Normal 3 Flashcards
Identity theft refers to any behavior of acquiring and collecting others’ personal information for criminal purposes. Identity theft is usually done to gain financial advantage (338) from the victims.
Protecting your personal information using layers of data protection is vitally important and should not be taken lightly given the fact that credit card theft has become very rampant (339) recently. Many people including me express a high level of frustration towards this issue since they lose their money out of thin air from time to time.
If it is ever the case to you, you are asked to (340) take steps (341) to mitigate the damage (342) by reporting the theft to your financial institutions (343). They will also take steps to investigate these fraudulent activities (344) and perhaps even reimburse your losses (345).
Because identity theft is very rampant, one is asked to actively prevent it from happening (346) by establishing several layers of protection rather than waiting until it happens. Prevention will definitely reduce the exposure to the risk (347) of these fraudulent activities and bring peace to your mind.
Just remember that many bad guys are out there ready to gain financial advantage from you by engaging in various fraudulent activities.
338) take money
(339) spreading, popular (in a bad way)
(340) you should
(341) start to
(342) minimize the damage
(343) banks
(344) illegal activities
(345) give you back the lost money
(346) good phrase
(347) reduce the chance of being at risk
In the digital age, information has become one of the most crucial factors in the pursuit of (348) competitive advantage (349). In fact, many companies express their desperate need (350) for relevant information to generate more sales (351). One common practice that many, especially retailers, apply is customer profiling. What is customer profiling?
Customer profiling refers to any activities that collect, store and process customer’s information or behavior in an attempt to tailor (352) promotional programs that fit with each specific customer profile. For example, the way you walk down the aisle, pick up a product or purchase a product in a retail store can be monitored for profiling purposes. Over time, that retail store will have sufficient information to suggest you the products you most likely like.
YouTube, Facebook, or Amazon follow the same practice of customer profiling. They track our behavior and analyze it to tailor their promotional program or products to be suggested. It’s clear customer profiling helps generate more sales for corporations and also suggest relevant goods or services to customers. That said, monitoring and tracking customers to build customer profile raise a question of ethics (353). A myriad of customers do not wish to provide too much information to other parties. Yet, in most cases, the profiling is done without the knowledge of (354) the customers.
(348) in pursuing
(349) advantage that makes you better than your competitors
(350) extreme need
(351) make more sales
(352) customize (to fit a specific situation)
(353) good phrase
(354) good phrase
You are taking in a myriad of real fancy words for IELTS. Words that score you points. One of them is “sweatshops”. What are sweatshops?
Sweatshops (355) refer to factories in which employees have to work in very poor working conditions (356) for long hours and get paid very unfairly low with little to no benefit. Imagine a giant clothes factory where so many workers are focusing on cutting and making clothes for 12 hours straight from early morning to late evening. At month end, they receive wages that can barely feed their children. Surprisingly, this practice is very rampant in countries like China, Bangladesh or even Vietnam, raising many questions of ethics.
There have been many protests against the practice of operating sweatshops to reduce production costs, especially in the case of iPhone factory in China. Apple engaged in offshore oursourcing, shifting millions of factory jobs to China because of much lower labor costs. Chinese workers are paid unfairly low wages for long hours under poor working conditions, causing widespread public disagreement on a global scale (357). In fact, a myriad of customers who are aware of this business practice refuse to purchase any Apple products while it is actually beneficial for them because sweatshops help many people afford products at lower prices.
Would you purchase products from companies engaging in sweatshops? It is clear one can buy products with much lower price but of course at the expense of millions of poor workers.
(355) factories having poor working conditions paying very low wages
(356) good phrase
(357) ~globally => good phrase to give better detail on scale
I know you have heard quite a lot about the minimum wage issue. Many people are complaining about the fact that their wages are just or even not enough for them to make ends meet given the high price level.
What are the possible impacts of a wage hike (358)? Supporters of wage hikes say that a wage hike would raise overall standard of living (359) since higher income means higher purchasing power (360). This will help people on the verge of poverty afford necessities of life (361) to be able to work and live. For the economy as a whole, a wage hike once enacted will stimulate consumption (362), thereby injecting more money to the economy (363). Sounds amazing right? So why don’t they increase wages?
Because wage hikes are also fraught with pitfalls. It is clear the entity that bears the burden of a wage hike is corporations. By paying workers higher wages, two things will inevitably happen. One is that the burden will be passed onto consumers, making them pay for the increased production costs caused by wage hikes. This will leads to inflation. Second is that businesses will have to cut expenses by laying off workers, thereby creating unemployment. Businesses will only pay the increased wages to high-skilled workers, making lower-skilled ones at the highest risk of joblessness.
Clearly the benefits and drawbacks of wage hikes are not always cut and dry (364) as one may expect.
(358) wage increase
(359) living standard
(360) the measure on how much you could buy
(361) things you have to buy to live properly, like food, water, clothes
(362) make people spend more money
(363) put more money to the economy
(364) clear
God. I love this word so bad. “Heuristics” If you ever have a chance to use this word in IELTS writing, please do. Basically, this is a technical term in social psychology. Heuristics (365) simply mean mental shortcuts, playing a crucial role in problem-solving and decision-making. Simply put, you make a myriad of decisions and solve a myriad of problems everyday without spending time doing in-depth research. How could you do that? Heuristics.
You tend to believe right away air traveling is more dangerous than driving because you’ve seen a lot of air crashes on the media more than anything else. That belief is quick but not necessarily true. That belief is quickly formed by a mental shortcut or a heuristic. You believe in that because there is a shortcut that helps you, which in this case is due to the media. But if you spend time doing research, you will see that air traveling is significantly safer than driving. Therefore, heuristics may help you to make decisions when you have little or no time but these decisions may be fraught with errors.
So two ways of making a decision or solving a problem. One is done by focusing mentally on (366) doing research and looking at actual number. This is time-consuming but more accurate. The other is done by heuristics. Much faster but may be fraught with errors. Stereotype is a prime example of a heuristic. Remember stereotype we talked about last section? Quick judgments or preconceived perceptions on a social group. Yes, it gives you a quick overall idea on things but not necessarily represent the reality,
Therefore, use that word when you want to get your point across because heuristics are prevalent (367)
(366) good phrase
(367) widespread and popular
Do you see that big word above-Altruism? What is altruism? Altruism (368) is the desire to help other people. Remember that this is a desire coming from inside, not something someone has to do.
Yes, a myriad of people are engaging in prosocial behavior (369) everyday like making charitable donations (370) to schools, religious organizations or social and political causes (371). They may even risk their own lives to save a stranger. People behaving altruistically (372) are often appreciated by the society because of their selfless concern (373) for others.
Even if you don’t often behave altruistically to a stranger, you may engage in kinship altruism (374). Kinship means blood relationship. Kinship altruism means that you are motivated to behave altruistically towards your family members.
You may even engage in behaving altruistically to a stranger because you expect he or she may give you something in return in the future. That’s called reciprocal altruism (375). ‘Reciprocal’ means mutual or in return. It’s not actually bad at all. Because many people believe if they help other people more, that will increase the odd (376) of them being helped by someone else. Simply put, you do good things because you believe good things will happen to you someday.
So whether it is kinship altruism or reciprocal altruism, altruistic behavior should always be upheld by all societies.
(368) the desire to help others
(369) good behavior to the society
(370) good phrase
(371) any social or political activities done by the governments for the good of the society - Very good phrase
(372) behaving in a good way to the society
(373) thinking about others rather than oneself
(374) altruism towards family members
(375) mutual altruism
(376) increase the chance
Generic engineering refers to the alteration (377) or direct intervention (378) of a generic structure in order to improve the existing genes. The definition is pretty confusing, right? Simply put, generic engineering is the process of changing or modifying genes.
Generic engineering is considered a very controversial topic. Supporters believe that it holds many promises (379) for humanity since we could now cure many deseases that we otherwise could not. This proscience school of thought (380) encourages medical advances (381) for fighting illnesses (382) given human frailty (383) facing with the brutality of nature. In the eyes of proponents, generic engineering is the manifestation of (384) human evolution and we should not question it.
Opponents, on the other hand, consider generic engineering an unethical and unnatural way of curing deceases. They believe direct intervention in genes will lead to the unknown consequences (385) in future human development. Any attempt to resist natural processes can come at a great cost for generations to come.
The question on whether generic engineering of_fers net positive benefits_ to humanity seems to early get satisfactorily answered. Your job is to i_ncorporate these arguments into_ your IELTS writing *LOL*
(377) change (replace)
(378) ~interfere with
(379) have future advantages
(380) way of thinking
(381) good phrase
(382) good phrase
(383) the weakness of human (compared to nature)
(384) the evidence/ display of
(385) unexpected results
Politicians and activists worldwide are fighting over whether or not same-sex marriage should be legalized. What is your position on this issue?
A myriad of homosexual couples (386) are in desperate need of being accepted by the society both morally and naturally in their marriages. That said, entities like religious organizations, the governments and general public have different schools of thought on this issue.
Supporters believe the legalization of same-sex marriage bestows many benefits upon both the couples themselves and the society as a whole. Marriage would provide gay couples with both physical and psychological benefits as they are certain of their positions. This would also reduce the divorce rates by a substantial amount (387) due to reduced distress among couples.
Opponents reason that same-sex marrige is immoral and unnatural, thus harming the institution of marriage (388) as an union of man and woman established throughout the history of human race. In addition, infertility (389) would not enable homosexual couples to live up to (390) the sacred institution of marrige, thereby destroying the whole purposes of being a married couple.
What do you think?
(386) gay/lesbian couples
(387) significantly
(388) the establishment of marriage (by tradition)
(389) inability to give birth
(390) fulfil
