VIP Class Notes (Ally)

Grammar

beat – past tense beat – past participle: beat

Vocabulary

empathy (noun): feeling what another person feels
ie. I feel empathy/am empathetic to my best friends and others.

sociopath: fan社会 person
ie. That serial killer is a sociopath/has sociopathic thoughts.

abundant：adj of abundance
ie. There is an abundance of fruit on the tree.

scarce: adj of scarcity
ie. There is a scarcity of water in certain parts of Africa.
ie. Water is scarce in certain parts of Africa.

live stream: 直播
ie. I love to watch the live streams of pubg players.

console： gaming machine
ie. One of my friends has got a hundred consoles.

christen： comes from religious context, means using something (usually something you like a lot or something really cool) for the first time
ie. Before I can christen my new PS4, my parents took it away from me./My parents took away my new PS4 before I can christen it.

resume/CV:  简历
ie. There are some problems with his CV.

aptitude： natural strength
ie. One of my friends has an aptitude for running.

scenario： possible outcome
ie. The worst case scenario is that we are late for the movie.

Grammar

My heart goes out to you: I sympathize with you

I don’t think so, because you will waste time on playing video games. You can study less. You don’t get a good job if you don’t study.
I don’t think so, because you will waste time on playing video games. You would study less/can’t study as much. You don’t get a good job if you don’t get a good education/get a degree.

A person who plays video game will waste time on that, so he/she can’t study as much. Because of he doesn’t get a good education, so he doesn’t get a good job.
A person who plays video games will waste time on that, so he/she can’t study as much (as someone who doesn’t play). Because of the lack of a good education/because he won’t get a good education, he won’t get a good job.

Do you enjoy playing computer games? They can be thrilling, especially when you’re competing against others. They involve lots of skill, and offer a chance to switch off from the pressures of real life. But imagine if your gaming talents could actually be put to use in the real world? Well, now businesses are waking up to the skills gamers can bring to the workplace.

As an example, the BBC spoke to trainee surgeon Saied Froghi. He played video games like Age of Empires and Halo in his spare time when he was at medical school. But this relaxing pastime wasn’t distracting him from his studies – he thinks his time in front of a screen actually helped his surgery skills. He claims it helped him with his concentration, and he compares some of the skills used in keyhole surgery with using a games console. He says “Your hands know where the buttons are and how to rotate the instrument.”

Certainly, operating gaming controls help to develop good hand-eye coordination, but there are other abilities you can learn which can be applied to real-life work situations. Start-up company Game Academy told the BBC’s David Molloy that some games involve strategy and resource management, which are good skills for management. It analyzes gamers’ habits from their online gaming profile and offers courses in valuable skills that reflect their aptitudes. These are skills that can be developed, and if carefully reworded, can be added to CVs.

Employers might still need convincing that gamers are not just teenagers wasting their time in their bedrooms without thinking about their career prospects. But business consultant Mia Bennett told the BBC that gaming can help skills like “decision-making, the ability to anticipate and scenario planning… It also helps with meta-skills- learning how to learn, experimentation, and creative thinking.”

You might think that the idea of gaming developing transferable skills is like the games themselves – pure fantasy– and a gamer doesn’t want to associate the fun and escapism it provides with work. It certainly doesn’t guarantee you a good job, and you need to be an accomplished gamer for your skills to shine. But if so much time is being spent gripped by the challenge of Portal or the strategy of Civilization, why not put those talents to good use?