne researchers.

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Jacques Duff is a psychologist and one of Richard's PhD students. A computer programme

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will compare Xavier's brain scan with a database of scans of ADHD sufferers. If he does have

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the condition, the ADHD diagnosis will be automatically triggered.

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Xavier was having a test to see if he has ADHD.

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ADHD is an abbreviation.

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An abbreviation is the short form of a phrase or a word.

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We often abbreviate phrases using the first letter of each word.

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Notice that you use capitals letters for these types of abbreviations.

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ADHD stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. ADHD is much quicker and easier

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to say, and to write.

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You might recognise some of these common abbreviations:

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UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object

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ASAP means As Soon As Possible

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Other common abbreviations are:

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PC, Personal Computer

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TV for Television

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and CD-ROM - that's a Compact Disc with a Read Only Memory!

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Notice that each letter in the abbreviation is pronounced separately, but the last letter

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is pronounced more strongly because it carries the primary stress.

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So we say USA, ASAP, ABC, and TV.

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Listen for another abbreviation here.

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Jacques Duff is a psychologist and one of Richard's PhD students.

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Jacques Duff is one of Richard's PhD students.

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PhD stands for Doctor of Philosophy.

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Another abbreviation you'll recognise is IELTS.

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IELTS stands for International English Language Testing System.

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This form of abbreviation is called an acronym. With an acronym, we don't pronounce the individual

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letters, we pronounce it as a word.

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So we say IELTS, not I - E - L - T - S.

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Some other examples of acronyms are:

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AIDS, that's Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

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and RAM, Random Access Memory

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Another example is ASEAN - that stands for the Association of South East Asian Nations.

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There's one more common shortening in today's story. Listen for whether it's an abbreviation

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or an acronym.

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An EEG brain scan helps answer that, say the Swinburne researchers.

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He says an EEG. That's an abbreviation. We don't pronounce it eeg, we say E-E-G.

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EEG stands for Electro-Encephalograph.

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That's a type of brain scan, but you can see why we shorten it to EEG.

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Notice that in formal academic writing, it's necessary to write out an abbreviation in

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full the first time you use it.

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So if you wanted to write about an EEG, you'd write it out in full the first time, and place

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the abbreviation in brackets, like this.

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An Electro - Encephalograph [EEG] can help treat patients.

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After that in your paper, you can just use the abbreviation on its own.

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OK. So let's listen to the clip again, but this time, listen for words to do with universities.

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How do you know if your child does have ADHD? An EEG brain scan helps answer that, say the

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Swinburne researchers.

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Jacques Duff is a psychologist and one of Richard's PhD students. A computer programme

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will compare Xavier's brain scan with a database of scans of ADHD sufferers.

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He refers to the Swinburne researchers.

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Swinburne is the name of a university in Victoria.

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There were also some other university-related words.

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Jacques Duff is a psychologist and a PhD student.

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A great way to learn new words is in themes like this, and by organising them into word

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trees.

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Let's look at university words.

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Students might study for a Diploma, a Bachelor degree, an Honours degree, a Masters degree

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or a PhD.

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Jacques Duff is a PhD student, so that's where he fits into this tree.

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There are number of different people and places mentioned in today's story. We don't see them

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all, but we hear their names.

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Listen for the names in this clip.

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An EEG brain scan helps answer that, say the Swinburne researchers. Jacques Duff is a psychologist

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and one of Richard's PhD students. A computer programme will compare Xavier's brain scan

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with a database of scans of ADHD sufferers.

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The people he mentions are Jacques Duff, Richard and Xavier.

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If someone has an uncommon name, people will often ask how their name is spelt.

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For example, Xavier is an uncommon name in Australia. So if I met Xavier, I might ask

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him, "How do you spell your name?"

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So it's a good idea to get used to spelling out your name.

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Xavier is spelt like this: X-A-V-I-E-R, Xavier.

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Jacques is also an uncommon name in English, because it's a French name.

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In this case, we have both a first and a last name.

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His first name is Jacques, and his last name is Duff.

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A first name is sometimes called a Christian name. It's also called a given name. It's

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the name your family chooses for you.

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The last name is also called a surname, or family name. That's usually the name of one

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parent that's passed on to their children.

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Jacques's first name is spelt J-A-C-Q-U-E-S, and his surname is Duff.

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Notice that if you asked someone in Australia to spell out the name Duff, they would say:

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D-U-double F.

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But in North America, people would spell it like this D-U-F-F. They don't use the word

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double. They say the letter twice instead.

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So if we asked Jacques Duff to spell out his surname, he would say: D-U-double F. Or, he

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might say D-U-F-F.

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You'll need to be familiar with both ways of spelling out double letters. You should

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also make sure you know exactly how to spell out your own name in English.

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That's all for today.

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I'm Margot Politis - that's M-A-R-G-O-T P-O-L-I-T-I-S.

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See you next time.

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