1. IELTS - WRITING - TASK 2 Write about the following topic: "Do young people today make good use of their leisure time? Or do they spend too much time watching television and playing video games, instead of taking part in more productive activities?" Give reasons for your answer and include any revelant examples from your own knowledge or experience. Write at least 250 words. == It is rather visible that nowadays young people spend significant time on technology-related leisure activities, such as using cellphones and surfing on the internet. These means of communications, or entertainment, bring a good range of advantages to contemporary life, however, this behavior may cause many negative results in the future. Some studies indicate that young people in the past used to lead a healthier life than current children and teenagers. They were more involved in outdoor activities that are crucial when it comes to physical skills development. Today’s young people are stuck in sedentarism, because of the new electronic leisure tools, which don’t demand physical efforts, as the old games did. This trend is increasingly getting common among new generations, as the technology develops and makes our lives easier. Also, sedentary behaviours might lead to many health problems in the long term, such as hypertension and overweight, therby increasing government expendetures on public health and boosting the demand on private insurances in terms of more serious treatment against certain diseases. In order to avoid these negative impacts n the society as a whole, the education policies play an important role to spread new habits among scholars. Through these policies students learn the importance of doing exercices and combating sedentarism and how to incorporate healthy behaviours to the daily life, by choosing outdoor activities, as going biking or swimming with friends, rather than just staying at home engaged with the virtual world. However, these measures must take in account the contemporary lifestyles to make it achievable for young people. To summarise, the key point is “achieving a balance”.

IELTS MOCK I’ve been taking a preparatory course for IELTS since early May at college. This course is provided for students who intend to study abroad and need an official certificate of English proficiency. Last Saturday, we had the first mock. I think I did well in the listening and speaking tests, but I wouldn’t say the same about reading, mainly because I didn’t transfer my answers to the final sheet as I chose an option, so I had no time enough to complete it. Also, the texts were quite complex and I had to read some extracts more than once to understand some ideas. The thing is that in IELTS some answers they give you aren’t that easy to associate with the text and the time is really scarce for you to grasp its content and get the right answer in a very short period of time. Although I tried to use the reading tricks, known as “skimming” (reading for overall ideal) and “scanning” (reading for detail) it was difficult to me.

Setting a film list for the holidays. I never was the kind of person who watches a lot of films - and I'm not proud of it at all. I always get disappointed with myself whenever I talk to someone about a certain topic, then the person who I'm talking to remembers a film and asks me "Have you ever watched X?" (usually he or she does it to give an example related to the topic based on a film). I get disappointed because I tend to answer with a sad "no". I don't mean that I don't like films. I would say that maybe I don't have enough patient to watch them. Watching a film with a partner is always pleasant, but doing it alone is still a big deal to me. I hardly reach the middle of the story. Most of the films I've watched were part of some task in high school or even in college. Thus, I've decided to fight against my "lack of patience" in order to watch one film per day during my break from college in July. I want to do this not only because of the others, but also for myself. I do believe that films can help you to broaden the mind. I've been taking notes of my acquaintances' suggestions and I'm really willing to watch all of them. I hope I can write back here in August with a positive feedback about this "resolution".

Beach Yesterday, I went to the beach with some friends of mine. We took a train and a bus. It took us 3 hours to get there. I lay down on the sand near to the water and felt the waves going through my body and going back to sea. So relaxing. I felt clean, like all the evil went away to the ocean. Then, I went to the rocks to admire the bounty of the nature. I like the end of the year, it seems the feelings of hope get stronger.

Organizing Last night after getting back home, I decided to tidy up my bedroom. It was really cluttered and I can't even find my things in that mess. My mom often gets angry with me because of that because she always picks up after me. I started by separating unuseful things to throw away, such as old bills, canceled cards, letters and so on. Then, I straightened up my bookshelf and separated some books to donate to a nearby public library. I still have got some materials that I used in high school and I know they won't be useful to me anymore. I felt better after cleaning up my bedroom :).

「いいかげん死にたいと思っても『生きられますから』なんて生かされたんじゃかなわない。しかも政府の金で 私はもう大学生ですが、まだ大学に入ってみている友達が何人かいます。 今日からサンパウロ大学の入学試験が始まりました。入試は三日間かかって、一日目はポルトガル語と作文の試験です。 今年の作文のテーマは「平均余命」でした。 受験生達はイギリスのThe Guardian新聞に出た日本の麻生太郎副総理の高齢者の終末医療に対する意見だというニュースについて書かなければなりませんでした。 ニュースによって、麻生さんが「いいかげん死にたいと思っても『生きられますから』なんて生かされたんじゃかなわない。しかも政府の金で（高額医療を）やってもらっていると思うと寝覚めが悪い。さっさと死ねるようにしてもらわないと」と述べました。 皆さん、日本人としては、どう思いますか？

正解ですか？ My japanese friend said my new cover photo on Facebook is かわいい. I want to comment the following sentence, but I'm worried if it's correct and natural（自然,）, especially because I used 「だって」and　「もん」. 日本のママがＦＢにアップロードした写真なんだけどねｗだってカバー写真にしたくたなったもん・・・＞＿＜かわいいじゃん、インコちゃんってｗI'm worried because I'm note sure if this sentence is natural to Japanese people.