Sport and sport events provide a significant source of volunteering opportunities for a wide range of individuals. (44)________ organizers of major sport events tend to target the youth market to source volunteers due to the apparent high level of interest in sport by this group, not only in terms of young people who watch a particular sport, but also those (45)_______ participate in it. It is therefore suggested that sport may act as a kind of 'nursery' for volunteering and that the experiences (46)_______to young people in sport may be critical for their future volunteer involvement, not only in sport but the broader society. By developing an interest in volunteering as a young person, it is hoped that these people will continue to volunteer as they become adults. One of the most common approaches by many event organizers is to place an advertisement in the local media which invites readers to contact the organization. (47)______, it is possible to 'adopt' a more formally structured recruitment programme through schools and universities. The (48)_________ of this approach is to establish a relationship between the governing body of a particular sport and young people from an early age. (Adapted from https://www.eltexampreparation.com/sites/default/files/IELTS)
The Covid-19 pandemic has reshaped our personal relationships in unprecedented ways, forcing us to live closer together with some people and further apart from others. Both in China, which was the first country in the world to go into full lockdown when the virus emerged there, and in Hong Kong - the virus has been brought under control and life has returned to some semblance of normality. But the pandemic has left some cracks in family relationships. Most notably the high-pressure environment of confinement, combined with the financial stress brought about by a Covid-19 burdened economy, has led to a rise in marital conflict. This is most evident in a spike in divorce rates. In the city of Xi'an in northwest China's Shanxi province, marriage registration offices saw an unprecedented number of divorce requests when they re-opened in March. And it would seem that more extreme cases, these conflicts arising during lockdown have led to a surge in cases of domestic violence. In Hubei province, the heart of the initial outbreak, reported cases of domestic violence increased threefold since the pandemic started. In Beijing, the women's rights NGO Equality reported a surge in calls to its helpline on issues of domestic violence, after lockdown measures were implemented throughout the country in early February. In Hong Kong, Harmony House, a domestic violence prevention centre and shelter, the number of admissions to the centre rose from 10 in January to 40 in April. Although Hong Kong hasn't gone into full lockdown, pandemic stress, the pressures of working from home, school closures, social isolation have caused a rise in abusive behaviours in families. Another challenge that families are facing is the increased burden of care as a result of quarantine measures and home-schooling situations. Often, women end up shouldering a greater burden, given typically unequal divisions in household labour, according to Choi. Women spend 2.5 times more time on unpaid care work than men in China, and this will have long-term implications on women's ability to participate in the workforce. "Women workers might be disproportionately affected by Covid-19 related layoffs," said Choi, both because women have to stay at home and take care of their families, but also because both in China and Hong Kong, women are more likely to be employed in the retail sector, including restaurants, hotels and airlines, which have been hit heaviest by the pandemic. (Adapted from https://www.bbc.com)
The idea of life in outer space has been talked about for a long time. Some scientists say that life development on Earth was far too unlikely for it to have happened anywhere else. Things had to be perfect for us to make it on this planet. Other scientists say that space is too big. Stars and other planets are far too numerous for there to be no other life in the universe. For many years, there have been reports of visitors from other planets. People all around the world have claimed to see alien spaceships or even aliens themselves. There have been glimpses of these so-called UFOs (unidentified flying objects) flying through the air and they have even been captured on video. Some Americans believe that the U.S. Army found an alien spaceship crashed in the desert and then lied to the press about it. Although these sightings may be true, scientists have not found significant evidence that aliens exist. If you go out into the countryside on a clear night and look up, you can see thousands of stars. Those stars make up a tiny part of our universe. There are more stars, planets, and galaxies than we can count. Even the smartest scientists can't even come close to defining how big space is. The number of possible stars and planets out there is bigger than our ability to count. If we are really on the only planet that can sustain life, then we are very special in a universe full of amazing things. (Adapted from TOEFL Junior Reading)
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