📘 Part 3: Competitions

This episode's vocabulary

Drive (noun) – strong motivation to achieve something. → She has a strong drive to succeed in her career.

Optimise (verb) – to make something as effective or efficient as possible. → Athletes optimise their training to improve performance.

Routine (noun) – a regular way of doing things. → His morning routine includes jogging and meditation.

Detailed (adjective) – showing a lot of small facts or features. → She gave a detailed explanation of how the machine works.

Ins and outs (noun) – all the details of a situation or process. → He knows the ins and outs of the legal system.

League table (noun) – a ranking of teams or individuals based on performance. → Our school ranked first in the national league table.

Unofficial (adjective) – not formally recognised or approved. → They held an unofficial meeting after school.

Prioritise (verb) – to treat something as more important than other things. → You need to prioritise sleep if you want to stay healthy.

Psychologically (adverb) – in a way related to the mind and behaviour. → Psychologically, stress can affect your memory.

Biologically (adverb) – in a way related to physical or genetic traits. → Biologically, some people are more inclined to take risks.

Impulse (noun) – a sudden urge or desire to act. → She resisted the impulse to shout back.

Hierarchy (noun) – a system where people or things are ranked. → The company has a strict corporate hierarchy.

Leaderboard (noun) – a display showing the names and scores of leading participants. → His name appeared at the top of the leaderboard.

Exclude (verb) – to leave something out or not include it. → The rules exclude children under 12 from joining.

Encounter (verb) – to meet or experience something, often unexpectedly. → New students may encounter difficulties adapting to the school.

Cater to (phrasal verb) – to provide what is needed or wanted. → This new app caters to beginner photographers.

Pecking order (noun) – the order of importance or rank among people. → Everyone knows their place in the office pecking order.

Participate (verb) – to take part in an activity or event. → Many students participate in the school science fair.

Runner-up (noun) – the person or team who finishes second. → She was the runner-up in last year’s talent contest.

Benefit (noun) – an advantage or positive result. → One benefit of competition is improved confidence.

Questions and Answers

Maria: What qualities do competitive people share?

Rory: Presumably, they all have or share a certain drive to win, though how they go about that might differ dramatically, since there are so many kinds of competition. For example, if it's an athletic competition, then training hard and learning how to optimise your routines and performance will be key to success. But a cookery competition will require, I don't know, extremely detailed knowledge of the ins and outs of whatever the event demands the cooks make.

Maria: What kinds of contests do students like to take part in?

Rory: These days? That could be anything. There are quizzes, sports competitions, chess league tables, I think. All kinds of things, depending on their interests and strengths. And of course, there's the unofficial competition of school league tables. Some students like knowing that they're the best of the best in that respect, too. Although I suspect probably their parents prefer it more.

Maria: Why don't some people want to be competitive?

Rory: Well, there's more to life than winning, isn't there? You don't need to win at things to be a good friend or partner or even a good person. So they have basically prioritised other things over that. It's also possible, both psychologically and biologically speaking, that some people just lack a competitive drive and therefore lack any impulse in that direction. So they almost naturally don't see the value in it.

Maria: How can a person become more competitive?

Rory: Well, recognising the value of competing would be a good start. And then having a goal or sub-goals to work towards is also handy to have, so you can measure progression in a particular direction and then compare it to where other people are in the competition leaderboard or hierarchy.

Maria: Do you think parents should encourage their children to take part in competitions?

Rory: Assuming it's not to the exclusion of all other things, it should be OK. At the very least, children are going to encounter competitive situations and people in their lives. So it's important that they learn how to deal with these things. And of course, they might be or want to be competitive themselves. So it's a great opportunity to cater to that aspect of their personality.

Maria: What are the advantages of competitions?

Rory: In general, it can be an easy way to test your skills and abilities in relation to others in a similar area or who are of a similar age, so you can understand your place in the pecking order and maybe how to improve over time. And if it's done right, it can also be a fun way to pass the time as well. And of course, for the wider society, it allows us to find people of great ability in a particular area. Even people who are runners-up can be offered lots of benefits just for participating in a contest and doing quite well.

Maria: Yay! Thank you, Rory, for your informative, well-developed answers.

Rory: Maybe. I don't like competitions.

Discussion

Maria: Yeah, first of all, competitions, we compete and people are competitive. People are competitive if they like to take part in different competitions. Yeah, so I said, like, come on, Rory, let's play tennis. I'll beat you… I’ll beat you, yeah?

Rory: You could beat me at tennis… I think most people could beat me at tennis, to be honest… Even a child.

Maria: Yeah, so I say like, come on Rory, let’s play tennis, I’ll beat you. Like, I'm competitive. I want to win. You know, and actually, I'm quite competitive. When I played squash, I wanted to win. But I ended up losing all the time. Yeah, it just drove me crazy, drove me nuts. You know, I was like…

Rory: What a weird thing to be wound up about.

Maria: Yeah, exactly… Yeah, so some people are really competitive. Yeah, they want to be the winners. They can't stand losing. Competitive people. So they share a certain drive to win. So their motivation is to win. They have a drive to win.

Rory: If you have a drive to do anything, then you are driven to do it. You have that motivation.

Maria: And you can also say that competitive people are usually ambitious people.

Rory: At least I think they are.

Maria: Hardworking.

Rory: Industrious.

Maria: And then you can give examples of different competitions. For example, if it's an athletic competition, like a sports competition, people need to work hard. They need to be well organised. But if it's a cookery competition, like a cooking competition, this requires detailed knowledge of cooking.

Rory: Don't ask me where that idea came from. I watched a film about that recently. I can't remember what it's called, but it's about this lady. Unfortunately, she contracts cancer and the one thing that she wants to do before she dies is to compete in this prestigious cookery competition and win and give her daughter some good memories to have. It's quite a sweet film. Maybe that's where it comes from.

Maria: What's the name of the film? I collect all the films about food.

Rory: I have no idea. It's got the guy who plays Spider-Man in it.

Maria: There are a lot of Spider-Men.

Rory: Yeah, but the most recent one... Look at us giving all this free advertising. “We live in time”. That's what it's called. Yes.

Maria: People who cook - cooks, dear listener. So a cook.

Rory: And cooks know the ins and outs of things.

Maria: And then there are different competitions. So in part two, in part three, when you talk about competitions, you can talk about game competitions or artistic competitions, arts competitions, like drawing competitions. You can talk about beauty pageants when you know Miss Universe, or the most beautiful woman in your country. So they're called beauty pageants. Sports competitions. Language competitions. Also, different intellectual competitions, dear listener. Cooking shows, cooking competitions. And also eating competitions. When people eat, I don't know, pizza to death. And then like, how much pizza can you eat? Oh, it's crazy. Also, you can talk about cat shows. Competitions for animals, for pets. Not animals, but pets. Like dogs, cats. At school, students take part in different competitions, like quizzes, like tests. Sports competitions. Chess league tables. So chess competitions. Also maybe beauty pageants. You know, intellectual competitions. Depending on their interests. You can say that students take part in different tournaments, in different contests. Cooking contests, photography contests, drawing, arts contests. Some people dislike being competitive.

Rory: I am one of those people.

Maria: They don't want to compete. They're not interested in winning. So they prioritise other things. They think that other things are much more important. So they prioritise. Winning is not their priority. But some people lack a competitive drive. You can start your sentence with an ING form. For example, having a goal is handy. Having a goal to win is handy. So this is how you become more competitive. How? By having a goal to win. Handy, useful.

Maria: But also recognising the value of competing. If there is any. Which I don't think there is. But that's just me.

Rory: And you can measure progression. So you can measure your success. When you take part in different competitions, you can measure your progress or you measure your success. You track your progress. And then Rory used the word hierarchy.

Maria: But the hierarchy is just the... I don't know. The way of ordering people based on their level of social power, for example.

C2, band 9, word hierarchy. Try spelling it. It is hierarchy. Come on, how can you spell it? Rory, could you give us an example with the word hierarchy, band 9?

Rory: Well, in a competition, there's an obvious hierarchy. The people that win are at the top. And the people who lose are under that. But there are different scales of losing. We could also talk about a social hierarchy too. For example, in the UK, fortunately or otherwise, depending on what you think, we have a class hierarchy with high or upper-class people at the top and lower-class people at the bottom. There are also different hierarchies in other countries where there are people at the top who control everything, and there are people at the bottom who have less control. That is a very general statement. I will not go into details about which countries because I do not want to get in trouble.

Maria: Also, we can talk about different companies at work. So, he rose in the corporate hierarchy. He became, I know, the director very fast. Social hierarchy, as Rory told us. For example, some monkeys have a very complex social hierarchy. Monkeys, yeah. Political hierarchy. And what's the adjective?

Rory: Hierarchical.

Maria: Hierarchical. Hierarchical?

Rory: There are some people in a hierarchical structure. Yes, of course it is, because it's crazy.

Maria: Hierarchical organisation or hierarchical structure is crazy. Hierarchical. Hierarchical. Like hierarchical model of management. The mafia has hierarchical structures. So, monkeys have hierarchical structures.

Rory: Let us not dwell on this idea of hierarchy for long because otherwise we'll get in trouble. A more neutral topic would be measurement of progression. That's how much progress you are making and how you measure this progress. That surely must be a C2 collocation as well. And the idea of measuring progress is very neutral, very uncomplicated, very unlikely to land us in a whole load of trouble.

Maria: Parents should encourage their children to take part in competitions or they should not. They shouldn't do it. Children can encounter competitive situations in life. Encounter - come across. Like they kind of could be in a competitive life situation. At school, children compare their grades, maybe they can compete in different tests, sports, who is the best, who is the winner, who is the loser. And actually children do know, okay, this is the winner, he's cool, this child is not cool, he's a loser.

Rory: Well, depending on how they won. Sometimes… No, I think actually a lot of the time if a child has used underhanded means to win, meaning they cheated, then I think children are very quick to call that out too. So it's not all awful for children. There are some things which they do not tolerate. Rightly so. Good for you, children.

Maria: And taking part in different contests, children learn how to deal with competitive life situations. So they can become more competitive themselves, and the benefits of competitions, the advantages, the benefits, positives. Like we develop different skills and abilities. We understand our place in the pecking order. Pecking order, Rory, do you mean hierarchy?

Rory: I do mean the hierarchy. I didn't want to say the word hierarchy again. So I said pecking order.

Maria: Band 9 paraphrasing.

Rory: It is. Is it an acceptable idiom for IELTS?

Maria: Absolutely. Yeah, because the examiner will understand what Rory is on about. Rory has already used C2 word hierarchy to paraphrase it. He's using pecking order. Like an informal social system in which some people or groups know they are more or less important than others.

Rory: Oh, a hierarchy. How about that?

Maria: Yeah, hierarchy is a synonym. For example, there's a pecking order in this office. So bosses, not bosses, losers, winners, you know. And, for example, he started as an ordinary manager in the pecking order. But gradually rose in the pecking order. And then gradually he became a director. Competitions could be fun, exciting, and engaging. And for people who are not winners, for people who are runners-up. So who is a runner-up again?

Rory: The people who do not win, but they maybe come in second or third.

Maria: Yeah, so a person who comes second in a race or competition, but usually second. So we have the winner and then we have a runner-up. And if there are two people who got the second place, you call them runners-up. Two runners-up. So usually in the Olympic Games they use this word. And usually it's a race or a competition. We take part in a contest or we participate in a contest. So contest participants is another synonym for you, dear listener.

Rory: What else can we participate in?

Maria: Competitions, tournaments.

Rory: Classes with Rory and Maria. Check out our links in the description.

Maria: Yay! Thank you very much for listening. I'm sending you hugs and love and joy.

Rory: Competitive vocabulary.

Maria: Band 9 vocabulary. Bye!

Rory: Bye!

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