consonant clusters

Cosonant clusters are a group of consonant in one syllabe, which will hinder the listener to distinguish the meaning of words.

the following it the link to practise consonant clusters.
http://usefulenglish.ru/phonetics/practice-consonant-clusters

The dust Storm 2014 LPATE oral passage

Dave rolled onto his back, sneezing. Wiping(/waɪp/ 擦) the grit (/ɡrɪt/  砂) from his eyes, he looked around. The storm had passed and the dust was falling. How long had he been lying there?

"Man, you look terrible!" Ben was already on his feet.

"No worse than you do," Dave retorted ( /rɪˈtɔːt/ 反駁). "Thanks for shoving (/ʃʌv/ 推) me into this hole. You probably saved my life."

"Anytime, pal."

The boys grinned /ɡrɪn/ , but they both knew how lucky they were. A dust storm could drown/draʊn/   a herd of cattle /ˈkæt.l̩/ . Dusters were more deadly than snow blizzards/ˈblɪz.əd/ - and less predictable. They could strike anytime. Western Nebraska had had very little rain for several years. The prairie(/ˈpreə.ri/ 大草原)   grass wilted ( /wɪlt/凋謝 ) and the corn(/kɔːn/)  shrivelled(/ˈʃrɪv.əl/枯萎) under the cruel sun.

LPAT 2008 writing task 1

philanthropist /fɪˈlæn.θrə.pɪst/ 
a person who helps the poor, especially by giving them money:

Question: Write a short speech for your school graduation ceremony in which you talk about the importance of contributing to the community. Describe someone who devotes some of his/her time and energy to hepling others.

Outline
1. Importance
   a.  have addressed the deepest inequities
   b.  Building a better communties
   c. The government take a long time to do so.

2. The former pricinpal
   a.  donate all of his saving for our school
   b.  providing free lessons for the poor students in his spare time
   c.  visit street sleepers regularly

Principal, fellow teachers and students:

Right here most of our students will graduate from our school after August. You are not the little students who need a lot of guidance but you will be the pillars of our society. I am glad to share with you a topic "sacrificing yourselves to community". Contributing to society takes many forms such as donating money for non-profit making organization, using the spare time to do some volunteer works, setting up a fund to organize some activities and so on. However,  why does it matter to our society?

Devoting ourselves to society can alleviate the deepest inequities of our society. Nowadays, the disparity between the poor and rich is so wide. Some rich families can bear the burden of the unaffordable-priced school fee of international schools, which accounts for over $40 000 a year. At the same time,  the counterparts of the poor are concerned about their daily meals, a large part of their spending a month. The gap in Hong Kong become larger and larger and thus is so wick that the poor will be trapped and cannot move to a upper social ladder. Under the high living standard in Hong Kong, to earn the basic living has already consumed all the time of the poor. Some parents of the poor spends over a half day for working. The jobs of them most likely are cleaning workers, security workers, odd jobs and so on. They not only provide affluent environment for but also accompany with their sons and daughters under the long working hour. It is much more difficult for the poor generation to get a higher social ladder under this disadvantage compared with their counterparts in rich families. The poor still are the poor if we do nothing for them. That's why we should act now for those poor families and their next generation.

Actions speak louder than words. I don't want to share with you a theory of contributing but also today I want to introduce an energetic contributor for you to follow. What has he done? how has he done?  Who is he? He is our former principel. I think all of you haven't known the story of him.

Our former principel,who is one of the founder of our school, spend all his saving for our school. After his retirement,    He still comtribute himself to education. Everyday, after school, he comes to our school to give addtional lessons for our students. One day I found that he stayed the classroom with students until 7:00 p.m. I was so surprised that over 30 students still listen to the lectures of him.  Students really enjoy the well-prepared lessons of him. Those students taught by him got improved greatly and fastly. His after school lessons have been coutinuing since three years ago. The attractiveness of his lesson not only provide suitable ingredients for students to grow but also build up their confidence in public exam.

Other than fostering our students, our former principal visits many street sleepers every Saturday and Sunday. Once he invited me to join his visiting and I immediately agreed to go with him. I think all of you haven't imagined how many street sleepers stayed under the roof of Culture Meseum. Some of them even had't dinners as they had no money   for dinner. Principel and I took 4 big plastic bags full of lunch boxes for those without having their dinners.

LPAT 2010 writing 2A

Write a letter to the Editor responding to the letter above. In your letter, give your opinion on whether Parkour should be promoted to help Hong Kong people become fitter. You should also give two other suggestions, with justifications, of suitable activities to improve the (physical) fitness of Hong Kong people.


Outline
Not promote Parkour
-- itself Dangerous (many accidents)
-- Too crowded for the general public in Hong Kong
-- the general public may not understand the danger of Parkour

Hiking and running,
-- suitable for all ages,
-- suitable in many place,
-- based on its own pace,
-- aerobic exercise,
-- a large competition in Hong Kong.





Dear Editor,
I am writing to respond to the letter from Martin Wat, the chairman and Founder, HK love for Parkour Association. Absolutely, Pakour is an challenging sport for those lovers of Pakour to keep their bodies fitted. However, it is questionable for the general public to follow the suit of those lovers.

The suitabilities of Parkour could be assessed on the safety of the sport, the limitation in the Hong Kong environment, and the popularity in Hong Kong.

It is undeniable that Pakour is a danger sport for the general public. The practitioners have to jump over and around obstacles, such as benches, even the gap between buildings. If sportmen concentrate on every single movement, they can overcome any obstacles they face. However, even professional practitioneres get hurted as they loss concentration suddenly or other uncontrolable factors exist such as moving humans or animal, damaged benches or others. the conseuqences of Pakour accidents can damage the human body eternally, irrecoverably and serviously. .

Other than the danger of Pakour, the design of the Hong Kong city and the density of population would serviously hinder the development of this sport for the general public.To promote this sport for the general public, enough space for practising Pakour should be found out or developed but is a scare resource in Hong Kong.  Some professional practitioners will just jump over the building of several floors, wherseas most of the building in Hong Kong  are skyscrapers, which are designed for commercial and recreational use but not for jumping over. someone will ague that the sportmen can practise the jumping in predestrian areas. However, every day most of citizens do shopping in those areas , which are no longer reserved for the sport. lack of space must limit the sport for only professional practitioners instead of the general public.




Sincerely,
Peter Choi

2010 LPAT proofreading - Question no. 2

For instant, they spend a lot of time in fashion and idols.

Corrected sentence: For instance, they spend a lot of time on fashion and idols.

instance /ˈɪn.stənts/  a particular situation, event or fact, especially an example of something that happens generally

instant/ˈɪn.stənt/ happening immediately, without any delay

"Spend on" instead of "spend in" 

She spends a lot of money on clothes.

2010 LPAT oral passage - The waiting room

The doctor's waiting room, which was very small,
was almost full when the Turpins (tur窮) entered and Mrs. Turpin,
who was very large,
made it look even smaller by her presence.

 /ðə/  /ˈdɒk.tər/  /weɪt/ /ruːm/   /wɪtʃ/ /wɒz/     /ˈver.i/ /smɔːl/,
/wɒz/   /ˈɔːl.məʊst/ /fʊl/ /wen/ /ðə/ /ˈen.tər/ /ænd/  /ˈmɪs.ɪz/     ,
   /huː/  /wɒz/     /ˈver.i/              /lɑːdʒ/,
/meɪd/ /ɪt/  /lʊk/ /ˈiː.vən/ /smɔːl/ /baɪ/  /hɜːr/ /ˈprez.əns/.

She stood looming at the head of the magazine table set in the center of it, 
a living demonstration that the room was inadequate and ridiculous. 

 /ʃiː/  /stʊd/ /ˈluː.mɪŋ/      /hed/     /ˌmæɡ.əˈziːn/ /ˈteɪ.bl̩/ set/ /ˈsen.tər/ 

    /ˈlɪv.ɪŋ/   /ˌdem.ənˈstreɪ.ʃən/   /ðæt/   /ðə/   /ruːm/            /ɪˈnæd.ɪ.kwət/   /rɪˈdɪk.jʊ.ləs/

Her little bright black eyes took in all the patients as she sized up the seating situation.

/hɜːr/  /ˈlɪt.l̩/ /braɪt/  /blæk/ /aɪ/ /tʊk/ /ɪn/  /ɔːl/   /ˈpeɪ.ʃənt/ /əz/  /ʃiː/   /saɪz/     /ˈsiː.tɪŋ/ /ˌsɪt.juˈeɪ.ʃən/

  There are one vacant chair and a place on a sofa occupied by a blond child in a dirty blue romper who should have been told to move over and make  room for the lady. 

He was five or six, but Mrs. Turpin saw at once that no one was going to tell him to move over. 

He was slumped down in the seat, his arms idle at his sides and his eyes idle in his head; his nose ran unchecked.

Mrs. Turpin put a firm hand on Claud's shoulder and said in a voice that included anyone who wanted to listen, "Claud, yousit in that chair there," and gave him a push down into the vacant one.

Claud was florid and bald and sturdy, somewhat shorter than Mrs. Turpin, but he sat down as if he were accustomed to doing what she told him to. 

Mrs. Turpin remained standing. 

The only man in the room besides Claud was a lean stringy old fellow with a rusty hand spread out on each knee, whose eyes were closed as if he were asleep or dead or pretending to be so as not to get up and offer her his seat.

Claud looked up with a sigh and made as if to rise.

"Sit down," Mrs. Turpin said. "You know you're not supposed to stand on that leg.

He has an ulcer on his leg," she explained.

"My!" the pleasant lady said. "How did you do that?"

"A cow kicked him, " Mrs. Turpin said.

"Goodness!" said the lady.