Business and Economics English 1, oral exam summary -
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Course
Zakelijk en economisch Engels 1
Institution
Universiteit Antwerpen (UA)
This document contains a full summary of all the 10 texts + a vocabulary list at the end of each one with difficult words (that could also be questions) for you oral exam with mister Craig Rollo, I got a 14/20 with this summary.
Standaardvragen:
- What is the key message the author wants to communicate in the text?
- How would you describe the tone of the text?
Text 1: The seed of the energy crisis lies in tomatoes
Summary:
‘’Economist miss the fact that gas prices affect everything, not just fuel bills’’
The author talks about that for most people gas is all about the bills form the
government, heat and power, etc. and this is all important, but natural gas is so much
more than all that, think about tomatoes.
He compares tomatoes to a fossil fuel product, in which he’s right. Natural gas is used
for, all world’s nitrogen-based fertilizer, boilers keeping greenhouses warm, and so on.
So when economist gather goods prices to use for inflation data, they are shocked by
how little is categorized as energy. Example: Financial times said wrote that ‘’energy
prices account for 10% of inflation’’ for this they used electricity bills, petrol prices,…
But they don’t use tomatoes, peppers, etc. who are also energy products because
they’re grown with fertilizer transported with trucks,… And the tomato inflation turns out
to be 20%.
According to the author economists failed to understand that energy isn’t just a sub-
category of inflation, but they are everywhere: food prices, product prices,… They also
failed to notice that conventional economies just presume that if prices of something go
up people can just buy an alternative, but alternative for energy??? All of this gives us a
sign that were going to a economic cliff edge.
Until an intervention from Liz Truss, the energy guarantee, but success of this comes at
a price, we don’t know this. But this all depends on what Putin does next.
With this intervention are also 2 other problems. The first one is that it assumes that all
this will be over in a couple years, but it’s clear that the hole left in European markets by
Russian gas will not be filled until the second half of this decade.
The other problem is that energy guarantee failed to ask the most obvious question.
How could we use a bit less of it in the future? For example: tomatoefarmers are having
a terrible time because of these energyprices. We will have to reduce our carbon
emission and find other ways to make fertilizer without natural gas, find new ways to not
be that reliant on fossil fuels, etc.
,Vocabulary:
Utterly: entirely
Entangled: to become twisted with <-> disentangle: to free, to unravel
Natural gas: fossil fuel formed from the remains of plants and animals
Indulge: allow someone to enjoy something desired
Glistening: shiny
Surreal: strange
Cavernous: large
Hydroponic substrate: This is something that allows roots to bind, improves water
retention, and maintains air pockets to maximize the health of the root systems of the
plants
Forensic: you can save some
Aggregated: form a group
Totted up: to add up
Blithely: happily without any worries
Economic cliff edge: dangerous position
Infuriated: mad
Splurge: act of spending money freely
Foggiest: confused
Subsidy: contribution
Solvency: the ability to pay it’s debts
Prospect: expectation
Much-vaunted: people praise it more than it deserves
Text 2: Have South Africans lost the ability to be offended or
must we be intolerant of intolerance?
Summary:
, The text is about how language can lead to attitudes that permit discrimination that can
lead to abuse, racism, etc. A democratic society should ask themselves, where to draw
the line between free speech and hat speech?
The element of harm defines hat speech, the definition of harm is any emotional,
psychological,… harm, so what is said should result in harm to be hate speech.
The words of Voltaire’s quote (zie boek) form the basis of free speech. If we do not allow
people to think and express themselves, we deny them a fundamental right as human
beings. Free speech allows opinions and creativity, it allows and celebrates cultural
differences.
This is in contrast with what Karl Popper wrote of the paradox of intolerance. He says
that unlimited tolerance leads to the disappearance of tolerance, and if we are not
prepared to defend a tolerant society it will lead to the destroying of tolerance. He also
says that we should not always surpress the intolerant philosophies, but there should be
the right to surpress them with rational argument. The intolerant will not always approve
of this, but we should claim the right to not tolerate the intolerant.
In a country such as South Africa there is a lot of hate speech towards them. This hate
speech is fueled by their violent history of oppression, colonialism, slavery,… All these
historical legacies are used to undermine countries like these with language.
The problem for them is that those who did say racist, harmful,… thing about them did it
under the cover of ‘’free speech’’. The author argues that in their context, those who
practice hate speech need to be held accountable for their actions.
According to the author it will not always be like this. He is positive about this whole
thing and says, thing decides ones, do not always need to remain so.
Vocabulary:
Derisive: mocking
prohibits: to refuse to allow
Incites: to encourage
Imminent: about to happen
Constitutes: to add up to
Incitement to do harm: when somebody or something encourages other people to
physically harm themselves or harm others
Tangibly: you can see, feel,… the experience
Homogenising: to make similar
Paradox: a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and
yet is perhaps true
Tolerance: understanding and accepting the varying opinions on various subjects <->
intolerance
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