How Stuff Works - This is Mohamed Salem from level 300 & 200. I'm an Arabic native speaker. I looked at the reading site, for level 200 and up, How Stuff Works, for how television works. I chose this site because I like to read so much. Actually I am interested in how things work. And also I like to improve my reading. I would like to read everything in this site. It was very interesting for me, as matter of fact, it was the first time for me to know how a television works. Also I read it because I like to read any information about how electrical things work. And, as for everyone, I like to educate myself. The strong point about this site is that it shows us pictures about how things work, giving details about each point in the site. Actually I didn't find any weak points about this site, so I recommend this site for other students, because it shows how to do things that they are using every day and to educate themselves. Also, it may help them in the future.

At this site I practiced reading different things, for example, stories such as, "My Best Friend" and "My Mother". Also I read how to make some kind of desserts, such as coconut pudding and apple crumble. The strong points that I observed in this site are itoffers a lot of articles for each level and students can practice their writing at this site. On the other hand, the weak point about this site that it is hard for students to read it from the computer screen and it doesn't mention names of useful books that we should read. I recommend this site for other students because as I mentioned above reading is a good activity to improve our English skills and at the same time to improve our thinking.

I did not want to be bored by reading, so I chose a quiz program. There were 6 questions about today's NY Times newspaper. They were all interesting articles for me. I clicked "Hint" to read the articles. Actually, I did it to answer the questions. It was really fun! When I finished, I clicked "See how you did," and it checked my answers.

I used to think my reading speed was very slow. However, as I used this program, I learned how I can read fast. Therefore, this site is very useful to make the reading speed faster. I am not sure if it has more questions for past articles or not because I could find just today's articles. I think the weak point of this site is it doesn't have enough questions.

How Stuff Works - I am Emiko Imai from Level 400. My native language is Japanese. I chose the article "How Stuff Works," and read "How the Airplane Works." I am a person who has been wondering how such a heavy, big plane is able to take off from the ground. I am not familiar with the science; therefore, it was rather hard to read that long article, but the mechanism of the plane interested me. Also, I learned something I haven't ever known such as how maximum take off weight and landing weight are determined, the meaning of wing's shape, the combination with the air, and the principle of flying. I realized that airplanes are one of the modern conveniences which are created amazingly and accurately by human beings, and I am certain that it will make more remarkable progress as long as we attempt to do research on planes to create them better. This article was very profitable for me.

How Stuff Works - I am Akiko Maeda, Level 400, from Japan.

I opened the site "How Things Work" and I chose "How the Year 2000 Problem Works" because the problem we face is coming soon to us directly. We should know what might happen on the first day of 2000. The site is pretty interesting. The site explains Y2K which is one of the main topics in media. We can understand it clearly, a complex topic, at a glance. It has a list of what we will face on the computer on Jan. 1, 2000. In addition, it also has what we should do for the problem. I think the site should have had some comments from computer companies and experts of the problem.This is because their opinions will help us to what we should do. If you have a computer, you should check this site in order to know what you have to do and what's happening on the day. Even if you have no computer, this site has valuable information because we are living surrounded by many computer systems today. Today, we can't live without computers.

How Stuff Works - I'm Makoto Takahashi, Level 400, from Japan.

The name of the site is "How Stuff Works." The reason why I chose the site is that I wonder how the stuff, which we always use in our daily life, works and if I know it, that might be useful and be good for my knowledge. The strong points of the site are that there are some computer graphics and pictures. These are very helpful to understand the explanation, and the computer graphics are very intresting because the pictures are movingand they show how the stuff works. In addition, there are many blue words and lines (links), which led to another site and tell what it is. However, the weak point of the site is that the organization is good, but I think that if there are some subtitles, that will be easier to read.

How Stuff Works - Cecilie Buch, Level 400, Norway.

I was looking through "How Stuff Works". I read through the information on how suntans work. The article talks about a lot of things that I am not interested in. I thought that the information was a little bit too scientific and after reading half a page on it, the subject did not really interest me anymore. Other people might find the reading interesting since it contains scientific word and dictionary definition, but personally I find information written in this way boring.

In my opinion, this site is very useful to learn reading and grammar and it is a very interesting site. I have been studying this site for one hour and a half and I have never been bored. I studied the reading comprehension, jumbled sentences, gap-fill and matching exercises. There are many strong points like the difficulty of the sentences, the many exercises, the interesting lessons and the way which the site looks on the screen. At the same time it has a few weak points like the jumbled sentences were very difficult to answer because many meanings were possible, or I can say it had much more than one answer. My advice to the other students is to practice this site to learn more and also they can do it in their free time as a game. I hope my summary includes something that can help everybody.

The site that I have reviewed is the reading section of ESL Independent Study Lab, "Reading Exercises Using AES Student Compositions." There are two stories, one of them is about "time" the other is about Halloween. I chose the Halloween story. I chose this site because the teacher recommended it to us. It has good exercises for the reading skill and the grammar skill too. For example, there is a good article with questions. The questions are beside the article which makes it easy to read the question and go back quickly to the article if you need. It took me just 15 minutes to do all the reading comprehension exercises. In fact, I liked that site very much and all the students too because it is easy to do and to check your answers at the same time that you work. For example, if you write a wrong answer, it shows you the mistake and if you need help there is a link for helping ("hint"). If you click, that link will show you the first letter or the first word of the right answer. After every exercise you do, it gives your result in the exercise that you did. The weak point of this site is the number of questions. There are just four or five questions with the article and just three jumbled sentences for the grammar. Finally, I think this site is good English practice for ESL students. Actually, I recommend that all the English learners review that site, especially level 100 and 200 students because it is good to improve their English language.

Halloween - Moadad Al-Mazrouei, Level 200, U.A.E.

I worked on the reading site with my friend. I chose "Halloween" and I read about it. It was very interesting for me to work on. I chose this site because my teacher told me to work on it. I worked on this site about one hour. First, I read the paragraph, and then I worked on the questions, and I marked the weak things that I have to improve in my English.

The only weak thing that I saw in this site was the time allowed was very long for this small paragraph. (10 minutes). So if it were a little bit shorter, it would be good for us because we would have to read as fast as we could. But the site was very good. It teaches the student how to think and use his brain in the right way. And it is good for the students who are in Level 100. They can improve their reading and thinking.

Before I end my review of the site that I worked on, I have a little observation. If there were a time for each question, it would be better because the student would know how fast he is on each part. This is all that I have to say about this site. It was very good site to work on.

The Hours That Count in My Life - Abdulrahman Al-Arfaj, Level 200, U.A.E.

This is a good activity to do. Read a story and then answer different kinds of questions and take your score at the same time. It helps us to read carefully and understand everything. After you read the article and some questions about the story, you should answer them to check your reading. Then check your grammar with jumbled sentences which you should put in correct order. After that, the same article comes with missing words and you should fill all the spaces in the article with the correct words. All of these activities are timed to know how much time it take for you to read. This helps you to know your speed to improve your reading. The difference between using a book and a computer is if you don't know something , the computer will help you many times to know the correct answer. The strongest point is the time because you should read fast with understanding. The weak point is the computer will help you in every step, so you might check the answers too quickly.

The Most Important People of the Century - Anonymous, Italy, Level 400

I was completely captured by the unbelievable variety of topics that I have found on this web page. I must confess that before focusing on a particular section, I made a sort of zapping through the entire page. However, since history is always what I'm looking for, I concentrated my attention on a more appropriate subject. I didn't really measure the time I spent on that site because, when you are deeply involved in what you are doing, you easily lose the sense of time. I was curious to know who was mentioned as one of the100 "remarkable people that changed the world in the last 100 years." I tried to guess who I would expect to find. I chose to read about only few people that were on the list and I tried to figure out what was the main point the biographies were stressing. I think that checking this site is a smart way to get involved in our planet's history, and to understand better how we got where we are today. I also found out that the site offers an index of the 100 worst ideas of this century and a chance to test your knowledge with a multiple-choice quiz. The only point that didn't convince me is how an important issue like this could be minimized to a number. "100" is too perfect to fit all those people that made such a difference for the world. I will surely suggest to visit that site because is impossible not to find at least one interesting profile, whatever you are attracted to; you will find about leaders, artists, scientist, thinkers and many more.

A Scorpion Punished Me by Saeed Al-Mehairbi, UAE, Level 500

When I was a child, I usually went with my family to our farm in the desert to spend our vacation there. On our farm, there are many kinds of animals and plants which live there. My parents usually advised me to be careful with animals because there were a lot of dangerous animals there and they knew that I was impetuous when I was a child. I really enjoyed spending my time with animal like goats, cows and rabbits. Every day, my brother and I went hunting while my sister helped my mother in cooking and my father was milking and feeding the camels.

One day I came home late and my father punished me, so during the night when all my family was sleeping I went outside. While I was walking I felt something bite me and I thought it was a thistle, but it was a scorpion. After few minutes, the pain increased, so I screamed, " Help!" My father came fast and took me to the hospital. After that I got some medicine and I went home with my father. While driving home he said, "I told you that you must be careful and now you must bear the consequences." I really will not forget that day when I caused a lot of problems for my family and the scorpion bit me as a punishment for that.

This time I have traveled around seeing the Reading Site. The reason why I chose this site was that I really wanted to improve my reading ability which has been needed for the undergraduate classes. Since my first International Affairs class started, I have been struggling with huge amounts of reading. I have to read at least eighty pages per week so that I can barely follow the class. And the hardest one is to read New York Times every day. Besides, I have to take notes about every single international issue. It has taken my hours to sleep and made me a panda with dark rings under my eyes. But fortunately, I could encounter this wonderful site which I can use for improving skills to read and understand at one time. It provided me to think when I was reading and point out the main idea of the article or the book. I could get hints on how I should read them, focusing on the main point. I also appreciate its vast amounts of information including the international relations and affairs which I want to know.

When I was little, I liked to be silly with people I knew, especially with my parents and friends. One day my mother was cooking in the kitchen and my younger brother was playing near the window. I ran to my mother and I said, "My brother fell down from the window!" She was very scared about my brother and I said, "Don't worry, just I'm joking." And she said, "If you do it again, I'll punish you."

One day I went swimming with my friends in the sea. I wanted to be silly with my friends. In the beginning, I went swimming alone, and I called to my friends, "HELP ME!" All my friends tried to help me and in the end they knew I was joking. But the next time I wasn't joking. I swam in a deep place and I couldn't swim there. I almost drowned. I called my friends to help me and nobody helped me. They thought I was joking. In the end, they discovered I was telling the truth. They helped me by calling the police and took me to the emergency center. From that time until this moment, I don't like to joke with anyone. I think this is the best lesson in my life.

We all know that African Americans had been through a very hard time before the Civil War. White people treated them not even equally to dogs. It must have been very brave and intelligent of Martin Luther King, Jr. to take the challenge to speak up for African Americans, to stand up for himself. I respect him.

  Interact Time 100, Mohamed Al Hurmoodi, UAE, Level 300

Who has had the greatest impact in the last 100 years? I believe in freedom for all creatures on the earth. What happened to Blacks in the past in the U.S. was possible because of many "rednecks," which caused Blacks to be separated from whites, for example, in schools, restrooms, restaurants, and on buses. All this put differences between black and white people, and the rednecks wanted to deal with the black people like slaves, who had to work all the time without any salary. However, Martin Luther King changed everything to be more equal in the U.S. As a result, the laws in the U.S. are very useful and equal. In conclusion, I think Martin Luther King is the best man in this century.

See N Solve - Ryoko Sakurai, Japan, Level 500

I studied "See-in-Solve" for over twenty minutes. I chose this site because I was attracted by the question, "Are you good at solving mysteries?" I love to see detective movies and read many mystery comic books in my country. In this site, I read one mystery question and guessed an offender. Because I could not imagine who the offender was, I used a link, which offered me some hints to solve this mystery question. The strong point of this site is that we can study reading with fun and we can study vocabulary. I found several new words and the most interesting word was "deathbed message," because in Japan we call it "dying message." Generally Japanese people like to use the Roman alphabet to write, sometimes without being careful about the original word, and make it into Japanese English. Therefore, I thought "dying message" was correct for a long time. The weak point of this site was that story was a little bit short. If story had been longer, it would have improved my reading skills more. I am sure I would not get tired of continuing reading because this site is very interesting and useful. So, if there are students who like detective stories and want to practice reading and increase their vocabulary, I want to recommend this site.

Who's Who and What's What - NY Times Quiz - I am Mansour Al-Dhaheri from Level 400. My native language is Arabic. Before I begin talking about the site I have choosen, I would like to say that this whole lab was a very interesting and helpful site because it had many different ideas and exercises. I chose a site which is related to newspapers because I love reading newspapers, especially "New York Times". The site was called "Who's Who and What's What - NY Times Quiz." It has this marvelous exercise quiz, where you have to read some questions which are related to the articles in the newspaper, in fact, I missed one question out of six. My advice is to pay a visit to one of those sites; believe me you won't get bored or anything like that.

My chosen page was How Intelligent Are You? (I.Q. Test) in Fun and Games page. As the introduction of the link points out, IQ test is one of the prevalent tests in the world, and actually, until now, I have taken the test twice. The both scores were not so bad. One was 112, and another was 106. Therefore, once I found the web page, I wanted to take IQ test again and to know my score at present. This time, I spent 20 minutes to take the IQ test as the web page said so. Actually, from 4 am to 4:20 am, on September 24, 1999, I took the IQ test. During the test time, I only answered some questions that looked like puzzles. However, solving the puzzles might estimate personal logical intelligence. After the end of the test, I could know my score. The strongest point of the web page is fun for whoever likes to solve puzzles. However, the web page has a weak point. When I got my score after answering the IQ test, my score was 138. I know that my score is impossible for almost all people because the measuring an IQ score is based on standard deviation. Thus, the web page may not have many subjects; otherwise, I could not get such a high score. Thus, the web page is really good for fun and knowing what IQ test is, but the reliability of a score at the web page is ambiguous.

I chose the site named " How Intelligent Are you? (I.Q. Test)". The reason why I chose this site is quite simple; I have never tried an I.Q. Test; therefore, I just wanted to know how intelligent I am because of my curiosity. It took about twenty-five minutes for me to finish the test though the instruction said I had to end it within twenty minutes. I enjoyed the test and my score was 147. I think this site is helpful to exercise or wake our brain up. This is a strong point of this site. Unless we major in science or other subjects that involved in mathematics, we hardly have a chance to think about a particular relationship of numbers and shapes logically. I felt really difficult to solve the questions and puzzled. I was even irritated at some complex questions. However, I am sure that this was good training for me. If you try this kind of test everyday, you may keep your brain active. And also, you may be able to avoid senility. This site provides us with an opportunity to train ourselves.

I felt this test is good because of these reasons, but there are also some weak points. I do not know whether the score is good or bad, however, I do not believe this is my true score because I feel tired today as I did not have an enough sleep last night and I could not concentrate every question well. I skipped or chose some answers by my guess. I am sure that the mental and physical conditions influence the result of the test. Moreover, I believe there are many people who chose the answers by their guess like I did. It means we chose the answers without logical thought. Therefore, I think, we cannot measure our real abilities by this test.

If you really want to know how intelligent you are, I do not recommend this site. But I would like you to try this test to keep your brain active. This test must be good challenge for you!

The site I reviewed was in Fun and Games, and there was a section on testing about our IQ's. The reason why I chose this site was because schoolwork made me tired, and I wanted to take a break. I was on this site around 20 minutes; I tried to answers all the questions, however, this was just too long for me, so I quit.

I did like this game though. Otherwise, I would not have taken a look. However, there was a little nonsense about the questions which were on the site. I got a little confused, especially the part which asked us to match the pictures. Also, I thought that there were too many questions. It was kind of irritating me in the end, and I could not focus on it any more.

I strongly suggest you to read this site; it was fun. It gave me a very relaxing time. However, don't get on this for too long; it would make you feel tired using too much brain! Also, don't worry about the score you got, because it was not that important; the purpose of this site is having fun. :-)

I intended to work on this sight for a couple of minutes because I thought this test was not going to be very difficult. But I was wrong. This was the first time for me to do this kind of intelligence test, and it took so long to finish all of those questions. At first, it required some kinds of mathematical questions, which I didn't expect at all. These problems puzzled me a lot and I became impatient with the questions. I am very bad at math and I hate math. I think it is good to do this kind of test on yourself sometimes. Tricky questions can made your brain more relaxed and flexible. But I am sorry that I couldn't really enjoy this test and regretted choosing this sight for me whan I was doing mathematical questions. At the same time, this study gave me a strong impression that I need to be more aggressive to know or to learn things from many different kinds of fields, not only from the field which I'm interested in. So I decided to have more curiosity to study.

I didn't think I did good on this I.Q. test, and sure enough I got the score 138. I don't know if it's very good or bad, but I decided not to care about the score that much. I learned from this study anyway.

Halloween by Makoto Nakazawa - Review by Erina Otani, Level 100, Japan

I think Halloween is interesting because children wear special costumes and make funny faces. People in my country don't wear special costumes and make faces. But we have something like a Halloween party. Children wear something like a Kimono, and then they go in the neighborhood. When they go in the neighborhood, they have to sing at each house. If children don't sing, then the people in the house don't give a treat to the children. They will go back to their house when they have many snacks. I like this event. My country doesn't have Halloween, but maybe it's similar to Halloween in America. Halloween is October 31. But Japanese event is July 7, different day!!

I never celebrated Halloween, so I want to. I will enjoy it.

Halloween by Makoto Nakazawa - Review by Hyung Jin Yoo, Level 100, Korea

I think this story is interesting because my country doesn't have Halloween, so I learned from this site about it. I think the story is good, and the story has questions. Almost all the questions are hard because the time to answer them is very short time. (Teacher note: Sorry! I didn't tell you that you could have more time if you needed it!)

I solved the questions, but I needed more time and easier questions. Besides the time, the other questions were good. I think the grammar questions are good because, a short time ago, I studied about this grammar point, so I knew it. The story told about Halloween, so I learned about it. So now I know about this day for making a jack-o-lantern. A short time after I have children, I will get candy ready for them and take them out for Halloween. I will give the candy to my children.

If you don't know about Halloween then you should read this story,so you will get information about Halloween.

Halloween by Makoto Nakazawa - Review by Hyun Soo Cho, Level 100, Korea

I think this holiday is interesting. I lived in New York until I was five years old. I think I knew this holiday was fun because when I was five years old, I wore Superman clothes. I went to each house and I got candies. But I don't remember what I did before that because it was a long time ago. I saw my picture at Halloween. It was interesting because I was wearing the Superman clothes. I will see Halloween tomorrow. But I don't have candies, so don't send me children!

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