Task 1

　　If your university is going to invite someone to give a speech, who do you think they should invite? A businessman, a scientist or a politician?

　　Personally speaking, I think it's a good idea to invite a scientist to give a speech in my university. I've got two reasons. First of all, students can benefit academically from a scientist's speech. Take myself as an example, my university invited a environmental research scientist to give a speech regarding global warming. Even though it was not my major, I still learnt quite a lot from it. I learnt that in urban area, gas-tail emission contributes to more than 30% of the air pollution. And the scientist also shared several day-to-day things we ordinary people could do to protect the environment. Secondly, scientists usually have some really amazing life stories of themselves about how their passion for science affected their life. I find these stories extremely inspiring and they usually have a positive influence on me as well.

　　Task 2

　　If you have a misunderstanding with your friend, do you prefer talking it out in a public place or in a private place?

　　If I ever got into such an awkward situation with my friend, I guess I would feel more comfortable talking about it in a public place. Firstly, people are usually more restrained in a public place, so it's less likely things will get out of control. For instance, once my mom got into a fight with her friend, and my mom invited the friend home to talk it out. At first my mom wanted to apologize, but the friend just kept pushing her buttons until my mom couldn't take it any more. In the end they got into an even bigger fight. But if it was in a public place, I guess both my mom and her friend would have to think twice about their attitude and behaviors. At least things wouldn't get worse than before. Plus, I feel more at ease when I'm in a public place like a cafe or a pub, I can express myself better when I'm more relaxed and our conflicts can be solved more easily.

　　Task 3

　　The university is planning to offer business class on Saturdays and lower the tuition fee. In the conversation, the woman agrees with the plan. The first reason is that a lot of students who take business class also work full-time, since the business class will now be offered on Saturdays, it means it's more possible for students who also work full-time to take the class. As for the second reason, she points out that lowering the tuition fee will make it possible for more students to take the class, they will be able to afford it.

　　Task 4

　　In the lecture, the professor introduces the concept of loss aversion. He offers us an example to illustrate it. The professor once went to a supermarket and bought 20 dollars worth of food, but the cashier made a mistake and charged him 30 dollars instead. When the professor realized the mistake, he had to drive all the way back to the supermarket to get his 10 dollars back. But a couple of days later, his friend told him that a new cafe in town was giving 10 dollars to whoever was willing to try their new coffee, but the professor just wasn't interested in going at all.

　　Task 5

　　The woman's problem is that she's the president of the camping club and she's supposed to take everyone camping this weekend, unfortunately the weather report said that it was going to rain. There are two possible solutions. The first one is to postpone the trip and go camping next weekend instead. And the second solution is to go this weekend and remind everyone to bring a raincoat. If I were in her shoes, I'd go for the first solution because her club members would probably understand since it's not really something within her control. I personally don't recommend the other solution because if it really rains, the members will have to stay inside the tents, what's the point of going camping if you can't even go outside?

　　Task 6

　　In the lecture, the professor talks about the characters of rainforest. The first one is warm climate. Take orchids as an example, orchids are pretty sensitive to the temperature, they can hardly survive the cold, but since the climate in the rainforest is relatively warm, the orchids can grow very well there. The other one is about canopy. The canopy created by layers and layers of leaves blocks the sunlight, so the environment on the ground is quite different from the environment over the canopy. A plant that can survive at that height will die once it falls onto the ground.