People at work ask hundreds of questions every day by email. For some, this can lead to anoverflowing inbox. Mastercard boss, Ajay Banga, has a very different approach to dealingwith this type of email, as Lesley Curwen discovered.Curwen: Let me ask you a question about your management technique. I understand you’vegot a rule: if an employee sends you an email asking permission to do something, then there’sa very specific reaction to that. If you don’t get a reply to the email, what happens then?Banga: Well, that’s all about urgency. Basically, my approach is that if you don’t get ananswer within…

Two champion contestants on a popular American quiz show have been easily beaten by acomputer. The IBM machine, named Watson, won in three special editions of Jeopardy. Oneof the men it defeated holds the Jeopardy record of 74 straight wins. Tom Burridge reports.Jeopardy is one of America’s oldest and most popular quiz shows. But this time, inside thebrightly-lit studio, a contest billed as ‘man versus machine’ – the programme’s producerspitted two of their most successful contestants ever against a computer. Known as Watson,the computer is a giant piece of hardware, equivalent in size to several fridges. And over threeprogrammes, Watson…

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I’m Faith Lapidus. VOICE TWO: And I’m Steve Ember. Two years ago, Hurricane Katrina hit the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Floodwalls around New Orleans, Louisiana, failed. Soon, eighty percent of the city was underwater. VOICE ONE: Today New Orleans is making progress. But it still faces major problems as people work to rebuild their homes and their lives. (MUSIC) RAY NAGIN: “Our city was totally devastated after Katrina. And after two years we are still trying to recover. But our citizens, they continue to suffer.” VOICE TWO: That was…

Scientists working in the Arctic have tracked a polar bear that swam non-stop for nine days. A team, from the US Geological Survey, followed the bear in 2008, as it left Alaska and swam north to the sea ice. They published details of the remarkable feat in the journal ‘Polar Biology’. Victoria Gill, reports. Polar bears are superb swimmers. But their hunting ground is the surface of the Arctic ice,where resting seals make easy and calorie-rich prey. In the summer though, a swim between ice floes to catch seals can turn into a marathon. The researchers fitted the female bear…

1. When we were children, we __________ tidy our rooms before we could watch TV. a) must b) had to c) didn’t have to d) should 2. Now I have a good salary, I __________ worry about paying the rent. a) mustn’t b) have to c) don’t have to d) must to not 3. Which sentence has the strongest obligation? a) I have to speak to the boss before I go home. b) I ought to speak to the boss before I go home. c) I should speak to the boss before I go home. d) I could speak to…